Episode 159: Entrepreneurs Empowered. The Essential Guide to Personal Planning Before Retirement.

Emphasizing a departure from the traditional concept of retirement, Jim Gebhardt and Matthew Grishman dive into the paradox of entrepreneurs' disdain for conventional retirement and the need for holistic personal planning. They highlight the importance of clarity, confidence, and capability in preparing for life after selling a business. They share personal anecdotes, insights from their experiences, and actionable advice for business owners to envision a future rich in meaning and impact, beyond just financial wealth.

To get the book mentioned in the program, "The Majesty of Calmness", you can find it on Amazon HERE.

Key segements

00:00 Introduction to Retirement Concepts

00:53 Introducing the Wealth Journey Podcast

01:18 Gratitude and Family Moments

05:24 Personal Planning and Health

09:04 The Three-Legged Stool of Business Transition

10:51 The Importance of Personal Planning

14:31 Clarity, Confidence, and Capability

22:13 The Importance of Clarity in Personal Planning

24:01 The Confidence Boost from Personal Planning

25:02 Overcoming Quadrant One Addiction

25:58 The Role of Personal Planning in Business Exits

29:48 Protecting Your Confidence at All Costs

33:12 Redefining Treats and Building Sustainable Confidence

34:33 The Power of Capability in Personal Planning

43:07 The Concept of No Arrivals in Business

44:23 The Importance of Personal Planning for a Bigger Future

45:21 Wrapping Up and Next Steps

Learn more about The Whole Wealth Journey and get periodic updates or helpful content by getting on our email list HERE. Entrepreneurs, exit strategies and personal financial planning before the sale are topics you can count on every episode.  You can follow us on Instagram @thewholewealthjourney. 

Transcript

Jim Gebhardt: [00:00:00] A lot of people in financial planning land would say one of the core tenets of what we do is we help people prepare for retirement. 

Matthew Grishman: Yes. 

Jim Gebhardt: Well, another one of the paradoxes is that you and I really can't stand the concept of retirement. 

Matthew Grishman: What is retirement? 

Jim Gebhardt: Right? Sure. Well, in the conventional sense of, you know, I'm done, right?

I earn no more money. I don't really do anything else other than pursue a life of leisure that that's oversimplifying. I realize for a lot of people, and there's a lot of people, 

Matthew Grishman: and it's going away 'cause that, that's for those that can even get to that point, if that's what you covet. Ooh, ooh. That's a, that's gonna become a privilege and not a right.

Yes. With the world we live in today, the concept of old retirement is going to become a privilege.

Hey, what's this whole Wealth Journey podcast thing all about? 

Jim Gebhardt: It's a podcast for entrepreneurs where we're trying to help [00:01:00] them connect the meaning with their money. Who are you? Jim Gehart. 

Matthew Grishman: Oh, I'm Matthew Grishman, and we're a couple of financial guys having a not so traditional financial conversation called the Whole Wealth Journey.

Here we go.

Jim Gebhardt: We're back in studio and it's that time, folks, it's gratitude time. 

Matthew Grishman: What are you grateful for? 

Jim Gebhardt: I had a wonderful Sunday with the family. So our oldest son, Jack, is headed off to his first semester of college. It's not the conventional, move yourself into the dorm. He's gonna be a freshman at CU Boulder. But it was a deal with the business school where he was on the wait list.

He was admitted on the basis of going abroad for a semester. And then, you know, this isn't a word you use very often. Matriculating oh to campus next spring. So his first semester of college, ladies and gentlemen, is in Prague, chea. [00:02:00] It's no longer a Czech of Okia. 

Matthew Grishman: Wait, it's not Czech. I know it wasn't Czechoslovakia.

It's not the Czech 

Jim Gebhardt: Republic. It's 

Matthew Grishman: not Czech Republic anymore. It's Czechia. Czechia like chicken, but Czechia 

Jim Gebhardt: very good. 

Matthew Grishman: Okay. 

Jim Gebhardt: He leaves Sunday, this upcoming Sunday. By the time the show rolls, he'll already be there. And we've been looking for some family activity, like we need a couple of family send offs and.

The Giants were playing on a Sunday afternoon, a little matinee game. There you go. My personal favorite. Yeah. Our friend was on the mound. 

Matthew Grishman: Yeah. There we go. 

Jim Gebhardt: All six. Gab Harts went to the baseball game. Nice. And it was a beautiful day. 

Matthew Grishman: Well, I imagine you guys have done that a million, million times, 

Jim Gebhardt: right?

Absolutely. A million minus a million is zero. Zero oh. This was the inaugural effort of all six G. Harts financing is available now on the Giants Ticket website. I 

Matthew Grishman: think you need that. 

Jim Gebhardt: And it was a spectacular day. No one had any other work commitments or responsibilities. So [00:03:00] we were able to corral all six of us to a wonderful day, as you would say, at the ballpark.

Mm-hmm. To a Giant's victory. 

Matthew Grishman: Right. They, which is a, that's unique offense. That's very unique. It was very unique 

Jim Gebhardt: to see offense and home runs and doubles and all kinds of fun stuff. And then just to back it up, since it was really kind of an honorary celebration of Jack's birthday. Which is gonna be the first few days he's in Prague.

He's been wanting to go down to Topgolf. So while I, I can't drag his fanny out onto the golf course for free, he wanted to go to Topgolf. Wow. And there's a Topgolf in Burlingame down by the airport, which by the way, has got to be the most spectacular Topgolf there is because you have a absolute. 120 degree view of the Bay.

Matthew Grishman: Oh, so you're plane spotting the whole time. You got, 

Jim Gebhardt: we, we were plane spotting. Yeah. Because of Emily's current obsession with Flight Aware. Oh. The, the app. And we're watching, you know, this one's from Dubai and this one's from London, and this one's from [00:04:00] Charles de Gall. Sure. And this one's from Frankfurt.

And as we're hitting golf balls in eating chicken wings. 

Matthew Grishman: Nice. Did you find Miles, did he fly over you at one point? He did. He did. He did. Oh, good, good. He, he tipped away, 

Jim Gebhardt: uh, the, the Wing to us. Fantastic. So it's just an absolutely. Awesome family day and watching the four of those knuckleheads interact and goof around and all their little inside sayings with one another was very, very meaningful.

And I just kinda sat back and laughed at times and. Listen to them, do their thing. It was a wonderful sendoff. 

Matthew Grishman: Well, and as you have said to me, more than once, this is no small conversation. What are you now? 35, 36 years old. Yeah. You going on, right? I, I got shoes that old for my, uh, friend somewhere here in his mid fifties with.

A seasoned brood of children. Right. It's not like the four are littles anymore. Yep. For you to still have a first like that. Yep. I mean, you've been to Giants games with each of the kids. I've been to Giants games with each of your kids. But [00:05:00] for you as a family to have a first like this together at this point in life, boy that's, that's beautiful that we can still have those.

Wonderful. Thanks for sharing. 

Jim Gebhardt: Absolutely. A spectacular day. Nice. Nice. And yeah, just a great sendoff. How about you? I got a lot of things I could help fill your gratitude bucket for if you don't have enough mirrors. 

Matthew Grishman: Oh, I, I appreciate that. Um, okay. One of the things I am grateful for today, we might have a little more gratitude to get sprinkled in throughout the day, but this one has to do with the comment you made when I sat down with a cup of coffee in the middle of the day.

Caffeine in the middle of the day is not something I'm normally accustomed to doing. This is my first cup of coffee of the day. What I'm grateful for is something you taught me a long time ago that I think comes from our friend at Strategic Coach Dan Sullivan. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

Maybe, maybe, who knows where you, but that's something, yeah, that could be roomy. Okay. You got that from someone. But the teacher this time, [00:06:00] and my two boys, miles and Lucas, they've been on me for years now about caffeine and when I consume caffeine. They've been telling me the same thing over and over and over, and I think they're getting back at me for all the times that I screamed at them to catch the damn baseball with two hands.

Okay. But they wanted too much to look cool. Catching it with one so they never did. Or backhand eventually. Of course, of course. But I think they're getting me back for that because they keep telling me over and over and over, dad, stop having coffee first thing in the morning. You're gonna get the caffeine crash.

It's not healthy for you. Let your brain wake up on its own. Then have a cup of coffee either around 10, 11, 12, and the caffeine will sustain you throughout the day. You'll be sharper. It'll be better for you and for some reason, out of the 

Jim Gebhardt: mouths 

Matthew Grishman: of babes, outta the mouths of babes. And I'm listening to my boys now because I'll tell you, even though we're deep in the consulting phase of parenting, I learn almost as much, if not on some days more.

From my boys than I could ever teach them at [00:07:00] this point. For a couple of youngsters. They have, uh, they have lived and they have gained wisdom, and I'm grateful that they share it with me. That's, that's my gratitude for now. One, 

Jim Gebhardt: as you're, as you're saying all of that, one of my favorite lines I haven't said on the show or off the show in a long time is trust your caddy.

Oh, yeah. Right. And when you're on the back nine of life over the age of 50 and you're using a caddy more, trust the caddy in their wisdom. And good on you. Absolutely. Good on you. For the, for the boys to sprinkle in a little, Hey dad, why don't you, why don't you try this? 

Matthew Grishman: It's one little part of the overall kind of health remodeling that's been going on, right?

The whole thing that happened for me instead of happened to me in the last couple of years, how? It's just, you know, piece by piece slowly rebuilding every aspect of my health and how I take care of myself physically and mentally and emotionally. And it's all because of the personal planning. I was forced to do six.

Oh, 

Jim Gebhardt: nice tie, right? 

Matthew Grishman: Do you like that? Nice tie. Oh, you like the tie I'm wearing today? I 

Jim Gebhardt: very much [00:08:00] 

Matthew Grishman: as a result of being forced six weeks before open heart surgery to do the personal planning work I had never done before. It's put me on this path where it's given me the clarity to see what I need to do to take better care of myself so that I can show up for you.

For our team and for our clients and our families and our people. And, and for me, like most important is I wanna show up for me. So you 

Jim Gebhardt: recommend making it an emergency? Six week crash course. Six week crash course. That's great. That's Well, the six weeks before the surgery Sure. A crash course and getting this done, 

Matthew Grishman: I would recommend avoiding that at all costs.

Ah, I see. Right. I mean, we've, we've spent ample time in studio. Talking about how 50% of us in entrepreneur land, in business owner land are gonna experience something that forces us to make some pretty big decisions while we own our business, whether we're [00:09:00] prepared to make them or not, and there may be a little more reference to that in our conversation today.

Yeah. Today is officially episode three of four of this little series that we're doing on personal planning. And I mean, I'm just teaming with gratitude over everything that has. Become my life as a result of going through this. So this is like a, a part work in progress part testimonial. Well, I feel really 

Jim Gebhardt: good about it, so I mean, and I feel really 

Matthew Grishman: connected to 

Jim Gebhardt: it.

If we go way back in our history together and in, in the context of what you track improves. 

Matthew Grishman: Absolutely right. What, well, what you track is what you pay attention to and therefore it just improves, naturally improves, yeah. Just by paying attention to it. 

Jim Gebhardt: And that's where I think some of this personal planning and, you know, we're gonna get into blind spots and we're gonna get into all kinds of stuff today.

But I think that's one of the fun things about it, is that we're, we're bringing forward in the conversation of this, of this three legged stool. Right. The three legged stool [00:10:00] that we've been talking about, if you're just catching us now, is in preparing for a big transition with your business. There's the business planning, so consulting and all the exit planning work that goes into getting the business ready for the transition, right?

Whether it's an internal sale, external sale, strategic sale, whatever. It's, 

Matthew Grishman: or you just want to keep growing the thing, right? It just Oh, yeah. 

Jim Gebhardt: Yeah. Absolutely. Then there's also the, the very conventional, traditional financial planning work, right? That gets you ready to know, can we sell this thing? And if it's.

At a point at which that that's going to sustain, you know, ma and pa all the way to the finish line, right? Economically, if I'm not gonna build something else, start something else, or be a greeter at Walmart. 

Matthew Grishman: Right? Get the business in order, get the personal financial house in order. Makes sense. 

Jim Gebhardt: So those two, those two legs of the stool are, are traditional.

Very traditional, yeah. Now we are bringing into the conversation with this series, this whole concept around personal planning, which is, what the hell are you gonna do, [00:11:00] Bob? After you sell this thing. 

Matthew Grishman: Yep. 

Jim Gebhardt: And we've talked a lot about the, the challenges with it. And what I love about what we're gonna do today is we're gonna talk about the why you need to do it.

Matthew Grishman: Well, yeah. We, we covered the barriers, right? I mean, what, what kept you and me from doing the work before? Adventures in Cardiology. Right? And, and, and we, I think we kind of, that'd be a good album name. We're working on it. It might be a book name. What, what didn't we do? Why didn't we do it, and what were the barriers that kept us from doing it?

Now we're gonna talk about the antidote to those barriers. Mm, right. The barriers of the critical third leg. That if you can break through those barriers and see why personal planning is so important for you to discover what life 3.0 is really all about, then it becomes this like transformative.

Experience. Yeah. That it's almost hard to describe until you've actually been there and [00:12:00] lived it, which I think we're living a little bit. So maybe you'll feel it through us a little bit. 

Jim Gebhardt: The investment of time that you're gonna make in this personal planning area is going to sprout some wonderful dividends.

Matthew Grishman: Oh, look at that. Mr. Financial Planner. Nice one. Are they? 

Jim Gebhardt: Well, hey, gotta tie it back a little bit. 

Matthew Grishman: Mr. Ccf. P'S coming out 

Jim Gebhardt: right? I love it is, and they, and these may not germinate overnight, right? They may take a little while for these dividends to burst, but it is an investment in time that as we go through this, I think it's gonna be pretty exciting for people to realize that it doesn't have to just be, I sell the business, I walk away, and then I'm gonna figure it out.

Sure, 

Matthew Grishman: absolutely. 

Jim Gebhardt: We're gonna get into this, the, the first antidote here to the whole fear around doing it because we've, we've seen it, right? I mean, we know. The stats don't lie. 75% of business owners that have been studied by the Exit Planning Institute and their 2023 [00:13:00] Oneness Readiness survey regret the transaction a year later, and it's not about the money, of course, 

Matthew Grishman: one of my favorite.

Movie characters of all time is the character Billy Crystal plays in. When Harry Met Sally and I, I forget the character name in the movie, but what Well, it's 

Jim Gebhardt: Billy Crystal. 

Matthew Grishman: It it's, it's Billy. Just being Billy like Jason Bateman just plays Jason Bateman. Billy just plays Billy and what has always stuck about this character is something he does in the movie over and over and over is when he sits down to read a book.

He has to read the very last page before he decides whether he's gonna read the book or not. So I've become a big fan of knowing where we're going before we start. So I just, do you read 

Jim Gebhardt: the last page? 

Matthew Grishman: I read the last page before I start. Do you really? Absolutely. Oh, I sometimes read the last two or three pages.

What about a movie? Different story? Uh, that's only like a two hour investment. But if I'm gonna invest like days, weeks, months, or years into reading, you know. I wanna know where it's gonna go. It's just Gotcha. Yeah. And, [00:14:00] and so that, that's, 

Jim Gebhardt: oh, that, that would challenge me to like, why bother? Well, 

Matthew Grishman: that's 

Jim Gebhardt: kind of what makes you just throw the book in AI and gimme the summary.

Matthew Grishman: That's why you're Beavis And I'm Butthead. Right. And we're not the same name. So I, I like going into this, helping the tribe know where we're going and what the antidote is. Because you've, you've given us the first, like, there, there, there are three things that are the antidote. To the challenges, the four challenges, the four barriers we talked about last time.

Can we 

Jim Gebhardt: call these like serums? Like sure. They're the antidotes 

Matthew Grishman: and those three serums are the three C's. Clarity, confidence, and capability. That's what you're gonna get from today's episode. That's what you get and that's the why behind going through personal planning is those are the three things you get.

Now there's a lot more to talk about. Beautifully teed up. Clarity as the antidote to fear, right? Fear is the number one barrier. [00:15:00] Fear of who am I going to be? What is it going to be? And so having the clarity and not being one of those statistics is paramount, number one. 

Jim Gebhardt: It is absolutely number one because just it.

Take any example in your life when you don't have clarity. And how fear enters the room, how you feel stuck, how you feel paralyzed. But then how easy is it to get into motion when you start to have, you don't need complete clarity, you just need some clarity. Sure. Right. Just some direction. Our analogy of always getting the, the, the anchor in the boat up a half an inch.

Right? We don't need the master plan for what our entire life is going to look like after we retire. But, oh baby, it'd be fun if we had like the first 12 to 24 months. 

Matthew Grishman: Well, sure. I mean, the greatest example is what you shared last time, which is, you know, who's Jim Gebhart if he's not the president and CE of Gebhart group.

Jim Gebhardt: You know, I was, I was thinking a lot about that to put just a slightly [00:16:00] finer pencil on it uhhuh you and your pencil. For me, for me it's not so much the, like the CEO role 'cause I, I, I just think of like, you know, some multi corpore multinational corporation. For me, it's gonna be the impact. Because all I've ever wanted to do in this job is have deep, meaningful relationships with our clients and our partners and, and have impact and have meaning.

Matthew Grishman: I can think of a few CEOs that might agree with that. Like Howard Schultz, one of the, you know, the founding CEO EO of Starbucks. He might, I would love to have, 

Jim Gebhardt: I'd love to have him on the show. 

Matthew Grishman: Howard, if you're listening. Come, come on buddy. Send us an email. We, 

Jim Gebhardt: we've got more Starbucks in this room right now than I think most Americans do in a week.

So 

Matthew Grishman: we're shareholders, big fans and collaborators. Yes. 'cause what you just said is the essence of what he's always believed. Yes. You're, you're in servant 

Jim Gebhardt: leadership, which is one of the reasons I've been drawn to him for so long. Sure. That is something that a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with is who the heck am I gonna be after this business that I've created is gone and I'm no [00:17:00] longer involved?

Matthew Grishman: Well, the, fortunately the solution is this idea of personal planning to get crystal clear on what that's going to look like and first understanding as an entrepreneur, and I'm gonna pick on you. Yeah. Jim Gebhart, CEO, and President and Impact creator at Ebhart Group. Dude, you're not a sustainer, you're a builder.

Oh, oh yeah. And to think that, to think that you've saved this big pile of money. Then one day we're gonna sell G Hart Group, which puts another big pile of money on top of your pile of money, and then you're just gonna like buy a bunch of muni bonds and sustain that for the rest of your life and get your 4% tax free income 

Jim Gebhardt: and be comfortable.

Matthew Grishman: Holy cow. 

Jim Gebhardt: Comfortable. Your favorite word, 

Matthew Grishman: you comfortable. That's comfortable. Right. The only thing comfortable I can think of with you is just not being out in a hundred degree heat. Then you're comfortable. Ah, that helps. Yeah. But in life, when you're comfortable, something's wrong. Like you, when you're comfortable, and, and, and this is what's [00:18:00] always drawn me to you, and it's what draws me to all of the entrepreneurs that we have attracted and begun to work with, is that we're all builders.

We're not sustainers. So. 

Jim Gebhardt: I think let's just slow, let's just breathe on that for a second, because I think a lot of people may not have heard that before. Okay. But that's a really critical concept in that you've gotta honor what you are and what you aren't. Right. As you and I have joked for a long time, you and I are unemployable in the traditional sense of the work world.

Yes. Right? 

Matthew Grishman: Absolutely. 

Jim Gebhardt: And a sustainer would hate being a builder, and a builder would hate being a sustainer. We don't mean this in construction terms, but we can use that analogy. Right, absolutely. Entrepreneurs, they generally wanna either have meaningful impact in their industry or I think a lot of them wanna like revolutionize their industry.

Matthew Grishman: Right? 

Jim Gebhardt: Right, right. And sometimes there's crossover, but those are, those are kind of two different lanes for most entrepreneurs that wanna [00:19:00] just completely blow up an industry and start it all over and be the inventor of something and, and. That for a lot of people is a hard thing to walk away from. And what we're offering here in this section of clarity is you don't have to, you don't have to walk away from that concept when you quote unquote retire or sell the business.

And we're gonna get into a lot more of that in these two episodes. Well, sure. This is 

Matthew Grishman: to be able to continue being who you are or discovering who you are beyond the job title in the industry. One of the things we'll get into in the next episode a little bit more, which is more of the how to is when you get clarity on how to best allocate what we call your whole wealth.

Mo most traditional advisory firms are gonna help you do a really good job allocating one of the seven asset classes we consider whole wealth, which is 

Jim Gebhardt: so you're not, you're not your money. You're not talking about like small cap and international and 

Matthew Grishman: [00:20:00] No, that's all I emerging markets. Right. I consider that all part of one asset class called money.

Oh. Then we've got these other six asset classes that make up your whole wealth. Once you have clarity on how best to allocate all seven of these asset classes, you start seeing how you as a human being who you are, a builder, a creator, an impact type of person, can allocate all seven of those assets to help support whatever might show up as next in what we're talking about.

Jim Gebhardt: I was gonna say, you can't leave us hanging on what those are. 

Matthew Grishman: Well, I'm gonna tell you what they are, but we're not gonna get into 'em until next time. I know, I know. Asset class number one is your time. Then there's their, your health, your relationships, your values, your superpowers, your experiences. And last but certainly not least is your money.

But once you get clarity on how to best allocate all seven of those. Now you start figuring out what [00:21:00] your actual passions are, rather than just figuring out what couple of hobbies might get you through retirement. 

Jim Gebhardt: Well, we've, we've talked about this one particular book, favorite of mine that is pushing 130 years old now, which is the Majesty of Calmness.

By William George, Jordan. You've talked about 

Matthew Grishman: that here before. We have. Oh, okay. We have. Look at me with the fast together. That's okay. 

Jim Gebhardt: And there's a, actually, I just gave that book out to, uh, a friend of ours this week. I don't give that book out often, but when I do, no. The concept in there relative to health.

And this book was very sexist written in 1895. It talks about men will spend their health to acquire their wealth, right? Only in the second half or later part of life to use their wealth to reclaim their health. 

Matthew Grishman: Ah, that's where that comes from. Okay. I remember that concept. I just don't remember the book.

Jim Gebhardt: Well, it's, it's an oldie but, but a goodie We're it back today? And I, I love this allocation of, of your other assets beyond money because it really. [00:22:00] Some of these are gonna nominate themselves, right? I mean, look at the health journey that you've been on. Look at the health journey I've been on and the investment of time.

Mm-hmm. That we've put into that and money. Right. Um. There's gonna be a lot of folks that I think if they can start in this clarity phase to start and look at are there relationships I need to go remodel and restore and renew? Are there aspects of my health that I need to do the same with? Sure.

Absolutely. Um, I think, I think that's where people can start to get excited. About how they're gonna spend some of this time, because Right. I mean, we're essentially saying, you sell the business and we're gonna give you a big bag of money and a big block of time. Now you've gotta go craft what you're gonna do with it.

Sure. 

Matthew Grishman: Well, the, the payoff to the planning, to having this clarity is you're no longer white knuckling this big unknown future. Mm-hmm. And putting on a mask every day, like it's all okay. You're gonna make better [00:23:00] decisions today. That you're gonna be more confident with, 'cause you know where you're heading.

And I think most important is you wind up not being one of the 75%, the 75% of business owners who regret the transaction 12 months out because of everything but the money. 

Jim Gebhardt: So that's a statistic that once you hear it, you can't unhear it. No, and it's stuck in my head. It just, it's completely stuck in my head.

And that's, that's where what we do. With this whole wealth journey is all about, right. What, what we do in terms of this becomes so much more than just your wealth and economic terms. It's your whole wealth as you look at life outside of just the money sphere, but with how are you gonna continue to have impact after your role in X, Y, Z company?

Matthew Grishman: Yes. And a lot of that becomes clear when you figure out how to allocate those other assets you were just talking about. 

Jim Gebhardt: So what's number two on the [00:24:00] hip? Right? Whoa. 

Matthew Grishman: GIF gift number two. Reason number two, confidence. Who wouldn't like another little shot of confidence? I mean, this ultimately is the antidote to our quadrant one addiction, to our time management challenges.

This idea that we've got this problem, right? The what? Part of what keeps us from doing this planning we've talked about is this idea that we're, we're constantly stuck. In quadrant one activities, these activities that are right now important and urgent, where we're dealing with running the business, making payroll, returning client phone calls, mopping up messes, making sure.

The supply cabinet's full. I mean, as a business owner who's trying to control everything, right? It's what needs to happen in my business today and where the personal planning often gets left out, as does the personal financial planning is because it's quadrant 

Jim Gebhardt: two. I'll get to that later time, 

Matthew Grishman: right?

I'll get to it later because it's [00:25:00] important, but it's not urgent. So this is where confidence becomes the antidote to that time management trap. We're constantly in. You've talked many, many times about a friend of yours who sold his business for 87 million bucks, and yet he's still miserable and walks around looking like his confidence has been absolutely shattered.

Jim Gebhardt: I think about him a lot because he is really just an acquaintance. I don't know him very well, and the other stat that I'm, I'm thinking of as we're talking about all this, and I can't give you the exact percentages. But the number of deals, the number of exits that don't happen because of the fear that people have, they can't see into the future on what they're gonna spend their time with.

Sure. And the number of deals that don't happen because the owner gets cold feet and just would rather stay doing what they're doing because they haven't done any of this work. So, to the [00:26:00] example that, uh, you're referencing with this acquaintance of mine, he just. He looks sad. 

Matthew Grishman: Yeah. 

Jim Gebhardt: And while he drives up in a different sexy Porsche, every time I see him, he just looks, he doesn't look happy.

He doesn't look confident. He does. He looks sad. Yeah. Yeah. And what little insights that we have into this gentleman. There was no personal planning and he's become a little bit of our. Our hallmark of, of what not to do. 

Matthew Grishman: Well, it's his, his addiction, right? Like every entrepreneur and business owner is this addiction to quadrant one time this addiction to urgency, to having always to do something, to always have a deadline to meet, and the pressure of getting stuff done.

It's, it's, I mean, you and I admittedly, it's what. Often fuels us is the excitement of, oh sure, I gotta get shit done today. Right? Sure. And we just feel good about [00:27:00] chunking it off a list. So where we lose confidence is when that disappears. All of a sudden my drug has been taken away from me. Yeah. Now without a solution.

Right, right. Without replacing it with something else. You go talk to any addict or alcoholic in the world today or you know, like this spendaholic here. And I mean, even back in my drinking days, if I didn't replace. My booze with another solution because my drinking and my spending was not my problem. It was my solution.

Right? My problem was my addictive thinking that needed to just quiet down. Yeah. So what do we give the business owner who's addicted to that time chaos. This is where personal planning fills that hole and fills that solution with a new way to allocate one of our most valuable, if not most valuable assets, and that's our time.

Jim Gebhardt: Love it. Love it. And I mean these, these do kind of build on themselves, right? Sure. So as you start to have a [00:28:00] little bit of clarity, you can immediately feel, I feel it. I don't know where you feel it. I kind of feel it in my solar plexus. Like when I start to feel confident, it's almost like I can feel it in my solar plexus and my shoulders drop and go back and it's like, yeah, I got this.

Matthew Grishman: Okay. 

Jim Gebhardt: And when I don't, I feel like somebody's letting the air out of the w wa Yeah, just, just the body. I've got Bo in my head right now, our dear friend, Bo Easton, and all the physical, the physicality that he teaches and trains on and how, you know, he, he looks at how you present and how you stand and how you carry yourself and.

You can just, you can almost tell when some people are confident, when, when some people are not sure. And I, I love how these kind of build to where it becomes an unshakeable confidence because you have clarity in your future. You're gaining confidence by taking the actions with these, with how you're gonna spend your time.

How are you gonna, how are you gonna invest in your health? How are you gonna invest in all these other [00:29:00] asset classes? Sure. That, frankly, no one's probably ever really talked to you about. 

Matthew Grishman: Well, this, this has been something you've been whispering in my ear since the day I met you, and it's become one of my 10 universal laws.

I, I got recently an opportunity to be a guest lecturer. At a local dental school, talking to fourth year dental students who are about to go out and start their own practices. And although financial planners and dentists don't really do the same thing, although some might say it's equally as painful at times to visit us, what we do to deliver our craft is virtually identical.

Right? That idea of running a business, and when I get to share with them the 10 universal laws that you and I have learned. As entrepreneurs, as business owners, even though I've made this number 10, it's really number one that's, I was 

Jim Gebhardt: gonna, I was, that was gonna be my little funny, haha, right, 

Matthew Grishman: because I love that.

Jim Gebhardt: It's number 10. And 

Matthew Grishman: that's on purpose. I know, right? We go through and we're not going through all of our laws today, but, but number 10 is protect your confidence at all costs. I mean, think about this for a minute. Who do you surround yourself with? What do [00:30:00] you say to yourself when you look at yourself in the mirror?

What do you consume? Where do you spend your time? How do you prioritize? And what I mean by prioritize is who comes first? Do you come first? 

Jim Gebhardt: Oh, yes. Or 

Matthew Grishman: does everybody else come first? As a business owner who will often not take care of themselves for the sake of all the people we're responsible for, yet every time you and I get on an airplane, we are reminded about one of the most important pits of self-care.

We always need to remember, which is what? 

Jim Gebhardt: Eat the peanuts. 

Matthew Grishman: What's what comes after you eat the peanuts? 

Jim Gebhardt: Put your o oxygen mask on first. 

Matthew Grishman: Right? Put your own mask on first. Even 

Jim Gebhardt: if you have a kiddo that's sitting next to you, you don't put it on the kiddo first. You put it on you. No, 

Matthew Grishman: absolutely. And, and if you, if you figure this out and realize how important protecting your confidence is, and you do this little self-check, these questions we just asked.

The payoff is this idea of sustainable confidence and walking into a transaction from a [00:31:00] position of strength. Not a position of weakness. Something you've always preached to me about every decision we ever wanna make as a business owner is to be in a position of strength and not a position of weakness or desperation.

Hallelujah. And talk about modeling as a leader, healthy, confident behavior, not just for your colleagues at work, but how about for your family, for your children, for your community, for your peers, for absolutely. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. If you 

Jim Gebhardt: think about that little checklist that you went through there, there are confident and not confident aspects of every one of those questions.

Yes. Right. I mean. I don't know the stat on the, the amount of negative self-talk when people look at themselves in the mirror. Oh, it's massive. It's staggering. It's massive, right? It's, it's hundreds if not thousands of negative self thoughts, negative self-talk in a day. And then you, you think of what are you consuming, right?

And. That guilty, awful, nasty [00:32:00] feeling after you've ate. Ate and eaten. There you go. There you go. That too. Like my Sunday is a, I love the baseball game. How did you not 

Matthew Grishman: listen to what I told you about my experience? I forgot. Oh, you forgot. Or you did, or you just It wouldn't happen to me. It would only happen to happen.

Oh, you didn't remember? 

Jim Gebhardt: Didn't remember at all. 

Matthew Grishman: Okay. Because I. I ate the brisket the week before. I 

Jim Gebhardt: know. Oh, I know. When you 

Matthew Grishman: sent me that text, I was like, oh my God. No. I felt, I'm like, oh, I should have made the point more 

Jim Gebhardt: and how it just vaporized my confidence. 

Matthew Grishman: Oh. It 

Jim Gebhardt: meant more one way for the last, for the, for the last 36 hours.

Literally and figuratively. Yeah. Yeah. So we throw these questions out there and we, we have, you know, we have a tendency to speed bump over them. 'cause we got a show and we've got a timeline and all this. But go back, go, go. Rewind those. Yes. And think on them. Well chew on 'em. They're, they're meaningful, important questions when you think about where do you spend your time?

Matthew Grishman: Yes. When you and I spend more time thinking about this, over time, our mindset [00:33:00] begins to change. So do we expect it all for the tribe to change today? No. But if you've been with us for 170 some odd episodes, your mindset might be starting to change. And what I mean by that is. You and I, when we talk about what we consume, what we put in our bodies, we're starting to redefine what we would consider to be a treat.

It's a treat for us to be able to go to a ball game and get a big old brisket sandwich and maybe a little ice cream cone afterward. Right? That's a treat. But what's starting to happen is we're starting to see how those kinds of quote unquote treats are really poison. They're, I mean, they, they leave us feeling, yeah, they don't work awful.

They don't work anymore for a couple of days, and so we're starting to change our mindset. Our confidence is building that. All of a sudden now we're seeing treats as that big, tall glass of water with a squeeze of lemon in it, or the idea of a cup of coffee in the middle of the day to help boost my energy, right?

Versus some, you know, oh, I gotta 

Jim Gebhardt: start with a coffee, 

Matthew Grishman: right? Right. Where's the [00:34:00] coffee? It's a mindset change. This whole confidence protection piece is the number one reason I believe I feel. Comfortable in my own skin, literally for the first time in my entire adult life. And this has been building for a little bit, but it's, that ain't no 

Jim Gebhardt: small conversation.

Matthew Grishman: Oh God, no. That's why we're having this conversation. 'cause this is not a small conversation. Yeah. Alright. What's the third thing we get? 

Jim Gebhardt: Well, these kind of go hand in glove, hand in hand. Hand in glove. 

Matthew Grishman: Glove and glove are hand in hand, right? We go from clarity to confidence to 

Jim Gebhardt: capability. 

Matthew Grishman: Boy, that's a good word.

Jim Gebhardt: 'cause all of a sudden what starts to show up when you've got clarity on the direction that you're heading and a sense of confidence in yourself and in your future is capability shows up in all different kinds of ways. And the problem for a lot of entrepreneurs, which we, I mean this is. It's [00:35:00] kind of one of the hallmarks of what we do is we help bring, we bring blind spots into view and the blind spot around all of this personal planning that isn't happening starts to.

Present them with these blind spots that they've, they didn't even know Yeah. Existed. 

Matthew Grishman: I've always called you a blind spotter trapped inside the body of a financial planner. 

Jim Gebhardt: Yeah. 

Matthew Grishman: I mean, as much as your big left beautiful brain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can calculate stuff and Sure. 

Jim Gebhardt: We have computers for that. 

Matthew Grishman: Now we have computers and artificial intelligence to do that.

When, when I have watched you over and over get to know a human at their core and be able to hold the mirror up and show them some blind spots in a way where they could see it. It's just, it's, it's beautiful to watch and, and so. This becomes, I mean, capability, feeling, a sense of capability becomes the antidote to these blind spots that are keeping you stuck and unable to move forward because you lack this sense of I'm not capable of moving forward.

Jim Gebhardt: Well, and I know we've, we're gonna continue to talk about this, but [00:36:00] the whole DIY version of this, where people are trying to do this perhaps on their own right, but not, not having a co, you know, a collaborator or a coach or a quarterback or whatever. You, whatever, whatever label resonates with you in terms of the, the teammate that's gonna help you here.

But that's really what you're looking for is the blind spotter. 

Matthew Grishman: Yeah. 

Jim Gebhardt: I mean. In business, you hire different consultants to come in and help you look at your business in a way that you're like, oh, I never, I never, I never thought of that. Mm-hmm. Wow. That's a, that's a damn good idea, Tom. Right? Well, that's the, and the same thing applies here in the, in the, in the lane of personal planning Yes.

Is helping people connect dots on things that they can't see themselves and. That goes back to my whole thing of wanting to just have impact, right? It's a, it's a 'cause most of these entrepreneurs, God bless, are going to have enough money. Money's not the 

Matthew Grishman: problem. 

Jim Gebhardt: Money's really not the problem. [00:37:00] There can be some money problems in terms of those clients that we work with where, you know, and there's studies on this where they feel as though too much money could have a negative impact on their family down the road in terms of desire and all this, but.

Most of the clients that we're working with are going to have enough to live the life. They wanna live their life, and this is not really a money problem. We're trying to, did they 

Matthew Grishman: believe that 

Jim Gebhardt: some most do, 

Matthew Grishman: or is that one of the biggest blind spots? 

Jim Gebhardt: I would say when we get through with the financial planning aspect of what we do.

Sure, sure, sure. I'm talking 

Matthew Grishman: about when they walk in the front door. Oh, 

Jim Gebhardt: no, no, no, no, 

Matthew Grishman: no. They don't. Most entrepreneurs you and I have ever met No. When we first meet them, lack the capability of thinking they've saved enough or they have enough and their number one fear is being broke. Yeah. Very true. 'cause they don't feel a sense of capability from saving enough and creating the wealth.

There's always this sense of fear and again, getting that clarity, [00:38:00] that confidence, and then ultimately this capability, you finally feel that you have enough. Because it becomes more, it, it becomes more than just about the business and what am I gonna do next? In business, it's about the whole wealth and all of these different asset classes that I now feel capable in, and I can get my eyes off to just that one money bucket and start focusing on more.

Jim Gebhardt: It's more, it's more, but not necessarily just more money. It's more meaning, it's more life. It's more impact. It's more. It's more in a, in a different definition because you've checked the money box. 

Matthew Grishman: Oh, yeah. Well, and this is the ultimate, one of the ultimate paradoxes of business ownership is we're sitting here talking about capability.

Without talking about how, this is not about learning how to do all of this. This is about who, and that, you know, that's a recurring theme. [00:39:00] The who, not how theme is gonna continue to recur throughout this entire process because where you're building capability is through your connections with other people, not through this isolation of I'm just going to bury myself in the books and the YouTube videos, and I'm gonna learn how to dig myself out of this and figure out what's next the deal.

Right 

Jim Gebhardt: after the deal. That's what, that's what, when the deal's done, I'll, 

Matthew Grishman: I'll have plenty of time to figure this out later. That's what I'm gonna spend my time doing. Right. And so it's, it's a unique form of capability that's one of those big blind spots that it's not about how, it's about who. 

Jim Gebhardt: One of the concepts in Coach, strategic Coach in Dan Sullivan's land that I just love is this concept of creating a bigger future and.

When you start to do this planning work and you've been riddled with fear and you've been stuck and you can't really see how this is gonna evolve. As you go through this process and you [00:40:00] start to have the greater sense of clarity that leads to the greater sense of confidence that leads to greater capabilities.

Now you can actually start to envision a future that is bigger than your past. Just let that sink in for a second. Oh, yeah. When, and it's not necessarily that you're starting your next, maybe it is starting your next business or the business you always wanted to start, but it doesn't have to be that anymore.

Right? It could be the foundation that you wanted to, or the orphanage you wanted to start, or, you know, the, the million meals that you wanted to give away, whatever. Whatever it is. Now you're in a position, and this is where it just, it's, it's like a vortex that spins on itself faster and faster. Oh, yeah.

In a better way. When you can start to envision a future better than yourself, which now motivates you to get your feet on the floor and get in motion on those seven different asset classes. That now you're excited to go 

Matthew Grishman: build? Sure. Well, you, you talked about this in the last episode that, I mean, there's no job on planet earth [00:41:00] that has more impact potentially than that of the president of the United States, and we referenced that last time and when it's so important and, and so meaningful to this conversation that we gotta bring it up again.

I mean, a hundred percent when you think about the impact. And the pinnacle of one's career as president of the United States, and yet someone like Jimmy Carter who created a bigger future. I mean, the number of presidents that created a bigger future beyond being leader of the free world is just mind blowing.

It is mind blowing because of the personal planning work that was done in advance of coming outta the White House, knowing start, and I would even challenge to say that I bet, and I don't know this from talking to any of them, I've met one of them once, but I haven't talked to. If any of them about this, I would imagine they started with the end in mind.

I would imagine they went into the presidency prepared. For what life after the presidency was going to look like. Oh, I, or at least they had [00:42:00] an idea of it. 

Jim Gebhardt: I wanna, I, I so desperately wanna believe that 

Matthew Grishman: I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna believe that you're putting it out there. I'm putting it out there. I like it.

And maybe there was some refinement based on how did the presidency go, because I don't think Jimmy Carter walked into the office thinking that he was gonna lay a turd for four years as a president, only to come out the other side as one of the most influential. Impactful humans ever to walk planet earth.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. So maybe a little bit of both. I think the payoff to having this newfound capability, this almost paradoxical capability, is you've now given yourself limitless growth. You've, you've literally taken all ceilings. Glass ceilings, wooden ceilings, tarred, roof ceilings, whatever plaster, whatever your dad used to build.

I mean, you take, all of that now is gone and it's just limitless. You, like you've said, you've become capable of creating these bigger futures and something that [00:43:00] you and I have learned before, and we seem to experience this over and over and over, is the idea that there's no arrivals. Yeah. And this just reinforces that, that even.

Even after the largest singular transaction of our business career, although for you and me, that feels like the top of a pretty big mountain. You and I have been up and down enough mountains to know that once we get to the top of the mountain, there's another mountain. There's another mountain right behind it.

Yeah. Right. I mean, this goes to universal law number four that I got to share with our fourth year dental students, which is, there's no there, there, which is a statement that could mean a lot of things for me. It means there's no arrivals when, when I get there. Now what? 

Jim Gebhardt: That's some of the aversion that you and I, even though a lot of people in financial planning land would say, you know, one of the, one of the core tenets of what we do is we help people prepare for retirement.

Matthew Grishman: Yes. 

Jim Gebhardt: Well, another one of the paradoxes is that you and I really can't stand the concept of retirement. 

Matthew Grishman: What is retirement? 

Jim Gebhardt: [00:44:00] Right. Well, in the conventional sense of, you know, I'm done. Right. I earn no more money. I don't really do anything else other than pursue a life of leisure that that's oversimplifying.

I realize for a lot of people, and there's a lot of people, 

Matthew Grishman: and it's going away 'cause that, that's for those that can even get to that point. If that's what you covet, 

Jim Gebhardt: Ooh, 

Matthew Grishman: that's a, that's gonna become a privilege and not a right. Yes. Right. Just with the world we live in today, the concept of old retirement is going to become a privilege, and this is part of what's driving me to help entrepreneurs reinvent retirement.

Thank you Hank, my dad, for introducing that to me and showing me what retirement really is, which is this idea that we walk through a doorway of, have to, to want to. Mm-hmm. Where now I don't have to show up today because I have to, I show up today because I want to. What gives me the ability to change that have to, to want to, having seven asset classes in my whole wealth [00:45:00] and having the clarity, the confidence, and the capability to see how all seven of those asset classes are best allocated in my life to support what really matters most to me.

So I think we've expressed how clarity, confidence, and capability are the three big reasons why personal planning is so important. 

Jim Gebhardt: 100%. 

Matthew Grishman: Here's what we need to do about it. We're gonna wrap things up here and I want to challenge the tribe immediately here. Which of these three Cs do you need most? Do you need clarity?

Do you need confidence? Do you need capability? Write it down. Why do you feel you need that? How is it not showing up in your life the way you want this week? Right. We, we are big believers in the laws of diminishing intent. If you don't do something about this today, your intent to do something about it will diminish by half every day you put this off.

So I would say not just [00:46:00] this week, but today, schedule one conversation with someone who's done this transition Well. Who do you know in your world that has had a successful business exit? Talk to them. Learn about what they did to plan for it. 

Jim Gebhardt: And you know what? I bet you're gonna find no. Tell me. You might get introduced to a who or two.

Ooh, 

Matthew Grishman: very good. Unintended consequences. 

Jim Gebhardt: I bet. I bet they didn't do it alone. 

Matthew Grishman: Probably not. And maybe just maybe when you, I 

Jim Gebhardt: guarantee you they didn't do it alone. 

Matthew Grishman: If they were successful at it, they didn't. 

Jim Gebhardt: Correct. 

Matthew Grishman: And maybe when you sit with that person, you start getting a little more clarity on the bigger picture, and you can start believing that your best days are actually ahead of you, not behind you.

Get those things done because in the next episode, oh, what's that? Now that you understand why personal planning matters, we're gonna dive into the all elusive how dumb, dumb, dumb. So we as your quarterback and [00:47:00] who's for personal planning, are going to take you through from a very high level what our actual process is for helping someone get through personal planning and get that clarity, confidence, and capability that they come in searching for.

And with that my friend, 

Jim Gebhardt: that's a wrap. 

Matthew Grishman: Thanks for joining us today on the Whole Wealth Journey. Are you ready to start planning for a future that's rich in wealth and wellbeing? 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, where do people go?

You can find us at ge hart whole wealth.com. That's GEB. H-A-R-D-T whole wealth.com. We'll see you next time. 

Jeff Holden: Jim Gehart is a registered representative of Integrity Alliance, LLC. Securities and Investment Advisory Services offered through [00:48:00] Integrity Alliance. LLC, member SIPC. Gab Hart Group Incorporated is not affiliated with Integrity Wealth.

Jim Ghar and Matthew Grishman are investment advisor representatives of Gab Hart Group Incorporated a registered investment advisor. The opinions in this podcast are for informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or investment recommendations to determine which investment 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 Integrity Alliance LLC. The topics discussed and opinions given are not intended to address the specific needs of any listener.

Gbb Hart Group Incorporated does not offer legal or tax advice. Listeners are [00:49:00] encouraged to discuss their financial needs with the appropriate professional regarding your individual circumstance.