Monica Kaufman: Why High Income Doesn’t Create Wealth and How to Take Control of Your Financial Future

In this episode of the Passion Millionaire Podcast, Robert Roth speaks with financial planner and wealth strategist Monica Kaufman about the critical difference between earning money and actually building long-term wealth.

Monica shares real client stories that reveal a hard truth: even high earners can struggle financially if they lack the right systems, habits, and mindset. From professionals with six-figure incomes and no savings, to families who quietly built lasting wealth through discipline, she breaks down what truly separates financial stability from financial stress.

The conversation goes beyond numbers. Monica explains how our beliefs about money are shaped early in life and how those patterns often drive poor financial decisions. She introduces the idea of “changing your financial operating system” by combining mindset shifts with practical actions like debt management, emergency funds, and strategic planning.

If you want to stop living paycheck to paycheck regardless of income, build real security, and take ownership of your financial future, this episode delivers practical insights you can apply immediately.

Contact Monica Kaufman:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/monica-a-k-39b02b14a/

Listen to the podcast:
https://rockandrollyourdreams.com/podcast/

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:02

Create a life of entrepreneurial freedom with insights from successful creatives, entrepreneurs, and investors. Discover how they overcame challenges and turned their biggest dreams into reality. They share their personal success playbook so you can build the business and life you truly want. Welcome to Fresh and Millionary. Today's episode of The Catch My Netflix.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Rock and Monica Kaufman, our guest today, I'm really excited because the one thing she knows well is finances, financial planning, and making sure that people who are successful in their career they make a good amount of money, money. So maybe you make a six-figure income, but you haven't built wealth yet, because those are two different skills make an income and then actually make that income grow so that your future has more and more money. If you haven't managed that yet, then we have the right guest today because she is working with a lot of people, helping them to create wealth. And unfortunately, there is people, financial planners out there who don't do the work the way it should be done. People get burned with wrong advice. And she is one of the ones who is fighting for the good and has helped people who got burnt getting out of the hole, which I believe is the right thing to do. So therefore, I'm really curious about what we can learn today about taking ownership of our financial future and wealth. Monica, welcome.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm very happy to be here. So thank and thank you for that incredibly generous introduction. I'm blushing a little bit. People may not be able to see that, but I'm a little embarrassed. But thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

So yeah, I'm excited. Feel free to, you know, correct if I said something wrong or just expand on it. I'm super curious. Give us give us a little more detail about who you are and where you're coming from, and you know, how how did you end up helping this exact type of person improve their lives and their financial wealth?

SPEAKER_02 2:16

So let me start off a little bit. Um, I started off in economic research and I hated it because I was crunching numbers. And they didn't really mean anything to people. Um after my husband had some issues with depression and my kids were very little, but they were in uh school, I wound up going to work um at Merrill Lynch, actually. And I had the opportunity to really sort of on the ground level challenge my own perceptions. So I was like a lot of people, I assumed that it was all about income. And income's great. And I want you to pursue your income legally, lawfully, ethically, responsibly for yourself. But I have to tell you, I saw two things that really brought something clear to me. The millionaire next door phenomenon is very, very real. And what that means is it's not just what you earn, it's what you spend and what you do with what you earn. And so what it boils down to is I had two referrals come in at the same time. One happened to be a, you know, blue cowler family. One of them was a paralegal, the other one owned some businesses when their daughter was born and she had some disabilities. They sold off the small businesses and they he wound up working for another small business. And they never really had an extraordinarily high income. They did well, but they had made the commitment very early in their marriage life that they were going to live off of one income and invest the other. And anytime any real money came in, whether it was an inheritance or a gift, whatever it was, it was invested. And so when they were put in a position where retirement decision and timing was sort of taken from them, they were more than well set up. Okay. Their daughter was completely taken care of financially. Everything was done. The estate planning was done. The wills and the trusts were reviewed every five years to make sure there weren't issues. They updated everything and they had more than enough money to do whatever they wanted to do. At the same time, I was given a referral and it was a physician. He had had a stroke, I believe. And if it wasn't for the disability insurance that he was given through work, he and his family would have had a very serious problem. So before he had been earning a tremendous amount of money, and then after this happened, things were much more constricted. Now they were okay, but they hadn't built the will out. And so I looked at this and I thought, okay, it's not what you would predict. You would think one would have more money than the other, but you'd probably get whichever one it was wrong. And I looked around and I saw the same thing was happening with some of the clients who had a lot of money inside the office. And one of the things I realized is that they weren't trying to impress people with what they had. They weren't wearing the designer logos, they weren't interested in your approval in terms of their money. They didn't, that was not what they were. They were about building out and using their money to build out the wealth to take care of themselves and the people they loved. And that's really what it became. Money is nothing more than a set of tools in your hands, but what you do with it is an extension of you. It's the same thing as what I do with my computer is an extension of what I type into the computer or what I put into the computer. Or what I do with a hammer is an extension of the will and the intent behind my use of the hammer. Now, obviously, I have to learn how to use a hammer or some of the you know more dangerous tools, but you can build with a hammer or you can break your ankles. Choose. Okay. So have you ever seen the movie Misery from Stephen King?

SPEAKER_00 5:55

I have not.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

Okay, well, there's this one scene that stays in my head. And every time I think of people doing damage to themselves, it it stays with me. And anybody who listens to this will know what that scene happened to.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Okay. But having said that, what I encourage people to do, and I also realize something else. Um, I've seen this, I've seen this in my extended family. Education is one thing, but that doesn't mean people have learned the financial system. Anybody can learn the system. Okay. Regular people can and do learn the system and build wealth and do it responsibly. It's a question of will. Are you interested and are you willing to learn the system? And unfortunately, one of the things that I've realized is that there are a lot of people who make a lot of money but don't know the system. Or there are a lot of people who make a lot of money, put money aside, and they don't understand and know how to hire an advisor who understands them and is working for them to help build out what they want. So, in part, there's this fear thing that comes with money. They've not been exposed to it. And it's very, very easy in that circumstance to wind up getting advice from the wrong person. So, have you ever gone to a um chamber of commerce meeting?

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Yeah, I I did, but not in the USA when I lived in Austria still absolutely I guess it might be similar.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

I'm guessing it probably is. But anyway, so everybody's there because they want to build their business and they want to make connections and they want to meet people. And that's right. So it's honest. Okay. And yet people would say, well, you know, this person, I I remember talking to somebody locally about chamber meeting. She said, Well, this person has money. And I said, How do you know that? She said, I just know. I said, How do you know it? She said, Well, I look at what they're driving and where they live. Okay, that house could be mortgaged to the Hilts. They could not have any furniture inside. It could have deferred maintenance. They can be driving a car they can't afford. The reality is, and this is something that's gone through in the book, The Millionaire Next Door, is the people who have money are the ones who don't waste it. Okay, so they may be more likely to have a car that they bought that's a nice car. They may have bought it used after two years, and it may be a beamer, but it may have been bought used, and they maintain it and take care of it for 10. Okay. Right. It's not what people think. And so people need to stop and think about it. It's like, what makes people, what makes you stop and change your behavior with money? We the psychologists have have told us and have demonstrated that you have an identity regarding money and success, and it's given to you by age six.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

So you think about that, it's like you're programmed, it's like an operating system, right? So that operating system wasn't installed by you, wasn't chosen by you. And it may or may not reflect what you need it to reflect.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Okay, so my question is, okay, so under those circumstances, if you don't see in your life what you want in your life, then listen on.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

You have to change the operating system. And that's based on the psychology. We know that just learning, 70% of the population, maybe 80%, depending on how you calculate it, are considered financially illiterate. And what that means is you don't know how to manage the system. You don't know how to work with the system. Okay, so we have a system that's got a huge problem where people don't know how to use it. It's been like this for several generations, and it's going back four, maybe five generations at this point. Okay, so then what do you do about it? If you just teach the system, you don't see changes. Why? Because you still have an operating system that's not working. And it may reflect beliefs that were appropriate and viable and reflected reality for somebody else 40 years ago, 50 years ago, 60 years ago. But they are. How do you change that? That's part of what we do in the Wealth Academy. We work on the belief system, we work on teaching what risk is so people learn how to manage it and they understand their risk tolerance, but they also understand how to build in flexibility, how to build up resilience. And the reality is, I think about it this way um, intuition. The best definition I've heard for that is from Chase Hughes, where he called it compressed experience. So the more you learn and the more you expose yourself to and start teaching yourself, and you're gonna have good experiences, and things aren't always gonna go the way you want to. But the more you learn how to manage that and how to manage your emotions with that, the more your intuition is going to be able to guide you. You will have that ability to access that compressed experience.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

So the program works on Can you give an example about that? Like real life example, maybe somebody you have worked with in the in the past in your academy, for example, that um made a huge transformation.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

Okay, there's a lot of them. I have I've had people that started and they had major financial issues. They had to get through debt, they had to get through, you know, sort of an, you know, they're like, oh my goodness, I don't have control over this. How do I work with this? How do I work with the other person? Um, I've had people walk through that. I had one person tell me that when he first realized that he was in debt, he was a very highly compensated engineer. What he did was he started every morning. The first thing he did after he got up in the morning was he sat down in front of his computer, his laptop, he opened it up, he looked at his bank account, he looked at how much money he had in his checking account, he looked at when all the bills were going out, and then he looked at his credit report, and then he checked any 401k that he had. And then he also checked his um his debt, where he was in paying it off. And by daily reminding himself and by daily checking the numbers, he was able to change how he managed it. He stopped being late on his bills, he stopped paying late fees, his credit score went up, and he was able to work through paying it off a lot faster. Okay. I have had people turn around and say, I've looked at them, young people, and say, all right, so you've got this amount in debt, this is your income, you're doing well, okay, but you took on student loan debt, and you're not in a situation where you feel like you can go home for whatever reason. Okay, you can't go back. So I've looked at them and said, okay, let's talk about your benefits. How are you using your benefits? And they've been like, Well, what do you mean by that? And I'm like, Well, the first benefit you need to have is long-term disability insurance through your employer, because I know your employer offers it. And they said, Well, why? I said, if something happens to you and through no fault of your own, you can't work, where do you go? And then they turned around and said, Well, how much is this gonna cost me? I said, if it costs you one adult beverage per pay period, would it be worth it to you? And they said yes. I said, if it costs you one adult uh beverage per week, would it be worth it to you? They said yes. Turns out it cost less than a Starbucks beverage per pay period for them to cover 70% of their income. Okay, because it was a large company and it was such a great policy. And then I also started working with people and saying, you know, okay, so you're getting, or you know, you're a married person and you've been, this is your second marriage. This is where a lot of the emotions come in. And you, this is your second marriage. You have a lot of resources, your spouse does not. Okay. You have been that person who lived well beneath your means to get to this point. How are you going to meet your obligations? How are you going to do this? And we looked at her entire financial holdings. And when she realized what she needed to do for him was not necessarily about assets. It was about protecting him so that he could live his lifestyle for the rest of his life, which was not extravagant. But even if it had been, it was a question of figuring out how to use her assets strategically to make sure that he was taken care of financially. And it what it did for her, it gave her peace of mind about having enough money. I don't know what had happened earlier, but there was something that had happened along the way. And she was able to calm down and be able to not allow financial issues to be the reason why a marriage of thirty a second marriage of 30 plus years ended. They were able to work things out.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Oh, well. Basically, um, there are all those different those two stories that you've just explained. And in order to change the operating system, like basically change behavior and therefore change results in life and also live a new life, and and knowing that you're growing it into a wealthy future because you are basically becoming a different person along the process. I'm correct me in case I'm interpreting too much, but that's the way it sounded like to me. Therefore, like the first thing you were doing was basically you look at their current situation financially, and you you help them look at what they are doing, what they are not doing, what opportunities they are there that they are not seeing, identifying those, and then we start even further back than that or okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

What I what I'm looking at with people first off in the academy in particular, or when I do one-on-one coaching with people, is I want to understand the operating system, the mindset, the beliefs that they're taking to their money. Okay, because that is what I need to work with. Sometimes it's a fear thing. If it's a fear, what is the fear of?

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Not having enough looking at the financial situation, but first you look at their belief patterns, their mindset basically.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Correct. What is driving them to have the conversation? Okay. So is it, oh my God, I got myself into hot water? Is it I had a situation where a young exec, okay, she was in her 30s, mom of two, called, and I wound up on the phone with her, and she got herself into hot water with debt, got into another program, and the program was not talked to her effectively. And so what she did was she borrowed money from family to get herself out of debt, and they were paying it off at an accelerated rate. And she turned around and said, and I said, Do you have an emergency fund? And she said, No. And I said, Okay, why? And she said, I don't need one. The first thing I need to do is pay off debt. And I said to her, Okay, we got a problem here. And she said, Why?

SPEAKER_01 16:50

I said, Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

And I said, What happens if, through no fault of your own, one of the two of you can't work? Why would that ever happen? I said, Because life happens. I said, Did you pay for disability? Well, my husband has it through work. What about you? I don't need it. Okay. So we have these conversations. And the whole thing had started, believe it or not, because she bought an estate planning package through that program. And I had said to her, Okay, so what's the estate plan that they're giving you? Because her husband was not comfortable with it. And I said, What is it that they're telling you to do? She said, Well, I just want to have a simple will and we'll give all the life insurance and whatever we have to my brother. And I said, So, okay, I have been in situations where I have seen that blow up. She said, Well, why would that blow up? I said, Okay, if your brother has a car accident and he has a judgment that's big and he inherits that money, okay, that money leaves if it's more than his insured amount. Well, why would that happen? If your husband is your brother married, yes, 50% of all marriages in the US end to divorce. How are you going to stop that money from being commingled and half of that leaving if he gets divorced? I said, and here's the other piece. If you give it to him, that's a complete gift. There's no obligation on his part that he has to take care of you. Well, why would he not do that? You're you're insulting my brother. No. What happens if he's not there? Who's the one that's going to step in? And what are they going to do what you wanted them to do for your kids? Husband agreed with me, wife did not. She and then she and I then went back to the debt conversation and I said, Look, I know you're paying it off at an accelerated rate. Did your family ask that of you? And she said, No. I said, Okay, what if you were to slow it down a little bit? Meet your obligation to your family. I'm not advocating that you not do that. But at the same time, put a little bit, a percentage of that away for an emergency fund. Why would I do that? Because if something happens and you guys can't pay for it, you're going to wind up back in debt again and the cycle begins again. She told me I didn't know what I was talking about. A few weeks later, the shutdown happened. She called me up and she said, I just wanted to let you know my company has laid me off. And I said, Are you going to be okay? She said, Yeah, but what you told us would happen is what's going to happen. I said, What do you mean? She said, Well, we're going to wind up back in debt again and we're not going to be able to pay off the family as fast as we want it to. We're going to have to pause that for a little bit. This is not rocket science. It's, it's, I understand people want to do one thing at a time, but when you're building your financial foundation, okay, when you when you have somebody build a road, they build a foundation, they have the guide rails, they have the rebar, and the rebar goes in two different directions to support the concrete. Okay. It's not built on one support system. It's got at least two, maybe three. And the foundation for your financial stability has three pieces. One, your mind when it comes to money, you're going to take ownership and rad radical responsibility. And two, it's going to be that debt reduction and debt management along with that emergency fund. And people look at me, I'm like, look, you can't, you know, if you have to walk them one leg because you have to, that's one thing, but you're not as stable as if you're moving on two.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

So we're talking about people with a high income. Those are six six-figure income people that and up. Wow, that's yeah, it's quite interesting.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

And it's it's really interesting because I had one woman call in a few months before the shutdown. And this was this was a watershed moment for me. She had been very successful, a few years older than I am, and you know, this was five, six years, six years ago. And I wound up on the phone with her, and um it was one of the most bizarre conversations I'd ever had. And what happened was she called me because she wanted to understand she had a pension from a previous employer, and it was cash value, and she had racked up about $110,000 worth of credit card debt and she wanted to pay it off. Okay. So I talked to her, I said, wait a second, explain something to me. What's your tax bracket? She was in the highest federal bracket. She lived in a state where she was at the highest state bracket. Not all states have income tax. Fine. So I said to her, okay, how much is the pension? And I think it was 189,000. That's the number that sticks in my brain. So at that point, with the federal bracket and the state bracket and the fact that it was a pension and she was under the age of 59 and a half, more than 50% was going to get paid in taxes and in penalties. So she was not going to be able to clear the 110,000. And I said, okay, we we got a problem here. I said, before we even get into this, I said, walk me through what type of emergency fund you have. She said, Well, I don't have one. I said, okay, can you tell me why? And what she said was, she got into this debt because her habit was to spend a lot, rack it up every year, and then use her end-of-year bonus to clear out the debt. And I said, Okay, well, all right. So what happened to your emergency fund? She said, Well, first of all, I got a new job and I got a signing bonus. She took her emergency fund and her signing bonus and bought a much larger, nicer house. Said, okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Lifestyle creep.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

You want to tell me what's going on? Tell me about your family and you know, how's your family dealing with the house? Well, the oldest one was already in college. The younger one was going to go to college in a couple of years. Her in-laws were paying for college. And I said, Okay, so you bought the larger house because she said, because I wanted it. Okay. But you wiped out your emergency fund and the spending continued. And she said, Well, what are you telling me is going to happen? And I said, Okay, so is your husband saving for retirement? No. Are you putting away money for retirement? No. How old are you? And at the time, I think she was 54.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

And I and I said to her, okay. And she said, Are you telling me I cannot use this to cover all of the debt? I said, You have a federal bracket of what? And she said, 37. I said, so this additional money will be taxed at 37%. You're in a state with a state tax. She said, yeah. I said, you're not 59 and a half. She said, okay, so I can't avoid the penalties. I said, no. And she got very upset. I said, look, that's the math. I said, let's walk through the rest of this because I want to advocate for you, not just today, but future you. And she said, What are you saying to me? I said, My my issue is you can cash this out, but this is the only retirement saving asset you have. Neither you nor your husband have put away money for retirement. How many people at your level of seniority? And this woman was fairly high up. Okay. How many people at your level of seniority have complete control over when you retire?

SPEAKER_01 24:13

She screamed.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

She screamed. And she hung up. The next day I got. Okay. And the next day I received a written apology. And then I got a phone call from her again. And I said, look, you know, I really didn't mean to scare you. I didn't mean to offend you. I'm not trying to hurt you. I want to call attention to you and advocate for you. Well, we're going to inherit. I said, that's great. But until you inherit, it's not yours. Okay. And quite frankly, if you don't manage it when you inherit, it won't be there. And the reality is, and I've had this conversation, when you deal with wealth, there's like a founder's effect. So the founder is the one who has the values to not only build it, but to cut to corral it, build it out as wealth. The next generation on average spends about 60 to 70% of it. The remainder is gone midway through the grandchildren getting access to the funds. So if you want to make sure that people can steward and manage the money so that it's there and it lasts, you have to teach them the values, the mindset, and the skills to get them there. And just inheriting money, why is it that most lottery winners are lottery, exactly?

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Yeah, same, same thing. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

Right. And and the whole point is like, look, don't get me wrong, I will buy the occasional lottery ticket. Okay. My friends find that funny. I have a good time with it. It's it's a five dollar bet. I it's but I mean, and it's fun. Like I will calculate how much do I get after taxes, how what do I give to charity, what does that look like? And I will map it out. Okay. For me, that's fun. But the point is that if you don't want to be one of these people who burns through everything you have and actually manages the money instead of having it manage you, if you don't manage something, it will manage you. Okay. You don't manage your possessions, they will manage you. If you don't manage your health, your health will manage or lack thereof will manage you. It's the same thing. And I look at people and I'm like, this is the reality. Okay. So the problem is that we don't teach the system, but also we have imprinted on people's minds through the culture an identity regarding money that is grossly unrealistic. So for example, something like 70% of all luxury items are bought by middle class and below.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Yeah. Okay, so quite interesting. Maybe, maybe I'd like to chip in a quick story there because we'd be talking um with somebody who works on a cruise ship and that basically is selling diamonds. And um, she said the exact same thing. Like um, even even I was like what what I learned, the main part is that a lot of those diamonds would also be bought on um yeah, on debt, basically. Right. And not out of cash. And um basically it's the same story and in a very specific field, and and it's like it's it's luxury and bought by people who can't afford it. Um yeah, quite mind-blowing, I would say.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

Well, like here's the thing about that. I mean, like the the millionaire next door talked about back in the 90s that the average price that these people who had over a million dollars back in the 90s, so let's say between seven to ten million dollars today, okay. These people had spent less than, I think, five thousand for their spouse's engagement rank. Okay, now that doesn't mean they didn't buy other jewelry, that didn't mean that they didn't buy nicer things or bigger things at a later date. But really, okay, you know, you look at this and you say, Well, what is this for? Are you trying to buy acceptance with your stuff? And my question is, if I have to buy things for you to like me, yeah, I don't think I really want you in my world.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Angled the right way. Yeah. I find it quite interesting, by the way, that you're bringing up the book Millionaire Next Door. So it's like it's a book I've read also a long, long time ago. And um like the main thing that I have personally taken away from is um kind of there's this idea of getting rich quick. And basically, this book is showing exactly the opposite. Not saying that's the only way to to build wealth or or make more money or whatever, but he's presenting a way that works, and it's get rich slow. That's kind of uh kind of how I took it. And also what you said, like okay, you don't see who who has money.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

Right, you really don't.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

And they drive the the beat the beat-up car and and all of that.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

But um yeah, it's it's very true, and it's amazing that you read that book, and it's still very real, and you see it with people. You know, you would never guess the the people that I've known that have made a tremendous amount of money, you would never guess by how they live that they have what they have. Okay. Now don't don't mistake this. They don't live poorly, they live nicely, okay? And they live in nice good neighborhoods, but they are not interested in your approval. They don't have to be avoiding elsewhere. Right. And it it's not about that. And it's it's there we know from the social psychology that there are about four major dysfunctional archetypes, and no one has just the healthy one, okay, or very few. And everybody has pieces from the different ones. So for example, like my mother grew up with nothing, absolutely nothing. Her parents got married in 34. Brother was buried, brother was born 35, she was born 38, okay? During the Great Depression, they were hit hard. And all of their resources went to her brother. All of them, all of their resources. So my mother got her first job between second and third grade. I I that blows my mind that somebody hired her. But that's what she needed to do to make sure that she had school clothes and shoes and that she was okay. And one of her most prized possessions as a child was her library card. So if I had a fine at the library, my mother looked at me, she's like, How could you possibly be so irresponsible?

SPEAKER_01 30:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

Okay. And that was a reflection of how she was raised and what she had to do. So one of the things that she did when she got older was she made sure that she bought herself nice clothing and she took care of it. Okay, meticulous care of her things. But she also bought herself books. And she bought herself this little plate that she would put inside of her hardbacks that would say from the library of. And those books meant something to her, very, very critical and important for her emotions. And that's part of the reality. So for her, like if she was going to start something new, and this is something that I carry, if I started a new position or I started a new project, I wanted to have a new outfit. And it got to the point where I stopped and I said, Do I need that? Okay, why do I want that? And that's a part of something that I brought from her. And now, mind you, my mother's been financially responsible, incredibly financially responsible. I am not criticizing her, but that is something that I got from her that talks about the mindset. And the answer is, Do I need that right now? Okay. Do I need that right now or should I buy that later? Or, you know, you buy the clothing you need for when you need it, and you buy in anticipation for it. You maintain and you buy the best quality you can. But it was one of those things that, like, as a as even as an adult, I used to not feel comfortable going into a new situation without something new. And that was part of that imprinting that I got from my mother.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Oh, that's that's quite interesting. Yeah, I'd be curious also, maybe how it's wrapping up this this this interview. I'd be I'd be interested in um, you know, you've you have told a couple stories of situations some of your clients have been in before they came to you, and then things that you have helped point out and um how to to kind of drive them into the right direction. What would be typical results after you have worked through them in order to get on the right path?

SPEAKER_02 32:59

Okay, so the question is first off, when I when I work with people, even as a planner, and I'm not doing the academy, okay, because I do that type of work too. There's there's sort of a there's very much a wall between the two. One of the things I'll say to people is I need you to tell me what you want, and I need you to dream. And there are a lot of people who, for whatever reason, don't allow themselves to dream. So, like in their careers, all right, they dreamed of what they wanted their careers to be and they did everything they had to do and they aligned their actions with what they wanted and they got to where they wanted to go. But they didn't do that with their financial life. And the reason why is what that is, is you're saying, how do you want to live? Okay. And for the people that matter to you, how do you want to make sure that you take care of them? Because once we get that down and I'll they allow themselves to dream and articulate what they want, it's a lot easier to find plan A, plan B, and plan C to get them there. And that's the piece. You cannot go anywhere your mind hasn't gone before you. So you have to allow yourself to say, hey, you know, money isn't evil. It's not the source of all evil, it's just a tool in my hands. Greed, anger, envy, cruelty, those are evil. And how that manifests with money is horrible and hurtful, but it's not the money's fault, it's the driving emotion behind it and it's the thoughts behind it. So, in a real sense, what they have to start doing is to make that shift into believing A, that this is something they should do, mastering their money as a way of being in control of their lives and taking responsibility for their lives. It's the ultimate self-ownership. I am responsible for what happens. The hardest part for a lot of them is the estate planning issue. Okay, especially when it comes to themselves. It's taking ownership, if they haven't done it, of what do they want for themselves in this final stage of their lives. Okay. And and sometimes it's really like I had a situation and I wasn't successful there, so I'm gonna be blunt about this. Um, it was an executive whose father had died when he was younger. And because his father hadn't planned adequately and because his father hadn't mastered certain things, his mother and he went through a tremendous amount of discomfort and pain, and he had a rough childhood because of it. But for some reason, he couldn't say, I'm not gonna make sure that I don't do this for my kids. For him, it was a complete avoidance of the topic altogether.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 35:37

And it was like, look, you know, you have a home in one state, you spend half of your year on another state, and you you you're splitting your time. If something happens to you and you don't have documents for wherever you are, what happens to your kids? They're minors, they're young. What happens? And he's like, Well, I don't know. And I said, Well, let's explore what that would look like. Walked over it, talked to him. I said, What would it take for you to take ownership? And he said, It's just too painful. I can't go there.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 36:10

Okay. And what I'm asking for people to do is to say, I love myself and I love the people who matter the most to me enough that even though it's uncomfortable, I'm gonna take ownership of this and I'm gonna set this up so that I'm okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

And so that they're okay. And if somebody wants to go that route um and get in touch potentially with you in order to make that happen, um, let us know what's the best way to reach out to you or potentially um, you know, find the Harmony Wealth Academy. Uh okay.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

So if you're interested, you can, I will make sure that you have my email. Okay, and you can put it in the show notes. But I work, I have two parts of this. So there's the academy where you learn the system. It's a break from being pitched at, it's an opportunity to sit down, learn the system, learn how to manage it, learn how to build your team. That's one part. And then there's me as director of financial planning for an RIA called the Harmony Wealth Management. And I'll make sure you have the links for both. If you elect to sign up for the academy, you'll get a 10% discount just by mentioning your name and that way, just by mentioning Robert's name. And that way, if you want to take ownership and see where this goes, um, you can actually do this. I do have a five-day sprint, which is free, five minutes a day for five days to understand the operating system that was given to you by others so that you can figure out, okay, I've been the adult and I'm going to put the adult in charge of me to address these things.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

So appreciate it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:43

That is that is free. And if people want to do that, that'd be great. And then if they want to move forward with the program, the steps are clear. So, but I appreciate being here and thank you for letting me talk.

SPEAKER_00 37:52

Yeah, Monica, thanks so much. That was uh quite insightful to especially listen to all of those stories because I mean that's real life for real people that you have dealt with, and there might be similarities to whoever is listening this exact episode, and um that's that's that's what I think is uh so valuable. Like we were talking about the real the real thing, real change that is possible to happen, also in case, in this case, working with you. So in case you reach out to Monica, um, yeah, mention my name, and um I'd be curious to hear some stories also. Monica, thanks again also to you popping on and telling us all of those stories and leaving us with all of those insights.

SPEAKER_02 38:37

Thank you so much for having me, and I wish everybody the very best. Go after your dreams, do what you want to do for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

100%.

SPEAKER_03 38:47

Go to rock and roll your dreams.com forward slash podcast.