Financial Planning Made Simple with Financial Advisor Tyler Guy

In this episode of Clarksville Insider, host Josh Atkins sits down with Clarksville native and financial advisor Tyler Guy for a practical, down-to-earth conversation about money, investing, and financial planning. Tyler shares why having a plan matters more than trying to time the market, and how emotions often become our biggest obstacle to making wise financial decisions. Along the way, they discuss the power of starting early, the importance of defining your goals, and why financial planning isn't just about retirement—it's about creating the freedom to enjoy life while preparing for the future. Whether you're just beginning to think about investing or you're wondering if you're on the right track, this episode offers encouraging, easy-to-understand advice that can help you take the next step with confidence.

SHOW NOTES:

Contact Tyler!

931.552.0110 (Work)

931.206.8948 (Cell)

tmguy@rwbaird.com

Office Address: 212 Madison St Clarksville, TN 37040

Transcript

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Well, welcome back to Clarksville Insider. I am your host, Josh Atkins, Alike the Diet. And this is the podcast where we get to know the people who live, work, and contribute to Clarksville community. We hear the stories, experiences, and perspectives that help make this place home. Now, today's guest is Tyler Guy. He's a friend, someone who helps people think through some of their biggest financial decisions and goals in their lives. So we'll talk about his journey, his connection to Clarksville. How people think about money and financial planning and what he's learned working with people as they plan for the future. Man Tyler, welcome to the show. Man, thanks for having me. I appreciate appreciate everything and look forward to to our chat. I'd love to help the audience get to know you a little bit better. Just a little background info. So you're originally from Clarksville, right? Yeah, absolutely. ~ born and raised here, kinda the heart of town and ~ grew up, went to ~ the Clarksville school system, graduated from Rossview and made my way out to U T Martin to play golf there for a few years and yeah, just Clarksville kinda grabbed me and pulled me back in. So so I I it's amazing to see the change over time. Yeah, I think ~ that Godfather three, just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in. You It's the Clarksville's got a way of doing that. It's got a way of doing it. At any point while you were at UT Martin teeing off, going, man, I am never going back. I I feel like some people are like, man, I got I just gotta get out of here. But then it's like, it's not that bad. Like once you get that distance, it's like, yeah, that was pretty good. And then I would imagine there's probably a lot of people just like you who feel that. Yeah, Martin for me was far enough away from Clarksville to to kinda be out on my own, but close enough to come back when I needed to. and it's kinda one of those once you remove yourself, you kinda you can see the good things that are in it rather than being in it at the time and then man, what a great place. I mean, voted number one to raise a family. and we've seen the boom of of people coming in. It's it's nothing but good things. Yeah. And so a little bit of job background history. It it seems like you you're you have degrees in accounting and finance, which is, you know, really cool. And I'm I'm sure you see how those work out and interact a lot of times. But what would you say is the difference between like the way an accountant thinks about money? I guess we're just gonna dive right in.~ thinks about Yeah, no, I love it. Thinks about money and the way like a financial advisor because that's that's role, right? You're you're you're a financial Yeah. advisor. So from from I I started out in the corporate world in a in an accounting coming out of college, was kind of told with an accounting degree you're gonna either gonna do audit or tax. It's kind of the two things that they kind of point you down and did not like either of those. Just wasn't my cup of tea. really had a passion of just trying to help people and accounting is a great background to have. But at the end of the day, ~ just didn't quite fit my personality. And so the way that that I've kind of seen the the the difference in thinking about stuff is, you know, accounting is very black and white. It's very much a this is the right way to do it and the wrong way to do it. And you know, at the end of the day your your debits and credits have to equal to to zero out at the end of the month. Whereas a financial advisor, it's more of tailored to an individual. It's the it's the personal touch, it's the everyday looks a little bit different. And that's exactly what I love. I mean, no no two situations are the same. no two conversations are the same. And so getting to walk through life with people as an advisor and kind of help them achieve goals and and you know, reach those milestones of what they have to whatever the goals are, you know, that's that's what I love to do and and just helping. So big reason of why I made the push to to be an advisor is is to help. Yeah, it I feel like the the accounting you said black and white and it's like,~ shouldn't have done that. ~ now you're in trouble. Yeah. Yeah, that's Like that's that's what no one wants is a is an audit. So ~ you know, Yeah. figured figured the best way to it's great experience to have. I'm really glad I did it. it gave me the professional experience starting out of how to talk to people. not sure if I would have jumped into being an advisor at twenty three, just right out of college that, you know, people would have really trusted me. I had a lot more hair and ~ just kind of looked young. And, you know, just learning learning how to talk to people, learning how to conduct yourself, just having that experience really helped, I think, set me up to have a future as a as an advisor. Would imagine when anybody hears financial advisor and you you probably deal with this all the time, there's there's probably something or some vision of what the job looks like that people are stuck in, maybe based on their experience or they have no experience and they're like, Well, I don't know, maybe he flies on a magic carpet and tells people not to buy stuff. Like there's there's gotta be misconceptions all over the And so what what do you feel like are maybe some of the biggest misconceptions and and how would you either correct them or kind of guide people along to really what the heart of what you do is and how you help people? Yeah, so the industry itself, the role of financial advisor has changed a lot. used to, if you wanted to to invest, whether it was buy buy a stock, call it Coca-Cola, Disney, you had to go through somebody like myself that would be a considered a broker to do it. and now with the invention of, you know, Robin Hood or Charles Schwab or or Fidelity, a lot of people have the access straight on their phone where they can do it themselves if they want. So the In order to be successful, ~ Baird was really good about kind of seeing the the down the pipeline what was coming and realized that hey, people want more than just investment return. So so the business went from a transactional relationship to an actual service oriented and relationship, where that way we're walking through doing financial planning, doing tax planning, estate planning. All of these things that people wanted and weren't getting just because they were worried about returns or investing. now you you we kind of bring all those pieces together to to help you know people walk through their financial life. so ultimately it's it it looks a lot less of you know day trading. That is not what we're doing. ~ I'm not coming in every day and saying, hey, this stock's up, this stock's down, we need to get rid of it. There is part of that, but one of my favorite things to tell people is, you know, money's a lot like soap. The more you handle it, the less you're gonna have. So if we're trying to make those decisions on a daily basis of what's the right thing to buy, what's the wrong, you know, what should we get rid of, eventually we're we're gonna get it wrong more times we get it right. time is your friend. And ultimately having a plan, building that plan with clients, sticking to it, and then making changes as life happens, because we know everything we decide today if we're meeting is you know, a year from now. five years, ten years down the road, it's gonna look a lot different than what we have today. And so how do we adapt with what's coming and, you know, make the necessary changes to achieve the goals they want to get to? feel like I didn't hear anything after kind of like soap. just I was like, man, that is awesome. Like I was just Yeah. I I love stuff like that. ~ it's like, well I guess and you need it to function in society. Like you gotta have at least some of it to to Yeah. be a productive member around here.~ I know for us, just even us by that I mean my wife and I like we we didn't even think about talking to anybody about financial planning or just even what to do with what doing right now or any of that until I think we were I was like thirty five. And so I hear all these you said time is your friend and I'm like, man, how much how many years did I just float not doing this or not doing that and and really missing out and And it it was just kind of interesting to me, but like, why do you think so many people or I would imagine there's a lot of people that delay talking to somebody about financial goals or someone like you just to even talk through where they wanna be in five let alone five years. why what keeps people from doing that? I think there's a a misconception around like, hey, I don't have enough. You know, hey, I need a X amount of dollars in order to be able to talk to somebody or have somebody manage it. And while part of that might be true, you know, I'm sure I'm sure a lot of advisors have minimums. You know, we we obviously we have minimums, you know, we can't help every single person that has five dollars. but at the same time, there's a lot more that goes into it than just like, hey, I have to have 10,000 or 100,000 or a million before I can actually have a professional help me. it's a lot of how do how can we help you get there? So, you know, I love working with young people. It's a it's a great, it's it's really one of my favorite things to do is is kind of show them, hey, even just having habits early of whether it's a hundred dollars a month or fifty or five hundred or whatever that number is for you, just starting is the hard part. You know, build building that habit and being diligent, it's hard.~ but kind of show hey, it's not gonna be something where you look at it and go, Man, I really you know, I started with five hundred dollars and I've turned five hundred into ten thousand like just like that. It's something that takes time and it's patience, but it's one of I the easiest way for me to explain it is it's like pushing a boulder up a hill. You know, it's you once you it's hard to get started and it takes a lot of work and effort to push it to the top, but once you can reach that crest and the ball starts rolling down the other side. you can almost put it on autopilot and that compound interest over time really it takes off. it's a lot of patience, a lot of time, and a lot of just really good habits over stretches of your life. And the sooner you can start the better. Yeah. And I think there are probably a lot of people that they see that boulder, they see the hill and they're just like,~ I I there's just no way. I c I couldn't even move that an inch and it's like, Yeah. guys, like use the use the stick, use the tools, like get ya get ya moving. but yeah there's couple Yeah. And and again it's it's the first step. And and a lot of times the first step is the hardest. You know, getting something that's stationary to into motion takes a lot more effort. And then once you're in motion, again, it be kinda becomes a rhythm. You can you it becomes a habit over time and it's like, Man, I you know, I started with for instance, hey, I started with a hundred dollars a month. You know, I started from zero, started with a hundred dollars a month, and then over time as you get pay raises, you know, that slightly increases every year or whatever, and before you know it you look back and you're 30 years you you know you start at thirty and now you're sixty and you look back at getting close to retirement going, man, I'm really glad I did that for myself. You know, I turned a hundred dollars a month into, you know, who knows, maybe even close to a million. And it would have never happened if you would have, you know, waited 10 years or five years or twenty years. And hey, now I finally have enough to start. Well, now you've got to invest a lot more to play catch up. And I'm sure we've all seen those TikToks and reels where it, you know, puts the numbers next to each other and kind of breaks down the compound interest. But like as far as like a specific goal, like how important is it for someone to have something, some sort of financial goal, how important is it to have something specific as opposed to just, I don't know, I'd like to have more? Well, I you know, everybody's different and so a goal for me is gonna look a lot different from a goal for you. but I I think goals shift over time as well. You know, where where you stand in your early twenties is you're right out of college and you probably have a you know, maybe an entry level job and you're trying to buy a house or or find a place to rent or and just figure out how to be an adult in the in the real world. and the goal might be, hey, I'm gonna just start saving. And then, you know, five years down the road, maybe you get married or or s have a kid or whatever. And it's like, man, now that goal of at least I've started saving, now that goal is, hey, what about sending a kid to college or thinking about their future? And so I I I think it just kind of morphs over time. so it's ultimately I you know, it's great to set numbers and say, Hey, I wanna start, you know, I wanna have a million dollars or five million dollars or whatever that number is by the time I turn sixty or fifty or you know, name the age. But Ultimately it's just again taking the first step of, hey, I want to invest in myself. This isn't a get rich quick scheme. It's a long, you know, it's a it's investing in yourself that that one day you can look back and go, man, I'm really glad I did it. because ultimately, you know, there's always going to be something that comes up of, man, I got a raise and that lifestyle creep that goes with it. And then all a sudden you're making more money than you've ever made and you're spending more money than you've ever made. or you know, ever ever spent. And so it's real easy to if you don't have the habits early, it's hard to break And, you know, we see some scenarios where we'll r we'll walk through a situation with clients and they say, Hey, you know, I'm for instance, fifty years old and I want to retire in ten years and I've just started saving in a four one K and I want to buy a beach house and we're like, I I don't know how this is going to work out, man. You know, there's a lot of things we can do, but a lot you know ultimately we don't have a magic wand of hey, this is gonna get you there. Like it's it's just something that the earlier you can start the more successful more chance of success you have. Yeah. I would imagine with with how people think about and talk about just money in general. And then like to try to to try to have a conversation with you or somebody in this field that is like, all right, tell me about your goals. All right, now show now how much have you saved? Like it's it's gotta be I mean awkward is probably some some portion of it, but just like like really really getting people to talk about that, I imagine that's gotta be a little bit of a the task because there's there's elements of like people's lives where they're very rational. Very I do this, I do this, this is my job. You know, we clean the house on Friday afternoon. Like everything is lined up, but it's just like it comes to money. It's like, hey, have you seen the news? I don't know. Yeah. Hor you know, bring it in, you know, and all those things Yeah. and you're you're fighting all of that. Why do you think Money seems to be the thing that just flips people's switches into just an irrational behavior that sometimes goes against everything they know or have been taught. Yeah, so I I mean I can go I feel like I can go a lot of different ways with this. for one, I think that money's always kinda been something that's not okay to talk about with people. So like outside of your family, for example, you know, you you don't really l shine a light with your next door neighbor on, hey, I've got X amount of dollars in my retirement or hey, I make this amount of money. It's just kind of something that's always been, you know, internalized or hey, we're gonna keep this private. And you know, when you were when you started working at twenty-five and or, you know, eighteen, twenty-two, twenty-five, whatever that number is, and you were making fifteen thousand dollars a year that you'd sit here f you forty years later and go, man, we're worth over a million bucks. and being able to celebrate those, you know, celebrate the wins. And I think that's what a lot of people just it's hard to find that person because it's not it's just not something that a lot of people are comfortable talking about. And so I guess to tie that all back in. is getting people to open up and in in a comfortable way when it's something that they've not been comfortable talking about for a long time is sometimes difficult. But, you know, try to it it's not a grill like I'm not gonna sit here and grill you on, man, you know, y how much is in your bank account and how much money do you make? Like th no one wants to open up and and just divulge that information to a random stranger. But if you can approach it in a way that's, you know warming and and inviting, you tend to get people to open up and they really kind of share. And the the I mean the coolest part is taking those different puzzle pieces that people have worried about with hey, I'm gonna worry about my saving in this bucket and my retirement here and insurance in this bucket and you know getting kids through school or whatever that looks like and just putting all those pieces together and hey, here's the picture. Like I'm gonna paint the picture for you. I just need you to give me the puzzle pieces to to help put it together. And then, you know, say, hey, here's a here's a roadmap of how we get from A to B to C. And again, you know, retirement's not just the end goal. You know, most people retire, you know, let's just say sixty-five is a an average retirement age. You know, used to I think there was a mentality around you work your whole life and you save, save, save, and then when you hit retirement, it's like, okay, this is what I've got. When in reality You know, the the kind of the new way of thinking is people live longer and we hope you still have thirty plus years if you retire at sixty five, that this money has to still continue to work and we have to have a plan of, hey, we know we're spending it, but it still has to grow. There has to be an element of growth with it. And, you know, you've still got a third of your life left at retirement, or we at least we hope. And so how can we make this money last as long as possible so people outlive or don't outlive their money? Yeah. 'Cause like that that first way of thinking almost seems like like the storing up like the ants in the grasshopper story where you just put as much away as possible and then you retire, stop working, and then you just pull and you're just hoping as Yeah. that number depletes. But I mean you said it, the goal is to have enough to come out, but the money that's there continues to grow and and not not from a get it to zero point, but it's like, okay, this could be this could be our family trajectory going a whole different way. This could be the start of, you know, maybe we've had four generations of just people that have not handled or known what to do with money, but we're different. We're gonna we're gonna change and we're gonna yeah, it's it's not gonna be that way for my kids. And so~ yeah, you get to you get to be right on the front of those conversations and I imagine you've probably seen a lot of people just even through those conversations, just almost like like those awakening moments, like I Yeah. never thought of it like that. I I mean have you have you had kind of any of those? Yeah, and so so I I y again, ~ I think kind of an old school way of thinking and it's not it this isn't like, hey, I'm picking on old people. That's not that's not what I'm trying to get at, but like the old school way of investing and thinking is like again, I save, I save, I save, I take risk when I'm young, and as I get older, there's less risk involved with how I invest, and then hey, this is the nest egg. It's all ha like I can't take the downside of the market and all this stuff. When ultimately, again If you were sitting here and we said, Hey, we're we've got thirty a thirty-year runway, that completely changes how people think. And like most people just don't think about that way. They think, Man, I I've reached retirement, now I'm not I don't have that steady income of a paycheck coming in anymore, and so my saving is done. Well, maybe that's true, maybe it's not, but at the end of the day, we know things cost more now than they ever have. We they're gonna continue to cost more. I don't think prices on anything are really going down. and so ultimately How can we help again the growth of the portfolio and help keep up to give you a raise in retirement? You know,~ we want to continue to to for you to live and live comfortably.~ and so there's again, there still has to be an element of growth along with, you know, yeah, we need we need to plan for some downtimes and make sure that not going to completely screw your retirement because the market goes down. That's a terrible place to be. That's a poor job on our part of managing the investments. But again, Have a plan, what are those goals, and then just paint the picture of hey, it's okay what the market does.~ 'cause a lot of times what I run into is especially as people get close to retirement, they watch a lot of news. and news is very negative. And it's that it's that fear. It's yeah, it's it's not designed not designed Yeah. for the the positive feelings. Correct. And so, you know, it's it's my job is to kind of take the like obviously we keep up with what's going on in the news, but ultimately it's to try to take the emotion out of it and say, Hey, you know, if this if you need this money in six months, the stock market may not be the right place for you because I don't know that six months from now the market's gonna be up. But I'm fairly confident that five years, ten years, fifteen years, twenty years down the road, you're gonna have more money than you have, you know, today, with investing. It's just, hey, we you know, there's a lot of events that happen in those year, five year, ten year and you know, how how can we make sense of it but also remove that emotion? So Yeah, I'm I'm sure there's moments that you're like where you have to be like, okay, trust me, remember what we talked about? Remember Yeah. this is that moment that I said would come. Relax. Okay, we gotta we gotta think about your goals because like it it does seem it does seem similar, you know, being in the real estate space. Like I would imagine you also deal with a lot of people that are very they feel like they missed out or Kind of like, well, what's the point? I'm already at this point because what I've dealt with is a lot of man, I wish I would have bought when interest rates were three percent. Okay. I wish we would have bought in 2022. I wish we would have, I wish I would have. And then it's paralyzation. There's no Yeah. movement because they're so stuck in this. Man, I just wish like. There's there's gotta be it that's a lot of what you're at least how I'm seeing it. Like you just probably have a lot of people like, Man, I wish I would have invested in Apple, you know, fifty Yeah. years ago or Amazon back, you know, it's like, Okay, well, you didn't, but how about today? Like you Correct. and it's just seems like there's gotta be a lot of like breaking people free from that to see what's in front of them when they're so stuck in what could have been. Yeah, and so for me that that that looks a lot like timing the market. and so, you know, y I'm sure people who have any type of social media have seen the get rich quick schemes of, you know, hey, you day trade and you buy at the bottom and sell at the top. Well, you know, that's really hard to do. and there's a lot more losers th and than winners when it comes to that. And so, you know, you're Yeah, the losers the losers they're not making TikTok. They're not making real time. Correct. So ultimately it's one of those where, you know, from from our point of view, there's always going to be some event. And you're, you know, you're never gonna buy at the the very bottom and you're never gonna sell at the very top. We just wanna be close. And ultimately, you know, whether it was COVID, whether it's the the you know, re revolution that we're in right now, or Or, you know, take it back to the financial crisis and the housing crash, you know, you name it, there's always going to be some type of event that an opportunity. But at the end of the day, there's no point in history where you can look back and go, man, everything was just smooth sailing and up to the right. Like there's always something going on that's gonna create some type of fear fear or some type of FOMO. And at the end of the, you know, if your runway is long enough, it you're gonna be successful. Yeah. And how much of how much of what you do is managing emotions? I almost like to not I you know, I I can't use this title, but I almost like to consider myself more of a financial therapist than than anything else. It's Yeah. Yeah. I bet. I would imagine like It's you know, it by by no means am I you know trying to trying to be a therapist by any means, but it's you know, there's a lot of emotion that goes with money.~ I mean that's what you know, ultimately, you know, they say money can't buy happiness, but you do have to have it. you know, there there is an element of that. Like things just cost. ~ it takes money to live and and ultimately there's the the fear associated with with money and losing or risk, ultimately there are different levels, but at the end of the day, when you start letting that fear or emotion take over and and kind of cloud that decision making, that's when bad decisions get made. And so again, my job is to kind of help it listen, obviously. Like, you know, I tell all my clients, hey, if you hear stuff or you have questions, feel free to pick up the phone, send an email, whatever that looks like, and we'll talk about it. You know, we're but ultimately does who's elected president or or what war or what you know stock market news is going on, does that ultimately impact five, ten, fifteen years from now? You know, probably not. the the market has a way that if you're hearing something now on the news, the market's probably already thought about it, digested it, and it's way past it looking forward, you know, what's coming down the road six months from now. So again, what what you're hearing and what you're seeing and and you know, it's it's probably not that big of a deal in the in the big big scheme of things. Yeah. It's it's like that scene from Devil Wears Prada. I'm sure you're a big fan. I am a big big fan. But the the scene the the scene is where she's wearing this like blue sweater and she's they're like trying to compare she's in with all these experts and she's like, I don't know, they look like blue to me or they look the same and the the main character's like she goes on this list of like pointing out her Like that sweater you're wearing is this color blue and you're wearing it because eight months ago this happened and these people said it was this Mm-hmm. and it was on this stage and all those things and like that's that's gotta be similar to how we get information publicly. Like like Yeah. the the stuff that you're hearing has already been and you you laid it out just just right, just the idea of if you're hearing it the market's already thought about it and probably adjusted to it. Yeah. I mean Yeah. and and don't get wrong, things happen, and I think in in where we're at in today's world, especially in relation to the market, that's there's gonna be a lot of choppiness. It's not something you know, if if there was if there were no bad news in the world as far that affect the markets and the market just for you know, the S P average let's just say is ten percent. If the market just went up ten percent every single year, No there would be no emotion. There would be no need to have a financial advisor because you go, Hey, I'm gonna invest and I know I'm gonna get ten percent and it's gonna go up and to the right every single time. We are here to help with the the fear and the bad times. You know, it's the no no one I again, no one likes to see their account go down in value, but ultimately that's when we can provide the most value to clients is hey, we have a plan, let's stick with it. We've accounted for the the downturns. We've accounted for the you know the wrecks on the interstate getting to Nashville that we got time to get off and get around and still get to where we want to be. You know, that's that's why we're here. Man. I've got what was what was the first one you said? Soap? I got then I got the road to Nashville. Yeah. those that's the stuff that that I'm cluing in on because I like word pictures that. So that Yeah. that makes sense, like knowing there's a crash at exit thirty one. Well I'm getting off at nineteen. And Yeah. And you know, again, we've built you know, it's it's not we hope that we we again, that's why having a financial plan is so important is that, you know, we don't want the picture to be, hey, everything has to go smoothly and correct in order for me to be successful. Like we don't need everything to go perfect. We need to account for the bad times. You know, again, we may not be able to account for every single thing that may ever happen in your life. Like that is, you know, the the best way I've learned to explain it is you know, thus being an hour from the airport, is if you've got a 12 o'clock, you know, noon flight, you leave your house at 2 a.m., there's a lot of things that can happen and you're still gonna make it. The flip side of that is, you know, if that that just means you could have slept in a little longer, you could have, you know, you could have packed that morning, it and essentially equating that to finance, you could have enjoyed your life more. You know, you you could have spent money, you could have enjoyed it, you could have been philanthropic, whatever those goals are that you have, you could have done it. And but we don't want you to leave the house at 10 30 for a 12 o'clock flight if there's a wreck on the interstate, there's no chance you make it or hey you park and it takes you an hour to get there and there's a line at TSA. Well, you've already missed your flight. You know, we we don't want to be in that boat. We want to be somewhere in between of, hey, we enjoy it and we're s we're comfortable, but at the same time, there are things that come up that, you know, you can be overly cautious and then not enjoy, not enjoy what you've saved. Yeah. And yeah, allow it kind of removing that margin factor. It's like, Okay, well, you can leave at ten thirty, but if there's a pebble on the highway, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. you're out of luck. So here we go. And so it Three you know, three hours. That's the that tends to be the sweet spot. An hour drive, get you there in plenty enough time, you're gonna make it, you know, we wanna live in that spot where it's the eight, nine times out of ten. You know, if we obviously we want you to be successful ten times out of ten, but it again, that's saying, Hey, you're leaving your house at two AM. And honestly, you know, if you've worked your whole life and saved your money, it's your money to enjoy. And that's part of what we get to help is kind of paint a picture of, hey, these are the goals you have. You know, obviously we want to help you if if part of your goal is to leave your family you know, inheritance or whatever that looks like. Yeah, but at the same time, you know, you could have enjoyed it with your family, you know, a as well. Instead of instead of just, hey, I, you know, I'm not gonna spend or I'm not gonna do this. And I'm just gonna leave everything and kinda, you know, not enjoy it to the life's fullest. Yeah, that's that seems like the Hollywood like the leave it in the will when everybody's gathered around the lawyer desk and it's like, Mm. Yeah. Well, why didn't you guys just go on vacation together? Like why didn't you guys like move Yeah. Yeah. closer so you've you've got photos and videos and experiences and memories, but it's Yeah, I had ~ my father in law kinda put it in perspective for me once. We were we were having a conversation and and he said, Look, you know, I can enjoy it, like I can spend the money and enjoy it while I'm here and do things with you, or I can leave it to you when I'm gone. I would rather enjoy it with you and have the experiences than just kinda, you know, not spend it and not enjoy it and then all of a sudden, well now I've passed and here's here's the amount, you know? ~ Yeah. and it's it you know, it's the that kind of put it in perspective of me of, you know, yeah, you Don't get wrong, you do need to save, but also like you save to enjoy. Like you so you don't have to work forever. It's the we want your everyday retirement to be Saturday, not every day to be Monday. And probably talking through that and and really like I think that comes back to goals and talking that out and going, okay, what do you really want? And it it almost seems well how much of your how much of your time in your conversations is spent helping people decipher between things they can control and things they can't. Yeah. And then reacting to one or the other. Yeah, and to be completely honest, that you know, it I one of my favorite things to say is control your And anything that's happening in the world is probably out of your control. You know, you can control your spending, you control your saving, you know. But at the end of the day, there's gonna be things that come up and I'm not saying that that news isn't important. I'm not saying that that watching the market isn't important. But hitting refresh Sure, yeah. on your app to s make sure your account's going up every day or if it's going down and then kind of freaking out about it, you know, that's just to me, that's not how I wanna that's not how I wanna live. that's not how I want my clients to live. You know, I don't tell them, hey, don't look at it. That's not that's not the point. But at the same time, like we hope that you believe in us and that the relationship is strong enough that you we're good stewards, but also again, defaulting back to that financial plan of saying, Hey, we have the roadmap. Every day doesn't have to be straight up in order like it doesn't have to be green on the screen in order for us to be successful. And if we are, then we're we may not be a good fit. Yeah. So like when you see those market headlines or just not even market but just like news headlines like, Hey, this person you know did this or hey this country over here and like all of those things and it's we're just seeing breaking news after breaking news. Like it's I know what it's meant to do in us, the audience, but when Mm. we're talking about or at least thinking about making good financial decisions and sticking to plans and keeping your eye on the goal, maybe that you've already helped someone set up. What are some questions that that people could be asking themselves before making like a an emotional s decision that could~ we escape. really, you know, set them off and and prevent them from reaching those goals? Yeah, I think I think the top of mind, the the easiest and earlier like the best question to ask yourself is like what is my time horizon? You know, if my time horizon for this X amount of money is six months from now, there's no telling what's gonna happen in the next six months. You know, I don't I don't have a crystal ball for that. if I did, I certainly wouldn't be sitting here in my office in Clarksville,~ you know, Mm-hmm. working every day. You know, I'd be retired on a on a yacht somewhere in the Caribbean. But You know, it it it's time. And so if if your goal is six months, then then chances are you're i if you're trying to say, hey, I'm gonna bet on the S P five hundred over the next six months, there's a lot of risk that goes involved with like that's involved with that. And if you know, if and let's just say, Hey, I've got this X amount of money to put for a down payment on a house, it's probably more important for you to have that X amount of money six months from now when you go to put it down than say, Hey, I've got fifty thousand for a down payment and I've put it in the in the To try to make a bigger down payment six months from now, well, it's it might be 45. You know, I I I don't know. And so I I think again, what's the goal? But then what's your time horizon? And if your time horizon is again that, you know, if it's if it's saving for the future of you know, five years, ten years, fifteen, twenty, thirty, you're gonna be successful. And then as those news events come up, it's hey, do I think this is going to be a problem five, ten, fifteen years from now? And if not, Then it's creating a buying opportunity. You know, at w typically I I most of my phone calls come when the market is close to the bottom. and it's hey, I want to get out. And trying to flip the mindset and go, hey, actually this is a great time to buy. So really when people feel the worst, it's probably the time you should be putting money into work. And then when people feel like, hey, I'm gonna wait till things clear up and I start feeling better about the economy. We're probably getting close to the top and that's probably time to kind of trim some profits off the top and have that cash available when it does pull back, you can buy in cheaper. for someone who's just beginning to think seriously about investing or just what to do with money, next steps that are bigger than go out to dinner and buy my kid a new baseball bat for little league.~ Mm-hmm. you know that that's kind of what I'm sitting in right now. But like what what are the foundational con concepts or at least like things that I mean you said the time horizon. Like what's my Mm. time horizon? Are there any other things that people should be thinking about really just letting the news cripple or you know keep them from either starting to have a conversation ~ with you or somebody like that, or it's just like, well, we'll we'll wait once this once we get a new president or we'll we'll wait till this settles down out here in California like all those Mm-hmm. kind of things. Like what kind of foundational concepts should people like, okay, this is what we do and this is what we base our decisions on? Yeah, I th I again, you know, I I think that's the importance of having that professional financial advisor, just to talk to. You know, that that's the reason that I have a job is to help put into perspective what's there's always going to be an event. There's always going to be a reason not to do something when it comes to investing. It's never you're There have been very few times in history where people have sat there and go, you know what, today's that like this is the best time to buy. There's always going to be something going on that's gonna keep people on the sidelines. and so again, it's it's talking it talking it over with someone and just kind of coming again, I I hate to keep using the word plan, but coming up with a plan of, hey, this is where I'm at in life. I wanna make some type of first step or some type of decision, and these are the things ~ you know, use me as an example of I'm here to have like put those conversations on paper and actually give you a roadmap. You know, that's that's ultimately why I do what I do. And so that first step is hey, just you know, where where do I start? Just start with picking up the phone and and you know, calling and let's have a conversation.~ Yeah, you mentioned ~ mentioned roadmap and like sometimes when I'll put in like directions to like I'm going on a trip to like out of state or something to a place I've never been. And it'll be like, Okay, here you go. And I'm like, but do I go left or right out of my driveway? Like now granted, I'm on a dead ed street, so I should at least know Yeah. to turn left but you how much of how much of what you do also is kind of laying out just like next steps okay don't Yeah, and like it's it's it's gotta be a weird dance of long horizon Mm-hmm. but today don't do that or today Yeah. do this, it's it's gotta be a weird push and pull. How do you how do you go back and forth between short term and long term with as they're really just kind of weighing all this stuff? Yeah, and so I mean I I think the easiest place to start is, you know, ~ kind of picking on on ourselves a little bit, you know, a little bit younger, younger kids, and again, th those those priorities that we had ten years ago look a lot different than those priorities today. and so as those come up and as life happens, we just ha we have to pivot. You know, we we try to we try our best to kind of be I like to kind of say our role is more of a CFO role. Like we want to be the CFO of our clients' lives. And so our job is to kind of facilitate almost all the things you don't want to do and make your life easier where you can help put on autopilot. And so again, it's the it's the beg the first steps are the hardest. It's getting people in the door, it's getting people to just take the time. you know, it's it's very rare that we receive phone calls just like random, like random phone calls. There's usually a reason that someone's reaching out to a financial advisor. It's something's happened or or hey, a parent, they've inherited some money. Some event has happened. You don't just typically have people walk in off the street and go, man, I was really, I just stumbled in here by accident. I'm not really sure why I'm here. There's something that triggers that. And it's again, it's just it's taking that first step. And so a lot of it is kind of showing, hey, if we starting with something and kind of showing them hey just st starting today what that can be 10 years 20 years 30 years from now and kind of again getting out of the driveway and making the correct first step and then you get more comfortable and then you just kind of create that habit of hey I'm I've I'm in the rhythm. You know I'm in the rhythm of making the investment in myself. You know at at this point it's become second nature and then you look back and man I I'm so glad 20 years ago I made the decision and it didn't wait until I got XYZ I got XYZ job or I made X amount of money or hey until I turn forty or fifty or whatever that looks like and go, Hey, now I'm gonna start. You know, it's again, the sooner the better. can you think of a time, maybe like a story where like you helped someone see you know, they they came in when some they had some goals or life circumstances and they changed the way they needed to think about their financial future, where like situation changed and helped them pivot and helped them really see this new perspective on what they could really accomplish. Yeah, ~ I mean Clark Clarksville's a very unique place in in the people that are here. You know, ~ a lot of we we work with we have a a large array of client base, I think is a great way to say it. You know, we have everyone from the people starting out and just trying to figure it out to the successful business owners that have sold a business you know, trying to figure out what's next. You know, we we help with all different stages of life. Clarksville is a unique place in that there's a lot of just hardworking people have saved in a company 401k or or whatever the case is and just have no like, hey, I've I've just put money into this thing and I'm getting close to the age of I just don't want to work anymore. Can I can I do it? You know, I'm just a little nervous on how to do it. And so a story of of working with someone in that phase of life of, you know. I kind of mentioned it earlier of hey, we still got thirty plus years. Like we can't just dig a hole in the ground and put this money in it and then go grab cash every time we need it. You know, there there still has to be some element of growth. And so kind of putting that into perspective of, you know, we're not we hope we're not the end of life. We hope we still have a third, you know, a fourth or a half of your life left, depending on when you're able to retire, and that you again, we we don't ~ you don't outlive your money, your money outlives you. And so again, putting that into perspective of saying, Hey, this isn't the end, this is almost just the beginning. Like maybe we've only reached 'cause most people if th if they start early, they're really not starting probably until their mid twenties, maybe thirties is when people really start thinking about it. And so when you put it into a financial perspective of your financial life is beginning at maybe thirty, of starting investing, and you retire at sixty, well, if you lived in ninety five, you're only halfway there. You know, so So we've still got a pretty long roadway ahead of us to to make sure that there's growth, that we're keeping up with, you know, inflation, and that again, you can still afford things as life goes on. Yeah. so if someone is listening today and they've never really sat down and thought seriously about their financial future or even their goals. And regardless of age, maybe they're young, maybe they're at that that perfect time where you would say, Man, you got a long, long runway, a long horizon, or even somebody that has has gone for a while, but it's like, Okay, today's the day, or tomorrow's the day, what would what would be a good first step, Yeah, honestly it's ~ the I think the easiest first step is to just either pick up the phone or or send an email and and reach out. I mean that's why we're here. We're here to help. and again, you know, it you can sit there and it's really easy to procrastinate if you just say, Hey, I'm gonna try to figure it out on my own. That's why we're here. You know, I do a twenty minute ask me anything. And so, you know, if someone reaches out and says, Hey, I just have questions, hey, well let's let's sit down and meet for for twenty minutes. Bring in your list of questions and let's see what we can get answered and and we'll try to point you. If it's not something that that, for instance, we're a good fit for, you know, I'm gonna be straightforward and say, hey, you know, maybe we're not the people that can help you right now. And, you know, hopefully that resonates and says, hey, but here's a roadmap of how I can get there, and then maybe we can have the conversation. the last thing I wanna do is is, you know, bring somebody in and feel like they've been taken advantage of, or hey, I'm chart like, the fee's too high for what we're doing or whatever, and then they have a bad taste in their mouth. That's the, that's the last thing I want to happen. And so the, you know, the foundation of our business is making sure the client comes first. Baird's really good about that as a company of making hey, the focus is the client. We always do what's right by the client and everything else takes care of itself. And so again, I would say the the easiest step is to just pick up the phone and call. How can people reach out to you? what's the best way? Is it email, is it phone, is it both? how can people touch base or reach out to you? Yeah, so ~ several different ways. One, you know, send an email. It's TMG at rwbaird.com. second way would be, you know, we can pick up the phone and call 931-552-0110.~ third way is stop by. I mean, we're located here in Clarksville, two twelve Madison Street. Pretty much downtown. easiest way I can describe it is if you get on Madison and just go straight towards downtown. You'll come to a stop sign that dead ends and you have to go right or left, take a left, and then an immediate right into our parking lot. So ~ you know, several ways to reach us. you know, we we we would love to have the conversation and and either help you the best we can and and you know, maybe it's with us, maybe it's not, but also we hope that, hey, this opens the door to at least pushing someone to think about their financial future and reaching out and saying, hey, I, you know, this is a good time for me to to have somebody walk alongside me.~ well cool. Well, Tyler, thanks for being on the show. And I I really enjoyed getting to hear about your journey from growing up here to Clarksville and coming back, building your career and really building into this community. And yeah, I also appreciate you taking the time to talk a little bit about financial planning in a way that makes the subject a little less intimidating. And I think a lot of people putting off thinking about their financial future because they assume They need to have everything figured out even before they start. But as we talked about, having a plan and simply starting the conversation can be an important first step. So man, thanks thanks again for joining Yeah. me, Tywin. Absolutely, man. Thanks for having me. Again, that that first step's just pulling out the driveway. That's why we're here. That's right. Well, cool. And ~ well, thanks everyone for listening to this episode of Clarksville Insider, your connection to Clarksville. Again, I'm your host, Josh Atkins, and ~ hope you hope you were able to find something beneficial through somebody that is connected to the community, connected to the area, and really believes in what's happening around here. So if you want to find ~ all the other episodes, you want to check in on how things are going, please feel free to subscribe. Check us out on Instagram, Clarksville Insider, Facebook, Clarksville Insider. And you can even email me at Clarksville Insider at Gmail. I would love to to hear from you if you got an idea for a topic or anything like that. So thanks again for listening and we'll see you around town.