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Episode 28: What’s Keeping You Up at Night?
164 Plays7 years ago
When people ask us what we do, we don’t really have a pat-answer elevator speech to give them. Phillip was recently approached at a party, and answered with the question: “What keeps you up at night?”
This episode of the Uncommon Life Podcast is all about that question. When we work with clients, we want to discover those financial questions – the concerns that gnaw at you and maybe even keep you up at night. Helping you move beyond those concerns is right in our wheelhouse, and it’s what we are digging into here in Episode 28.
Most of the time, people’s concerns boil down to: how can I pursue a dream I have now, without stealing from the money I will need in retirement? You’d be surprised at the creative solutions you might have right at your fingertips to answer that question. That’s really where we come in – to help you find those creative solutions.
So if your question is just, “how can I fund a Roth IRA?” we might not be the right fit for you. We can definitely help you with that, but our wheelhouse is really to take your uncommon goals and help you find uncommon ways to solve that equation so you can meet those goals.
What You Will Learn in this Episode:
- Why rate of return does not keep most people up at night
- The kinds of financial concerns that DO keep people up at night
- How exploring what you are passionate about can be the financially prudent thing to do
- Creative ways to finance your dreams today, rather than putting them off until retirement
- The mindset shift needed to give yourself permission to chase your dreams
- Why benefits alone shouldn’t be a barrier to escaping your cubicle prison
- Why taking the uncommon path can be the best decision to make
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Living an Uncommon Life
00:00:02
Speaker
Everyone dreams about living an uncommon life, but how we define that dream is very different for each of us. And for most, it's a lifelong pursuit. Welcome to the Uncommon Life Project podcast. We're going to introduce you to people who are living that life or enjoying the journey to get there. We're going to also give you some tools, tricks, and tips for starting or accelerating your own efforts to live an uncommon life.
00:00:27
Speaker
a life worth celebrating and savoring. Please welcome your hosts, Brian Dewhurst and Philip Ramsey.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the show. This is your host, Phillip Ramsey. And I am Brian Dewhurst. And you are listening to the Uncommon Life Project. Thank you so much, Cindy, for that warm intro. Gosh, that is so weird. I was like, what name is he going to choose and what name would I choose? And I chose Cindy in my head and used it, Cindy. That was crazy. And you're listening to the Uncommon Life Project where we have uncommon thoughts and they're always the same.
00:00:59
Speaker
Not really, but can't wait for us to just dive in on this topic. This podcast is actually kind of a brainchild of
Financial Concerns from a Wedding Perspective
00:01:08
Speaker
mine. I'm going to start our 25 minutes because we're going to try to get that in the timeframe. But it was kind of something funny that happened when I was at Brian's wedding of all places. And one of the people in the wedding, I think it was a family member of I think your wife,
00:01:26
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Came up to me and said, so what do you guys do exactly? Did you do stocks, bonds, mutual funds? And historically, and if you've listened to the show a lot, you know that when people ask me what I do, I cringe. Because just saying financial advising, like, that's...
00:01:42
Speaker
Yeah, I guess that's what I do. But I never have an elevator speech. And that's something uncommon about me. People say that you have to have an elevator speech. I'd say throw that out the window. Never have an elevator speech. Just what are you passionate about and what did you do yesterday? And in doing that, you end up getting clients. Well, this time, I was really focused on Brian's wedding. I was the best man, super honored to do that. And I was just in another place. And so when he asked me this, in my mindset of my history, I'm just kind of like, man, like,
00:02:11
Speaker
Yeah, we do that stuff and I was not a bad attitude, but I just wasn't dialed in like I somewhat somewhat Normally am and so I said tell you what man like what's keeping you up at night?
00:02:22
Speaker
And he's like, well, what do you mean? He was like, well, I was like, so what's like, when you're laying in bed, like you're thinking about your finances, like what is something that's just reoccurring in your head that you're having trouble like thinking about or working through? And he's like, well, my rate of return. That's what he said. And he pigeonholed me in this like, well, tell me what stock to put my money in kind of thing.
00:02:44
Speaker
And I was like, there's no way that rate of return is keeping you up at night. Like, what's really keeping you up at night? And I just kind of blew through it, mainly because I was probably in a bad mood at that point. That sounds horrible, because normally I'm very approachable. So don't think that. But in this situation, that's kind of how it went down. And he was like, actually, if you really want to know, and this is when I was like, OK, this is where I'm at. And he's like, taxes. He's like, we have all taxable income from farmland
00:03:11
Speaker
from businesses, from Social Security, from IRAs. And he's like, we are just getting waylaid in taxes because this year we have no businesses and no write-offs to actually write that off. And I was like, oh, wow. I was like, do you have a business in place? And he's like, nope, we got rid of that. And I thought,
00:03:30
Speaker
Wow. Like at that moment, I knew I could be like standing in his shoes knowing exactly what's keeping up his night and it was taxes. And so I looked at him and I was like, that's what we do for people is we help them with the things that are keeping
Deeper Issues in Financial Advisory
00:03:42
Speaker
up at night. Anyway, so that's the whole crux of this podcast is what is the issue that you're really mulling over in your head that you can't get through and you need maybe some assistance to do that. For this one example, it was walking through this gentleman's
00:04:00
Speaker
situation and taxes were one of them. We kind of talked about maybe putting an LLC together, filed as an S Corp at that point. Again, this was really quick. It was a five-minute conversation, but struck this chord Brian and I have been talking about ever since. So here's the podcast and we're glad you're with us. And so let's talk about what's keeping you up at night. Brian Dewhurst. Yeah, I love this.
00:04:24
Speaker
Yeah. Cause we get hit up a lot. Like, Oh, what do you like or what stock is good? Or where would you put 50 grand? You get one that, that one more than I do. It seems like, but, um, and it historically, I'm not the guy to ask like, I don't know. Well, I think it's also like, I don't even know you, you know, like, it's so weird to get that question. And, um,
00:04:45
Speaker
you know, to give advice and not really know somebody. And so I think the thing I gravitate towards, you know, in the coaching we've done in our business and the professional industry statistics, you know, 90% of people leave their advisor because of lack of communication. And that's a statistic that, you know, is always in the back of my mind.
00:05:06
Speaker
And that's a huge reason we're doing the podcast. I think that's a huge reason we started the YouTube channel. And, you know, that we try to proactively reach out to our clients as best we can. And because of that statistic, and just because we care about people, but at the end of the day, most people aren't leaving their advisor because of rate of return.
00:05:26
Speaker
It's because you have these underlying issues in your life that are not being addressed or solved and That's why I love this question. That's why I love Philip the way you approach people because It's never about rate of return. It's always about like where you had in life and what are you chewing on or what are you losing sleep over and and people just kind of like let their guard down I think with you and
00:05:52
Speaker
And so yeah, we wanted to do a show on that of like, man, life and these financial decisions are so complex and it's getting more complex because they keep changing all the rules, specifically the tax code. Now with all this Obamacare stuff, I'm not trying to get political, but it literally changes almost every year.
00:06:12
Speaker
And so for business owners and entrepreneurs, it's constantly like trying to optimize capital and time and resources and then trying to navigate all of these, I don't want to call them loopholes or variables.
00:06:27
Speaker
where you're trying to put together a package for your employees, you're also trying to build wealth and minimize your taxes. I haven't met too many Democrat business owners, and I'm not trying to get political, but it's just like when you start paying your own tax,
00:06:43
Speaker
as a business owner, it gets real. And there's just different ways the tax code is set up to mitigate taxes and tax liability for business owners because we take risk, we employ people, and we're creating new things. And so with the complexity of all these different things, and especially I think as people age and look towards retirement and getting their paycheck from somewhere else other than going to work,
00:07:08
Speaker
There's just a lot of complexities to that. For most people, something they just haven't dealt with or explored and it's scary. And I think it's always like the easy thing to hide behind of like, oh, it's my rate of return or how my mutual funds do this year. But really it's like, how is Johnny going to pay for college? Is my house going to be paid off when I'm retired?
00:07:29
Speaker
But all these different things... And I think a lot of times too, people are making investment decisions based on tax. We see that a lot like, well, can I save tax on this? And it's like, yeah, we're going to tie up your money. And there might be alternative ways to buy assets that can give you a tax deduction or mitigate your tax liability without tying up your money and buying another asset that produces cash flow.
00:07:56
Speaker
There's just different things and different ways we want people to think as opposed to just like, oh, I need more rate of return and how do I get out of my taxes? Like I'm sure, you know, a lot of people too, when they come to talk to us, they do have qualified assets or assets in retirement plans, this, that and the other. Here's my question to you.
00:08:15
Speaker
What percentage of rate of return is your account up this year today? You tell me that, right? And I'm pretty sure 85% of the listeners would say, I don't know. I just don't know. I don't check it. And here's another question. If you do know, what does that mean for you in the grand scheme of things of your financial goals?
00:08:35
Speaker
Now that's like, yeah, we've lost everybody because they don't know. What's 25% rate of return mean? What is 5%? That's why I love the process that we take people through because it gives them a baseline. And then you can tweak the future because we don't know the future, right? And stock markets and rate of returns, we don't know. We try to be conservative in our calculations, but we just don't know. And so when clients come to us and they really start thinking about what's keeping them up at night,
00:09:04
Speaker
here's something that I've heard a lot, and Brian, you as well, is when they come to us and like, I've got this really good business idea, and we'll listen to it, and we're like, yeah, that's actually a really good business idea. And we'll ask them, what's stopping you? And the number one thing that stops, that's a bold statement, that stops our clients, I'd say benefits.
00:09:23
Speaker
well, I wouldn't have health insurance, or I wouldn't have this or that or the other. And that's so interesting to me, which is true, right? That is an equation that you have to think about. But it seems to me like when someone can come to us and then they let their guard down enough to really tell us what's keeping them up at night, and we give them a couple solutions for that one problem, it seems less daunting to take that risk.
00:09:50
Speaker
Yeah. And I think it's interesting you say that because health insurance used to be structured like our car insurance.
Mindset and Decision-Making in Entrepreneurship
00:09:58
Speaker
And when you go buy a car, the last thing you think about, I mean, for the most part, unless you're buying an expensive car and you can't afford it, is what's the car insurance going to cost me? It's kind of like, no, I need to have this, right? Yeah.
00:10:10
Speaker
But now, for some reason, health insurance and this boogeyman that we've created with this whole health situation... And people have legitimate health issues that are expensive. I don't want to minimize that. But yeah, it's like there's so many ways to get around the health insurance thing if you start your own business. And that's a big part of advice we give people. But it's just interesting to me then, once they get the number of that question,
00:10:38
Speaker
if they bring up another obstacle or if it's like, oh, okay, well then let's go. It's typically then another obstacle. And so then I know that's why Philip and I talked so much about mindset is because like you have to invest in the right mindset if you're going to be an entrepreneur.
00:10:56
Speaker
because things are going to come at you at a different pace and you're just going to have to make decisions and move on. And a lot of people just aren't ready to make those kinds of decisions and move on, even though they're discontent. Totally. I can't think of the number of times where Brian and I have sat down with people, they've given us their goals and objectives. We show them that they can actually achieve those goals and objectives quicker and how many people never really act on it.
00:11:22
Speaker
My favorite, I'd say, story about this is one of our clients that we first got when we were first in practice, they wanted to redo their bathroom. I think it was going to be $50,000. I think the second or third time we've met with them, Brian made this brilliant plan of like, this is how I do it. And they were like, yeah, I don't know if I want to do that right now.
00:11:43
Speaker
Okay. Moving on, right? I'll never forget that. It seems to me there always is this psychological level of finance that really nobody really talks about, but it's definitely there. Well, it's how do you... And again, I think this is a big reason why we've partnered.
00:12:05
Speaker
working with Mark Stanley on a family type process, a process that we use for our business and bringing it to couples. It's really what we've been doing for the last six years in our practice. It's more kind of just formalizing it and putting it into a way that our clients can leverage it more themselves without us there. But how do you and your spouse or significant other, if you're single, how do you prioritize the things in your life you want to get done?
00:12:32
Speaker
How do you do those with maybe not feeling like you're stealing from your future retirement? And how can you design your own life to be more passionate, more money, more time freedom right now? And we have coaches, we have mentors that we go to with things. So we're not saying we have all the answers. We go and get help. And we want to be there for people who are reading like Robert Kiyosaki books
00:13:00
Speaker
other, you know, another big one I think we hear a lot is like the four hour work week or, you know, I read that and it was really powerful. And it's like, how do you read those books and you know you want to do something or you have that idea, you have, you know, I call it the Jumanji kind of drum beat where you've got to play that game. There's something inside of you that you have to do, money aside, you're going to have, you have to figure it out. And the older you get, the louder that drum typically beats.
00:13:26
Speaker
And how do you organize your capital and prioritize that in the midst of family stuff, health stuff, spouse stuff, kids in school, maintaining the day job?
Aligning Financial Planning with Personal Goals
00:13:37
Speaker
You know what I'm saying? Yeah, totally. I'm going to tangent this for a second quickly because I think this story is so powerful. And it was we met a woman who came to us
00:13:47
Speaker
and she got a settlement of some dollar amount, and Brian and I after- Not like you could just retire in a beach type settlement. No, yeah. For someone right out of college, it was a good chunk of change. Yeah, and she really wanted to be a good steward, so she went to the financial advisors because that's what you're supposed to do.
00:14:06
Speaker
And she came and I remember asking her a couple questions and I don't know which one of us, I mean, this is a long time ago, ask her like, but what are you really passionate about? Like what, if you did X for the rest of your life, you'd never feel like you worked a day in your life. And I, I think at that point she was like, I'd play basketball.
00:14:24
Speaker
I was an amazing basketball player. And it just kind of you can help fill in the story. But yeah, she is collegiate basketball player. She went to a chiropractor and he paralyzed her for two to three months. Couple months. Yeah. Yeah. And ended her basketball career in college. So she gets this money. She comes to us. What should I do? And Brian was like, the best money that you can do is invest in yourself and chase after that dream to see if that would actually come to fruition.
00:14:54
Speaker
And then it kind of came out after I said that she was like, well, I have investigated playing professional basketball in Australia and had like a path for that already of thought out. And this I'm glad you brought this story up because I think this galvanizes what we're trying to say. She had already done the work like she had already had the conversations and dreamt and started to investigate what it would take to play basketball in California or Australia.
00:15:22
Speaker
We just kind of fanned that flame and said, yeah, why wouldn't you do that? And then it kind of just gave her permission to like do what she was going to do. It's just most other people in her life were telling her now like it's over. You need to get a job and go do the deal. And I'm sure there's people judging us right now when they're listening to this podcast, like how could you actually tell her to do that? Like that was so irresponsible. But what we thought at the end of the day was this is the question that galvanized it for Brian and I to give this advice.
00:15:49
Speaker
We said, if you don't go after chasing this dream to see if this actually is something for you in your future, will you regret it the rest of your life? And she said, yes. Okay. So I don't know how much it's going to cost. And we ended up putting the dollars and cents to it and it wasn't all of the
00:16:07
Speaker
the settlement money that she got. We were like, money well spent, go figure this out. Yeah, she got paid and she, so she goes and she ended up becoming a professional basketball player in Australia and traveled the world doing that for a couple of years. And then that's parlayed into the job she's in now.
00:16:24
Speaker
No, she parlayed into a job to help other people from the United States go overseas and play basketball or sports. Then Gatorade ended up hiring her. It was a whole catechism of these events that if it just started with her basically funding this idea as if this is going to work or not. And at the end of the day, I would say that she would say this was her best investment she ever did because it got her to where she's at today. It was a mindset shift.
00:16:53
Speaker
And what I would say, let's say the market was what the market did, and let's say the market was double. She would still say, it doesn't matter what that number would be of that account that could have been if I never would have chased out that dream. I would have always had that reluctance and question in my head, not worth the money. Yeah. And the only people that I have personally met, and again, we meet with a lot of people,
00:17:18
Speaker
that are truly like up at night because of the rate of the return on their money are the people that are like day trading and like professionally trading their own money. And so if you're not doing that,
00:17:30
Speaker
I doubt that you're really worried at night, like, I only got 7.8% of my mutual funds this year. Like, I better call Steve, I'm underperforming. And we run into those people once in a blue moon, and we just tell them we're probably not a good fit. Go find somebody that wants to try to beat the stock market every year. And if the people are saying that they can, you need to run from them. Run for the hills, actually. And here's what I would say at the end of the day,
00:17:58
Speaker
This drum beat, I love that Brian calls it, that's the Jumanji drum beat inside of you. What value do you put on two people that can help you walk through that in a manner that is actually prudent to your situation? Like actually help you in a very strategic manner
00:18:22
Speaker
work on some of these things. Like what I'm saying is that's invaluable. To have two advisors who aren't trying to tell you to like, oh, put your money over here or over there. And that's kind of the business that we've created this uncommon wealth partners. And that's that gets me excited every day to go to work right next to Brian and help our clients figure this out every day of their life.
00:18:46
Speaker
Because they've taken their future and they've figured out a way to have a different mindset on money. And it really isn't, what's the rate of return? Yeah, or put all your capital into a 401k IRA where you can't touch and it won't help you fuel.
00:19:02
Speaker
and accomplish those goals. And so I think we help people make sense of, because you got to buy insurance, car insurance, health insurance, some of this other stuff, life insurance. And you got to bank, you got to have money in the bank, money's got to come in, money's going to go out, and then investing. And investing is not only the stock market, it can be in yourself, it can be in real estate, business. And so I think what we help people do is really synergize those three channels
00:19:28
Speaker
based on the goals that they communicate and that they are important to them. And I love the fact when they start writing goals down and they realize that those goals don't necessarily have to be financial or I shouldn't say that. They really are. They really have to be something that we are compensated with and they know that we're shoulder to shoulder helping them achieve those goals. That to me is priceless. Priceless. For sure. Okay.
00:19:54
Speaker
How are we doing on time? We're doing great, actually. Six minutes left. All right. So, I would say, what is keeping up at night? Basically, what are your goals and dreams? And who do you communicate those goals and dreams with? Is it your wife? Is it your best friend?
00:20:11
Speaker
Whoever it is, like you've got to have that outlet of just some way to communicate something that you have a desire for. We are those people for many people. And the more that we are doing this, the more ideas are coming out and the more that we're able to help people through that. But I think it's important to have at least somebody out there in your life to be able to walk through that and not only communicate those goals and dreams, but hold you accountable to some of them as well.
00:20:40
Speaker
Yeah. So who is that person for you? I think that's something that we wrote down in our outline. You're supposed to talk about. Yeah. And I think we hit this on the first, you know, episode this season two is just the intentional time of getting away and having a cadence to take time for yourself to dream, to think, to document.
Turning Dreams into Reality with Accountability
00:21:00
Speaker
You know, I heard this the other day and I thought it was really profound. There's, you know, three ways you make things happen or a three step process. One is typically you think about it or dream about it.
00:21:08
Speaker
You know, most people never take that dream and actually write it down in a physical piece of paper. I'm a huge journal guy. If you know me, I always have one. So you write it down and then from there, you start trying to actually implement it, right? Like you start investigating the URL, the logo, the name, you know, what it's going to cost, those types of things and you start building it.
00:21:33
Speaker
That's really that simple. And so yeah, just giving yourself that latitude to stop, be quiet and really dream and then write it down and share it with someone that can help hold you accountable to executing on that.
00:21:48
Speaker
Yeah. And then the more specific with those plans and goals that you have, the more somebody can hold you accountable to it. For example, this is when I want it. So time of when you want it, how much money it's going to cost, what's it going to take for you to get there and things like that. So the more detailed you can have it, those are, I would say our favorite clients are the people that have
00:22:09
Speaker
things like that documented in a detailed form. That's when Brian can do his best work. Then I love this question that we ask our clients. What's defined the relationship between you and us five years from now? What's your success story? How do we develop a successful relationship and what does that mean for you basically?
00:22:29
Speaker
And every person is different. But all of them, I think we have measurable results that we have with their goals and timelines. It's not ours. It's not like, oh, well, you need $50,000 on a Roth. Like, well, that's not what we're going to be pushing. That might be some goals for people. That's great. But at the end of the day, what is that Roth money going to do for you? And I'm telling you, it's not just to get ready to return. Because ready to return isn't going to really fulfill all your goals and dreams, I don't think. Yeah, I mean, it's certainly a component, but
00:22:56
Speaker
It's certainly a component, but it's just not going to change your life overnight, like pursuing what's inside of you in the way God's designed you. And that's going to help change the world, you know? And that's the challenge,
Stepping Out of Comfort Zones
00:23:13
Speaker
right? Is to get out of that comfort zone, get out of that, like, well, I have health insurance. Like, you know, Jesus wasn't comfortable.
00:23:21
Speaker
Jesus wasn't like, ah, I've got great benefits. And these 10 disciples, or 12 disciples, they got my back. It was pretty uncomfortable. In times he left them, and he went out into the desert, and he was obviously with God.
00:23:36
Speaker
He was uncomfortable and God wants us to be uncomfortable. That's how we rely on Him and glorify Him is by answering that call, answering that bell, answering that drumbeat. And so if we're not honest with that and we push that off, you know, I think that's just a massive missed opportunity to draw closer to God and to draw closer to other people in that because that's your gifting. That's what you've been designed to do.
00:24:00
Speaker
Totally. So this was basically the whole gist of this podcast is what's the real reason that you're struggling with or you would need some ideas around because if you get around community, chances are somebody in that community is going to have a good
00:24:20
Speaker
I would say, not maybe answer, but a good idea that will make you help you kind of shift out of your box, if you will. So, we hope you enjoyed this podcast. You've been listening to the Uncommon Life Project. I'm your host, Philip Ramsey. And I'm Ryan Dewhurst. Thank you so much for listening. Absolutely. Send us out, Sydney. Oh, Sydney. Talk to you later, guys. Bye.
00:24:43
Speaker
That's all for this episode of The Uncommon Life Project, brought to you by Uncommon Wealth Partners. Be sure to visit uncommonwealth.com to learn more about our services. Don't miss an episode as we introduce you to inspiring people who are actively pursuing an uncommon life.