Category: Behavioral Finance / Podcast

YFP CEO Tim Ulbrich talks with his dad, Tom Ulbrich, on entrepreneurship, fatherhood, and finances.

Episode Summary

In celebration of Father’s Day, Tim Ulbrich talks with his own dad, Tom Ulbrich, to have a conversation on entrepreneurship, fatherhood, and finances. 

During this wisdom-packed dialogue, Tom shares his career journey starting with running a family business, to developing an e-commerce business out of the basement of his home, to achieving his MBA in his 40’s, to his time in academia, and to now leading a large nonprofit in Western New York. Tom shares his thoughts on his two sons going from traditional to non-traditional career paths, how he and his wife, Lynn, have defined what it means to be living their rich life, and his take on redefining retirement and why it shouldn’t be a one-size fits all approach.

This special conversation highlights the generational throughline in the Ulbrich family of entrepreneurship and how career and life choices are about the journey, not the destination.

About Today’s Guest

As a passionate advocate for small business and a former business owner himself, Tom Ulbrich intimately understands the power that entrepreneurship has to unlock human potential, create jobs, inspire wealth, and invigorate economies and communities across the globe.Tom is an entrepreneurial leader with broad-based management experience in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. His passion for social innovation is focused on nurturing strong relationships and building consensus across diverse groups of stakeholders in the academic, for-profit, non-profit and government sectors.

During his prior tenure as an assistant dean at the University at Buffalo’s School of Management and School of Social Work he did extensive work in the field of social entrepreneurship with a focus on the emerging concept of the “entrepreneurial non-profit”. He retains an appointment at the UB School of Management as Executive in Residence for Entrepreneurship. He is a speaker and writer with a weekly newsletter titled Soar, Don’t Settle where he shares his thoughts about business, leadership and life. He is also a member of the Forbes Non-Profit Council and contributes content that you can find on Forbes.com. In May 2020, he became President and CEO of Goodwill of Western New York  where he is working with a dedicated team to apply an interdisciplinary approach to social innovation in a real world setting.

Key Points from the Episode

• Career journey from family business to nonprofit leadership. [0:00]
• Entrepreneurship, identity, and risk-taking in various professions. [7:54]
• Importance of financial literacy and creative problem-solving in education. [15:06]
• Entrepreneurship, risk mitigation, and leadership. [19:05]
• Entrepreneurship, leadership, and strategy. [27:25]
• Personal growth and career development through education and experience. [35:28]
• Starting and selling an e-commerce business within a family-owned landscaping business. [38:42]
• Career pivot from family business to entrepreneurship, with reflection on past experiences and their impact on current success. [43:50]
• Parenting and entrepreneurship, balancing safety and individuality. [47:11]
• Finding balance between saving for future and living a rich life today. [52:07]
• Financial planning, relationships, and experiences. [59:20]
• Individualized retirement planning and prioritizing personal goals. [1:02:18]
• Financial planning, retirement, and career fulfillment. [1:07:49]

Episode Highlights

“I feel like everything I’ve done prior to this, all the pieces of that journey, have led me to sort of my dream job where everything is coming together. Entrepreneurship, leadership, all the things that I love to do, are sitting here in this job.” – Tom Ulbrich, [5:29]

“So to your point with with young pharmacists that are on a career path, I think the challenge for many people, especially when they have invested in education, a lot of money, a lot of time and have deep expertise in a field, you can get trapped and stuck, because it’s uncomfortable leaving something that’s comfortable. But by never leaving, what makes you feel comfortable is really that can potentially really rob you of having the thrill of being able to do something that you can make a good living at, and still be passionate about at the same time.” – Tom Ulbrich [5:48]

“There is you have to think about skills, not think about titles, not think about licenses. But think about the diverse set of skills that you’ve learned and that you’re that you that you’re a unique individual that’s put together all these little pieces along the way that makes you special, and whatever that next step is that you’re after.” – Tom Ulbrich [7:35]

“I don’t think we give our kids either in school or sometimes as parents enough teaching or learning around creativity because the truth is the world we live in today, a degree is a piece of paper. That’s great. And I know it’s required for many professions. But what you really need to do to be successful today is you need to know how to identify what the true problem is when you see a problem.” – Tom Ulbrich [14:25]

“The fact is, entrepreneurs are really great risk mitigators, they don’t gamble. What they do is they try to identify what the risks are, mitigate what they can, and then understand what true risks they’re taking.” – Tom Ulbrich [20:45]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

• Tom Ulbrich on LinkedIn
• Tom Ulbrich’s Newsletter: Soar, Don’t Settle
• The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson
• Happy Money by Ken Honda
• I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
• Tim Ulbrich on LinkedIn
• Subscribe to the YFP Newsletter
• YFP Disclaimer

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. In celebration of Father’s Day this weekend, I brought my dad Tom Ulbrich, onto the show to have a conversation on entrepreneurship, fatherhood, and finance. During this episode, my dad shares his career paths starting with running a family business to start another business in our basement, and then leading a large nonprofit in Western New York. His thoughts on my brother and I going from traditional to non traditional career paths, how he and my mom had to find what it means to be living their rich life, and his take on redefining retirement, and why it shouldn’t be a one size fits all approach. This is a good one, my favorite episode thus far in the 363 episodes, and nearly seven years that we’ve been recording the show. Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there listening. I’m rooting for you. 

Tim Ulbrich  00:55

Dad, welcome to the show.

Tom Ulbrich  00:57

Excited to be here. Thank you for having me. I’ve been looking forward to this.

Tim Ulbrich  01:01

Well, it’s a joy to say those words, something I haven’t been able to say on the first 362 episodes of the podcast. I’m looking forward to the conversation. I think we could spend hours talking about a variety of topics around fatherhood, entrepreneurship financing. So we’ll see where the conversation goes, I do want to start with your career journey. And the reason why I want to start there is that, as I was talking with you about the other day, I see a lot of pharmacists that are stuck. Stuck defined by the sunk cost of time and money that they invested into getting their pharmacy degree and perhaps they’re interested in something else that might be within the profession that might be outside of the profession, but they’re unable to see paths, the straight line path that they embarked upon, many at a young age. So with that backdrop, give us an overview of your career journey, that I think highlights so well how it’s really much more of a journey and not not a destination. 

Tom Ulbrich  01:58

Sure. I’m happy to do that and cut me off if this gets a little bit long. It’s a long journey, right, at my age, but, excuse me, the so my path started with I had one goal in life when I was graduated from high school – that was to get married to your mom as quickly as possible. So the pathway for me to do that I didn’t didn’t have any particularly great interests in one thing or another, was overall, a decent student. But the family we had a garden center in the family, landscaping business. So I’m like, let’s go into the family business. So I can get done with school. I went to school for ornamental horticulture and landscape design, entered the family business, got married right away, and Michael came along almost immediately, then you. And for over 20 years, I stayed in the family business, not because I was necessarily passionate about it. But because it was that that sort of like straight line you were talking about where you’re, you feel I don’t want to say I ever felt trapped. That’s not the fair, fair word. But I felt responsible, like it was my job to provide for the family. So once you both were in college, I decided to pursue some of my dreams, which meant I went back to get my MBA, I decided to leave the family business and actually ran for public office unsuccessfully. And the reason for running was I was very involved supporting small businesses through the National Federation of Independent Business and thought, why not do this on public policy side. But when I ran under those auspices, what happened was I had an opportunity then given to me at the University of Buffalo to run their Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership. So went Hey, you want to do all this stuff. You don’t need to be elected official, come here and do that. And I’ll kind of speed that all up, but I was there for 12 years. I became the Executive Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and became an Assistant Dean and faculty member in the School of Management where I taught entrepreneurship. And then towards the end of my time at University of Buffalo, which ended in 2020, I had a dual appointment as Assistant Dean to the School of Management was well of the school as well as the School of Social Work. Where I working on a real passion project and that was social innovation or the the intersection of for profit, business and social sector or nonprofit business. In 2020, I was recruited by a recruiter to Goodwill. Have to be honest for probably six or eight phone calls, I said thanks for calling. I’m not interested in running a bunch of retail stores. I finally did meet with the board; was really intrigued with the business model here at Goodwill that we are a social enterprise and that we can you know we can raise money or profit through our retail stores and reinvest that into our workforce development. So the challenge to me as an as an entrepreneur, and I didn’t mention along the way, we’ve started a couple businesses and stuff, I’ve skipped that part. But having been an entrepreneur, the challenge was I’ll come out of academia and do this in the real world. And I kind of took the bait, and here I am at Goodwill. I’ve been here for four years, and absolutely love the work here, and feel like everything I’ve done prior to this, you talk about journey, all the pieces of that journey, have led me to sort of my dream job where everything is coming together. entrepreneurship, leadership, all the things that I love to do, are sitting here in this job. So to your point with with young pharmacists that are on a career path, I think the challenge for many people, especially when they have invested in education, a lot of money, a lot of time and have deep expertise in a field, you can get trapped and stuck, because it’s uncomfortable leaving something that’s comfortable, but by never leaving, what makes you feel comfortable is really that can potentially really rob you, I guess it’s the right word, I was looking for the right word, rob, you have the thrill of being able to do something that you can make a good living at, and still be passionate about at the same time. And I think what people have to think about is not the degree, not the technical skills that I have, but under the auspices of a pharmacy license, but to think about what skills do I have that transfer to many other things. You’re, you know, you’re a perfect example, and many of your friends are that you’ve taken those skills that come with what you’ve learned as a pharmacist and gained all this experience along the way, then you’re able to pivot into something that uses those skills. I think we were talking about the other day, you see this a lot and people that come out of the military, incredibly skilled and valuable people for any organization. But it’s really hard sometimes to transfer those jobs, like what you did in the military, and how do they transfer out into, you know, the business sector here back home, or? And I think what happens there is you have to think about skills, not think about titles, not think about licenses. But think about the diverse set of skills that you’ve learned and that you’re that you that you’re a unique individual that’s put together all these little pieces along the way that makes you special, and whatever that next step is that you’re after.

Tim Ulbrich  07:54

Yeah. And I think that goes back to this idea of identity not being attached to the degree or the title. And I think for our profession, we struggle with that, right? Because at 18, 19, 20, 21 years old you know, there’s a story of, hey, you’re going to be a doctor, you’re going to have a pharmacy degree, you’re going to do X, Y, or Z and a feels big, it feels weighty that you have to make these decisions. And I think there’s actually a lightness and a relief as scary as it may sound to the listeners of kind of stepping into this uncomfortable territory and detaching yourself from the identity of the degree or the identity of you know, I’m a hospital pharmacist or I’m an industry pharmacist. It’s it’s about these transferable skills that we’re talking about. And I think honestly, one of the many things you taught me, maybe it was said, maybe it was unsaid, it was role modeled, like I lived that firsthand. I saw you go through this journey. I was in high school, finishing high school, going into college, when you made this transition and entered into the MBA ran for political office took the next step. I remember the phone call when I was in the airport traveling when you’re interviewing with Goodwill, right? Like we’ve lived these things firsthand. And my brother, Mike, he’s a great example of this. You know, he’s an industrial engineer by training. He went in, worked in corporate finance was very successful. And then he got 10ish years in and realized like, hey, I want something different for my life, for my family. And the pivot moment from for him was when he was able, with the help of a coach and some others, to detach himself from the identity with the degree or the identity with the role that he had spent his first decade of his career in. And that’s uncomfortable, but I want to talk about that uncomfortable in this because human beings are wired for safety. Right? That’s that’s normal and everything else is a risk. And for pharmacists, that’s real. Doctorate degree, good paycheck, lots of debt to pay off. Any other path than the quote, “norm” is risk and that’s hard hurting our profession. Because what’s this? What’s the incentive for taking risks and taking innovation? So as you’ve taught many entrepreneurs, and you’ve lived this journey yourself, what would you have to share to those folks that are, hey, I’m wired for safety, I see that and this idea of stepping outside of that is uncomfortable.

Tom Ulbrich  10:18

So that that’s great background, and really a really good question. And remind me I want to get back to we’re, you know, Father’s Day, and I want to talk a little bit about how parents are part of that journey with us shaping us to, we’ll come back around to that, but back to, you know, I’m gonna go back to the classroom for a minute. So one of the interesting things they taught entrepreneurship, and anybody on here should be saying, how do you teach entrepreneurship? Well, the fact is, you you don’t. Really to become an entrepreneur, you need to live in what we teach people are, here’s some best practices, how to validate a business, how to do customer discovery. But what you’re really referring to is something that you that I picked up, I only remember where I picked it up from a long time ago, is in entrepreneurship is the concept of 50,000 chunks of experience. So meaning that you will not be successful until you gain that experience. And you gain that everywhere. From you talked about a pharmacy degree. But you gain it also from role modeling. So both of both of my sons, now we’re entrepreneurs, not I was an entrepreneur, my dad was, in a sense, an entrepreneur. So we learn these skills by role modeling and seeing it. One of the interesting things when you look at data around entrepreneurship, and most of the data I’m familiar with is around minority entrepreneurship and women owned businesses. Until the last maybe 10 years, the the those demographics struggled mightily with being able to be successful entrepreneurs. And the question is, why? What the research showed was the why is, where’s the role model? Whereas somebody that looks like me, that has done this before? So long winded answer to say, yes, we as human beings are risk averse, we are wired that way. And the further down a path you get in a good career, like being a pharmacist, the that risk aversion just tightens and it’s even harder to walk away. And many entrepreneurs, you don’t need to be successful, like Mark Zuckerberg is an outlier, the 21 year old that created something and blew it up. Most entrepreneurs are successful later in life after they gained their experience, and they are in a stuck track. But what often happens is we have a financial downturn, something happens and maybe they lose their their job. And they’re sort of forced into entrepreneurship and recognizing can do that. Yeah, if I can, can I back up to parenting for a minute? Because I think it’s important and and no and answer your question. Will not question but your your comment about, did I role model for you? No, not deliberately at all. In fact, not at all, but it may have happened. So I think one of the challenges too, as parents, we want what we think is best for our children, I think everybody does. And sometimes we maybe think about it through the lens of safety for kids. And we don’t, we’re afraid and we almost drive people to a profession. Remember, when you’re thinking about college, you didn’t really know what you’re wanted to do. And I think we’re like, oh, this is probably you’re really good in these things. 

Tim Ulbrich  13:39

Yep. 

Tom Ulbrich  13:39

But it doesn’t mean that something you were passionate about or wanting to do. So I think from a parenting standpoint, and I wish I would have known these things, you know, 40 years ago, but I we did the best we could with what we knew, right? Probably would have done things differently to just try to understand now that I know how successful you can be as an entrepreneur, focus a lot more with understanding the unique individual that each child is and spending a lot more time in creative play, teaching about innovation, and not so much in the structure of I don’t want to say school because I don’t want to say schools are bad. It’s not. I don’t think we give give our kids either in school or sometimes as parents enough teaching or learning around creativity because the truth is the world we live in today, a degree a piece of paper. That’s great. And I know it’s required for many professions. But what you really need to do to be successful today is you know, how you need to know how to identify what the true problem is, when you see a problem. How do I look for the root cause of that problem and know how to do that and you know how to seek out information, really. Those are and solve problems creatively, which is really creative, creative problem solving.

Tim Ulbrich  15:06

Yeah. And you said the other day when we were talking, you said, hey, if we as a nation, right want to remain great for centuries to come, we talked about two things, you know, personal finance education, our listeners will give an amen to that and then creative problem solving. Right. And it’s interesting, I was just read an article the other day, you know, you think about all the focus around STEM over the last 10-15 years, and I’m not saying STEM is bad in any way, shape, or form. But even look at an area of study like computer science, and I was reading article about computer science graduates coming out having difficulty, you know, finding jobs because of AI and some of the replacement and technology thing that’s going on in coding, etc. And, you know, we have this huge surge of focus in that area, you have an overabundance, right, in some regards to people that are going into those fields, and now we have disruption that’s happening right now. But when you look at something like creative problem solving, so I’m very hard to teach in a structured environment, very important skill, that translates that is not easily replaceable, as we think about where trends are going. 

Tom Ulbrich  16:02

Sure. And when what you just said is really critically important. Imagine if we taught these two things, from the time your kindergarten or even before – financial literacy, and creative problem solving. Yeah, if that was baked in to the basic sort of like a core curriculum that that was part of the core curriculum, those things it would really change so much for the better. Because, you know, in the work that you do, how many people don’t understand financial literacy, and we can’t blame the individuals, you know, yes, you’re responsible to learn that, but they’ve never learned it. And they also back to role modeling, we talked about with entrepreneurship, you also role model people with money, too, right. And so you have, you have poor role models, quite frankly, and aren’t sure themselves, because they never learned how to handle their finances. So I think those two things could really, really start to teach things. And what’s fascinating to me, we talked a little bit the other day about the Medici effect, which is, which is really important, which, if anybody’s interested in that maybe could put it in the footnotes of Franz Johansson has wrote the book and had some really great simple TED Talks and learn about it. But it’s really around the concept that creativity, and innovation are enhanced by diversity, which is really interesting to me, because we’re so focused on diversity, which it’s important. But it’s all those diverse experiences, which ties back to our beginning discussion, and its diversity and everything. It’s in diversity in the people we work with. And that diversity isn’t just ethnic diversity, its age diversity, education diversity, likes diversity. It’s all that diversity. When you take people that are diverse, and you put them together, the sharing, and the creative, problem solving that can happen is just really, really amazing. So again, to teach that, and to stop, you know, that whole concept sort of busts up our limited thinking, and that’s what holds us back is, is we’re, we’re just back to risk aversion. We’re wired to be risk averse, okay, I’m making $110 grand as a pharmacist, or whatever pharmacists make, and why do I want to give that up? Like, maybe you want to give that up to pursue something that you’re really, really passionate about, that you’re going to thrive in, and maybe you’re going to make way more money, doing something that you’re passionate about. And again, I don’t believe in the old saying, do what you love, and you’re going to be fine. I think you have to balance that you can’t just ignore, you have to look at your skills. But what also is nice about having a career like a pharmacist, you can you have the safety of your career, while you build something. So if you’re really want to do it, and you’re willing to put in that extra work in the evenings in the weekends, you can build it while you have the safety of your of your career at the same time.

Tim Ulbrich  19:05

Can we talk about that for a minute? Because I think we tend to generally speaking about pharmacists, especially because of the things we’ve been talking about with, you know, some of the fixed mindset around the degree and the ceiling of income and the debt we have to pay off. You know, we tend to miscalculate risk, meaning we blow it out of proportion. And I found myself doing this early in my own journey. And one of things I often say is that at the end of the day, your pharmacy license is the greatest emergency fund you’re ever gonna have. 

Tom Ulbrich  19:32

That’s true. 

Tim Ulbrich  19:33

So if you take a risk, and worst case scenario happens and it doesn’t work out, to be able to have something you can fall back on that you can make $55 to $65 an hour. I’m not saying you want to go do the work that’s available necessarily or want to do it forever. But that is an incredible asset to lean on. And it really changes your perception of worst case scenario and taking risk and I’m curious from your perspective of your own business journey and mentoring many other business owners, how do you help people really evaluate risk objectively, when it becomes so emotional often that we look at it, and perhaps it looks scarier than it really is.

Tom Ulbrich  20:14

I think that’s an excellent point. So so as we keep saying, people are naturally risk averse, most of us. Here’s the other fascinating, you know, studies around entrepreneurship. Many people and I think people that are maybe in your industry that are considering doing something different or building something, they look at entrepreneurs and assume that they are these insane risk takers and throw it all down, you know, I guess it’d be the equivalent of going to a casino and putting all your money on black or red, whatever it is. The fact is, entrepreneurs are really great risk. mitigators is what they are, they don’t gamble. What they do, they try to get the risk, they try to do whatever they can to identify what the risks are, mitigate what they can, and then understand what true risks they’re taking. And, and I know myself and probably most successful entrepreneurs, they’re not they’re not taking 80% chance of having a loss, they’re looking to make sure that they’re way better than a 50/50. If I go into this, and how do they do that, the way you do that is lots of research, lots of Proforma work, like trying to understand how I’m going to make this work. But the most important thing is if you have a new idea – customer discovery. Speaking to potential customers early and often, talking about what you’re going to try to sell or what you’re going to present to somebody. And if the market is there, you’ll be able to see that the market is there, because all too often, many of us have a passion about something and go run off and build a business without ever asking is somebody going to buy my product, right. I’ve done that a couple of times, and you start to customer discovery, realize you’re the only person that’s interested in this. So it’s really important to not be the gambler, is what it boils down to. And to do that work that you can do. And think about mitigating risks before you take that next step for it.

Tim Ulbrich  22:17

That’s so good. I often say that the best businesses are when you can combine something you’re passionate about plus a problem that needs to be solved plus is something that people are willing to pay for. And sometimes you can have one of those or two of those but not three of those, right you can have as you mentioned, you can have a passion, but people may not want what you’re selling, or it’s not necessarily solving a problem that is as big as maybe you think it is. Or you could be solving a problem that you know isn’t big enough that people are willing to pay for it. And so you’ve got to really do all of those things. And hopefully there is passion behind it. Because as you know, firsthand business is going to have ups and downs. It’s inevitable. It’s gonna have highs, it’s gonna have lows. And I believe that when the lows are there, like you better have a really strong passion that’s kind of grounding you right to keep you anchored in those seasons where things aren’t going so well.

Tom Ulbrich  23:06

No dead on. And I think our society too, we have to be really careful about that word, passion, meaning I’d like to talk, you know, flip that a little bit and say, purpose. Your purpose driven type of work. In our world today, I think we mix up sometimes passion and purpose. And I just wrote a blog post recently where I described a little bit – somebody had found that was very purpose driven in their work and what they did. And I’d said in the blog posts, I have a passion for music, I love music. And I, you know, I have four guitars, they can’t play any of them. Right? So am I really, really is is that a true passion? Or is it a like. So I think I think that’d be my first sort of tip to people make sure it’s not just something you’re interested in that you like, it really, truly is a passion. And again, in today’s world, I think we’re always told well, I’m passionate about this. I’m passionate about that. But making sure it’s a passion. And if it’s a true passion, you will never feel like you’re working because the drive that that purpose, that purpose driven drive, it just feeds you it gives you energy it gives you it builds you up even if you’re working full time you’ve got the juice to do something at night because you’re building something that you are truly passionate or purpose driven about.

Tim Ulbrich  24:30

I want to go back to your career journey. You know, it strikes me as you’re talking and you know, I kind of look at mine as the same and I don’t think that’s by accident. We talked about role modeling, and being comfortable with you know, kind of a staggered approach. It really feels more like a rock wall that you’ve climbed and you have climbed a ladder, meaning there has been exciting progressions but you’ve acquired the skills you’ve gone sideways, you’ve gone into different industries. You know, you started really what I would call if we over simplify your first half of your career. We are, you know, in a family business, starting your own business, then you had this time where you went back and got some additional training that led to other opportunities. You then were mentoring other business owners and coaching through the university. And now you’re in this stage where you’re you’re leading a large nonprofit organization. And so as you look at that journey, in hindsight, are there threads that you see that go across all of those, even though those roles are very different? You know, you’ve talked about entrepreneurship and problem solving, if you get a little bit more granular, are there things within those experiences where like, yeah, I see the obvious connections? 

Tom Ulbrich  25:35

Sure. I think one is leadership. I like to lead and I learned actually talking about role modeling early in life that I had some of those pieces that would make me a decent leader. And that was in high school, a coach actually making me Captain the team when I was nowhere near the best athlete. My brain said, always said, well, the captains are the the superstars, right. But somebody identifying early, seeing something where you can connect people you can, you can figure things out, and how people can work together. So I think leadership is one of them. The other is, I really enjoy fixing things and building things and building teams up. And I can see that connection throughout the way and very think the other thing, we also didn’t talk about what your mom and I started an e-commerce company that we sold a few years ago, that started as a catalog business, really out of necessity and seeing opportunity. So I think also, just the other thread is just opportunity seeking. So imagine in a stable family business, the stress that can put on things. Because in a family business, a lot of it is about stability, and everything’s okay. And then it’s not true, always I get that. But you have somebody that’s always kind of like trying to push the limits and looking for something new. And I don’t want to say never satisfied, but it might feel to other people, like you’re never never satisfied. But what’s the thread? I think a lot of it is building things, a lot of it is leadership. And a lot of it is seeing problems and wanting to solve them, thinking there’s a better way to do something.

Tim Ulbrich  27:25

You said never satisfied. And I know you hedge that and caught yourself there, which I agree with. But I want to go there for a minute, because I think one of the things that you and I share is very much an achievement mindset that I often say through my own work of counseling, other things, I’ve learned that it can be my greatest asset and my greatest crippler, meaning that like it’s an innate gift, that I can solve problems, I can see opportunities. I can, you know, build a vision, execute on the vision, get people excited about the vision, get things going, I like to build and create I’m not a sustainer, necessarily as well. But if I’m not careful, like that can get out of balance. And it can be the next thing. The next thing, the next thing without seeing kind of the bigger picture of like, what’s the purpose? What are we doing here? It’s not just about achieving one thing after another. So share with me your journey and that kind of never satisfied achievement and how you reconcile that I know you’ve done work on that yourself. And you’ve come to appreciate like, Hey, that’s a good gift and a skill, but it also comes with challenges.

Tom Ulbrich  28:29

It’s a great gift and a skill. And it comes with lots of challenges, right? So yes, we do share that. And I think that it’s probably not uncommon with achievers, I guess it’s what I would call it. It’s almost like overachieving. So I I didn’t really address this until later. But I I still work with the same coach and the coach I work with he really like nailed it for me one day and said, You know what, Tom, you’re really good at climbing small mountains, grabbing the flag as fast as you can, getting the top and then looking around for the next mountain, the next peak. But he’s like, why don’t you get on a big mountain where you can change the world. And it’s gonna take you years and years and think about their journey as a climb and a plateau a climb and a plateau and climb and a plateau, which is really, really helped me also to, you know, I, I went through thankfully, it’s no big problem, but went through some medical stuff, the last few months, which made me really really reevaluate like what’s important to me, and what am I want to do, what don’t I want to do? And unfortunately, most people don’t have those events until they’re in their 50s, 60s. It’s something we should maybe think about a little bit earlier, but let me go back to your thing about achieving so I think number one is if if it’s purpose driven, make that mountain bigger. So you’re gonna we’re wired to climb. I bet you most of pharmacists listening on here, didn’t get through pharmacy school without being a type A, at least some level achiever. If you’re going to be an entrepreneur, what I want people to do is to understand what type entrepreneur you and me are, we’re founders. We are founders were the, you know, we’re the people that are good at seeing a problem, seeing if there’s a market for it, identifying the resource, it’s going to take pulling together the finances, finding the team. And that is a skill set that’s super important to a startup. What we’re best to do, though, is to build a team and go on to the next business or the next idea, and not trying to manage the team, because our type of personalities get bored with management. And, and yeah, we could argue like, well, you need to fix yourself, no, we don’t need to fix ourselves. We need to lean in, lean into who we are, surround yourself with people. And my team, if they were listening here at Goodwill would start laughing right now. Because they know I’m going to be popcorning ideas all day long. And I have surrounded myself with with people that are good at operational excellence, I’m not. I’m good at identifying the opportunity of solving problems, ideas, but actually, you know, we as a company gets larger, putting that day to day operational management, and you have to surround yourself with people. Comes back to our conversation about diversity. Diversity, makes it all better. So you have a diverse group of, you know, managers on your team too, that bring different skill sets to the table, you never want to surround yourself with people just like you. 

Tim Ulbrich  31:44

That’s right.

Tom Ulbrich  31:45

Because you will be, what you’ll be doing is seeing opportunities, not properly implementing the structure to run the business, and you’re gonna be starting and failing, starting and failing starting and failing.

Tim Ulbrich  31:56

You know, it’s interesting, as you’re talking, I was just reflecting back on, you know, some of the experiences I’ve had within organizations where I’ve built and created things. And where I’ve gotten in trouble is when I built and created and then I haven’t had the resources to help sustain, maintain, or be comfortable and willing to let go, for whatever reason, and then all of a sudden, you end up in this phase where you’re trying to implement and continue to implement and sustain when you really are a builder. And that’s not good for you as the individual. It’s not good for the organization either, right? Because I would argue Goodwill is best when you are building and popcorning ideas. So how do we surround you, with people, as you have, that can help you implement. And good leaders, good managers will see that with their people, and really help identify and say, Oh, hey, Tom’s a builder, he’s an innovator. He’s not a sustainer. And that’s okay. Like, we need him building. We need him out there innovating for the organization. 

Tom Ulbrich  32:53

I think the way you attract people is the one thing you must have as a leader. In our organization, especially as you get into larger organizations, the difference between a small business and a larger business is really the complexity of what you’re doing. So I always think of management from sort of the team of team concept. We have all these little mini teams that come together as a big entity, right? Like a matrix, and it’s in a, in a larger business, you have that complexity, and how do you track talent, you attract talent, through leadership, but what the important part is creating a vision with a clear pathway for it says we’re strategy, strategic planning, and communicating that in an interesting way, not a book that’s it’s up on a shelf someplace that nobody’s going to read. But how do you tell the story? What’s the story about where we’re going as a company, and if you think of your role as a CEO, or leader, I always think of it as your the chief energy officer, the chief inspiration officer, you’re not the Chief Executive Officer, although that’s the title, right? Your job is to really rally the troops, create the vision. And I always say, carry that flag in front of everybody. And remember, just when you are sick and tired of hearing yourself, talk about where we’re going, people are only beginning to listen. And it’s really important that we stay persistent as leaders, and also find creative ways to talk about strategy. So what we do here, we actually take our strategic plan, and we put it into different types of journey that we can share with the frontline people. So the first three years of our strategy, we we took our strategy, overlaid it on a map and we created a journey from Buffalo, New York to Hawaii, and where they were able to show people like where are we at on this journey? So really gamifying it a little bit? Yeah, I think that’s a good way but when you have a clear vision, you can attract and retain top talent. You also have to invest in that talent. You can’t be afraid to spend money to bring talent in, right? You need the best of the best. And then how do you keep them, and you keep them through good leadership involving them. One thing you have to watch out as a, as a founder leader is getting out of their way sometimes like, again, if you’re a problem solver, you want to jump in, you can’t solve problems for everybody, you have to ask the questions and help them solve the problem. If you’re going to build a great business.

Tim Ulbrich  35:28

let me ask you a question. I think when probably I’ve never asked you before, but when I think of your journey, it really feels like the point you went to pursue your MBA went back to college. And I remember speaking of role models, I remember at our old house, you guys don’t live there anymore. I remember you at the computer in the living room, you know, going through the application process, doing pre-reqs that ultimately led to the MBA program that led to other opportunities. But that really feels like a transition point where you said, Hey, I’m going to really live my life versus, you know, this being defined for me, and I’m going to really take some autonomy and ownership of the next step, the next phase. And I’m just curious of how you arrived at that decision, right? Because that was an investment of time, it was an investment of money. And to be frank, it has to take some level of humility, because you have how many years of business experience and now I have to go back into a classroom. And I know you went to an executive program where there was more experienced individuals, but you and I both know that a lot of people go into an MBA program with zero experience, right? You had the experience. So what made you say, Hey, this is a skill that I need to acquire, this is a degree that I need to acquire. And that ultimately led you to pulling the trigger and making that decision. 

Tom Ulbrich  36:42

so I felt, excuse me, the, excuse me, the, it actually was a it actually was part of a journey. So multiple times, I started back as early as my mid 20s to go to school. I was gonna go back and become a teacher. I did a lot of coaching, like some significant coaching for a long, long time. And had lots of times that I was if I look backwards, right, it was a journey like gait gaining the courage to step forward. And where the transition point was, it was right when you were in college, because at that time, it felt like we had got our children to a point where they’re going to be okay. And I could now invent and do this. So the MBA was probably it. Why the MBA? The MBA was really more about credentialing, I guess, similar to a pharmacist getting a license. And it might have been a little bit of impostor syndrome, to be honest with you to feeling like, I don’t have something that says I have all this business experience. And in order to be a successful politician, or whatever it was, the next step was going to be I felt like I needed to credential myself at some level. Little did I know that that journey was going to be so much more than credentialing. To be exposed to other people that thought, like I did, felt like I did that were on these journeys. To do whatever they were in, quite frankly, I learned a lot. A lot of people my class were on that find that straight line journey that you talked about. And it was just another step. And I learned, yeah, I don’t think I want to do that I want to do I want to continue to have that freedom of doing my own thing. And what was unique about UB, UB hired me as a clinical professor with the understanding that I had this ecommerce business, and that I would continue to run that ecommerce business. Yeah, because it was a clinical contribution variance. Yeah, experience to what I was doing it, you know, in the classroom.

Tim Ulbrich  38:42

So let’s talk about the e-commerce business. You know, we talked about the family business. So if listeners are curious, it was Ulbrich’s Tree Farm and then Ulbrich’s Tree Farm and Garden Center, that my grandfather started that my dad and his brother took over. Ultimately, you started in ecommerce business called Mow More Landscape Supplies. And let me paint the picture for our listeners. Because this goes back to role modeling experience. I remember, in our old home, I probably was, I don’t know, eight 9, 10, something like that, maybe a little bit younger, a little bit older. I remember I can see the carpet in the basement, I can see in the back of our basement where there were storage area, you had built shelves, that you had white index cards, I see the black Sharpie, that was the inventory for the distribution of the business. I can see the desk where you would do the financials, and eventually that would go into a warehouse and what you created in the business became a much, much bigger business. So why start that business? And how did you come to realize that that one in particular, was an opportunity? Oh, and by the way, I’m going to take this on in addition to another business I have, and I’ve got a young family that I’m raising. 

Tom Ulbrich  39:55

So I think one of it was seeing an opportunity. So we started the business or was related to the garden center business, we had a large landscaping business, we were buying so many parts to repair our mowers and all of our equipment, I decided to go directly to manufacturer to try to save some money. Was successful in negotiating with them to buy some parts and parlay that into selling those parts to other people. So it started, I remember that, you know, if your mom was on here, a lot of this was, thanks to your mom’s hard work. 

Tim Ulbrich  40:26

And I remember that, too. 

Tom Ulbrich  40:28

Yeah. But the first catalog you created, we can’t create a catalog on a typewriter in our basement stapled together, and was really successful for that. So that grew, we ran it out of the house until it got big enough that it was disruptive to the neighbors. And quite frankly, it was a bit unfair to the family business as this is growing. So I sold it to the family business. And we grew it then within the family business. I bought it back years later, and then we exited it back in, in 2019. But that started out of the thrill of building something, seeing the opportunity for it. And the energy came from just building something, like it was fun. It was an opportunity. It was a way to make some extra money. And you know, along the way, as I as my journey increased, really your mom ran that business if I’m being honest. Once I went to University of Buffalo, she managed it, ran it with the team. And until we were able to exit, I had some involvement in it, but not on the day to day. But there’s another example right, the founder, the founders gets excited starts, then walks away and goes and does something else. So that backs up your other other part of our discussion.

Tim Ulbrich  41:47

Well, thankfully, mom’s an implementer. So there’s a good, good and a sustainer. So there’s good, good connection there. Do you think it was fair, as you look back on that. You said that you started this, you had the idea. You felt like hey, there’s some rub here now with the family business. So you sold it to the business to then come and buy it back? Which I’m assuming you buy it back at a premium and then you grow it and eventually sell the business. Like, as you look back, like was that fair? Or? Or was that just some of the dynamics that were there with the with the family business? 

Tom Ulbrich  42:23

No, maybe a little dynamics, but I think in the big picture, it was fair. You know, I think the discussion with my dad was and actually he helped started, he invested in it. 

Tim Ulbrich  42:34

So cool. 

Tom Ulbrich  42:36

He was supportive of it. I borrowed $10,000 from him and paid it back over three years. That’s how we started the business. But I think it grew to the point and in all fairness to him as the leader of the family business, right. I think the rub was or not rub, but the question was, are you know, you’re taking a salary from here, you’re doing that and taking a salary from there? Is this fair to the rest of the family? And I think the answer was, was getting big enough that the reality was it probably wasn’t fair. So the discussion was, you can pack you can either come here and do this. Or you can leave, you know, and it wasn’t done in a negative way. It was just like, here’s the options. And so I went back and said, Well, how about, we fold it into the family business? And and that’s what we did. And so I don’t think it was unfair. Looking back, I think the entrepreneur in me wants to say it was unfair, like, why can’t I do all these things at the same time, but thinking as a leader of a business, I would certainly hear if I had somebody moonlighting, building something, there’s going to be a point where it gets big enough that I’m like, are you really doing everything you need to do to do your job? Well, so not unfair at all.

Tim Ulbrich  43:50

That was exactly the thought I had, there’s a combination, right? If someone’s looking at this, like as an investor, they would say like, No, Tom, it was your idea. Like you’re you, you were working your butt off, you came up with the idea. But if you think about as a leader, if you think about as a family, you have to put all these factors into play, right, when you’re making these decisions.

Tom Ulbrich  44:06

You do and I had the option to take it off on my own right. Yeah. So that was one of the options was to just go down that path and grow it. But what happens again, safety plays in, right. So that’s a safety decision, what would have happened if we would have taken it off on our own? I don’t know. But I know we were scared. It’s not big enough yet to give us a security back to our security discussion, right? And building up that courage over many, many years to step out on your own.

Tim Ulbrich  44:34

Which is interesting, because you would then take those experiences, right? You live this for two decades plus, and you would then apply and implement those and coach hundreds, thousands of entrepreneurs in their own journey as they’re as they’re navigating some of these things. So there’s the direct influence and impact from business. There’s the indirect and obviously you’re doing it and leading an organization right now. I’m curious as you look back now, you know, making the decision to work for the family business. Right? Ultimately, you’d kind of pivot made mid-career. But if you go back to those those first couple of decades making the decision to work for family business, that you then ended up starting your own business. As with all family businesses, there’s challenges that come into play. Right? So as you look back at that journey, like, would you do it all over again?

Tom Ulbrich  45:20

I think so. There’s pieces I’d like to eliminate for a bunch of different reasons, the struggles part of things. But looking back of who I was, at the time, I wouldn’t be who I am today without all those experiences. And sure, I could go back and say off, I would have went to get my MBA when I was younger, but a whole bunch of things can change. But would I ever have learned all the pieces that make me who I am today? And the answer is, probably, well, not probably the answer is no. I’d be a very different human being. And the truth is, I would probably be because of the safety factor, have been stuck in something I don’t like to do. So this has been a long journey. And you know, God works that way, sometimes. That you have to learn, you got to put your time in, and maybe mine’s longer than most people. But I’ve never been happier than where I am today. And I feel like all those little pieces of making this world successful today, and enjoying what I do, came from all those struggles and all those learnings, all the good and bad when you went through. And if you wouldn’t went through them, you wouldn’t have the skill set that you have today. 

Tim Ulbrich  46:40

I love that because I think sometimes when we make pivots in our careers in our lives, we run the risk of throwing out the experiences of where we’re going into the future. And I think so often the story is, you know, one that you’re sharing right of, hey, you know, sure, could this have been different, or I would have loved it, this went smoother, whatever be the case. But those experiences journeys, led to the moments that are here led to the development, the resilience, all the skills that you’ve learned along the way that are allowing you now to do the work that you’re doing. So I think that’s a great, great reflection. I want to come back. We talked a little bit about this. But Mike and I both started in very traditional career pathways, and now are both in entrepreneurial career pathways. So Mike, I alluded to this earlier, graduated as an industrial engineer, went into corporate finance, very successful, ended up leaving that work at the time, he was living in London, doing some international banking work, just had my niece, Annelie, decided they were going to move from London back to Buffalo without a plan. And he just kind of knew, hey, this is a point we need a pivot, ultimately would lead an advanced manufacturing company for several years, and then has since launched out to have a successful consulting business. And he also owns a business as well. So he’s got a couple of different things there. So went from a very traditional pathway to a non traditional, you know, my story is somewhat similar as well, starting in a very traditional pathway of pharmacy, you know, I’m still connected to the profession, but in a in a very indirect way, having an impact and in a way that maybe I didn’t necessarily think at the beginning. So as you look at that, from your experiences, and kind of where we’re going and you think about your own journey, we’ve talked about safety, like, does that scare you as a father? Does that excite you? Like, what, how do you think of that?

Tom Ulbrich  48:30

There’s times when it scares me, there’s no question, right? And I think there’s that safety baked in as a as a parent, right? Like, you want to make sure everything’s okay. But if you look at the, the, the person, you and Michael as a whole as an individual, and you look at the happiness level, and you know, even when there’s struggles, you’re doing things that you love to do. So it’s actually quite interesting and rewarding for me to watch it. I can’t speak for your mom she might be a little bit more nervous, but I can it’s fun to see that entrepreneurship as part of your lives in your you’re experiencing some of the struggles, but a lot of success from it. And I think about you, I know you’re you know your your time with family and everything and the flexibility that comes with being an entrepreneur, you would never have in a traditional career. Right? And I know you work really hard, but your your work when you need to work and you build time in to support the family when you need it. So I think seeing you do what you love to do is the more rewarding part, even though it can be scary at times, like Is everything okay? Is everything gonna be okay? But luckily you both have done fantastic jobs and with your businesses that are doing, you know, great work as well as seem to be loving what you’re doing. So it’s not, it’s rewarding at this point.

Tim Ulbrich  50:02

I think one of the hardest things I think about this a lot with the boys is like, how do we hold the space to not project our desires onto them, whether that’s a desire of safety, or, you know, it’s easy for me to project, my interests, my skills, but to really try to see them, each uniquely and individually, so hard to do. So hard to do. And I think that, you know, not projecting our desires. What we determined success may or may not look like, is so hard. But I know one of the great joys that I have, is whether or not the boys decide to pursue entrepreneurship. I don’t know, like, if it’s for them, great. If it’s not, that’s fine, too. But there’s a thread that you can see across generations, which is so cool, right? So they’re not in the house with you. But the behaviors, the skills right are being transferred from the role modeling that I had, and now the role modeling that I’m giving them the good and the bad, you know, it’s something I often think about that they hear Jess and I talking about business every day, and I’m trying to be careful about, you know, that that’s not just complaining, but they also hear the wins and the successes, and hey, this happened and this transformation with a client, and this happened with a team member, the highs and the lows, right? Because I think that I don’t want to give them an over glorified image of it. I don’t want to give them a gloom and doom, you know, vision that what it could be as well. 

Tom Ulbrich  51:23

Yeah, I think holding space for we were talking about this the other day, you and I were talking about this, is holding space for the individual gift that God made in each child, right, is really important. And it’s something I very much appreciate in today’s parenting, it seems to be much more thoughtful than, than we were parenting is like thinking like what makes that person unique? What are they truly interested in? What, what jazz’s them, what gets them excited? And also what are the things that maybe are going to derail them because of their personality and the people they are. But I, I really appreciate that, that thought about giving kids space to be who they are. But you also hit on something like many things, and I’m not an expert on all these but many things you can look back and you can see there’s generational like generational curses, generational blessings, 

Tim Ulbrich  52:20

Totally. 

Tom Ulbrich  52:21

You look back, like in our family. There was it goes back even further. So your grandpa’s dad, so your great-great grandpa, he actually worked for American Airlines. But he was very entrepreneurial, he was an intrapreneur within the industry. So that’s another thing you can do. Right? You can be entrepreneurial within a bigger business. He was at the very, very early stages of flight and worked his way from sweeping floors to being the lead of all mechanics in the country at one time for American Airlines. So and very, you know, in aviation was like this new industry…scary. Nobody wants to do a plane, planes used to fall out of the sky sometimes. Right? And prior to that, on your grandmother’s side, so your great-grandmother’s dad was an entrepreneur and had a giant jelly factory. 

Tim Ulbrich  52:28

Brinkman’s Jelly.

Tom Ulbrich  52:51

Brinkman’s yeah. So it, you can see it and I’m sure it goes back earlier than Yeah. So I think role modeling back to yes, that happens. But I think it happens more frequently than we see. And we’re not forcing that role modeling. It’s people wiring to it, right, it’s a young mind, seeing it, wiring it and normalizing something. So your life would be really scary to some other kids that were brought up in a very traditional family with so they’re going to be even more risk averse. I don’t mean traditional family, I mean, traditional career path, right? Where dad goes to work, mom goes to work, they work 8:30-5 o’clock in a big company, whatever it is, where your children are seeing, there’s another way I can do things too. So it’s likely they will do something creative or entrepreneurial, I would say. There’s probably a high propensity and part of their journey back to 50,000 chunks of experience might be that they work in industry for a period of time. Yeah, they may always have that itch. Want to go do something else and they’ll see an opportunity and they’ll you follow it.

Tim Ulbrich  54:32

So let’s shift gears and talk about some financial aspects. After all, this is a financial show. And I’d love to pick your brain, you know, as relates to your own financial journey, I think a lot of wisdom to share with our listeners. And one of things I want to start this conversation with is we often talk about the importance of striking the balance between saving for the future, right planning for retirement, taking care of our future selves while also living a rich life today and I know as someone who’s a saver and he does a good job of thinking about the future. You know, there is that balance for you. And I think that’s something you’ve probably been working on throughout your career. And so my question is like, how have you approached that balance? And like, as you think about this for you and mom, like, what does that rich life look like? What does that mean to the two of you?

Tom Ulbrich  55:17

Yeah, that’s, that’s a hard and interesting question. The, yeah, the fact is, I think you can get caught up in the extremes of both like, not understanding finances, and maybe never saving for anything and living paycheck to paycheck. And you can go the other extreme, of over saving, if that’s such a thing, you’re the financial experts, over saving and never having life experiences with your family, with your spouse with that, and also never having the thrill of philanthropic giving, and supporting other things, with your money, depending on what you what you personally believe you should be doing with that. So we I think we found a good balance, I’m not gonna lie, I still think we’re fine at this point in our lives. But I’m always thinking like, man it’d be nice to have a little bit, you know, bigger nest egg, a little bit bigger nest egg. But I think we found a really good balance many years ago, of starting to make sure we created experiences with family, your mom and I, you know, we do stuff with all of you, right? We try to create those experiences with family vacations. We also do vacations on our own to be a way to recharge, to spend time with each other. And we do a significant amount of that, we do, you know, some philanthropic giving, that we think is really important, supporting causes that are important to us. But I do think finding that balance is important. And I’m not sure, I think where are you find that I believe it’s just like the other topic we’ve been talking about. It’s a learned skill that can be taught. But it’s probably modeled and learned because one of the things I have noticed is, human beings all have a different relationship with money. 

Tim Ulbrich  57:04

Totally. 

Tom Ulbrich  57:05

And a lot of it is what they experience, if you grew up in poverty, you may be really, you know, risk averse about spending money, or you may be the opposite. I’m going to spend everything I make because I saw somebody lose it all, or I live with nothing for so long, I want to make it up. And you know, a great example, this is your grandmother, or great-grandmother lived through the Depression. So her dad was the Brinkman’s Jelly, lost everything in the stock market. And to the day she passed away, if she had a cup of tea, she would reuse the tea bag two or three times because that was how she was wired. Like, why would I waste this when there’s still something good in it, and I think those are situational, they’re how you grow up. But again, financial literacy and education, and the work that you’re doing, and the work that people are doing that, or, um, you know, listening to this super, super crucial that we understand how we’re wired around money, and the pros and cons of our genotype or whatever you want to call it, that that is who we are around money. But back to us, I think we found a good balance, you know, now we’re thinking about the point will come time soon, like, how do you spend it down? Yeah, and how much do you want to pass on to the next generation, but, you know, all those decisions, and I think for me, that’s more the hardest part gonna be. And I think that’s where your company or your business’s type of work, I believe where you really earn your money is probably working with people that are spending money down because that can be complicated. What go, what do I spend first, how much can I spend, I’m gonna run out of money, you know, all those type of things. But I it’s a real thing, right? people’s relationship with money. And it’s all very different. I don’t know it to be a fact. But I can imagine it can be very stressful in a relationship too. If you have people that come at, if their relationship with money, as a child was very different than that mean, then coming trying to manage finances together. So important work you you all are doing in your company. 

Tim Ulbrich  59:19

I’m so glad you mentioned the relationship with money. You know, it’s, it’s until we get real with that and honestly, self reflect what is our relationship with money? How healthy is it? Where did the behaviors come from? Does it cause anxiety, fear, shame, guilt? Do we have an open hand a closed hand without judgment as soon as we can actually understand and assess that we can get real with the financial plan? Because as much as we want to say it’s all objective X’s and O’s. It’s not. It’s not. I mean, that’s all important. Of course it is. But there’s so much behavior, so much emotion, so much learned experiences. Great-grandma’s a great example. It didn’t matter if she had $100 in the bank or $100 million in the bank. She was going to reuse that tea bag, right? The objective numbers didn’t matter, like and we have to think back to what was the dinner table experience, like, you know, what were those and we can’t change those experiences and the things that were great, we take gratitude for the things that weren’t, we can take responsibility and make changes for. But that’s where we start to learn these behaviors that really impact how we relationally connect with money. And the better we understand that, especially when you’re doing this with a significant other/partner/spouse, the better we can start to make progress and doing what we’re talking about, which is finding the balance of the objective side of it and finding the balance on the emotional relationship side of it. And you might not know this, but actually there’s a book called Happy Money we’ll link to in the show notes. There’s a researcher PhD that that’s what she does, she researches the connection between happiness and money. And what the research has supported is the connection, is there really on two things, on giving in on experiences. And when I think about what you and mom have done really well, it’s those two things. You have an open hand and a philanthropic mindset, right. And I think it’s natural that when you have an open hand, and you’re willing to give, you know, I think that you look at the rest of your financial picture in a different, in a healthier way. And when you look at experiences, right, those are memories, you talked about, you know, we take an annual trip as a family to the Finger Lakes. You know, next summer, we’re looking at a trip to Norway with a group of all of us, you and mom go on several cruises a year, you’ve done that, since we were, you know, in middle school. So like, I think the experiences and the giving are key components of the financial plan. And we really want to build the plan around to support those areas, if those are areas of goals for the individuals. 

Tom Ulbrich  1:01:42

That’s interesting. Two points you make that I think are super important is we forget about the motions part of my right, we want to do the X’s and O’s. But also when it comes back to parenting, if those two are really, really important, right, those two things, when it comes to parenting, we have to teach our children that really, really young, right? Like how do we teach our children that giving’s important? And there’s a bunch of ways that you all talk about how you do that. How do you teach that it’s healthy, to invest in experience, experiences that create memories, and it’s also healthy to save. And it’s not all one or the other. It’s all those aspects of what a successful money plan looks like. An even if we’ve talked about this month ago, but even decisions like what type of car you’re going to buy, like, you know, I often once in a while I get this itch, like I want to buy this really, really nice car, mom will say you really want to drive around in a car that’s cost more than people’s homes? And I’m like, no, I don’t want to do that. But t’s okay, if somebody does want to do that if they have the resources that that that is really an individualized decision, all of those decisions. And I think we have to be careful not to pick on our whole pigeonhole ourselves into it’s one or the other or the other. We’ve also seen people be philanthropic to the point that they’re, they’re punishing themselves. 

Tim Ulbrich  1:03:09

That’s right. 

Tom Ulbrich  1:03:09

They can’t, they can’t do anything because they give it all you know, they want to give everything away because it really jazzes them, but they don’t think about what their personal needs are, what other needs are, what long term needs are.

Tim Ulbrich  1:03:22

Yeah, and I think what I’m hearing there is individual. I think so often when it comes to finances we’re, we get caught up whether we know it or we don’t know it and kind of what other people are doing, and really evaluating like, what do we want? What what are the things that are most important to us, not what other people say we should be doing? What do we actually want to be doing and Ramit Sethi in his book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, he, he talks about this as money dials. So find the things that really mean a lot to you and derive significance. And like prioritize them, dial them up and find the things that you don’t care about, that you’re maybe spending and dial him down, right. And for some people, the dial up might be a car, for others, it might be a dial down, right, everyone’s situation is different. So I love that. Let’s talk about pursuit of retirement. And I think this is interesting, because we just, we throw that term around. And for whatever reason, I think as a society, you know, people if you ask, Hey, when are you gonna retire? 62, 63, 65, right. And that’s kind of a vision they have it’s, it’s sort of this idea, this number, this age that we’ve just thrown out there and we kind of blindly accept. And again goes back to the individual aspects we’re talking about. But when I think about you, right, it’s someone who’s healthy, who enjoys their work, who has the flexibility within your job to do the things that mean the most to you. It really challenges that idea of retirement, like how are you thinking about the next stage in retirement? 

Tom Ulbrich  1:04:53

It’s interesting, because the world does. I think think like this magic number is 62, 65 years old. Again, I think it’s what I’ve learned it’s very, very individualized. Some people have to keep working, because they have to. That’s not my circumstance. I keep working, because I love what I do. And I imagine, I can’t picture the word full retirement, like not doing something everyday. So I don’t know what that means. But I know that at 64 years old, I’m not thinking of even thinking of leaving Goodwill for another four or five, six years, assuming I stay healthy, because I love what I do. And what’s also is really important. Your mom’s retired, but she supports me in what I do and my passions, and we work that out. Because I think sometimes that could be a challenge for couples, right? Yeah, one person’s retired wants to do this, and that, I’m fortunate to have a job, they do have a lot of flexibility in. Significant vacation time. And the most important if you work for somebody else, I have an incredible, we’re nonprofit. So I have a board of directors is my boss, an incredible nonprofit, that we talk transparently about who I am as an individual, what the goals are the company, for the board of directors, what my goals are, and they lean into other things I want to do. So I recently went to them and just went to the chair of the board and said, I thought about leaving to do more consulting, but like, why do I want to do that? And I asked myself, why do I want to go into consulting, I used to do it, I enjoyed it. The reason I wanted to do it is I miss that interaction with entrepreneurs and problem solving. And I found an outlet with that, and the board supported it. So I created a LinkedIn newsletter and launched it and I talk about entrepreneurship. And I talk about social innovation. And I have got so much feedback from people that said, I had you in class or I worked with you that is feeding that part of me that I was missing. So I hate you know, I don’t want to yeah, I don’t want to oversell, you know, I don’t want any of you coming for my job, but I got a really good, I got a good gig, that works for me. And I’m not I am not putting a date on retirement. If it’s not fun anymore, if it’s too challenging, if there’s a health situation, there’ll be a different discussion. But for now, I’m taking that word off the table. I’m gonna live and create, you know, maybe do more experiences, maybe take a couple extra vacations, we try to get down, you know, away to see the boys and do things with the girls. All that’s important. And I think retirement would afford more of that. But not enough to walk away from a job to just think you’re going to do that full time. Because we’re not.

Tim Ulbrich  1:07:49

Yeah, and not everyone right is lucky enough to be in a position where you love the work that you’re doing. And you feel a sense of contribution, right? Because we know I mean, it’s pretty darn clear. Like, you’re getting out, yeah, you’re working, you’re getting paid, but you’re getting a lot of intrinsic value because you feel like every day you’re making an impact and contributing, whether that be to the larger organization, whether that be down to the store level because of the efforts that you’re doing. Whether that be because of the impact you’re having of other entrepreneurs, or leading their staff, like if you just pull the plug on that, because of this illusion of like, I want to retire and do my own thing. We often underestimate what a gap that can be a contribution that you’re making, right? So I think there’s just a ton of wisdom in what you’re sharing there. And really making sure again, going back to the individual aspect, like what do you want, what provides value Oh, and by the way, you’ve put yourself in a position financially, that if something changes, whether that be health, whether that be something with the organization changes, something where you’re no longer, whatever, you have a choice you can make. And I think that that’s such a message we try to convey to our listeners that you want your financial plan to be designed in a way that gives you options, choice and flexibility. And that takes time and hard work. You’ve saved for a long period of time. But you now are in that position of choice as long as it’s going how you want it to go. You keep doing what you’re doing. But if something changes, that’s okay. Like you’re gonna be okay. 

Tom Ulbrich  1:09:18

For sure. And we’re, it’s certainly nice. I’m sure there are people that are trapped because they they didn’t plan successfully, right and or maybe even trapped and have to work longer. That’s not our, my position. You know, I’m fortunate that I could walk out today and we’re fine. Everything’s fine. But that did come through lots of planning and in you know, when we talk about financial planning, it’s not just about money. It’s about other things like health care and long term care and all those type of things that build safety nets around you are things that are getting probably very individualized to what the needs of the person is or what they feel safe around. But, but we’ve got all that. So we’re in a spot where we we could, you know, just stop which which that freedom allows you to really dive in deeper into what you’re doing. Because you’re not worried about all I have to do this or that, to sate to make sure I keep my job or, you know, I don’t want to do something that that might push the envelope a little bit. Because I can’t afford to lose my job and that and being surrounded by people that support you is really, really critical. 

Tim Ulbrich  1:10:31

Yeah. Well, this has been a joy. And by far, not even close, I mean it, that my favorite episode we’ve done in 363 episodes, so I can’t wait for this to get out to the community. I know. It’s one that I’ll be able to go back and listen to for some time. So thank you so much, Dad, for taking the time. I love you and appreciate you sharing your journey with us. 

Tom Ulbrich  1:10:53

You are welcome. I love you too. And Happy Father’s Day. The that will be here in in a day or two. Right? It’s coming quickly. So thanks so much. Appreciate having you again. Love you say hi to everybody. And we’ll chat again soon.

Tim Ulbrich  1:11:12

We’ll do and for our listeners if you want to connect with my dad, we’ll link in the show notes to his LinkedIn profile. Make sure to check out his newsletter as well. It’s great stuff. So thanks so much, dad, take care. 

Tom Ulbrich  1:11:22

Take care.

Tim Ulbrich  1:11:25

[DISCLAIMER] As we conclude this week’s podcast and important reminder that the content on this show is provided 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 Pharmacists Podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

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