Episode 1: Welcome To Melby Money!

In the inaugural episode of The Melby Money Show, host Shaun Melby shares his personal and professional background, detailing his transition from aspiring architect to financial planner. Shaun talks about his middle-class upbringing in Wisconsin, his academic journey through the University of Minnesota and Belmont University, and his subsequent career in the entertainment industry as a business manager. He explains his motivation for starting his company, Melby Wealth Management, which focuses primarily on helping millennials with financial planning. Finally, Shaun introduces the podcast's mission to educate listeners about personal finance and wealth building, and outlines the show's format and release schedule.

00:00 Welcome to the Melby Money Show
00:47 Shaun Melby's Background and Journey
01:26 Discovering a Passion for Finance
02:32 Career Beginnings and Challenges
05:05 Founding Melby Wealth Management
05:17 Purpose of the Podcast
06:24 Podcast Vision and Conclusion

This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only.  This podcast is not financial advice.

Transcript

Episode 1: Welcome To Melby Money!

 [00:00:00] welcome to the first episode of the Melby money show. I'm your host, Shaun Melby. And I'm really excited to get this episode out there. I've been wanting to have a podcast for a long time and the stars are aligning and the time is right to finally get this thing off the ground. For this first episode, I wanted to tell my listeners a little bit about myself and my background, why I started my company, Melby wealth management, and why I'm starting this podcast and what I hope listeners can get from it. 

First about myself and my background. 

I grew up in a very middle-class family in small town, Wisconsin. After high school, I originally went to the university of Minnesota where I thought I was going to be an architect, but after my freshman year, I transferred to Belmont university in [00:01:00] Nashville, Tennessee. Belmont for those of you who are not familiar as an incredible music business and music production program. If you look at Belmont's alumni and their Wikipedia, you will be impressed. When I enrolled, I thought I was going to be more on the creative side of things, either writing songs or working in a recording studio. And the thing with Belmont is there so many talented people that I realized relatively quickly, I did not have the chops to make it on that side of things. But around this time I was questioning my educational path. 

I started taking the intro to finance class, required for all business majors, to be honest, I really didn't know that much about finance. I was familiar with the idea of a 401k, but that was about it. But during one of the first classes, the professors discussing the concept of the time value of money and compound interest. For those who aren't familiar this essentially means that when you invest your money and that money grows, it compounds on itself and it grows faster and faster over time. So the amount that you invested ends up being much larger than the initial investment. So the professor was explaining this and [00:02:00] I was just enthralled with this lecture and all the calculations. It was a true light bulb moment. 

I don't remember another lesson that excited me like this one I was experiencing. By the end of the professor's explanation and showing how to calculate everything. He asked if anyone in the class had questions. And this is how I remember it, but every single hand went up. Except mine. And I looked around the room and I thought to myself, Maybe I should look into adding a finance major to go with my music business degree. So from then on I was a double major in finance and music business. I graduated from Belmont in December of 2008. 

And for those that don't remember, that was a horrible time to look for a job. I spent my last semester in New York city with the hope of getting a job there. But the economy was on the verge of total collapse instead of living in New York city or Nashville. I was back in my parents' basement in Wisconsin. In the middle of winter. Not exactly a fun time in my life. But after a few months, I got offered my dream job that combined my love of music, business, and finance. As a business manager for [00:03:00] entertainers and those who work in the entertainment industry. And just given it was a Nashville. 

I worked with a lot of country artists that you've heard. A business manager handles everything money-related for the artists. I did everything from paying their utility bills to running payroll for their band and crew to running tour budgets for arena level tours across the country to preparing tax returns, to purchasing farms. When I say anything money-related I mean, it. I did this for 10 years. And early on in those 10 years, I obtained the certified financial planner certification in 2012. While Iove the job is very heavy and taxes and accounting with a little bit of financial planning and investment sprinkled in. And while I was good at the accounting and taxes. It just, wasn't what I was passionate about. 

I was coming to this realization that I wanted to do more financial planning, investment management for people in a really wanted to help millennials. I wanted to help the millennial generation because I witnessed firsthand just how devastating the great recession was I was fortunate to land in an [00:04:00] incredible opportunity. But that didn't come with the salary. 

I thought I'd be making truly is about half of what I thought it would be making just a year earlier. And I was one of the lucky ones. So our generation was dealt a bad hand at the beginning of our careers, and we're just now getting to the point of higher earnings and all that entails. Many are starting families navigating the world of paying for expensive childcare while trying to save for college at the same time. Some self student loans they're figuring out you may be trying to sell your starter home for your forever home, or you're at a point where you're just now starting to buy your starter home. 

There are a lot of planning issues. 

We face that really dictate where we as a generation end up with retirement and wealth building. But the financial services industry. Isn't really set up in a way to help us. Most advisors work with people who are retired or about to retire because that's where the assets are. And most advisors are paid on how much in assets they are managing. Since millennials are in the wealth building stage of life, they don't have the assets yet that the majority of advisors would want to work with them as [00:05:00] clients. I felt compelled to work with this group of people and do it the way I think would best help them. 

So I took the leap in 2019 and started my own company, Melby wealth management. I'm currently in my sixth year of operation and the median client age I work with is 38. So I'm helping exactly who I want to help. 

Now that takes me into why I'm starting this podcast. It stems from wanting to educate people on all things that make up personal finance. Because there just is a lot of complicated stuff people need to navigate. And there are a lot of barriers to entry to actually work with a financial planner. With my company. I know I'm not the most affordable advisor to work with. 

And I wanted to still educate those who maybe one day will be in a spot to work with a financial planner, but they're not quite there yet. These people still deserve some access to that education and the best way to reach them at scale because there's only one of me and I can't work with everyone as a client in my company. Is through a podcast and social media dedicated to educating listeners. The main thing I want listeners to take away from this podcast is learn more about money, personal [00:06:00] finances and how to build wealth.

I truly believe the millennial generation is at a crossroads on whether we will have things better off than our parents. And in turn, getting our children in a position to have things better off than ourselves. But that isn't going to happen on its own. We need to be diligent about the money we make and smart about where that money goes to work for us. I hope through this podcast, I'm able to educate and teach how to do that in a way that is simple to understand. My vision for this podcast is 15 to 20 minute episodes released every other week. 

So it's not overwhelming your feed. And I'm able to release these in a length that isn't a huge commitment for my listeners. So they have it. That's the first episode short and sweet. I hope you learned something about myself, how and why operate and think the way I do about money and who I want to serve. If you have any questions, you'd like me to answer on the show. You can email them to sean@melbymoney.com. 

It would really be an honor. If you subscribe to the podcast, especially this first episode, since many of the algorithms. Please a heavyweight on early episodes. But also, so future episodes show up in your feed. 

If you [00:07:00] feel compelled to leave a review or rating. I'd appreciate that. As well as getting feedback will only help make this podcast the best it can be. And finally, if you'd like to receive my free email newsletter, you can sign up at my website, Melby money.com. Farewell and I'll see you on the next episode of the Melby money show. [00:08:00]