Episode 143: Curiosity and Connection: Transforming Retirement With Intentionality and Mindfulness.

Can a simple change in your workout routine transform your perspective on life? Uncover the unexpected benefits of ditching distractions as we share personal stories of growth from skepticism to appreciation. We'll explore how shifting from judgment to curiosity can enrich our everyday interactions, highlighting the profound impact of being fully present and embracing life's nuances.

The episode takes an emotional turn as we reflect on love and loss, emphasizing the deep connections forged in times of celebration and grief. Through heartfelt anecdotes, we discuss the importance of living fully and cherishing each moment, while also confronting life's finite nature. This narrative invites reflection on what truly matters, urging us to foster meaningful relationships and approach life's uncertainties with courage and presence.

Finally, we explore the essence of empowering confidence amid societal pressures. We delve into intentional financial decision-making, challenging conventional wisdom and encouraging a personalized approach to wealth management. By examining generational wealth strategies and the value of aligning finances with personal values, we underscore the significance of purpose and intentionality in both financial and personal growth. And the story of the Rothschilds and the Vanderbilts, well, that's one you're just going to have to listen to comprehend.

Chapter Summaries
(00:00) Fitness Community Observations and Curiosity
Mindfulness and curiosity lead to appreciation for Lifetime Fitness, as we reflect on judgments and routines.

(10:02) Reconnecting Through Loss and Celebration
Reflections on mortality and the value of living fully, embracing uncertainty, and fostering connections with others.

(15:29) Empowering Confidence in Children
Anxiety in society, protecting confidence, managing stress, and distinguishing between self-confidence and external validation.

(25:20) Intentional Financial Decision Making
Intentionality in financial decisions, tax issues with 401ks, critique of tax deferral, and need for strategic planning.

(35:43) Financial Planning and Client Preparation
Financial planning software limitations, preparing for market shifts, proactive risk management, and personalizing strategies for clients.

(45:52) The Complexity of Financial Planning
Financial planning involves aligning resources with priorities, avoiding complex investments, and simplifying as clients age.

(58:19) Generational Wealth
Nature's contrasting approaches to family wealth management, advocating for using wealth for experiences and creating lasting legacies.

(01:04:52) Relationships and Self-Worth Wealth
Evolution from financial sobriety to embracing whole wealth journey, addressing challenges like conflict resolution and self-worth.

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] How many clients have we met that are in their seventies or their eighties or their nineties that are like, I wish I would have taken the trip to the, I wish I would, I wish I would, uh, I wish we would have gone to see the, fill in the blank. And that's not happening on our watch. No.

Welcome to the whole wealth journey. Oh, that means it's podcast day. It is. What are we going to talk about? I don't know. What do you want to talk about today? I want to talk about the concept of being intentional with your money. Maybe like wealth with a Y. Wealth with a Y. Not a funny spelling, but W H Y.

What are we doing with the money and why? 

Matthew Grishman: Well, that's a great idea. So, how about we tell people who we are? 

Jim Gebhardt: Oh, yeah. 

Matthew Grishman: Jim Gebhardt. Matthew Grishman. We are the co creators of The Whole Wealth Journey. Are you an [00:01:00] entrepreneur who wants more from your money than just more money? If you are, you're in the right spot.

You are now part of the whole wealth journey. Let's go.

First of all, I have so much gratitude for Lifetime Fitness. I am absolutely in love with that place. I used to have so much contempt for that place. I don't know why. Cause it's a happy, healthy place. 

Jim Gebhardt: I know why, you know why. 

Matthew Grishman: Comparison. 

Jim Gebhardt: Yeah. 

Matthew Grishman: Yeah. 

Jim Gebhardt: That's part of it. Yeah. I totally understand why you had contempt for Lifetime Fitness.

All these beautiful fit people walking in and out to their beautifully fit cars and their beautifully fit lives. 

Matthew Grishman: Yeah. 

Jim Gebhardt: Yeah. 

Matthew Grishman: And I'm not as big anymore. I mean, I still Well, 

Jim Gebhardt: because you're joining them. 

Matthew Grishman: With my You're getting fitter. I'm getting fitter, but I'm enjoying getting to know people there. I'm enjoying the experience of being there.

I'm enjoying talking to people. One of the [00:02:00] things that I've been doing more of, I don't work out with headphones anymore. I don't do the You didn't charge them? The bitch buds in the ears. No, it's, uh, they're charged. They're actually charged, because Ace asked me to listen to one of our previous episodes here before it dropped last week.

So, I keep these charged, and I walk around, and I Listen there, but when I'm in the gym, I don't put the headphones on. There's something about, like what you just said, being present that has been a game changer for my exercise. Not just paying attention to what's going on around me, but like, first and foremost, paying attention to what's going on with me.

What's going on with my body? What muscles are firing with the reps that I'm doing? Am I actually working the muscles that I'm doing? are intended to be worked with this exercise. And as I've taken the earbuds out and paid attention to my body, I'm realizing, Ooh, not every rep is firing the right way. So I'm, I'm getting better at that, which is really cool.

On top of that, [00:03:00] I'm becoming more aware of what's going on around me and the people around me, and I'm really, really irritated by the people who walk around that place like this. I mean, I've shown, 

Jim Gebhardt: I've shown you the, Uh, the picture that I took of one of the members at my gym, who, she's comfortably in her late 60s.

I'm thinking she's probably in her 70s. Okay. And I've never, and, and I have so much curiosity that at some point I will probably grow the courage to go up and ask her. Because when she's on a piece of fitness equipment, and I'm not talking like a treadmill or something. I'm talking about, you know, like an ab crunch or a back or a leg, you know, whatever.

Whatever piece of exercise equipment. She has her laptop on her lap.

Don't you want to throw something at her? Exercising. With the laptop on her lap now. I have so much judgment around [00:04:00] this. Oh, um, let's go Let's this is our studio. Let's go this but I'm like what in the world woman. Are you doing? What could possibly? Require your laptop while you're exercising right a spreadsheet I just, I, that's why I'm so curious to just like go up to her and go, um, ma'am, I'm just curious.

Matthew Grishman: First of all, ma'am will go over really well. Well, 

Jim Gebhardt: she's my senior, so I'm going to call her ma'am. I'm not going to call her miss. 

Matthew Grishman: I know, but she'll very much appreciate that. 

Jim Gebhardt: I'm sure she will. Yeah, 

Matthew Grishman: yeah. 

Jim Gebhardt: Uh, she'll probably hit me with her laptop. That's 

Matthew Grishman: okay. 

Jim Gebhardt: But anyway, I just keep channeling Ted Lasso. I mean, that's, that's kind of my Good on you.

I need a little of that. My, my go to lately, I still judge books, I, I still judge books by the cover all the flippin time. Yeah. But I'm just trying to flip it into be curious, be curious, and [00:05:00] who the heck knows, 

Matthew Grishman: right? There are people at Lifetime, if I were to take the spirit of Ted Lasso and play the be curious game, there are some people that I see on a regular basis there that I would be more interested normally in choking than I'm not becoming curious and asking questions, but there may come a time that something comes over me that I walk up to like the guy who's walking around in that outfit I was telling you about earlier today.

Yes. And just ask him about it. 

Jim Gebhardt: Yes. 

Matthew Grishman: Just curious. Yes. Why, why does this feel appropriate for workout attire? Right. Why bring it here? Right. How does that serve you? 

Jim Gebhardt: Yeah. 

Matthew Grishman: Um, with genuine curiosity, because there's nothing that could take away from a really good workout than getting distracted with politics.

I mean, I see the TVs all around, and I understand that part of how we lure people into taking better care of themselves is by numbing them to the fact that they're taking better care of themselves, because it's not fun. So let's distract ourselves and [00:06:00] numb out with all the TVs and all the shows that are on around us.

Or our earbuds. Right. Which, I never understood why we need both. I'm curious, I'm going to ask Amy about that tonight. One of her fun little morning rituals is she likes to watch the news in the morning. That's something that's important for her. That's uplifting. It, I guess. I mean, I guess. She does it every day, so it, it has to serve her somehow.

And this is one of those places where I used to be really, really critical of Amy because of how much I know watching the news and having the morning ritual that she does. How much that mentally. can affect you throughout the day and I've, I've tried to encourage her gently as her partner in life to maybe choose differently and, and what I've come to realize is that she has a routine in the morning that works for her and what I have a little bit of envy over is the fact that she has a routine in the morning that works for her.

I struggle still to this day with a routine of doing the same thing. Every day. [00:07:00] I wish I had it. There are things I want to do every morning. 

Jim Gebhardt: Is that in the manual? Is that required somewhere? 

Matthew Grishman: It's what I want. It's what, it's what I feel like if there were a little consistency to my morning. 

Jim Gebhardt: I think there is some pretty good consistency to your morning if you were to examine that under closer examination.

Matthew Grishman: Yeah, the exercise part for sure. I would like to Well, you 

Jim Gebhardt: get up. Uh huh. And you pee. Uh huh. And then you go into the kitchen, and you probably make a cup of something. Cup of coffee, maybe. 

Matthew Grishman: A little later, but eventually. Right. Yeah. You have a morning routine. Yes, but then it changes from there. Some days I'm feeding dogs.

Some days I'm running out the door. Yeah. Some days I'm sitting down and reading a book for a few minutes. I'd like to do that more. 

Jim Gebhardt: Okay. 

Matthew Grishman: So I just I watch her do this, and coming back to the point, she's got the TV on up here, but she's here with the device. Yeah. So it's, I'm catching up on my Facebook feed, or my Instagram feed, and I got the news on.

She's a very 

Jim Gebhardt: modern woman. She is taking [00:08:00] in as much stimuli as she can with news. I mean, come to my house and watch any sporting event you want, and you'll see, of six Gebhards, you'll see four and a half on devices. And the standing joke that has developed in our family is the one or two of us that are not on a device look at one another and we go, Hey, I'll go get your phone so we can all be on devices together.

And it's just the reality of how the technology is kind of winning, right? I mean, my mentor, Jim Kelly, God bless him. He always used to talk about going on a, on a, 30 day media free diet. I do that periodically. I haven't done it in a while. Probably because I, I consume so little media now. 

Matthew Grishman: Yeah. 

Jim Gebhardt: Just categorically.

Right. But I have gone through different periods where I've, you know, deleted Facebook, deleted Instagram. I don't have Tik [00:09:00] TOK. My kids badger me all the time with sending me videos from Tik TOK and they're like, Hey dad, you didn't watch the video. Cause I don't have Tik TOK. Well, just get good. Mike, I don't want TikTok.

Yes. Right? I haven't been on Facebook in months. My one vice is Instagram reels, and I'm getting ready to take a nice little hiatus from that, too. 

Matthew Grishman: Well, I see the reels that you forward me, and there's a very specific time each day that you watch reels, and they tend to be reels that are very uplifting.

Yeah, well, and then there's At least the ones you forward me. And then there's the funny ones. Yeah, there's some comedy. A little bit of John Panette, a little bit of Robin Williams. Right. But those guys are also I mean, I look at Jon Panetta, I look at Robin Williams as somewhat, like, muses for you and for me.

Jim Gebhardt: Little Carlin every once in a while gets me going. 

Matthew Grishman: Yeah, they are muses that speak through us now. A lot of the energy you and I bring to conversation, whether it's in the studio, in the office, with each other. Is a little bit of their banter. Right? It is. So, [00:10:00] I, I don't mind so much. We've breathed 

Jim Gebhardt: in their gas long enough that, uh.

Matthew Grishman: Yes. They now speak through us. 

Jim Gebhardt: Yes. Because I really can't say chicken without saying it like John Panetta. Of course. 

Matthew Grishman: What's, guess what I had for breakfast on the way here this morning. 

Jim Gebhardt: Oh, did you really? 

Matthew Grishman: A little bit of. Chicken. Chicken. With a little barbecue sauce and some lots of cilantro. Do you have any salad?

Uh, there was. There was like this green parsley stuff on top, which just told me what was underneath the parsley. Was chicken. Okay. Good meat was coming. Nice. That's all it's designed to do. Warning. Let you know Meat is coming. Lovely. What are you grateful for today? 

Jim Gebhardt: Uh, 

Matthew Grishman: you know, I've got 

Jim Gebhardt: I've just had a tremendous amount of as my mother would have said piss and vinegar today.

Oh I'm coming off of an incredibly Separate or mixed? Well, they go together. Okay. Like, kind of sick and tired. Oh, gotcha. You piss in vinegar. Gotcha. What that reference is, I should go perplexity and find out. I have no idea, but it was just a phrase my mother would use. [00:11:00] Coming off of a Unbelievably emotional roller coaster weekend of highs and lows and 

Matthew Grishman: understandable, 

Jim Gebhardt: you know, uh, the fun, easy part was some lacrosse with Grace and her team doing some fall ball stuff.

But then, uh, one of my oldest, dearest friends lost his son completely unexpectedly in August and there were kind of back to back celebrations of life Saturday and Sunday. Which, you know, as people always say, weddings and funerals are when you get to see people now. And, it was incredibly beauti both, both celebrations were incredibly beautiful in their own way.

And the people that I got to go reconnect with, who I haven't seen in a long time, because Glenn and I have been You know we've been out selling our wares for almost 30 years together. 

Matthew Grishman: Yeah, 

Jim Gebhardt: so the combination of Mutual clients, but then also his clients that I've gotten to know over the years or we had some former clients that I bumped into and There's no animosity.

I mean, I was, [00:12:00] we were giving hugs to one another, even as former clients, because guess what we are at the end of the day? Oh, yeah. People. Yep. Who are connected through Yeah. Glenn and his family. Yep. And we all share that commonality and, you know, we're not for everybody. I'm not for everybody. And it was great to see some of these people who I was the one that was actually calling them to let them know about this stuff.

Glenn had asked me to do that, and no hesitation, absolutely pick up the phone. One dear friend of his, who I haven't really connected with in the better part of a decade, when we were done chatting, he's like, you know, Could we get together more? Could we get, like, a little men's group together or something?

With, like, four or five of us with Glenn? And I was like, you bet, Carl. That'd be, that'd be awesome. And he, going back to the curious thing, I'm curious. I don't, I don't really know him all that well. I've just always been Attracted is not the right word, but, uh, interested, curious. Curious or, you know, curious is a great word.

Yeah. We, that's, that's the word that we're sponsored by today here at Sesame Street. Is Curious, curious. [00:13:00] So brought to you lot by Big Bird, a lot of gratitude for being able to be there for Glenn and Joyce and Blair. Yeah. Being able to connect with a lot of people that. I don't see that often anymore.

Some extra time with a dear friend I was mentioning, Jim Kelly. His son, Scott, was in town with his family. That was wonderful. So just, you know, whenever I go to something like that, as sad and tragic as this is, I'm always renewed with a sense of life. With a sense of vibrancy. With a sense of, don't play small.

Don't play scared. Just let it rip. Mm 

Matthew Grishman: hmm. 

Jim Gebhardt: We got one shot at this one lap around the track. Yep I mean I do as you mentioned I do tend to look for reels on Instagram that are inspirational And there's one that I'm thinking of as we're talking about this where this this guy goes around He just tries to interview people that are that are much older than him And ask them, you know, keys to happiness in life, keys to success in life, that kind of thing.

And he, he [00:14:00] gets going with this one guy, and he's like, Imagine your life is a long string of raffle tickets. And you only have so many raffle tickets. And he's like, whatever, well I'm 67. And he rips off two thirds of this long list of a hundred raffle tickets. And he's like, you know, if life is grand, I've got another 15 to 20 years of, of life and vibrancy.

And he kind of demonstrates with this little short strand of, of what's left. And he's like, I live every day to the fullest. And whenever I come from a celebration of life, whether it's somebody that's, you know, had a full life that's passed, or in this case, a life that was cut tragically short, I just, I, I don't know what happens, but it's kind of like this renewal that happens for me, where it's just like, let's go.

Matthew Grishman: Yeah. 

Jim Gebhardt: Let's go. 

Matthew Grishman: I almost wish, and I think it was, uh, God, who's the guy that, is it Carl Sagan, the star guy? 

Jim Gebhardt: Billions and billions of stars? 

Matthew Grishman: [00:15:00] Yeah, I think that, and it's, there's a quote he once said, and I'm, I'm not gonna try to repeat the exact quote, but the essence of it was, is that everybody should be blessed with feeling their mortality.

Everybody should be blessed with a near death experience. Experience because of what that does for you. 

Jim Gebhardt: Yeah, 

Matthew Grishman: I get it. Everybody should experience that so that there is this kind of forced recognition that life is finite. Yeah. And let's not waste it on petty little things like Comparison and resentments and sitting here spending hours and hours hoping for a better past or trying to craft and and Eliminate all the dangers of my potential future and just be here in this moment because we don't know when It's our last year 

Jim Gebhardt: striking.

Matthew Grishman: Yeah, or The SVT and the heart stuff or the whatever health stuff, fill in the blank. I mean it, it, you and I have firsthand experience personally [00:16:00] seeing how things happen for us, not to us. Hard stuff. And I think it's gotten us here. It's gotten us to this conversation where we're sitting here talking about being more curious, being more present, not having the iPads open, being all, you know, glued and attached to whatever our outline is today, but just kind of breathing in the energy of the day and.

Knowing that we're on a kind of a certain path here that we're trying to help people with and 

Jim Gebhardt: well There's also a wee bit of tension in the world Is there is there that's what people tell me anyway 

Matthew Grishman: Is that weighing on people a little? 

Jim Gebhardt: Whether it be the election, whether it be the Middle East, whether it be flu season.

I mean, it's just, you know, the I am continuously struck at the anxiousness that I see everywhere. And the older I get, the more in tune I can get with somebody's vibrancy. The older I get, the more I can sense [00:17:00] things with people. I can, like, feel. They don't have to say a thing, and I can feel it. Like, what, what their electromagnetic resonance is pulsing with.

Matthew Grishman: Sure. 

Jim Gebhardt: I can sense it. And then all I gotta do is look in somebody's eyes. I can read eyes. I'm, I'm one of the best eye readers I've ever met. Okay. And I can feel it. I can feel it everywhere I go, whether I walk into Safeway or Starbucks or Pump Gas or whatever. I can just feel the tension that is everywhere right now.

So much of it driven by the election and some of it, so much of it driven by the fear, right? The fear of the what if. The what if in the Middle East. The what if in this country. The what, yeah, whew, it's a lot. It's a lot. We've said it many times in the studio, but this whole concept of protecting your confidence.

It's a lot. So our son Jack is going through the process of applying for colleges and that's turned into a whole big thing now I mean not now but I mean you know it's front and center for us because we're in the middle of the [00:18:00] deep end of the pool and Trying to help him navigate this and the amount of doubt and worry and fear and anxiety that are just piled on top of him And admittedly it's not coming from mom and dad.

So, Self imposed. Some of it some is self imposed. Peer imposed. Peer imposed. Ah, Peer imposed. Where are you applying? What are your grades? What did you, what, what, what club, what activity, what, ba And, I'll protect the innocent here, but a friend of a friend of ours is not a college counselor, but she helps with the application process and kind of optimizing and maximizing your activities and understanding the uniqueness of this particular school application process.

And we reached out to her about a month ago, come to find out she's been full for eons She shared in a long email [00:19:00] that, uh, it quite often she starts working with families in the 6th grade. 

Matthew Grishman: Wow. I didn't, 

Jim Gebhardt: I didn't stutter. I didn't misspeak. 

Matthew Grishman: Yeah, no, no. When you, when you shared that with me, that was shocking.

6th 

Jim Gebhardt: grade on college applications. Now, that's not us. We don't subscribe to that. We don't believe in that. We want kids to be kids. Yeah. And, whatever college you went to, that is not the, uh, singular determinant for your success in life. So all the stress that he's feeling around that, we're, we're trying to just support him and protect his confidence as much as possible.

So I was realizing that if I've ever had that conversation with him, it's been too long. We need to have it again. Sure. And I shared with him all the little, you know, to the outside what appear to be silly things that I do on a weekly basis, right? My obsession with a clean car. My obsession with the tank of gas being full on Sunday night.

With the obsession with my shoes being clean. And looking sharp when I leave the house every [00:20:00] day. Those, to a lot of people, are dumb little things. They'd be like, haha, yeah, Gephardt and his clean car thing, that's really funny. Yeah, he wastes all that time. That's important to you. I know, but the point is, That it's what I can control to protect my confidence, right?

Same, same along the lines of exercising, right? Sure. The exercising, the eating well, the getting to sleep, the trying to stay hydrated, the da da. That is all part and parcel. Oh, there's another one. Sick and tired, piss and vinegar, part and parcel. Way to 

Matthew Grishman: go. 

Jim Gebhardt: Is it, and it's part and parcel. 

Matthew Grishman: I think so. 

Jim Gebhardt: What does that mean?

Matthew Grishman: I don't know. I've only heard it from you, so I'm still trying to figure that out. I 

Jim Gebhardt: am sick and tired of all these things. I 

Matthew Grishman: am too. Boy, you're full of piss and vinegar with that one. There you go. Hey, we got the, we got the banter going 

Jim Gebhardt: here today. If you're listening, you can't catch up. Take some caffeine and we'll be here in a minute.

Matthew Grishman: Uh huh. It is just. We got stuff to talk about today, by the way. We'll get there. Okay, we'll get there. We'll get there. 

Jim Gebhardt: It's just trying to help him protect his confidence. Because at the end of the day, I cannot protect his [00:21:00] confidence. It's not something I can do. Right. 

Matthew Grishman: It's something you can contribute towards.

I can help. You can contribute. I don't have to tear him down. It's also not your responsibility, but you can contribute to it. No, but as dad, right? Yeah. You know, 

Jim Gebhardt: as dad, you want to, you know, help your little kiddos. Your little now fully grown 18 

Matthew Grishman: year old. Right, who I look up at. Who's taller than you are, I was going to say.

Jim Gebhardt: But to give, you know, him the tools to recognize what he can control when he's having a tough go with the stress of it all to protect his confidence, right? In therapy land, they would call that positive coping skills. 

Matthew Grishman: Sure. How much of what you do, and I think we've talked about this before, but I don't remember what your answer is.

So I'm going to ask you again, how much of the clean car, the gas tank, the shoes, and looking when you walk out the door is Because you care about what other people think of you. 

Jim Gebhardt: Mmm, not very much. 

Matthew Grishman: So that, I mean, that's really important. And that's, that's what I think you can help Jack with. 

Jim Gebhardt: Not very much.

Matthew Grishman: Is separating [00:22:00] what you do to protect your own confidence that has nothing to do with the world around you. It's purely a reflection of what, what you value, what's important to you. That's a valid point. Because in the world we live in, on the outside, if I'm looking in and I don't know you, And you're a guy who washes his car, cleans his shoes, and has to look very polished when he walks out the door every day.

Oh, well, you know, look at this guy showing up the world. Right? That it is about how you show up in the world for other people. But it's not 

Jim Gebhardt: Oh, that would be very easy to Very easy. extrapolate from the outside. 

Matthew Grishman: And let's be impossible to misunderstand here today what that is all about. That is about you and what you value and what protects your confidence in yourself.

Internally, inside job, looking inward. Not about what anybody else provides you. It's not about any other person looking at you and going, Oh, how handsome is he today? Right. Yeah. No. Right. How shiny is his car today? Right. It's not about that. It's not. I love and respect that so [00:23:00] much. Cause that's, When I hear about kids who are suffering greatly because of the choice they make to allow comparison to permeate their being, that is where I think our responsibility as parents is to redirect where their confidence comes from.

Because what it sounds like, is Jack's confidence is coming from external validation. 

Jim Gebhardt: Yeah, and it's changing. Replaying the tape with our girls, similar. I mean, I remember a lot of that external comparison and, you know, how they would feel if somebody said this or that. And, you know, obviously they've evolved and grown and it's many years later for both of them.

Yeah. Not to say that their confidence can't be shaken by external things. They're, they're feeling more confident in their own skin and their own abilities. Yep. It is funny how some of my habits have run off on, in particular, actually, three of our [00:24:00] four kids. They actually are kind of like, they like a clean car too.

Mm hmm. It's like, I'm not, I'm not force feeding any of this stuff. No. Right? But it is obviously through, you know, what they see in any way. 

Matthew Grishman: They're watching your actions so much more than they're listening to your words. As parents now in this, I mean, you know, the consulting phase of parenting is not so much about what we tell our children, it's what they see in us.

It's the actions. Your four children are watching what you do every day, and every time you make the mistake of opening up your mouth and making a suggestion to them, and they look at you and go, Oh. I know, Dad. Right? That's great learning for us because they're not going to listen to anything right now, but I promise you.

Jim Gebhardt: They're watching. 

Matthew Grishman: If they love a clean car, it's because they're watching you. They're watching. Every time, and it doesn't happen as often as it used to, but most every time a new pair of Allbirds shows up in my house for me. Yes. Within a [00:25:00] couple of days. Miles has ordered a pair for himself. Oh. He seems to like The mimic.

Yeah. We got lots of pictures of he and I twinning. Maybe on purpose, maybe not on purpose. Sure. I'm so, so grateful that my boys are at a place in their lives where they are not doing what society expects of them. They are doing what makes them happy. Mm hmm. They're doing what protects their own confidence.

They went through the end of high school dealing with all of these kids going crazy over this concept of what college am I going to get into? Miles participated in that a little more than Lucas did, and you know, Amy and I actually thought that that's what they should have been doing, is they should have been more stressed out about the college thing, and to their credit, They didn't buy into it.

It wasn't what was driving them. It 

Jim Gebhardt: wasn't their jam. No, 

Matthew Grishman: and they decided not to just succumb and give in to what society expects of them or what they think [00:26:00] looking around and keeping up with the Joneses they're supposed to do. And it just, it's awesome. I mean, It is awesome. Here we are spending all this time talking about Protecting our confidence and getting sucked into what society expects of us and not being very present and being glued to a device and, and how does any of this have to do with financial planning land and the whole wealth journey?

Jim Gebhardt: Well, it has everything to do with it. Yes. Because while we were having fun with the word brought to you by curiosity, right? This intentionality. Mm hmm. And if you are intentional with how much media you consume, if you're intentional with your actions around protecting your confidence, now we just kind of slide across the aisle into money land.

And now we're starting to make intentional thoughts, choices, and decisions with our money. Not necessarily [00:27:00] what society might tell you to do, right? Like think of all the clients, That you and I have had relationships with over the last, I don't know, three years. Whom we've told to stop contributing to their 401k's.

Right. A number of them. Now as licensed financial professionals, there will be other licensed financial professionals listening to this. 

Matthew Grishman: Blasphemy! 

Jim Gebhardt: Total blasphemy. Right. Are you kidding me, guys? Now, we can't obviously disclose the rationale as to, you know, why at the individual client level, but in terms of looking at the intentionality of those decisions with clients, it's usually because they have enough in that bucket.

And when you extrapolate out, you're going to have a problem. You're going to have a tax problem until kingdom come, 

Matthew Grishman: right? Well, yeah, let, this is a great thing to peel apart a little bit more. So let, I mean, let's pick a number and an age. And this isn't specific to any one person. 

Jim Gebhardt: No. 

Matthew Grishman: But if we come across a 50 year old Yeah, [00:28:00] we've 

Jim Gebhardt: had a number of 50 year old clients where between the spouses Half a million 

Matthew Grishman: to a million bucks?

Maybe even A little more? A little bit more. Yeah. 

Jim Gebhardt: But by the time you do the rule of 72 on that, right? And let's use a million bucks for ease. Yeah. Right? So a million and 50. If it gets a 7% If it gets 7%, right? The rule of 72 is 7. 2 percent will double in 10 years. This is not assuming any contributions.

Matthew Grishman: Just the, the, the million bucks itself without any more money going in. Just the 

Jim Gebhardt: account value. Right. Nothing sexy, nothing crazy, right? Just as we like to say, a seven iron down the middle. Right. That million is two at sixty, and is four at seventy. Without any contributions. Right. Without saving any more.

Now, if you're gonna go maximize those contributions over that next twenty year span of time, I don't think, and compliance, please forgive me, because we've not done the math on this, this is a spontaneous conversation. is it's easily going to be five or six million. Yes. And so now it's 70 [00:29:00] with five or six million dollars in retirement accounts, which is wonderful.

It's fantastic. Unless. With the exception for the fact that you're going to have whatever the new age of required minimum distributions are, now they're 73 years old. Well, hang on, hang on. 

Matthew Grishman: Where do you think taxes are going to be 20, 30, 40 years from now, relative to today? And what I'm talking about specifically.

We hear this word taxes. There are so many different applications to the word taxes. We're taxed in so many different ways. What I'm talking about specifically is income taxes. Ordinary income taxes. W 2. The scale of income taxes that as you make more money the percentage goes up. Yes. Is that number going higher or lower over the next 20 to 30 years?

Jim Gebhardt: Well, I think, Bob, it's going to be higher. 

Matthew Grishman: I do too. And again, full disclosure, this is opinion. It's opinion. This is an opinion. You and I have been at this game long enough to look at the current trajectory [00:30:00] of spending in our country and how our federal government treats its own balance sheet and profit and loss statement.

And first of all, thank God they're not 

Jim Gebhardt: being charged visa interest. 

Matthew Grishman: Well, thank God we're not charging our fee to help them make these decisions and watch them totally not take any of our advice in the process because any client that you and I have ever worked with that would manage their balance sheet and P and L the way the federal government manages our national.

Balance sheet and P& L. Not a single client of ours would have a financial plan that is sustainable. Oh gosh, no. They would run out of money in their lifetime. Oh, it's, it's 

Jim Gebhardt: laughable. So, So, probabilities suggest that taxes should be higher. 

Matthew Grishman: Yeah. 

Jim Gebhardt: So, if probabilities are going to suggest taxes are higher on that five to six million dollars, you're going to reach a point where you're going to have to take distributions.

You can no longer just let it bake in the oven, right? You're gonna have to take the cupcakes out of the oven. May I say 

Matthew Grishman: why? Sure. Somebody's sitting here listening right now and going, Well, [00:31:00] why? Why do I have to take money out? Because Uncle 

Jim Gebhardt: Sam would like 

Matthew Grishman: his do re mi. What a phenomenal bag of bullshit that we were sold early in our career about the concept of tax deferral.

I'm sorry, I'm like, Yeah. We were sold something new in this business that pisses me off because the only person it benefited, uh, sorry, that's too much of an absolute. The people who benefited the most are the companies who earn the fees on you buying into the concept of tax deferral. Look at it from the government, if we could make them, you know, the federal government as an investor.

What a great investment on their part. Let's give you a little tax deduction on your dollar invested today. Yes. You're going to put a dollar away today. Yeah. We're going to give you a little tax deduction. Sure. Today. Sure. That you can take off your taxes today. Absolutely. For a dollar. Absolutely. And then that dollar is going to double, potentially, let's call it Or every 10 years.

Or 

Jim Gebhardt: quadruple. 

Matthew Grishman: So Before you take 

Jim Gebhardt: it 

Matthew Grishman: out. At [00:32:00] 30, my dollar, which I got a little tax deduction for, which is a little investment on Uncle Sam's part. Doubles by 40 doubles again to 4 by 50. To 8 by 60 to 16 by 70. And now uncle Sam gets a return on that investment. 

Jim Gebhardt: There's a knock on 

Matthew Grishman: the door. You are now required to start drawing money out of your IRA based on your life expectancy, where our primary goal is to have you drain that sucker to zero between now and the day you cross the rainbow bridge.

What an investment. Oh, it's brilliant. We're going to give back 15 cents on the dollar. To earn to get 40 later 50 cents on on 16 right 15 cents turns to 8, right? Wow. What an investment that just irritates the crap I couldn't tell no. No, I 

Jim Gebhardt: couldn't tell 

Matthew Grishman: that's my rant for the day I maybe I'll have more 

Jim Gebhardt: but we'll see what the day brings.

So just circling back [00:33:00] to this concept of intentionality. Uh huh, right? is the, the curriculum that we've been going through now for the second time for the Whole Wealth Journey audience is kind of a very kind of sequential step by step, but kind of that overarching umbrella over the top of it all is this concept of being intentional with your money.

Yes. And the fact that And not just putting in your earbuds. Yes. And going through the motions with your money Yes. Without thought and intention and instead of just numbing it out And stuffing it in the K Plan. Or, here's another one that I think is somewhat controversial. Is just paying down your mortgage to zero.

I, I mean, our Dave Ramsey fans are going to be completely twitching in their automobiles right now. But there is, as we've said, there is, we believe, good debt, bad debt. Nice, nice little subtle little thing there. You like that? There's good debt and bad debt, right? And so all [00:34:00] of this, to me, I just, I can't, I'm harping on this concept of intentionality.

But that's, that's really what this is all about, is we help people see things differently. We help them see things because of the nature of The automatic, robotic kind of, Oh, I work for a job and I put my money in my 401k and I go to work and I put my money in my 401k and I invest it for growth and I invest it for growth and I invest it for growth.

Matthew Grishman: And then I go to the gym and I put on my headphones and I do the reps that I'm supposed to do because I've been told and I just walk through life completely asleep. 

Jim Gebhardt: Yeah. I mean, I, we just did some financial planning for a dear, dear client who works for a technology company that everybody would know.

And. He's kind of fried. He admits, his wife admits, and I've known him for 25 years, there's no freaking way he's gonna retire at 50. In the conventional sense of hanging up the cleats, not making another dollar. Ain't gonna happen. Right. No way. Now, does he need to take a break? [00:35:00] Does he need to take a, what they would say in professorial land, a sabbatical?

Right. Right. Yeah, he does. He needs to retool. He needs to go decompress, slow it down. And as a financial advisor, I'm sitting here encouraging this. 

Matthew Grishman: Right. 

Jim Gebhardt: Versus encouraging, keep 

Matthew Grishman: grinding, keep saving, keep grinding, keep saving. 

Jim Gebhardt: And we actually have to like, you know, our paraplaner on our team and I are working to, we have to kind of like jigger the software to make this work.

For him to slow down? To like, create a scenario that he can see in planning software, planning land. That would let him pause for a couple of years and then, you know, go back to your regularly scheduled programming. Now, it'll be different because he, I think he's going to retread and maybe go in a different industry.

But even if he stays, you know, and he likes to joke, he's got kind of that Liam Neeson syndrome. I have a very special set of skills. Ah, okay. And he [00:36:00] does. So he believes in himself. He does. Yeah. But it's funny that we've got to kind of jigger the software to get it to do this. Take a break. Not retire. 

Matthew Grishman: Well, come on.

Not 

Jim Gebhardt: retire. Not retire. Take a break. 

Matthew Grishman: You and I have often been critical of financial planning software, including the one we use, that they're not completely designed for the way you and I think. Because you and I think. You and I don't just swallow what the industry has been telling us for years is the perfect straight line between where you are today to where you want to be in the future with retirement.

Yeah, it's just, 

Jim Gebhardt: the returns are linear, they're smooth. 

Matthew Grishman: Well, they're just, they're always up and to the right. Correct. And it's always just assume that we're going to make 7 percent a year every year until now, until the day we draw our last breath. What's risk? Risk? It's a board game. It's called standard deviation, would you like to define that for us?

Goes on 

Jim Gebhardt: tight. 

Matthew Grishman: Uh huh. Or is it beta versus alpha? Exactly. Point, point taken. So even the software that you and I use, albeit [00:37:00] I think the best, the cleanest shirt in a pile of dirty laundry, if I could put it that way, it's a tool that we use to help us validate. Okay. Great. the direction we're trying to help clients take.

And it's not perfect and we have to jigger it a little bit because of that, because it's based on certain assumptions like tax deferrals, the good guy. Well, I don't know about that anymore. 

Jim Gebhardt: Oh, I love going a couple layers deep into the software and showing. Clients in their fifties, that if they stay on the track, they're on doing what they're doing with their K plans and such.

Mm-hmm . And they have $400,000 in required minimum distributions at 75 , whether they want it or not. They're like, wait, what, what, what, what do you, what, what do you mean? Because again, it's this, we, we talk about it so often. We can't, we only extrapolate in one direction, whatever the direction is, and, but the problem.

You can't see the direction, right? People can't see. 10 years from now, that's the beauty of some of [00:38:00] the software and the planning that we're able to do for them is we can start to give them a little bit of a glimmer of, hey, conceptually, this is what it's going to look like, right? We're not putting a plane on the ground, but the lights are on in the runway and we haven't put the landing gear down, but we're kind of on this as our industry likes to call it, a glide path.

Matthew Grishman: Sure. 

Jim Gebhardt: A glide path. Right. Where we're gliding into retirement. Well. We're trying to expose and introduce and make clients aware of things that they can't see on their own. 

Matthew Grishman: Like the glide path interruptus of 2022? Oh, 

Jim Gebhardt: yeah, how about 

Matthew Grishman: that? How'd that work, smoothing your way into bonds from stocks, right, as interest rates exploded for the first time in 20 years?

Jim Gebhardt: What is that called? Wind shear. Yeah, there you go. The 2022 kind of reminds me of wind shear. Sure. And every time I'm on a plane And this is your captain and, uh, we've reached a comfortable cruising altitude. We've turned off the safety belts and the light and, you know, move yourself around the cabin. [00:39:00] I gotta say, I'm always a little anxious of just unbuckling.

Sure. Because of wind shear. It's never happened in my entire lifetime of flying. Really? You've never experienced windshear? No, and I'm on a flight tomorrow, so I just cursed myself. Knock 

Matthew Grishman: on something, dude. Knock on 

Jim Gebhardt: laminate. 

Matthew Grishman: Holy cow. Windshear's fun. But 

Jim Gebhardt: 2022 kind of reminded me of, of the concept of windshear.

A 10, 000 foot drop instantaneously? Right, just ga 

Matthew Grishman: zoosh. 

Jim Gebhardt: Right, just, you know, wha bam. Without thinking, no ability to react to it. So anyway. 

Matthew Grishman: Thankfully we did some lifeboat drills and we were prepared for it. Oh, don't, 

Jim Gebhardt: don't, don't go so fast on that. We What? No, no, no, no, no. What's a lifeboat drill? Well, have you ever been on a cruise?

Yes, I have. And I You, you're not talking to me. I am talking to you. No, don't talk to me. I Well, you're the one sitting in front of me. I know what life, I know what a lifeboat is. Drill. I know, but we're 

Matthew Grishman: gonna answer it in like, you and me. You've been on a cruise ship before? I have. Okay. Tomorrow you're gonna take a flight.

What's the flight attendant going to do? What are the, what are the [00:40:00] team of flight attendants going to do? Before you get on the airplane? 

Jim Gebhardt: Offer me a cocktail, . 

Matthew Grishman: And after they get you nice and liquored up. They're going to ask you to pay attention. A bag of peanuts. After they get you liquored up and fed, they're going to ask for your attention.

Jim Gebhardt: Yes. 

Matthew Grishman: Well, depending on which airline you're on, if it's Southwest, it's dinner and a show. And the show, they sneak a little safety discussion in. Absolutely. Sure. Here's what happens if the plane goes into the side of a mountain. Well. You won't have to worry about that. True, but, you know. If 

Jim Gebhardt: we land in the 

Matthew Grishman: big blue thing out there.

Right. Here's your vest, here's how it works, here's how your seatbelt works, here's where the door is. That's called lifeboat drills. Yes. We get the term from the cruise ship where I've been on one cruise my entire life and I was very irritated that the first two hours of my vacation on a three day cruise to the Bahamas was spent sitting in the dining hall with a life vest on.

Hearing somebody tell me about all the different ways the ship can sink and what we need to do if it does. Happy [00:41:00] holidays. Right. Lifeboat drills. Fortunately, it didn't happen, but we were prepared if it did. So how do we do those with clients? We prepare ahead of time. We prepare ahead of time for markets like what we experienced in 2022 by getting very clear On the amount of risk a client should be exposed to based on how much risk they want to be exposed to based on how much risk they need to be exposed to based on where they're trying to get in life.

Right. But it's done client by client. Right. And what we also do that's a little bit different. Then what Wall Street does, especially as we're getting to the end of the blueprint, kind of like building this roadmap that we've been talking about the last several episodes is we wind up with this concept of several different money barrels.

Jim Gebhardt: Thank you. 

Matthew Grishman: That represent the different needs over your lifetime for different portions of your money. 

Jim Gebhardt: So in the context of a lifeboat drill, how does that serve the client? 

Matthew Grishman: Well, example, [00:42:00] Jim, play with me here. Would you feel confident? About how much cash would you like to see sitting in a bank account doing nothing but being available to you As far as helping you feel more confident in your financial security Well, 

Jim Gebhardt: this is exactly out of client gebhardt group client Video 101.

Right. So, Matthew, is that, is that like me today or like when I'm retired? 

Matthew Grishman: Right, right now. 

Jim Gebhardt: Oh, right now. 

Matthew Grishman: Right now. Right 

Jim Gebhardt: now. One year's worth of cash. 

Matthew Grishman: One year's worth of cash. Yes. How much do we have in cash right now? 

Jim Gebhardt: About three to four months. 

Matthew Grishman: Okay, so if we allocate a year of living expenses in cash, that's going to help protect your financial confidence.

Oh, yeah. Knowing that it's, okay, great. Oh, 

Jim Gebhardt: yeah. 

Matthew Grishman: So that's part of it. What we do now we have to sit down and spend more time looking at okay, jim. How do you and beth? See yourselves using money over the next let's call it [00:43:00] one to five years. Are there any Projects you're working on are there any kiddos going on?

One's a college. One's 18. Yeah, one projects 18 So what's happening over the next one to five years? A rot. In your life that you can see right now and maybe Because of our experience and working with people like Jim and Beth, there are some things that we could see for you that you're not able to see yet.

We are wonderful blind spotters. So being able to identify once we get kind of that now barrel tucked away. Right? That year's worth of cash for the Gebhards, for the Grishmans, it's two years and we're working on it. We're not there yet. Yeah, well we're not there yet either. Yeah, right. We're working on it.

But once we get that now barrel, like everything I might need now, nice and tucked away in a lovely money market that's paying somewhere in the four to four and a half percent range these days, now we need to look at what's happening soon in life. What's happening in the next one to five years that we can see, that maybe we can't see, And of all the assets that you have, all of the financial [00:44:00] resources you have available, how much of those financial resources do we need to allocate to an investment strategy that's appropriate for a soon barrel, for needs that are, let's call it one to five years away from now?

What does that look like? And then of course we, we have Well, that's 

Jim Gebhardt: what NVIDIA's for. 

Matthew Grishman: Well, you think? 

Jim Gebhardt: Right, because that'll be soon. I mean, it should do well soon. 

Matthew Grishman: It, it should do well soon. You know what, let's use structured notes. I think structured notes would be good for the Soon barrel, especially when you get a 21 page prospectus on a structured note that a client just forwarded me.

Oh, yeah. What do you think about this? My friends have come across these things called structured notes, which pay a 12 percent quarterly dividend. Yes. Yes. A 12 percent quarterly dividend. Okay. A 12 percent quarterly dividend. Did you hear that? 

Jim Gebhardt: So that, that immediately goes into the, it smells way too good to be true.

Matthew Grishman: 21 pages where all you can see on each page of the prospectus are tiny little six font words filled. So each page [00:45:00] is like 20 pages in and of itself. And the very first paragraph says, this investment has no promises, no guarantees you could lose all of your money. Do you think that sounds appropriate for money we might need one to five years from now?

Jim Gebhardt: No, thank you. 

Matthew Grishman: But yet, that's how the wire houses are selling these things. Sure. Safety. The big firms are selling structured notes as safety ways to buy stock because they have downside buffers. Right. Yet, in the first paragraph, it says, plain as day, you can lose all of your money. Yeah. Not the end disclosure, the first paragraph disclosure.

Oh, I bet the end of the movie's better. I'm only on page three of reading this thing. I got this yesterday. No, I, I, this is what we do for our clients. I 

Jim Gebhardt: know. I'm just. Being playful, 

Matthew Grishman: but I have to do it early in the morning. Cause if I do it at night, it will, no, there's no chance. It will put me to sleep. So what's appropriate for a soon barrel?

We've talked about this before, we'll talk about it more again. You want to be relatively conservative with money that you're going to invest that you need, in [00:46:00] our opinion, one to five years from now. Right. And we've got all sorts of tools that are not what we're here to talk about today, fit. That kind of one to five year, I need my money to be there for me when I am.

Jim Gebhardt: To help measure the risk that's involved with that. Exactly. Right, and then often, you know, remodel or redesign the client's portfolio for that. Based 

Matthew Grishman: on that, 

Jim Gebhardt: sure. And if you're still working, sometimes this can be hard to take in because you have the distraction of income, right? So, even as we're playing and having this conversation, it's one thing to sit here knowing I've got a job and I have income.

And as long as I continue to do the job, I'm going to have the income. It changes my thoughts on what you're describing. Versus, I've made my last paycheck, and I've made my last dollar, I've hung up the cleats. And there is no more. 

Matthew Grishman: Yeah. 

Jim Gebhardt: Right? And I can only understand that experience having gone through it with [00:47:00] clients hundreds of times.

Right. Right. I myself have been working since I was, I don't know, 14, 15. Didn't you 

Matthew Grishman: come out of the womb with a job? 

Jim Gebhardt: Probably. 

Matthew Grishman: Yeah. At 

Jim Gebhardt: least a hard hat. 

Matthew Grishman: Yeah. And a banker's lamp and a hat. Sure. And a ten key. A pair of tackies. Uh huh. 

Jim Gebhardt: So, it, it's hard for me to put myself in the position of the client, but I know with my parents, I watched how my dad always felt really, really good with two or three years worth of cash.

And, I don't know if I need that same level of security when I get there. And, the years worth of cash is a little pie in the sky for me just because I know we've got a, a stable business that will continue to deliver income. 

Matthew Grishman: Absolutely, and you and I also have assets. that are worth something that can be leveraged through equity lines and home equity lines.

I'm sure 

Jim Gebhardt: there's a secondary market for Allbirds. Your Allbirds collection? Yeah, we could leverage that thing like 10 to 1, like Lehman Brothers? 

Matthew Grishman: Yep, throw them in the wash and start selling them on the secondary market. Absolutely. Yeah. There's a nice spread there. The [00:48:00] point of all this and what we're talking about is just to kind of express how When we think about building a financial plan and aligning your financial resources with what matters most to you, it's a little bit of a different conversation than just shove as much money into long term tax deferred accounts as you possibly can, which is generally what our industry does.

On the shorter end stuff, we've now seen this, like, surge in investment products, commission based investment products like structured notes that, again, are so complicated, so much more complicated than they appear to be, and we're seeing them being used very inappropriately for things like one to five year money when you have the risk of losing all your money.

Now, could something like a structured note be more appropriate for longer term money? Boy, that's up to you and your advisor to figure out. Yeah, we're gonna stay clear of that. To me, there, I mean, if I have to read through a 21 page, [00:49:00] 6 point font prospectus, and I still don't completely understand how it works when it's done, chances are I'm not gonna wanna talk to a client about that.

No matter how sexy it may seem, no matter how much the highlights of the underwriters who've created it make it sound, it's just not for me. It's too complicated, especially when we're moving from the soon barrel into the later barrel. And we start talking to clients about the opportunity to take a little bit more risk to potentially earn some more return because now we have the benefit of time with a portion of their financial resources, right?

This is kind of the next part. Of the money barrels conversation is now that we've got your now money carved out and we've planned for what the next one to five years is going to look like, knowing that that might change a little bit, now we can start talking about what does it look like beyond five years, 10 years out, 20 years out, what.

What does retirement need? [00:50:00] And this is where our experience with families and watching how they approach that matters. Absolutely. So being able to allocate a certain portion of your financial resources to support your needs later, and then sometimes there's little money left over. Yeah, quite often. And it's in the form of the equity in your home, or if you have a Roth IRA or business assets.

that aren't necessarily assets you're intending to consume in your lifetime. Those potentially go into a barrel. We call the never barrel, which they're never really thought of as being consumed in your lifetime. 

Jim Gebhardt: Yeah. And another area where I think we go against the conventional thinking is this concept of the more assets I have, the more complex my investment should be.

We have found ourselves in a number of client engagements where the Our recommendation to them has been to simplify the complexity of [00:51:00] their investments. Whether it is a dozen private placements, whether it is investments in private equity or multiple hedge funds, or just all kinds of real estate that's in partnerships and what, again, this is, this is through experience, is I find as clients get older they want more and more simplicity.

Yes. And this mousetrap, these very complex mousetraps that we seem to attract. And have to help unwind. And unwind. Yeah. That there's a, there's almost a sense of relief that the client feels when we can start to simplify their financial picture in terms of the complexity of the underlying investments.

and start to layer these things into the money barrels themselves, right? And sure, there's, there may be some legacy assets that are never going to be sold and that are going to be passed down, and that goes into the never barrel. But in terms of being able to use, consume, and certainly with much older clients, let's say that are [00:52:00] approaching life expectancy, they don't necessarily want to leave a big, complex, mess for their family, their trustee, whoever that, you know, whoever that is.

Sure. And again, this bucks the trend a little bit in terms of, well, the, the more my net worth, the more I should have these sophisticated, Right. complex, decade long potential holding 

Matthew Grishman: periods. Come on, they're sold as being exclusive. To only those who qualify, right? Like accredited investor kind of qualification.

So they become attractive to our egos that, ooh, I mean, I've got more money than most. So therefore I deserve a more sophisticated I get to play in this 

Jim Gebhardt: sandbox. 

Matthew Grishman: I get to play in a different sandbox that's not for everybody, right? It's the first class cabin. on a, you know, a triple seven going to the Middle East, right?

With my own, it's a, it's a very, that's how it's sold as this much more exclusive approach to investing where, where you and I [00:53:00] have again, opened our eyes and been a little bit more intentional is the absolute fugazi that that Uh, has created a Fugazi, a Fugazi. It's a Wazi. It's a Woozi. It doesn't exist on the elemental scale.

Thank you, Matthew McConaughey. Thank 

Jim Gebhardt: you, Mr. McConaughey. What a 

Matthew Grishman: great, great, great little bit from Wall Street. Anyway, uh, I digress. You and I to do our job, which in the financial planning process, given all of the uncontrollables that exist in the world. That we started our conversation with a lot of which is causing anxiety.

You and I like to build financial plans that have all these margins of safety built into them because of all the uncontrollables. And there's no way that you and I can do our job and look a client in the eyes and feel confident about the margins of safety we've built for them with all of this crappy complexity.

That our industry is trying to sell the high net worth universe, our business owners who want our entrepreneurs who want more from their money than just a hell of a lot more [00:54:00] money yet. That's what our industry keeps selling them. Well, cause it's the industry, right? 

Jim Gebhardt: Is more money. 

Matthew Grishman: That's true. Cause yeah, that makes sense.

Jim Gebhardt: Yeah. What do you do if you have enough? 

Matthew Grishman: Yeah. And what if you have the margins of safety in place that say you have enough and no matter what really happens out in the world of all the uncontrollables, you're going to be okay. 

Jim Gebhardt: Yeah. Those are the conversations we love to have with people. Yes. Because it opens up a whole different set of options when it gets into philanthropy and charitable giving and gifting and endowing scholarship funds and all kinds of interesting things that don't necessarily necessarily.

mean that you aren't going to continue to grow and prosper, right? That's the other thing that I find the planning software is so helpful to show someone is if, is if they have X today, really, if things go reasonably well, they're [00:55:00] going to have X plus tomorrow, right? Compliance might not like that. My experience tells me that, you know, through long periods of time, The money still grows.

I look at my, I look at my parents, I look at my in laws, I look at my siblings, right? I look at clients that have been with us for 25 years, coming up on 30 years, and the money grows through Ups and downs and feast and famine and pandemics and interest rates and recessions and historically the market's gone up more than 

Matthew Grishman: it's gone down Yeah, absolutely.

I 

Jim Gebhardt: don't know that's irrefutable. Yes now in isolated investments Sure, there can be you know, complete and utter loss, right? So it's just it's a we started the episode with talking about your earbuds And, you know, not keeping the earbuds in while you're exercising. Grant's golf coach has said the same thing.

He said, I never want to see you on the golf course or on the driving range with earbuds in. Because you're not paying attention. [00:56:00] What we're asking you today, if you're listening to this for seven and a half hours, is to pay attention. Pay attention. to what the financial world and kind of society is telling you and wanting you to do versus what actually feels like the right thing for you to do.

And challenge your advisor on that. Challenge them to think differently. Challenge them to think outside the box when it comes to all the conventionality that exists in financial planning land. Hey, how about 

Matthew Grishman: this? Challenge them to get curious about what matters most to you. And then develop a customized plan that helps you get there, built with all sorts of margins of safety in it, that can help eliminate, right, that can help eliminate a lot of the uncontrollable variables.

Jim Gebhardt: Ask them to show you how much risk are you taking with my portfolio. Right. 

Matthew Grishman: How much risk should I be taking with my portfolio? Ooh, 

Jim Gebhardt: that's a good question, Teach. 

Matthew Grishman: Yeah. How much risk am I taking? How much risk should I take? How much risk [00:57:00] do I want to take? Have you had those conversations? 

Jim Gebhardt: And if those conversations aren't happening, or won't happen, or you don't feel as though your advisory team is even capable of having those because they're so engrossed in their philosophy, then go to GebhardtGroupInc.

com. 

Matthew Grishman: There you 

Jim Gebhardt: go. Go hit the connect button, and let's just have a conversation. Right? We're not for everybody. And we've got other advisors that we can refer you to if we don't feel as though we're the right fit. And that, that happens pretty regularly. Yes. But we challenge you to think differently. Take the earbuds out, start paying attention to what matters to you, not to the industry, not to what society is telling you to do.

Do something different, but be 

Matthew Grishman: yourself. One of my favorite stories, and I maybe we'll start wrapping the episode down after this. Tomorrow? Yeah, sometime tomorrow. I got we got to share this story because this is really The, to me, the epitome of doing things different, and [00:58:00] how doing things different that challenge convention Sure, Jill.

Differently. I'm 

Jim Gebhardt: helping Jill. Yeah, thank you. Because Jill's twitching right now. Right, she is. With 

Matthew Grishman: my Think different. Horribly, horribly grammar. This is the epitome of what challenging conventional thinking can do as far as creating generational wealth. And it's a story that Lee Brower, one of your early strategic coach mentors, shares religiously on stage, and he's also put it in his book.

I believe he wrote the story in the foreword of his book, The Brower Quadrant, which is just a fabulous piece to look at how Easy read on thinking about wealth differently. Yeah, the four different quadrants that you think of wealth. And what he tells is the story of the two, two of the wealthiest families in the 19th century.

The Vanderbilts? The Rothchilds. The Vanderbilts being a very wealthy US based family. The Rothchilds, a European family, and both Cornelius Vanderbilt and Baren Von Rothchild [00:59:00] both died about the same time, and they both had lots of kids, but the way they handled the family wealth with their children was very, very different.

When Cornelius Vanderbilt died, he had six children. They all got their one six of the estate and scattered like cockroaches. To be continued in a moment. Barron von Rothschild I think 

Jim Gebhardt: he had more children. 

Matthew Grishman: He might have. He might have. The story I remember is there were six at death that all claimed a sixth of the estate.

Got it. Could be more. Right. Could be less. Could be more. Probably more. Barron von Rothschild had a different approach. Rather than waiting for him to die for his children to inherit all of his money, he allowed the children access to the money during his lifetime, when it was most meaningful to them, when it could have the biggest Impact in their lives.

We're going to come back to a book by Bill Perkins here in a second that's a modern version of this story. There were rules for Baron Von Rothschild and how the children were [01:00:00] allowed to use the money. Rule number one is whatever money they took was considered a loan and not a gift, and it needed to be paid back to the family with interest.

Rule number one. Rule number two, whatever you take the money to use it for has to be for something greater than personal comfort. It had to be for impact. It had to be an investment in yourself that allowed you to be a better version of you, whether it was an education, whether it was buying your first home to help you get a foundation in your community, whether it was to start a business, which would create jobs.

It was all about using the financial resources to become a better version of you to have a more meaningful impact in your tribe. That was rule number two. Rule number three is you had to come annually to the family meeting and report and talk about it. What'd you learn? Where'd you succeed? Where'd you fail?

And we're going to have somebody sitting in the corner writing this all down because if you took the money from the [01:01:00] family and borrowed it to open a flower shop and within a year the flower shop failed miserably, we need to document that. So generations down the road, can learn from our experiences with that.

And rule number four, last and final rule, is your name needs to be Rothschild for you to have access to this money. Four very simple rules that created, in essence, a family bank, almost like a family credit union, where money could be used in the way Baron von Rothschild, his core values, believed. Now, the Rothschild Foundation today is considered, I think, to If not the largest, one of the largest private foundations on Earth.

Jim Gebhardt: Well, and they're still the largest, uh, the wealthiest family on Earth. Yes. And I don't know what's A hundred and something years later. 

Matthew Grishman: Yeah. And we don't know exactly what the numbers are Oh, no. 'cause they're private. They like it that way. Yeah, it's all private business. It's not public information. Yes.

The Vanderbilt family, who got all the money when Cornelius died and scattered like cockroaches, did not get [01:02:00] back together again until 1974. On the, I think the hundredth or two hundredth 

Jim Gebhardt: anniversary 

Matthew Grishman: of Vanderbilt University. And there was something like a hundred different Vanderbilts that showed up to this reunion, this family reunion at their namesake, and not a single one of them had a million dollar net worth.

All of that generational wealth was squandered. Now, the Vanderbilts have a little restart with Gloria and her son, Anderson Cooper, who have developed their own Vanderbilt wealth, but they've done it on their own. Sure. So what's the difference? Huge difference. In what the Vanderbilts chose to do, which seems to be what you and I see in society now Over and over and over again.

Mom and dad are squirreling all the money. They're hanging on to it for dear life because they're afraid they're going to need it all for long term care one day and then When they use some of it or don't use all of it, the kids get it, the pile of money hits the table, and they scatter like cockroaches.

Very rarely do we get to see a family that behaves like Barron von [01:03:00] Rothschild. We're starting to see more and more of our clients using their assets today to help their children have greater impact, to create those family legacies. And, you know, we've talked about this, I think, before, It's this wonderful book that our friend Billy put in our hands called Die With Zero.

It's completely changed the way, I mean, it's taken how we help clients use their assets intentionally to a whole new level. Because now it's not just Beavis and Butthead, you and me, telling clients what we think. Hey, here's A very accomplished author, who has a very important message, give it a read 

Jim Gebhardt: and let's talk.

Well, because it's in the same context as Barron, Von Rothschild. BVR, baby. It just comes back to intentionality. 

Matthew Grishman: Yes. 

Jim Gebhardt: Right? Mr. Rothschild had a very intentional thought process around how he wanted to do that. Right? Bill Perkins, with his book, Would Die With Zero, has, has thought about, has thought through some of these concepts in modern day.

And my favorite story from the book [01:04:00] is his 50th birthday. Where he, he, he decides to spend what most people would think was a ridiculous, if not offensive, sum of money to take down a private resort for a, a week. And flew in all of his people for the most blowout spectacular trip of a lifetime. Not just for him, but for many of his friends whom he wanted to be surrounded by for his 50th birthday.

And he talks about this concept of memory dividends. And how the investment in that trip has paid him memory dividends that far exceed the cost. Or the expense of that trip. 

Matthew Grishman: Oh, and the joy and the happiness that that creates over his lifetime Is much more than the rule of 72. Than money in the bank or any dollars that he could possibly pass on to his children.

Absolutely. 

Jim Gebhardt: And at 50, he also has the capability to go replace [01:05:00] that money. Right. He's still creating wealth. Right. How many clients have we met that are in their 70s or their 80s or their 90s that are like, I wish I would have taken the trip to the I wish I wish I would have uh huh. I wish we would have gone to uh huh See the uh huh fill in the blank and that's not happening on our watch.

Matthew Grishman: No Hank dad Are you listening you turn 80 in March you retire in June if we don't use at least 25 percent of the Grishman net worth to celebrate your big milestone I'm going to be very upset with you. You listening, Dad? But it is 

Jim Gebhardt: his choice. I know. 

Matthew Grishman: It is his choice. But I get to encourage. I get to contribute.

At least give him a copy of the book. I get to be, I get, give him a copy of the book, be a little bit of a shit stirrer. Sure. Be a little bit of an agitator. But you're right. It's not my job to do that for him. But I am going to contribute. 

Jim Gebhardt: We just don't want him to have any regrets. 

Matthew Grishman: That's 

Jim Gebhardt: exactly it.

That's what this is about. That's exactly it. Because time marches faster. The money [01:06:00] continues to grow, life moves on, and you're like, well, boy, I really wish I would have done the 

Matthew Grishman: Yes. 

Jim Gebhardt: What a wonderful episode to help clients, clients of the show. 

Matthew Grishman: Yes. 

Jim Gebhardt: Friends, the tribe. Friends, the tribe. 

Matthew Grishman: The tribe of the Whole 

Jim Gebhardt: Wealth Journey.

Just have a whole new thought process around what they're doing with their money. 

Matthew Grishman: Well, this, this is what we have been doing since we started. kind of restarted the show and shifted from our world of financial sobriety to the whole wealth journey. And I think this kind of completes that first main module of this relationship with money, this, this portion of the whole wealth journey, which is about how we get our financial house in order, get it in alignment with what matters most to us.

We're going to put a little bow on that and where we're going to start going after this episode is really talking about how much wealth we can create, protect, and preserve within our relationships and where that comes from, how our relationship with others is such a huge part of our wealth, [01:07:00] where we have to deal with conflict, where we have to deal with, I mean, something I was sharing.

With Lindsay, on our team, this morning, is boy, I, I feel like I'm having, I, I want to say yes, I have people that I meet, that I run into, that I want to have coffee with, and I'm having a hard time saying yes, because I don't feel like I have time anymore, my calendar feels incredibly full, so we're going to work on a strategy of helping me learn how to say no a little more often, because no is a complete sentence, but you know, me the people pleaser, I have a hard time, so we're going to dive into some of that, In relationships with people and then ultimately get to that Dun, da dun, dun My, my favorite conversation is, is that relationship with self and how much wealth can be created when we see ourselves As worth it.

And what do I mean by worth it? The greatest investment we could ever make is in us. So great job today, brother. Thanks for bringing it in [01:08:00] the studio. And, uh, here we go into relationship with people and self and upward and onward. And with that, my friend, that's a wrap. Hey, thanks for joining us today on the whole wealth journey.

It absolutely means the world to us that you would invest time to spend with us. If you liked what you heard today, like subscribe, and please. Leave us a comment. We would love to hear what you thought about today's episode and better yet, ask us a question and we'll get back to you. See you next time on the whole wealth journey.

Amy Bingham: 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 affiliated.

The opinions in this podcast are for informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or investment [01:09:00] 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.