Behavioral Finance / Podcast

YFP 351: Legacy Planning 101: How to Build Your Legacy Folder

Posted on March 21, 2024March 21, 2024 by YFP Media

Tim Ulbrich discusses the importance of creating a legacy folder to organize essential financial documents for access during emergencies and peace of mind.

Episode Summary

In this episode, YFP Founder and CEO, Tim Ulbrich, delves into the critical aspect of establishing a “legacy folder” to efficiently organize essential financial documents and accounts. This folder serves as a vital resource in emergencies, streamlining access for loved ones and averting confusion or delays. Drawing from personal experience, Ulbrich shares how he and his wife maintain their financial plan and essential documents in a shared electronic folder and a secure physical safe at home, ensuring accessibility and peace of mind during unforeseen circumstances.

Tim explores the contents of the legacy folder, which encompass a comprehensive checklist, electronic copies, and hard copies of vital papers such as birth certificates and social security cards and other critical documents like insurance policies and estate planning materials.

Learn how to proactively organize your financial affairs to safeguard against unforeseen events, ultimately fostering financial peace of mind and security.

About Today’s Guest

Tim Ulbrich is the Co-Founder and CEO of Your Financial Pharmacist. Founded in 2015, YFP is a fee-only financial planning firm and connects with the YFP community of 15,000+ pharmacy professionals via the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast podcast, blog, website resources and speaking engagements. To date, YFP has partnered with 75+ organizations to provide personal finance education.

Tim received his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Ohio Northern University and completed postgraduate residency training at The Ohio State University. He spent 9 years on faculty at Northeast Ohio Medical University prior to joining Ohio State University College of Pharmacy in 2019 as Clinical Professor and Director of the Master’s in Health-System Pharmacy Administration Program.

Tim is the host of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast which has more than 1 million downloads. Tim is also the co-author of Seven Figure Pharmacist: How to Maximize Your Income, Eliminate Debt and Create Wealth. Tim has presented to over 200 pharmacy associations, colleges, and groups on various personal finance topics including debt management, investing, retirement planning, and financial well-being.

Key Points from the Episode

Building a legacy folder for financial peace of mind. [0:00]
Creating a “legacy folder” for financial documents. [2:36]
Important documents, insurance policies, estate planning, and car titles. [6:50]
Organizing financial documents for emergency situations. [14:59]

Episode Highlights

“So when it comes to why having a legacy folder is important. Getting organized with your financial records plays a significant role not necessary in terms of moving the needle on your net worth but in making sure you and others have access to all the information that you need to make informed decisions.” – Tim Ulbrich [2:24]

“Now, what is the legacy folder? So essentially the idea of a legacy folder, whether it’s a physical copy and electronic copy, or combination of both. It’s a place where you have all of your financial related documents. So in the event of an emergency, others will be able to quickly assess your financial situation and get access to all of the documents and accounts that pertain to your finances.” – Tim Ulbrich [4:07]

“Don’t underestimate the peace of mind and the clarity that can come from having this information collected.” -Tim Ulbrich [5:25]

“Once you get organized with your information, you’re going to be walking from that point of confidence, you’re going to feel prepared in taking action on other parts of your financial plan.” – Tim Ulbrich [16:49]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRO]

Tim Ulbrich 00:00

Hey everybody, Tim Ulbrich here and thank you for listening to the YFP Podcast where each week we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom. This week I’m talking through Legacy Planning 101: How to Build your Legacy Folder and why it’s important. To assist with implementing this important step and your own financial plan, make sure to download the YFP Legacy Folder Checklist at yourfinancialpharmacist.com/legacy. This checklist includes a list of 15+ financial related documents that you can have a record of in your legacy folder. It helps you identify key parts of your financial plan that you may or may not have in place but need to get started. And it helps give you peace of mind knowing that in the event of an emergency, all of your financial documents are organized in in one location. Again, you can access that free checklist at yourfinancialpharmacist.com/legacy.

Tim Ulbrich 00:51

Now before we jump into today’s episode, I have a hard truth for you to hear making a six figure income is not a financial plan. Yes, you’ve worked hard to get where you are today. Yes, you’re earning a good salary. But have you ever wondered, am I on track to retire? How do I prioritize and fund all these competing financial goals that I have? How do I plan financially for big upcoming life events? Whether that be moving, having a child, changing jobs, getting married or retiring? And why am I not as far along financially at this point in my career, as perhaps I thought I should be? The answer your six figure income is not a financial plan. As a pharmacist, you have an incredible tool in your toolbox your salary, but without a vision and a plan that good income will only go so far. That’s in part why we started Your Financial Pharmacists back in 2015. At YFP we support pharmacists at every stage of their career to take control of their finances reach their financial goals and build wealth through comprehensive fee only financial planning and tax planning. Our team of professionals including certified financial planners and a CPA, work with pharmacists all across the US and help our clients set their future selves up for success while living their rich life today. Ready to see how Your Financial Pharmacist can support you on your financial journey? The next step is to book a free discovery call with our team by visiting YFPplanning.com Again, that’s YFPplanning.com Alright, let’s jump in today’s episode.

Tim Ulbrich 02:18

Hi there, Tim Ulbrich here. Welcome to this week’s episode of the YFP Podcast. I’m flying solo this week to discuss legacy planning 101: how to build your legacy folder and why it’s important. Now this episode is going to be a brief one. But I hope you can walk away with a specific action item or to relate it to your own financial plan. Whether that be to create a legacy folder if you don’t already have one or if you do to make sure that you look at it and update that information if it’s been a while. So when it comes to why having a legacy folder is important. Getting organized with your financial records plays a significant role not necessary in terms of moving the needle on your net worth, but in making sure you and others have access to all the information that you need to make informed decisions. Think for a minute about all the various financial accounts, documents, records, insurance policies, tax returns that you have right, the list quickly grows to be one that is overwhelming. And the more you operate in your own system, the easier it is to navigate for you. But unfortunately harder for others to unravel, should they have to do so in the future. Right? Think of a situation where in the event of an emergency, you have this beautiful system you’ve created, you know where all your accounts are all your files, all your passwords, but unfortunately, others aren’t able to readily access that and to make sense of that information.

That’s where the legacy folder concept comes in. I actually first heard of this idea, it’s not my idea, I first heard of it when taking Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University class, this was probably 15 years ago through our local church. And I remember walking away thinking, wow, that is so obvious, yet so important. And something that Jess and I hadn’t yet done at that point in our financial plan. Now, what is the legacy folder? so essentially the idea of a legacy folder, whether it’s a physical copy and electronic copy, or combination of both, which is what we have, and I’ll share more information about that. It’s a place where you have all of your financial related documents. So in the event of an emergency, others will be able to quickly assess your financial situation and get access to all of the documents and accounts that pertain to your finances. We just went through updating this – Jess and I did in our own financial plan, shifting everything to an electronic version with the exception of a couple things that we keep in a safe at home, so that in the event of something happening to Jess or I or both of us, those caring for our boys along with our financial planning team at YFP readily have access to all the necessary information that they would need.

So when I think of the importance of this, you know, it really is peace of mind but there’s a secondary part that we often don’t think about, which is it forces you to get organized right? When you go through this process, and I’ll talk about the different sections of our own legacy folder. When you go through this process, you quickly might realize, wow, I’ve got some areas of the plan that I need to clean up, I need to gather some information. And this like many other parts of the financial plan, sure, it takes a little bit of time to get set up. But once you have it set up, right, we’re then in that update or maintenance mode. And again, don’t underestimate the peace of mind and the clarity that can come from having this information collected. So what’s included in the legacy folder? Well, I mentioned our checklist before and if you didn’t already download that make sure to download the YFP legacy folder checklist, you can access that again, at yourfinancialpharmacist.com/legacy that will give you a good guide.

There’s no one right answer to this. So I’m going to talk through what we have in our legacy folder. And you can see maybe some of that makes sense. Or maybe you have other documents and sections that you would want to include. So here’s how we have it organized in a combination of a Google Drive a shared drive, and a safe at home with the password the master password to our One Password, which is the the password account that we use the password management account that we use, I have the master key password in a safe at home, along with some hard copies of some documents like birth certificate, social security card, etc. Those things are in the safe, everything else is stored electronically and anything that’s in the safe as referenced as such in the electronic documents so so keep that in mind to combination of an electronic folder we used to have this all in a paper copy it was in a blue folder, we used to joke with our my parents and our in laws that hey, if anything ever happens to Jess or I – get the blue folder! For obvious reasons, having everything in a hardcopy wasn’t ideal in terms of updating that as well as making sure that the integrity of documents stay in place.

Okay, so section one is what we call important documents. Okay, so these are birth certificates for Jess, for me, for our four boys, these are our social security cards for us and the boys, this is our marriage certificate. These are our passports. And these components, we keep in a fireproof safe at home, obviously, because the hardcopy is important to have. So that’s section one important documents.

Section two is insurance policies, and information. So this is something that we have to update. Some of these we have to update annually, others not so much. So for example, long term disability policies or term life policies unless something changes with those policies, you know, we’re not updating those on a regular basis. But this includes things like auto insurance policies, homeowners insurance policies, or umbrella insurance policy, or health insurance policies, long term disability insurance policies, and our term life insurance policies. And we have a couple of different term life policies and long term disability policies. So all of that is included here in section number two. Now, what I have done typically in the electronic version, is I’ll list these out. And then I have the the actual policy hyperlink. So it can be easily reference to get to the actual policy, right, whether that’s a term life, disability, or another type of insurance policy. So that’s section two insurance policies and information.

Section three is estate planning documents. So we have an electronic copy on the Google Drive folder, the shared folder, and then we have a hard copy of these as well, because of the wet signature that’s needed on these and each state is different. Ours is a wet signature with a note notarized copy. So we have a hard copy in the safe at home. So these include our revocable trust agreements, this is our healthcare power of attorney, this is our living will, our last will and testament, et cetera, a lot of work to be done here. Now, if you’re hearing those terms, and thinking, Wow, maybe I need to get my estate planning documents in place. We’re gonna be talking more about that on the podcast, but I would reference you back to Episode 222. We’ll link to that in the show notes, when we brought on a couple of attorneys to talk about why estate planning is such an important part of the financial plan, as well as Episode 310, when Tim Baker and I talked about dusting off the estate plan, so this is not a you set it and you’re done.

Again, most of the work is upfront. Sure, there’s an investment of time and money to get these documents created. Again, the value is in the process of getting these created. And then you’ll have to update these periodically. So Jess and I often joke that our youngest son, Bennett, he wasn’t named individually in our documents when we created the so I guess that’s how it goes right when you’re the fourth son in the family. So he’s represented – it does address future children. But it’s just funny that he’s not called out individually. So we’ve got some updating to do there. So that’s section three – estate planning documents. And again, we keep a hardcopy in the safe. And then we have an electronic version of that available as well.

Section four is car titles. Now I’m not sure how valuable these are based on the current conditions of our minivan and our other vehicle, but, you know, calling these an asset would be a stretch but nonetheless, they have some value. Okay, so we have the car titles, readily available in section four so that someone could quickly sell or transfer the title of the car if need be. That’s section four car titles.

Section five is all documents related to our homeownership, okay, this is the deed on our home. This is the HELOC that we have open in the event, essentially, we have this as a backup emergency fund or if we need to tap into some of the equity in the home. So this is the HELOC documents. This is another copy of our homeowners insurance just to have it all in one place as well. So any important document related to the home, obviously, information about the mortgage, all of that is here in Section Five.

Section six is probably the biggest document I think, or close to the biggest section, which is a summary of all of our financial accounts. It’s our net worth tracking sheet, which I’ve talked about before on this show. And it’s all of our social security statements. Now I was just talking with a group of pharmacists last night that I was presenting to and I was talking about, hey, how many of you have pulled your Social Security statements to see your projected benefits, and I kind of got this impression that it was very few if any, right. So if you haven’t done that, it’s a good action step you’re going to do if you go to ssa.gov, to look at your Social Security statements, it’s got good information on there on projected benefits, and you can see your work credits. It’s pretty cool.

But this is a section where I have a table of contents that explains every account we have, right. So at Ally Bank, we have our high yield savings account, we have our checking account. Here’s where we have our Roth IRAs. Here’s where we have our 401 K’s. Here’s where we have a Roth 401 K. For every single financial account that we have, what is the account name? What is the institution? Where’s the link to that account? And what are we using that account for. And then as I mentioned before, we use One Password to store all of our password information and shared between Jess and I and the master key to that Password account is inside of our lock safe at home. So essentially, in the lock safe, you get to the One Password document through that you can then access all the individual financial accounts.

Now I know I’ve talked about this before, but I really believe in the value and the importance of not only having a good idea of the summary of all of your accounts. But this is a good place to also be tracking your overall net worth and your trajectory of your financial health. Right net worth is your assets what you own minus your liabilities, what you owe. Tom Stanley talks about the importance of tracking your net worth in the book, The Millionaire Next Door, and he talks about those that develop and build wealth over time they think differently, right? What he’s talking about there is that they realized that their income is a good tool. But their income is only a tool if they’re applying that to building their assets and paying down their liabilities, which ultimately is translating into their net worth.

So Jess, and I track our net worth on a monthly basis. It’s a very simple spreadsheet. If you want to see what that spreadsheet looks like I have that in the toolbox, yourfinancialpharmacist.com/toolbox along with a couple of the resources that I use, you can make a copy of that make it your own, very simple- every financial account we have, it’s the value of the asset. It’s the amount of liability assets minus liabilities we track that month over month, I think about that as the 20,000 foot view of kind of where we’re progressing financially, of course, the real work to be done is on a much more granular level. So that’s Section six, summary of financial accounts, net worth tracking sheet, and social security statements.

Section seven is our tax returns, this is our tax returns. On the personal side, this is a tax returns on the business side. So for us that would be the business, Your Financial Pharmacist as well as the business YFP Tax. And then for the property that we own, we have a separate LLC for the property as well. So for any business filings or extensions, or important communications, documentations. Obviously, it’s important to retain your tax records for everyone. But here to have those readily available, as well whether it’s needed in the event of an emergency, or if you’re working with a tax professional or someone you need to reference that information that’s good to have. So that’s section seven tax returns.

Section Eight is all information related to business records. So this is a summary of the business entities, I have a quick summary of what are the different entities and then of course, all of the legal documents, including the incorporation documents, the operating agreements, the buy/sell agreements, really important that you not only have these in place, but you have these readily available and accessible in the event of something happening. So any important document related to the business is there. And then as I mentioned, I kick off this section with a quick summary. So that in the event that someone needs to look at this, they can quickly understand what are the entities, what’s my ownership in the entities, and then what are the important documents within each entity that’s included in the legacy folder.

Section nine is just a miscellaneous section. So this could be utilities information or other information that is not easily fit into one of the other buckets in the first eight sections. Pretty simple. Right? So yeah, it takes time. And I think even recently, when I went through a pretty major update of this, I want to say it took me you know, three, four or five hours just to update documents, things that I had to scan to get electronically and making sure I had the right setup, creating some of the explanation in the summary documents. But not only as I mentioned, is it helpful for whoever is looking at this information? Hopefully that never needs to happen. But it’s also helpful for you as you go through this to identify like, oh, maybe there’s some gaps in here in the financial plan that we could use as an opportunity to make some adjustments or changes as you’re looking at goals for the next year.

So in terms of who has access to this, of course, Jess and I have access. Also, my in-laws have access to this who would in our state planning documents become the caregivers of our boys in the event of an emergency so important for them to have access and awareness of it, as well as our financial planning team at YFP right. So I know that in the tragic instance, if Jess and I were to get in an accident tomorrow, and something terrible would happen, I know that instantly my in-laws, who would be in charge of the boys and I know our financial planning team who would be helping them and making decisions, they have access to all of this information. Now, it doesn’t mean it’d be easy. There probably are still questions, maybe things that I’ve missed or haven’t thought about. But it’s a really, really good start again, gives us peace of mind knowing that we thought through this in great detail.

So in closing, right, simple yet effective, simple, yet effective. And that’s so true for so much of the financial plan. Sometimes we overthink this, we overcomplicate this, yeah, there’s work to be done. There’s professionals to be hired, certainly on the financial planning side, on the estate planning side, on the tax side, but the gathering of documents and information. This seems like a bigger mountain to climb than it actually is. And I think for obvious reasons, right? Who likes to think about, you know, some of these circumstances that might be tragic, where someone would need to access your information. It also might expose areas of the plan really like ah, I don’t really like the progress that we’ve made, we’ve got opportunities to improve. So for those reasons, it seems like a bigger mountain to climb. But I promise you that as you go through the process, it likely is easier than you think. And once you get organized with your information, you’re gonna be walking from that point of confidence, you’re gonna feel prepared in taking action on other parts of your financial plan. If you have questions on this episode, as always, feel free to reach out to us [email protected]. Again, make sure to download the YFP Legacy Folder checklist. As you follow along in this episode, you can get that at yourfinancialpharmacist.com /legacy. Thanks so much for joining this week. We’ll catch you next week. Have a good one.

Tim Ulbrich 17:17

As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment. Furthermore, the information contained in our archive newsletters, blog posts and podcasts is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist unless otherwise noted and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward looking statements, which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer. Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

[END]

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YFP 341: 5 Financial Moves to Make in 2024 with Tim Ulbrich

Posted on January 4, 2024January 3, 2024 by YFP Media

Tim Ulbrich, YFP CEO, shares 5 key moves for financial success, emphasizing automation, proactive tax planning, document organization, and continuous learning.

Episode Summary

In the first episode of the New Year, YFP CEO and financial educator, Tim Ulbrich, unveils a financial roadmap for 2024, emphasizing five key moves for achieving financial success and living a rich life. Tim highlights the pivotal role of automation in financial planning, proactive tax planning, the importance of organizing financial documents and the significance of continuous learning. He shares his personal financial goals and the systems he uses to organize and prioritize his financial goals. Tune in to gain insights and actionable steps for mastering your finances in 2024.

About Today’s Guest

Tim Ulbrich is the Co-Founder and CEO of Your Financial Pharmacist. Founded in 2015, YFP is a fee-only financial planning firm and connects with the YFP community of 15,000+ pharmacy professionals via the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast podcast, blog, website resources and speaking engagements. To date, YFP has partnered with 75+ organizations to provide personal finance education.

Tim received his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Ohio Northern University and completed postgraduate residency training at The Ohio State University. He spent 9 years on faculty at Northeast Ohio Medical University prior to joining Ohio State University College of Pharmacy in 2019 as Clinical Professor and Director of the Master’s in Health-System Pharmacy Administration Program.

Tim is the host of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast which has more than 1 million downloads. Tim is also the co-author of Seven Figure Pharmacist: How to Maximize Your Income, Eliminate Debt and Create Wealth. Tim has presented to over 200 pharmacy associations, colleges, and groups on various personal finance topics including debt management, investing, retirement planning, and financial well-being.

Key Points from the Episode

Financial moves for 2024, including saving and automation. [0:01]
Balancing financial goals with living a rich life today. [3:04]
Proactive tax planning for financial success. [8:21]
Common tax mistakes and planning for tax season. [12:19]
Organizing financial documents for peace of mind. [14:43]
Automating financial planning for maximum profit. [20:19]
Prioritizing sinking funds for various financial goals. [25:21]
Prioritizing savings goals using a systematic approach. [28:24]
Financial moves for 2024, including automation and learning. [34:36]

Episode Highlights

“I get excited with the turning of the page into the new year. Not as a complete reset, but as an opportunity to really look more closely at the priorities that have determined to be most important to me, personally and professionally.” –Tim Ulbrich [02:22]

“Now tax in my opinion, is one of the most under appreciated and overlooked parts of the financial plan.” –Tim Ulbrich [08:27]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRO]

Tim Ulbrich 00:01

Hey everybody, Tim over here. And thank you for listening to the YFP Podcast where each week we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom. This week I kick off the new year by covering five financial moves that you can make in 2024 to jumpstart your financial plan. So whether your plan is humming or you’re looking to get refocused and back on track, my hope is that this episode will challenge and motivate you as you set your own goals and plan for 2024. During the show, I talked through why it’s important to set a plan that includes both saving for the future and living a rich life today, I discuss an often overlooked part of the financial plan that perhaps needs more love and attention, why automation should be a key part of your financial planning strategy, and much more. Before we jump in, I want to let you know about a free webinar that I’m hosting coming up on Monday, January 8, at 8pm/Eastern, it’s gonna be a party, and I don’t want you to miss it would love to see you there. During this webinar, master your money in 2024. I’m gonna cover my playbook going from $200,000 in debt to becoming a seven figure pharmacist. Specifically, I’m going to cover how to get clear on your vision for living a rich life, the system and money management routine that we use to get out of debt and save our first million, how to automate your plans, so you aren’t wondering if you’re on track to reach your goals, and how to determine your retirement numbers. If you can’t make it to the webinar live, no worries, we’ll send out a replay to those that register. But if you do attend live, you’ll have a chance to enter a giveaway where two live attendees will be selected for one of the following: $100 Amazon gift card or a YFP bundle including YFP tshirt, YFP pullover and your book of choice. You’ll learn more about the webinar and register your yourfinancialpharmacist.com/2024. Again, that’s yourfinancialpharmacist.com/2024. Alright, let’s jump into today’s episode, five financial moves that you can make in 2024.

Tim Ulbrich 02:03

Hi, there, Tim Ulbrich here and Happy New Year! I’m so excited to be kicking off 2024 with you here on the YFP podcast. Thank you so much for listening and for joining the show. I hope you had some time over the last several weeks to reflect on 2023, think about what’s ahead for 2024, hopefully unwind and spend some time with loved ones as well. I get excited with the turning of the page into the new year. Not as a complete reset, but as an opportunity to really look more closely at the priorities that have determined to be most important to me, personally and professionally. And to make sure that the schedule and activities align accordingly. And I hope the same is true for you. And as we talk about that turn into the new year, as it relates to the financial plan, I’m going to cover five financial moves that I think you should consider implementing here in 2024, if you’re not already doing so, in your own financial journey. We’re going to talk through each one of these in detail. I’m going to talk about how I’ve implemented this in my own life as well as why I think about each of these five areas really is core to your long term financial success.

So let’s kick things off with number one, which is making sure that our financial goals strike the balance between living a rich life today, as well as planning and saving for the future, right? We need to be thinking about tomorrow, we have to be planning and saving for retirement, making sure that we’re focused on moving our net worth in a positive direction, net worth being our assets, minus our liabilities, making sure that we’re taking care of our future selves saving for retirement filling those investment buckets, all of those things are a priority. And I hope you have some plans and goals around those in 2024. But let’s not lose sight of those goals that help keep us focused on living a rich life today while we’re planning and saving for the future, while we’re planning for tomorrow. So perhaps for some of you listening, you’ve long dreamed about a certain experience that has taken a backseat to the busyness of life. Maybe that’s as small as a weekend getaway. For those that have young kids, I know how difficult that can be. Or perhaps for some of you this is a big stretch goal, may be something as big as a year off, traveling the world having those lifetime types of experiences, those bucket list type of experiences that are most important to you.

You know, I think back to Matt and Nicky Javert that we featured on the podcast that traveled the world. Nick Ornella that took a year off from his job as community pharmacist to travel the world. We’ll share both of those episodes in the show notes. So no matter where your experience or goals live, there is no right or wrong. Each of us are on our own journey. Perhaps it’s something that’s experienced focus that hasn’t been a priority that you’d like to make a priority in 2024. But how about those interests, or hobbies that we used to long for and prioritize that have gotten lost again and that busyness of life and work? So for me in 2023 This wasn’t a financial expense, but it was something that brought great joy. One of the activities that I wanted to pursue was getting back into playing volleyball, something I had done competitively throughout high school, something that the busyness of life, other priorities and work just fell by the wayside. And I did that through a local rec league and that brought incredible joy to me throughout the winter. Or what about that side hustle business or project that you’ve been dragging your feet to take the first step on, or perhaps volunteering or giving opportunities that have gotten lost in the shuffle of other priorities of the financial plan.

So let’s make this year the year that we move the needle on both yes, those long term savings and investment goal saving for our future selves, while also prioritizing living a rich life today. Now, here’s the reality when it comes to setting and achieving our goals, many of us probably need to simplify and clarify our goals to put them in focus. There’s lots of competing priorities, regardless of the stage of life that you’re in. And so I would encourage you to put them down on paper, something that we’ve been doing inside of the YFP plus community last month in December of 2023, was writing down our goals in a measurable time oriented way over the next one year, two to three goals in each of the four areas that mean most to us and our own wellness, of course, finance here, we’re talking about one area of wellness, and sharing that out with one another as a mechanism of both accountability to do the activity, as well as hopefully encouragement and accountability and achieving those goals. So put them down on paper, identify two to three financial goals that you want to achieve over the next year. And again, yes, we’ll have some of those objective things, right saving for the future, investing in 401Ks and IRAs and all those types of investments. But I would challenge you: do you also have components of your financial plan that are aligned with living that rich life today? So we’re not talking about being specific, I’m referring to having a what, to having a when, and to having a why. To having a what, a when, and why. So for example, for us in 2024, one of the experiences we’re hoping to achieve is to go out west to visit some of Jess’s family in Montana in the summer of 2024. We know that’s an expense, right? Traveling from Ohio to Montana, we’ve got four young boys, whether we fly whether we drive, experiences along the way, that’s going to be a large expense. So when it comes to us, that might look like something that hey, by June 1 of 2024, we will allocate $5,000, so that we can take that trip out to Montana, and have that experience with our boys and be with our family, though that’s out there, right? We’ve got a what, we’ve got a when, and we’ve got a why. When we have a what, when and why, we can start to not only make that goal come to life, but we can implement that in a monthly plan to see what it’s going to take for us to be able to achieve that goal. And we’ll talk more about that later on this episode.

So again, before you set your goals for the new year. Get clear on the why right? Do your goals motivate you do your goals inspire you and for those that are you that are doing this together with a significant other, a partner or spouse, starting with the goal, starting with the vision, starting with the dreams and getting aligned in those areas, is going to really help the rest of the financial plan to flow. So that’s number one on our list of five financial moves that you can make in the new year, making sure that your goals include and strike the balance between living a rich life today, and planning and saving for the future.

Alright, number two is taking your tax strategy to the next level taking your tax strategy to the next level. Now tax in my opinion, is one of the most under appreciated and overlooked parts of the financial plan. And I want you to think about tax as a thread that runs across your financial plan, perhaps one that maybe you’re not thinking enough about that. Ideally, we are proactively considering and evaluating when we are making our financial moves. Now this sounds so obvious, but I historically previously have viewed tax very much in the rearview mirror, right we have to file by April 15, or thereabouts each year to meet the IRS requirements. We don’t want the IRS coming knocking at our doors. And when we do that we are accounting for what happened in the previous year. Now thankfully, because of our tax team, because of our attention and focus on this topic, I’ve become much more proactive in my tax planning as a part of the financial plan. But in years gone by, we would file our taxes and then we’d hold our breath right? Are we going to get a refund? Or are we going to have taxes that are due do we do we do our withholdings correctly based on differences in charitable giving from one year to the next right all of these factors?

I didn’t have a great picture on come that time of tax filing, what was going to happen, right, and that is less than ideal when it comes to optimizing this part of the financial plan. It’s so again, we need to shift our attention from tax preparation to tax planning. One is proactive. One is reactive right again when we go to file and we complete that paperwork whether you do that yourself whether you hire professional that is looking backwards if we start to think more proactive, hopefully at the point of filing, yes, we’re going to do that work, we have to do that. But we’re then looking ahead to say, hey, based on that information, based on the rest of our financial plans, based on our personal situation, based on changes that we know are coming or goals that we have, what can we be doing strategically in advance throughout the rest of the year, to make sure that we’re paying our fair share of taxes, but no more. So if you don’t already know your key tax numbers, I’m referring to things like marginal tax rate, effective tax rate, adjusted gross income, let’s make a commitment this year to get started and to learn more.

Now, I would love if you would get out the IRS Form 1040, we’ll link to it in the show notes. And just spend 10 to 15 minutes to make sure that you understand the terminology and the flow of dollars. I get it. It’s nerdy, right. And whether you like this subject, or you don’t you do it yourself, you hire someone else. Understanding these numbers and understanding the flow of dollars, and what those terms mean and how it ultimately affects your marginal and your effective tax rate is going to be really important as you think about the strategies, and you’ll be able to directly see how certain strategies you can implement in the financial plan are going to have an impact on the overall taxes that you pay. So as one example, AGI adjusted gross income has huge implications for those that are going through student loan repayment, right income driven repayment calculations, especially for those that are pursuing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness strategy, your adjusted gross income is directly tied to the monthly payment that you’re going to make under student loan. So if we understand that, we can then start to think about, well, hey, are there strategies I can use that can perhaps reduce or lower my AGI adjusted gross income? Not by making less than one do that, but by making contributions to things like traditional 401 K or traditional 403B accounts? Or how about health savings accounts? Right? These are types of things that can reduce our taxable income, therefore reduce our monthly student loan payment, which is a great thing, especially for those that are pursuing tax free loan forgiveness, all the while we’re accruing tax deferred savings into the future. Just one example of how important the proactive planning can be.

Now on episode 309 of the podcast, we’ll link to that in the show notes. Our CPA and Director of Tax Sean Richards covered the top 10 tax blunders that pharmacists make. So whether you have a negative net worth, or you have several million dollars saved, I think you’ll find a lot of value in that episode. Sean, reflecting on the recent tax filing season, where he filed he’ll correct me if I’m wrong, I think over 200 something returns for the different clients that we worked with. And what he saw as the most common mistakes that pharmacists were making. Some of those things, including having a surprise bill, or refund due at filing, probably the most common thing that we see, including some of the surprises that are causing that issue, right. And so what we want to be doing ideally is we’re shooting for zero, we don’t want to have an interest free loan that we have out to the government. And we also don’t want to have a surprise bill that’s due that we’re not ready for. So what are the common things that cause that refund or cause that bill so we talked about that on that episode. Another common mistake he discussed was pharmacists not employing a bunching strategy for charitable giving. So for those that are giving, especially giving at a significant level, and aren’t following the standardized deduction, Is there perhaps some strategy in the in the bunching of charitable contributions that can reduce one’s tax rate. He also talked about a common mistake he saw a new side hustlers and business owners not planning for taxes.

So earning income and being surprised by not paying estimated taxes along the way. We talked about under estimating the power of the HSA, the health savings account and an oldie but a goodie, not factoring in public service loan forgiveness when choosing tax filing status as married, filing separately or married filing jointly. So make sure to check out that episode episode 309. And easy to see as you hear some of those common examples why having a proactive tax plan is worth its weight in gold. Now, as we turn the page into the new year, this is a great time to be planning, right? We’re getting ready to go into tax season that mid April deadline that we talked about. So now is the perfect time to be thinking about the upcoming tax filing season. Our tax team is ready to help, yes with the filing, but also as I discussed here, with proactive year round tax planning. We do that through our comprehensive tax planning service you can visit YFPtax.com to learn more, and to see whether or not those services may be a good fit for you. Alright, so that’s number two on our list of five financial moves to make in the new year. Take your tax strategies the next level.

Number three is button up your financial documents. Button up your financial documents. Now getting organized with your financial records, I believe plays a significant role, not necessarily in terms of moving the needle on your net worth, but in making sure that you and others have access to all of the information that you need to make informed decisions with the financial plan. So think for a minute about all the financial accounts that you have out there, all the different documents, insurance policies that touch a certain part of your financial plan, the list quickly grows to one that is overwhelming. And the more you operate in your own system, the longer time goes by where you’re operating in your own system, the easier it is for you to navigate, but perhaps harder for others to navigate and unravel, should they need to do so in the future. And that’s where this concept of buttoning up your financial documents comes in. That’s where this concept of a legacy folder comes in. I first heard of that idea of a legacy folder, when I took Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University probably 10-12 years ago at this point at our local church. And I remember walking away thinking, wow, that is so simple. So obvious. Why haven’t I done that yet? Why haven’t Jess and I done that yet, as a part of our own plan. So essentially, the idea of a legacy folder if that’s a new concept to you, whether it’s a physical folder, and electronic folder, or a combination of both, it’s a place where you have all of your financial related documents. So in the event of an emergency, others would be able to quickly access your financial situation and not just access but be able to pick up and understand what’s going on and to be able to make key decisions in your absence. So we just went through updating this and shifting everything to an electronic version. So that in the event of something that happens to Jess and I those caring for our boys, along with the financial planning team at YFP have access to all of the necessary information. So here’s how we have organized it certainly not the only way to do it. But here’s how we have organized it in a combination of Google Drive, and a safe at home that has a passwords, all of our passwords stored in a One Password account. So we have nine different sections, I’ll describe them briefly, this sounds overwhelming, it did take a commitment of time to get started. It takes a commitment of time to update. But I will say there’s an incredible feeling of peace and momentum that comes from having this done.

So section one for us is what we refer to as important documents, okay, birth certificates for us, for our kids ,social security cards, marriage certificates, passports, all of these we have in a fireproof safe at home. And we have them just referenced as being there in the electronic version that we share with the financial planning team as well share with those that would take care of the boys in the event of our absence. So that’s section one important document.

Section two is all of our insurance policies and information – auto insurance, homeowners insurance, umbrella insurance, health insurance, long term disability, term life insurance policies for myself, for Jess, for the business, etcetera.

Section three is estate planning documents. So we have a hard copy of these in the safe that have been notarized and electronic version that’s uploaded in the Google Drive. So these are things like the revocable trust agreements, health care power of attorney living will last will and testament.

Section four is the car titles. Now, I’m not sure how valuable these are given our current condition of our Swagger Wagon, but they’re there nonetheless. So section four is the car title.

Section five is our home ownership documents. So this is the deed to the home, our home equity line of credit or HELOC information, we have another copy of homeowners insurance policy here just so it’s all contained in one section.

Section six is a summary of our financial accounts, our net worth tracking sheet, as well as our Social Security statements. So I’m going to talk about more of this in the webinar on January 8, and actually kind of show you the system that we have set up. But here I just have a quick summary, think of it as a table of contents of all of our financial accounts that are out there. So for example, we use Ally for checking and savings accounts, where we have our treasury bonds, where we have our different investment accounts, 401K’s, IRA accounts and so forth. So it’s just a quick summary of what is the account type, where’s the account. And then as I mentioned, we store all the passwords in a separate secure One Password account. We also have in this section, a net worth tracking sheet. So each month, we track all of our assets, all of our liabilities, we add those up assets minus minus liabilities equals net worth. And we’re tracking our progression of net worth over a period of time. So it’s a way that Jess and I can just quickly look at a 20,000 foot view of where’s our overall financial health whereas the overall trajectory of the net worth.

Section seven is our tax returns for personal and business tax returns.

Section eight is all of the records related to the business. So a summary of the different entities, legal documents, operating agreements, buy/sell agreements, etc.

And then section nine is just a miscellaneous so information about utilities and other accounts that don’t fit in the previous sections. Again, it takes time to get that started, but it’s something that you can act upon pretty quickly in the new year, and I encourage you to set an annual recurring reminder, whether that’s the turn of the new year, perhaps it’s daylight savings time or something else, that you just remember to update those documents as needed periodically.

Alright, so that’s number three in our five financial moves to making 2024, button up your financial documents. Number four is my favorite. This is the area that I think has moved the needle the most for Jess and I, in our financial plan over the last decade or so. And that is automation, making sure that you have a system and ideally a system that is working for you. Now, when it comes to automating your financial plan, again, I think just like the legacy folder concept we talked about, it’s so obvious, so effective, so easy to implement. But many people I don’t think are optimizing this. So think of automation, as the mechanism by which your income is working for you. And it’s automatically funding the priorities that you’ve already set, and determined to be most important in advance. Now, I know I’m not alone, when I say that I was feeling for some time that there are multiple financial priorities that are occurring at once that are swirling around in my head. And it can be overwhelming to think about what are those priorities? In what order? And how do we allocate the limited resource of limited income that we have to those? Should we focus on one? Should we focus on two? Should we focus on three? And so much of the stress around the financial plan, I believe, is from all of that unknown, and anxiety swirling in our heads, right? If we can get that down onto paper, and if we can start to put some numbers and a plan to it and prioritize it, we may not always like the outcome of how fast we may or may not be able to achieve those goals. But once we have a plan, once we articulate it, once we know we thought about it, we prioritize it, I think there’s a lot of clarity and momentum that can come from that. So automation helps put those goals into action. It takes the stress out of wondering whether or not they’re going to happen. So whether it’s saving for an emergency fund, whether it’s saving for a vacation, paying down debt, whether it’s student loan debt, consumer debt, auto loan debt, mortgage debt, whatever type of debt, whether it’s saving for retirement, saving for home, saving for investment property, automation helps identify and prioritize these goals and assign your income accordingly. Yes, it takes a bit of time to set up, perhaps not as much as you may think, because you hear about it. But once it’s set up, it provides a long term return on time benefit, but also better yet, as I mentioned peace of mind and feeling of momentum knowing that you’ve thought about prioritize and have a plan in place working itself to fund your goals.

Now, Ramit Sethi talks about this in his book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, he does an incredible job of teaching automation credit to him. And he says that automating your financial plan will be the single most profitable system that you’ll ever build. And I remember hearing that and thinking, Man, that’s a big, big promise, right? But it is 100% true. Automating your financial plan will be the single most profitable system that you’ll ever built. So if you’re not already doing this, I want you to imagine a future state. Imagine a future state where your financial goals and priorities are clearly defined. You’ve determined how much of your monthly budget is available for these goals. And you have a system in place to automatically fund these goals every month so you get paid and your money is being distributed automatically. Paycheck comes in dollars are being funded to the goals that you’ve already determined and prioritized to be most important. Okay, so what does this look like? Here’s how Jess and I are currently implementing this. Now, previously, we adhere to a zero based budget, which I think really did help us laser in and focus on our expenses and account for every single dollar that we earned. That’s the premise of a zero based budget. I think that method works out really well, especially when you’re getting started or feel like you need to get back on track. But over time, we’ve loosened this up knowing that once we account for all of our monthly commitments, right, our monthly commitments, being mortgage insurance, property taxes, giving, groceries, subscriptions, utilities, etc. Once we account for those, and those are largely fixed, outside of some variation in utility payments, we have a certain amount of funds after we account for those things that we know can be allocated in two general buckets with several options within those two general buckets. So what are those two general buckets? General bucket number one is what we call everything else. So this includes things like gas, miscellaneous trips to the store, family experiences, family entertainment, eating out, et cetera. And we track this, Jess and I track this, in a shared Google Sheet. And I’ll talk more about this in the webinar on the eighth and what the system looks like. That just helps us make sure we don’t overspend this category. Okay, so we started with our total income. We define our total take home income. We then define, as I mentioned, all of those fixed expenses and aren’t really shifting too much from month to month – mortgage, insurance, property taxes, giving, groceries, subscriptions, etc. And in days gone by that would also have been debt payments. And then what’s left over, we’re going to allocate into two general buckets and what I’m talking about is this first general bucket of everything else.

The second general bucket is what we think of as our sinking funds. It’s the second bucket of funds that we want to predefine prioritize, set allocation amounts, and then set up auto-contribution of funds. So what do I mean by the sinking funds? Okay, so for us in 2024, the areas that we’re focused on are funding an HSA, I’ll talk about each one of these more detail, finishing our basement, funding that 2024 vacations, as well as saving for a summer vacation 2025, funding our Roth IRAs, funding the next car purchase, and then thinking more about the boys 529 funds for college savings. So for us in 2024, as we sat down and thought about what is the greatest priority, those are the things that rose to the top that we wanted to fund with these bucket two funds that I’m referring to, right, the sinking funds. So in this scenario, and within our discussion of automation, we would look to estimate the available pool of funds per month or per year divided by 12, we would then prioritize the list, determine the allocation order in the amounts. And then as I mentioned, we would automatically fund those and set up a recurring contribution. So for example, let’s walk through this let’s say that we assume that for the year, let’s assume we have $3,000 a month, or $36,000 for the year available to disperse across these bucket two goals. So again, I’m not talking about the expenses that we know we’re going to fund every month, we talked about that mortgage, insurance, etc., property taxes. I’m not talking about that everything else bucket that we know a certain amount for family experiences, for gas, other trips that we may take out. I’m referring to this bucket of sinking funds.

So let’s assume we have $3,000 a month or $36,000 a year to put towards the sinking funds. Now for some of you listening, you may think, Hey, we’ve got a lot more. That’s great, right? We want to be intentional with that. And for some of you, you may be thinking, Wow, we got a lot less, right? And so we have to focus on again, everyone is on their own journey. So how do we take this $36,000 a year? How do we take this $3,000 a month if we use that as an example, and disperse that across the different goals I just talked about: HSA funds, finishing the basement, Roth IRAs, car fund, etc. So for us, the HSA is really a top priority, not just because of the triple tax benefits. I know we’ve heard about that on that on the show before. But since we have a high deductible health plan, and we have four active boys, right, so we really need to minimize our risk there. And we’ve got a really high deductible as well as a high out of pocket max. So we know that we want to max that out and 2024. That’s $8,300 a year as a family contribution. And so we were going to do that as priority number one. So once we fund that HSA< again, we started with $36,000 a year, we fund, fully fund the HSA $8,300/year, we’re now left with $27,700. So working down the list, what’s priority number two? So for us priority number two is finishing the basement. Now we’ve been planning for this for years. And we’ve decided that based on this phase of life we’re in we’ve got boys ages 12 to four, it’s a great time that we want to make the most out of the space and we want to really make this project happen. For us, it’s the example I’ve referenced in financial move number one, right? Finding that balance between saving for the future and living a rich life today. Now, does finishing the basement financially make the most sense, right? Does does it objectively may make the most sense when we compare it against other types of things like Roth IRAs, or 529 funds, and be able to save and invest for the future? The answer is no. Right? It doesn’t objectively rank higher, any money that you’re going to save and compound over time is going to beat any expense, right? That’s just an objective fact unless that money loses a significant amount as you invest it. But as we step back, and as we look at for our family, finding that balance between living a rich life today, as well as planning for the future, as we look at the progress we’ve already made towards retirement savings, we’ve decided that in fact, we’re going to make this a priority over some other investment and savings accounts. Now, to be frank, I wish we would have done this sooner. And so we’re going to pull the trigger and make this happen in 2024. So for this example, let’s assume that it’s going to cost $25,000 to do the project. And let’s assume we already have $15,000 saved so we need $10,000 more to get the project done. So again, we started with $36,000. We fully funded the HSA at $8300. We’re going to now add another $10,000 in the basement. So we’re left over with $17,700.

Moving down the list of priority number three. So continuing this theme of finding that balance between living a rich life today and tomorrow, we want to prioritize two family experiences in 2024. One being a summer trip to the Fingerlakes that we take with my family. We’ve done this for several years. And another being a trip out west to Montana, I mentioned that a bit earlier. So let’s assume for both of those, that’s going to cost a combined $7,000. So after we subtract that, we now have $10,700 left.

Moving down the list. Next up for us is Jess’s Roth IRA, that’s going to cost $7,000 to fund and max that out and 2024. After we do that, we’re left with $3700, then let’s just round this out by assuming we’ll allocate the remaining amount to my Roth IRA to do a partial fund. Now, you can see this system and process that we worked through right, we identified the total estimated annual amount, you can do the same thing, divide that by 12 for monthly. We listed out the goals, and we match those up to prioritize accordingly.

Now, here’s the disappointing part. Or perhaps, depending on you look at it, it may be exciting is as I do. In this example, we have fully funded several goals, right? We fully funded the HSA, we fully funded finishing the basement, we fully funded to 2024 vacations, we fully funded just as RIA, we partially funded my Roth IRA. But we had several things that I mentioned that were left unfunded, okay? The kids 529 accounts and the summer 2025 vacation, as well as the next car fund. So we have a couple options here. We can go back to the drawing board and redistribute right, lower some of the other ones and partially fund some, and then have others that we are able to partially fund. Or we can stay as is knowing that if additional funds become available, right, whether that’s in the form of for us additional income, it could be tax refunds, although hopefully we’re doing a good job planning and that’s not the case. It could be side hustle income for some of you. It could be picking up extra hours, it could be gifts that you receive, whatever might be the additional income, we know that we have a system and a list that is prioritize that if that income comes in, we know exactly where we’re going to allocate that. And that is the power of automation. That is the power of having a system.

So one step further, what does this practically look like for us in terms of implementation? And I’m going to show much more of this during the webinar on the 8th, I’m really excited about that. So we use Ally for all of our online banking. Now, this is not a commercial for Ally. We really liked them. We’ve used them for several years. I like the capability they have with saving buckets and other features. But you can build a system like this, and many different types of savings accounts. So for us direct deposit from work income goes into Ally, goes into a checking account. And since we know the amount required per month to allocate to the goals we decided upon, there is then a bucket labeled for each of these goals inside of Ally. So the transfer of funds goes from checking account where the direct deposit comes in to savings account. And then within the savings account, we have a predefined bucket. So essentially what this looks like is you’ve got a certain amount of dollars, let’s say $30, or $40, or $50,000 in a savings account. But once you click into that, you see all these different sub-buckets for things like vacation, for a basement remodel. And again, you can do a multitude of different buckets, I think you can do up to 30 or so inside of Ally. In the case of for us, the IRA, the Roth IRA and HSA savings, you know, we could put those in the bucket as well inside the savings account, but we’re gonna set those up to be an auto contribution directly into the investment account, right? We want those dollars working for us as quickly as possible. So again, imagine that flow you get paid, right, we’ve identified the buckets that auto contribute into the buckets, because we know we’ve already accounted for it inside of the rest of the bucket and rest of the budget. And then that’s working for us once we have the system set up. Now depending on when you get paid for us, it’s the first of the month. But for you it might be two times a month. But regardless, once you know when you get paid and once that’s consistent, we know that anytime after the first so we get paid around the first of the month, as well as the 15th. But we use the first as our metric for when we’re going to auto fund these goals. So anytime after the first it could be the third, it could be the fourth, I think I have most of them set up on the fourth, we can have that auto transfer established to go from checking to savings to the bucket leaving only in checking what is left to pay off the credit card each month. And so that all other dollars, they have a purpose, right? They’re being defined and allocated towards a goal. That is the system of automation. And I’m gonna talk more about that in the webinar on the 8th. I’m gonna give you some visuals and show you how to set up so you can make the most of it for your own financial plan. So that’s the fourth financial move. I think the one probably that can move the needle the most. Automate your financial plan have a system in place.

And finally number five is set your learning plan. Now when it comes to personal finance, I believe strongly that there is no arrived with the financial plan. Right? This is constantly evolving. It’s constantly changing. And a commitment to ongoing learning and having the humility to understand that there’s much to learn, and that mistakes are inevitable, is really key to long term success. So next week episode of the podcast, I’m going to feature ten personal finance books that I think you can/should read in 2024 that have had a profound impact on my own journey. So make sure to tune into that episode. I don’t want to spoil the goods here. But it’s important that you define that learning plan and path that works best for you.

One of the greatest advantages that we have of living in the 21st century is that we have access to learning just about anything that we want. And often we can do it at a low or no cost, right. Thank you very much to our local public library. So whether it’s reading books, great to have at it! If it’s podcasts, blogs, videos, there’s many options out there, find the learning path, that means the most to you and has the significance and really engages you in the learning process. And I would encourage you -learning is one thing, right? But learning plus action plus accountability is really where things start to happen. So that’s number five of our five financial moves to make it 2024. Set an intentional plan around what you want to learn in this new year. And then determine what are those resources, what are the blogs? What are the books? What are the podcasts that are going to help you get there and I hope YFP will be an important part of that journey.

Alright, before we wrap up today’s episode, I want to remind you of that free webinar I’m hosting on Monday January 8 at 8pm/Eastern: Master your Money. This webinar, Master your Money in 2024 and a cover my playbook going from $200,000 in debt to becoming a seven figure pharmacist. Specifically I’m gonna cover how to get clear on your vision for living a rich life, to make sure we had that vision in place, the system and money management that I’ve used that we’ve used Jess and I, to get out of debt and save our first million. How to automate your plan. I’ll show you step by step process for automation. So you’re wondering if you’re on track to achieve your goals, and how to determine your retirement webinar. As I mentioned before, if you can’t make it live, no worries, we’ll send out a replay afterwards. But if you can make it live, we’d love to see you there and you’ll then be eligible for a chance to enter a giveaway. Two live attendees will be selected to either receive $100 Amazon gift card or a YFP bundle including a YFP t-shirt, YFP pullover and a YFP book of your choice. You can learn more at register at your yourfinancialpharmacist.com/2024. Again, that’s yourfinancialpharmacist.com/2024. Cheers to a great New Year. Have a great rest of your day.

[DISCLAIMER]

As we conclude this week’s podcast and important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. information to the podcast and corresponding material should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment. Furthermore, the information contained in our archived newsletters, blog posts and podcasts is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist unless otherwise noted, and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward looking statements, which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer. Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacists podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

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YFP 340: YFP Podcast Replay – How to Teach Your Kids About Money and Investing

Posted on December 28, 2023December 26, 2023 by YFP Media

Dylin Redling and Allison Tom discuss their journey to FIRE and their book for kids on investing and personal finance, sharing practical advice and tips.

Episode Summary

On this episode Tim Ulbrich welcomes Dylin Redling and Allison Tom, creators of Retireby45.com and authors of two books, Start Your F.I.R.E. (Financial Independence Retire Early): A Modern Guide to Early Retirement and Investing for Kids: How to Save, Invest and Grow Money. Dylin and Allison achieved ‘financial independence retire early’ status in 2015 when they were in their early 40’s. Have you ever thought to yourself, I wish I had learned more about the topic of personal finance sooner? If so, that’s exactly what today’s show is all about as Tim interviews Dylin and Allison about their work with their book, Investing for Kids. They discuss practical advice and meaningful activities to help with teaching kids about money and investing.

About Today’s Guests

Dylin Redling and Allison Tom are a married couple living in Oakland, California. After working for 17 years in the tech industry in San Francisco, they left the workforce in January 2015 and never went back.

They own and operate the website RetireBy45.com, which provides inspiration, tips, and resources for achieving FIRE (Financial Independence / Retiring Early) and making the most of the FIRE lifestyle. In 2020, they wrote and published two books: “Start Your FIRE: A Modern Guide to Early Retirement” and the best-selling “Investing for Kids.”

They love food, fitness, and travel. Their goal of “60 by 60” is to visit 60 countries by the age of 60.

Key Points from the Episode

Learn about Dylin and Allison’s book for kids ages 8-12 called, “Investing for Kids: How to Save, Invest, and Grow Money”
Dylin and Allison’s first book was “Start Your FIRE: A Modern Guide to Early Retirement”
Their book for kids is easy to understand with lots of activities and lead by the colorful characters called the Dollar Duo: Mr. Finance and Investing Woman
Career paths and choices led Allison and Dylin to live in the Bay Area of California
When Dylin had pneumonia and was in the ICU for many days, the couple began to ask themselves, “Do we want to work for 25 more year?”
Dylin’s pneumonia experience along with changes in their careers led them to pursue with FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) journey
Because they are passionate about learning about personal finance, they felt inspired to reach a younger audience
Dylin and Allison believe it is important to have a healthy respect for money, even in the age of digital currency
They hope their book can be read with an adult so that it can lead to good conversations about personal finance
Good finances early on can put you in a good position to be in control of future opportunities

Episode Highlights

“So there are plenty of ways to cut costs in your life that are relatively painless, that we’ve talked about all the time, so there are just different ways to do it to achieve FIRE. And some people don’t even choose to do the early retiring like my father is the example. So retirement is really more of the optional part. We’re not saying you have to retire, you have to leave your job and just sit around drinking mojitos all day long, although it’s certainly not a bad lifestyle. But you know, the retiring part is up to the individual. “ – Allison Tom

“So we love our FIRE lifestyle and the fact that we left our W2 jobs in our 40s, but we know it’s not for everybody. But what we do also know is that the concepts of Financial Independence are good for anybody, no matter when you might want to retire. And those concepts are really about doing the right thing with your money. So it starts with saving, it starts with being somewhat frugal — and when we say frugal, we don’t mean living a spartan lifestyle. We just mean not going crazy with money with spending on things that you don’t want or that you don’t need or you feel like you have to keep up with the Joneses and get a brand new SUV every two years.” – Dylin Redling

“I got to college, and then I had my first credit card that I just — oof. It was bad. I did not understand the concept of paying credit cards and interest rates and late fees and minimum payments. And so, you know, I got in trouble with credit cards after I graduated. And it wasn’t until after that that I thought, oh, I really need to learn more about what’s going on here. And so I started watching some shows on PBS, but by then, you know, I’m in my early 20s at that point. My learning took a lot longer for the habits to become engrained in me. So you know, I really do think that if kids could see this stuff earlier, it would be so much more impactful.” –Allison Tom

“That’s the beauty of the time being yours is you can make it whatever you want to do. We also do a lot more work with our community that we never had time to do when we were working. So we’re a lot more invested in our neighborhood, and we spend more time working with businesses in our neighborhood to bring in more business. So having that luxury of time means you can go explore whatever interests pop up.” – Allison Tom

“And so as the educators come up with their curriculum, I think honestly, a lot of adults are really intimidated by personal finance. And so it’s something that seems easy enough for them to cut out of the education system as an elective because well, if they don’t understand it, then kids aren’t going to understand it. And if they’re intimidated by it, then kids are definitely going to not understand it and be intimidated by it, so let’s not even talk about it, which actually is one of the reasons why we thought it was important to write the book.” – Allison Tom

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

(INTRO)

Tim Ulbrich: Dylin and Allison, welcome to the show.

Allison Tom: Thanks for having us.

Dylin Redling: Thank you very much. Great to be here.

Tim Ulbrich: I’ve very much been looking forward to this interview to talk more about your story achieving financial independence and early retirement and more specifically, the work that the two of you did in writing “Investing for Kids: How to Save, Invest, and Grow Money.” And Dylin, let’s start with you only because we share an Ohio State connection since you’re an alum so go Bucks. Why write a book specifically designed for kids about investing? What was the motivation behind your work?

Dylin Redling: Yeah, well, first of all, go Buckeyes. Yes, a great connection there. It’s interesting because I’ll start off with the interesting fact that Allison and I actually don’t have kids. And so you would think that the impetus would have been we had our own kids and we taught them financial literacy and it inspired us to teach more kids. But in fact, we sort of stumbled into this book. This is our second book. Our first book is called, “Start Your FIRE: A Modern Guide to Early Retirement.” And it’s all about early retirement and financial independence, which that book just poured right out of us because it’s something that we live and we know very well. And what happened was the publisher who we worked with on that book came back to us a couple months after that book was published and said, “Hey, we have an idea for this other book. And it’s investing for kids ages 8-12. And what do you guys think because you know about investing and financial concepts, and we think you guys might be able to pull this off.” And we thought, wow, we don’t have kids, we’re not teachers, we don’t hang out with kids. We have a few friends with kids, but we don’t spend a lot of time with them. And so we thought, man, this sounds really challenging and daunting. But it was during the 2020 year of COVID, so we had a lot of time on our hands. So we thought, let’s just go for it. And we dove into it, and it was very challenging because we wanted it to be interesting for kids and informative and fun but somehow, we put our heads together and we had a really good editing team that helped us with some of the concepts to relate to kids. And that’s — and we just dove into it and we just made it happen.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think you guys did an awesome job. You know, one of the things that stood out to me as my wife and I were looking through this book as parents of four young kids trying to teach this topic of money is that’s it’s very hands-on, it’s relatable, it’s digestible, lots of activities, really cool ideas. You know, I often find myself, especially writing, talking about this topic regularly, presenting on this topic, you take for granted how you learned some of this information along the way. You know, I often think, OK, take a concept like compound interest or, you know, mutual funds or index funds or ultimately trying to determine what your retirement savings goals, any of those concepts, and it’s very easy to get lost in the weeds. And I think it’s often hard to figure out, how am I going to break this down and teach this with my children and really work through this? And so I found myself looking through this, not only learning myself of oh, that’s a really neat way to teach a different concept or a very visual way or a nice activity to apply that information. So I think as I looked through this, whether someone is more advanced in their own knowledge and understanding of personal finance or whether they feel like they could also learn from these concepts, either one I think this book could be a really good guide for them alongside of working with their child. So great work in the work that you put together with the book. And Allison, knowing your background is a technical project manager, I’m curious, I mean, how and why did you catch FIRE — pun intended here — with this topic, not only as an individual pursuit for financial independence but also in wanting to help guide others to the work that you’re doing with RetireBy45.com and with the book “Investing for Kids.” Where does the interest come from?

Allison Tom: Part of it is that my college degree is actually psychology and education. So I had all these grand ideas of becoming a teacher, an elementary school teacher, after I graduated from college. But you know, after a couple of years, it dawned on me that frankly, our teachers are woefully underpaid. And there was pretty much there was no clear financial path for me to continue being a teacher making the salary I was making, so I was living in Boston at the time and I moved back to New York where we eventually met waiting tables, of all things. And we came out to San Francisco on a whim, we were on vacation, we were in our mid-20s, we thought, alright, let’s check out San Francisco. And so I bounced around from career to career and ended up on a consulting company that eventually brought me into the technical world of the Bay Area. But you know, so being a project manager is basically being a glorified teacher. So it’s dropping people, wrangling people to do things that you want them to do but do it in a way that makes them want to be — work as a team and learn from each other. So in a way, it was being a project manager was — it had very similar tendencies as it was being a teacher. And so we had always thought, oh, it would be great to retire early, but we didn’t really know what retiring early meant. We thought, oh, 55, that seems like a really good age to retire. It’s earlier than 65, but it seems so far in the future. And living in the Bay Area, our expenses were so high that we were like, there’s no way, even if we’re making decent salaries between the two of us that we’re ever going to retire. But about 11 years or so ago, Dylin came down with double pneumonia and was in the ICU for about 10 days and in the hospital altogether for almost two weeks. And that for us was a light bulb moment because he was within a 50/50 chance that he would make it. And so you know, after that, we kind of thought, OK, do we really want to keep working for the next 25 years or so? And so we kind of like made it our goal to get out of the rat race as soon as we could. And so we kind of fell into by accident. We can talk about that later, but it just — it kind of was a natural progression from all of the things that we’ve been doing over time.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, that makes sense. And I appreciate you sharing some of the background and story. We’ll come back to how you got to that point of early retirement, obviously as I mentioned in the introduction, early 40s to be able to accomplish that goal, and we’ll talk a little bit about how you got to that path, why that was possible as well. And so let’s first dig into some of the book of “Investing for Kids.” Let’s start with the main characters of the book, the Dollar Duo: Mr. Finance and Investing Woman. Allison, tell us more about these two characters, how you came up with the idea, why it was important to the overall text, and how those characters can really help the learner, again, 8- to 12-year-old is the target group here, engage with the material throughout the book.

Allison Tom: Well, first of all, it was kind of funny, today is actually Superheroes Day, so –

Tim Ulbrich: There we go.

Allison Tom: It’s a perfect segue into the topic. We were actually taking a walk one day as we were writing the book, and we were talking about politics, of all things. And we were trying to figure out in the administration, whichever administration, whoever won the presidency, what each president could do to make their administration better. And so we kind of were talking and talking about of all things, the Justice League of America and who we would think would be a good fit for making this country a better country. And so the whole idea of the Justice League, kind of thought, we thought, oh, superheroes. Kids love superheroes. Let’s talk to our publisher about bringing in some superheroes. And we were like, well, I don’t know if they’ll go for that, there’s some extra graphics involved and it could be expensive, but we felt that it would really be a good way for kids to relate to finances. And so we kind of pushed hard for this idea of having superheroes teach kids finance.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and that stood out to me in addition to how visual it is. This does not — especially for a topic like investing, right, can be weighty at times, it can be overwhelming, I often find myself when I’m giving a talk on this topic, starts with excitement often when we think about what the — and then you get into the weeds and you see the eyes gloss over, right, and other things. And this does not read like a textbook in any way, shape, or form. And I’m grateful for that. So thank you for the illustrations, the activities, the superheroes, but I think it very much reads like an interactive, applicable, nuts-and-bolts, important information, but how do I actually apply it and hopefully get excited about this information. Again, we’re thinking about an 8- to 12-year-old of wanting to really hopefully empower them to be excited with this for the rest of their own financial journey. And I very much read this book, as I mentioned, being a father of four boys who also lives and breathes personal finance, I really do often find myself in conversation with my boys about money. And honestly, I struggle at times with making the topic of money tangible and meaningful. And it can feel abstract, especially when I find myself trying to say and teach a principle that I very much understand but it feels more abstract as I talk it out loud and especially when you start to view it through the lens of a child. And so I like how you start the book with Chapter 1 on Money 101. You cover important topics like money doesn’t grow on trees, ways to earn money, a little bit of entrepreneurship in there, which is really cool, the history of money, where to keep money. And so Dylin, here’s the challenge that I’m seeing with my boys. In the age of credit cards, debit cards, direct deposit, online banking, digital currency, electronic payment methods, it can feel difficult to teach a child about money when you don’t see it. Right? There’s very little actual, physical cash and therefore, it can be hard to connect work and I think the opportunities from work with earning money and therefore, the opportunity to then save and see it grow. So what are some tips and strategies as you put this book together as well as the other teaching you’ve done on this topic about how can we teach kids about money in a way that it can be relatable, it can be tangible, and then hopefully it becomes memorable for them.

Dylin Redling: Yeah, you know, that’s a really good point about money being very digital in this day and age. I remember when I was a kid, one of the coolest things was my grandmother would give me and my cousins 50 single dollars for Christmas and for our birthdays. They would come in a little box just big enough to hold those 50 $1 bills.

Tim Ulbrich: I love that.

Dylin Redling: And — yeah, it was really cool. And you know, $50 back then for a kid was a lot of money. And those 50 $1 bills would last a really long time. I would take them into the arcade, into the pizza parlor, whatever. And so maybe one way to do it is to actually bring back physical money. And I don’t think the amount really matters that much. But like you said, I mean, being able to tangibly feel it, see it, and understand it, it helps a lot more if you’re using physical money. And I’ll actually give an example of that we used on our blog and in actually “Start Your FIRE” book. I don’t think we mentioned it in “Investing for Kids,” but it’s a little story I like to tell about a money lesson that I actually learned from Allison when we were waiting tables in New York. So we met in a big restaurant in Times Square, and Allison grew up with a little bit of a better financial education in her household than I did. My single mother was wonderful, but it was all paycheck-to-paycheck, there wasn’t a lot of saving or investing. So I came into our initial relationship not very good at dealing with money. So anyway, we were waiting tables. So all of our money pretty much was in tips. So we would have tons of cash. And I remember just putting the money — I would wad it up into balls, I would stuff it into all four of my pockets because I was busy. And then we would go out afterwards and Allison saw how I was treating my money, and she was like, “What are you doing? How do you even keep track of that? That’s awful.” And so she taught me this little lesson. And she doesn’t even remember this because this was 25 years ago, but it stuck out in my head. And basically, I call it the Wallet Lesson. When you take all of your bills and you put them nicely, neatly in order from small to big or big to small, whatever works, fold it neatly into your wallet. And it’s really simple, but the reason it was impactful for me is because it just got me to think about how to respect and treat money. You know, you work really hard for money –

Tim Ulbrich: That’s right.

Dylin Redling: And if you don’t treat it well, you don’t respect it, you know, that $50 might not seem like a big deal. But when it gets to $100,000 or $500,000 and you don’t have that same respect and feel for what that money represents and how hard it was to earn it, you’re not going to put it and treat it and save it and protect it as well as you could.

Tim Ulbrich: Such a good example of a behavioral move, right? The number of dollars didn’t change, but how you treated them, how you respected them, how you viewed them, and I think many of our listeners, we talk on this show often that I believe personal finance, it’s about the math and it’s about the behavior, and both of those are very important and some of those types of moves or here, teaching kids in that way, I think can be very powerful as well. Allison, Chapter 2, save your money, you have an activity titled “Be an Interest Rate Detective.” I love this. I thought this was a really cool interactive activity where you challenge the reader to work with an adult to research interest rates for a local bank savings account, a CD, so a Certificate of Deposit, and an online savings account. So again, this was just one of many example activities you have throughout the book, but why is an activity like this so important in terms of someone being an interest rate detective to experience and go through as they begin their journey of understanding some of the basics of investing?

Allison Tom: So part of it is we wanted all the activities to be something that kids could do with the adult in their life. And we didn’t assume that every child has a parent because we know in this modern day and age that families are different nowadays, and you might have two moms or two dads or a grandmother or grandfather or a guardian of some sort. So we wanted something that people could do together with — kids could do together with someone else. And we thought, oh, it’s going to be interesting because banks are closed during COVID. When we were writing the book, it was right in the heart of shelter in place. But we thought, well, you know, kids have access to — most kids have access to a computer, they can at least walk around to a local bank and banks always have their advertisements on their windows with their interest rates. But we thought it would be an interesting way for kids to see what is in their environment and practice some good behaviors like oh, what does interest rate mean? What is APR? Those are, they’re jumbled letters and so you actually learn what the acronym stands for. And so we want to make sure that kids could kind of connect their physical world to their these abstract ideas about money. So all these activities are kind of a way to get kids to start thinking about it, and we were like, oh, kids aren’t really going to want to do activities, it’s extra homework. So we tried to make them fun and things that they could actually do and feel like they were learning something.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think this was a good example where the activity really, to me, is a rabbit hole of other learning, right? So if you go to the bank and do this activity, just like you suggested, Allison, it leads to other conversations and questions like, what is the federal reserve? And what is an insured account? What does that mean? You talk about that in the book, you know, how do you explain the federal reserve? What is compound interest? Why is that so important? What is principle? What’s interest? What do terms mean? And I think it, again, leads to further conversations, which obviously hopefully spark some motivation and curiosity to learn more on this topic. Dylin, in Chapter 3, Introduction to Investing, you cover very important topics, you know, why to invest, risk v. reward — and I love the Risk-o-meter throughout the book, that was really neat — liquidity, the importance of conducting research, and connecting back to my previous comment about the difficulties teaching a child about money when it may not be tangible, you can’t see it, can’t feel it type of a mindset, I think this is another area where parents may feel challenged to teach a child the importance of investing when again, it might feel somewhat abstract and here, we’re talking about delayed gratification, right? So not spending money on something today that has an instant reward. I think back to my childhood, it was driving to the corner store, buying baseball cards, buying candy, you earn the money, you spent the money, you saw the reward instantly. So here, the activity on investing, which I thought helped to really drive this concept further, you talk about an activity of picking a stock and really going through that process of understanding what’s involved there. So talk us through that type of an activity, what’s involved in that, and why that’s important to help a child relate to the concepts of investing.

Dylin Redling: Yeah, sure. It’s interesting because I can also relate it to how Allison and I do our own investing. And most of what we do, to be honest, are buying mutual funds and index funds. We don’t do a lot of single stock buying. However, there are some advantages to just helping a child or anybody, really, think about, well, if you were to buy a single stock, what would the thought process be when you do that? We actually just wrote an interesting post on our blog just about a week ago where we had $10,000 that we wanted to experiment with. And what we did is we selected five different stocks to invest that $10,000. So $2,000 per stock. And I went through the process in that blog post of why we would do this. And it wasn’t to get rich quick or to see what would happen in a week or a month. This particular blog post talked about a one-year time frame. And it’s the same with the activity for the child. I think we used a shorter — a relatively short time frame so they could at least measure their success. At the end of the day, investing, as you know, as your listeners know, it’s very much a long-term process where you’re investing over years and decades. But again, to get the child to think about some of the things that you might want to think about with whether you’re investing in stocks or any sort of investment, what are the things that go into that thought process? And so getting back to that blog post I wrote, some of the stocks that I suggested that we test out, one was a blockchain ETF. So now that bitcoin and other coin-based just went public, those are things that we wouldn’t necessarily invest in directly. But a blockchain ETF is an example of a way you could dip your toe into that technology. So that was the thought process there. Another example was a cruise company, NCL, Norwegian Cruise Line. Now that COVID is starting to disappear and everyone’s getting vaccinated, people, there’s this pent-up demand to start traveling again. So we thought, hey, in the next year, NCL may actually start to do really good. And they even have a program where if you have 100 shares, you get extra bonus points. And so the idea is to think about all the different aspects to that investment, like how does it relate to what’s going on in the world right now? And what other pros and cons are there to that investment?

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think we share your philosophy. What I heard there is our planning team often says a good investing plan should probably be as about boring as watching paint dry.

Dylin Redling: Right.

Tim Ulbrich: At the end of the day, it’s about a long-term play. But I like this activity as a concept. You know, I remember I had a great Econ101 teacher that had us do a similar activity. And it’s very memorable because it also leads to many other conversations like well, what type of influence does my marketing have? Or I thought this was going to go this way, and it didn’t go this way. Maybe I had some overconfidence in my selection of things. So why is diversification important? So I think, again, reading it and doing it, two very, very different things. And I think people experiencing this firsthand, especially you think of an 8- to 12-year-old, a very kinesthetic learner, right, hands-on experience that moment, be able to learn through that experience. Allison, as I went through the book, many times I thought to myself, man, what if I would have had some of this information earlier? What if I would have had this in middle school or high school or perhaps even earlier? And shoutout to my parents, who did an awesome job of the foundations, grew up in a small business, felt like I had a little bit of a head start. But outside of some K-12 programs and in higher education, I would say it’s largely absent, maybe some elective courses or some opportunities. And so I can’t help but think like, why aren’t we doing more of this? Why aren’t we covering more of this in a K-12 education? I mean, this type of book, this type of experience, these types of activities would be a home run in teaching kids about money. Here, we’re taking 8-12 investing, but obviously we all know it’s broader than that as well. So question here, I’m not asking you to solve the personal finance educational system woes, but why do you think this is not more foundational to our educational system in terms of personal finance education?

Allison Tom: Right. So I think part of it is that our generation didn’t really learn this either. And so as the educators come up with their curriculum, I think honestly, a lot of adults are really intimidated by personal finance. And so it’s something that seems easy enough for them to cut out of the education system as an elective because well, if they don’t understand it, then kids aren’t going to understand it. And if they’re intimidated by it, then kids are definitely going to not understand it and be intimidated by it, so let’s not even talk about it, which actually is one of the reasons why we thought it was important to write the book. We didn’t get this education when we were growing up. I know my parents are second-generation immigrants. And so the money lessons that they learned were from their parents, who grew up during the Great Depression. And as immigrants coming over to this country, they just pooled their money and they saved and they saved and they worked 20 hours a day to make money and then they would maybe invest it in the bank, although plenty of my relatives didn’t even bother with that. So my lessons growing up were save and save and save and save. I had a little piggy bank, and I would put all my coins in from the piggy bank, but that was the only thing that I learned. And so it wasn’t until I got to college, and then I had my first credit card that I just — oof. It was bad. I did not understand the concept of paying credit cards and interest rates and late fees and minimum payments. And so, you know, I got in trouble with credit cards after I graduated. And it wasn’t until after that that I thought, oh, I really need to learn more about what’s going on here. And so I started watching some shows on PBS, but by then, you know, I’m in my early 20s at that point. My learning took a lot longer for the habits to become engrained in me. So you know, I really do think that if kids could see this stuff earlier, it would be so much more impactful. You know, I’ve talked to a girlfriend of mine, her daughter is 17 and she read the book and she was like, “Yeah, you know, I’m going to start doing the savings plan when I get a job.” My friend was laughing because she’s like, my daughter doesn’t have a job. But she was just like, she got inspired by it, and I thought, oh, if we could just get kids to learn this stuff sooner –

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Allison Tom: All the great things we could do with them. So hopefully. Hopefully.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I love that, to that point, Allison. I think it was early in the book, you have the reader go through an activity where they identify problems, things that could be improved upon, right? And one of the things I often say is that any business is a solution to a problem, and that solution is one that people care about and are willing to pay for. And you know, I love that because I think for a child, like if they can think about, what are some things that could be done better? You know, one of them you proposed in the book, which was really cool because we recently just bought this — or actually we got it as a gift for our kids from our family — is you mention like chess. Really hard game for kids to play, kids to learn. Why isn’t there a solution out there that can make chess easier to play? Sure enough, there is. There’s a card game where you draw cards, you learn the basic moves of chess. So things like that, I think you’re inspiring some of the creative thinking, the problem solving, and laying some of the seeds of entrepreneurship or even for those that don’t own their own company, which would be the vast majority of folks, intrepreneurship, how can you be a problem solver within your organization? And how can you create solutions that make you a valuable asset within that organization? I want to shift gears a bit to connect some of the work that you have in “Investing for Kids” with what you cover in your site, Retireby45.com. You mentioned your other FIRE book as well. And I got the impression that you both, you believe that everyone could put together — especially an 8- to 12-year-old reading the “Investing for Kids” book — put together a plan for FIRE, again Financial Independence Retire Early — by the age of 45. So Dylin, our listeners know firsthand that time in the market equals success, and that compound interest, as you mentioned in the book, is the eighth wonder of the world. So we know the math is possible if someone starts at an early age. But why do you think it’s important that someone plans for FIRE by the age of 45?

Dylin Redling: Whether you’re able to retire in your 40s or your 50s or you do a traditional retirement in your 60s or even beyond, Allison’s dad, for example, is 70 now — or slightly older — and has no intentions of stopping working even though Allison suggests that he stop and enjoy life. But he’s got a job that he really loves. And so there’s a lot of people out there that are like that. So we love our FIRE lifestyle and the fact that we left our W2 jobs in our 40s, but we know it’s not for everybody. But what we do also know is that the concepts of Financial Independence are good for anybody, no matter when you might want to retire. And those concepts are really about doing the right thing with your money. So it starts with saving, it starts with being somewhat frugal — and when we say frugal, we don’t mean living a spartan lifestyle. We just mean not going crazy with money with spending on things that you don’t want or that you don’t need or you feel like you have to keep up with the Joneses and get a brand new SUV every two years. So there’s that, and of course investing wisely. And you know, we have another story that we write out on our blog, which kind of I think can be somewhat inspiring to people who are in their 20s and maybe haven’t really done anything with their finances yet. We, as Allison alluded to earlier, kind of our story is we met in New York and then we moved to San Francisco. And we were in our mid-20s at the time. And we still hadn’t invested a dollar yet. And it wasn’t until our late 20s that we got “real jobs” with a 401k plan and that sort of thing. And so it wasn’t until our late 20s that we really started investing. And our entire investment life cycle, if you will, was about 17 years from our late 20s to our early 40s. And in that time, we just were so diligent about dollar cost averaging, we did — we invested into both our 401k, our IRA, and a taxable account once we got some extra income literally on a weekly basis for years and years and years, no matter what the market was doing. Through the 2001 .com crash because we’re both working in that industry and of course through the ‘08-’09 recession. Never stopped. And so those kind of habits, again, are good for anybody no matter what your retirement goals are, just really those financial habits are going to put you in a great position.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I’m glad you shared that, Dylin. One of the questions I had for you was I read your story of not really late 20s, early 30s getting serious about investing, but retired or achieving FIRE by 43, 44, so short window of time, right? We tend to think of a very long trajectory of savings. You mentioned 17 years. So my question was what was the secret sauce? And if I heard you correctly, it was tax-advantaged accounts, 401k’s, IRAs, some taxable accounts and dollar cost averaging and being consistent. Is that fair?

Dylin Redling: Yeah. You know, a couple other things we did — we did the phrase “side hustle” is really popular now. But when we did it, we just called it a side business. This was in the mid-2000s. I came up with an affiliate marketing business that I ran on the weekends. And it ended up being a third income for us. So there’s things like maximizing your income. And then another concept — I’ll shoot it over to Allison to talk about — is geographic arbitrage. And that helped us kind of move about nine years ahead of schedule. Do you want to talk about how we did that?

Allison Tom: Sure. So geographic arbitrage has a lot of different meanings in the — for people. And the gist of it is that you leverage your current salary and move to a lower cost location. And so most people think that is oh, I’m going to make my United States salary and move to Thailand or Costa Rica, where the cost of living is exceedingly low. We did it by moving from San Francisco to Oakland, California, which geographically is a 10-mile difference but at the time, we were able to save about 50% on our housing costs.

Tim Ulbrich: Wow.

Allison Tom: So yeah, it was pretty insane. For being 10 miles away, two or three train stops away on our BART system, we were able to pay off our condo in Oakland in cash by selling our place in San Francisco, which alleviated all the mortgage payments, the increase in property payments and our insurance went down as well. So that, Dylin calculated later, saved us probably about nine years of working because our mortgage in San Francisco was so astronomical that just cutting 50% off just pushed us into the financial independence sphere that much sooner. So it’s things like that. Obviously not everybody is going to be able to save 50% of their housing by moving 10 miles away, but there are other ways to do it. You can do things like house hacking where if you have space on your property, you could build an extra unit and rent it out or if you have an extra bedroom, you could rent it out and have a roommate or Airbnb it. So there are ways tod do it without going through the extreme example that we had. So there are plenty of ways to cut costs in your life that are relatively painless, that we’ve talked about all the time, so there are just different ways to do it to achieve FIRE. And some people don’t even choose to do the early retiring like my father is the example. So retirement is really more of the optional part. We’re not saying you have to retire, you have to leave your job and just sit around drinking mojitos all day long, although it’s certainly not a bad lifestyle. But you know, the retiring part is up to the individual.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I’m glad you said that, Allison, because I know many of our listeners love what they’re doing as pharmacists and they worked hard, and they got a doctorate degree and they have student loan debt and they invested in that education. And so my read is that many pharmacists are captivated by the idea and the power of financial independence. And you know, I believe that’s a goal we all should strive for for a variety of reasons with RE, Retire Early, being one of those perhaps reasons, but other things as well in terms of why that financial independence may be important. So nine years, nine years was estimated from that one decision, which I’m coming full-circle, Allison, about what you shared at the beginning of Dylin being in the hospital with double pneumonia. And when you start to think about the value of time, I mean, nine years and doing some of those calculations and what does that mean for one’s personal situation, I think that’s a really powerful example of taking something that can be mathematical or objective and looking at it in a different mindset. If we were to make this move or this move, what does that mean for us in terms of timeline to retirement, working part-time, pursuing another opportunity, what does that mean for one’s goals towards financial independence? I’m glad you discussed geographic arbitrage because one of the things we see in our profession in pharmacy is that unfortunately, a pharmacist’s income usually does not translate with cost of living. So here I am in the Midwest and that income for a pharmacist in the Bay Area might be a little bit more for a similar role but nowhere near the cost of living difference between Columbus, Ohio and San Francisco, California. So I think this is a move, especially for many of our listeners that might be saying, you know, ‘I’m making a decent income, but I’ve got a lot of work to do on student loans, I want to invest, I want to buy a home, I want to do this or that. And at the end of the day, there’s only so much income.’ So is a move, whether it’s near, within 10 miles, or something a little bit more significant, is that an option that somebody may be able to pursue? Allison, what have you guys been doing since achieving FIRE? You know, what’s been the goals, what’s been the priority, how have you been spending time? I think that’s one of the other common objections that comes up is like, if I retire at 45, like I don’t even know what I would do with my time. Tell us a little bit about that journey since you guys have achieve FIRE.

Allison Tom: So it’s funny, we — so we FIREd quite by accident. We were both working in tech startups, and Dylin got laid off and then I got laid off about five weeks afterwards. And so we kind of took the time after we were both laid off to travel a little bit. That was one of the things that two people who are working can’t always schedule, coordinate their schedules, to take some time off. And so we thought, alright, this is the perfect time. We went to Europe for two weeks and did a cruise around the Mediterranean and had a blast and then came back and thought, alright, we’ve got to get back to work. So we went about — we went on interviews and we just saw just how miserable people were at their jobs. Just so stressed out, and I interviewed with this one guy who was like, “You need to tell me who said this about us so I can go talk to them.” I’m like, I don’t want to work for you. You’re scary. And so you know, the three months turned into six months and then nine months and then Dylin figured out kind of like back of the envelope math, figured out that we could actually retire without having to go back to work anymore. He stumbled into the 4% Rule, which we still hadn’t at that point heard the term FIRE before. You know, the first few years we did a fair amount of traveling domestically. Like we would go back to visit his mother and my father, who both live on the East Coast, which is one of the things you just don’t get time to do when you’re working is spending time with family. And so you know, if we would go back East, we would maybe spend two days with each parent because they don’t live that close to each other. And now, we can actually go and spend a week with each parental unit. And that makes a big difference because, you know, they’re getting older and living across the country, it’s harder to connect with them. So we do a lot more slow travel where we don’t have to feel rushed between people. And then it’s funny because we — our retirement has changed as time goes by. So for people who are concerned that oh, what am I going to do with my time? Your time is yours. You can now make your own schedule. And that, to me, is the beauty of not just financial independence, it’s financial freedom because you can choose what you want to do. And so you know, the first two years were traveling domestically, the second two years were more about traveling internationally. And we had two cats that passed away at 19. So for us, they were like our kids. And so we did not do a lot of traveling away from them until they passed on. And so once they did, we’re like, alright, we’re going to go crazy and go travel around the globe. And so the last — and then the last two years have been focused on writing books and going to financial conferences and kind of learning from others and then applying that and communicating out to audiences like yours. That’s the beauty of the time being yours is you can make it whatever you want to do. We also do a lot more work with our community that we never had time to do when we were working. So we’re a lot more invested in our neighborhood, and we spend more time working with businesses in our neighborhood to bring in more business. So having that luxury of time means you can go explore whatever interests pop up. So you know, did we ever think that we would be working with small businesses two years ago? Probably not. But now we are, and we’re advocates for small businesses in our neighborhood, and that’s something we would never have thought we would have done when we first retired.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s very cool. And I read as well your goal of 60 by 60. Sixty countries to visit by the age of 60. If I understand it, you’re about halfway through. Looking forward to following your journey. I’m hopeful you’ll be blogging about it along the way as well. Dylin, I’m going to throw the last question I have over for you. And one of the things I think about when it comes to early retirement and achieving financial independence or the FIRE movement is that it really does require delayed gratification and at times, you mentioned the word frugality earlier. And that frugality can be at various levels. As you mentioned, we’re not necessarily talking spartan type of frugality. My question here though is how do we strike the balance? You know, whether it’s for ourselves or teaching our kids about saving and investing to take care of our future selves but also valuing and making sure we understand that it’s important that we enjoy some of the money along the way as well. I find myself often struggling with this individually of, OK, I know I need to take care of my future self and probably sometimes I do that at the expense of the experiences and the enjoyment today. And I think striking this balance is really important. What are your thoughts on that?

Dylin Redling: You know, I’ll actually plug a couple of other books besides ours that I really like. One is “A Simple Path to Wealth” by Janelle Collins, which I highly recommend. And another one is actually one of Allison’s favorites. It has a funny title, it’s “I Will Teach You to Be Rich” by —

Allison Tom: Ramit Sethi.

Dylin Redling: Ramit Sethi. And we saw him speak. He was a keynote speaker at FinCon a couple years ago. And one of the things that he said, which really resonated with me and it goes to your question, is spend liberally on things that you enjoy. But hold back aggressively on things that are not important to you. And it’s a very simple concept. But again, it goes directly to your question, and it’s really — maybe you or your kids or whoever’s thinking about this makes a list. Here are the things I’m passionate about. Here are the things that I really enjoy. I love travel, I like eating out at restaurants, I like entertainment, sports, whatever it is. And I’m going to set my budget to focus on those things. I’m going to be OK — maybe I’ll go to a World Series game because I’m a huge baseball fan. Or I’m going to set a goal to go to every baseball park in America. You know, whatever that goal might be. Conversely, think about the things that aren’t that important to you like maybe a brand new car is not important to you, so you drive your car for 10-20 years and you really just never focus on spending a lot of money on that. And so those are the concepts that I think are something to really think about. And for us, that’s what we’ve always done. When people look at our lifestyle from the outside or even some of our friends, you know, they may think, wow, we’ve always lived in pretty expensive apartments — or condos or houses, so they might think, wow, they spend a lot of money. But if you look a little deeper, like we had a car for almost 20 years. We had a Volkswagen Jetta. We just recently got a new-to-us couple years old Toyota Corolla. So there’s an example where we just — you know, having a brand new car wasn’t that important to us. But again, we have the 60 by 60 goal. So travel is really important to us. And we have no problem spending that extra money to go travel for a few months and really try to see the world because that’s something that we’re passionate about. That being said, when we do travel, we try to — we don’t stay at four-star hotels because part of our kind of nature is to also find some deals here and there and to just spend consciously, to just spend our money kind of wisely.

Allison Tom: We prefer to spend money on the experiences rather than the hotel room that we’re putting our suitcase in.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah. And I was at that keynote that you were at, and with Ramit, and I’ll never forget it. I mean, the concept that he talks about in “I Will Teach You to Be Rich,” money dials, right, is find the things that are of value to you and dial it up. And find the things that are not and dial them down. And you know, I remember hearing that, and I was like, heck yeah. It just makes so much sense. And you know, to the comment of experiences and even the literature really showing happiness related to money, it’s experience and giving typically are the areas where we see that biggest connection. So Allison and Dylin, I really appreciate you guys taking time to come on the show. Kudos on the work here with “Investing for Kids,” I really enjoyed it, as well as the work that you’re doing at Retireby45.com and your other book, “Start Your FIRE: A Modern Guide to Early Retirement.” As it relates to the book “Investing for Kids,” I hope our audience will pick up a copy of this, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, many other online vendors as well. I really did find it engaging, it was rich with relevant information, practical exercises to apply the information, as I mentioned, certainly does not look, feel, or read like a textbook. And so I think many in our community are going to find it helpful. What’s the best place for our audience to go to follow the work that the two of you are doing?

Dylin Redling: Well, our — I’ll plug our website, and I’ll have Allison plug our Instagram account. Retireby45.com is our website, and we blog there on a once or twice a month with a fresh new blog post, and we have a bunch of stuff on there, courses and other things. And then Allison’s been working on really putting together a pretty cool Instagram account.

Allison Tom: So we have Instagram and Twitter both @retire_by_45. Yeah, it’s been an interesting challenge trying to get into the social media, the social media space.

Tim Ulbrich: Very good. We will link to both of those in the show notes as well as the Retireby45.com as well as the books that we’ve mentioned, not only your books but the others that you referenced as well. So the two of you, thank you again very much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Allison Tom: Thanks, Tim. It’s great.

Dylin Redling: Thanks.

Allison Tom: O-H

Dylin Redling: I-O

Tim Ulbrich: I-O!

Dylin Redling: Thanks, Tim. Great talking to you.

Tim Ulbrich: As we conclude this week’s podcast and important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment. Furthermore, the information contained in our archived newsletters, blog posts and podcasts is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist unless otherwise noted, and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward looking statements, which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer. Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

[END]

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YFP 339: YFP Podcast Replay – Why Negotiation is an Important Part of Your Financial Plan

Posted on December 21, 2023December 21, 2023 by YFP Media

Tim Ulbrich & Tim Baker talk about negotiation, why it’s an important part of the financial plan, the goals of negotiation, and tips for conducting an effective negotiation.

Episode Summary

Tim Baker joins Tim Ulbrich on this episode to dig into all things negotiation. Negotiation is the process of discovery and a way to advocate for yourself and what your needs are. Tim Baker explains that negotiation is an important part of your financial plan for many reasons. He explains that settling for a lower salary can have a significant impact on your present and future finances because you may accrue less in retirement savings and potentially other investments. However, negotiation doesn’t just lie in your salary. You can also negotiate benefits like flex scheduling, paid time off as well as potentially parental leave and professional development opportunities, among others.

Tim Baker shares that 99% of hiring managers are expecting new hires to negotiate and build their initial offer as such. Many don’t end up negotiating because they don’t want to risk the offer being revoked, but Tim says that the majority of the time you should present a counter offer.

Tim then digs into the stages of the negotiation process that include the interview, receiving an offer, presenting a counter offer and accepting the offer and position. He shares many strategies and tips for each stage as well as additional techniques to use throughout the process.

About Today’s Guest

Tim Baker is the Co-Founder and Director of Financial Planning at Your Financial Pharmacist. Founded in 2015, YFP is a fee-only financial planning firm and connects with the YFP community of 12,000+ pharmacy professionals via the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast podcast, blog, website resources and speaking engagements.

Tim attended the United States Military Academy majoring in International Relations and branching Armor. After his military career, he worked as a logistician with a major retailer and a construction company. After much deliberation, Tim decided to make a pivot in his career and joined a small independent financial planning firm in 2012. In 2016, he launched his own financial planning firm Script Financial and in 2019 merged with Your Financial Pharmacist. Tim now lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife (Shay), two kids (Olivia and Liam), and dog (Benji).

Key Points from the Episode

Negotiation can be a key part of the financial plan
Income is the lifeblood of the financial plan.
Learn ways to grow and protect income.
Advocating for yourself is important, and it’s not always just about salary.
A lower salary can have long term consequence down the road.
Employers expect some negotiations with candidates.
Salary alone should not be looked at in a vacuum; many factors can contribute a more desirable work positon.
A lot of time and effort goes into finding the right position for a job, so when an offer is made it is likely not going to be derailed by candidate asking for a higher salary.
A good candidate asks questions and listens well.
Make sure you get offers in writing.
Never lie in an interview about current salary range.
Using a precise number versus a rounded number in a counter offer has more success.
Using the anchoring technique to provide a salary range can help you land the salary you ultimately desire.
Asking a calibrated question is a question with really no fixed answer that gives the illusion of control.
Using “how”, “when”, “why” calibrated questions can be helpful in showing what you’re really trying to achieve without causing emotions to rise.
Mirroring technique is repeating 1-3 words back to the employer to show you are listening well and in turn, making them feel respected and understood.
Labeling and validating emotions technique allow you to hear what is going on in an organization while remaining neutral.
The accusation audit is a technique that’s used to identify and label probably the worst thing that your counterpart could say about it.

Episode Highlights

“Yeah, so negotiation, you know, it’s really a process of discovery. It really shouldn’t be viewed as a battle. It’s really a process of discovery. It’s kind of that awkward conversation that you should be obligated to have because you know, if you don’t want to advocate for yourself professionally, who will?” – Tim Baker

“And I believe this first stat comes from SHRM, which is the Society for Human Resource Management. So I think this is like the biggest association for like HR and Human Resource personnel in the country. And the stat that I use is that 99% of hiring managers expect prospective hires to negotiate. So if you think about that, you know, the overwhelming majority expect you the prospective hire to negotiate. And they build their initial offers as such.” – Tim Baker

“So typically most jobs, there’s — obviously there’s an application process, there’s interviews, there’s second interviews, there’s maybe on-site visits, there’s kind of looking at all the candidates and then extending offers. If you get to that offer stage, you’re pretty — they’ve identified as you’re the person that they want. So sometimes a little bit of back-and-forth is not going to derail any such deal. So it’s really, really important to understand that.” -Tim Baker

“So when you get that interview, what I say is typically you want to talk less, listen more and learn more. Typically, the person that is talking the most is not in control of the conversation. The one that’s listening and asking good questions is in control.” -Tim Ulbrich

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

(INTRO)

Tim Ulbrich: Tim Baker, welcome back to the show.

Tim Baker: Yeah, happy to be here. How’s it going, Tim?

Tim Ulbrich: It’s going. Excited to talk negotiation, something we discuss a lot in presentations, a lot I know that you discuss with clients as a part of the financial plan, but we haven’t addressed it directly on the show before. So I’m excited that we get a chance to dig into this topic. And we know that negotiation can carry a lot of power and can be used across the board really in life, right? It could be negotiating terms for a new or existing job position, buying a car, buying a house, negotiating with your kids or spouse — kidding, not kidding as we’ll talk about here in a little bit. So we’re going to focus predominantly on salary negotiation, but really these techniques can be applied to many areas of the financial plan and really life as a whole. So Tim, I know that for you, negotiation is a key piece of the financial plan. And you and our CFPs over at YFP talk about negotiation in the context of financial planning, which I would say is probably not the norm of the financial planning industry and services. So let’s start with this: Why is negotiation such an important piece of the financial plan?

Tim Baker: Yeah, so I think if we look at YFP’s mission, YFP’s mission is to empower pharmacists to achieve financial freedom. So I think the building blocks of that really is kind of what we do day-in and day-out with clients at YFP Planning. And what I typically, or the way that we typically approach a financial plan is we really want to help the client grow and protect their income, which is the lifeblood of the financial plan. Without income, nothing moves. But we know that probably more importantly than that is grow and protect the balance sheet, the net worth, which means increasing assets efficiently and decreasing liabilities efficiently and ultimately moving the net worth number in the right direction. So those are both quantitative things. But then qualitatively, we want to make sure that we’re keeping all the goals in mind, so grow and protect income and net worth while keep the goals in mind. So to me, that’s our jam, you know? So when I say — when somebody asks me a question like we do the Ask a YFP CFP, and I always say, “Well, it depends.” A lot of it really depends on those foundational, like where are we at with the balance sheet and where do we want to go? Meaning what are our goals? What’s our why? What’s the life plan, what’s a wealthy life for you and how can we support that with the financial plan? So to go back to your question, my belief is that the income is a big part of that.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes.

Tim Baker: And what I’ve found working with many, many pharmacists is sometimes pharmacists are not great at advocating for themselves. You know, most of the people that I talk to when we talk about salary negotiation, they’re like, eh, I’m just thankful I have a job, and I’m in agreement with that. But sometimes a little bit of a negotiation and having some of the skills that we’ll talk about today to better advocate for yourself is important. And a lot of this stuff is not necessarily just for salary. It can be for a lot of different things. But to me, what I saw as a need here, same thing like most financial planners don’t walk you through kind of home purchase and what that looks like because most financial planners are working with people in their 50s, 60s and 70s. So that was a need for a lot of our clients who were like, “Hey, Tim, I’m buying this house. I don’t really know where to start. So we provide some education and some recommendations and advice around that. Same thing with salary, I kept seeing like well, maybe I took the job too quickly or I didn’t advocate for myself, so that’s really where we want to provide some education and advice, again, to have a better position from an income perspective.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think it’s a great tool to have in your toolbag, you know. And I think as we’ll talk about here, the goal is not to be an expert negotiator. There’s lots of resources that are out there that can help with this and make it tangible and practical, one of which we’ll draw a lot of the information today, I know you talk with clients, a resource I love, “Never Split the Difference” by Chris Voss. But I’m glad you mentioned, you know, I think there is often a sentiment — I know I’ve felt in myself where you know what, I’m glad to have a position, I’m glad to be making a good income. But that can be true and you still can be a good person and you still can negotiate and advocate for yourself and the value you bring to the organization.

Tim Baker: Yes.

Tim Ulbrich: So I hope folks will hear that and not necessarily think that negotiation is bad and as we’ll talk about here in a moment, I think really can have a significant impact when you think about it as it relates to earnings over your career and what those additional earnings could mean. So Tim, break it down for us. What is negotiation and really, digging further, why is it important?

Tim Baker: Yeah, so negotiation, you know, it’s really a process of discovery. It really shouldn’t be viewed as a battle. It’s really a process of discovery. It’s kind of that awkward conversation that you should be obligated to have because you know, if you don’t want to advocate for yourself professionally, who will? And maybe you have a good mentor or something like that, but to me, the negotiation, again, is really to discover what you want and kind of what your counterpart, which might be a boss or a hiring manager or something like that. And it’s really important because settling for a lower salary can have really major financial consequences, both immediately and down the road. And you typically — raises that you receive are typically based on a percentage of your salary, so hey, we’re going to give you a 3% raise this year, a 5% raise. If you start off with a salary that you’re not happy with, then obviously that’s a problem. Accrue less in retirement savings, so that TSP, that 401k, 403b, again, you typically are going to get some type of match in a lot of cases, and then you’re going to put a percentage. So again, that could potentially be lower. But it’s not just about salary. It can be — I think another mistake that sometimes people make is that they’ll say, oh wow, I was making $125,000 and I’m taking a job that’s paying me $135,000 and they take a major step back on some of the non-salary things like benefits and flex scheduling and time off and things like that. But you know, you really want to make sure that compensation package that you have, you know, you’re happy with. Because underpaid really can make you feel resentful over the long run. So you want to make sure that you’re, again, right now we’re filming in the midst of a pandemic and the economy and the job market is tough, but you still want to advocate for yourself and make sure you’re getting the best compensation package that you can.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and as we’ll talk about here in a little bit, I think if we frame this differently, then maybe our understanding, our preconceived beliefs — you know, you mentioned it’s not a battle, you know, I think the goal is that you’re trying to come to an agreement or an understanding. And as we’ll talk about here, many employers are likely expecting this. And that number, in terms of those that are expecting versus those that are actually engaging in the conversation from an employee standpoint is very different.

Tim Baker: Sure.

Tim Ulbrich: So I think that might help give us confidence to be able to initiate some of those, and we’ll talk about strategies to do that. I do want to give one example, though, Tim, real quick. You had mentioned obviously if somebody earns less and receive small raises or they accrue less in retirement savings, that can have a significant impact. And I went down the rabbit hole prepping for this episode of just looking at a quick example of this where you have two folks that let’s say they both start working at the age of 28, they retire at their 65, so same starting point, same retirement age. Let’s assume they get a 3% cost of living adjustment every year for their career just to keep it simple. The only difference here is that one starts at $100,000 and one starts at $105,000. So because of either what they asked for in negotiations, whatever be the case, one starts $5,000 greater than the other. And if you play this out, same starting age, same ending age, same cost of living adjustments, one starts at a higher point, when it’s all said and done, one individual has about $300,000 more of earnings than the other. And this of course does not include differences that you also have because of higher salary. If you had a match, that would increase, that would compound, that would grow. If you were to switch jobs, you’re at a better point to now negotiate for a higher salary, all other benefits that aren’t included. But the significance of the starting point I think is something to really look at those numbers that often where you start can inform where you’re going, not only from cost of living adjustments but also future employment, right? So we know that where you start if you get a 3% raise, it’s of course going to be based off that number. If you decide to leave that employer and you go to another one, what do they ask you? How much did you make? You’re using that number. So that starting point is so critical, and I hope that new practitioners might even find some confidence in that to be able to engage in discussions knowing how significant those numbers can be over a career. So in that one example, that starting point is a difference of about $300,000. Crazy, right, when you look at it over a long time period.

Tim Baker: Yeah, it’s nuts. And I’d play the devil’s advocate, on the other side of that is again, so much — just like everything else with the financial plan, you can’t look at it in a vacuum. We’ve had clients take a lot less money and really, it was because of the student loans and how that would affect their strategy in terms of forgiveness and things like that.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes.

Tim Baker: So it is multifactorial. It’s definitely something that it should really be examined. And I think, again, when you look at the overall context of the financial plan. But to your point, Tim, that starting salary and really how you negotiate throughout the course of your career is going to be utterly important. And again, what we say is — we kind of downplay the income because I think so much of what’s kind of taught is like, oh, six-figure salary, you’ll be OK. And that’s not true. But then it is true that it is the lifeblood of the financial plan, so I think if you have a plan and you’re intentional with what you’re doing, that’s where you can really start making moves with regard to your financial outlook.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I’m glad you said that about salary shouldn’t be looked at in a silo. I mean, just to further that point, you’ve alluded to it already, these numbers don’t matter if there’s other variables that are non-monetary that matter more. Right? Whether that be time off or satisfaction in the workplace, opportunities that you have, feelings of accomplishment. I mean, the whole list of things you can’t necessarily put a number to, I mean, I would argue if those are really important, you’ve got to weigh those against whatever this number would be. And there’s a certain point where the difference in money isn’t worth it if there’s other variables that are involved, which usually there are. Hopefully we can get both, right? Salary and non-salary items.

Tim Baker: Yes.

Tim Ulbrich: So interesting stats about negotiation, I’ve heard you present before on this topic, but I’d like you to share with our audience in terms of managers that are expecting hires to negotiate versus those that do. Talk us through some of those as I think it will help us frame and maybe change our perception on employers expecting and our willingness to engage in these conversations.

Tim Baker: Yeah, and I really need to cite this one. And I believe this first stat comes from SHRM, which is the Society for Human Resource Management. So I think this is like the biggest association for like HR and Human Resource personnel in the country. And the stat that I use is that 99% of hiring managers expect prospective hires to negotiate. So if you think about that, you know, the overwhelming majority expect you the prospective hire to negotiate. And they build their initial offers as such. So the example I give to clients is like, hey, we have a position that we could pay anywhere from $110,000 to $130,000, knowing that you know, Tim, if I’m offering this job to you, knowing that you’re probably going to negotiate with me. I’m going to offer it to you for $110,000 knowing that I have a little bit of wiggle room if you kind of come back with a counteroffer. But what a lot of my clients or people do that I talk with is they’ll just say, yes, I found a job, crappy job market, happy to get started, ready to get started. And they’re either overly enthusiastic to accept a job or they’re just afraid that a little bit of negotiation would hurt their outlook. So with that in mind is that you — the offers I think are built in a way that you should be negotiating and trying to, again, advocate for yourself.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and so if people are presenting positions often with a range in salary expecting negotiation, I hope that gives folks some confidence in OK, that’s probably expected and maybe shifts some of the perception away from, this whole thing could fall apart, which it could, right? At any given point in time, especially depending on the way you conduct yourself in that negotiation, which I think is really, really important to consider. But I think what we want to try to avoid, Tim, back to a comment you made earlier, is any resentment as well. I mean, if we think about this from a relationship standpoint, we want the employee to feel valued, and we want the employer to have a shot at retaining this individual long-term. So it’s a two-way relationship.

Tim Baker: Yeah, and it kind of comes up to where we were talking about what is the goal of negotiation. And really, the goal of negotiation is to come to some type of agreement.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Tim Baker: The problem with that is that people are involved in this. And we as people are emotional beings, so if we feel like that we’re treated unfairly or we don’t feel safe and secure or if we’re not in control of the conversation, our emotions can get the best of us. So that’s important. So again, there’s some techniques that you can utilize to kind of mitigate that. But you know, to allude to your point about negotiating, the fear to kind of potentially mess up the deal, there’s a stat that says 32% don’t negotiate because they’re too worried about losing the job offer.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Tim Baker: I know, Tim, like we can attest to this because with our growth at YFP, we’ve definitely done some human resourcing, to use that as a verb, and hiring and things like that of late. And I’ve got to say that the — I think that some of this can be unfounded just because there’s just so much blood, sweat and tears that goes into finding the right people to kind of surround yourself with and bring into an organization that to me, a little bit of back-and-forth is not going to ultimately lose the job. So typically most jobs, there’s — obviously there’s an application process, there’s interviews, there’s second interviews, there’s maybe on-site visits, there’s kind of looking at all the candidates and then extending offers. If you get to that offer stage, you’re pretty — they’ve identified as you’re the person that they want. So sometimes a little bit of back-and-forth is not going to derail any such deal. So it’s really, really important to understand that.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and as the employer, I mean, we’ve all heard about the cost statistics around retention. So as an employer, when I find that person, I want to retain them. That’s my goal, right? I want to find good talent, I want to retain good talent. So I certainly don’t want somebody being resentful about the work that they’re doing, the pay that they have, and so I think if we can work some of that out before beginning, come to an agreement, it’s a good fit for us, good fit for them, I think it’s also going to help the benefit of hopefully the long-term relationship of that engagement. So it’s one thing to say we should be doing it. It’s another thing to say, well how do we actually do this? What are some tips and tricks for negotiation? So I thought it would be helpful if we could walk through some of the stages of negotiation. And through those stages, we can talk, as well as beyond that, what are some actual strategies to negotiation. Again, another shoutout to “Never Split the Difference” by Chris Voss. I think he does an awesome job of teaching these strategies in a way that really helps them come alive and are memorable.

Tim Baker: Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: So Tim, let’s talk about the first stage, the interview stage, and what are some strategies that those listening can take when it comes to negotiation in this stage.

Tim Baker: Yeah, so when I present these concepts to a client, I kind of said that the four stages of negotiation are fairly vanilla, you know? And the first one is that interview. So when you get that interview, what I say is typically you want to talk less, listen more and learn more. Typically, the person that is talking the most is not in control of the conversation. The one that’s listening and asking good questions is in control. And I kind of think back to some of our recent hires, and you know, the people that we identified as like top candidates, I’m like, man, their interviews went really well. And when I actually think back and slow down, it’s really — I think that they went really well because it’s really that person asking good questions and then me just talking. And that’s like the perception. So in that case, the candidate was asking us good questions and we’re like, yeah, this was a great interview because I like to hear myself talk or I just get really excited about what we’re doing at YFP. So I think if you can really focus on your counterpart, focus on the organization, whether it’s the hospital or whatever it is and learn and then really pivot to the value that you bring, I think that’s going to be most important. So you know, understanding what some of their pain points are, whether it’s retention or maybe some type of care issue or whatever that may be, you can kind of use that to your advantage as you’re kind of going through the different stages of negotiation. But the more that the other person talks, the better. I would say in the interview stage, one of the things that often comes up that can come up fairly soon is the question about salary. And you know, sometimes that is — it’s kind of like a time savings. So it’s a “Hey, Tim, what are you looking for in salary?” If you throw out a number that’s way too high, I’m not even going to waste my time. And what I tell clients is like you typically, you want to — and we’ll talk about anchoring. You really want to avoid throwing a number out for a variety of reasons. So one of the deflections you can use is, “Hey, I appreciate the question, but I’m really trying to figure out if I’d be a good fit for your organization. Let’s talk about salary when the time comes.” Or the other piece of it is it’s just you’re not in the business of offering yourself a job. And what I mean by that it’s their job to basically provide an offer. So, “Hey, my current employer doesn’t really allow me to kind of reveal that kind of information. What did you have in mind?” Or, “We know that pharmacy is a small business, and I’m sure your budget is reasonable. What did you have in mind?”

Tim Ulbrich: Right.

Tim Baker: So at the end of the day, it’s their job to extend the offer, not you to kind of negotiate against yourself, which can happen. You know? I had — we signed on a client here at YFP Planning yesterday, and we were talking about negotiation. I think it had to do with a tax issue. And you know, he basically said this is what he was looking for and when he got into the organization, I think he saw the number that was budgeted for it, and it was a lot more. So again, if you can deflect that — and I tell a story, when I first got out of the Army, I kind of knew this. But when I first got out of the Army, I was interviewing for jobs. I was in an interview, and I deflected and I think the guy asked me again, and I deflected. I think he asked me for like — maybe he asked me four times, and I just wound up giving him a range that was like obnoxious, $100,000-200,000 or something like that. But to me, that — and the interview didn’t go well after that, but to me, it was more about clearing the slate instead of actually learning about me and seeing if I was a good fit. So you never want to lie if they ask about your current salary, you never want to lie. But you definitely want to deflect and move to things like OK, can I potentially be a good fit for your organization and then go from there.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think deflection takes practice, right?

Tim Baker: Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: I don’t think that comes natural to many of us.

Tim Baker: Absolutely. Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: This reminds me, so talk less, listen more for any Hamilton folks we have out there, which is playing 24/7 in my house these days, the soundtrack. I’m not going to sing right now, but talk less, smile more, don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for. So I think that’s a good connection there to the interview stage. So next hopefully comes good news, company wants to hire you, makes an offer. So Tim, talk us through this stage. What should we be remembering when we actually have an offer on the table?

Tim Baker: Yeah, so I think you definitely want to be appreciative and thankful. Again, when a company gets to a point where they’re an extending you an offer, that’s huge. I remember when I got, again, my first offer out of the Army — because again, you didn’t really have a choice when you’re in the Army. Well, I guess you do have a choice, but they’re not like, “Here’s a written offer for your employment in this platoon somewhere in Iraq.” But I remember getting the first offer. I’m like, man, this is awesome. Shows your salary and the benefits and things like that, so you want to be appreciable and thankful — appreciative and thankful. You don’t want to be — you want to be excited but not too overexcited. So you don’t want to appear to be desperate. What I tell clients, I think the biggest piece here is make sure you get it in writing. And I have a story that I tell because if it’s not in writing, and what I essentially said is it didn’t happen. So again, using some personal experience here, first job out of the Army, I had negotiated basically an extra week of vacation because I didn’t want to take a step back in that regard. And I got the offer, and the extra week wasn’t there. So I talked to my future boss about it, and he said, “You know what, I don’t want to go back to headquarters and ruffle some feathers, so why don’t we just take care of that on site here?” And this was the job I had in Columbus, Ohio. And I said, “Yeah, OK, I don’t really want to ruffle feathers either.” The problem with that was when he got replaced, when he was terminated eight months later, that currency burned up fairly quickly. So I didn’t have that extra week of vacation. So if it’s not written down, it never happened. So you want to make sure that you get it in writing and really go over that written offer extensively. So some employers, they’ll extend an offer, and they want a decision right away. I would walk away from that. To me, a job change or something of that magnitude, I think it warrants a 24-, if not a minimum 48-hour timeframe for you to kind of mull it over. And this is typically where I come in and help clients because they’ll say, “Hey, Tim, I got this offer. What do you think?” And we go through it and we look at benefits and we look at the total compensation package and things like that. But you want to ask for a time, some time to review everything. And then definitely adhere to the agreed-upon deadline to basically provide an answer or a counteroffer or whatever the next step is for you.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think too, the advice to get it in writing helps buy you time, you know? I think you ask for it anyways. And I think the way you approach this conversation, you’re setting up the counteroffer, right? So the tone that you’re using, it’s not about being arrogant here, it’s not about acting like you’re not excited at all. I think you can strike that balance between you’re appreciative, you’re thankful, you’re continuing to assess if it’s a good fit for you and the organization, you want some time, you want it in writing, and you’re beginning to set the stage. And I think human behavior, right, says if something is either on the table or pulled away slightly, the other party wants it a little bit more, right?

Tim Baker: Yes.

Tim Ulbrich: So if I’m the employer and I really want someone and I’m all excited about the offer and I’m hoping they’re going to say yes and they say, “Hey, I’m really thankful for the offer. I’m excited about what you guys are doing. I need some time to think about x, y and z,” or “I’m really thinking through x, y or z,” like all of a sudden, that makes me want them more. You know?

Tim Baker: Sure.

Tim Ulbrich: So I think there’s value in setting up what is that counteroffer. So talk to us about the counteroffer, Tim. Break it down and some strategies to think about in this portion.

Tim Baker: Yeah, so you know, the counteroffer is I would say — the majority of the time, you should counter in some way. I think you’re expected to make a counter. And again, we kind of back that up with some stats. But you also, you need to know when not to kind of continue to go back to the negotiating table or when you’re asking or overasking. So I think research is going to be a good part of that. And what I tell clients is like, I can give them a very non-scientific — I’ve worked with so many pharmacists that I can kind of say, eh, that sounds low for this community pharmacy industry, or whatever, hospital, in this area. So your network, which could be someone like me, it could be colleagues, but it could also be things like Glass Door, Indeed, Salary.com. So you want to make sure that your offer, your counteroffer is backed up in some type of fact. And really, knowing how to maximize your leverage. So if you are — if you do receive more than one substantial offer from multiple employers, negotiating may be appropriate if the two positions are comparable. Or if you have tangible evidence that the salary is too low, you have a strong position to negotiate. So I had a client that knew that newly hired pharmacists were being paid more than she was, and she had the evidence to show that and basically they went back and did a nice adjustment. But again, I think as you go through — the way that we kind of do this with clients is we kind of go through the entire letter and the benefits. And I basically just highlight things and have questions about match or vacation time or salary, things like that. And then we start constructing it from there. So if you look at, again, the thing where most people will start is salary is you really want to give — when you counter, you really want to give a salary range rather than like a number. So what I say is, if you say, “Hey, Tim, I really want to make $100,000.” I kind of said it’s almost like the Big Bad Wolf that blows the house down. Like all of those zeros, there’s no substance to that. But if you said, “Hey, I really want to make $105,985,” the Journal of the Experimental Social Psychology says that using a precise number instead of a rounded number gives it a more potent anchor.

Tim Ulbrich: You’ve done your homework, right?

Tim Baker: Yeah. You know what you’re worth, you know what the position’s worth, it’s giving the appearance of research. So I kind of like — it’s kind of like the Zach Galfinakis meme that has all of the equations that are floating, it’s kind of like that. But the $100,000, you can just blow that house over. So and I think — so once you figure out that number, then you kind of want to range it. So they say if you give a range of a salary, then it opens up room for discussion and it shows the employer that you have flexibility. And it gives you some cushion in case you think that you’re asking for a little bit too high. So that’s going to be really, really important is to provide kind of precise numbers in a range. And oh, by the way, I want to be paid at the upper echelon of that.

Tim Ulbrich: So real quick on that, you mentioned before the concept of anchoring, and I want to spend some time here as you’re talking about a range. So dig into that further, what that means in terms of if I’m given a range, how does anchoring fit into that?

Tim Baker: Yeah, so we kind of talk about this more when we kind of talk some of the tools and the behavior of negotiation. But the range — so when we talk about like anchoring, so anchoring is actually — it’s a bias. So anchoring bias describes the common tendency to give too much weight to the first number. So again, if I can invite the listener to imagine an equation, and the equation is 5x4x3x2x1. And that’s in your mind’s eye. And then you clear the slate, and now you imagine this equation: 1x2x3x4x5. Now, if I show the average person and I just flash that number up, the first number — the first equation that starts with 5 and the second equation that starts with 1, we know that those things equal the same thing. But in the first equation, we see the 5 first, so it creates this anchor, creates this belief in us that that number is actually higher.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, bigger, yeah.

Tim Baker: So the idea of anchoring is typically that that number that we see really is a — has a major influence, that first number is a major influence over where the negotiation goes. So you can kind of get into the whole idea of factoring your knowledge of the zone of possible agreement, which is often called ZOPA. So that’s the range of options that should be acceptable for both sides, and then kind of assessing your side of that and then your other party’s anchor in that. So there’s lots of things that kind of go into anchoring, but we did this recently with a client where I think they were offered somewhere in like the $110,000-112,000 area. And she’s like, I really want to get paid closer to like $117,000-118,000. So we basically in the counteroffer, we said, “Hey, thanks for the offer.” And we did something called an accusation, which we can talk about in a second. But “Thanks for the counteroffer, but I’m really looking to make between” — you know, I think we said something like $116,598 to all the way up into the $120,000s. And they actually brought her up to I think she was at $117,000 and change. So it actually brought her up closer to that $118,000. So using that range and kind of that range as a good anchoring position to help the negotiation.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, love it.

Tim Baker: There’s lots of different things that kind of go into anchoring in terms of extreme anchoring and a lot of that stuff that they talk about in the book, but again, that kind of goes back to that first number being thrown out there can be really, really integral. And again, when you couple that on top of hey, it’s their job to make you an offer, not the other way around, you have to really learn how to deflect that and know how to position yourself in those negotiations. But that’s really the counteroffer. And what I would say to kind of just wrap up the counteroffer is embrace the silence.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Tim Baker: So Tim, there was silence there, and I’m like, I want to fill the void. And I do this with clients when we talk about mirroring and things like that. Like people are uncomfortable with silence. And what he talks about in the book, which I would 100% — this is really kind of a tip of the cap to Chris Voss and his book, which I love, I read probably at least once a year, where he talks about embracing the silence. We as people are conditioned to fill silences. So he talks about sometimes people will negotiate against themselves. If you just sit there and you say, “Uh huh. That’s interesting.” And then in the counter, just be pleasantly persistent on the non-salary terms, which can be both subjective and objective in terms of what you’re looking for in that position.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I want to make sure we don’t lose that. We’re talking a lot about salary, but again, as we mentioned at the beginning, really try to not only understand but fit what’s the value of those non-salary terms. So this could be everything from paid time off to obviously other benefits, whether that be health or retirement. This of course could be culture of the organization, whether it’s that specific site, the broader organization, opportunities for advancement.

Tim Baker: Mentorship. Yep. Mentorship.

Tim Ulbrich: Yes, yes.

Tim Baker: Yep, all of that.

Tim Ulbrich: And I think what you hear from folks — I know I’ve felt in my own personal career, with each year that goes on, I value salary, but salary means less and those other things mean more. And so as you’re looking at let’s just say two offers, as one example, let’s say they’re $5,000 apart. I’m not saying you give on salary, but how do you factor in these other variables.

Tim Baker: Yeah. Well, and I think too — and this is kind of next level with this, and I’ll give you some examples to cite it. I think another thing to potentially do when you are countering and when you’re shifting to some of maybe the non-salary stuff is really took a hard look at your potential employer or even your current employer if you’re an incumbent and you’re being reviewed and you’re just advocating for a better compensation, is look at the company’s mission and values. So the example I give is like when Shay and I got pregnant with Liam, she didn’t have a maternity leave benefit. And when she was being reviewed, we kind of invoked the company — and I think it’s like work-life balance and things like that — and we’re like, “Well, how can you say that and not back that up?” And again, we did it tactfully. Because you’re almost like negotiating against yourself, right? So when I present this to clients, the Spiderman meme where two Spidermans are pointing at each other, and she was able to negotiate a better, a maternity — and we look at us, and I give these, one of our values is encouraging growth and development. So if an employee says, hey, and they make a case that I really want to do this, it’s almost like we’re negotiating against ourselves. So I think if you can — one, I think it shows again the research and that you’re really interested and plugged into what the organization is doing — but then I think you’re leveraging the company against itself in some ways because you’re almost negotiating against well, yeah, we put these on the wall as something that we believe in. But we’re not going to support it or you know. Or at the very least, it plants a seed. And that’s what I say is sometimes with clients, we do strike out. It is hard to move the needle sometimes, but at least one, we’ve got an iteration under our belts where we are negotiation, and two, we’ve planted a seed with that employer — assuming that they took the job anyway — that says OK, these are things that are kind of important to me that we’re going to talk about again and things like that. So I think that’s huge.

Tim Ulbrich: Good stuff. So let’s talk about some tools that we can use for negotiation. And again, many of these are covered in more detail in the book and other resources, which we’ll link to in the show notes. I just want to hit on a few of these. Let’s talk about mirroring, accusation audits, and the importance of getting a “That’s right” while you’re in these conversations. And we’ll leave our listeners to dig deeper in some of the other areas. So talk to us about mirroring. What is it? And kind of give us the example and strategies of mirroring.

Tim Baker: Yeah, and I would actually — Tim, what I would do is I would actually back up because I think probably one of the most important tools that are there I think is the calibrated question. So that’s one of the first things that he talks — and the reason, so what is a calibrated question? So a calibrated question is a question with really no fixed answer that gives the illusion of control. So the answer, however, is kind of constrained by that question. And you, the person that’s asking the question, has control of the conversation. So I give the example, when we moved into our house after we renovated it — so brand new house. I walk into my daughter’s room, I think she was 4 at the time, and she’s coloring on the wall in red crayons. And I’m from Jersey, so I say “crown” not “crayon.” And I look at her, and I say, “Olivia, why are you doing that?” And she sees how upset I am and mad and she just starts crying. And there’s no negotiation from there.

Tim Ulbrich: Negotiation over.

Tim Baker: There’s no exchange of information. So in an alternate reality, in an alternate reality, what I should have done is said, “Olivia, what caused you to do that?” So you’re basically blasting — instead of why — why is very accusatory — you’re like, the how and the what questions are good. So and of course she would say, “Well, Daddy, I ran out of paper, so the wall is the next best thing.” So the use of — and having these calibrated questions in your back pocket, I think again buys you some time and really I think frames the conversation with your counterpart well. So using words like “how” and “what” and avoiding things like “why,” “when,” “who.” So, “What about this works, doesn’t work for you?” “How can we make this better for us?” “How do you want to proceed?” “How can we solve this problem?” “What’s the biggest challenge you face?” These are all — “How does this look to you?” — these are all calibrated questions that again, as you’re kind of going back and forth, you can kind of lean on. So have good how and what questions. To kind of answer the question about mirroring, as you’re asking these questions, you’re mirroring your counterpart. So what mirroring, the scientific term is called isopraxism. But he defines and says “the real-life Jedi mind trick.” This causes vomiting of information is what he says. So you know, these are not the droids you’re looking for. So what you essentially is you repeat back the last 1-3 words or the critical words of your counterpart’s sentence, your counterpart’s sentence. So this is me mirroring myself. Yeah, well you want to repeat back because you want them to reveal more information. And you want to build rapport and have that curiosity of kind of what is the other person thinking so you can, again, come to an agreement. Come to an agreement? Yeah. So at the end of the day, the purpose — so this is mirroring. So I’ll show you a funny story. I practice this on my wife sometimes, who does not have a problem speaking. But sometimes the counterpart is —

Tim Ulbrich: She’s listening, by the way.

Tim Baker: Yeah, exactly. So I’ll probably be in trouble. But so I basically just for our conversation, just mirror back exactly what she’s saying. And you can do this physically. You can cross your legs or your arms or whatever that looks like. But what he talks about more is with words. And you know, I’ll basically just mirror back my wife, and she — at the end of the conversation, she’ll say something like, “Man, I feel like you really listened to me.” And I laugh about that because I’m just really repeating back. But if you think about it, I did. Because for you to be able to do that, you really do have to listen. So mirroring, again, if you’re just repeating back, you really start to uncover more of what your counterpart is thinking because often, like what comes out of our mouth the first or even second time is just smoke. So really uncovering that. One of the things he talks about is labeling where this is kind of the — it’s described as the method of validating one’s emotion by acknowledging it. So, “It seems like you’re really concerned about patient care. It seems like you’re really concerned about the organization’s retention of talent. So what you’re doing is that you’re using neutral statements that don’t involve the use of “I” or “we.” So it’s not necessarily accusatory. And then you are — same with the mirror. You really want to not step on your mirror. You want to not stop on your label and really invite the other person to say, “Yeah, I’m just really frustrated by this or that.” So labeling is really important to basically defuse the power, the negative emotion, and really allow you to remain neutral and kind of find out more about that. So that’s super important.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I think with both of those, Tim, as you were talking, it connects well back to what we mentioned earlier of talk less, listen more.

Tim Baker: Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich: Like you’re really getting more information out, right, from a situation that can be guarded, you know, people are trying to be guarded. And I think more information could lead hopefully to a more fruitful negotiation. What about the accusation audit?

Tim Baker: Yeah, so the accusation audit, it’s one of my favorites, kind of similar with calibrated questions. I typically will tell clients, I’m like, “Hey, if you don’t learn anything from this, I would say have some calibrated questions in your back pocket and have a good accusation audit at the ready.” And we typically will use the accusation audit to kind of frame up a counteroffer. So it kind — so before I give you the example, the accusation audit is a technique that’s used to identify and label probably like the worst thing that your counterpart could say about it. So this is all the head trash that’s going on of why I don’t want to negotiate. It’s like, ah, they’re going to think that I’m overasking or I’m greedy, all those things that you’re thinking. So you’re really just pointing to the elephant in the room and you’re just trying to take this thing out and really let the air out of the room where a lot of people just get so nervous about this. So a good accusation audit is, “Hey, Tim, I really appreciate the offer of $100,000 to work with your organization. You’re probably going to think that I’m the greediest person on Planet Earth, but I was really looking for this to that.”

Tim Ulbrich: That’s a great line. Great line.

Tim Baker: Or, “You’re probably thinking that I’m asking way too much,” or, “You’re probably thinking that I’m way underqualified for this position, but here’s what I’m thinking.”

Tim Ulbrich: “No. No, no, no, Tim.”

Tim Baker: Right. So when someone says that to me, I’m like, “No. I don’t think that.” And what often happens — and again, clients have told me this — what often happens is that the person, the counterpart that they’re working with, like they’re recruited as — one person said, one client was like, “Oh, we’re going to find you more money. We’re going to figure it out.” So they like — so when someone says that to you, just think about how you would feel. “Oh, I don’t think that at all.” And then it just kind of lets the air out of the room. So you basically preface your counteroffer with like the worst thing they could say about you, and then they typically say, “That’s not true at all.”

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Tim Baker: So I love the accusation audit. So simple, it’s kind of easy to remember. And I think it just lays I think the groundwork for just great conversation and hopefully a resolution.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s awesome. And then let’s wrap up with the goal of getting to a “That’s right.” I remember when I was listening to an interview with Chris Voss, this was a part that I heard and I thought, wow, that’s so powerful. If you can get — in the midst of this negotiation, if we can get to a “Yeah, that’s right,” the impact that could have on the impact.

Tim Baker: Yeah, so he kind of talks about it like kind of putting all of these different tools together. So it’s mirroring and labeling and kind of using I think what he calls minimal encouragement, “Uh huh,” “I see,” kind of paraphrasing what you hear from your counterpart. And then really wait for — it’s like, “Hey, did I get that right? Am I tracking?” And what you’re really looking for is a “That’s right.” He said that’s even better than a “Yes.” So one of the examples I give is when I speak with prospective clients, we’re talking about my student loans and my investment portfolio and I’m doing real budgeting, and I got a sold a life insurance policy that I think isn’t great for me. And so we go through all of these different parts of the financial plan. And I’m basically summarizing back what they’re saying. And I say, you know, at the end of it — so I’m summarizing 30 minutes of conversation. And I’m saying, “Did I get that right?” And they’re like, “Yeah, that’s right. You’re a great listener,” which I have to record for my wife sometimes because she doesn’t agree with me. So that’s what you’re looking for is “Yeah, that’s right.” This person has heard, message sent, heard, understand me. He says if you get a “You’re right,” so sometimes, again, I keep talking about my wife, I’m like, “Hey, we have to do a better job of saving for retirement,” and she’s like, “You’re right.” That’s really code for “Shut up and go away.” So it’s a “That’s right” really what we’re looking for.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome.

Tim Baker: So that’s very powerful.

Tim Ulbrich: That’s great stuff. And really, just a great overall summary of some tips within the negotiation process, the steps of the negotiation process, how it fits into the financial plan. We hope folks walk away with that and just a good reminder of our comprehensive financial planning services that we do at YFP Planning. This is a great example of when we say “comprehensive,” we mean it. So it’s not just investments, it’s not just student loans. It’s really every part of the financial plan. Anything that has a dollar sign on it, we want our clients to be in conversation and working with our financial planners to make sure we’re optimizing that and looking at all parts of one’s financial plan. And here, negotiation is a good example of that. So we’ve referenced lots of resources, main one we talked about here today was “Never Split the Difference” by Chris Voss. We will link to that in our show notes. And as a reminder to access the show notes, you can go to YourFinancialPharmacist.com/podcast, find this week’s episode, click on that and you’ll be able to access a transcription of the episode as well as the show notes and the resources. And don’t forget to join our Facebook group, the Your Financial Pharmacist Facebook group, over 6,000 members strong, pharmacy professionals all across the country committed to helping one another on their own path and walk towards financial freedom. And last but not least, if you liked what you heard on this week’s episode of the podcast, please leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to the show each and every week. Have a great rest of your day.

[END]

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YFP 338: Stepping Into Your Inner Radiance in 2024 with Dr. Christina Fontana

Posted on December 14, 2023December 13, 2023 by YFP Media

Dr. Christina Fontana, creator of The Pharmacist Coach, shares her journey from pharmacy to entrepreneurship, healing from trauma, and setting goals.

Episode Summary

In this episode of the YFP Podcast, we welcome Dr. Christina Fontana, PharmD, the visionary creator of The Pharmacist Coach. Dr. Fontana shares her inspiring journey from pharmacy to entrepreneurship, revealing the impact of her early experiences and the resilience that fueled her pursuit of a purpose-driven path. From navigating personal challenges like eating disorders and anxiety to healing from childhood trauma, Dr. Fontana discusses her commitment to inner work and counseling as essential components of her transformative process. The episode also explores the intertwined nature of personal growth and business development, with insights into Dr. Fontana’s methodology of “structured flexibility.” The discussion concludes with a focus on mindset and goal-setting strategies for pharmacists, encouraging alignment with one’s true desires and an embodiment of authenticity. Tune in for a captivating exploration of career empowerment, resilience, and setting ambitious goals for the year ahead.

About Today’s Guest

Dr. Christina Fontana, AKA The Pharmacist Coach, is a pharmacist, holistic healer, rapid transformation business coach, speaker, and 5-time author. She helps spiritually-driven women to ‘Reignite Your Light’ and shine in your brilliance, confidence, and true essence.

She started her entrepreneurial journey 11 years ago being disempowered, homelessness, broke, with eating disorders, PTSD, and anxiety and has since transformed, turning her pain into purpose, empowering women all over the world to step into more purpose, power, and prosperity.

Over the last 11 years, Dr. Christina has been providing uplifting, transformational content through her Youtube videos, books, courses, programs, and Conferences. Her mission is to empower more healers and business owners unlock their innate gifts to create a domino effect of healing on the world.

Key Points From the Episode

Career, trauma, and entrepreneurship with Dr. Christina Fontana.
Career journey and goal setting in pharmacy. [1:53]
Eating disorders, perfectionism, and self-discovery in pharmacy school. [5:06]
Trauma, intuition, and decision-making. [11:19]
Healing from childhood trauma and inner work for personal growth. [16:00]
Personal growth and business development. [19:57]
Personal growth through entrepreneurship and parenting. [28:19]
Mindset and goal setting for pharmacists. [32:20]
Setting goals and being flexible in entrepreneurship. [39:38]

Episode Highlights

“All of these tools that I’ve learned throughout the years, I now help people with. And someone I was I was working at a retreat one time, and somebody came up to me, they’re like, You should call it like rapid transformation, because people shift so quickly, because I, because I’m so intuitive. And I’ve developed that muscle so much within myself, I can look at someone and say, okay, and coach them and ask them these questions that are going to draw out of them.” – Dr. Christina Fontana [17:44]

“I grew up in a very suppressive environment, and it doesn’t allow for you to tap into who you really are, the creativity, the gifts and that’s why I bring this work into helping entrepreneurs because if you’re suppressed, you’re not going to show up fully self expressed when you give a talk, when you go to put your message out there this work is so much of you know, the inner work, but also the practical strategy of how do I bring all of who I am to the table when I am speaking, so that I show up with power, conviction. And that’s how you influence people because then they know you care, they see the passion that you have. And that’s how you start to create a domino effect of healing in the world. Which is really why I believe I’m here is at the root cause it’s to be a beacon of light for other people and that’s why I’m so vulnerable in my story.” – Dr. Christina Fontana [18:45]

“Translate your gifts into gold.” -Dr. Christina Fontana [21:38]

“But when you when you embody that version of yourself, like tapping into the energy of this is what I want this is who would I have to be to achieve that goal? Because there’s usually an evolution or a next version of yourself, right? Maybe a higher version of yourself? What would that be? And feeling into that frequency?” -Dr. Christina Fontana 35:28

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich 00:00

Hey everybody, Tim Ulbrich here and thank you for listening to the YFP Podcast where each week we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom. This week I welcome Dr. Christina Fontana, creator of The Pharmacist Coach. We talk about her career journey in a pharmacy, her trauma experience growing up in an abusive household and how that shaped who she is today, and her entrepreneurial journey focused on empowering others to transform their lives reveal their inner radiance and step into more energy, confidence and power. We then wrap up the show by discussing strategies for getting in the right mindset to set big goals for 2024. Let’s hear a brief message from YFP team member Justin Woods, and then we’ll jump into my interview with Dr. Christina Fontana.

AD SPOT 00:45

This is Justin Woods from the YFP team with a quick message before the show. If you listen to the YFP Podcast, you may learn something every now and then, either from Tim Ulbrich, Tim Baker, or one of our guests. A lot of people listen to the show, but they may not execute or implement the things they learned. As pharmacists, we know the impact of non-adherence on patient outcomes and their overall well being. As a pharmacist, myself and part of the YFP team. I talk with pharmacists every day who are confused about how to implement financial knowledge. Pharmacists share with me that they’re treading water financially, maybe took a DIY approach, reached a plateau and are confused about what to do next. Or those who worked for decades can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and feel uncertain about how the next chapter will unfold. If that sounds like you, one, it is not uncommon to feel that way. And two, does it make sense for us to have a conversation to see if YFP Planning can help you visit YFPplanning.com or follow the link in the Show Notes to find a time that works for your schedule.

Tim Ulbrich 01:50

Christina, welcome to the show.

Dr. Christina Fontana 01:53

Thank you so much. We’re here on a Monday morning and it’s raining. So, bring in the sunshine.

Tim Ulbrich 01:58

It’s a great way to start a Monday, especially when as you mentioned it’s cloudy, it’s rainy, it’s cold, but you very much have the holiday spirit wearing your your polar bear gear. I love that. And I know the energy you’re going to bring to the show is going to light lighten the mood that has been set by the outside weather. So I’m really looking forward to this opportunity to interview you. We’re going to unpack your career journey, we’ll talk about your entrepreneurial journey. And then I’m gonna pick your brain about advice you would have for our community listening about how you think about goal setting, as well as how you coach others on goal setting as we get ready to turn the page onto 2024. So let’s start with your career journey in pharmacy. What led you into the profession? Where did you go to pharmacy school? And what was some of the work that you did upon graduation?

Dr. Christina Fontana 02:45

Yeah, so my dad was a pharmacist. I’m from a family full of pharmacists. So my uncle, my aunt, my sister, my dad, we all went to St. John’s University and I grew up working in my dad’s store back from when I was like three years old, sweeping the floors, helping people find, you know, cards for their granddaughter, working the register. Really, I learned my people skills, my dad would always say, Alright, go talk to that person. Go help that person, go sweep the floor. And I think that those early experiences really helped me to kind of plant those seeds of number one customer service. My dad was, he knew everybody’s name. He knew like, what every customer, what their kids’ names were, what sports they were in. And I just would watch him in awe and be like, Wow, he’s just so…how do you know all this and then he knew all the drugs too in the back. You’re amazing. So I was both in awe of my father, but also extremely terrified of him because he was a strong Italian dad, very strict, very controlling. And I actually grew up and I’m very open about this with a lot of abuse. So physical and mental, emotional. I loved my dad and I still do to this day. And I see now that that was an experience that I went through to strengthen my character to be who I am today. And I’ve gone through a lot of healing through that and but like kind of back to what you know, back at the pharmacy, so there was all of that going on. So like I loved him, I admired him. He taught me so much and he was so charismatic, intelligent. And so I absorbed all of that I was like a sponge, you know, from a very early age. And I knew in those interactions with people that were at the counter. That’s really where I like loved talking to people and hearing about their stories or what they were doing for the day. I grew to love people. And I just knew in my heart like I felt this, this rush in my body whenever someone was like, “Oh my God, you really helped me!” I was like, This is my purpose and so from probably around 13-14 years old, I knew that I wanted to help people. And so in my mind, I was like, oh, pharmacy. So the day that I got into pharmacy school, I feel like my whole world opened up, I was so excited. It was like this whole new adventure. And at the same time, there was this internal struggle that was happening within me. So I had an eating disorder in high school where, you know, I was anorexic. Put a lot of pressure on myself. Highly perfectionistic. Does this sound familiar, pharmacists, right? And so my trauma showed up in my body as an eating disorder high, you know, high levels of anxiety. I was a high performer, you know, like, I did kick line dance, all these different things, all throughout my childhood. Because that was what I thought I had to be in order to be loved by and accepted by my family. And so I went through pharmacy school, my head was down, you know, I, I actually developed a different eating disorder at that time. So it was night eating syndrome. That’s a whole other story. But essentially, what I learned was that my going through my healing journey, my nervous system was so overloaded from all of that trauma, the high performing, trying to be perfect, all of those things, that eventually had to come out somewhere because I suppressed my emotions. And you and I could talk about this for hours. But fast forward to kind of as I was going through pharmacy school, I was kind of struggling internally with all of this, you know, my eating disorder, anxiety, it just got compounded because it’s so much pressure to be in pharmacy school to make sure that you’re, you know, making the most out of your social time and, you know, the commute and all of the other things that come with being, you know, in pharmacy school, that pressure. So eventually, I got to the end of my career, or my, my time at St. John’s. And I started to look at all of these different opportunities. And I was really excited about pursuing a residency. And so I, I told my, my family, and I knew they weren’t going to be happy about it, because again, my dad owned this pharmacy and groomed me and, you know, helped me for years, and I just said, I’m like, I want to do this other path. And when I said that, he was not happy, because again, I was a people pleaser, I did whatever my parents said. I was a good girl, all of that. And so what I was, what he was saying back to me was like, you know, how could you do this to us? Like, you’re betraying us, you know, I helped you blah, blah, blah. And I didn’t care. For the first time in my life, I just felt it in my gut. And I think it was the dynamic to have probably somewhat of a toxic environment that I was already in, in that pharmacy setting. Combined with this drive that I had in my in this, again, I felt that feeling in my heart, like this is what I’m supposed to be doing. And so I always say to people, you know, I know, you have to use logic, of course, but also using your intuition like what feels aligned and right to me, that was probably the first time in my life that I actually let that voice be louder than the fear of what are they going to say I have to be perfect all that. So I did, I wound up pursuing the residency and living in that in my parents house with walking on eggshells and feeling like I couldn’t really, like tell them what was happening because I had to go to mid-year and I had to like, develop a CV for the first time and business cards and all of that. And I actually didn’t get any of my top five choices, because you have to pick five residencies that you want to match with. And I was like, devastated. And I didn’t know what to do. So I was talking to one of my professors at St. John’s one day, and she’s like, “oh, like, why don’t you try through the scramble. There’s a King’s Pharmacy in Brooklyn that I think I saw it didn’t match.” So I was like, let’s see if this goes. I went and interviewed and I got the call that I got this residency. But that was the beginning of the crumble of my life because that was when I got kicked out of my house. I my parents pretty much disowned me and you know, all of my stuff was thrown out onto the lawn- hangers, clothes, you know, everything that was my life, from my childhood room, where I was still living at home with them was literally purged onto the lawn. So all my neighbors were probably like, what is happening right now? So, I literally had to pick up the pieces of my life and start fresh like that was my rock bottom. At that time, I was taking anxiety medication. My life was so unworkable, because I wasn’t really speaking my truth. And all of these patterns that people pleasing, the perfectionism, the unworthiness that I had, it all kind of culminated into this moment where I was like, I’m choosing this, I’m choosing this new path. I don’t care how scary it is. And I remember looking up at the sky, and I just was like, it’s gonna be okay. I just had this feeling in my heart that even though my life was a mess, physically, everything was all over the lawn. And, you know, I couldn’t, I wasn’t even allowed back in the house. And I got fired from my dad’s pharmacy that day. So that was like one thing after the other. And by the way, it was like April of right when I was about to graduate pharmacy school. And so I was about to start a residency, I had two months left of pharmacy school, I still had to take my board exams. I had no job, I had not much money in a bank account, and I was living out of my car. And in that moment, like I said, I knew I was like, I can do this. I just had, I don’t know if it was God, if it was a strength, something within me, I just knew that I had made the right decision. And there had been so much bullying and abuse, and I was like, I’m done with this. So anyway, fast forward. And tell me when…

Tim Ulbrich 11:19

Yeah, good. I’ve got so many questions, but this is good. Finish your journey here.

Dr. Christina Fontana 11:23

Yep. So So there’s so much more, you know, that was the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey really, was getting into that residency, because it really opened up my eyes to all of the different possibilities within pharmacy, and I, it was so stressful, I cried a lot, I had so much PTSD in my body now that I look back on it. But I don’t regret that decision of doing a residency because again, it opened up my eyes to like, I started teaching diabetes classes, I was going through Integrative Nutrition at the same time, and like healing my body of looking at the deeper root of disease and why people get sick. And so this journey led me to where I am now. And I don’t regret any single part of it, because it was so painful. But I turned that pain and alchemize did into why like the drive that I have now to help people.

Tim Ulbrich 12:20

Yeah, as you’re is your sharing, and I really do appreciate your vulnerability here as I think that many people listening, you know, maybe will resonate with very specific parts of that, right, whether it’s, you know, an abuse part of the journey, or, you know, an eating disorder or some other trauma. But, you know, I think there’s pieces and parts of all of us that can relate to some part of that story. And what’s coming up for me is, like, where does that generative drive come from? Right? So when you think about all that you’ve been through, when you think about, you know, obviously the questions around am I loved? And you know, then being abandoned. And when you talk about your residency journey to me, you know, when I, when I think about, okay, you went through the scramble and I’m sure in your father’s eyes now that was a kind of a dagger of like, okay, now you’re choosing an option as the scramble, right? It’s like the last resort instead of this pathway, you know, seeing you would take and so my question is, where does that generative drive come from? Where do you attribute, you know, you choosing to go down that path? Right? So you know, I think in many abuse trauma situations, obviously, I’m not a counselor in any way, shape, or form, but you tend to think that often you see people stuck in those situations, because, you know, it’s, it’s harder to see the path out of it. And that becomes a new defined normal. And here, obviously, you talked about hitting that rock bottom in terms of, you know, getting thrown out of the house, and, you know, you chose choosing to go down this path anyways. And I almost felt as you were sharing, almost like this tug down an undefined path. And I’m curious of like, what is that pull? Like, what is that talk? What do you attribute to? Is that your is that your faith? Is that your “I just have this intuition”? Like, where, where does that come from?

Dr. Christina Fontana 14:09

I remember sitting on my bed one day meditating, because I like I said, I had so much anxiety from living in this house where I knew like my parents hate pretty much hated me, that my brother, and like, I guess I laugh to kind of cope with it now because I’m just like, I think back to how crazy it was. So please, like if you’re listening to this, please. No, I’m not. I laugh at my own situation, I guess because I’m just like, it was so crazy. But um, I remember sitting and meditating at the time because I was just trying anything to cope with this anxiety. And I felt this and I heard this voice so clearly say, “You like you need to get out of here.” Like, this needs, you need to leave. And so I guess I feel like that was really the first time that I felt that intuitive presence of God. You know, like I grew up Catholic, I kind of had a little bit of connection. But it wasn’t like, my dad was not a pastor or like, I didn’t really have that strong influence. But in those quiet moments, when I was with myself, my intuition started to speak. Because, you know, there’s so many fear influences that we have even now, with the news, people and expectations, parents, etc. So when you quiet that voice, and you really tune in, I started asking myself, like, what do I really want. And it was very scary, but it was that was that same feeling that I had back at the pharmacy. It was just this, it came from within, and it was just this boost of energy that I knew. It was, it was like, without a shadow of a doubt, I need to do this. And it was just, I think, too, probably the pain, like think about when someone has to make a decision, the pain was so bad, that I felt like I had to move. So like if you’re, if you’re in a bad relationship or a bad situation, eventually you get whittled down enough that it’s like, I’m done. That like F-it moment. So.

Tim Ulbrich 16:12

And Christina, as you share, you know, you talked about several things like, you know, obviously, your your need for acceptance, and to be loved. You talked about your nervous system activation, you talked about, you know, your awareness of how emotions are being suppressed. You also talked about kind of the journey of not not condoning in any way, or you know, accepting any way the abuse, but understanding and having a perspective on that, as you now look back. Which all of those together, tell me you’ve been through a journey of inner work, of counseling, of i, if you wouldn’t mind, just sharing for a moment what that journey has looked like for you. Because I think for some that are listening that say, Oh, I’ve got a, you know, a part of my story, you know, that maybe I need to dig a little bit deeper, despite the pain, right, that can be there. And I just think the more that we can hear from others, and on some level, you know, normalize the work that needs to be done, you know, the healthier we can all be. So if you would mind sharing a little bit of, of your journey of processing some of the emotion and the pain that you went through?

Dr. Christina Fontana 17:12

Yeah, absolutely. It it’s still a work in progress. Like there are I’m doing specifically nervous system work right now. But I had started off with traditional therapists, and that only got me so far. When I started doing the subconscious work, and I had hypnosis sessions, my anxiety went from like an eight to a two. And I started to say, okay, like, this is part of the breadcrumb trail of how I want to be helping people. So now that’s what I do. All of these tools that I’ve learned throughout the years, I now help people with. And someone I was I was working at a retreat one time, and somebody came up to me, they’re like, You should call it like rapid transformation, because people shift so quickly, because I, because I’m so intuitive. And I’ve developed that muscle so much within myself, I can look at someone and say, okay, and coach them and ask them these questions that are going to draw out of them. What needs to be shifted, because it’s all internal. Right? It’s the, it’s the layers, I call it multi dimensional healing. It’s the nervous system that’s holding the cellular memory of the trauma, it’s the patterns that you’ve come to cope with that trauma, people pleasing, perfectionism, overthinking, that’s all a nervous system response. So it’s the nervous system, all these patterns. And then there’s typically core wounds that are there like unworthiness, shame. And so that needs to be digested in order to allow that flow of emotion because, you know, I grew up in a very suppressive environment, and it doesn’t allow for you to tap into who you really are, the creativity, the gifts and that’s why I bring this work into helping entrepreneurs because if you’re suppressed, you’re not going to show up fully self expressed when you give a talk, when you go to put your message out there this work is so much of you know, the inner work, but also the practical strategy of how do I bring all of who I am to the table when I am speaking, so that I show up with power conviction. And that’s how you influence people because then they know you care, they see the passion that you have. And that’s how you start to create a domino effect of healing in the world. Which is really why I believe I’m here is at the root cause it’s to be a beacon of light for other people and that’s why I’m so vulnerable in my story. I’m like there’s nothing look in the crevices in the closet. There’s nothing in my closet like I will show you my husband because I want people to to know that they’re not alone and I want them to know there are tools out there that can help them.

Tim Ulbrich 19:57

Yeah, I love how you described it as you know multi dimensional and the layers. You know, that’s been my own experience of just kind of slowly peeling back the onion and the layers. And I think as you do that. And I’m convinced it’s a lifelong journey. I don’t think the work ever ends.

Dr. Christina Fontana 20:12

Yeah.

Tim Ulbrich 20:13

But through that, you start to get a little bit closer, a little bit closer a little bit closer to who your authentic self is. Right. And that is that is the unique advantage of every one of us. There is one, Christina, there is one, Tim, you know, there’s one of whoever’s listening, and we’ve got an opportunity to really identify who is that? Who is that? And how can we help serve others. So with that in mind, let’s shift to talking more about your journey as an entrepreneur. And one of things you share on your website is that you, “Empower others to transform their lives, reveal their inner radiance and step into more energy, confidence and power.” So what what is the how behind that? Why? So how do you help people on that journey?

Dr. Christina Fontana 20:53

So it’s part of what we just talked about. So it’s that inner work. But it’s also the practical strategy of it. And now we’re going to talk about goal setting. So I’ll bring this up now. So structured flexibility, right. So like, if you think of a container, you need to have structure around something to hold the energy of it. So like, if I were to just say, I want to have a business, but there’s no structure or offer or clear place for somebody to land, then it’s kind of like having a leaky bucket. Yeah. So I look at, okay, let’s look at some of these patterns that you have that we can start shifting, as well as those practical strategies of how do we translate your gifts into gold. That’s one of my, like, my signature methodologies turn your gifts to gold, because again, I always show this this is like my new thing. I know that you everybody listening, I’ll describe what I’m holding up right now. So it is a diamond. And if you are following me on social media, you’ll see that I post about this, this is on my Instagram. This is who we are like I’m pregnant right now I’m 21 weeks pregnant, this child is going to come out pure, with all the gifts that it was born with. With it being brilliant, worthy, everything, its pristine. But then what happens is, over time, we learned that life isn’t safe, right in some way, whether it’s a trauma, or we get yelled at or punished, or whatever, whatever that might be. And little kids make meaning out of things. I’m bad. I’m unworthy, all of this. And so that’s what we’re carrying into our business. And people, it’s so unconscious, that that’s why we bring it to the conscious forefront and say, Hey, this is what’s showing up. So we can help you reveal more of that diamond, of the brilliance of who you came here to be. Because you’re most magnetic when you shine that light. And when you can help those people who are in your audience scrolling on Facebook, looking for the answers. That to me is true fulfillment. So the more that you can reveal that, and have these containers and by containers, I mean, like offers or the way that you tell your story in a way that’s compelling and draws people to you. That’s how you build a sustainable business. That’s, that’s my belief. Its just one perspective.

Tim Ulbrich 23:24

Yeah, and I know you work with a lot of entrepreneurs, but for everyone listening, like this work is span spans everyone, right? So obviously, we’re talking about here and the framework of, you know, being able to approach your business and how you serve others and making sure that you know, what is unconscious becomes conscious, and we’re aware of how that might be limiting what we’re doing are holding us back. But, you know, for someone who’s at the front lines at a community pharmacy, or they’re a manager or administrator at a hospital, like, this work matters for everyone. It matters in your professional life and matters in your personal life. You know, you’re talking about some of the variables that as you know, kids growing up, we experienced these things, some of them might be a traumatic enough that we remember, but often they’re not. And I know that as a parent, like there are micro moments, I had one of them with my kids last night where, you know, after there’s an interaction, it’s like, oh, like, how was that perceived? How could that have been done differently? And now how can I, there’s mistakes are going to be made? That’s a part of life. But how do I learn from that? And how can I talk that out loud and process that with them as well? And they need to hear me out loud, say, like, I am sorry, you know, I shouldn’t have done X, Y, or Z. And I could have done this differently and they need to hear those things. And I don’t get it right a lot of the time! But this work matters as an employee, as an entrepreneur as a parent, as a spouse as a you know, father, mother, brothers it matters in every relationship that we have. And so I just love the vision of what you’re sharing one of these you have on your website, which really connected with me is you said “When we reconnect back to our true essence, remember who we really are we are limitless empowered, and we’re free.”

Dr. Christina Fontana 25:03

Yep.

Tim Ulbrich 25:03

So powerful, right. And that transcends so much of what we experienced every day if we’re able to get there.

Dr. Christina Fontana 25:09

And I want to just really quickly talk about that, because that you hit on a really important point there with, you know, when when we have to cope with what’s not resolved within us, then it turns into, like, for me, it was, you know, drinking and numbing my emotions and staying busy and all of these coping mechanisms that disconnected me from myself. And so this process for me has been reconnecting back to my body, which, like, again, it’s uncomfortable. If you’ve experienced trauma, it’s so uncomfortable sometimes to go into that pain. And so oftentimes, people dissociate. And they’re like, how do I escape this? Like, can I just run away from this in any way possible vacations, whatever, whatever that coping mechanism is. But when you when you heal, that’s when you’re truly free. And I think that’s what a lot of people are seeking is through those mechanisms, like, I just feel better.

Tim Ulbrich 26:06

So right, that’s right. Yeah. And I think for you know, I’ll speak to this for a moment, just because this has been my own journey. I know, when I was doing some of the work that I’m doing now, one of my initial knee jerk reactions was like, I had a great childhood, like, there is no trauma there. You know, number one, all of us have experienced something, the magnitude of it, the significance of it can be different. But there, we all have our own journey. And, you know, I think sometimes that we can confuse things like, you know, I was provided for effectively, you know, my parents helped support me, but there could be emotional gaps there, there could be emotional gaps, and you know, how things were communicated or not communicated. And this is not about, you know, digging up things that’s going to lead to, you know, judgment and, you know, disgruntment towards others, right, I think part of this journey, is to really have peace with that. But you know, so much of that, the more to your point, the more that we can help move from being unconscious to conscious, once we’re aware of it, you know, and once we can tap into our emotions and start to slow down and say, Okay, in this moment, I’m noticing myself feeling angry, I’m feeling fear, I’m feeling shame, I’m feeling guilt, whatever it be, and then connecting that with whatever interaction we’re having. I know what I often realize is whoa, like the emotional reaction, as real as it is, is way out of whack with the reality of the situation. Okay, Where’s that coming from? Like, why am I why am I feeling so much anxiety and fear over something that went, I can just step back and kind of untether you know, myself and sort of observe like, oh, Tim, that’s interesting. Like, your heart rates increased rapidly, you have shortness of breath, like you’re, you’re, you’re becoming really tense, like, what’s all that? About? What, what’s behind that? And those are, those are tools, those are things that we can use everyday in our interactions that we have with others.

Dr. Christina Fontana 27:54

Right. Exactly. And the brain loves context, right? So like the nervous system feel safe, when we have some kind of context around, “oh okay, like, this is what’s happening.” Then you can use whatever tool to regulate and be with that part that is probably a past part of you. That’s like, hey, I need support, hey, I wasn’t supported in this way, or whatever it might be. So yeah.

Tim Ulbrich 28:21

So one of the things I’ve shared before on this show and with others, as well, is that I feel like parenting and entrepreneurship, for me have exposed so many areas of weakness or opportunities for growth, however, we want to say it.

Dr. Christina Fontana 28:37

Yeah!

Tim Ulbrich 28:38

And so many opportunities for self reflection that I’m not sure, you know, would have been there to the same degree without it right? When you’re when you’re talking about young kids, when you’re talking about business, there are things that stretch challenge, get out of your control, in a way like for me, I was very good at like keeping things in a box, and being able to kind of control and maneuver around it so that I didn’t have to experience the uncomfortable feelings and the things. Well guess what? When kids come to the equation, when business come to the equation, like that box gets blown up, sometimes they really, like for me exposed like, oh, wow, like when I don’t have control of a situation. Like that’s where I see, you know, a lot of things go awry. And and that’s an interesting discovery, like, well, what’s behind that? And why why is that there? So my question for you is, you know, as you think about your journey, in business, or in tune to be as a parent, like, what have you learned about yourself? What has been the most significant one or two things that you’ve learned about yourself through not only your own journey of healing, but also through building and growing a business?

Dr. Christina Fontana 29:36

Oh, my goodness, when I think of this analogy, when you have a business and you’re growing it, it’s like a mirror. Everything that needs to come up, that’s your client interactions, team interactions is going to come up like you said, I love that analogy. You’re like the box blows up because it’s like, you can’t hide. You’re facing off with yourself. And yeah, I would agree 100% with the control, like for me on worthiness came up control, people pleasing all of those protective parts that just wanted to keep, like, as a child, I just wanted to be safe. And I never felt safe in my house because it was so chaotic, there was a lot of abuse going on. And so I learned to shut down. And that was part of my coping mechanism, like I said, and I think, through control, and my, my dad was very, both my parents were very controlling. That’s what helped me feel like, oh, I have some sort of safety, right? So it was kind of that dynamic that still plays out. And I’m like, I have to catch myself. And I’m like, okay, and I again, like, that’s one of the layers for me that I have to continually work on. And that’s why I have continuous support coaches, different people that I hire, because I’m like, hey, I need, I need to be witnessed in this, I need to be held in this very uncomfortable situation. But at the same time, like even, you know, currently, like, in the past few months, I’ve had some situations where it really stretched me and I’ve never experienced this before. But from a higher perspective, I always come back to okay, what is God trying to teach me through this? Because my character is being strengthened through this. And so I feel the emotion, but then I also say, Okay, what am I actually learning here? And that, to me, is, is important for the integration process of like, I’m not just going through this to feel pain, I’m actually alkalizing something within myself from a past version, or whatever it is, that’s helping me become a higher version of myself, you know?

Tim Ulbrich 31:48

Yeah. And I think that integration part of the journey is so important, right? There’s obviously the feeling of the emotions, and you know, being more aware of that, and how is that impacting, you know, the relationships and things that are happening each and every day? But then what’s the integration? You know, and sometimes that’s not in the moment thing, at least speaking for myself, sometimes that’s, you know, really leaning into the curiosity, as I’ve alluded to a couple different times, and then through that curiosity, and through that self awareness, and through kind of untethering yourself in that experience, it’s okay, what, what is the integration part of this? And what is there to be learned? And how can I grow? I think that how can I grow is a good transition and segue into setting big goals. We’re getting ready to come up on the New Year, which is a time that people often look at the mirror and say, Hey, what are some things that I want to focus on? What what has been the year that’s about to end? What what do we want to shift? And how do we want to grow into the new year? And before we talk about some of the strategy and X’s and O’s for how you approach goal setting, or how you approach this with your clients as well. I want to get just your general thoughts and recommendations on how you might help someone or encourage them to get in the right mindset before they get into the goal setting. Right, the work before the work, if you will. But yeah, I think so much of the goal setting exercise, I say this about the financial plan where we can work on X’s and O’s, we can develop a retirement plan, we can develop a debt repayment, we can do all these things. But if we’re not in the right mindset around, like, why do we care about this topic of money? What’s the goal? What’s our relationship with money, all of these bigger types of things, those X’s and O’s are only going to go so far. So I think similarly here on the goal setting, there’s this important step of getting in the right mindset under which we’re then thinking about how we set goals. So what are your What are your thoughts there?

Dr. Christina Fontana 33:35

Yeah, so I think getting in the right nervous system state is even a deeper level, because when we’re in fight or flight, this prefrontal cortex is not active. So this is where our creative solutions come from, our strategic thinking, our critical thinking, and so I would always encourage and this I do this across the board with all of my clients, align the energy first. So looking at your nervous system, doing some of those exercises, but also really moving from, to what feels pleasure, like like moving from the mind of like, oh, like, How much money do I have whatever. Ask your heart and move into the body and say, What would feel really exciting for me? and I’m actually going to say this out loud because I want to, I want to commit to this. Even though I’m having a child next year, I saw somebody who had this he has a list. He’s really in a very ambitious in my audience, he’s not a pharmacist, but he was committed to speaking to 100 audiences in 2023. And he’s like at the bottom of the list. And I thought to myself, I want to do that I want to commit whether it’s through a Facebook live whatever it is Instagram speaking opportunity. I’m putting it out there. So I would love to have that as a goal so that for me feels juicy, alive. Pleasure lead, like yes! This is something about impact that I really want to move. And so from that vision, then you can obviously go into the more like practical planning pieces of it. But also, it’s like that structured flexibility, like not being too rigid, where it’s like the gripping, but allowing that co creative force of God, the universe, whatever you want to call it, like the surrender piece, because we can only control so much. Yeah. But when you when you embody that version of yourself, like tapping into the energy of this is what I want this is who would I have to be to achieve that goal? Because there’s usually an evolution or a next version of yourself, right? Maybe a higher version of yourself? What would that be? And feeling into that frequency? I recommend this to my clients to just even for five minutes, every single day, because, according to quantum physics, we’re always attracting based upon our thoughts and our electromagnetic signature from our heart. Yeah. So that’s what we attract. What we constantly think about what we’re constantly feeling. So yeah, that’s a whole other topic.

Tim Ulbrich 36:13

It’s a good one, there’s a lot of good resources out there, you know, for for people that want to learn more about that as well. But I think, you know, what you shared about the pleasure lead really resonates with with me, right, because I think for a lot of pharmacists, you know, I’ll speak for myself, but I suspect many may feel the same as well. You know, high achiever tend to want to please others, you know, want to develop these, you know, goals that may have expectations tied to others, and really slowing down and getting out of our head getting into our bodies to really take the space and time to say, Does this resonate with me? Is this an expectation of someone else? Is this really authentic to me or not. And that really requires your point, getting in the right state of our nervous system. I’ve been in these exercises with my small group of men where we meet, we meet once a week for two hours, and we kick off our meeting, typically, with one of the men leading a 15-20 minute type of meditation exercise, and I can consistently now almost have gotten to the point where I will show up, and it feels like there’s an uneven distribution of weight of my head to my body. Because I’ve been throughout the day, I’m just programmed, like through, you know, repetition, experience, whatever, that if I’m not careful and don’t slow down, I’m like, I will live so much of the day in my head, that I can actually feel like the physical exhaustion of that in my head, and really, to be able to slow down and like get into my body. And typically, by the end of that meeting, like I can actually feel like the shift of the stress and the weight in my body. And I’ve actually described it to the guys my group that like it feels like if I close my eyes, sometimes it feels like my head is like in a giant space like disproportionately weighted to the rest of my body. But it’s just such a good reminder of like slowing down, like, what are the exercises, what are the habits, one of the behaviors can really get ourselves into checking in with our body. And I think aligning that with goal setting is so important, right? Because I think if we’re not careful, like Are these your goals? Are these someone else’s goals? And even if they’re your own derived goals, maybe not at an expectation of others, does it actually resonate with you? Right? So you gave that example, which I think is a really good one, because someone else might see that and say, oh, I want to do that too, but not because it really resonates. But because they’re like, Oh, that’d be cool to speak 100 times, like, that’d be cool, right? There could be some pride there, there could be some ego there, right? You know, but the way you described as like, that really resonated with you, internally, right, for whatever reason, I think it comes full circle to where you started your story, which was, you know, early in your life, identifying that you really have a desire to want to help other people, right, that, to me, ties very directly to that. So I think getting in the right state of mind, you know, getting out of our head, making sure that it’s a pleasure lead processes, is so important. Now, I want to get a little more detail from you on this concept of structured flexibility. Because this has been my experience where I’ve gone through goal setting in many different formats. And sometimes I come up with these very comprehensive, you know, plans that seem great, you get the dopamine rush, and then two weeks in, you’re like, oh, my gosh, this is exhausting. What was I thinking I’m going in 12 directions, I’ve got every domain of wellness of, you know, defined with five different sub goals. And then I’ve been on the other end where, you know, it’s too loose, it’s maybe not motivating enough or not structured enough. And I do think there’s a middle ground here, which, which I believe is what you’re referring to the structured flexibility. So tell us more about what that looks like for you.

Dr. Christina Fontana 39:38

Yeah, I’ll just even given a concrete example of a launch. Like I just did a Pivot to Profit three days, you know, it’s a client converting workshop, like I bring everybody in, I teach them, you know, it’s like a really detailed PDF and I’m like, Okay, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to do this three day event, deliver tons of value, and then I’m going to I’m share about one of my programs. As I’m going through the launch, I’m like, oh, I want to do a trick or treat giveaway. So that came in, like, being open to the downloads that come through, like I call them downloads. It’s like that divine kind of intuition. And so I added that in, and maybe I took something out. It’s kind of like, like cooking. It’s like, oh, do I like my food spicy. Or maybe I won’t add so much of this, but I’ll add this. So I think it’s being a little bit flexible with number one, like those components, but also not being so rigid of like, I need five clients from this launch. Like, it’s it for me, it comes back to and you talks about that word, ego, I really try. And it’s a constant thing. I’m like, Okay, I’m releasing, I know that this is my ego talking right now, that’s wanting this…outcome, I’m going to let that go. And I’m going to open up to whatever the highest outcome is going to be. And I’m going to show up and serve and give 110% and do this plan. Be flexible, you know, implement those downloads, like I said, but also having that openness of, I wonder what else could show up, that it doesn’t have to be so rigid?

Tim Ulbrich 41:20

No, that makes sense. And I think that very concrete example you just gave, you know, related to the launches is a good one, right? Because I think so often, not only can we adopt other people’s goals, but we can set a goal. And then speaking for myself, I’m so structured and rigid to that goal, that I lose any of the openness and flexibility to you know, okay, might there be a different idea, a different pathway, or even feedback from audience or, you know, different things that are coming in that says, okay, my flexible enough to be able to pivot and move in real time. And usually, if I develop a plan, it’s like, this is the plan, right? We’re going with, and I’m gonna see it…. which there’s value in that, like, you know, and there’s, there’s real value that can come from kind of that, you know, stick-to-itiveness and wanting to see it through and being resilient, but also adding some flexibility to that.

Dr. Christina Fontana 42:04

I’m laughing because I’m thinking like, that’s how I’m like, oh, like, I’m gonna plan…..with this baby and like, we’re gonna get the … and I’m like, I’m sure like, the my like, whatever is gonna blow up my plan, but that’s okay.

Tim Ulbrich 42:18

Well, this has been fantastic. And I’m so grateful for your contributions to our community, your vulnerability and sharing your story. I think many are going to find that inspiring, insightful, and maybe on some level, motivating to do some more self discovery and their journey. Also appreciate your your feedback that you gave on you know, how we can be thinking about setting goals and sharing about your entrepreneural journey. Where is the best place that our listeners can go, Christina, to learn more about your work and to follow your journey along the way as well?

Dr. Christina Fontana 42:46

Yeah, so my website is pharmacistcoach.com. And then from there, you’ll find all of my social media handles my group Monetize your Magic. Everything like my Instagram is @thepharmacistcoach so I would love to connect and feel free like I literally am an open door. So if you want to share Hey, I loved what you said in the episode or if you have questions, please reach out I’m happy to support.

Tim Ulbrich 43:12

Awesome well, we will connect in the show notes to social media, to the website pharmacistcoach.com, as well as your email [email protected] If people want to reach out directly.So, Christina, thank you so much for coming on the show and wishing you an awesome 2024.

Tim Ulbrich 43:27

As we conclude this week’s podcast and important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment. Furthermore, the information contained in our archived newsletters, blog posts and podcasts is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist unless otherwise noted, and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward looking statements, which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer. Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

[END]

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YFP 335: Pharmacy Innovators w/ Dr. Adam Martin Hosted by Dr. Corrie Sanders

Posted on November 23, 2023November 20, 2023 by Tim U

In this Pharmacy Innovators episode, sponsored by First Horizon, Dr. Adam Martin joins Dr. Corrie Sanders to share keys to success and living at a high level.

Episode Summary

On this episode in our Pharmacy Innovators series hosted by Corrie Sanders, PharmD, we get a masterclass from Tony Robbins coach Adam Martin, PharmD.

You’ll want to get our your journal to write down the wisdom Adam shares. He dives deep into the keys of success and living life at a higher level, emphasizing the importance of having fun in your journey to success. The message is clear: if you’re not having a blast, you might be doing it wrong.

Are you in the right environment? Are external influences steering you off course?

Success leaves clues, and Adam shares a powerful tip for achieving it quickly: proximity. The three-step mantra is simple—get close to people playing the game at the level you aspire to.

A must listen episode for everyone looking to become their best self and living life as it was intended!

About Today’s Guest

As a Tony Robbins Results Coach and Business Results Trainer, my focus is not only on where you want to be, but also on recognizing the value of the space you’re currently in—the space between where you used to be and where you desire to go. It is within this space that growth and transformation happen, and my role is to leverage the progress you’ve already made to propel you towards the results you truly deserve. I am dedicated to helping individuals achieve unprecedented levels of success and transformation, all while ensuring that the process is enjoyable and fulfilling.

Creator of The Fit Pharmacist, I host the weekly Script Your Confidence Podcast. As a doctorate in pharmacy having written multiple authored books, along with running my own speaking business and being certified as a personal trainer and nutrition consultant, I possess over a decade of experience working with high-level clients. I have honed my expertise in guiding clients towards their goals, overcoming limitations, and maximizing performance through a deep understanding of human behavior and performance. My coaching approach is results-focused, action-oriented, and tailored to the unique needs and aspirations of each client.

My clients come from diverse backgrounds, including entrepreneurs, healthcare professionals, executives, athletes, and individuals seeking personal growth and fulfillment. I am committed to creating a results-driven coaching environment where they can transform burdens into blessings by mastering the art of resourcefulness and overcoming past obstacles.

I utilize cutting-edge tools and strategies from Tony Robbins’ proven methodologies, combined with my insights and expertise from implementing his material in my own life. This combination facilitates powerful shifts and helps individuals unlock the next level of their potential.

My mission is to coach you to unlock your full potential, live a life of personal excellence, amplify your impact, and create a future that surpasses your wildest dreams.

Key Points From the Episode

Finding fulfillment in pharmacy careers through self-discovery and empowerment. [2:35]
Career changes, impostor syndrome, and the power of the mind. [6:22]
Overcoming obstacles to pursue pharmacy school and leadership roles. [9:31]
Adam Martin, a pharmacist and fitness enthusiast, shares his journey of using fitness to fuel his transformation and improve his studies in pharmacy school. [14:56]
Career development and non-traditional income sources. [21:55]
Overcoming obstacles to pursue pharmacy school and leadership roles. [9:31]
Adam Martin, a pharmacist and fitness enthusiast, shares his journey of using fitness to fuel his transformation and improve his studies in pharmacy school. [14:56]
Career development and non-traditional income sources. [21:55]
Pharmacy career, personal growth, and mindset. [23:48]
Cultivating a positive mindset in challenging situations. [28:59]
Adam Martin struggled with depression and anxiety, which led him to Tony Robbins’ work. [31:42]
Adam Martin emphasizes the importance of sharing one’s experiences and insights with others, even if they feel they are not good enough or have not figured everything out. [38:17]
Gratitude practice and its impact on mental well-being. [43:50]
Career growth and mindset shift from pharmacist to entrepreneur. [45:41]
Faith, career, and taking risks. [50:54]
Following God’s call to leave a job despite lack of plan or logic. [57:26]
Career transition from pharmacist to coach. [1:00:06]
Faith, career change, and pharmacy. [1:05:24]
Identity crisis in pharmacy profession. [1:10:51]
The future of pharmacy and entrepreneurship. [1:15:00]
Making career changes and preparing for the future. [1:19:39]
Adam Martin emphasizes the importance of living with integrity, serving others, and having fun in life. [1:24:36]

Episode Highlights

“Oftentimes we get stuck, we just get stopped by saying I don’t have the resources. I don’t know the right people. I don’t have the money. I don’t have enough time. The question isn’t resources. It’s how resourceful can you be? Because again, all you need is all you have, because all you have is within you now. And that’s a core belief. And if you have that belief, that will drive your actions. And when you take those actions by asking the right question, the quality of questions you ask will directly determine the quality of life that you live. Ask a better question, get a better answer.” –Adam Martin [27:15]

“And here’s the thing that I want to and I really want to drive home is that there are always both two things happening at the same time. A loss and a gain. With everything, even my mom passing away, that was a loss. And there was also a gain, someone doing you wrong, there’s a loss and there’s a gain, getting a raise, there’s a gain, and there’s a loss. You get to choose which of the two you focus on and what you focus on, you’ll feel because we’re focus goes energy flows.” – Adam Martin [28:21]

“It’s about facing it and choosing to see it as it is not worse than it is choosing to see it better than it is because that’s the role of a leader is see the vision while no one else may be able to and then make it the way you want to see it. That’s really leadership is all about making decisions in the hard times. And I’m not talking about being a leader position, per se, I’m talking about being the leader of your life. CEO of you. Because guess what, you get to choose what you focus on. Because there’s always both something gained and something lost at the same time. And what you feel comes from what you choose to focus on.” –Adam Martin [29:42]

“So when you think you’re not good enough to help people, you don’t have to have it all figured out. You just have to be 10% ahead of the person you’re looking to help and committed to constant and never ending improvement. So from that perspective, I wonder how many souls you can pour into, I wonder how many people you can bring hope to.” -Adam Martin [40:17]

“So if you’re in a job and that doesn’t mean I’m telling you to quit, but say could you be focusing on the wrong thing because you’re influenced by other people in your profession. Maybe you’re hanging out in the wrong Facebook groups. Maybe you need to listen to more YFP. Maybe we get more engaged in that community. Maybe you need to instead of listening to people who are complaining and have a life that you don’t want. Maybe you need to connect with people who are living a life through the integrity and character and lifestyle that you actually do want. Because success leaves clues.” Adam Martin [1:29:23]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

Corrie Sanders 00:01

Hi YFP community! Corrie Sanders here host of the Pharmacy Innovators segment of the YFP Podcast. Pharmacy Innovators is designed for pharmacists navigating the entrepreneurial journey. In this series, we feature pharmacy founder stories and strategies that help guide current and aspiring pharmacy entrepreneurs. Today we featured Dr. Adam Martin, known on social media as the Fit Pharmacist. Adam is a pharmacy entrepreneur that recently transitioned out of the retail space after over a decade of practice. Adam has worked with pharmacy schools and organizations across the world on leadership and branding careers since becoming the first pharmacist within the National Speakers Association in 2019. This is the same year that he was recognized as the most influential pharmacist in the profession. Dr. Martin is now a Tony Robbins results coach in 2023. And our conversation is rooted in fitness, faith and finance. He shares many inspirational life sentiments and lessons along the way. Grab a journal and please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Adam Martin.

[SPONSOR MESSAGE]

Tim Ulbrich 01:04

Does saving 20% for a down payment on a home feels like an uphill battle. It’s no secret that pharmacists have a lot of competing financial priorities, including high student loan debt, meaning that saving 20% for a down payment on a home may take years. We’ve been on a hunt for a solution for pharmacists that are ready to purchase a home loan with a lower down payment and are happy to have found that option with First Horizon. First Horizon offers a professional home loan option aka doctor or pharmacist home loan that requires a 3% downpayment for a single family home or townhome for first time homebuyers, has no PMI and offers a 30 year fixed rate mortgage on home loans up to $726,200. The pharmacist home loan is available in all states except Alaska and Hawaii, and can be used to purchase condos as well. However, rates may be higher, and a condo review has to be completed. To check out the requirements for First Horizon’s pharmacist home loan. And to start the pre approval process. Visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/home-loan. Again, that’s yourfinancialpharmacist.com/home-loan.

[EPISODE]

Corrie Sanders 02:15

All right, today we’ve got Dr. Adam Martin with us. Adam, thank you for being here with the YFP community.

Adam Martin 02:23

Happy to be here. Thank you for the opportunity.

Corrie Sanders 02:26

So we will start things off pretty easy. Why don’t you just introduce yourself to the audience a little bit, about where you’re from and where you went to pharmacy school.

Adam Martin 02:35

Happy to. So my name is Dr. Adam Martin. I’m known as the Fit Pharmacist. So if you’ve been on social media for the last 10 years, that’s me Mr. Memes, Mr. Positivity, encouragement, how to break through all those sorts of things. And pharmacy has been an incredibly tremendous asset. For me, it’s been a huge, huge opportunity for so many things. And I’m so so grateful for it. And my journey is a little different, because I’m one of those crazy people that actually liked retail. Yes, I worked full time for 10 years in one of those big three letter companies. And I actually had fun, I actually loved it. I mean, if you weren’t there for 10 years, you must like it at some degree, right? So. So that’s kind of where my journey started. And it actually started with rejection. And that’s really what my whole brand was about. It was about encouraging people who were not qualified or didn’t feel qualified, who had some knocks down, they weren’t really set up for success, so to say. So to really encourage them that your start doesn’t mean it’s your end, to encourage you that you may not be feeling like you’re qualified, but you have all that you need. Because all you need is within you now. That you can be resourceful and actually use what was perceived as a setback as a set up for your success. And that’s exactly what the Fit Pharmacist was all about. It was about encouraging people to use what you felt was your mess, to turn it into your message to encourage others to do the same. Because all too often what I found, and what I’ve heard a lot of my clients say is that it’s there’s a lot of imposter syndrome. There’s a lot of do I even belong here? Who am I look at everyone else I feel behind? What am I doing? Do I have a chance and using those perceptions of disqualification as the exact reasons to qualify you to make an impact in people’s lives. And that’s what I started to recognize. The more I got into pharmacy, the more I got involved with social media and a blogging career and writing books and podcasting and speaking, all of which are parts of that journey. But the whole point of that was to let you know that you define what your future is. You have the pen, you get to write the story and you get to choose because the quality of your life is really two things. Its meaning and emotion. And you get to choose, is this the beginning? Or is this the end? So that’s really what what ignited me in that path of helping people that had so much talent, so much wisdom to really tap into that, and unapologetically own their fire so that they can ignite the spirit and other people to go and do the same. And I think that’s what we’re really here to do. And that’s really what is missing from pharmacy. For those who are feeling like there’s something missing in their career, in their in their passion, or maybe they feel like they don’t have one. It’s fulfillment. They may be successful, they may be making a ton of money, they may have the position, they may have all the degrees after their name. Have y’all ever met people that have more letters after their name than in their name, you know, the ones that have more degrees than a thermometer? They have all the success, but they feel empty inside. Because there’s not fulfillment. And that’s really what it is fulfillment. If you look at the word, we are meant to fill others up. And when you’re able to do that, by being willing to be known for who you truly are, the man or woman of God you were made to be, you can do that, fearlessly. Unapologetically. And when you do that, you inspire others to do the same. And that’s really why I’ve always done what I’ve done. Now I just do it on a deeper level as a full time coach working for Tony Robbins. So long story short, here we are.

Corrie Sanders 06:30

Now, there’s so many things that you said that I think we’ll touch on throughout the duration of this conversation. I mean, I think we’ll dive into impostor syndrome, I think we’ll talk about how you defined your life as meaningful throughout different chapters of your career. So let’s start with that initial rejection. Adam, when you said your career started from rejection, what did that look like for you? And then how did that transform into what you’re doing today?

Adam Martin 06:53

100%. So, back when I knew everything about everything, as a 13 year old, I wanted to be a vet, a veterinarian, because back in the day, I have the astute wisdom that a vet was playing with puppies and getting paid for it. Until I got the bright idea to actually work at a vet hospital and see what actually a veterinarian does. And I got what you call an education, that that’s not what it is. And there’s a lot more to it. And while it was for good reasons, veterinarians put dogs to sleep almost every day. And again, while it’s for good reasons, I just couldn’t deal with that. So it wasn’t what I thought it was. And that’s the first piece of advice that I could give anyone that’s looking for a career change is getting multiple perspectives from people actually doing what you think you want to do. Because you may have your perception, but perception is not reality, especially when you don’t have any experience there. So that was the first thing that I did was I just got experience and where I thought I wanted to go. And it was right around that time. I was coming up to graduate high school. And my mom went in for a routine colonoscopy. And she had turned 50. I remember like it was yesterday and we’re filming this on a Wednesday. Ironically, it was a Wednesday. And I remember I remember it clear as day. Kissed her goodbye, went to school. I said good luck, mom. And I stayed after school in those days. And my dad picked me up after and he was never late. But he was super late that day. And I knew something wasn’t right. I got in the car, and he said mom failed her test. Now, I didn’t know this at the time. But at the point of diagnosis, she was given less than six months to live. She was they caught stage four metastatic colorectal cancer that had spread to her liver, lymph all over, all over her body. But she didn’t. She didn’t accept that. She refused that diagnosis. And she used the power of her mind and her faith to move forward through that. And she had multiple surgeries. And long story short, that’s what led me to pharmacy. Because being on so many medications, we were in the pharmacy most days of the week. And at this point in my life, I didn’t even know what a pharmacist was. We didn’t have any neighbors, no family, friends, nothing. And all I knew being in there picking up meds from a mom is that there’s the smart person in a white coat running around like a chicken with their head cut off trying to help strangers. And the more we were there, the more I saw this compassion that they had. They didn’t know us. We were strangers to them. But they treated us like we were actually family. How’s your mom doing? If you guys can’t get to the pharmacy, you’re not that far away, we’d be happy to drop it off. And it was the perfect timing that really caught this because it was a time when I didn’t know what I was going to do because I realized that I wasn’t going to be paid playing with puppies. And it was about to graduate high school so I had to figure something out. And from that modeling of just interacting with people, that’s what I wanted to do. So I had a very strong why that kept getting deeper and again, mind you at this time, I didn’t even know what a pharmacist did. I just saw this. And I said, I want to do that. So again, to the advice of the that I started to take my own advice, because success leaves clues. So I got some experience to shadow with some pharmacists. And I just saw the interaction, the impact that they had with people. And I thought this is pretty sweet. So I decided I’m going to be a pharmacist. So I did my two years and undergrad, applied to pharmacy school, I was so pumped, I had such a strong why I actually applied to three pharmacy schools, and I got rejected by every single one. And I’ll never forget it. I was sitting on my bunk bed, in my college dorm, like I had to make a decision. Like I really like thought with myself. And I was and also my undergrad advisor at the time said pharmacy is competitive, you may want to pursue and other options, consider some alternatives. And I was getting this advice. But I also had this clear why. And I was wrestling with it. I was like the the writing on the wall, the paper, the quote, “recommendations”, or to do something else, but I have this calling. And I didn’t really understand that at the time. But I decided to go for it again. So that required some summer school. That require an eating what I call some Humble Pie, retaking some classes, really doing whatever you could to up your grades to get more involved to really say I’m committed to this. So I ended up reapplying the next year. And I didn’t get in. But what I did get was waitlisted, which means we gave our offers to everyone we really want to let in. But if they say no, we’ll give you a chance. Let’s just be real. That’s what it means. Okay, so I ended up being dead last person getting into my class, and I was not going to waste the opportunity. And that light bulb clicked for me before pharmacy school started, it was like a couple days before, they have like a two day orientation. And the last thing they said is, by the way, you have to elect the president of your class. And I remember that this was 2008-2009. I still remember that moment, a light bulb went off, because all throughout like I’m an Eagle Scout, oh did all these leadership things. And I didn’t really understand what the purpose was going to be. But in that moment, it all made sense. I was born to be a class president. I didn’t even know what that meant. But I just had this again, this calling. I couldn’t even put a finger to it. So what did I do? Success leaves clues. I modeled the mentors. So I got a mentor who was a pharmacy student two years ahead of me shout out to Jimmy Gill, to attend to the hot step. This guy was awesome. I joined an organization called SNPHA, the Student National Pharmaceutical Association, which I’m a huge fan of their platform is serving the underserved. Shout out to y’all love y’all. Well, after one of the meetings, I went up to him like, Hey, man, I heard about this class president thing. And I really want to do it. But I have no clue because you have to give this five minute talk. And I don’t know what to say. And he says, Yo, this is what you do. You get up and say you’re gonna be a liaison between faculty and students. And when people hear that, they’re gonna say, Oh, he speaks French, and then they’ll vote for you. And that’s what happened. That’s what happened. So I did not waste that opportunity. That was my first like speaking gig, right? But I was so stoked. And I took that job. So seriously, I took notes, I sent weekly emails, I treated like that it was my full time job. And it was awesome. Because from that, I gained a lot of connections. I networked because I would be meeting with professors. I literally was that liaison, don’t ask me how to spell it. But I think I can say it well. But that’s what really helped me in networking initially, was stepping into that role and saying my class is counting on me. And they may not have. I hope they read the emails. But that was the identity that I adopted. And the strongest force in the human personality is the need to stay consistent in how we define ourselves. So all throughout pharmacy school, I really enjoyed that. And I ended up going to seven pharmacy conferences while I was a student. It was incredible. I met people I got to go all over the country, Florida, State of Washington all over it was so fun. And on my rotation my last year Pharmacy school, I was doing a rotation at the FDA. And I got a call from my dean. And I was like, Oh crap, what I do? But what happened was, she said, Adam, you might not know this, but every year for the graduating class, I personally give a scholarship to one male and one female who I believe is going to innovate the profession. And it’s for $10,000. I’m like wow, what a fun fact. That’s awesome. She’s like I’m picking you. So I went from being rejected saying you’re not going to get in to now you’re the most influential pharmacist in that I think that’s going to come out of your class. And again, I said, I’m not going to waste this opportunity. So what happened was, when I got into pharmacy school, I started to find this symbiotic relationship between fitness and pharmacy. And fitness for me began when my mom got diagnosed with cancer. At the time, I was bullied up into that point, most of my life, I was scrawny little kid, I was very quiet, believe it or not, yes, it did exist. But things change, right? So there’s proof positive. But what was through that time that I used fitness to really fuel my transformation. And whenever I got into pharmacy really looking to uplevel, my studies, I found that if you partied and screwed around and didn’t sleep, well, your workouts would suffer, and so would your performance in the classroom. But if you ate well, if you slept, if you did the things you knew were good for you, your workouts would be great. And your studies would also improve. So like I said, it became a symbiotic relationship. And the point of that is once I graduated pharmacy school in 2012, was right around when Instagram was happening. And my friends were like, Dude, you got to get this. And I’m like, Well, what is it? Like? Well, you just pick a name that represents what you’re about. So I was like, Okay, well, I like fitness. I’m a pharmacist, I’ll become the Fit Pharmacist. And that’s literally how it started. Then what happened was, I just started sharing stuff, things that I liked, nutrition, things like that. And when I graduated, I thought that if you’re in health care, you need to be leading by example. You’re promoting health. So you’ve got to walk the talk. And that just made sense to me. Until I realized that it wasn’t very common. Because I started to see people over time after graduation that started getting really stressed out, gaining weight all this stuff resentful. And I was like, What is going on? You’re a genius. How come you’re on the struggle bus. And they started to share with me the things that were in their way. And I started to say, oh, try this, oh, give this a try. And it started to work. So I wondered, I wonder if other people could help benefit from these tips. So I started sharing them on Instagram. And then I started to get a website, and I started to just share these little tips. And my first business was in 2013. Being a certified nutrition consultant, helping people with nutrition. As when I was going through pharmacy school, I wanted extra. So on my off block, I decided to become a certified personal trainer, which I did I pass that exam through American College of Sports Medicine, because I was doing it anyway. So I might as well use that as an asset. Right. And that helped with that first business. And the reason I tell you this, is there was a pharmacist who was starting his entrepreneurial journey, who saw that I was growing the following back in the day, I think it was like 1000 followers. He’s like, Hey, man, I’m starting my journey. I’m looking to get some traction, you have some followers? Can you like, give me a shout out or something? And I was like, well, let’s come up with this. How about how about, since you’re into fitness too, you share your fitness journey. And because I’m a dork, we’ll we’ll call it Fit Pharmacist Friday, and we’ll publish it on Friday, or just be a short little thing about how you define fitness. And we posted it. And I got five DMS in like the first hour of people saying I want to be featured, I want to be featured. And literally from that launched a four year four year blog campaign. Every Friday for four years. Pharmacist students from all over the world, it was friggin awesome. That’s really how my brand and business began, was just creating a platform, a space for people to have a voice, to feel like they mattered. So like give them a place where they can share how they could help other people who felt like they weren’t cut out for it, how they define fitness really giving their perspective of what’s important for them. And that’s really where the social media thing began. And that again, launched into, I wrote for three pharmacy magazines through the years in the United States also in South Africa, led to writing my first book, RX You, which was all about self care for pharmacists, and students grab it on Amazon, then that led to my second book, which helped pharmacy students overcome setbacks and really dominate pharmacy school. And that then led to publishing other books as well with co authoring, and launching a podcast that I still run to this day going on six years. There’s a new episode every week, and then it led to a speaking career. I became a professional speaker through the National Speakers Association. So long story short, those are the highlights but I’ll say I say all that to say, if someone tells you can’t do something, check in with yourself. Ask why am I doing this? Because if you ask how first you’ll always get overwhelmed you will always fall into what’s called the tyranny of how frustration overwhelm, and you’re just going to be stuck. That’s the maybe the right question but asked at the wrong time. The first question you want to ask is, what do I want? And get clear on it? The second question you want to ask is, why is this important? From an emotional connection? not logical. So oh, I want to do this because it’ll create a financial security for my family. That may be true, but get an emotional why to it, because he or she, who has their why can bear almost any how, once you then have a clear outcome, and you have a clear, emotionally driven reason why, then you can ask how because you’ll be pulled towards it, rather than feeling like you’re pushing all the time. And then all of that led to a coaching career. I’ve been coaching, like I said, since 2013, with nutrition, and that morphed into mindset and psychology, of really helping people get out of their own way, and live a life that was purpose driven and fulfilled on their terms, regardless of what they’ve gone through. And I’m not just picking this crap out of books, I’ve lived this stuff. I’ve coached hundreds of people through this, now 1000s, to really create a life on their terms, all over the world. And it’s really, really fulfilling. And as we’re filming this, as I mentioned, I think you’re my 13th Call today. And I mean, I’ve been up since 330. And you can hear, and I don’t even drink coffee. So it’s just fueled by passion. It’s fueled by passion. So once you get clear on those things that are really put you in a position where you can be of service to other people, because that’s really where fulfillment comes from. fulfillment is that you’re meant to fill others up. And when you can align with your God given purpose, it positions you to co mission with God. So to carry out the purposes to do that. And that’s really what I’m all about is helping people do that, too.

Corrie Sanders 21:55

Yeah. And Adam, that is, I mean, such an inspirational story. And it’s so amazing to see how many unique facets there have been to your career. I mean, before I even dive into the next question, I just want to say I’m so I’m so sorry to hear about your mom. But it’s such a strong testament to her faith, and to your faith, to be able to take an event like that, and really changed the trajectory of your life in a very positive manner. And to be able to give back to so many others in a meaningful way. And to use that really is fuel. So I’m so sorry to hear that. But I’m so just amazed by the outcome. And I’m just I respect you so much for how you’ve turned that into something that’s so positive in your life. I think there’s a lot of different facets that I have questions about throughout your career. And the first one is you’ve you’ve dabbled in, in sports and fitness and speaking in various different engagements. What did that look like, in parallel with your community pharmacy position? So is that something that you were doing on the side while you still held this community pharmacy job? How did you split those incomes? What did the development of these supplemental non traditional incomes look like, while you were serving in that community pharmacy role?

Adam Martin 23:10

Beautiful questions, and thank you so much for the kind words really appreciate that. And my belief is nothing has any meaning except the meaning you choose to give it. And while she was an amazing woman, still to this day, I hear people that she was a principal of a school, and she’s been gone 19 years. And still to this day, this just happened last month, I kid you not. I was at dinner with someone. And they said we were just in Florida. And we met someone we used to work with. And we mentioned your name. And they used to work with your mom, and they went on this half hour story. This happens all the time. It’s incredible. So the memory keeps going. So I really appreciate that. Thank you. And to answer your question. So I’ve I was I started full time pharmacy in 2012. I believe it was July. And actually no, it was and here’s how I know. Back then, before corporate realized that this was a liability, what we would do – and thanks to my partner for coming up with this with this idea. The partner that shared the pharmacy with me – is the idea was if we work three full time shifts, will have a week vacation every other week. So back then we would work I think it was 8am to 10pm. And we did three of those in a row. Now. I’ll be real the first couple months was rough. But after that it was normal, you adapt. So I remember it was July because that like a couple of weeks after I started the state insurance changed to the preferred insurance that my pharmacy that I worked for at the time had it. So there were about 30 to 50 transfers a day for a brand new pharmacist at a high volume store. So I remember my first full day I worked. I went at 8am and I was there until like 100-130. So that’s how I got fast at verifying prescriptions because I didn’t want to do that again. Right. To answer your question. Yes, I did this on the side. Although it wasn’t at the pharmacy. So that’s what that schedule allowed is we would do three full days. And then I would literally have a week vacation every other week, which gave me that, that bandwidth to do that. So that’s kind of how that foundation started. And again, when you’re launching a rocket, 90% of the fuel is on takeoff. So once I got the systems in place, once I got these things down, then that really through that time, then it became easier to to grow and scale that from there. So yeah, I did the writing. I did all that sort of stuff on the side on those days that I wasn’t on the bench. And then with the fitness part, yeah, I’ve been so I’m a lifetime drug free, natural bodybuilder. I know that’s an oxymoron, a pharmacist that’s drug free, but it’s true. I do tested shows. So I’ve competed four times. And I did compete four times as working as a full time community pharmacist at a high volume store. The most scripts that we did on a Monday, when I left was 651 with one pharmacist. I’ve checked in with them since I’ve left and that’s expanded dramatically. So God bless them.

Corrie Sanders 25:59

Mm hmm. And did you have any goals in mind with okay, this is something that I want to take on my own. At some point outside of a community pharmacist, were you running those things in tandem hoping to pay off student loans? Did you have any thought as to what the end goal is? Or were you just in a state of built building and growth and development? And you were just writing that out for however long you felt comfortable? Great question. So I paid off student loans very quickly, I think it was just a few years after graduation. So that was kind of over and done with. And in terms of, you know, what does this look like? Where am I going? I love being a pharmacist, I was really good at it. 20 Because of that, that growth and the impact, 2019 they had the pharmacy awards. So 2019 I was I was honored to be named the most Influential Pharmacist nationwide. So that was that was really cool. And the reason I say that is again, if someone tells you you can’t do something, you’re not cut out for it. Tada. Right. So as soon as, as long as you have that, why, and you put in that work, and you’re consistent, and you just innovate. And that’s really what my I guess you could say my secret sauce is through this process is just being obsessed with how can we do this better? And how can I be resourceful? Oftentimes we get stuck, we just get stopped by saying I don’t have the resources. I don’t know the right people. I don’t have the money. I don’t have enough time. The question isn’t resources. It’s how resourceful can you be? Because again, all you need is all you have, because all you have is within you now. And that’s a core belief. And if you have that belief, that will drive your actions. And when you take those actions by asking the right question, the quality of questions you ask will directly determine the quality of life that you live. Ask a better question, get a better answer. What can I do to be resourceful with this? Simple questions. That’s how we make the shift. So that’s kind of what I what I did was doing that on the side. But to answer your question of, you know, what was my vision for this? I just love doing what I did. I genuinely loved it. I know that sounds crazy. Being in you know, full time community. And I have the same stuff, staffing, all the stuff that everyone talks about on the uplifting Facebook pages. I went through all that stuff. I still loved it. Because of my attitude. Yes, things were burning down all around me. And here’s the thing that I want to and I really want to drive home is that there was always both two things happening at the same time. A loss and a gain. With everything, even my mom passing away, that was a loss. And there was also a gain, someone doing you wrong, there’s a loss and there’s a gain, getting a raise, there’s a gain, and there’s a los. You get to choose which of the two you focus on and what you focus on, you’ll feel because we’re focus goes energy flows. So yes, all the things are happening. And when I say this, I don’t mean be blindly ignorant. I don’t mean be like now what do you call it blindly optimistic. The thing that I always say is, if it’s raining outside, I’m not telling you to go out with your eyes closed, and say it’s sunny, it’s sunny, it’s sunny! It’s raining, you’re wet! Get an umbrella! And while you’re out there, recognize that now you don’t have to water your gardens because it’s raining. So you just saved yourself an hour of time. You don’t have to wash your car and you just got a free car wash and that work you’ve been putting off because you had FOMO fear of missing out on the sunshine. Well guess what? Now you get to do it without FOMO there’s three wins right off the bat. So it’s not about being blindly optimistic. It’s about facing it and choosing to see it as it is not worse than it is choosing to see it better than it is because that’s the role of a leader is see the vision while no one else may be able to and then make it the way you want to see it. That’s really leadership is all about making decisions in the hard times. And I’m not talking about being a leader position, per se, I’m talking about being the leader of your life. CEO of you. Because guess what, you get to choose what you focus on. Because there’s always both something gained and something lost at the same time. And what you feel comes from what you choose to focus on.

Corrie Sanders 30:25

And Adam, that’s so well said with just your perspective on life, your perspective on problem, your perspective on challenges. And then also it sounds like how you’re receiving information, and the lens that you’re receiving information through, or maybe being in tune to the lens of others that might be giving you information and being cognizant of that information as well. So it just says a lot to your personality and your outlook on life. Do you think that that’s something that you’ve always had within you? Or did you use your pharmacy career as a platform to be able to build upon that positivity? So I guess my, my takeaway question here is the pharmacists that might feel like they’re stuck in these negative positions, or these downward spirals or a headspace that they can’t seem to tap out of – how do you advise them to come out of that hole? How do you advise them to change their mindset? Is this a question that can even be simply answered? I don’t know. But you’ve done such a good job of just cultivating your own positive mindset, any advice for our listeners that might feel like they can’t claw their way out at the moment?

Adam Martin 31:30

Beautiful question. And oftentimes, people think that they’re stuck, because there’s something wrong with them, that there’s something missing, that they’re broken, that they need fixed. There’s nothing wrong with you, you’re in conditions. And again, you get to choose. And I’m not saying this from some superior place. I’m saying this from a kid that was bullied most of his life. I’m saying this from a kid who was in an incredibly abusive relationship for two years, which led me to a very deep depression. And that’s actually what led me to Tony Robbins. So I was in a very deep dark depression in my life in 2017. And that’s actually how I got into Tony Robbin’s world. And funnily enough, I have the book right here, Awaken the Giant Within. I read this book, like my life depended on it, because it did. And in this book, it listed the power of focus that’s directed by the questions that you choose to ask. And it is a resource called the Morning Power Questions. And I was so desperate at this time in my life, no joke, I remember this, I would wake up in a state of anxiety, because because here’s what happened. I, I was, I would always wake up in the state of anxiety, to the point where it would be a like a literal panic attack, hard breathing, all this sort of stuff. So in my mind, I linked up that sleep led to anxiety. So for six months, while I was in the middle of prepping for a bodybuilding show, working full time as a pharmacist, running two businesses, I was getting three to four hours of sleep at night, because my brilliant brain came up with this distinction, that if you wake up, you’re in anxiety. So if you don’t sleep, you won’t have to worry about it. So you can imagine how fun that was. I’ll never forget it. Because in the morning, when I would wake up in that anxiety attack, it would take me about two hours to get myself together, not to feel good, to get out of the door. And those questions basically said, where focus goes, energy flows. And that’s directed by a question. So I thought, I’m going to really do this. So I didn’t just stare at the page. I said those questions out loud. What are you grateful for today? What are you happy about? And the caveat I gave is, I would have to pick an answer. And say it out loud for something that was true for me, that happened in the last 24 hours, because it forced me to look and seek and you shall find, ask and it shall be given. So when I went through these seven simple questions in 5-10 minutes, I actually felt better. It was the first time where I felt like I was picking myself up out of this hole of depression. And from reading this book, I still have the highlights the note cards from when I was in this place in my life. I thought if this guy can have this impact from a book, I’ve got to meet him. So 2018 was my comeback year. I went massive action on personal development, went to Tony Robbins conference, Unleash the Power Within. That was when Grant Cardone and one of the guys in sales, had his growth conference. 2018 10x Con, once of that, on and on and on massive action decided to become a professional speaker. And then that next year from all that work is when I became named that most Influential Pharmacist. So you’re in these situations, how are you going to use them? How are you going to use them to grow because you get to choose? Is this the end? Or is this the beginning of something that you’ve never thought possible before? So to the to your question about how do you how do you come back from this? If you’re feeling stuck? Well, what if this isn’t you being pushed down? What is what if this is your opportunity? What if this adversity is an opportunity in disguise? What if this stressing is really a blessing in disguise? What if you can take everything that you thought that you can count out, but it’s actually the exact things that you can count on. Because by going through that depression, by going through all of that crap, I now coach people to overcome it, who might feel stuck, and don’t have the courage, because oftentimes, when we don’t believe in ourselves, sometimes we have to lean on the faith of others in us until we can lean on our own faith, to move forward to continue to pursue, to actually see that maybe we can do this. And that’s really the thing. It’s questions. We have this opportunity, we’re not happy in our job. And we think and we there’s an opportunity to change or maybe go to a YFP conference, or do something like that. And we think, what if I fail, though? What if I look like a fool? What if I show up and everyone laughs at me? What if, what if I’m kidding myself? Well, what if it does work out? What if you do pull it off? What if you’re the smartest person in the room that has something to offer that you didn’t even recognize, I call this being blind to your brilliance. And I know it because I was trapped in it for a very long time. Oftentimes, we discount compliments, because we think that people are just being nice. So here’s a tip that I want to give to your listeners for how to identify something that you may have been blind to. If you hear compliments from people, it’s very easy to say, Oh, they’re just saying that because they’re my family, because they’re my colleagues and this and that. So there’s four categories of people that are in your life, you have your friends, you have your family, you have your colleagues or co workers. And then you have random people that you meet for the first time. So looking at those four groups of people, just literally take a moment. And don’t just think this, physically write it out. Because what you write you invite, and go through each group and say, what are what are compliments that I’ve heard over and over from my family? What are compliments that my friends have told me over and over? What are some some nice words of encouragement that I’ve heard from my colleagues or co-workers? And if I’m out at a party at a social event, a pharmacy conference, and I meet people for the first time, or we’re doing a podcast meeting for the first time, and we give compliments? That sound familiar, right? We can say, wait a minute, there’s a pattern here. All four groups of people who don’t know each other, said the same thing! Maybe it’s true. It’s so simple, but I can’t tell you how freeing and encouraging and enlightening this simple little exercise is to possibly reveal that everything that you’ve been looking for outside of yourself has been within you the whole time, the hero you’ve been looking for has been within. The person you’ve been waiting for you to come save you has been you, because no one is coming to save you. No one’s coming to save you. Jesus saved your soul. But you must take part in your own rescue. And when you do, you can then use that for the platform of a business of a brand of a book of a course and asking these powerful questions. What have you survived? What have you had to build a life raft for? Because if we’re being honest here, right now, you are not where you want to be. And you’re not where you used to be. And that space, you’re in between holds value for someone who is stuck, where you came from, who would die to have the insights, the wisdom, the knowledge that you now have, which leads a lot of people to say, sounds good, Adam, but I don’t have it all figured out. I don’t have my whole life that you know, I’ve got a lot to learn, and I don’t feel ethically qualified to help someone unless I’ve gone through it all. Well, here’s the reality. Look, this is Book of Life that we’re fictitiously talking about. Let’s say that your book of life has 30 chapters. And right now your quote “only” in chapter five, and you think, Oh, I’m not qualified because there’s so many chapters to go. Well, here’s the real talk. You’re on chapter five out of 30. And you’re discounting the things that you can count on, because there are people stuck in chapter one who are too terrified to even consider chapter two. But because you’re in chapter five, you’ve gone through chapter one and chapter two and chapter three and chapter four and chapter five. So you’re actually perfectly positioned because you’re close enough that the person you’re helping can relate to you and they don’t feel far removed. Because if you waited until you were chapter thirty, if you waited until you were perfect, you would actually disqualify people, because they’d see you and say, See, that guy’s perfect, I can’t resonate with him. The thing that you’re trying to make perfect is actually if you got that would disqualify you from connecting to the person that you used to be. So when you think you’re not good enough to help people, you don’t have to have it all figured out. You just have to be 10% ahead of the person you’re looking to help and committed to constant and never ending improvement. So from that perspective, I wonder how many souls you can pour into, I wonder how many people you can bring hope to. I wonder how much impact you can have from the imprint that God put on your life, not for you, but so that you can steward it and give to others, the skills, the abilities, even the trauma that you have. Those weren’t curses! Those were gifts. And they’re not for you, period, they’re for you comma, to steward and develop so that you can help others from your gifts to lead them to theirs. Because if you’re in a dark room, and a light turns on, what are you going to do? You’re going to move towards the light. And the closer you move towards the light, you can see a reflection of the light that’s been within you the whole time, the light you’ve been praying for outside of yourself, it’s been within you the whole time. Because all you have is all you need. An all you need is within you now. So perhaps the place that you’re in right now in life, perhaps you were created for such a time as this, perhaps you were perfectly positioned to help the younger version of yourself. Perhaps you were perfectly positioned to give more than you ever thought possible. Because the secret to living is giving.

Corrie Sanders 42:17

So our listeners, I want everyone to pause that and just rewind it back when you need a boost of confidence. Why you are where you are, what that looks like and what your intention is, and your purpose can be looking forward. Adam, that was so inspirational. And I think I could not have said that in a more beautiful way in terms of people taking the things in their life, whether they’re perceived as positive or negative, and how they can relate to past versions of themselves and develop them into the future person that they were meant to be. So thank you for saying that. And I want everyone to go relisten to that when you really need a boost of confidence.

Adam Martin 42:53

That’s all from the heart so that it’s just it’s all the truth. And I think that’s what resonates, because it’s it’s not made up like when you hear that are like yes, that is true. That is the truth. So what’s stopping us? The only two things that will ever stop you. And here’s another tip for your listeners, the only two things that will ever stop you is fear and anger. And the good news. The reason I’m telling you that is that the antidote to both is the same. It’s gratitude. Now, I’m not just saying pick random crap on grateful to be alive. I’m talking about real stuff. Because when you’re grateful, it’s impossible to be angry. When you’re grateful. It’s impossible to be fearful. And if those are the only two things that mess you up, and the antidote to both is the same. You can become invincible literally by living in a state of gratitude. Now, here’s the trick. It’s not just saying I’m grateful for this, you have to feel it. So I came up with this thing. Back in my time of anxiety that I mentioned. I was like, I’m sick of this. I’ve heard this gratitude stuff over and over. But it sounds like a bunch of phooey. But let me actually try it. So I woke up this morning, like years ago, and I was in my bed and I started to feel this anxiety wash over me. So it was like, Okay, everyone says gratitude. Let me actually try this. And I was like, what if I didn’t try it? What if I experienced it? This is a true story. So I was lying in bed, and I thought what can I be grateful for right now? Well, I knew that it was like cold outside. So I felt my blanket. And I just literally started physically from the spot I was in and I lit I physically felt my blanket. And I thought I’m grateful for the soft blanket. I spoke it, I felt it and I saw evidence that was real. And I was like, Oh, that is soft. I’ve always wanted this really awesome, luxurious bed. And I have it! So I thought I’m grateful for this comfy bed and I rolled around slightly and I felt it. Well, I’ve always wanted a house! And I was in my home. I’m in my dream home. Well I always wanted a master bedroom. So I looked around, and I saw that I saw that I was in this bedroom. And I felt the air on my face. I looked around and recognized I was in my dream home. And I had like, I’m so grateful to be in a quiet neighborhood. And I was just silent and listen to the silence. I call it a gratitude ripple in the now, which stands for grin, G R I N, you start with where you are, and then you ripple outwards from that place. And then it was I’m grateful for being close to an awesome city. I’m grateful for being in Austin close to work, my my family lives, I’m grateful to be in a state. I’m grateful to be in this country and outwards from there. So if you start physically where you are, it’s not just words, it’s physically connecting and experiencing the gratitude that will make you invincible, it’s impossible to be grateful and fearful. It’s impossible to be grateful and angry at the same time. So if you’re grateful first, you can’t lose, because that’s the only two things that will stop you from what you said rewinding and listening to the dose of truth, and really embracing those things. So now we know not only how to get into that, but also what will stop you. So now you’re fully equipped. And here’s one other caveat again, just to be aware of, oftentimes, when we when we talk of fear, there’s lots of different types of fear, fear of success or failure, all this stuff. Well, every human being has two fears. And I’m telling you this, because if you’re listening and you’re a human, you resonate with these. How the mind plays tricks is that you think that oh, this is just me everyone else has it figured out? No. You thought that in pharmacy school too. And you found out quick, everyone else was farther behind the you, let’s be real, right? So the two fears that every human being has, is the fear of not being enough, and the fear of not being lovable. So when you hear that, and you’re like, Oh, he’s reading my mind, it’s because we all have those fears. And when you’re grateful for how far you’ve come, that’ll help with that, if you want to and one of the real one of the slippery slopes to getting into these pits is comparison. You may have heard Comparison is the thief of joy. But it depends how you define comparison. If you compare yourself to other people, yeah. What if instead, you compared yourself to how far you’ve come? What if instead, you compared yourself to what you’ve learned? What if instead you compare it to how much resilience and persistence you’ve sculpted, since you started, that’ll have a quite a different feeling won’t it? When you give yourself that gift, because it’s true, it’s not make believe positive self talk. It’s just reality. Again, all stemming from asking a more powerful question.

Corrie Sanders 47:52

And two observations there. One I will give you credit for it sounds like throughout the duration of your pharmacy career, you were always taking action in some way, shape, or form that aligned with your why. And that is something that we hone in on a lot. I’ve mentioned this numerous times on the Innovator Series of the YFP Podcast is before you make a career transition, think about what is your why because as you alluded to earlier, there’s a million reasons and a million people that are going to tell you that you can’t do what you want to do. But if you’re aligned with your why and your personal reason, and you are strong and steadfast in your mission and your goals, that will keep you moving forward. And that is all that matters. So I want to give credit where credit is due to you too is not only being grateful and having gratitude for where you are and where you stand at each moment, but taking action in that grateful presence. And maybe it’s the gratitude that allows you to move forward as well too. But you have always been taking action so that when you’re in those mental funks, or when you’re in those lows, or how you ever we want to describe that, you have been building a repository of skills that you can fall back on or that you can lean into, to help pivot you into the next chapter. And so I want to give you credit with that and say to the pharmacists that are maybe in in these ruts, take action and take grateful action, like you’re speaking to find something that you enjoy, and start tapping into those areas of your mind or your skill set or brush those off or whatever it is. Because in order to get yourself out of those positions, you ultimately will need to pivot in some way shape or form. If you want to stay in pharmacy, it’s having that skill set and having some kind of polished skill that you can move back on to or that you can progress forward. And so Adam give you a lot of credit again for constantly developing yourself and for taking steps to move yourself forward. And then also just having that mindset of positivity and strength and reflecting on what you’re grateful for. And it sounds like you do a lot of reading and journaling and that is certainly integral to my daily routine now as well. And there’s a lot to be said for the written word, but just two observations from my perspective of not only that mindset, but taking some action behind it. So now I kind of want to flow into the next state of your career, it sounds like so you tapped into speaking, you had all of these wonderful skills that you had been building during your time as a community pharmacist. And I think I listened to it on another podcast where you said you were giving this speech and you were all of a sudden, just in this flow state? Is that when you defined yourself as an entrepreneur, is that when you started seriously, considering stepping back from that traditional pharmacist role? Can you let us into your mind a little bit about that transition from your community pharmacy career to where you are now?

Corrie Sanders 50:46

Yeah, absolutely. And I’m really glad that you said you put in the work. Because we’re about to go with the story a lot of people get twisted. So I want to make this very clear. Faith is central to everything that I do. And this is I’m just going to start with this. How we define faith is huge. And again, I’m not putting beliefs on anybody. But what I will share with you, is that oftentimes we think that faith is like a quadrant of life. It’s a checkbox, like I went to church, I did this and that check. Faith is actually not meant to be a priority in your life. Let me say that, again, faith is not meant to be a priority in your life. Faith is meant to be central to all priorities in your life. And that’s what leads up to this next chapter. So what you said is important, again, is that you put in the work, because there’s there’s extremes, there’s all work and you know, I’m on my own faith and all this. And then there’s also God’s got it. I’m just gonna sit on the couch and just pray. Neither are correct! Faith without works is dead. One thing that I came up with over the years that I’ll just shamelessly continue to share is yes, Jesus take the wheel. But you’ve got to put your foot on the gas! You’ve got to put the gas in the tank! Let’s go! Right? So whenever I want to my first National Speakers Association meeting, a friend of mine invited me he’s like, Hey, man, I think you’ll love this. And at that time, I didn’t know what speakers were, I thought I had no clue. So I went to this meeting. And I was blown away. I was blown away, because these were incredibly positive people that genuinely cared for people. And they had all these awesome backgrounds. And they were genuinely encouraging one another. And they were sharing stories. And you could just tell it was genuine. And I was like, wow, this is amazing. There’s no backstabbing, none of that. So I thought, this is a career? You can do this? I had no clue. But I then this is where that “blind to your brilliance” thing came in. Because I was I was talking to these speakers, and they literally would say, first time I met them, you’re a national speaker. You’ve got a gift, blah, blah, blah. And these people weren’t recruiting me. They had nothing to gain. So I thought, why are they giving me these compliments? And then I thought, Where have I heard this before? And then I went through the tool that I just shared with you, in that moment is where I came up with that tool, true story. And I thought, wait a minute, everyone, my whole life has been saying the same thing. But I was discounting it, because I thought, oh, that’s just my professors being nice. Those are just my colleagues being nice. That’s just my family being nice. That kid at the party when I was going riffing, doing what I did with the confidence thing, he was just drunk, being nice, or whatever it was, right? And I thought all these people said the same thing. Maybe there’s a thing here. And then to what I said earlier, I started having doubts. But who am I? I’m not I don’t have training in this. So it was right around that time when I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ. And that’s where my, that’s where my faith journey really started to take off. And in that moment, when I came back, I remember clear as day I was in my apartment at the time, and I just got to my knees in prayer. And I said, God, I feel like the speaking thing is like a gift, but I have no clue what to do. And I have a job I love I don’t know. What do I do? And that was the first time I audibly heard God’s voice. And he said, Go speak. Crazy stuff. Crazy stuff. So working full time for a corporate retail pharmacy, if y’all know about the scheduling, meaning you don’t get to change your shifts, and if you want to vacation, from where I worked, you had to give a year and a half notice for a week vacation. True story. And if you wanted to shift a few days, oftentimes you had to give months notice, that was often rejected, but I digress. With that, in the at the time, NSA, National Speakers Association, offered the professional speaker certification. This was before COVID I think they’ve taken it away since. But in order to do that you had to give 15 paid talks in a 12 month period to a room of 15 or more people. So try doing that with a full time retail pharmacist schedule that you can’t move. Well, God moves. So I declare that was my one goal that year, I hired a professional speaking coach. And that was the other thing, tying money into it. It was a God situation, but long story short, this woman was brought into my life. And she ended up being one of the most influential speakers still to this day in NSA. When I was at National Convention two years ago, in Nashville, they had Hall of Fame speakers on stage showcased as keynotes and stuff. And I think there were like 12 or 15 of them. 10 of them referenced her by name in credit, and this one was brought in my life. That ain’t an accident. So this woman is brought in my life. And she’s like, Yeah, you you know, I do speaking seminars, you fly out to St. Louis, it’s two days, and it’s seven grand. Didn’t have that, like laying in my back pocket. So I thought about it. And I was like, this is when we step up. And I never, I’ll never forget, I remember recording this this video, because I do Instagram reels and stuff. On my stories just behind the scenes. I remember while going on a walk on the treadmill in the morning in St. Louis telling people, I’m here because I have a calling from God, I know I have the skill and also don’t know, I also know I don’t know what to do with it. But I’m willing to go into debt over it. And I’m not promoting debt, but I’m just saying Money talks, right? And if you really believe in something, and you know, you can make something of it. You got to be willing to put your money where your mouth is. There’s double puns right there. Right. So I did that. And I hired this professional speaker. And that whole year, things lined up, you’d like you wouldn’t believe this one month. And I ended up scheduling 20 talks, because you want to always overshoot because things happen, people cancel. And that did happen a couple times. I ended up becoming a professional in 10 months instead of 12. But but this one month, I’ll never forget, it was so busy with holidays and vacations and all this stuff. There was only one day that I had off. And I found an opportunity to speak. And it was at that day at that time. That doesn’t just happen. So God was in that whole thing. So that was that whole year fast forward. And you know, living life, blah, blah, blah -buy my house true story. Bought my house in COVID 2020. Long story there another God thing, but I’ll fast forward to this. Beginning of 2021, I hear God for the second time. You will not be in this job this time next year. Huh? God, what’s that mean? Silence And I’m like, oh, I must have misheard, right. So because I’m in a job I love and making good money, I’m making good impact. It’s all good. And I just bought a house, right? So I’m like, Oh, it’s fine. So I just ignored it. Well, as time went on, God started to poke. And he started to poke deeper and starting to poke more frequently. And it started become very apparent that I was called to leave. It didn’t make any sense. To be honest, I was very angry with God. How could you lead me from this huge, amazing impact of being rejected to given 10s of 1000s of people hope all over the world. Now you want me to walk away, whaaat? True story. I know this sounds crazy, but it’s the truth. I went on a walk in the fall, I’m pretty sure was October. And it was raining, pouring down rain and I went in a walk because I had my breaking point like it was clear I had to make a decision. I walked in the rain yelling at the sky. It’s true. I can’t make it up. And I got back and I surrendered. I fell to my knees and said You want me to quit fine. It made no logical sense. I had no plan whatsoever. I didn’t like quit the job at the time. But mentally I surrendered and said okay, I will obey. I will obey. I’ll do this. I don’t know how or what. But I surrender my intention. Not too long after out of the blue. Oh, double pun there! You’ll hear why in a second. I get a text from a dude who I had connected with who went to my alma mater University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy. And he had been following my work on Facebook, Instagram with the Fit Pharmacist, and he texted me and he says, Hey, man, I don’t and long. So another caveat a couple years ago, he had a grand opening. It was actually March of 2020 when he opened his pharmacy two weeks before the lockdown. And I thought it was pretty badass for a pharmacist to open an independent pharmacy without insurance. So I went in it just so happened that was my one day of the week off it things have shifted with the work schedule since I originally mentioned. So I thought I’m off that day. I’ll go you know, wish them grand opening. Little did I know that planted a little seed. Because fast forward to this time. He said, Hey Adam, I don’t know if you know if you’re still in the area, but we’re we’re doing really well and we’re expanding. We’re looking to hire on a part time pharmacist. Do you have any recommendations? I was not intending to join at all, but I had a network of pharmacists, and I didn’t want to make some inappropriate recommendations. So I said, let’s meet up. Let me hear what you’re looking for and I’ll see if I know anyone. So we’ll meet up at Panera and he’s tell him you know, saying, well tell me about the Fit Pharmacist, what exactly do you do with like speaking and coaching and stuff? So as I’m telling him my skills with marketing and innovation and all this, he’s leaning in, and he says, I don’t know if you’re looking for a job, but your skills are exactly what we’re looking for. Can’t make this part up. I said, Well, what would that job entail? What’s What’s the job description? Never forget this. Hands me a pen, and says, you write it. Now you tell me a pharmacy job where they tell you to write your job description. What the heck is this? So now I had no intention of doing this. God’s at work. And I say, Well, I love speaking and I love coaching. I know you don’t do speaking stuff. But if I could do like 50% coaching, or I’m sorry, 50. I was in marketing, like I really love marketing, growing innovation. If I could do like 50% marketing, and tie in coaching and then do some bench work as a pharmacist. That’d be cool. Done. Huh?What pharmacists job is that?! So I ended up working part time from this guy. And again, I quit in December of 2021. After just buying a house with a pharmacist mortgage, no clue what’s coming. This is a startup company. There’s no guarantees, working part time, full faith. Full faith. Still to this day. It’s the number one LinkedIn post I’ve ever made was my last day working my 10 year career. It was crazy. And it was crazy faith. So I started this job, and it was incredible. So the reason I said it was a double punch out of the blue is it was Blueberry Pharmacy. If y’all know Kyle McCormack shout out, bro. That is a literallyis utopia, pharmacy. Anything that you can think of with retail pharmacy, that gives you a headache that you hate does not exist. They’re both on the side of the pharmacist and on the side of the patient. No insurance, over 1000 generics and the prices are wild. Like incredible. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s crazy. So I’m hired to do this. So I start that in 2022. Amazing, like phenomenal. One of the most up true story my two favorite pharmacists of all time, is Tim Ulbrich and Kyle McCormack. Their level of character is unmatched. Like I’ve never seen anything like it. And that’s withstood years of watching behind the scenes at their worst all that stuff. Strongest character I’ve ever seen in my life. Those are like I love both those guys to death. So and I would I have told Kyle like you remind me of Tim and I told Tim you remind me Kyle this is like awesome, right? Working with this. And the mission is to help people who don’t have insurance, get medications for cancer, MS. and all kinds of other things. When insurance is charging them $120 a month and we’re getting it sold them for 80 bucks, same exact thing. Same exact manufacturer, all that stuff. Crazy. So I’m joining them to do marketing. So long story short, we 5x Google reviews, I don’t know of any pharmacy that has above a three star on Google reviews, we have 128 five star Google reviews. That don’t happen, go find that somewhere! Don’t exist. There’s nothing like it. And our slogan of Blueberry was “Welcome to Different” because we did things differently. It was incredible, amazing culture. And I could go on and on about it. But that’s what led me into coaching because I was shifting with the Fit Pharmacist, I’m like, I really want to coach, I really want to get inside with people and help them break through what’s stopping them. Get through these limiting beliefs really tap into their God given potential. So they can live life on purpose for a purpose and stop settling. So I got deeper into coaching. And I had a Tony Robbins coach myself at this time. And I was wrestling, I was trying to change the business. What’s the next step? And it hit me like a lightning bolt. I’m going to all these Tony Robbins conferences, I’m using these products. I’m paying for a coach, why don’t I become a coach. And it all made sense. All of it made sense. And so I decided to apply to become a Tony Robbins results coach in the fall. And just fast forward. There’s about a 4% acceptance rate. And this is a three month interview to get in. And this isn’t like you meet with someone and a month later you have another meeting. It is literally a full time job to do this interview. And they do wild stuff like mind blowing and there’s three phases. So you’ve got to get in, you got to pass the interview. You’ve got to do all these background checks in this. You get in and there’s a phase one, if you pass and these are by the way at the top 1% of coaches in the world watching you like a hawk on and off the screen. If you pass, you’re invited to phase two, if you pass, you’re invited to phase three. And then if you pass that you’re invited for the opportunity to become a coach. So that’s what I did. And I was like, I love this. And I was doing full time coaching and part time pharmacy. But there was this calling this was there’s a lot more to this, but I’m gonna fast forward, there was this calling to become more and to be a coach. So I was talking with Kyle and he was expanding. And he’s like, Hey, man, we’re getting busier. I’m like, Yeah, it’s like the marketing is working. It’s like, it’s like we do its work. Right? And he is all the team wasn’t me. It was the team. Like, there’s Ravi, there’s Kyle. There’s all the students, like it’s a team environment. It’s incredible. Doesn’t exist anywhere else. Mind blowing, check it out. BlueberryPharmacy.com. Go there. Right? I digress. But he said, You know, I’m thinking about this, like, Well, man, I really had a great time with coaching. And I actually think that I’m called to do that full time. So he’s looking for me to transition from part time to full time. And I’m basically saying, I don’t I’m going the other way. Yeah. So it was like, well, one of the things that we always taught me as an Eagle Scout is never leave somewhere without making it better than you found it. Never leave somewhere without making it better than you found that so I thought I can’t just leave because they don’t really teach marketing in pharmacy school, right. And it’s such a strong mission. He’s such a great guy, I can’t just leave. So I was like, I need to find a replacement. And thank God, there was a pharmacy student on rotation, phenomenal guy, entrepreneurial spirit. And he was looking to actually sign on with Rite Aid. And both Kyle and I were like, nah, nah, don’t do that. So we’re talking to him. We’re just being honest. Like, you know, tell us what your goals are really understanding, getting to know what he’s about. And so we talked with him, like, Hey, man, I actually would like you to take over like, you’ve got the skills, let me train you all this stuff. So we ended up making the decision. Again, it’s you’re coming out of school going all in on a startup, still, it’s a risky move, but he did it. I tell that point of the story. Because he had a mentor, he had Kyle as his mentor, he had us to support him. And he made that move. He already signed with Rite Aid before he graduated, and then he ended up changing. So I’m going to Blueberry appreciate the opportunity. All this. A month later, Rite Aid goes bankrupt. How about that? How about that? God continues! Right? No, I ended up working my last shift of August of 2023. And I was full time I think it was in May. So now I’m working with 93 clients all over the country. I also am a business results trainer, helping businesses from, hey, I have an idea. I don’t know what to do to hey, we’re making 100 million, we want to turn it into 200 million next year. So I not only train the owner, I also get to train their team. And what training is, is it’s combining coaching and speaking. It’s my playground, it’s awesome. I’m able to have all the So long story short, God guided me through this. God directed me he called me to walk away from a career, everything that I shared. Adam, it’s time to walk away. It’s time to change your identity. Because your identity isn’t linked to a role. It isn’t linked to a job. It’s who you are in Jesus, it’s who you are in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Apart from me, you can do nothing. So that was a real coming to Jesus moment, and laying down everything that I thought I had built. But it was really him the whole time. And really surrendering to that and talk about a faith leap. And here’s the thing that we’re understanding ends is where faith begins. Because that move made no logical sense to anybody. True story. When I posted I’m leaving pharmacy, I had my professors text me to make sure I was okay. I had a professor who’s now a Dean at a Pharmacy reached out to me. And if you’re listening to this, I love you, man. Thank you. Make sure I was okay. Because it made no logical sense. But God does. And then to your point, you did all this work? Yes, faith and work is required. It is a co partnership. And that’s really my mission is life. My mission in life is to comission with Jesus to reconcile relationships and redeem people’s lives. That’s it. That’s why I do what I do. And it’s so incredibly fulfilling. And it’s a blast. We have fun. And when I tell my clients, I say you’re here to get results and you’re guaranteed results every session because we’re not called coaches, you get a result in 30 Minutes or Less guaranteed, and you will get a result and you’re going to have fun because if you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong. So if you don’t like to have fun, we got to get you a new coach. So that’s the first call I have with my clients. And if they’re not laughing I know it’s time to go! So it’s fun. It’s a blast. People are changing their lives and being able to witness that being able to be a vessel for God to do that work. It’s absolutely extraordinary and, and the level of faith that this has grown, I’ve gotten to see people bring their lives to Jesus through this, I’ve gotten to see people turn the impossible in the into the possible, which is really what a breakthrough is. A breakthrough is a moment in time when the impossible becomes possible. And you actually are living that, and seeing someone do that the look in their eyes, the moment where they think this can happen, this is possible. That’s why do this all so that people ignite their light within. And when you unapologetically own your fire, you get to spark someone else’s light. And then they can go and do it too. And that’s why I do what I do to keep that moving through.

Corrie Sanders1:10:51

I think it’s beautiful to hear that you didn’t necessarily have an identity crisis. And that’s something that I think about all the time because I am similar to you, Adam, I mean, just about as involved in pharmacy as I can be in the state of Hawaii, and I love being a pharmacist.

Adam Martin 1:11:08

In Hawaii!

Corrie Sanders 1:11:10

Specifically.

Adam Martin 1:11:12

People probably want to switch with you!

Corrie Sanders 1:11:15

But I also think about all the time, I mean, I’ve been very I’ve taken a lot of risks in the past year. And I’m like, if worse comes to worse, my identity is not tied to this profession as much as I love it. And I love being a part of it. And I think there’s so much that we can do, and there’s a lot of untapped potential in pharmacy. If the world were to collapse on pharmacy, tomorrow, I’m going to be fine, I would figure it out, it’s going to be okay. So I think that that’s always an interesting lens as a pharmacy entrepreneur is are you tied to being a pharmacist, because that almost can become a self limiting belief with potential that you can have on the healthcare community in general, not just the pharmacy community. And I think when you’re on this path of impact and growth, and you’re finding your flow state, the opportunities that present themselves to you are beyond what you could have comprehended and a lot of times they reach into healthcare in general, not just this unique, narrow pharmacy lens, which is obviously something that nobody teaches you in pharmacy school, and that you don’t learn without experience. But I do think about that identity crisis all the time on my own path. So I just wanted to articulate that and to point that out, and to give that to other pharmacy entrepreneurs or to other pharmacists that, you know, don’t ever define yourself as a person to your career, I think that is just such a huge, it’s just a It hurts my character to think about that.

Adam Martin 1:12:41

Brilliant point. And I’m really glad that you highlighted that. And first, I want to acknowledge you because you said you’re taking lots of risks. No risk, no reward. Now, to your point about people tying their identity to pharmacists, this is a very, it’s a nuance, but it’s very important. How you identify how you label, the word pharmacist, how you define that can totally change your life. When you change the way you label things, the things you label change. And what I mean by that is, how do you define pharmacist? Most people in retail, the identity pharmacist is that you’re working full time at one location. So if you were to change, you are threatening your identity. And again, the strongest force in the human personality is the need to stay consistent and how we define ourselves. So if your definition of being a pharmacist is staying full time at a retail establishment, and you have an opportunity to go do a residency, go do a fellowship, go do whatever that threatens your definition of your identity. And you might not understand why you may chalk it up to fear. But really what it is, is you’re protecting your identity because of how you choose to define pharmacists. And most often that wasn’t consciously chosen that was subconsciously adapted or borrowed from someone else. So really think if you are stuck, if you’re thinking of oh, I might want to change or explore other options are go the entrepreneur route, and you and you thought about it. But if you’re honest with yourself, are you still stuck where you’ve been? Or you maybe complacent. And this isn’t coming at you, I’m actually coming with you. If you’re not making any progress, just pause and say, how do I define myself? If I define myself as a pharmacist, critical care, ambulatory care, whatever it is, what’s that mean to me? Because nothing has any meaning except the meaning you choose to give it and when you give it an identity, you protect that to the death, including your passion and fulfillment. So if you’re feeling burned out, maybe it’s not that you’re overworked. Maybe it’s that you’re underwhelmed.

Corrie Sanders 1:15:00

And to kind of plug a line in the same vein there, too. I know we spoke earlier about the mindset of people in pharmacy right now. I mean, I don’t think it’s a secret. There’s all these positive I’m I’ve got air quotes on for the listeners, these “positive” Facebook communities or we’re seeing a lot on LinkedIn and across the news with Pharmageddon. And these pharmacy walkouts, and a lot happening with pharmacists not necessarily even asking for higher pay, but just asking for safer working conditions. I would love to ask for your insight on the future of pharmacy because you’ve got this lens of having been in a traditional three letter pharmacy setting having been in a very non traditional Blueberry Pharmacy setting where you’re doing something totally different. And now being a pharmacy entrepreneur, where you’re coaching people in both of these settings, and you kind of have your hands in a lot of different pharmacy baskets, so to speak, or you’re able to see pharmacy through a very, very unique lens that I think only comes with experience. So to pharmacists that are potentially in those retail settings, any advice on what the future of pharmacy looks like, advice for them in general, I will leave the floor open to you with anything that you want to add just based off the current current climate of pharmacy in November of 2023.

Corrie Sanders 1:16:06

Really good question, and I’m going to steal something from my dear friend Joseph McClendon, the third, who says the future is what you dare to make of it and Fortune favors the bold.

Corrie Sanders 1:16:41

I love it a short and sweet and simple answer. We don’t need to dive into the weeds.

Adam Martin 1:16:48

But It’s the truth. Nothing has any meaning except the meaning you choose to give it we can look at all the things that are wrong. And we can also say, is this terrible? Or is this actually an opportunity in disguise, because of injustice goes on for so long, eventually it’s going to pop and that’s an excellent opportunity to innovate. Let’s let’s use an example. I like this one. The music industry. Y’all remember the 90s when CDs had like 12 songs, and they were like $20. That was such a rip off. It was screwing people! And what happened? Napster. Online music. The industry was destroyed because of their greed. And history tends to repeat itself.

Corrie Sanders 1:17:34

Very well said and a lot of food for thought and very many different ways that you can take that. So I love it will leave our listeners with a little tease and a little bit of introspection with their own beliefs and where they see where they see pharmacies going. But I do really appreciate that comment, Adam.

Corrie Sanders 1:17:52

So I will kind of round things out here with three questions that I just like to throw on at the end of our podcast, just very brief, meant to be a little bit of a personal testament to your journey, and hopefully bring some inspiration to some of our listeners. So what has been the most memorable aspect of being a pharmacy entrepreneur, any moment that sticks out in your head?

Adam Martin 1:17:52

Absolutely.

Adam Martin 1:18:18

I think it’s really taking the leap and not looking back. And there’s something that is really cool. When next time you’re driving, if you’re thinking of making the leap, if you’ve had the courage, and like I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do it. I, I want to Tim’s thing, and I’m in this community and I’m fired up and you go and you hold back, and you pump the brakes. And you’re in this cycle of getting pumped up, but not actually moving forward. Well, the next time you’re in your car, just take a look. Because again, it’s all about being resourceful, and success leaves clues. So if you look forward, you’ll see that the windshield is quite expansive, and it’s looking forward. But you also see your rearview mirror. That’s quite tiny, looking back. Which would you like to focus on?Which way are you going? Don’t look back, you’re not going that way.

Corrie Sanders 1:19:17

For a second, I thought you were gonna say “close your eyes.” And I was like…..next time you’re driving close your eyes! Very well said. Puts puts perspective into true form. So Adam, a piece of advice for someone contemplating a non traditional pharmacy career path?

Adam Martin 1:19:37

Absolutely. Why do you want to do it? And here’s this is actually a really good question. And something that I see a lot of people doing when they do it and they have regrets, or they get angry or resentful is are you moving towards something? Or are you moving away from it? Oftentimes people make changes preemptively off of emotion and when you make an emotion out of fear or anger, it’s almost always the wrong decision. So looking at human behavior and test me on this, don’t just listen, test me. The only two reasons that humans make any action is to avoid pain and to seek pleasure. Now of the two just asking you, which one do you think is a stronger driving force initially avoiding pain, or seeking pleasure?

Corrie Sanders 1:20:30

Initially avoiding pain.

Adam Martin 1:20:31

100%. Spot on. So what most people do when they’re making career change, is they’re like, Oh, we’re understaffed and underpaid. This is terrible. So they jump out of the pan and into the fire. So initially, it is very helpful to get leverage on yourself. Because without leverage, nothing lasts. And in order to make that change last long term, you need a also pleasurable future, a compelling future that has emotionally compelling reasons why. So yes, you want to be real with the pain? Why do you want to leave? But you also want a clear, compelling future with emotionally driven reasons why? That’s how you’ll make it to last. So just ask yourself, why do you want to leave? Most people say because it sucks here. It’s another day in hell, whatever. Okay? That’s real. Well, what’s the other alternative? Because make sure that you’re not jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. So be really clear on why you’re looking to make a change and be responsible. If you’re married. If you have kids, and it’s a huge risk, make sure you’ve got money in the bank, make sure you have a contingency plan. And this is something that I train people when they’re starting a brand. And we’re going to scale it down to scale it up. So when you’re when you’re gonna make a brand, and you’re going to get on social media, create content, podcasts, episodes, whatever. Well, right now, when you’re ready to launch, we’re super pumped up, just like when you’re ready to change jobs, you’re super pumped up to do whatever it takes. And you might commit some posting every day, twice a day. Well, what about when you’re not pumped up? What about when you’ve had a really rough day? What about when you lose your best friend. So what I recommend is future pace yourself. So imagine and use the future, use the past. So you’ve already had troubling experiences, it’s already happened. Use those to your advantage. Think back to a time when you were in a rough spot in your life. And so this is the personal brand context of making content. Think back to a time when you were having a really rough spot? How if you were in that spot back then how much energy and mental effort would you be able to commit to posting? So how many posts a week would you make if you were in the toughest spot in your life, and most people say, like once a week, so use that as your baseline, and until you’re consistent for three to six months, then scale up, it’s all about consistency. That’s the key. And as a fitness person, consistency is the best workout. Consistent, and we all want to make these intense changes post 10 times a day, change my job, burn the boats, well, we want to be intense, but we don’t want to be consistent. And consistency is the most intense thing you can do. Because hardly anyone does that craziness. So the thing that is telling you this is prepare. So if you’re looking to make the change, recognize that you’re likely in a very heightened emotional state. So future paced by looking at when you were rough, what was the most stressful financial time that you had in your past? What did you what was what was in jeopardy? Was it your rent? Was it your mortgage? Was it your children’s medical bills, and then use that knowledge because history tends to repeat itself. So use that knowledge to prepare for the storms that not may but will come in the future. So consider not just yourself, but who you’re who’s dependent on you, and set yourself up. Now, again, it’s different for everyone. This is the general 80% you know, the bell curve. This is 80% this is the strategy you want to look at is who’s dependent on you? What are their needs, and calculate what’s your cost of living, and also planned for rainy days, what were some rainy days that you experienced in the last five to 10 years of your life? Imagine if all of those happened over the next month. Because oftentimes when you take this leap, you will be tested. 100% of the time. You say you want something you will be tested, and the world moves for those who are persistent. So plan ahead to make the journey more enjoyable. Because again, if you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong.

Corrie Sanders 1:24:46

Yeah, I loved – I love the point that you said about being in a heightened state of emotion. And that’s something that I think a lot of our guests have had in common is that they really sat with that emotion for an extended amount of time. I mean, it was a very calculated risk. To your point, it looks so different for everyone. There’s obviously not a blanket formula. But I love dialing into this is a heightened state of emotion, I need to be aware of it and how do I dial this back to something that’s going to be on a completely different plane and trajectory of emotion that I may not even have experienced yet up to this point in my life. So let’s try to just put our feet in that situation and see how we feel and try to plan for a rainy day, so to speak, or try to plan ahead. I really love that point. And Adam, my last question is, what is I actually think I might be able to answer this for you. But what is your favorite part about being a pharmacy entrepreneur, or in this case, you’re not a pharmacist anymore. So we’ll just dial that back to what is your favorite part about being an entrepreneur?

Adam Martin 1:25:44

So that’s interesting. I don’t think I consider myself an entrepreneur. And by definition, by all definitions, people like, of course you are, you’re out on your own running your own business, you’re doing all these things. I just consider myself a secret agent for Jesus. That’s it. Because people come to me for all kinds of things. I want to a new career, I’ve helped them do that over and over, I helped you get I’ve 10x people’s income. I’ve done things that would blow your mind, helping them do it, empowering them, I really don’t do anything. I just ask questions. As a coach, I’m literally a professional question asker. That’s all I do. So when it comes to being a professional entrepreneur, a pharmacist entrepreneur, it’s not about me. That’s what I love about it. Because we put all this pressure on ourselves to have it all figured out. We want to have control and certainty of our future. And oftentimes, when we surrender that or even entertaining, the idea of surrender, we think that surrenders giving up and again, how you define things makes a huge thing. Surrendering is one of the most strongest things, or there’s a there’s a good word, clearly I have an English degree, the strongest things you can do. But know that to tie it in it, surrender is one of the most courageous things that you can do, because you’re dying to yourself. And the ways of the kingdom are the opposite the ways of the world, when you die to yourself is when you live. If you want to lead, kneel, if you want to be first, go last. So recognizing that I’m not really I don’t have this plan for this 10 year vision. I’m living on daily bread. And that’s faith. And again, that’s not, you know, not doing anything and expecting money to fall from the sky, which it did and does. But it’s being an active participant in your own rescue, recognizing and being resourceful. These are the gifts I’ve been given, how am I going to steward these responsibly, not for my own gain, but so that I can be a river an avalanche of abundance through which I can pass through and serve to others. It’s not about me, it starts with me. It goes through me I’m required. But it doesn’t end with me. And when you put the focus off yourself, you start to look at how can I give? How can I use this stuff, and give it to other people because again, the secret to living is giving. And then when it’s never about you, you can’t lose. And especially in times when we’re feeling lost or helpless. When you’re feeling helpless, get helpful. Because once you give,it adds this level of gratitude that you can’t even imagine. So my favorite part is and the best way to describe what I do now is I get the honor and privilege to have a front row seat to witnessing miracles. It’s freaking incredible. Like, I literally cry, I’m not kidding, ask my colleagues, I cry two, maybe three days a week, because of the things that I get to witness, the breakthroughs, the marriages that are saved, the all on and on and on. It’s amazing. And having the honor and privilege to be a witness to be a conduit for this is absolutely extraordinary. And we have fun! It’s a blast! So if you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong. So if you’re in a job and that doesn’t mean I’m telling you to quit, but say could you be focusing on the wrong thing because you’re influenced by other people in your profession. Maybe you’re hanging out in the wrong Facebook groups. Maybe you need to listen to more YFP. Maybe you need to get more engaged in that community. Maybe you need to, instead of listening to people who are complaining and have a life that you don’t want, maybe you need to connect with people who are living a life through the integrity and character and lifestyle that you actually do want. Because success leaves clues. And I’m gonna give your listeners a big tip. If you want to get success as fast as possible. There’s three simple steps. Number one, proximity,number two, proximity, number three, proximity, whatever you want to attain, get around people playing that level of the game. Because like crabs in a bucket, if you’re in an environment that doesn’t support or encourage your growth, they will always pull you down to their level. So level up and become the smallest person in the room, from the humble perspective to grow and become a part of something. And that’s really intimidating. You might be in that room thinking who am I? I feel out of place. Yes, you’re in the right room. Congratulations! Now be of service. But how can I be of service I have so much to learn? Figure it out. Favorite quote from credit this to Marie Forleo. Everything is figured-out-able.

Adam Martin 01:39

Yeah, exactly, exactly. I can’t credit that one. But it’s the truth. It’s all about innovation. And that was one of the biggest takeaways that I got from University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy, our values aligned. leadership, innovation and excellence. Personal excellence is the ultimate rebellion. I learned that from Andy Frisella, creator of 75 Hard, I’ve done Lift Hard, I’m actually finishing my second year of that. Incredible program. It’s free, not not tied to it in any way, but if you want to level up your life, get up on 75 Hard, I did a podcast because I did that while I was a pharmacist highly recommend, but I digress. All kinds of tools, get resourceful. Surround yourself with people who encourage you. That’s the best part of this is, being around people that you want to be around. Because you’re serving at such a high level. I had the honor this past. I was there Saturday through Wednesday. Every year Tony Robbins has the annual coaching meeting. So there were 108 coaches from 29 countries. And these are the most amazing souls you ever met. Because they’re givers. There’s no, there’s friendly competition, but there’s not like backstabbing competition. It’s give give, give without any expectation. They don’t keep tabs, they give with unconditional love. It’s incredible. It’s what we call our chosen family. There’s nothing like it I’ve ever seen or heard of in the world. It is incredible. And they make me want to be better. So get around people that are playing at a level higher than you. And watch what happens. Because proximity is power. So that’s why I’m honored to be a part of this podcast seriously, it’s such an honor, because I’m such an admirer of Tim and you and the team that you have, because it’s such an honorable community of people that want to play and live life at a higher level so that they can create a future for their family that they may have never had. So that they can inspire other people, maybe they’re mentoring, maybe their colleagues that it doesn’t have to be that way. The way that all the loud people are complaining about yes, that’s may be happening. And there’s other stuff too because in every adversity there’s also an opportunity in disguise because again, there’s always both two things happening at the same time. Something that’s gained and something that’s lost and you get to choose which of the two you focus on so choose wisely.

Adam Martin 04:43

Best way is probably at this point. I’m on LinkedIn. Dr. Adam Martin, Also the original on Instagram, all one word The Fit Pharmacists, that’s that’s where I’m most active. But you can also email me at [email protected]

Adam Martin 05:09

All right, let’s go.

Adam Martin 05:45

My pleasure, thank you so much for the time for your kindness. And again, just a reminder, you were all blessed to be a blessing. So go forth, be great and dispense your full potential.

[SPONSOR MESSAGE]

Tim Ulbrich 05:56

Before we wrap up today’s show, I want to again thank this week’s sponsor of the your Financial Pharmacist Podcast First Horizon, we’re glad to have found a solution for pharmacists that are unable to save 20% for a down payment on a home. A lot of pharmacists and the YFP community have taken advantage of First Horizon’s pharmacist home loan, which requires a 3% downpayment for a single family home or townhome for first time homebuyers and has no PMI on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage. To learn more about the requirements for First Horizons pharmacist home loan, and to get started with the pre approval process, you can visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/home-loan. Again, that’s yourfinancialpharmacist.com/home-loan.

[DISCLAIMER]

Tim Ulbrich 06:41

As we conclude this week’s podcast and important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. information in the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment. Furthermore, the information contained in our archive newsletters, blog posts and podcasts is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of your financial pharmacists unless otherwise noted, and constitute judgments as of the date published. Such information may contain forward looking statements, which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer. Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

[END]

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YFP 334: Philanthropy Unveiled: Strategies for Effective Giving

Posted on November 16, 2023November 12, 2023 by YFP Media

Explore philanthropy insights with Tom Dauber, Founder of Abundant Vision, covering donor considerations, impact assessment, and affluent traits.

Episode Summary

Curious about donating to nonprofits and giving financial gifts in general? This week we welcome Tom Dauber, Founder of Abundant Vision Philanthropic Consulting. In our interview, Tom shares his knowledge gained from over two decades of involvement in fundraising initiatives and campaigns, offering valuable perspectives to consider when contributing to an organization or cause. He sheds light on the vital questions that prospective donors should examine before making substantial contributions, how to determine the alignment of the gift with the potential impact, and the defining characteristics of wealthy donors, including their career paths, educational backgrounds, and wealth acquisition strategies.

About Today’s Guest

Tom solicited his first “major gift” at age 17 and ran his first fundraising event the following year. After receiving his BFA from Bowling Green State University in 1998, he began his career in non-profit sector. Over the past decade Tom has directed teams responsible for $120M in fundraising initiatives and campaigns. his experience spans faith-based, health science and health system fundraising. From 2005-2019 Tom was the Chief Development Officer for The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy. During his tenure, he grew pharmacy fundraising revenue by 40% annually, taking them from $1.5M annually to over $10M. Tom oversaw alumni affairs, corporate engagement, communications and fundraising for the school and served as President of the AACP Advancement Special Interest Group. Today Tom is the President of Abundant Vision Philanthropic Consulting. He began the company to help small and medium size foundations benefit from high caliber fundraising expertise. Tom is a life-long resident of Central Ohio, growing up just outside of Columbus in rural Johnstown. These days he lives in Westerville, Ohio with his wife Tracey Papenfuss DVM, PhD. Together they have four kids, three dogs and two cats.

Key Points From the Episode

Tom dives into why giving is an area of passion for him.
He delves into key questions prospective donors should consider asking about organizations.
We explore the question, “Is my donation going to be tax deductible?”
His thoughts on gifts that are given anonymously and the pros and cons you should consider.
We talk about the concept of funds being specifically allocated to cover overheads.
Bunching donations to take advantage of tax benefits.
Tom highlights the themes and characteristics of those making large gifts.
His advice on what not to invest in.
We discuss the idea of there being many pathways to building wealth.

Episode Highlights

“The reason that I love fundraising is because I love giving. I love being generous, I love being able to help people. I love being able to make a difference.” — Tom Dauber [0:06:57]

“The beautiful thing about being able to participate in philanthropy is it gives you the opportunity to make a difference in situations that you might never be able to act otherwise.” — Tom Dauber [0:07:06]

“Fundraising, to me, is really just another form of financial advising.” — Tom Dauber [0:09:35]

“What we’re looking for all the time as fundraisers is where that person’s passion intersects with the mission of my organization.” — Tom Dauber [0:11:05]

“There are just so many things pharmacists can do with their degrees entrepreneurially that can lead to their success.” — Tom Dauber [0:38:52]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:00.8] TU: Hey everybody, Tim Ulbrich here, and thank you for listening to The YFP Podcast, where each week, we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom.

This week, I welcome a former colleague of mine, Tom Dauber, Founder of Abundant Vision Philanthropic Consulting. Tom shares his experiences from 20-plus years in fundraising initiatives and campaigns, to give our listeners insights of things they should consider when donating to an organization or cause. Tom outlines key questions that donors should get answered before making large gifts, how to determine the alignment of the gift with the potential impact, and defining characteristics of large donors including career paths, education, and how they acquired their wealth.

Let’s hear a brief message from YFP team member, Justin Woods, and then we’ll jump into my interview with Tom Dauber.

[SPONSOR MESSAGE]

[0:00:48.8] JW: This is Justin Woods from the YFP Team with a quick message before the show. If you listen to the YFP Podcast, you may learn something every now and then, either from Tim Ulbrick, Tim Baker, or one of our guests. A lot of people listen to this show but they may not execute or implement the things they learn. As pharmacists, we know the impact of nonadherence on patient outcomes and their overall well-being.

As a pharmacist myself and part of the YFP Team, I talk with pharmacists every day who are confused about how to implement financial knowledge. Pharmacists share with me that they are treading water financially, maybe took a DIY approach, reached a plateau, and are confused about what to do next, or those who work for decades can see the light at the end of the tunnel and feel uncertain about how the next chapter will unfold.

If that sounds like you, one, it is not uncommon to feel that way, and two, does it make sense for us to have a conversation to see if YFP Planning can help you? Visit yfpplanning.com or follow the link in the show notes to find a time that works for your schedule.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:01:54.0] TU: Tom, welcome to the show.

[0:01:55.9] TD: Oh, thanks Tim, it’s great to be here.

[0:01:57.5] TU: So, some background information and context for our listeners, our career paths crossed several years ago, back in – it must have been 2018, 2019 when I came on as faculty at Ohio State. At the time you were working in the advancement office at OSU College of Pharmacy and we had a chance to work together several times through that time period and then, just recently, a few months ago, I had reached out to you as we are starting a nonprofit called YFP Gifts.

We’re going to have more information for our listeners about that here in a little bit and I wanted to tap into your expertise and was just a great opportunity to reconnect with you but also, as you were sharing some of the work that you’re doing right now in your career, I thought, “Wow, what a great episode this would make.” As we can tap into your experiences on the side of receiving funds, receiving philanthropic funds, such that for those in our community that are making giving a part of their plan, they can take away some tidbits that would be helpful to that portion of their financial plan.

So, first and foremost, thanks for being here, and if you want to kick off by telling us a little bit more about your career background and the work that you’re doing now with Abundant Vision Philanthropic Consulting.

[0:03:08.7] TD: Sure. Back in gosh, it would have been the 90s, I wanted to start a club up at my school and I wanted it to be official and I decided since I didn’t have a job, I just needed to go ask somebody for the money and so, I went to a couple of different business people that I knew. One was my cross-country coach, one was my Sunday school teacher and I got one of them to give me 75 bucks.

[0:03:30.2] TU: Oh, that’s awesome.

[0:03:31.3] TD: And started an official chapter of my organization, it was exciting. That’s the first major gift that I ever closed and then shortly after that, began doing some fundraising of events for local things and just kind of worked my way through it, and then you know, when I graduated from Bowling Green State University.

[0:03:47.9] TU: Go Falcons.

[0:03:48.1] TD: I ended up. What’s that?

[0:03:49.7] TU: Go Falcons.

[0:03:50.2] TD: Yeah, that’s right. Go Falcons. You know, with my art degree there, really, I had some passions in my life that I needed to pursue outside of art, and so I ended up going to work for Central Howl Youth for Christ, works with youth here in the Columbus area, ended up going back to my hometown, and essentially starting a new branch of that organization out of Northwest Lincoln County. A lot of fundraising involved with that.

It was what I like to call a nonprofit with a capital win, so they really didn’t have much money, and so our salaries were appropriately sized compared to that, and as my family grew, got children, got married, well, opposite order there, got a mortgage and ultimately, I just couldn’t live on that salary anymore, and as I kind of tried to figure out, “What can I do? What am I going to do? I’m not going to make a living as an artist.”

And I realized that people actually pay you a reasonable salary to go raise money for them, and that was my entrée into the Ohio State University at the College of Dentistry, and so I spent seven and a half years there kind of working my way up from an entry-level position into Director of Development. So, reporting up to a senior director and after a good bit of time and having some success, I was given the opportunity to be the Senior Director there at the College of Pharmacy and that was 2012, 2013.

That was right on the tail end of Dean Brugamyer’s term there and transitioning into Dean Henry Mann and that’s when I went from kind of being the expert in oral healthcare to learning a lot from some wonderful teachers there at the pharmacy school. So, I did that from 2012 to 2019. Then, Ohio Health came calling and went to report there and ran an entire team of Chief Development Officers for that organization.

And then, you know, we had a kind of a string of layoffs there at Ohio Health and I was, you know, kind of one manager too many, I guess, and ended up stepping out of that position, and as I kind of weighed, “You know, what could I do professionally?”

[0:05:53.6] TU: Yeah.

[0:05:54.2] TD: I began to talk to some different organizations. I was really getting deep into some pretty exciting searches for some wonderful nonprofits and then, an opportunity came to work with a kind of a nationally known nonprofit but actually hadn’t really done much fundraising and did not really do much in the world of major gifts, and so with that in front of me, I pulled my name out of all those late-stage searches and decided to start my own shop, helping nonprofits figure out how to increase fundraising in their organization.

[0:06:25.9] TU: I love that Tom, and excited to tap into your expertise here during this interview. I’m curious to know, what led you to make your life’s work around giving, right? You talked about, you know, the importance of providing for your family, making a good salary, you know, you mentioned that very early experience, right? Your first major gift of $75 but I have always sensed that deeper for you, right?

You have this life’s work around giving and helping organizations. Why is giving an area a passion for you? Regardless of the area of the gift?

[0:06:56.9] TD: Well, you know, for me, the reason that I love fundraising is because I love giving. I love being generous, I love being able to help people. I love being able to make a difference and the beautiful thing, you know, about being able to participate in philanthropy is it gives you the opportunity to make a difference in situations that you might never be able to impact otherwise, you know?

I may not be able to personally bring a bottle of clean water to somebody in the majority world that’s struggling to have clean water but there are people that I can give money to who will make sure that those dollars are used in such a way to make sure that happens. To me, that’s like, beautiful.

[0:07:40.0] TU: Yeah.

[0:07:40.4] TD: You know, there are checks I write at the end of the year frankly, that bring me to tears to just have the privilege to make a difference in some of those places.

[0:07:49.0] TU: Yeah, that really resonates with me and I think it – well, our community as well, I have a sense that you know, pharmacists have a giving heart by nature, it’s just what draws people into the procession and one of the things I’ve really been passionate about and building YFP is that we know that if we can help someone really get their own financial house, their own financial plan in order, such that they feel like they’re on solid footing, they’re then in an opportunity and in a position to also be given at a greater level and that’s one of the things we’re most excited about with YFP Gives.

I’m teasing that a little bit but more information to come here in the future. So, for this interview, as I mentioned, I really want to use your experiences, your expertise as someone who raise funds, and all that you learned in accepting donations, talking with donors, setting up different philanthropic causes and funds, to then shift that perspective to those individuals that are looking to give and what might be some of those considerations as they make giving a part of their financial plan.

So, my first question for you Tom, is, what are those key questions? When you think about sending money to an organization, a nonprofit, you know, key things that we’d want to know about the organization prior to making that gift, and here, I’m also thinking that you know, if it’s an ongoing gift or if it’s a sizeable gift, perhaps these questions are more important. Although, I think in any case people want to feel good about where their dollars are going. What are some of the key questions that people should be considering?

[0:09:18.8] TD: Yeah, these questions scale no matter how much money you have. You know, the first thing, the really hard questions, their questions about you know, I mean, you’re in the financial advising world. I think a really good financial advisor, their first questions for you are going to be, “You know, what are your dreams and goals?”

[0:09:34.0] TU: Yup.

[0:09:34.4] TD: Right? Fundraising to me is really just another form of financial advising. You know, when I was working, you know, at OSU, there were all sorts of things that people could give to, say, at the pharmacy school. You know, they could give the natural products, they could give to pharmacy practice, they could give to scholarships, they could give to all these things, and so the first question for me in that scenario was, “What do you care most about?”

I remember talking to one community pharmacist, someone who had their own practice and they were talking to me about Dr. Biel and how Dr. Biel inspired them. Dr. Biel, for you listeners who don’t know, is this legend of natural products research, a pharmacognosy, who was so kind and so caring and students loved him, and so for that person, even though I expected, “Well, maybe this person would want to do scholarships” what I discovered was they were passionate about Dr. Biel and the difference he made in their life and so they wanted to make a gift that honored him, right?

So, that’s my first question, whether it’s a pharmacy school or somewhere else, “What do you really care about? What changes in the world would you like to see?” I have a good friend who is a master fundraiser. He is a mentor of mine and he often starts these conversations. He’ll pull out a pen, you know, hold the pen up and he said, “Let’s pretend this pen is a magic wand and you can use this magic wand to change anything in the entire world, just so it’s exactly the way you want. What’s that thing you would change?”

You know because what we’re looking for all the time as fundraisers is, where is that person’s passion intersects with the mission of my organization? And truth be told if you’re a good fundraiser, if you don’t see that intersection, you will less and release. You may even help point them towards an organization that can help them do what they want to do and honestly, that often results in gifts being made down the road because you demonstrate integrity to doing that but yeah.

So, you want to ask your people, “Tim, what are you passionate about? What changes in the world would you like to see and how could a gift really align with your deepest values? You know, what’s the thing you care most about?” And then you go from there to say, “Well, who are the organizations that I’m aware of that are making a difference in those areas?” So, those are the hard questions.

[0:11:55.2] TU: Yeah.

[0:11:55.5] TD: Then you’d get into the head questions and so those might be, how much can they afford to give? Another question might be, once they start thinking about that, another question that sort of might modify this, what’s the right asset for the gift? They may only be able to give so much in cash but they may have appreciated assets, maybe stocks, or maybe they’ve got a Rembrandt. I don’t know what they might have.

[0:12:22.9] TU: Yup.

[0:12:24.0] TD: But they may have something that might allow them to make a much larger gift. I think about a gift I was able to close at the pharmacy school. You know, it has this beautiful pharmacy practice lab, the biggest gift to that was olive product. In one of the reasons that gift was so large was because the company that made that product, it cost them less to make it.

So, the actual cost to them was less than the value of the gift but to us, we didn’t devalue it. We didn’t say, “Well, this half a million dollars and so in equipment that only cost you 200 to make.” We gave them the full credit of the half million and that’s the full credit the IRS will give you, right? So, maybe you’ve got grain, maybe you’re a pharmacist and you also are a farmer. You can donate that grain to organizations that can even turn around and sell that for market rates.

So, so there’s that and there’s also tax considerations that might come into play and I’m sure you’re well aware of those, Tim. There are going to be and oftentimes, this will intersect with issues of you know, stocks or things that have a higher net worth and what bought them for, those things are going to be things you want to think about, carefully.

You may want to take a loss in some years. Real estate can also be tricky and things to consider and then lastly, and this gets to maybe some of your other questions but does the organization to thinking have a track record of success in the areas they care about? If you’re going to make a big gift, I might let someone else experiment and see if the new kid on the block is the one to get it done. Unless you’re really persuaded, I might consider that.

[0:13:58.7] TU: Yeah. Great questions, and I love how you divided those, right? Starting with the heart, you know moving to the head, all things that people are thinking about when they’re making a gift and since you mention the IRS, let’s talk about that here for a moment. I think that many in our community, they do start with the heart when they’re giving but they’re also pharmacist, right?

They want to be efficient, they want to be making sure that they’re optimizing the tax part of their financial plan as well, and so this question comes up a lot around you know, “Is my donation going to be tax deductible?” And there’s not – all nonprofits as far as I know are not created equal, right? There’s C3s, which probably is what 501(c)(3) is most folks are familiar with but not every nonprofit is a 501(c)(3).

And so, there can be nuances here to consider as it relates to making a gift or making a donation. So, what should somebody be looking for or how can they know that their gift ultimately is going to be tax deductible? If that’s something that they’re really interested in.

[0:14:55.1] TD: Well, my specialty is definitely in the area of 501(c)(3)s and you can know for sure that if an organization is a 501(c)(3), that your gift to them is definitely going to be tax deductible. Now, to check, all you need to do is to go on the tax-exempt organization search site, the IRS and look up the organization by name or their EIN. The other thing that’s helpful about that website is you can also check their 990 and that 990 will also give you some sense for, you know, how much money they’re raising, which you know, may matter to you, that might inform you a little bit about the organization.

[0:15:32.4] TU: I like that. I’ve never actually thought about, you know, I’ve been in nonprofit organizations where I’m involved in the 990 filing, never have thought about it from the giving standpoint to go look up the 990, the organization. Makes a ton of sense. Giving gifts anonymously is something else. I’m interested to hear your thoughts on the – from the perspective of somebody in the organization who is receiving the gift. You know, I think that perhaps, there’s pros and cons from each side of a gift being given anonymously. What has been your experiences here?

[0:16:03.8] TD: Well, so, you know, there’s a lot of things – there’s a lot of reasons you may want to consider an anonymous gift. In terms of the pros towards that is first off, some fates told that there’s greater blessing in giving anonymously and I think there’s some truth to that for sure and otherwise, it can also be kind of fun to have a secret, you know? Nobody knows who gave this gift and you know, hopefully, involved with the organization and kind of have a little chuckle, right? About it.

You know, I think another reason people give anonymously though is because they want to avoid the attention that comes with a large gift. It’s because it’s true, all the nonprofits in the world and there’s what? 1.8 million, something like that, nonprofits, their feelers are out there, they’re paying attention to who is giving to whom in their communities, and the moment word gets out that someone made a gift, a lot of the other organizations like, if they have some connection with that individual, they’re going to be asking themselves, “Huh, I wonder if we can get in front of that person? I wonder if there’s a way that they might find something here that’s worth supporting” right?

You know, and when you give anonymously, you avoid all of that. I mean, it’s the same reasons why if someone wins the Lotto, they may want to just keep that to themselves, right?

[0:17:20.1] TU: Yeah.

[0:17:20.8] TD: So, those are some of the pros. There are a lot of cons though, I will say. So, if I want to truly make an anonymous gift, it’s going to be really hard to get good follow-up from the organization about the impact of your gift. One way that you could be successful in doing that is by going through a third party. Maybe you’ve got a financial planner or a lawyer, someone you trust that could make a gift to you, on behalf of –

[0:17:48.9] TU: Yeah, makes sense.

[0:17:50.2] TD: Make a gift to an organization on behalf of an individual. The nice thing with that is then you still have a contact person that you can follow up with and can say, “Well, hey, your friend doesn’t want to hear from us directly, could you please pass this information along to them about the difference their gifts made?” That’s a nice thing to be able to do.

Now, another issue, if you want to be receipted, if you want that tax deduction, the person doing the receiving has to know who you are, you know? Many organizations will keep it anonymous beyond that if you ask them, you know, like at large flagship universities, you say to them, “I want to make an anonymous gift.” Someone is going to enter in an anonymous record in the CRM for you.

That gift’s going to be assigned to that, not to your name as maybe an alum. You know, ultimately though, the person in the gift processing office, they will know who you are and will issue a receipt but I’ve heard of people sending boxes of cash to beloved professors.

[0:18:59.0] TU: That does not surprise me but it makes sense what you shared in terms of the pros and cons and you know also, at a minimum from the tax standpoint, making sure you have a receipt and you know, I like the idea of a third party if that’s something folks are interested in. I have a feeling most people, I could be wrong, you’re experience here, more than mine is that most people when they say anonymous, they mean anonymous to the community at large, I would think.

Whereas, you have any information for a receipt, record keeping updates, I think that would be really helpful. For example, if I made an anonymous gift somewhere, I’d be very interested in knowing the impact of that gift. I would be very interested in making sure I have the right documentation for tax purposes but that may just mean it’s not broadcasted that Tim made this donation for this cause. So –

[0:19:41.2] TD: That’s right. So, the terminology that a large foundation might use or a large nonprofit might use, they might say, “Do you want recognition for this or public recognition?”

[0:19:50.7] TU: Makes sense.

[0:19:51.5] TD: And so, you’ll have the option between being an anonymous donor typically, or at least, one that isn’t publicly recognized.

[0:19:57.2] TU: Yeah.

[0:19:58.9] TD: Because another benefit to being known by the organization is that it’s really fun to celebrate a gift with an organization you care about and it can be very meaningful to connect with the beneficiaries you’re supporting. I think about some of the scholarship students that I’ve had the opportunity to work with over the years and getting to see them, meet the people that funded their scholarship and they’re telling stories and there’s just all this positive feeling. That’s something I wouldn’t want to miss out on as a donor.

[0:20:30.1] TU: The other thought I had Tom as you’re just talking there is the potential benefit that comes from motivating and encouraging others. I would presume that giving can often motivate others giving.

[0:20:41.7] TD: Yeah, that’s right.

[0:20:43.4] TU: And so especially if there’s you know, colleagues or peers or others that may be in a position also give where their gifts are aligned with the same values and mission that you’re working towards, could the impact, right? The giving in the first place be greater as more people are aware of that gift. So, interesting things to think about there. This one Tom, I’ve always struggled to think, curious to hear you know from someone as a professional in the area.

Related to how some organizations promote a hundred percent or as close to that as possible goes towards the philanthropic efforts with little to no percent of the gift towards operating overhead expenses and I struggle with this because you know I think first glance as a donor you’re like, “Yeah, heck yeah, I want as much of my gift as possible going towards the cause” right? Whatever that cause may be.

But as I think about it in terms of like running an organization, there is and probably should be a reasonable and realistic amount of funds that are going to cover expenses that allow that organization to be an effective organization, which the ability to then distribute those funds wouldn’t be there with that overhead to some degree. Now, there’s a lot in between there, right?

[0:21:57.6] TD: That’s right.

[0:21:58.3] TU: So, just curious, your thoughts here, and how much does this comes up in conversation from donors?

[0:22:04.9] TD: Well, I love this question. You know, I brought it up, my wife and I were talking about it over coffee yesterday morning and I think we spent 45 minutes discussing it. It’s funny that you’re the one asking me though because it reminds me a lot of the pharmacy world. There are executives and retailers, who shall not be named, and they’re thinking about how effective is this pharmacy.

And they’re thinking about it in terms of, “Well, how much money does it cost us to run this pharmacy?” and so their response is to reduce cost in order to get a more effective pharmacy but then as you overwork your pharmacists, you understaff pharmacies, what do you end up having? You have a drop in quality care, quality outcomes, right?

[0:22:47.6] TU: Yeah.

[0:22:48.1] TD: And so, there is a real concern, a legitimate concern that there are people out there who start nonprofits where they’re taking 80% of the money’s raised and they’re paying themselves ridiculous salaries and not really helping people out and I think that’s where a lot of this conversation got started and so because of folks like that within my industry, organizations like Charity Navigator in the past have ranked nonprofits really on their cost to raise a dollar.

That is how much of the dollar that you donate is going to go towards overhead. So, that kind of creates really some problems, really some perverse incentives because you might have an organization that’s way understaffed. They’ve got their fundraiser, maybe they have one person supporting them. Rule of thumb in my profession, you might want two or three people behind the scenes for every one fundraiser you have to make sure that that fundraiser is used effectively, right?

So anyway, you might have a nonprofit that’s really operating on kind of a skeleton crew, really maybe not writing acknowledgment letters quickly because they just don’t have enough people to process the gifts, you know all those sorts of things could be happening and they’re going to look good on paper. They may even get an award nationally for being a really lean organization but in reality, because of that fear of investing in infrastructure, they’re not doing their job well.

So really, what you want to do in the same way, you know in your profession Tim, in pharmacy there, you want to look at outcomes. You want to look at evidence-based health outcomes. Well, with any organization, now each nonprofit is going to have a different set of quantifiable outcomes that they’re looking to get but those are the things you want to try to look at and now the trick is and you probably know this too in healthcare, it’s harder to get that number.

It is way easier for me as a nonprofit to just look at that cost to raise the dollar number and say, “Well, I’m done” right? Than actually getting out into the field, spending time evaluating results, and really trying to not just look at the front end but also the what are the backend kind of trickle-down consequences. I mean, we could, you and I could probably talk for hours about the money in having a pharmacist involved in healthcare saves.

But savings isn’t always considered a profit, right? So, it’s the same sort of question for both industries.

[0:25:24.3] TU: Yeah. It reminds me of school rankings, you know? It’s one of the things I’ve got beef with of like if it’s an easy objective number to capture you can quickly scale it, right? It creates “apples to apples” but it doesn’t, right? Because it’s not measuring the harder-to-measure softer components that really do matter and I think what you are sharing here is a great one and if you look at the cost of a nonprofit and what they’re spending and how far those dollars go that are raised, that’s a math equation, right?

When you get to the details of the impact and the stories you mentioned, kind of getting out to the field to really do some of that hard work, that takes a lot of time and it’s different of course, depending on the giving area that we’re talking about. So, great perspective there. I want to go back to the tax piece and we’ve talked a little bit on the show before, we had our CPA on the show, some of our tax professionals on our team.

And one of the strategies they talk about, which is often overlooked as part of the financial plan is bunching donations. So, depending on someone’s tax situation, depending on how much they’re giving, depending on the level of giving and the proximity of that to the standard deduction, this may or may not make sense but I think we’re going to see this coming up more and more in our community.

And so, is this something you would frequently see employed by those that were giving, where you know, they were bunching it where they might be giving every other year or at specific periods of time to be able to take advantage of some of those tax benefits?

[0:26:55.9] TD: I see what you’re saying. So, by bunching what you’re saying is, “I’m going to maybe I’ll upfront my giving because of some tax advantage” versus maybe later or I might delay it because of some other, you know, maybe an income bubble that I’m expecting, is that right?

[0:27:12.8] TU: Yeah, exactly, and if you know, we’re talking not major, major gifts. Obviously, there’s you know, different tax implications and parts of the financial plan to consider there. I’m thinking about you know, folks that may be giving 10, 15% of their income but when you think about that relative to the standard deduction, it may make sense where one year, they just take the standard deduction and then the next year, they double up on their giving to be able to really maximize it in that following year.

So, I was just curious, and maybe more broadly here like how often does the tax deficiency questions, become a part of the plan, or are those that typically in this position to give, they’re also working with a tax professional or a planner that’s helping guide them there?

[0:27:56.5] TD: Yeah, so if I’m eligible for the standard deduction and it’s not to my advantage to itemize, usually these are conversations that come up with a gift officer at a nonprofit. You know usually if I’m aware of someone who is thinking through a tax situation, it’s usually going to be with a higher-end donor who is thinking about for example, selling business and they know, “Hey, I’m going to have a big blip, a big raise in my income here in three years.”

You know, maybe they’ve got a structured buyout, on a dental practice or a pharmacy. I’m going to make a $50,000 pledge but I’m going to give you $5,000 a year the first couple of years and then the last three years, you know I’m really going to build that up or it could happen in reverse. You know, another interesting thing with taxes and those types of income bubbles that people don’t think about, and since you’ve got a big viewership maybe people will think about this down the road.

If you’ve got a privately held company and you’ve got privately held stock and you’re about to sell, there are some really awesome strategies and I’m no accountant, where you can give away some of that privately held stock to charities you care about or even to family members so that when that big income event happens when you sell, you don’t get nailed.

I mean, you’ve gotten rid of the assets before you’re taking the income, and so the nonprofit that you’re supporting is going to get this huge gift potentially without having to pay any taxes at all on it.

[0:29:37.1] TU: Yeah, because they’re going to get exactly, yeah.

[0:29:39.0] TD: But the thing is, yeah, you can’t do this though after the sale has gone through, so you’ve got to have this all worked out in advance. So, for any of your listeners that may have that happen, that’s something to think about now in advance of the fact.

[0:29:52.4] TU: Yeah, that’s really interesting and some I hadn’t thought about before but it makes sense, privately held companies, you have stock if you’re able to transfer that stock prior to the purchase, the purchase happens, dollars on the purchase go directly to the nonprofit, therefore, it’s not coming to you as taxable income. So, yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

Tom, the last question I wanted to ask you before we begin to wrap up is I think you posted something or maybe commented on something on LinkedIn a month or two that got me thinking about some of the defining characteristics of those that are making large gifts. You know essentially, what are those defining characteristics of the bigger gifts that are coming in from the folks that are “wealthier?”

You know, I’m thinking about what was their career path, like what is the level of education, or the trajectory of their education? Are there any themes that you’ve noticed through the years, decades now, right? I guess we can say of experience that you’ve had in those that are wealthy making large gifts and some of the characteristics of where that wealth has come from.

[0:30:55.7] TD: Absolutely. I guess number one is that employees don’t tend to do as well as business owners and that’s probably pretty intuitive. You know, the bulk of the folks that I have worked with over the years, have been dentists or pharmacists just due to the 15 years they’ve spent at OSU and I’ll tell you both professions tend to do very well. They come out making a strong salary.

But the ones who’ve really exceeded their peers usually have some sort of side gig or additional thing they’re kind of doing above and beyond their practice and so they’re taking some of their good income and not spending it but investing it in a number of areas and I’ll tell you some real patterns have come through that have been really influential on me like I’m a real estate investor today and part of that is because of all the dentists and pharmacists that I saw who are just doing fantastic.

I mean, my own dentist that I grew up with I never thought about it but his practice was in an apartment building on the first floor. Well, guess what? He owned the entire thing and even better, when he retired, he sold his practice and then converted his old office into a living place for him and his wife, right?

[0:32:07.5] TU: That’s awesome, yeah.

[0:32:08.2] TD: So it’s like really providing for himself. In retirement, he still got that monthly income from the other units not to mention the equity that I’m betting the building has a ton of equity at this. It’s in an area close to the new Intel plant that’s going in.

[0:32:25.4] TU: Oh, yes.

[0:32:26.3] TD: But I think of a pharmacist, you know, he is no longer in this world but everyone knows his name because it’s on the James Cancer Center but he started out building strip malls to put his pharmacy in, right? And now, he’s got a cancer research institute named after him because he realized that building strip malls could make him a lot more money than his pharmacy degree could.

Another pharmacist I knew started buying up commercial real estate in a college town and eventually, he sold his practice and this was – he was working more in kind of that golden age of independent pharmacy and all that but he ended up selling like so many did to one of the big chains. His kids, who were pharmacists, continued working in that chain pharmacy but boy, that family has a lot of generational wealth now because they still own really the entire main strip in that college town.

So, there’s all this income and all this equity that’s coming in. Now, another area I’ve seen health science professionals become very wealthy is through banking. I would think of one guy and he was starting a dental practice probably back in the 50s or 60s, it’s probably the 50s and the bank would have loaned to him to start a practice and he figured it out eventually but he ended up starting his own bank because he felt like the other bank, you know, they were a bunch of bums.

And you know eventually, that community bank gets purchased by a larger bank. The next thing you know, there’s just all these resources and I’ve seen that a number of times where people have been invited onto the board of a regional bank, and then that bank gets purchased and so you’ve got shares in it and you do very well. So, my advice to anyone listening right now is if you’re invited to be on the board of a community bank say yes.

Now, one thing I’ll tell you what not to do, don’t invest in a golf course, don’t start a golf course even if you love golf. This is purely anecdotal, I have no research to back it up but everyone that I have known that you know and pharmacists and dentists historically have been big fans of golf, they decided to start a golf course. It’s almost always lost their money, I’m just saying.

[0:34:31.3] TU: Interesting, yeah.

[0:34:32.4] TD: Yeah.

[0:34:32.9] TU: And you know, one of the things I visualize often and I think you describe this really well is many different pathways to building wealth, of course, right? There is no one right way but a visual that keeps coming back to me is a three-legged stool of business, real estate, and what I would call more just traditional investments, right? Traditional investments would be you know, your 401(k)s, your IRAs, your HSAs, your brokerage accounts.

Probably where many pharmacists might have the vast majority if not all of their investments in and then within real estate, as we talk about often on our Real Estate Investing Podcast that we publish, there are a ton of ways you can go, in real estate. Certainly not for everyone, whether it’s based on interest, risk tolerance, whatever may be the reason.

But the range of passive to active, right? There is a lot, you can to your comment about being the bank, you can be a hard money lender. Obviously, there’s risk involved there, pharmacists that are involved in syndications, pharmacists that are involved in short-term rentals, mid-term rentals, typical long-term buy and hold, fix and flips. I mean, there is just a myriad of ways that you can be involved, commercial versus residential.

And then on the business side, I’m a huge fan of not only business for the opportunities to uncap your income and take advantage of the tax roles, which are very favorable to small businesses, especially here in Ohio but also hopefully, to be building an asset that has an equity value that transcends the income you’re even earning in the business and that is kind of the makeup that I often think about is how can you put those three things together.

And you know, you may be able to not only diversify from those three legs but within those three legs, there’s also opportunities for diversification. So, I just loved how you described it. I think there is so many different ways and one of the take-home points I have there Tom, and you have a unique perspective being in the role, getting a chance to meet and talk with all these people, especially if you grew up in a traditional household, right?

We put our money in the bank, you buy a home, you put money in a 401(k), you get a good job, just go meet people that have done interesting things, right? And maybe some of those interesting things are more traditional. You know, they own a business, they buy real estate as the long-term rentals but more and more of those conversations, especially where you can see things that maybe aren’t within the realm of what you’re thinking, whether or not you choose to invest in those pathways.

You have the risk tolerance or you want to or you have the cash, it just opens up your thinking when you can start to have those conversations and you just came to mind as I thought about how many times when you are sitting across from someone where you personally gained, you’re like, “Oh, wow, that’s really interesting” right? That’s really cool wealth-building strategy and to be able to see that from you know, the point of the giver as well is really neat.

[0:37:23.2] TD: Well, and I know that your listeners are going to be predominantly pharmacists, the thing that you may not all see since you are kind of swimming, you know, in that fish bowl, your pharmacy is such a great degree to have. You know, when I think about like dentistry or even medicine probably to a lesser degree, nearly, I don’t know, probably 90% or higher of all the people with those degrees pretty much limited to practicing and that may include business ownership, which is great or teaching specifically in that career.

It was very rare for me to run across people that were doing anything out of outside of that profession. You know, when I went to pharmacy and part of it might be the fact that for the longest time, it was undergraduate degree for a lot of people but I saw this incredible diversity of individuals in all sorts of different fascinating careers like there is one guy that we interviewed for the alumni magazine and he developed a vitamin company.

You know, that became huge in Europe and he’s doing just great. He was a 1950s grad and everybody thought he was crazy and he’s laughed all the way to the bank, he’s been very successful. You know, not to mention the real estate people, there are folks in technology, you know there are folks with master’s degree that you know, you used to be associated with and that you have and he developed a very cool software company, right?

So, there are just so many things pharmacists can do with their degrees entrepreneurially that can lead to their success.

[0:38:59.0] TU: That’s great and we talk so much in pharmacy about networking from a professional standpoint but I also like to think about networking in the context of finances and the context of building wealth, right? There’s just so much to be learned, meeting people, reading, listening to podcasts, you know just learning about the different ways and pathways that people have done it before.

So, Tom, as we wrap up, what’s the best place that our listeners can go to connect with you and to follow the work that you’re doing?

[0:39:26.1] TD: Sure. Well, look me up on LinkedIn, I’m certainly visible there. I also have a website, abundantvision.net, it’s up right now. We’re actually working on a rework for it, so that will be launching probably the end of August but yeah, please connect with me on social media. I’d love to chat more with anyone that has questions about you know, how to give money away effectively or even you know, how they might want to you know, take steps to start a nonprofit.

[0:39:50.0] TU: Love it. Thank you so much, Tom. I really appreciate your time.

[0:39:52.5] TD: Great, thanks so much, Tim.

[DISCLAIMER]

[0:39:54.7] TU: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and it is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information on the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

Furthermore, the information contained in our archived newsletters, blog posts, and podcasts is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist unless otherwise noted and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward-looking statements, which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer.

Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

[END]

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YFP 321: Navigating Financial Conversations with Aging Parents

Posted on August 17, 2023August 15, 2023 by Tim U

Award-winning journalist and author Cameron Huddleston joins the YFP Podcast to talk about navigating financial conversations with aging parents.

About Today’s Guest

Cameron Huddleston is an author, speaker and award-winning journalist with 20 years of experience writing about personal finance. Her work has appeared in Forbes, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Chicago Tribune, MSN, Yahoo and many more print and online publications. She is a mom of three awesome kids and was a caregiver for her own mom, who had Alzheimer’s disease. SHe is the author of Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations With Your Parents About Their Finances.

Episode Summary

Money talk isn’t always easy to initiate, but in some cases it’s essential. Today, we are joined by award-winning journalist and author of Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk, Cameron Huddleston, to discuss the often-overlooked topic of navigating financial conversations and decisions with aging parents. Cameron shares key insights into why these discussions are crucial, how to approach them with love and respect, and practical strategies to initiate meaningful dialogues. We discover the importance of estate planning documents, ways to involve siblings harmoniously, and the significance of long-term care planning to ensure a secure future for both parents and their adult children. Tune in to gain valuable advice and actionable steps to foster open, productive conversations that empower families to address financial matters and caregiving needs with confidence and compassion.

Key Points From the Episode

Introducing award-winning journalist and author, Cameron Huddleston.
Insight into her book Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk.
The importance of talking to aging parents about their finances and long-term care planning.
Key fears preventing people from having these conversations.
Strategies to initiate conversations with parents about their finances.
Why it’s important to involve siblings in these discussions.
The basics you need to cover in these conversations.
Cameron offers listeners a free In Case of Emergency (ICE) Organizer.
What to discuss with regard to long-term care planning.
The emotional toll of being an unpaid family caregiver.

Episode Highlights

“The benefit of having these conversations sooner rather than later is that you can avoid some of the emotional reactions that can crop up.” — @CHLebedinsky [0:08:34]

“If you wait until [your aging parents] are no longer mentally able to make decisions on their own, then they’re not going to be able to sign the document and you have to go through the court process of becoming their conservator.” — @CHLebedinsky [0:15:18]

“It’s a good idea, when talking to your siblings, to talk a little bit about what roles each of you is willing to play in your parents’ financial lives as they age.” — @CHLebedinsky [0:21:00]

“More than half of adults 65 and older will need long-term care at some point.” — @CHLebedinsky [0:25:46]

“If you make a plan, you have more options available to you. If you wait until that emergency — you can’t get long-term care insurance once you already need it.” — @CHLebedinsky [0:28:37]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

This week, I welcome back onto the show, Cameron Huddleston. Cameron is an experienced award-winning journalist and author of Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations with Your Parents about Their Finances. We talk through why it is important to have these conversations with your parents, how to start the conversations, and what to do if your parents are reluctant to talk.

Before we jump into my interview with Cameron, let’s hear a brief message from YFP team member, Justin Woods.

[YFP MESSAGE]

[0:00:37.5] JW: Hey, Your Financial Pharmacist community, it’s Justin Woods, director of business development at YFP. I’m curious, have you taken a pulse on your financial health lately? It’s so easy to get swept away by the day-to-day of careers, family, and life in general but now is a great time to hit the brakes and check in to see how financially fit you are. Are you heading in the right direction to meet your financial goals?

Is your retirement planning on track? Do you have adequate insurance in place? We created a five-minute financial fitness test so that you can learn about the areas of your financial plan that you may need to work on, maybe where you’re crushing it, and resources that could help you along the way. So head on over to yourfinancialpharmacist.com/fitness, to see how your financial health is tracking.

Again, that’s yourfinancialpharmacist.com/fitness or click the link in the show notes below.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:01:31.3] TU: Cameron, welcome back to the show.

[0:01:33.0] CH: Thanks so much for having me.

[0:01:35.1] TU: I’m so glad to have you back and today, we’re going to be doing a deep dive into a difficult, yet very important topic and that is navigating financial conversations and decisions with aging parents, and Cameron, for our listeners that didn’t previously catch you on the YFP Podcast several years back, tell us why this topic is so important to you, such as it has led to you to speak and write extensively on this topic, including the work that you did in your book, Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk.

[0:02:05.5] CH: You know, it’s funny, I never set out to be an expert on having family money conversations, yet, I have found myself in this position largely because of personal experience. I have been a personal finance journalist for more than 20 years and when I was 35 and my mom was 65, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and I found myself having to get involved with her care and get involved with her finances.

But we had never had any detailed conversations about her finances and you know, looking back, I think, “Oh gosh, I should have known better, I was a financial journalist, I should have had these conversations with my mom” but it never crossed my mind that I needed to talk to my mom about her finances and so then, I found myself having to play detective to get the details I needed about her finances as she was forgetting those details herself.

So that experience prompted me to write a book, to help people realize the importance of having these conversations before there’s an emergency. You know also, my dad’s story played a role on this too. He died at 61 without a will and he was in a second marriage and he was an attorney. He should have known better. He should have had estate planning documents and it came as a huge shock to me that he didn’t.

You know a lot of times, we think our parents are on top of things or they might tell us that they are but are they really? And then you start to ask questions and you find out that they’re not as prepared as you think they are and so I just really want people to realize that these conversations are so important because there will come a point when you have to get involved with your parent’s finances, either if they need care or help as they get older or when they pass away and you have to manage what is left behind.

[0:04:04.1] TU: Yeah, Cameron, your story really resonates with me and I suspect that our audience as well. One of the things I shared with you before we hit record is that we’re seeing more and more folks in our community that are challenged, you know, with being stuck in terms of having, obviously, their own financial situation, perhaps young or growing family that is presenting financial needs and now there’s this component with aging and elderly parents that you know, may not only be difficult conversations but also there may be really real financial impact on their own situation as well.

And so I think you know, your story and what you mentioned about you know, your father being an attorney, somebody that knows the importance of these documents and not having them in place really speaks to just how emotional and challenging this topic can be and that’s really where I want to start, right? Because I think that for those that have aging adult parents, very common situation where the fears that surface when we consider talking about money with our parents.

I know it’s something that I have felt myself and so much so that in the book that you wrote, Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk, you referenced a study from a care.com survey, showing that more than half of parents would rather have the sex talk with their kids than talk to their parents about money and aging issues. What are some of the fears that are holding people back from having these crucial conversations, right? After all, we know that they’re essential ones to have.

[0:05:32.1] CH: One of the big ones is that we are afraid if we have these conversations, our parents might think we’re being greedy, especially if you want to ask about those estate planning documents. We’re afraid if I ask Mom and Dad if they have a will or a trust, they’re going to think that I’m just trying to find out what I’m going to get when they die and so it’s a logical fear for sure.

You know, we might be afraid that our parents are thinking we’re being nosey because most people are pretty tight-lipped about their finances. We might be afraid that our parents are going to get angry with us and it’s going to create a rift in our relationship. I think though if you approach these conversations out of love and respect.

[0:06:18.0] TU: Yes.

[0:06:19.7] CH: Then you’re not going to make your parents angry, they might be a little surprised initially that you want to address this topic but if you let them know that you are looking out for their best interest, that you want to know what their wishes are so that you can honor those wishes, they hopefully will recognize the value in having this conversation and they’re not going to think that you’re just trying to figure out how much money you’re going to get when they die, especially as long as you don’t start the conversation that way.

You know, you don’t want to say, “Hey, do you have a will? I want to know what I’m getting.” Of course, they’re going to think you’re being greedy at that point but if you let them know, “Hey, I want to know what your wishes are so I can honor them” then you’re opening the door to having a productive conversation.

[0:07:16.5] TU: Yeah. You know, what really stands out to me there, Cameron, is honor, love, and respect, three words that you use there and I think if that’s the backdrop and the intention of a conversation, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be an easy conversation, right? We still may stumble through it and it’s challenging but I think the outcome of that is likely to be much more fruitful, fit in the spirit of that.

And as I shared with you previously, that is something I have struggled with personally, is that fear and sometimes it’s a story I tell myself but that fear that out of initiating these conversations, there could be a perception of greed, and while I know my heart is not in that place, you know, that is a concern, and I think some of the strategies that you talk about in the book to initiating these conversations.

I think, really, coming at it from a perspective of honoring their wishes as you said, and to be fair, there’s also a personal responsibility that I feel to my family and our financial plan, why I think both of our parents have done a phenomenal job in planning, you know, depending on long-term care, a topic we’ll talk about here in a little bit, and the expenses that may or may not come that could be a financial burden and implication on our family, on our personal finances and so I think there is a responsibility to lean into this conversation from that end as well.

[0:08:32.0] CH: I was going to point out that the benefit of having these conversations sooner rather than later is that you can avoid some of the emotional reactions that can crop up if you wait until an emergency. If you were talking to your parents about their estate planning, their retirement planning, their long-term care planning while they’re still relatively young and healthy, you’re talking about “what if” scenarios.

“What if this were to happen, what do you want?” As supposed to waiting until there has been that diagnosis of dementia or a cancer diagnosis or whatever. At that point, you are in a crisis, and trying to sort out the financial side of things is going to be a lot more difficult because you’re not talking about a “what if” scenario. You’re talking about, “Hey, you probably need my help now we don’t have a plan, I need to get involved” and that makes it a lot more challenging to have constructive conversations at that point.

[0:09:41.1] TU: Yeah, that’s such a great point that you bring up because one of the traps, and you talk about this in the book, is assuming that a conversation can wait, right? And I think that’s another reason where, you know, having the conversation as early as possible before those situations are live and real and you’re in the moment, I think can really help with managing that conversation in a much more effective and productive way.

Cameron, one of the things I was thinking about is I find this cycle very interesting, right? When I think about the generational patterns that you often see with how we handle our money, right? So I talk with many pharmacists that grew up in a household where money is a taboo topic, right? So there is from the parent to the child relationship where maybe they’re not given the financial vocabulary or it’s a common place to have an open conversation about money and then you see this pattern repeat in reverse, child to parent, later in life or maybe they’re not comfortable initiating that conversation.

And so I think for our listeners, I share that as hopefully some encouragement to break some of these cycles, right? That might be running generationally as it relates to how we handle our money but it’s so important. One of the implications we see often when we’re working through the financial plan is, it’s not just the exes and O’s, it’s not just the objectives. So much of this topic is emotional.

So much of this topic comes back to how were we raised, what are the money scripts and stories that we grew up with and what are the implications of that on our financial plan.

[0:11:06.0] CH: I agree 100% and I think it’s a really good idea before you start having these conversations to spend a little time thinking about why your parents might be reluctant to have the conversation if you think that they will be reluctant. If money has been a topic that your family has addressed, you know since you were little, then you have a lot less story about and I don’t mean to say that you have a lot to worry about if it wasn’t a topic of conversation in your family but I do think it’s a good idea to think, “Why might my parents be reluctant?”

“Are they embarrassed about their financial situation, do they simply believe that money is a taboo topic? Do they not like the idea of talking about aging in death?” If you can pinpoint the reason they might be reluctant, then you avoid approaching the conversation from that angle. So let’s say, Mom and Dad don’t like to think about death, they never talk about it. So you don’t start by asking them about what sort of estate planning they’ve done.

You choose a different approach, you know, “How’s retirement going for you or what are your plans for retirement?” Something along those lines so that you don’t start the conversation off on the wrong foot because you don’t want them to shut down immediately.

[0:12:24.2] TU: Yeah, such a good point and that’s one of the things that I love about the book is I feel like you give very tangible, practical strategies such as conversation starters, right? Because I think that in theory, a lot of people hear this topic and they’re like, “Yes, I know I need to have these difficult financial conversations with my parents and I can understand why but how do I actually engage?” right?

“How do I begin some of these conversations?” and you give very tangible examples all throughout the book. So I highly encourage our listeners to check out that resource, if they haven’t already done so. One of the things Cameron, you mentioned in the book, is when talking with reluctant parents, how important it is to start with the basics, the must-haves, and then to work from there and then to build upon that.

What do you mean by the basics? What are you referencing there?

[0:13:14.7] CH: I think it is so important to find out if your parents have estate planning documents and I know some people think, “Oh, an estate plan, that’s something only wealthy people do. My parents don’t have a lot of money, I’m sure they haven’t bothered to draft a will or a trust” but all adults, all adults need estate planning documents. Of course, a will or a trust is important to spell out who gets what when you die because, without one, state law is going to determine who gets what and I don’t think a lot of people realize this.

So many adults think, “Well, my family can just sort it out” and that is the worst, the absolute worst approach you can take because you might think everyone gets along but as soon as money comes into play, the dynamics change so quickly. I mean, I’ve heard this from estate planning attorneys, I’ve learned this from personal experience and so, you need to make sure your parents have a will or a trust that spells out who gets what when they die and you need to know where that document is.

Again, you know, say, “Look, we just need to know what your wishes are so that we can honor them and honestly, so we can avoid any fighting down the road.” I think, more important though than that will is a financial power of attorney. The best type to get is a general durable power of attorney, this lets you name someone to make financial decisions and transactions for you if you can’t. General means you’re giving someone broad powers.

Durable means that that power remains in effect once you are no longer mentally competent and so this allows you to plan for dementia and capacity. If it’s not durable, it’s really not going to do you any good and so your parents need to have named someone as their agent under power of attorney. This has to be in place while they are still mentally competent because if you wait until there is a stroke if you wait until they are no longer mentally able to make decisions on their own, then they’re not going to be able to sign the document and you have to go through the core process of becoming their conservator.

It can be very lengthy, it can be very expensive, you know, and I was lucky with my mother because she had some estate planning documents but when she was showing signs of memory loss, I was like, “Let’s go in and get them updated” and fortunately, she was still competent enough to sign those documents. So don’t assume if your parents are starting to show some signs of memory loss that it’s too late.

Meet with an attorney, don’t, please don’t use those inexpensive or no-cost forms that you can get online. If there’s any document that you meet with an attorney to draft, it is that power of attorney document because if you run into issues down the road, you can always get that attorney on the phone with the financial institution to say, “Yes, this document is legitimate, the person was competent when he or she signed it” and so meet with an attorney or make sure your parents meet with an attorney.

But they also need to have a medical power of attorney to name someone to make medical decisions for them if they can’t and they need an advanced directive. It’s also called a living will to spell out what sort of end-of-life medical care they do or do not want. These documents are so important, parents need to have them and you need to know where they are because it’s not going to do you or your parents any good if you can’t find them. Start there, then get more information.

You know, how do they pay their bills, this is part of the emergency planning. If Mom and Dad end up in the hospital and you want to make sure the bills are getting paid while they were in the hospital, you need to know how they’re paid. Are they set up to be paid automatically or are they writing checks? If they’re writing checks, someone else is going to have to be able to sign those checks for them, at least temporarily while they’re in the hospital.

You know and then keep digging, what are their sources of income? You don’t have to know exactly how much money they have but you need to know, are there retirement savings, are they relying solely on social security benefits, is there a pension, you know, is there debt? Again, you don’t need to know down to the last penny how much debt they owe but are they still paying for a mortgage?

Are they still paying for student loans that they took out for you or for themselves or for the grandkids? Whatever, just you know, a general idea is a good start. Of course, the more information you can gather the better because if you end up in a situation like I did where you have to manage your parents’ finances, then you’re going to have to know everything.

[0:17:57.2] TU: So much there to take away and as you talk about in the book, those more advanced types of things, right? You talked about how you’re paying your bills, sources of income, bank accounts, outstanding debts, you know what I think about as like the day-to-day execution, right? You put yourself in the shoes of your parents and you’re responsible for managing that as you mentioned in your own situation, what are the things that you would need to know.

But the importance of starting with the basics and when they are ready to share and when the time is right to be able to come back to those topics. So I think the progression here is a really important thing to highlight and I would just encourage our listeners, you know, Cameron, as you were talking through the estate planning documents, a reminder not only to our listeners for their aging parents but also for them.

Many in our community have a young family, they may not have taken this important step and I think because there often could be fear and emotions around this as we see with many of our financial planning clients this isn’t the most exciting part of the financial plan to be thinking about but it’s so important to consider and it’s something that we’re also not just going to set once and forget but we need to come back throughout time and make sure that those documents are updated.

We talked about the estate planning part of financial planning in great detail in episode 222, we’ll link to that episode in the show notes. I do want to ask you about the sibling component, right? One of the things you just shared is how money can become challenging when you think about the family dynamics, right? That we often hear those horror stories and so that got me thinking as you’re sharing, “Wow, how can even my brother and I prevent some of that?”

How can we get on the same page? And for us, it’s only him and I and I would expect this becomes more challenging with more siblings, more personalities, you know, more brothers and sisters-in-law and so forth, they’re involved. What advice would you have to our listeners that are trying to think about, “How can I best navigate this relationship with my siblings so we are collectively on the same page in these conversations with our parents?

[0:19:54.2] CH: I’m so glad you brought this up because sometimes the sibling dynamic can be more complicated than having the conversations with your parents and so I encourage people to actually talk to their siblings before talking to mom and dad so that they can get on the same page. If you have siblings and you decided to go to mom and dad and have these conversations and you don’t include them, then that can create resentment.

It can create suspicion, “Oh, you talked to Mom and Dad about their finances, what were you trying to do? Get and go with them so that you get all their money when they die?” You don’t want that to happen and so call a family meeting with your siblings, whether it’s in person, whether it’s on Facetime, you know, better to talk but if you have to send a series of emails back and forth that’s certainly better than nothing.

But you want to let your siblings know that you think it would be a good idea to talk to your parents. You want to figure out who is going to initiate the conversation. Is it one of you, is it all of you, when is going to be the best time to have this conversation? And I also think it’s a good idea when talking to your siblings to talk a little bit about what roles each of you is willing to play in your parents’ financial lives as they age.

Now, at the end of the day, it’s going to be up to your parents to make those decisions who is going to be the executor of their estate or their trustee, who is going to be the financial power of attorney, the medical power of attorney but if you have had these conversations beforehand with your siblings and then you sit down with your parents and they can see that you’re on the same page, it can make it easier for the parents to open up.

Because often times, parents are reluctant to have these conversations because they don’t want their kids to fight. I would caution though, if you have a sibling who is likely to sabotage the conversation for whatever reason, maybe the sibling doesn’t get along with you, doesn’t get along with your parents, there are mental health issues, you know, financial, legal problems, then you might not want to include that sibling in the conversation.

You know, if you have siblings who simply don’t want to participate, it’s okay, don’t force them but I would encourage you to just keep them in the loop because you never know down the road if you do get involved with your parent’s finances, they might want to start getting involved and if you’ve kept them onto the loop all along, then you’re going to run into some issues there and so try to keep an open dialogue as much as possible with your siblings.

[0:22:29.5] TU: Cameron, in the book one of the things you reference is the “in case of emergency” organizer and I think some of what you previously covered probably falls in here as well but tell us more about what is the purpose of this organizer, what should be in this, and how our listeners could get started with this for their own family or with their parents.

[0:22:47.2] CH: So I actually created this downloadable file, you can find it on my website at cameronhuddleston.com, it’s free. You can use that or you can create your own. It’s essentially a way to get organized, to help your parents get organized. You can print it out and give it to them because sometimes parents are more willing to write down information rather than tell you directly. This allows them to maintain control over the information.

So if they don’t want to talk, just say, “Hey look, I get it. This is a sensitive subject. Do me a favor though, here is this “in case of emergency” organizer, fill it out. Fill it out as best as you can, put it in some place safe, and tell me when and how to access it.” I mean, it asks for all sorts of information, social security number, Medicare number, health insurance number, military ID if you served in the military.

All of your financial accounts, your usernames, your passwords, locations of lockbox keys and deeds, and marriage certificates. I mean, I try to cover everything and so it is a great way to get organized. It is a great way to get your parents organized. You know, if you are in a relationship yourself, I mean, this is information that your spouse or partner is going to need if something happens to you.

So you know, like I said, if your parents don’t want to tell you information, you might have some luck getting them to write it down.

[0:24:17.1] TU: Yeah, I really like that strategy and approach and I think also you know, to having a third-party resource can be really helpful. So you know if I, for example, I’m talking to my mom and dad. If I send them a checklist of, “Hey, these are the things I’m asking for, these are the questions that I have” you know, to your point about being intentional and strategic and how we have this conversation in an honoring and loving and respectful way.

I think sometimes the third-party resource expert such as yourself, having that come from them can be certainly a powerful approach and strategy to consider as well. Cameron, I want to wrap up our time by talking about long-term care planning. In a recent version of your newsletter that you sent out, you talk about the financial and emotional toll that can come from being an unpaid family caregiver, something I’ve seen in my own family.

With my parents caring for their parents and I suspect this is a conversation that many avoid but has massive implications. So talk us through why this conversation is so important and the strategies that folks can use to open up the dialogue around long-term care planning.

[0:25:25.0] CH: It is so important to talk to your parents about what sort of long-term care planning they have done because I can tell you most likely they haven’t done any planning. Only 11% of adults have long-term care insurance, which will help pay for the cost of long-term care services but the thing is, more than half of adults, 65 and older will need long-term care at some point, you know?

This is assistance with what are called the activities of daily living, bathing, getting dressed, eating, getting in and out of bed, long-term care can be provided in your home obviously by family members or paid help you bring in. It can be provided in an assisted living facility, adult daycare centers, memory care facilities, and skilled nursing and so it doesn’t necessarily mean a nursing home, which is a lot of people assume, you know?

Their parents might say, “Don’t ever put me in a home, don’t put me in a nursing home” and I encourage people if your parents say that to you to not make that promise, to not say, “I promise.” I think the better strategy is to say, “You know, I understand that the idea of going into a nursing home seems really scary. Let’s talk about what sort of care you would want if you need care. Where do you want to receive care?”

Most likely, they’re going to say in their home because that’s where most people want to receive care and then you say, “Okay, well, if you want to stay in your home, let’s think about whether your home is set up for you to age and place. You know, Mom and Dad, you got a two-story house. Your bedroom is on the second floor. You have a bathtub that you have to step into to take a shower.”

“Maybe it would be a good idea to start thinking about downsizing to a smaller home with a bedroom on the first floor and an accessible shower with a smaller yard or no yard, a house that requires less maintenance. If we can start putting these plans in place now, then you can stay in your home” and you know, “Do you have a way to pay for someone to come in and provide care? I want to be able to help you in any way possible, however, I have a job.”

“I have kids, I might not be able to take time off my job or to quit my job to provide care for you. You know, I’m going to do whatever I can to help you but let’s make sure there’s a way to pay for professional care” and maybe Dad says, “Well, you know mom is going to take care of me.” “Dad, can Mom take care of you if you’re both in your 80s? Can she get you up and down the stairs? Can she get you in and out of bed?”

“Can mom really do this? Does she have the physical and emotional strength to do it?” People don’t think about these things because honestly, it’s depressing. It is but if you make a plan, you have more options available to you. If you wait until that emergency again, you know, you can’t get long-term care insurance once you already need it. That has to be in place, you have to buy long-term care insurance.

You can get it in your 50s, your early 60s as long as you’re still healthy. You know maybe, they don’t like the idea of paying for long-term care insurance because they might never need it. There are now these hybrid life insurance products that include a long-term care benefit, maybe they have whole life insurance that has accrued cash value and so they can tap into that cash value of their life insurance.

Maybe it’s a reverse mortgage, maybe they have enough retirement savings to cover the cost of care but you want to talk to your parents about what sort of resources they have and it is really important to discuss who is going to provide that care and to gently make them aware that they might not be able to rely solely on family to provide that care.

[0:29:44.5] TU: Yeah and as you articulate it so well, I mean, there’s all of these financial considerations but there’s the emotional consideration inside of this as well and I think that’s the piece that often gets overlooked, especially with family caregivers. You know, I’ve seen this right now of my grandmother where certainly, the family’s involved but it’s gotten to a point where she needs daily around-the-clock professional help with the home.

And while that’s been very beneficial and in fact, if it’s very, very expensive and it also provides a different dynamic, you know? In terms of obviously, you got different people coming into a home, it’s not the family that’s taking care of her at certain times, and so there’s just so much to consider here and I think more and more reason to have these open conversations as soon as possible, right?

Before the event comes to be and this becomes even more challenging and more emotional and I think as with many things in life, right? The path to peace of mind and the path to feeling good about the outcome and solution is through the difficult conversations and so I think just huge credit to you Cameron and the work that you’re doing, not only through your book but through your newsletter, your blog, and the impact that you’re having on such an important topic.

I’m so grateful for your time and the contributions that you have made to our community, which I know is going to be inspiring in their own journeys to make sure that they’re taking action on this topic. As we wrap up, Cameron, what is the best place in addition to folks getting a copy of the book, Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk, what’s the best place for our listeners to go to connect with you and to follow your work?

[0:31:13.1] CH: My website is cameronhuddleston.com and so as I mentioned, I’ve got that free downloadable “in case of emergency” organizer. I’ve got a couple of other resources there. Another good place is to follow me on Instagram. If you’re on Instagram, it’s Cameron K. Huddleston. I share a lot of tips on financial caregiving, having these family money conversations.

[0:31:38.5] TU: Great, we will link to both of those in the show notes and thank you again so much for taking time to come on the show.

[0:31:44.9] CH: Of course, thanks for having me.

[DISCLAIMER]

[0:31:46.7] TU: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and it is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information on the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

Furthermore, the information contained in our archived newsletters, blog post, and podcast is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist unless otherwise noted and constitute judgments as of the dates published. Such information may contain forward-looking statements, which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer.

Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

[END]

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YFP 318: Midyear Tax Planning and Projections

Posted on July 27, 2023July 25, 2023 by Caitlin Boyle

YFP Director of Tax, Sean Richards, CPA, EA digs into what midyear tax projections are, why they matter, and specific examples where a midyear projection can help someone optimize their financial situation. We discuss the importance of adjusting withholdings, ensuring record keeping is up to date, common pitfalls business owners and side hustlers can avoid with a projection and tax considerations with student loan payments coming back online.

Episode Summary

YFP Director of Tax, Sean Richards, CPA, EA is here to explain the incredible benefits of doing a midyear tax projection. Sean defines a midyear projection, illustrates how projections can lead to peace of mind, and clarifies why everyone should be doing their own midyear projections. Our conversation explores why being proactive is always better than being reactive, why proactive planning is necessary when making big life changes like getting married or buying property, or getting a new job, and a host of real-world examples that highlight the undeniable benefits of midyear projections. Plus, Sean describes how midyear projections can help with tax optimization and strategies for student loan repayments, and the wealth of opportunities that become available to business owners who embrace proactive planning.

Key Points From the Episode

A warm welcome back to the show to YFP Director of Tax, Sean Richards.
How he’s spending his free time post-tax season as a father of two under two.
Sean explains what a midyear projection is.
How projections can lead to peace of mind.
Why everyone should be doing a midyear projection for themselves, according to Sean.
Real-world examples of the benefits of doing a mid-year projection.
How being proactive is better than being reactive.
Why proactive planning is a necessity when making big life changes like buying property.
The role of midyear projections in tax optimization.
Exploring the opportunities available for business owners who do midyear projections.
How a midyear projection can help you optimize your student loan repayment strategy.

Episode Highlights

“A lot of people get stressed out about taxes, and I don’t blame them — when you’re in high school, you learn that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, but they don’t teach you how to file your taxes and do basic finance things.” — Sean Richards [04:52]

“At the very minimum, anybody who’s paying taxes and has a job and has to file a tax return at the end of the year should be doing some level of projecting the end of the year, to make sure that there’s no crazy surprises.” — Sean Richards [09:27]

“To the extent [that] you can mirror your tax strategy with your financial plan; it’s always just the best way to do things.” — Sean Richards [34:25]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

EPISODE 318

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00] TU: Hey, everybody. Tim Ulbrich here, and welcome to this week’s episode of the YFP Podcast, where we strive to inspire and encourage you on your path towards achieving financial freedom.

This week, I welcome back to the show, YFP Director of Tax, Sean Richards. We discuss mid-year tax projections, what they are, why they matter, and specific examples for how a mid-year projection can help someone optimize their tax situation. We discuss the importance of adjusting withholdings, ensuring record keeping is up-to-date, common pitfalls that business owners and side hustlers can avoid with a projection, and tax considerations with student loan payments coming back online in a couple of months.

You can learn more about YFP tax services for both individuals and businesses, by visiting yfptax.com. Again, that’s yfptax.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:00:50] TU: Sean, welcome back to the show.

[0:00:52] SR: Thank you. It feels like I was just here, but it also feels like it was just tax season yesterday. So I think things are all sort of blending together at this point, which is understandable given the rush of everything, and now that we’re in summer and all these other stuff going on, but I love being here. I appreciate you having me back on.

[0:01:08] TU: So, we’re post-tax season, you’ve got a new baby in the house, we’re gearing up for mid-year projections, which we’re going to talk about in this show. You should have ton of free time right now, right?

[0:01:19] SR: Yes. I really haven’t been doing a whole lot of anything, just kicking back on the couch, and kind of watching a lot of TV and stuff. It’s baseball season, so you get these games that you can just sort of put on the background and sleep all day. That’s basically what I’ve been doing. Yes, nothing really going on at work, at home with the new baby, and the other baby who’s under two. Two under two right now, so yes, a lot of free time. So if you’ve got anything for me to work on, please send it over.

[0:01:45] TU: I’ll keep that in mind. Two under two is intense. Yes, I remember, I shared with you our oldest two are separated by 17 months, and our other two are a little bit further spaced out. Two under two is the real deal, so kudos to you and your wife for making that happen. As you were talking about yesterday, I can remember very well. All of a sudden, baby comes in and your oldest, who still is relatively young looks much older all of a sudden, right?

[0:02:11] SR: Yes, she does look much older. But she also – and I swear it’s not just a comparison of or – I shouldn’t say the comparison, but now, we have a little one at home, so she seems older. But I swear, overnight, she went from being one and a half to being two and getting those terrible twos right in there. Because, man, it’s like you said, it’s intense. But it’s really exciting, it’s awesome. I mean, I couldn’t be happier with everything. But it definitely – it’s exciting challenge what I would say for sure.

[0:02:38] TU: Well, last time we had you on was Episode 309. We talked about the top 10 tax blunders that pharmacists make. That was coming off of the tax season. Here we are, end of July, people may not be thinking about taxes in the middle and dead of the summer, but we’re going to hopefully make a case of why tax is important to consider not just in tax season, not just in December, but really year-round. That’s our philosophy, our belief at YFP Tax, that tax planning, especially for those that have more complicated situations, when done well, is exactly that. We’re doing year-round planning, we’re proactive, we’re not as reactive. We’re going to talk about an important piece of that year-round approach, which is the mid-year projection today.

Before we discuss that midyear projection and some of the details and reasons of doing that, Sean, just define at a high level by what we mean by that term, right? We throw that around internally all the time, mid-year projection. All of our listeners certainly are familiar, hopefully, with filing taxes, but maybe not as familiar have experienced with a mid-year projection, so tell us more.

[0:03:42] SR: Yes. I mean, it really is. I mean, if you look at what it says, it’s a projection, right? You’re projecting out what you expect to have at the end of the year. Really what it is, is kind of like putting together your tax return now based on what you think it’s going to be at the end of the year. Obviously, there’s some variables there and some uncertainty with everything, as it always is with forecasting, and budgeting, and that sort of thing. That being said, given that there are uncertainties, there are things that you want to keep an eye on. So, yes, it’s really just doing a projection of your finances for the year, and really coming down to what we think your tax return is going to look like. Are you going to have a bill? Are you going to have a refund or not? Then, looking at that and working backwards to say, “What can we do to tweak things?”

[0:04:29] TU: If we go a layer deeper on that, Sean, why do one? What’s the case to have one done? What’s ultimately the goal that we’re shooting for here?

[0:04:38] SR: I think the goal, and I mean, you kind of alluded to before saying, people probably aren’t thinking about taxes right now, and that’s totally fair. I don’t expect people to be thinking about taxes right now, unless you’re maybe me or somebody in similar shoes as me. But, I mean, the goal is that a lot of people get stressed out about taxes, and I don’t blame them. It’s one of those things where I joke that when you’re in high school, you learn that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, but they don’t teach you how to file your taxes, and do basic finance things, right?

What generally happens is, you’re kind of – I don’t want to say sweeping things under the rug, but you’re not thinking about taxes, or it’s not top of mind throughout the course of the year. Then you get to the end of the year, and you’re doing your return. It’s all looked back, all historical. There’s not much you can do at that point, right? So if you’re filing your return next year, for this year, and you have a big refund, it’s nice to have a refund, but you’ve got all this cash all the sudden that you could have been doing stuff with last year or vice versa. You get to the end of next year, or the end of this year, you’re filing next year, and you have a huge bill.

Whether you have the cash ready to pay it or not, it’s nothing that anybody wants to have, right? The idea of doing the projection now is that you’re not getting to a point where you’re stressed out, thinking what could have been, what should have been last year. You’re getting ahead of those things and saying, “Hey, right now, things look great. Don’t have to do anything, or things don’t look as good as they could be. Let’s tweak that.” Or maybe not even any of those. It’s just, “Hey, right now, we have status quo, but there’s some things that are changing in my life. I have a new job, or I’m thinking about opening up a rental property, or something.” And making sure you have those ideas in your head now as opposed to, again, in April and handing it to your accountant saying, “I forgot to mention, I bought that house last year. Oops.”

[0:06:30] TU: Yes. I think with most things, and we’ll talk about some specific examples here. But most things when we shift to more proactive planning versus reactive, and obviously, for those that have more complicated situations, the more the proactive planning is going to help, and we’ll talk about that in more detail as well. But anytime we make that mindset shift, there’s an opportunity for peace of mind as well, right?

I think a lot of people I talked to, Sean, when I say, “Hey, what are the opportunities? Are you thinking about opportunities to really optimize tax as a part of your financial plan?” Everyone’s like, “Yes, I want to do that. I want to make sure that I’m paying my fair share, but no more.” But then actually, executing on that. It’s like this cloud of not exactly sure what to do, how to best navigate it. I think that is the opportunity with the year-round planning. Ideally, we’ll make the case of why it’s important to have a CPA in your corner throughout the year as well. But I think that peace of mind part is just such an important piece, especially for many pharmacists, I know that have this lingering question of like, “Am I doing everything that I can?”

There’s the cleanup part where maybe we’ve made mistakes, or we don’t want to have a big bill or refund, but then there’s the second layer of that, which is that nagging feeling of like, is there something else I could be doing? I think that’s one of the values of projection.

[0:07:49] SR: Yes. I mean, the peace of mind thing, like you said, is that I feel like going back to the whole high school idea of how they don’t teach these things to a lot of folks. I remember getting my first job out of college, and I had an accounting, and finance, and even tax background from college. You start getting these things, “Hey, do you want to do an HSA? Do you want to do 401(k)?” There’s ROTH and traditional, there’s IRAs, and everything, and people are like, “I don’t know what any of this stuff is. I’m just – I’m getting a nice paycheck for the first time now. I know I want to save, but I don’t know what any of this stuff means.” It becomes overwhelming to have all these things happen.

Like you said, you don’t want to come to the end of the year and say, I wish I had done these things. Because I didn’t know that that – there were opportunities for me to save here and there. I just thought that I was doing the right thing by putting my money in this savings account or in this account. So yes, I think, again, the uncertainty, and just sort of lack of general tax knowledge in the country, and world can be stressful, and not having to worry about that is very important for peace of mind in general sanity.

[0:08:55] TU: To be fair, the process is more complicated than it probably needs to be. And because of those complications, there’s some of the ownership and work on us to be planning throughout the year. One of that part piece, of course, would be the mid-year projection. Sean, I have to admit, prior to really building our tax team over the last several years, a mid-year projection was something that was never on my radar. My question for you is, should everyone do a mid-year projection? Is this necessary for everyone?

[0:09:26] SR: I think it is. I think at the very minimum, anybody who’s paying taxes, and has a job, and has to file a tax return at the end of the year should be doing some level of projecting the end of the year to make sure that there’s no crazy surprises. You might be listening to this and saying, “Hey, my situation is really simple. I filled out my W-4 when I started my job. I don’t have any crazy stuff going on. I don’t think I really need to do this.” But again, we keep coming back to this peace of mind thing and that could be great. Maybe your return last year was fine, and there’s not a lot of stuff that’s changing, but there’s always changes to the tax law. I mean, the W-4 system changes all the time, and I know it’s not – people don’t even realize, “Hey, can I claim one or two exemptions?” That’s not how it works anymore.

There’s always changes to the law, and changes to things going on. Even if you think your situation is pretty simple, and doesn’t apply to you, just doing a quick check to make sure, “Hey, there’s not going to be any crazy surprises.” Again, with something like that, you’re not necessarily going to be saying, “Oh, am I taking advantage of all the laws that exist out there, and all the different ways to maximize my tax savings?” But you just want to make sure. “Hey, am I going to owe a ton of money to the IRS at the end of the year? Or am I going to get a ton of money back that the government was borrowing for me for free for the entire year?” What I would say is, if your situation is simple, you can even just go on the W-4 calculator that the IRS provides. It’s not perfect, please. No one from the agency come and chase me down. It’s not a perfect system, and there’s a couple of different things that can happen there.

You might go through the whole process and get a bad answer, and then say, “Well, what am I supposed to do with this? It just says that I’m going to owe a lot of money, but I don’t know how to fix that.” Or you might just use the tool, and like I was alluding to, you might just get frustrated with it and say, “Why all these questions they’re asking me? I don’t understand any of this stuff. Why is it so complicated?” It is a good starting point, I would say, especially for those with simple situations. But I would just advise to be wary when you’re doing it that. It’s not a perfect system, and it definitely can be a little confusing.

[0:11:34] TU: Yes, and I’ll be honest. Admittedly, I’m a little bit impatient, and want these tools to always be better than they are. I’ve been on the IRS W-4 calculator tools, and I’ve gotten annoyed, frustrated playing with that, and I’ve left. I think the decision tree to your point, for people that have a very simple tax situation, can they do it themselves? The technical answer is yes, there’s an IRS calculator. It’s going to give you some basic information. The follow-up question is, do you want to do it yourself? Then the follow-up question to that is, if you have a more complicated situation, and/or you’re looking for more input of advice based on the output of that number, that’s really where some of the assistance and help that can come in from working with professionals.

We’ll link to the show notes to the IRS W-4 calculator. Certainly, people can play around with that, which I’d recommend regardless of working with someone else. Just have a better understanding of the different inputs in these numbers, and hopefully to get the conversation started as well.

[0:12:33] SR: Yes, absolutely.

[0:12:34] TU: Let’s talk about some common examples where a mid-year projection can help. You’re in these conversations every week with our year-round tax planning clients. We talked about several these in Episode 309. Again, we’ll link to that in the show notes. That was a top 10 tax blunders that we see pharmacists making, which we recorded after the tax season. But I think there’s an opportunity here really to bring to life, not just the academic or theoretical side of why a video projection may be necessary, or what it is, but some actual examples where a mid-year projection can help. I’ll turn it over to you to talk through some of the most common places where you see this having value.

[0:13:11] SR: Yes, sure. I would say, the number one thing probably is just adjusting withholdings in a very – to put it in two words, it’s adjusting your withholdings, or adjusting withholdings, get rid of the “your” and “there.” But I swear I’m better at math than I lead on when I do these things. But yes, it’s adjusting withholdings. Like I said, the W-4 system changed a few years ago. Some people don’t even realize that. Some people probably set up their withholdings 20 years ago, and they started a job, and haven’t done anything since then. That might work for some folks, but the way that the W-4 holdings works now with the IRS is, if you get a new job, or your spouse gets a new job, or you have changes in salary, and everything, your withholdings might not be working the way that they did in the past.

You can also have other life events that sort of throw a wrench into that. You can get married, have kids. Even if you are married, you can kind of consider, and we’ll talk more about this when we get into some of the other blunders, but consider whether you’re going to file separately or file jointly. That changes the way you do withholdings and everything. That’s probably the number one area. Like I said, not withholding properly at the end of the year is almost certainly going to cause a problem whether it’s you’re over withholding, and you’re getting that big refund back, or you’re under withholding and you have a big bill.

The biggest and easiest way to kind of course correct. If we do a projection and we see that that’s the case, submit your W-4 to your employer, all of a sudden, you’re withholding appropriately. We can do a catch up to get you to where you need to be, or make an estimated payment or something like that. But I would say that’s the number one thing, and it sort of encapsulates everything else. Not entirely, but just because holding down a W-2 job and getting the taxes taken out of your paycheck is the way that most folks are paying the IRS. I would say, that’s probably the biggest one.

[0:15:04] TU: Let me jump in real quick, Sean, before you move on to other common examples, because that one is so common. I just want to highlight, when you think about the situations where withholding adjustments are necessary, you mentioned individuals getting married, and need dependents, I think about people that are moving different locations. They’re buying homes, new job, changes in income. These are things we see all the time. The key here is, we want to give ourselves as much time as possible to make a pivot, or a change on either side of this. We find out that, “Hey, because of X, Y and Z, we’re anticipating a big refund. All right. Let’s start making some adjustments, so we can put that money to work in other parts of the financial planning.”

We find out that we’re going to have a big liability due. Well, we just bought ourselves some more time to kind of budget, and plan before that payment is going to become due, and to make those adjustments. That’s so important, because this is the phase of life where we least want a surprise, right, especially on the O side of things, right? Getting married, moving, new job, new house, expenses that come with that. We want to avoid as much as possible, the surprises that are going to put a wrench in the other part of the financial plan.

I think withholdings, adjusting withholdings, we all are familiar with. You take a new job, you fill out the paperwork, but I think we can lose track of that throughout the year, or when those job changes aren’t happening. Just wanted to drive that home further.

[0:16:26] SR: The two things I would add to that are also – the big thing is that people are always excited about getting their refunds, right? If you get a big refund back, it’s cool. It’s almost like you found the $20 bill in your pocket, and went to the washing machine that you didn’t know about. But would you rather find out about a refund in April and get the cash back now, or find out now that you’re going to be getting that refund back, and then be able to actually put that in a savings account, or deploy it somewhere where you can get a return on it, as opposed to getting that cash back in a few months with nothing, right? It’s like a net present value sort of thing to borrow finance term. But would you rather get $10,000 in six months or $10,000 now? The answer is now, right?

[0:17:09] TU: Especially with where interest rates are on high-yield savings accounts and other things.

[0:17:12] SR: Exactly. I mean, any way that you can get a little bit of extra cash now as opposed to tomorrow, or anytime in the future, it’s better. Then the other thing that I would say, I keep going back to the whole W-4 withholding thing, is that you might be perfectly fine at your job and nothing has changed. When I say perfectly fine, status quo, right? You’re working the same job, standard raises every year, nothing crazy going on. But with the way the W-4 systems work now, if your spouse goes and gets a new job, and they update their W-4, but you don’t do anything on your end, that can mess things up. People don’t realize that. They’re thinking, “Hey. You go and claim the exemptions that you’ve always claimed in the past.” We have one kid, or two kids, or whatever it is, but that’s not the way it works anymore.

Even if it’s not you that’s had changes to your life, specifically, you have to think about your entire family and everybody who’s landing on that tax return at the end of the day. That’s one thing that definitely slipped some folks minds, I would say.

[0:18:05] TU: Great stuff. So just withholdings, I’m hearing you loud and clear, probably the most common thing that we see. It’s one of those things that big impact, but not a huge amount of work to be done to make this pivot. That’s a low hanging fruit. Talk us through other common examples where a mid-year projection can really help.

[0:18:24] SR: One good one is, this is another kind of, “Hey, this comes up every year with tax and filing is record keeping.” So we get to the end of the year, you purchased a rental property, and you’re excited about it, you’re getting some cash and everything. And now it’s time to file taxes. Instead of just your typical, “Hey, Sean, or Mr. CPA, here’s my W-2, and here’s my 10-99, and I’m good to go.” You have a rental property now. There’s a lot of things that need to go into something like that. You might not be thinking about some of the ins and outs that happen with that. I mean, if you have improvements to your property, those are treated differently than if you have electricity costs that go into your property. There’s a lot of different things that people don’t think about.

It’s not even that people don’t think about it, you don’t want to be scrambling at the end of the year to say, “Ah, I got to go get all those receipts, and get all my finances together and all that stuff, and try to get pulled all together when everybody’s trying to all do the same thing.” The extent you can get ahead of that now is great, obviously from a getting your ducks in a row and helping your CPA out at the end of the year. But also, going back to this whole idea of what am I going to owe at the end of the year? If you’re able to come to me or whoever you’re working with and say, “Hey, here’s the settlement statement for the house that I just bought. Here’s all the details. Here are all the closing costs and everything. Can you build that into my projection?”

The answer is absolutely yes. I’ll run that through and see what your rental is going to look like for the year or anything. It doesn’t have to be a rental property. You can be starting a side business, or doing anything like that. But just having this stuff together gets you ready for the end of the year, but also allows us to be able to, again, do those calculations to say, “Hey, you know, that rental that you built, or that you just bought, and you just did that big addition on? Well, that’s going to save you in depreciation this year, so you’re going to get a refund back. Let’s redeploy that cash.” Maybe you put it back into the rental property, I don’t know. But now we have the opportunity to do something with it.

[0:20:27] TU: I’m so glad you mentioned this one, because we are seeing a larger and larger part of our community that’s jumping into real estate investing. We’re seeing a larger percentage of our community that’s jumping into a side hustle or a business. Just so important, and we’ll talk about other things for business owners here in a moment to consider. But what we’re trying to avoid – not that this ever happened, Sean. But we’re trying to avoid is, hey, we get to tax filing, and you ask for the information come February and March. It’s like, “Oh, yes. By the way, I bought a rental property eight months ago. Can you figure this out right for me tomorrow?” Again, proactive planning.

[0:21:05] SR: Now, that example, “Hey, I bought a rental property last year, I forgot to mention it to you.” People might be rolling their eyes saying, “Okay. Well, if you work with an accountant, who is not going to tell their account about their rental property?” Sure, that’s totally – that might be unrealistic to some folks, I get it. But we’ve seen plenty of circumstances where folks have been, say, living in their house for 20 years. They decide, I’m going to rent out a couple rooms in the house this time for the first time. Hey, that’s awesome. Get some side income, be able to write off some of the expenses. It’s great. You’ve been living in this house for 20 years. We need to start taking depreciation on this house for rental, we need all the costs for the last 20 years that you put into that thing.

I mean, I know now some people might be sweating saying, oh, boy, that’s a lot of look back, right? But it’s something that’s going to need to get done anyway, so we rather get ahead of it now or have me looking for that in April, right?

[0:21:55] TU: Yes, good stuff.

[0:21:56] SR: A little bit of a different example there. But hopefully trying to get some people thinking about things.

[0:22:01] TU: Yes. I think, just a proactive, when people are starting, I’m thinking about a lot of individuals in our community that are new real estate investors, first property. So I’m not sure, number one thing on their mind, especially if they’re not yet working with an accountant would be thinking about a lot of the record keeping and get ahead of the proactive tax planning. Now, if they’ve worked with an accountant, or they are multiple properties in, different situation, the trigger goes off. Similar if you’ve been in business for a while, the light bulbs go off more often, like, “Oh, yes. I got to talk to the accountant about this.”

What about opportunities for tax optimization? One of the things I think about with a mid-year projection is, “Hey, we’ve got an opportunity.” Again, proactive not reactive, to really look ahead and say, “Hey, there are the things that we can be doing to pay our fair share, but no more, and optimize their overall tax situation.” Tell us more here.

[0:22:51] SR: Yes, and this one’s good, because it applies to everybody in a very broad spectrum of things, depending on what you have going on in your financial life. That could be something where it’s as simple as, “Hey, I’m working a W-2 job, my spouse is working a W-2 job, we don’t have any kids, nothing else really going on. What can we do to optimize our taxes given our situation?” That’s a perfect example of where it’s an awesome time for your accountant and your financial planner to sort of work together. Because there’s always the idea of, “Hey, we want to maximize our tax savings, but we have a life. We need to be able to have cash to pay our bills and do other things too.” It’s a very delicate balancing act of, “I want to maximize my tax savings, but at the same time, have enough cash to do all the things that I need to do.” It’s a perfect time to work with both your accountant and financial planner to say, “Hey, should I put more money into my HSA? Should I put money into a 529 plan? What kind of thing should I be doing with my extra cash? That opportunity cost of $1?”

But you can also have more, I say, more fun examples, because it’s the ones where you can really think about different opportunities that are out there, and how to take advantage of these laws. An example of that would be, say you have a side business, and you need to buy a new vehicle. There’s so many different things that you can do with that. I could spend an hour maybe. We’ll have a separate podcast on buying a vehicle in the active locations of doing so. I mean, get side business. Hey, how much are you going to be using this thing for business? Are we able to take a section 179 deduction? Is it a type of vehicle that would qualify for something like that?

We have all these new EV credits with the inflation Reduction Act. Are we going to be able to take advantage of all those? What if we use it for business? Can we still take the credits and everything? That might be a little bit of a nuanced example to some folks, but it’s a perfect example in my mind of how something that is, maybe on a day-to-day thing that happens. But something that purchase that folks are going to need to make in their life, most likely. You can really use that as an opportunity to say, “Hey, I got to do this anyway.” How can I also maximize my tax savings at the end of the day, when you’re sitting in a car dealership, and the people are trying to sell you on all these different tools, and upgrades, and everything. You’re probably not thinking, “Hmm. I wonder if I can save my taxes with this purchase?” But it’s always possible.

[0:25:15] TU: I’m going to give credit to our community. I think they are asking that question, Sean.

[0:25:18] SR: They are, for sure. I’m getting that one a lot. In fact, I would be – I challenge you to find another community that’s as interested in the EV craze right now, which is awesome, I have to say. Really, folks should be looking more and more into that, because of those credits I just mentioned. They’re just every year getting better. But yes, I love it. I mean, every year I’m seeing more folks buying EVs, or buying used EVs and getting the credit now. It’s good stuff.

[0:25:46] TU: So, as we continue talking about some of these common examples where mid-year projection can help the other one that I think about, Sean, that we’re seeing a lot more of is, business owners, especially new business owners, right? Maybe they are thinking about tax considerations, withholdings, making sure they’re making quarterly estimated payments if they have to. What’s the opportunities here with the business owners as it relates to the mid-year?

[0:26:11] SR: Well, this is where I say, take all the examples I was just giving you, and throw them out the window. Not exactly, but when I was talking about how adjusting your withholdings is such an important part of this entire thing – I shouldn’t say throw out the window, because they do definitely go hand in hand. But if you’re a business owner, you have a side gig, you’re making money doing that, you’re almost certainly not getting W-2 income from that job. Or I shouldn’t say, you’re almost certainly not, but there’s a good chance you’re getting income from that business that is not having taxes withheld on it.

That is probably the number two or number one and a half blunder that we see where folks have these businesses. They’re not setting aside cash. They get to the end of the year, and are excited to give me the P&L that shows, “Hey, look at all this money I made.” Then I say, “That’s awesome. You owe some money in taxes, do you have that ready to go?” And it’s like, “Oh, I wasn’t thinking about that.” It goes hand in hand with the withholding, but it’s really just hey, let’s look at the business right now. Where are we mid-year? What’s your P&L look like to date? What kind of expenses do we have coming up for the rest of the year?

I talked about these EVs and things. How can we think about maximizing your savings there to reduce your business income, and be able to say, “All right. Well, at the end of the year, we’re expecting that we’re going to have $10,000 in business income.” Being able to say that now, and make your estimated payments up to the IRS is not only a good thing, it’s actually what you’re required to do per the law, right? That’s where I would say that a projection isn’t a nice to have, but an absolute necessity if you’re a business owner. It’s something where you can’t really say, “Hey, I’ll think about this later, or let’s just hope the chips fall in a good spot.” You really need to be doing a projection now to say, “What am I going to owe? Do I need to pay estimated taxes now? Should I have been making estimated quarterly payments up until now? Maybe I need to do a little catch up to hopefully not have a penalty at the end of the year at this point?” But again, to any extent you’re able to get ahead of that now, when I’m looking at the calendar, it says July versus December, January, April, it’s always better.

[0:28:25] TU: Yes. Especially, Sean, think about those new business owners again. Where, often, there’s excitement around the growth, there’s a reinvesting of any of the profits that tried to continue to grow the business. If we can identify some of this mid-year, sometimes that even inform some of the business strategy of like, “Hey, are we charging appropriately? What’s the service model look like?” And making sure that accounting for taxes as I look at the bottom line, and making sure we’ve got cash on hand to do these other things, and of course, not being caught off guard as you mentioned, as well.

[0:28:59] SR: Yes. To give – I don’t want to say a very specific example, because it’s something that we see very, very often. It might seem specific to some folks, but I think a lot of people here will resonate with this. But big one is, business owners, especially first-time business owners paying themselves. A lot of folks will do that, and then they’re maintaining their records and saying, “Hey, my net income is going to be pretty low at the end of the year, so I don’t have to worry about estimated taxes or anything like that.”

Then, we get to the end of the year, you provide your P&L, and I say – actually those $10,000 that you paid yourself, it’s not really a salary expense of the business, because it’s just a sole proprietorship. It’s actually just taxable income to you whether you took the cash or not. That can be very eye opening in a bad way for a lot of folks at the end of the year. It’s not entirely intuitive to think of it that way. You might be thinking, “Well, I worked with the business, I’m paying myself. Isn’t that an expense?” In the eyes of the IRS, depending on the way you’re set your setup, it may or may not be right. Getting ahead of that now and having your accountant maybe give you that bad news of, “Hey, that money is actually something you’d have to pay taxes on the end of the year now so you can plan ahead.” — Is always better than getting that during your tax review meeting in April or May

[0:30:14] TU: Yes, and I get it. For the small business owners, we were there several years ago. For the small business owners that are just getting started, you’re looking at working with a CPA, it’s another expense in the business. I get it, right, but it’s going to pay dividends when you talk about making sure you’ve got the right entity set up classification, separate conversation for a separate day. Making sure we’re withholding correctly, getting financial statements set up correctly, making sure that we’ve got the books in good order. These are all going to be critical components to building a healthy business. You’re not going to get all of it right as you’re getting started, and that’s okay. I think some of that is natural. But making that investment, and building that in as an expense of the business from Jump Street as a part of just doing business to make sure you’ve got all of that in order is going to be really, really important.

[0:31:05] SR: Right. It’s not just a nice to have, like I said, it’s something where that should be part of your plan from the get go, and you’re building this out. People might be thinking about, well, “Hey, isn’t this podcast supposed to be about doing a mid-year projection? Why are we talking about what my business looks like? That’s kind of different than my taxes, right?” But like I said in the beginning when I was explaining what a projection is, you’re really just basically doing your tax return for the end of the year with the information that you have on hand. One of the lines right there is, “Hey, what’s your business income?” If you want to do a correct projection for your taxes, you’re going to actually have to do a projection for your business as well. Even though it might seem like it’s going a little bit too far, or you might not be able to connect those dots there, it’s something that it’s absolutely intertwined and something that you need to do for sure.

[0:31:51] TU: Last but certainly not least on our list. What would be a YFP episode if we didn’t talk about student loans? We’ve got student loans coming back online here in a couple months. A lot of questions that are coming up related to the restart of those payments. We’ve talked at length before about how tax and student loans can certainly be intertwined, depending on one’s loan repayment strategy. What is the value or potential value here, Sean, for someone that’s optimizing, or looking to optimize your student loan repayment strategy, and where the mid-year projection can play a role?

[0:32:24] SR: Yes, I can’t take any paternity leave anymore. Because when I do, it seems like they announced all these student loan changes, and everybody’s all excited and wants to talk to their CPA, and I’m sleeping on the couch with the kids and everything. So lesson learned there. But yes, absolutely. This is another example that I would say is a perfect example of where mirroring your tax strategy and working with a financial planner, or whoever manages the finances in your household and does the budgeting and everything is absolutely instrumental in making all this work together.

Yes. I mean, with student loans, there’s a lot of different things that can happen there. People have been asking me about, “Hey, so I’ve heard that you can file separately, or file jointly, or do these different things to maximize, or I should say, maximize savings, minimize my loan payments, or my spouse’s loan payments.” Yes. I mean, that is something that you can make that decision when you’re doing taxes to say, “Hey, am I going to file separately or am I going to file jointly?” But it all goes back to that idea of withholding and making sure that you were know how that works. Most of our clients who aren’t doing the student loan thing that are married, generally, are filing jointly. That’s what you’re told from the get go, right? “Hey, you get married, you file jointly, you get all the benefits of doing it, it’s the best way to do things.”

For someone to come and tell you, “Hey, actually, going forward, filing separately might be better for you.” Not only is that shocking for some folks to hear or like a complete change of what they’ve been told throughout the course of their life, but it also changes how they need to do withholdings and how they need to think about credits that they might have, whose return is that going to land on, and just one spouse withholds a little extra and recognize at the end of the year, they might get a refund that offsets their spouses tax bill or something like that.

There’s a lot of things that you want to make sure that again, even though you think that might be something you can make that call at the end of the year, just given all the different stuff going on with the loans, being on top of that now, and trying to minimize those surprises is always a better thing to do. To the extent you can mirror your tax strategy with your financial plan, it’s always just the best way to do things.

[0:34:31] TU: Great stuff. As always, Sean, as we wrap up this episode talking about the mid-year projection and the role it can play in some of the areas where it can effectively be utilized. Let me encourage folks to check out the resources and services that we have available, yfptax.com. We’ll link to that in the show notes. We have individual year-round tax planning led by Sean. As well as for those that do own a business, bookkeeping to fractional CFO, as well as some of the business tax planning that’s associated with that. Again, yfptax.com, you can learn more, you can schedule a call with Sean as a discovery call to learn more about that service, and whether or not that’s a good fit. Sean, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

[0:35:13] SR: Thanks, Tim. Talk to you soon.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:35:15] TU: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

Furthermore, the information contained in our archive, newsletters, blog post, and podcast is not updated and may not be accurate at the time you listen to it on the podcast. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of your financial pharmacist unless otherwise noted, and constitute judgments as of the dates publish. Such information may contain forward-looking statements, which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements.

For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer. Thank you again for your support of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

[END]

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YFP 317: YFP Planning Case Study #7: Balancing Student Loans, a Wedding, Home Buying, & Saving for Retirement

Posted on July 20, 2023July 19, 2023 by Tim U

The team at YFP Planning discusses a case study that includes balancing student loans, a wedding, home buying, and saving for retirement.

Episode Summary

Welcome to our seventh installment of the case study series with Tim Baker, CFP®, RLP®, Kelly Reddy-Heffner, CFP®, CSLP®, CDFA®, and Angel Melgoza, MS CFP®. During this episode, we are sharing a fictitious case study with you about an engaged couple in their 20s. We delve into their finances, expenses, and their goals before discussing their assets, savings, investments, liabilities, and debt. Angel and Kelly discuss why they would tackle student loans before anything else in this couple’s financial plan, how recent changes announced to student loans will impact their loan repayment strategy, how marriage, children, and other big life events affect financial planning, and the importance of emergency funds and savings. Finally, we talk about why wealth protection is so important and why we see clients struggle with that the most.

Key Points From the Episode

A warm welcome to today’s guests, Kelly Reddy-Heffner and Angel Melgoza.
Some details of the fictitious case study we will be discussing today.
The first thing they would tackle with regards to this fictitious case study.
How Biden’s bid to forgive some loans will affect the power of PSLF.
How financial planners work with clients on massive life events such as marriage and children.
The importance of having an established emergency fund and focusing on savings.
Why clients struggle most with wealth protection and why it’s imperative.

Episode Highlights

“Figuring out a strategy is key to the plan.” — Angel Melgoza [0:11:48]

“Our clients need cash flow because – the goal is to pay off – the loans – sooner rather than later.” — Angel Melgoza [0:11:58]

“Clients do need to be candid about their goals and one of our objectives is to help clients do what they want to do within those realistic [goals].” — Kelly Reddy-Heffner [0:24:09]

“Layers of life typically influence how much [wealth] protection is needed and how comfortable you feel with what you have.” — Kelly Reddy-Heffner [0:30:36]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Episode Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:00.4] NH: What is up everyone? Welcome to our seventh installment of our case study series. I am joined by Angel Melgoza and Kelly Reddy-Heffner. Guys welcome back. We have a great case study to talk about today. How is everything going? Angel, Kelly, what’s going on in your worlds?

[INTERVIEW]

[0:00:18.2] AM: Trying to keep up with the heat, trying to stay cool here in Texas. We’ve hit triple digits though, making sure my AC is still working.

[0:00:25.9] NH: How about you, Kelly?

[0:00:27.5] KRH: Yes. I know, what’s up with all the weather and weird things? I am avoiding the outdoors due to smoke infestation and hoping some Canadian wildfires get put out soon.

[0:00:39.7] NH: Yeah, our very own Paul Boyle sent out some pictures of where he’s at in Ohio and some of the smoke that’s coming down from the Canadian fire. So definitely has some air quality issues here in Ohio and Angel, I am with you. I am not in Texas, our case study today is actually in Texas.

But our AC is on the fritz and right now, we are kind of battling with our home warranty people to try to figure that out. So hopefully, we get that figured out before the hot temperatures get here to Ohio but good to have you guys on, and looking forward to run in through the case study here.

So what we’re going to do is we’re going to kind of go through the case study and then obviously, if you’re listening on the podcast, we’re going to talk through this as best we can. If you’re watching this on YouTube, you’ll be able to kind of see the case study as we walk through it. So we’re really going through it.

This is a fictitious couple, they are an engaged couple living in Texas and Angel will kick us off, and then Kelly, we’ll kind of go through some of the goals. I’ll go through the balance sheet, and then we’ll just kind of look at this case study, what are some of the things that pop out to us, and how we would approach this from a planning perspective.

So, Angel, let me share my screen. So the people that are watching can see this. Let me see right here, share. So without further ado, Angel, why don’t you take us away as this pops up here?

[0:02:00.4] AM: Let me kick it up, these are my fellow Texans, right? Even though they’re a little fictitious. So we have Meghan Myers, who is aged 29, is a clinical pharmacist. Mathew Higgins, age 27, he’s an IT tech. You know, pretty typical age of current clients that we have, right?

Salaries for Megan, she’s earning USD 150,000 annually. Mathew’s earning USD 100,000 annually with supplemental income, USD 10,000. I’m guessing that may be some add-on work that they’re just taking on. Currently, of course, single. Filing single but they are engaged to be married.

See, they’re residents of Austin Texas, five hours north of me. Tell me you’re Texan by not telling me you’re Texan. You mentioned this in five hours and not by having on debate. So on a combined gross income front, they’re both earning, combined 260,000.

A little bit about their expenses, we try to divvy up fixed variable and poor savings as well. From expenses standpoint, the fixed expenses or about 32.50 monthly, USD 2,000 on variable, and about 1, 242 in just savings commitments that they have.

[0:03:11.3] NH: Awesome. Kelly, why don’t you go take us through Meghan and Mathew’s goals?

[0:03:15.6] KRH Sure, so I have reached out to do some financial planning because they’ve got a couple of things on the horizon. There are some student loans, which is not uncommon for our client base and we know there’s been a lot of chatter all summer about student loans and finally, some of the next steps are starting to unfold. So that’s often a prompt to reach out and start a conversation.

So they want to have a plan in place for Meghan, she does work for a qualifying 501(c)(3). So PSLF and a forgiveness strategy is part of the conversation. They are planning to get married so honeymoon, wedding expenses, we know one of the inflation items that’s still up is travel. So they’re planning a very fun honeymoon, it is good to plan ahead for that and as far and advance as possible.

They are looking to make sure that retirement’s on track and feel like they’re a little bit behind. Also, again, not an uncommon feeling. So that’s one thing we will want to dive into and see what that looks like, try to come up with a student loan plan that also matches a strategy for some of those other goals like wedding, marriage, and retirement and then of course, big things with life in general, often include that first home purchase.

We know that’s been an interesting environment as well, so we’ll kind of talk through what the home purchase environment looks like, what the resources are available to expand, and be knowledgeable about that big, that big purchase. Children, not too far down the road as well, and then of course, vehicles, open to the conversation about owning versus leasing but do identify having a new car need in the next couple of years as well.

[0:05:09.2] NH: Yeah, good stuff Kelly. Thanks for taking us through that. So I’m going to go through kind of the balance sheet, the net worth statement. So I’m going to start on the asset side. So they have about USD 5,000 in checking and joint checking. USD 20,000 in joint savings. When we look at their investment accounts, they both have 401(k)s. Meghan has about 10,000 in her current 401(k). Mathew about 15,000 they’re both in target date funds.

About 90% in equity, so probably goes 20, 60 target date funds that are out there. Currently, they’re both putting in 5% but Mathew actually gets a match up to 6%. Meghan’s is 5% so that’s a plan and opportunity right there. Meghan has a little bit of money in her HSA, USD 2,000. I mean, she’s contributing the max to that and Matthew does have access to an HSA because he’s got a high-deductible health plan but he’s not getting enrolled.

I believe Mathew has a Robin Hood account that has about USD 5,000 and he’s putting about USD 200 a month into that and then Meghan is not sure what to do with her old 401(k), which has about 5,000. So total assets of about 62,000. On the liability side, so these are the things that we owe, it’s a little bit of short-term debt there, about USD 5,000 on a credit card for Meghan, USD 3,000 on a credit card for Mathew.

They try to pay that off monthly, Mathew does have a car note that is USD 250,000 per month at an interest rate of 4%. So we’ve seen those obviously go up recently, so not terrible, right? In this environment and then the big, you know, monstrosity there I think are the loans. So she has about USD 425,000 in loans between her private and her federal loans. So total liabilities of 453,000.

So that puts their combined net worth at negative 391,000. So just to reiterate, they’re doing their own taxes now. So definitely, something that we would look at as we’re looking at the student loans, and then we do have a section here for like wealth protection. Meghan does have group life insurance coverage so two times her salary at USD 300,000. Mathew has one and a half times so $150,000.

They both have, you know, kind of a standard work term and long-term disability policies through their employers so own-Oc for two years and any-Oc after that and then professional liability, Meghan does have her own policy, which is good to see, and then no estate plan at this time, so definitely something to look at. So to kind of reiterate, Meghan hates the loans and wants to see them gone but is open to hear about PSLS.

So that would definitely be something that we would want to walk through and show her the math. Mathew again doesn’t have any loans, student loans. They are looking into stopping and funding the taxable account and put those dollars towards debt, and then as Angel mentioned, Mathew does have some contractor work that he makes on the side. So as we look at this, Kelly, what would you say is the first thing that you would tackle with this particular client as you review the case study here?

[0:08:08.7] KRH: Well, I’m going to assume that probably, the prompt was the student loans to get that plan in place. So there are a couple of little low-hanging fruit items but they all do work together like pieces of a puzzle to fit. So I guess that would be where I would start to just have an idea of what that monthly payment would be so that we can build the rest of the plan around that.

[0:08:35.9] NH: Yeah. I mean, I think, for a lot of our clients, you know, the tail that wags the dog for their financial planning is the student loans. So as the loans go, so does the rest of the plan. So if we’re talking about this amount of debt, I think again, it’s not necessarily a push to pay them off. But more of a push to have a plan to pay them off.

So I think you know, one of the things and I’ll skip over to this tab here and that kind of outlines the student loans, I think really with this particular client, you have lots of moving pieces here. You’re probably going to have a strategy that is related to the federal loans and then a strategy that is related to the private loans.

I think the thing that I often say is that the range of outcomes here with regard to the loans can be vast and if you’re looking at our tab here, the total amount paid, and this is kind of the rough numbers given the present student loan plans that are out there, is anywhere from 143,000 to 480,000.

So we really want to make sure that as we are approaching the loans, the idea is that we’re going through our process. So what we typically do and what we do for this client is that we’re going to inventory the loans and we typically do this through the NSLDS ugly text file that we have you retrieve.

With potentially, with private loans, look at the credit report. Sometimes, we look at promissory notes as well, and then from the inventory, now that we know where we’re at, we’re going to look at all of the different possibilities related to said loans, right? So we want to put the emotion that Meghan has with her loans with the math that supports it.

I’ve joked about this, Kelly and Angel, in the past, that I remember talking to a client that basically is working 20 hours at a for-profit job and 20 hours at a nonprofit job and didn’t qualify for PSLF because you essentially need to be 30 hours and they were like – and they had substantial debt. I don’t think it was up to this and now but they were asking like, “What was my advice for the student loans?” and I was like, “If I can push a broom in a nonprofit for 10 hours a week, I would do that” because it just unlocks a lot of the benefit that PSLF affords.

So the third part of this really is once we figure out what that strategy is, we want to optimize that, and that’s where you know, looking at the tax situation, looking at the investment strategy and the pre-tax situation, making sure you’re filing the taxes correctly, so I would obviously want them to talk to Shawn Richards, who is our director of tax and make sure that the tax situation is jiving, not just with the financial plan but specifically the student loans.

So that’s my take. Angel, would you add anything kind of in the student loan picture as you’re looking at this? Obviously, it’s a huge decision in terms of what they’re going to do and will hugely affect the balance sheet as they kind of start, you know, their careers and their lives together.

[0:11:44.9] AM: Absolutely, just like you said, just like Kelly said, that figuring out a strategy is key to the plan. What I would do also is really engage in budget. You know, we have to understand that our clients needs cash flow because if the goal is to pay off you know, the loans, more sooner rather than later but the cash flow just isn’t there, then we have to say, “Okay, what adjustments do we need to make as planners to our recommendation?” PSLFP in the strategy but the repayment plan may be a little bit different than what they may expect.

[0:12:19.5] NH: Yeah, and to that point, the B word, the budget word never goes away. I mean, even if you are looking at you know, a retirement picture, we kind of know, have to know like what we need to build out as a retirement paycheck. That all stems from the budget, right? So I think that is going to be consistent.

I think to the sheet, I don’t know if we outlined it, I think there was a budget for like two to three thousand or three to four thousand for Meghan to apply towards the loans, and the strategy might be a compromise in strategy where we are aggressive with the private loans, try to get them into an aggressive payoff strategy because obviously, we know that those loans are not going to be eligible for PSLF.

But then we are doing what we can to maximize forgiveness on the federal loans and that’s kind of where the two-prong approach to the loans really stems from. Kelly, if we stay with the student loans, obviously, we’re still waiting for and waiting and waiting and waiting for the Supreme Court to kind of rule on Biden’s effort to forgive some loans and we think that based on that decision, the president or the government will try to put a plan out there that might be more favorable to borrowers.

Can you kind of elaborate a bit on what you’ve heard or what you’ve read about that and kind of how that could potentially affect PSLF and the power of PSLF in the future as we come out of the pause here?

[0:13:43.1] KRH: Sure. So, great, Tim, you were referring to that you know, one time, 10 to USD 20,000 discharge decisions. So you know for some clients, that’s a substantial part of their loans but for many pharmacists who have accumulated student loan debt, it’s not quite as big of a percentage.

So the kind of flip side to that that you referenced is, we’re still waiting to hear about new income-based repayment plan like new repay that would have a different formula to calculate the monthly payment. The goal with the PSLF program want us to complete it and be in it for the 10 years, 120 estimated payments but also to pay the least amount over time, which is why you see that 143,000.

I can understand Meghan’s concern about a 10-year period to have the loans in existence but referencing Angel as well with the budget, you know if you have USD 3,000 and you’re putting 20 – like 1,400 to 2,300 towards the private loans. One, there’s only going to be so much left out of that budget but two, why would you pay extra if you qualify and are doing the work in the nonprofit?

But you need to get the loans in the correct position. So if that new repayment plan comes out and is very advantageous, the formula, making that payment lower, will create a lower amount total paid over time, which is a win. It does feel like we’re continuing across a couple of presidential administrations to make PSLF as easy as possible. So sometimes, clients still have concerns, “Will the program still be in place, will I qualify?”

All the answers point towards yes based on what we know, you know across a couple of different administrations, there have been you know, programs put in place to make it easier but you do have to put the loans in the right position. So we’ve seen these wavers as well and there’s still one more waver until the end of the year to pick up as many payments as possible. Pretty much the key being that you did work for the nonprofit during the timeframe.

But if you had odd forbearances, if you were in the wrong repayment plan, if you were in the wrong loan type but that’s some of the work that we do as part of the planning processes. Making sure that every loan is in the correct position to qualify and to not have that outcome when you get a surprise. There’s no surprises, you’re keeping track of your cumulative account. You know, there’s – that’s what the issue was in the past.

[0:16:44.2] NH: Yeah, and shout out to Tim Ulbrick who recently held a kind of impromptu webinar about student loans and you know, what’s beyond the pause, I think we had about 600 people register for that webinar and there were a lot of questions about PSLF and there’s still a lot of misnomers out there about the program and is it viable, is it not viable.

To your point Kelly, there has been things that in the past, would lead borrowers to question the longevity. I would say that everything that I could have read about that has always been for future borrowers. I mean, if you’re in the program, I think they would grandfather it in. This is my belief and I think if you’re reporting a strategy of forgiveness, you know there’s a good case, especially if they put out this new payment plan that your balance is going to grow.

So to kind of take that away, you know, retroactively I think would be catastrophic, and even with tax law, they typically will write things and that’s why we have so many versions and layers of tax law. I will point out as we’re showing the slide if it is a pay as you earn, the numbers that we’re showing on the screen is, “Hey, in ten years, you’re going to pay off 143,000.”

There is two assumptions here that are, I think are wrong, one is if let’s say Meghan’s been at work for the last two years or maybe it’s the last year, she’s already a year in. So we’re projecting 10 years as if this were starting right now, so she potentially already has 12 to 24 months that are counted or potentially counted if we do the right things and then I think the other thing is that we’re showing a first monthly payment of a USD 1,080, which could also be a lot less given a new repayment plan.

So this again, so many advisors out there still to this day as I talk to a lot of prospects will say, “Hey, I’m working with an adviser and they say don’t worry about the loans, it will figure themselves out” which is the worst advice that you can give to many pharmacists that are dealing with six figures worth of debt or they’ll do a, “Hey, pay the highest interest rate off or pay the lowest balance.”

That quite frankly is subpar advice, so because the spectrum of outcomes is so why with regard to what you actually are paying out of your pocket for the loans, you want to make sure that you get a professional advice on this because it’s that impactful. So guys, let’s set the loans aside for a hot second and talk about the other parts of their plan.

Angel, obviously with wedding, honeymoon, first home, kiddo in the next two years, car in the next five years, how does a planner work with a client to kind of wade through all of these things that obviously are huge life events but obviously, from a planning perspective, hugely important to kind of road map? Walk me through how you would approach Meghan and Mathew in that instance.

[0:19:40.0] AM: Sure. I mean, I think firstly as we address the student loans, the second thing looking at their budget, what’s left over after we define a good repayment plan for them, and as a planner, we want to make sure that we are being very upfront, real, and having real conversations as to expectations, right? The last thing we’d want is to take out more debt when we don’t need to.

[0:20:04.7] NH: That’s right.

[0:20:06.2] AM: Just going through what their expenditures are, what’s left over, and coming up with a comfortable budget for all these things, you really can’t plan them for an additional family member but at least, you know jeffing up what does that look like on a nationwide kind of average scale. Typically, when I am working with younger individuals I like to throw in an extra two, three grand a month for raising a child.

You know, that is very subjective but that is very much kind of my flat conservative rule of thumb.

[0:20:37.5] NH: Yeah. I mean, I am a big believer in if I’m breaking this down with a client, and Kelly I’d love to hear your thoughts on this too, I’m a big believer in saying, “Okay, you know wedding, honeymoon, how much is that? Is that paid for? What other sources of income or what is the sources of savings for that?” “First home, okay, is it within the next year, the next two years? So what are we looking at for a down payment?”

Obviously, I want to put them in front of someone like Nate Hedrick, to help with an agent and finding an agent or even Tony Umholtz to look at First Horizon and potentially a PharmD loan and make sure that that is positioned and then you know, yeah, first child in the next two years, what does that look like from a daycare expense or just hospital bills, who’s and where are we funding that and then car.

You know, if that is a five-year, so kind of backwards plan into this and you know we talk about purpose-based investing. You know, kind of by proxy, I’m a big fan of purpose-based savings, so I would love to see a bucket for a house, I would love to see a bucket for a car, I would love to see a bucket for kiddos. Like I was joking around with someone, we have an ally account that is the kid’s account and the sub-accounts are Olivia, my daughter, Liam, my son, and Benji, our dog.

So, Benji, you know for his grooming and vet bills and things like that, Olivia for swim and other things like that. So it allows Shay and I to kind of break these expenses down when we throw all of these things against the wall, Kelly, it’s overwhelming, right? It’s just a lot of things one right after the other. So walk me through kind of like how you would approach that, how you would select buckets, how you would determine like, “Okay, overlaying the student loans” and maybe that’s where the student loans were like, “Well, maybe we need a little bit of extra discretionary income and go out.”

Not five years in the private loan but maybe 10 years to free up some income for us to do some things, so walk me through that in terms of the savings perspective.

[0:22:35.0] KRH: Right, because once we have like one set of numbers with the student loan, you want to build out, as you said Tim, those buckets but you need to run some estimates. So typically, you know I probably would start with the house but clients do need to be candid about their goals and one of our objectives is to help clients do what they want to do within those realistic like giving pros and cons and, “Well, that might take a little bit longer if you want to do it at that amount.”

So certainly it would be up to them, what the priorities are in terms of wedding, house, preparing for a child, and that new car but giving some context to those decisions. So like if the new house is in a year, you’d be looking at some estimates if you bought a USD 250,000 home versus a 450,000. Right now in the current environment, it’s super fun to do the two interest rates like this crazy but you know, are people still able to buy homes?

Yes, but you need to know what that’s going to look like in terms of a mortgage payment but then, I also like to run the numbers at like a 4% so in case the environment changes in the next year, it makes a big difference in the monthly payment. Are you doing a 3% down, a PharmD loan, or are you doing 20% down, something in between? So kind of run a couple of those numbers you can see a range.

You know, if this is what you want to do on the lower end or on the upper end, this is the amount per month in a year timeframe to do it and to get to the down payment. Definitely, childcare, one of the biggest parts of a child expense. So making sure that we have a good holding place in the budget for that. Looping back to the house, you know, it seems obvious but doing that amount for a year and knowing you can do it for a mortgage amount makes a lot of sense.

Like if your rent’s a thousand, you want to buy a house and the mortgage is 2,500, typically that USD 1,500 difference, can you consistently put that away for a year, one for the down payment but two, that’s becoming your new average monthly expense. So like if you can do it for a year that feels pretty good that you’re going to be able to sustain it and continue it. So yeah, putting some context, some hard numbers knowing they’re not going to be to the penny.

But this gets you or I say, we can calculate to the penny but there is going to be lots of things that happen in between, you know, anything. A job change, a new dog, all the things you know that help influence that monthly budget, you know, we need to have a placeholder for.

[0:25:33.5] NH: That’s right and I think one of the things that we haven’t really discussed that I think is important to discuss, you know typically when we talk about a budget, we’re always looking at where can we potentially cut expenses and things like that. The thing I would really dig in with Mathew, in particular, is, “Hey, you have supplemental income of USD 10,000, is there a way for us to grow the topline income that’s coming in?”

So can we push that 10,000 to USD 25,000 next year? Meghan, you know, if we do have pretty hairy audacious goals, are there ways for you to also make additional dollars by picking up extra shifts or whatever? So I think sometimes we always look at the expense side of the ledger and I want to grow the pie and make sure that’s looking healthy and we have other levers that we can potentially pull.

Angel, let’s shift to the wealth-building stuff real quick. They’re kind of just starting out, they had this one old 401(k), they’re in some target date funds in their current 401(k), we don’t have many IRAs established, which I don’t know if I would necessarily do that now. Mathew has a taxable account of USD 5,000, which again, I would try to apply like when we’re asking questions about, “Hey, how are we going to fund the home payment, home down payment, or the car?” That’s where I want to start drawing those lines but how would you approach the wealth-building portion of their financial plan with kind of the facts that we have?

[0:26:50.5] AM: With some of the facts that we have, wealth building, and what I’d like to look at first is, “Do you have an established emergency fund?” because we all know that things do happen and stuff. I want to make sure that our clients are prepared for that. More on the, “Are you on track with savings?” things of that nature. I would definitely start off by looking at the 401(k)s, making sure that they’re at least maxing out the amount that they would receive an employer match.

From looking here, I believe that Mathew’s more deferring 5% but the match is 6%, maybe trying to get him up to that 6% is the next step for him. On the HSA fronts, it looks like they don’t put any money into an HSA. I think that is a very good tool for young healthy couples, right? That you traditionally just have your physicals, your checkups, and maybe a couple of doctor visits because of a cold or flu, what have you, and making sure that those are maxed out.

You end up saving on the payroll tax front, you end up saving on the federal income tax front, and to the point of going back to the student loans, Meghan can also reduce her adjusted gross income and that will even save her on the back end to know but yeah, to your point on the taxable account, seeing what’s that account for, right? You have a lot of goals that you want to achieve and maybe putting some purpose behind it.

We have it here listed as a play account but to me on a scale, if we have a pyramid of what’s important, play accounts would be at the tip. That’s the cherry on top for me, right? I would definitely want to address the menial things like again, your emergency fund. Are you putting into your 401(k)s and are your current savings do they have a purpose?

[0:28:33.5] NH: Yeah, that’s right and I think to circle back, I think Meghan is contributing the max HSA even though it is not showing, it is just showing in text there and she has about USD 2,000. I’m assuming it’s in cash and not invested. I think the discussion I would have about that is, “Are we planning on using this for the birth of a child or do we see this as like a long kind of that stealth IRA?” and maybe it’s, “We’re going to use it for the birth of a child then afterwards, build a backup and then it will be a self-IRA” or something to that effect.

You know sometimes, it is good to be able to cash flow health expenses when you get to that point. So for the current 401(k)s, I think you know looking to make sure that those target date funds, Kelly, look good. You know, often times we like to get out of the target date funds because they are a little bit more expense and basically pick the allocation ourselves, and then probably the last thing that we haven’t really talked to is just what do we do with the 401(k), the old 401(k)?

Do we roll that over to a rollover IRA for YFP to manage on behalf of Meghan or do we move that over to a current 401(k) to be able to assess that? Let’s chat Kelly, really quickly about the wealth protection stuff. My initial gut on this is probably, they’re probably okay at this point in time and I would want them to focus on the debt and wealth building but probably phase two, phase three might be looking more closely at the wealth protection stuff.

What’s your thought on that? Do you kind of differ in your opinion or would you say, “Hey, let’s kind of get through some of these other things that are on fire and then kind of pivot to life disability, estate plan” et cetera?

[0:30:10.0] KRH: Right. I mean, certainly the wealth protection piece, you know as much as some of the other things feel overwhelming and the volume is to tackle this actually is probably the area where our clients struggle the most just to see like how much to prioritize and what they really want to have and to figure that out. So right, I would agree, you know layers of life typically influence how much protection is needed and how comfortable you feel with what you have.

I do like that Meghan has enough coverage to cover her private student loans. That’s an area that’s a bit grey depending on the loan’s officer. So she’s got that covered, so really we try to look at liability need like if there’s something that needs paid off, that would be a big one. From there, we do, do that as part of our planning to do a very thorough assessment, see what they have, but I would agree.

You know, the estate planning we can do some conversation and work on that during the protection meeting like checking your beneficiaries, making sure the titling is correct on accounts. That’s one layer ahead of getting a will and formal documents in place. So yeah, I would say that something that we work on, you know, as we move through the financial plan, it is important but the amounts of coverage do look fairly reasonable.

I probably would address at some point the own occupation for two years on those disability policies. Our gold standard is typically to recommend own policies for clients in that area but again, they do have coverage. That would be just a note that I would just check into further.

[0:32:08.8] NH: Yeah, I think in this regard, what I’m doing as I am going through the wealth protection part of the financial planning is I’m looking at what the baseline coverage is and I’m planting seeds. I’m saying, “Hey, it probably makes sense in the future to look at your own life insurance policy. It probably makes sense in the future to look at your own disability policy. It probably makes sense in the future to have an estate plan that’s drawn up by an attorney.”

You know, I think these are typically most important and I say this a lot when you have a spouse, a house, and mouths to feed and we know that Meghan and Mathew are kind of treading in that direction. I think anybody needs an estate plan if they’re a human and they want to kind of, you know, their care and be able to pay their bills if they’re unable to but I think the ante is upped when you have other people that are kind of relying on you for their livelihood and we want to make sure that we take care of the family.

So in my mind, I’m kind of planting those seeds that say, “Hey, this is important now, it’s going to be more important in the future. So let’s take steps when we kind of get the dust cleared and settled on the student loans and the investments and things like that, a budget can make moves here in the future.” So great stuff guys, I really appreciate the conversation. I feel like we could go on and on about this particular client.

So thank you for kind of going through this with me in the seventh edition of the case study series. If you are out there listening to this and you’re thinking, “Hey, this sound vaguely familiar to my situation” don’t be shy, reach out to us, book a discovery meeting, and you know, let us know if we would potentially be a good fit to work together. So Angel and Kelly, thank you once again and looking forward to doing this next time.

[0:33:47.9] AM: Thank you for having us.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[DISCLAIMER]

[0:33:51.8] TU: As we conclude this week’s podcast, an important reminder that the content on this show is provided to you for informational purposes only and it is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information on the podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment.

[END]

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