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I have met with people who make a half a
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million dollars a year and they spend six hundred. That
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doesn't really matter how much money you make. It's just like,
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if you want to be fit, you know, I keep
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using this fitness analogy. Calories in, calories out. That's it.
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Everything else is details, Okay, it is about, you know,
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the discipline. I have had some wonderful success stories of
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people who, yes, were modest, blue collar, or they were
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just working a job, raising their family, living their life,
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but they make good financial decisions. They treated their life
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like a business. They knew what their inputs and their
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outputs were. Okay. That's one of my first clues when
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I'm talking with someone is if they have absolutely no
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idea how much they're spending, if they have absolutely no
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idea where their money is or anything, It's like, hey,
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we need to start tiding this thing up.
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Mike Brady hit the pinnacle of traditional plans, only to
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watch his world evaporate in the two thousand and eight crash.
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But that loss became his greatest teacher, forcing a ship
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from chasing numbers to stoking the fire of generosity. Today,
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he's redefining wealth management by proving that money doesn't just
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buy things, it magnifies who we already are. In this episode,
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we dive into the discipline of abundance, the power of
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boundary setting, and what it really looks like the lead
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a life where your assets finally align with your soul. Hi,
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Welcome to this episode of the Rack Responsibility Podcast. This
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is doctor Fleet Mall your host, and I'm really happy
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to be here today with longtime friend and colleague Mike Brady.
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Welcome, Mike, glad to be here.
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Fleet.
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Well, I've been looking forward to this. We've been working
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together for a long time. You were president of the
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company where I was doing executive coaching, and as a result,
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you later became my wealth manager, and you've been doing
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a great job of stewarding my little nest egg for
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quite a while now through some real ups and downs
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in the marketplace, and so I'm happy to be able
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to have this conversation about everything we've kind of learned
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together and been through together.
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I'm excited because you and I have known each other
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for twenty five years and you have seen me from
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pretty formulative time, you know, in my early thirties to
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where I am today at fifty seven. Years old, and
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not only have we shared a business relationship, but we
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have had some pretty interesting I have had a lot
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of personal growth through your mentorship, and we have shared
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some great adventures together, you know, not just in the
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United States, but you know, in Africa and in Europe.
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So I'm pretty excited to be here.
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Yeah, and those have been been very formative experiences for
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both of us. So excited to explore all this. And
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I'd like to talk about to begin talking about a
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little bit about so the nature of money, the nature
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of wealth, and it's kind of a mirror.
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For our lives. And you know, a lot of us
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think of money.
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Well, we may just think of we have someone we
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don't have some, and it can be tied to a
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real sense of scarcity, or we may think of it
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in terms of you know, numbers and market and strategies
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and so forth.
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But your firm, generosity wealth.
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Management, as I understood it or understand it today, is
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focused on a deeper, more conscious relationship with.
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Money and wealth.
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So I wonder if there was a time in your
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life or career when you realize that money is more
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than just a financial tool, but perhaps our relationship with
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it kind of mirrors many aspects of our life.
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Yes. So I was working at a traditional investment firm
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in the nineteen nineties and into the middle of the
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two thousands, and I remember very vividly that a client
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of mine came up. He was the first AIDS doctor
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in Boulder, and he came up and he's like, Mike,
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do I have enough money so that I can retire?
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My answer was, yes, you do. And what did he do?
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He retired and he went to Uganda and as a doctor,
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a medical doctor, he helped the doctors there on better
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ways to do palliative care with those that are stricken
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with AIDS. And his wife went along and did a
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lot of great work. And so that was my first
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kind of opening to Wow, what I'm doing is enabling
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people to follow their dreams and allowing them to make
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an impact in the community. And that's when I kind
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of had that realization. I'm like, I'm removed from it,
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you know, as their advisor, I'm kind of behind the scenes.
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How can I integrate more fully that lesson into what
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I'm doing and kind of be a little bit of
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a preacher, be it an evangelist for that way of
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thinking about money with my clients. And so that's when
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I within a year or two, I left that firm
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because that firm is going to stay traditional and I
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needed to kind of spread my wings, take a couple
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of years off to figure out exactly what that meant.
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And that's when I created Generosity Wealth Management. And you know,
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we talk about realign wealth with purpose and possibility, which
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I'm happy to talk a little bit more about, but
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that's what we're doing. We're aligning wealth with purpose and possibility.
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And money is money is just a thing. It's just
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a thing, and it can be good, it doesn't. It
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magnifies what's already there. If you're a good person with
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no money, you're going to be a great person with money,
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and the opposite, unfortunately, if you're a jerk with no money,
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you're a big jerk with money.
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So so Radical Responsibility, which is the themeless podcast. Within
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that philosophy, I talk about, you know, the power of ownership,
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the powers of living in choice, and we address the
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many ways in which we often avoid ownership for our
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inner lives. And so I'm wondering how you see, you know,
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the inner dynamics that we often arrive in adulthood with
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at various levels of fear and self criticism, shame, inherited
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stories about money from our childhood and so forth, driving
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just kind of avoidance around our financial life or self
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sabotage or things like that. I mean, you've been listening
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to people, You've had conversation with people about their money.
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It's a pretty sensitive subject often, I think you know,
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for thirty years or more, and so you know, when
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you see people they're even in kind of over control mode,
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or they're just avoidance and just kind of not really
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taking responsibility for managing their money properly, or they're even
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sabotaging themselves financially.
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What have you learned about all that?
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Yeah? Well, I wish I could say that I talk
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with people, I see it identify in them. I say
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a few words and they're they're converted. I wish it
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was that easy. It's not, but I do try to
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guide them over some time. And the way I approach
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it is, you know, life is filled with three buckets. Okay,
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one bucket are those things that we can control, Okay,
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I can wake up and get out of bed, all right,
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Things that we think that we can control, or that
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we're we have some influence over whether I get to
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the office or not on time is something I can influence.
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But there might be a car accident, there might be
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extra traffic, and then things that I have absolutely no
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control over. And my experience has been that we have
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a tendency to spend an inordinate amount of time on
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the things that we have no control over. Okay, and
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geopolitical events are sometimes those things. No one ever asked
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Mike Brady what he thinks, come to find out. And
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so I like to with clients say, hey, what are
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those things that we can control, and let's really spend
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our time on that. What are the things that we
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can have some influence, We can mitigate, you know, any risks,
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or mitigate bad things happen happening, But understand that we
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don't control, you know, everything, that's part of life. As
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I've gotten older, that cliche that life is a journey
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becomes more and more evident to me. That's true. That
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cliche actually has a wisdom behind it. We don't know
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about the future. It's inherently unknown. So I talk with
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clients about let's live to We can't undo the past, Okay,
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we're here in the present. What can we do to
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take control the power position to be intentional in our
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lives about going forward. And part of that is saying,
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what is it that we can do, you know, what
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are those things that we can focus on. And that's
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kind of how I work with clients.
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To your question, M Yeah, well, speaking of things we
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can control when we talk about, you know, kind of
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how things have been evolving societally and globally, but then
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how do we work with that as individuals. So the
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whole issue of wealth, you know, when I was growing up,
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you knew maybe there was a certain neighborhood somewhere, the
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big houses up on the hill where these wealthy people live,
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but it was a small thing.
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Most people were not wealthy.
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As I came into my adulthood and middle adulthood, wealth
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really became a thing, and it became much more in
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the media and everywhere, and people kind of worshiping celebrity
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and wealth and so forth. And there has been a
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huge increase in wealth. I mean, there are you know,
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even relative even if you you know, do the mask,
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so you do it in today's dollars, but there's still
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huge amount of wealth globally and growing disparity between the
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wealthy and the not wealthy, and the inequality around income
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and wealth and so forth. So with that growing wealth,
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ideally it would come responsibility. As you mentioned, you know,
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wealth just tends to exacerbate what's already there, right, So
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I wonder, you know, we could discuss a little bit
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this area from your experience, about how we can work
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with this as individuals, how you work with your clients.
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You know, when wealth is growing, either collectively or individually,
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wealth is going faster than responsibility. And I think you've
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really modeled a community spirit and respond.
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Ability to try to get out there and give back.
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And the work you're doing in Ukraine with orphans, the
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work you do with young men and fraternities, as well
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as the work you've done in Africa and other places,
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you know, just really exemplifies that you're going to focus
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your life on doing good and giving back. And that's
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not always the focus. So at least our society doesn't
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encourage that so much around money and wealth.
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Yeah. Well, you know, when I started Generosity Wealth Management
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in the late you know, two thousands or so, my
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belief was that people want to do good. And maybe
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this is my own optimism, Maybe this is my you know,
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just kind of my attitude that people want to do
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good in the world, but they don't know how and
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they need to be guided or at least they need
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an example of what you can do. And so that's
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kind of how I've led them over the last eighteen
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years or so, is that I want to meet you
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where you are. You know, I because the name of
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my company is Generosity Wealth Management, because I'm very you
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know out there that hey, we care about aligning wealth
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with purpose and possibility. We want to be generous in
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the world with yourself and family, community. I mean, these
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are messages that we're always kind of shouting out to
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the world. We attract some pretty incredible people who are
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attracted to that positive, forward thinking, proactive approach of living
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your life. Now that being said, some people are further
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along than others, and I meet where they are. What
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do you want to do? What impact do you want
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to make in the world? And it might just be
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you and your family, and that's fine, Okay, there's no
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judgment about that. Frankly, it might just be you. How
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can you live your life so that you're happy and
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that you're generous with yourself and if you can really
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get so that you don't are not fearful, then maybe
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you can be generous with your family and then from
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there kind of the last part is being generous in
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your community, both local and global. I do try to
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live a life of example. You know, I put sweat
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equity in, I put some financial equity ad I try
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to show a path to those that one to be engaged,
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and I counsel with people many times. And that's one
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thing I really love about that kind of local community foundations.
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Is there a wealth of knowledge. They're like a little
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bit of a chamber of commerce for charities and for goodness.
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In a community, whether it's a town or city, you're
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and there's probably some kind of a community foundation, and
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I meet people where they are, I guess is my
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ultimate answer, and a lot of people when they see
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how happy it makes you. Because that's another thing that
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I have found is that we always talk about how
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we're going to make an impact on others, but we
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forget about how that impacts us. You know, we learn
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an awful lot about ourselves, and we're better off and
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we're happier the more we're engaged with the more we're
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helping them out. It really helps us out too, and
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people need to know that it's like a gym. Most
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people don't wake up saying, oh, I'm so glad that
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it sits in the morning. Are going to go run
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and yeah, but once you're there, you feel so great.
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And when you leave the gym after a great workout,
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now you feel good and you have to remind yourself, Okay,
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tomorrow morning, when I don't want to it's cold outside
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and dark, I'm going to do this again because I
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have to remember that great feeling and being involved in
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your community getting out there kind of the same thing.
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So the name of your company really points to this
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and everything you've been discussing so far, a distinction between
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an abundance mindset and a scarcity mindset. And a lot
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of us suffer from a scarcity mindset in general, but
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especially when it comes to money. And it's surprising how
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many high networth individuals they have plenty of resources and
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they still suffer from this scarcity mindset. And in some
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ways it seems like the more wealth they have, the
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more the fear goes up. Maybe if there's more to
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lose or something, if you have that scarcity mindset. So
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I'm wondering if you run into that with your clients
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and how you work for that. Can people make that
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shift from having a fear based scarcity mindset or all
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money no matter how much they have, they're having more
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of an abundance mindset and the ability to find meeting
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and a sense of security in life sort of regardles
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so you know what their net worth is doing at
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the moment.
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Yes, I periodically do meet people who You're right, no
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matter how much money you have, if it's a part
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of who you are, if you add another zero or two,
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that doesn't change who you are. It just means that
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the number is bigger. I mean truly, it's a number
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on a sheet of paper, and you still might have
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the fear that you had or always thinking that you're
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going to run out that scarcity. As you say, over time,
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I have seen people shift, okay, and they might fall
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back to I might have taken them forty or fifty
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years to sixty years of living a certain way. It's
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not going to change overnight or you know, over a
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couple of weeks, but over time by really becoming comfortable
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and having lots of conversation with them about hey, there
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is enough and let's talk about how we're going to
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turn that negative that you're feeling right now in the
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pit of your stomach into a positive. And so how
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I've shifted a lot of people is saying, instead of
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taking that negative and focusing on the negative, how can
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we turn it into a positive? And once they start
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seeing that, Wow, I have the abundance where I can
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give five hundred dollars, I can give a thousand, I
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can give whatever the amount is. It could be significantly more,
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at least starting small and getting bigger and bigger to
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where they're feeling that they're making the impact that they want.
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Is the way that I have helped shift. I wish
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that I had one hundred percent success rate. I don't. Okay,
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some people it is ingrained. I'm not really a therapist. Okay,
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at the end of the day, I try to help
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people along, but I also have to say I've done
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what I can. And you know, if you really want
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to change, I can't want this more than you. If
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you don't want to change your scarcity mindset, I'm not
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going to make you do it. I can't will it
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upon you. We may or may not work together long term.
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It's just that simple, because you know, behind the scenes,
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what we don't put up on our website is you know,
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we don't like a lot of drama. Okay, we don't.
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We have no drama in our company, within the team members,
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but also with our clients. And so it will work
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with some clients and stuff, but if it's filled with
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chaos and drama, that's not the way we live our
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lives long term. And we try to help them get
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out of that. But if we're ultimately unsuccessful, okay, and
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I have to acknowledge we are, Okay, things that I
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can't control. I try to control, but I can't control them.
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It might not work out. And you're just going to
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have to figure that out on your own, mister and
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missus client.
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And well, I think that's a really important thing to
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model as a business person and human being all together,
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is we need to have boundaries, and if we don't
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have boundaries, our life is going to be chaos, right,
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And so we can help out people, we can't help everybody,
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and that we need to make our choices.
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And it sounds like.
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You've done a pretty good job with that. And I
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know you focused Mike on sort of long term financial
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planning and asset allocation, long term investment strategies, and I've
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subscribed to a few investment newsletters here there, so I
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guess that's got me on a lot of lists, right,
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So I get emails from these different you know, people
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trying to promote their investment strategy letters and so forth,
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and even from what I think a pretty famous and
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fairly reputable people, there's still so much fear in it.
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They're constantly predicting this crash or that crash, you know,
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and they claim to have called the two thousand and
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eight crash, and you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
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But it just seems like in the marketing of financial
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services and investment advice and investment strategies, there's so much
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fear in it. So it's sort of like all the
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political stuff I get around the campaigns, like depending on
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what side draw on that side of telling you this
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guy's falling and they're you know, they're cleaning out your
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bank accounts, and you know, I constantly get things about
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how you know they're going to change the monetary system,
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all your cash is going to disappear. I mean, it
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just seems to be so much fear in that world.
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You seem to be a very divergent voice in that field.
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There's so much fear and scarcity thinking and communication is
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in the world of financial advising.
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Well, I appreciate you using that word, you know, divergent,
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because I don't want to be like everybody else, okay,
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and I don't think that what everyone else is doing
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is helpful anyway. When you get spam, you're like, gosh,
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why do they keep spamming? Well, it obviously works, right
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or they wouldn't do it. Or it's the same way
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with you know, telemarketing calls. I mean, it obviously works
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and it makes money for him. It doesn't work with
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you and me, but you know, hopefully but obviously worse
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they keep doing it. So unfortunately, certain things like fear
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does excite the emotions of people. It's almost like a drug,
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you know that people want. Some people want drama. Some
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people need outrage or fear or the next thing to
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get their juices flowing. And not internet. Okay, I'm proud
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of being relatively calm and even keeled. Doesn't mean that
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I'm you know, mister spock, you know, with no emotions.
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It just means that I keep I control them, they
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don't control me. I always tell you know, my team
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that when a client ends a conversation with us, whether
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it's on the phone, a zoom in the office, they
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have to leave with hope. That's it. And so if
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someone comes in their prospective client they want something that
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that's not going to happen. Okay, they want to retire
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next month and they have no money, well, I don't
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know what to tell you. I can't change I have
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no magic wand here that being said, I still try
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to provide them with some hope. Hey, you know what
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if you pay off this credit card, or you do
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this deck, or you know, you say five thousand dollars,
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you come back to me in six months. If you've
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done that, then I'll help you take them the next step.
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And so it's all about, you know, being proactive, having
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some kind of a solution. And unfortunately, you know, whether
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it's the news media, whether or not it is a
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print media, they're there to excite your emotions many times
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not necessarily inform you. And well, frankly I'm more sensitive
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to it because of my first iteration that traditional investment
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firm that I was with, we used fear. That's how
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I grew up in my twenties and thirties. I thought
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that's the way you attract the clients to you come
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to find out you attract fearful clients and can't figure out, oh,
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why are they have a mindset of scarcity? I mean,
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of course, I want to, on the other hand, attract
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the people who are not that way, people who are
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pretty even keyelled, people who are wanting, you know, positive
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and hopeful and proactive and once again powerful in that
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they have an intentional life. And that's really what we're
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talking about with purpose and possibility. The purpose is what
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you need money to do. The possibility is what you
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want it to do, and sometimes those things that you
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haven't even considered yet. And that's very hopeful, and that's
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what we want to do. We want to use it
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to help people out, not just run from things, run
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towards things.
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So let's talk a little bit about the name of
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your company's generosity wealth management. So generosity, I think sometimes
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we think generosity is something I'll be able to do
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once I'm wealthy, er, once I'm successful, or I have
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more time or something, and or that it's just a
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quality that we have. We're either generous or we're not general.
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And I wonder if you could talk about generosity more
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as a discipline, as a practice, as a thing we
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can learn, and also that generosity could be part of
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creating and developing worth rather than something that follows It
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could be something that part of creating wealth ultimately, as
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opposed to something that just follows that.
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Yes, let me talk about that, But let me tell
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you how I kind of came to this thought. Is
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I remember meeting with the client. His name was Jack.
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He's now passed on, but he came to me. He's like, Mike,
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when I die, I want some of my money to
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go towards this park bench about a mile in on
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this one trail in Boulder, Colorado. And I'm like why, Jack,
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And he's like, well, I'm always tired about a mile in,
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and so I really like to have a bench there
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because I figure that other people are also tired about
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a mile in. And I'm like, Jack, you don't have
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to die in order for that to happen. Why don't
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we do it while you're living so that you get
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the benefit from that bench. And he's, you know, looks
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at me like wow, I never thought of it. I mean,
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it had never occurred to him that you could have
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that level of generosity while you're living. He thought and
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had been programmed that it only happens upon your passing.
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And so that's what I try to do with clients
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all the time, to say, hey, while you're living where
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you get to see the benefit as well, what can
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we do? And it's not just writing checks, although that's
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good too, all right, but it's also hey, is it
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getting involved in coaching at your high school or your
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elementary your kids, or teaching Sunday school at your church.
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It doesn't really matter necessarily what you're doing, but you're
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engaged in the world and you know you're making that
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impact in that particular way. So you know, how I've
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addressed generosity with a lot of my clients is, hey,
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this is something that we can do. But personally speaking,
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whenever I give out of my genuine heart, not expecting anything, Okay,
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it has always come back to me in a multiple Okay,
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not not always, it has come back. I might do it,
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you know, be generous with a couple and you know, great,
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I made the world better. That's it. That's what my
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expectation should be is that I did a good thing
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for somebody. But frankly, I'm always doing, you know, trying
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to do good in the world, and it has come
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back and enriched my life. And it also attracts the
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right people, you know. But you got to do it
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with the right intention. Don't join or do that expecting
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something back and then being disappointed if it doesn't. When
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you have no expectations of it. You can't be disappointed.
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You did it because it was the right thing. But
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my experience has been that generosity in your life when
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you genuinely are being kind to other people, when you're
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genuinely being active in your community, your neighborhood, your school,
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your church, whatever it might be, that charity people see that,
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people can tell when you really just are caring and
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kind and they want to be a part of that.
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It attracts the right people, and that has always come
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back and helped my business. Frankly, it's a cycle. Okay.
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That helps my business means my business grows, the means
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I can then do more in the world as well.
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I can write checks, I can be out there, I
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can you know, I can afford someone to join my
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team so that I maybe spend more time out in
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the community. So it's just this wonderful, beautiful cycle of
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goodness that keeps coming back.
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Yeah, And I want to.
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Talk a little bit more about your experience of building
477
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your business over these years in a moment, But first
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of all, I want to talk a little bit about
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wealth creation and financial management, stewarding money with some both
480
00:23:27.279 --> 00:23:29.720
sanity and insight. So I think a lot of us
481
00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:33.599
don't even really think about, you know, trying to create
482
00:23:33.640 --> 00:23:36.640
some wealth or create some financial security until we start
483
00:23:36.960 --> 00:23:40.480
imagining that, oh, maybe I'm going to need to retire someday, right,
484
00:23:40.920 --> 00:23:42.759
And you know, we grow up kind of living at
485
00:23:42.759 --> 00:23:44.559
the edge of our means or beyond our means. We
486
00:23:44.599 --> 00:23:47.519
live in such a kind of consumerius materialistic society, or
487
00:23:47.519 --> 00:23:50.519
getting these constant messages to spend and live like others
488
00:23:50.599 --> 00:23:53.400
and so forth. And you know, if you don't start
489
00:23:53.400 --> 00:23:56.920
thinking about retirement until your sixties, you don't start thinking
490
00:23:56.920 --> 00:23:59.480
about how you're going to retire until your sixties.
491
00:23:59.039 --> 00:24:00.400
It gives you a shorter window.
492
00:24:00.720 --> 00:24:03.319
And for those who are younger in our audience, especially
493
00:24:03.839 --> 00:24:06.440
if someone in their twenties and thirties starts taking a
494
00:24:06.519 --> 00:24:10.200
proactive long term view of wealth creation, even if they
495
00:24:10.240 --> 00:24:13.680
have modest income. With the power compound interest and the
496
00:24:13.759 --> 00:24:17.279
general upward trajectory of the markets, over time, you can
497
00:24:17.400 --> 00:24:19.920
end up with some considerable wealth by the time you're
498
00:24:19.920 --> 00:24:21.480
in your sixties or seventies.
499
00:24:21.759 --> 00:24:23.519
If you start early. I wonder if you could talk
500
00:24:23.519 --> 00:24:24.279
to that a little bit.
501
00:24:24.720 --> 00:24:29.279
What if transformation isn't just about thinking differently but feeling differently.
502
00:24:29.759 --> 00:24:32.599
Science shows us that true change happens when we align
503
00:24:32.759 --> 00:24:36.240
not just our minds, but also the neural networks in
504
00:24:36.279 --> 00:24:39.839
our hearts and guts. This heart mind connection is the
505
00:24:39.920 --> 00:24:44.160
key to deeper healing, resilience, and expanded awareness. That's why
506
00:24:44.200 --> 00:24:47.599
I created the Heart Mind All Access, membership and community,
507
00:24:47.920 --> 00:24:50.799
a space designed to help you rewire your nervous system,
508
00:24:51.119 --> 00:24:55.119
cultivate heart intelligence, and live with greater clarity and purpose.
509
00:24:55.759 --> 00:25:00.799
With over one thousand hours of transformational teachings specifically curated
510
00:25:00.880 --> 00:25:06.960
to meet your needs, You'll learn from world renowned meditation teachers, neuroscientists,
511
00:25:07.039 --> 00:25:11.680
and experts of neuroplasticity, all sharing powerful tools to help
512
00:25:11.720 --> 00:25:16.079
you shift your mindset and heartset, regulate your emotions, and
513
00:25:16.400 --> 00:25:21.039
unlock your full potential. You'll also gain unlimited access to
514
00:25:21.200 --> 00:25:24.039
every summit and course, we've ever produced a treasure of
515
00:25:24.119 --> 00:25:27.880
trouble wisdom worth over ten thousand dollars in growing, plus
516
00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:32.319
live gatherings and an inspiring global community to support your journey.
517
00:25:32.640 --> 00:25:35.039
If you're ready to step into a more heart centered,
518
00:25:35.079 --> 00:25:38.000
connected and conscious life, I invite you to join us.
519
00:25:38.359 --> 00:25:41.440
Clip the link to learn more and start your journey today.
520
00:25:42.599 --> 00:25:45.200
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean I think that it's not just money.
521
00:25:45.240 --> 00:25:49.039
When you're young. It's hard to think about the future. Okay,
522
00:25:49.319 --> 00:25:52.519
twenty thirty forty years ago from now is just a
523
00:25:52.559 --> 00:25:55.799
long time. I mean, if everyone thought about the future
524
00:25:55.799 --> 00:25:57.319
all the time, we'd all go to the gym right
525
00:25:57.359 --> 00:25:59.519
when you are our thirties and forties. We'd never do anything
526
00:25:59.559 --> 00:26:02.440
to our bi that. As we get older, we say, huh,
527
00:26:02.640 --> 00:26:04.319
maybe I should go to the gym a little bit.
528
00:26:04.319 --> 00:26:07.119
I'm a little bit more motivated. Maybe I'll forego that
529
00:26:07.319 --> 00:26:11.119
extra piece of cheesecake. So it's not just money. It's
530
00:26:11.119 --> 00:26:13.039
tough when you're in your twenties and thirties, but that
531
00:26:13.119 --> 00:26:16.640
differentiates those that can think that way. You know, I
532
00:26:16.720 --> 00:26:20.039
like to think of it as today money and tomorrow money. Okay,
533
00:26:20.319 --> 00:26:23.640
we don't want to only think about today, because tomorrow
534
00:26:23.759 --> 00:26:25.279
is going to be here before we know it. We
535
00:26:25.319 --> 00:26:28.680
don't want to only think about tomorrow because that makes
536
00:26:28.720 --> 00:26:32.039
today not that much fun. So there's some spectrum between
537
00:26:32.079 --> 00:26:35.400
the two that each client has to figure out for themselves.
538
00:26:35.680 --> 00:26:39.480
But every dollar that you don't spend today is income
539
00:26:39.599 --> 00:26:42.839
for you in the future. If you can get that concept,
540
00:26:42.920 --> 00:26:46.119
if you can get and understand and truly make into
541
00:26:46.160 --> 00:26:49.519
your DNA the discipline that it's like, wow, if I
542
00:26:49.599 --> 00:26:53.319
save twenty to thirty percent of today, that will then
543
00:26:53.480 --> 00:26:56.839
provide me with the income for tomorrow. And tomorrow could
544
00:26:56.880 --> 00:27:00.240
be thirty, forty, fifty years from now, but that is it.
545
00:27:00.359 --> 00:27:03.759
And so I work with young people in their twenties
546
00:27:03.799 --> 00:27:06.880
and thirties, and whenever they do something that I really
547
00:27:07.160 --> 00:27:09.480
think is like, wow, that's great, that's right on, I
548
00:27:09.559 --> 00:27:12.839
of course give them lots of praise. No one seems
549
00:27:12.880 --> 00:27:17.720
to be immune to praise and to compliments, okay, And
550
00:27:17.799 --> 00:27:21.440
so I really try to encourage that because hopefully that's
551
00:27:21.480 --> 00:27:24.039
the endorphin that they're getting. Is not only watching a
552
00:27:24.200 --> 00:27:27.720
balance go up through their efforts and through its efforts
553
00:27:27.720 --> 00:27:29.559
on its own, you know, how it's invested, et cetera,
554
00:27:30.039 --> 00:27:33.200
but also through me externally saying you are doing the
555
00:27:33.279 --> 00:27:35.680
right thing, you are knocking it out of the park,
556
00:27:35.880 --> 00:27:40.000
et cetera. Because on the flip side, you get external
557
00:27:40.240 --> 00:27:42.119
feedback from when you go to the bar and you
558
00:27:42.119 --> 00:27:44.880
buy a whole round for everybody, or you go buy
559
00:27:44.880 --> 00:27:46.880
a car and everyone's like, oh my gosh, this is
560
00:27:46.920 --> 00:27:49.359
a great car. Well, you know, all my paychecks are
561
00:27:49.359 --> 00:27:52.680
going towards it. Okay, nobody cares about that. All they
562
00:27:52.680 --> 00:27:54.359
can see is that you've got this, you know, this
563
00:27:54.480 --> 00:27:57.279
asset you know maybe doesn't really help you. Makes you
564
00:27:57.319 --> 00:27:59.440
feel good in the short term, but it doesn't really
565
00:27:59.440 --> 00:28:01.720
help you in the long So how can we The
566
00:28:01.799 --> 00:28:04.279
way my approach is how can I outer that with
567
00:28:04.599 --> 00:28:07.839
really positive feedback? Now my experience has been you can
568
00:28:07.880 --> 00:28:10.119
sit here and show all the spreadsheets in the world,
569
00:28:10.319 --> 00:28:13.839
you can do all the logical stuff. It's less helpful,
570
00:28:14.559 --> 00:28:16.519
all right. If you got to really get it in
571
00:28:16.559 --> 00:28:19.640
your get it in your DNA, have that discipline. If
572
00:28:19.640 --> 00:28:23.079
you've got emotional control and discipline that gets you through
573
00:28:23.119 --> 00:28:26.480
eighty ninety percent of what I do. And same thing
574
00:28:26.519 --> 00:28:29.119
with the working out. If you've got some discipline in
575
00:28:29.200 --> 00:28:30.599
order to get in there, it doesn't really matter if
576
00:28:30.599 --> 00:28:32.440
you use it free weights or machines. Really, at the
577
00:28:32.519 --> 00:28:34.480
end of the day, it doesn't really matter. You got
578
00:28:34.519 --> 00:28:36.440
in there, you got the discipline, okay, and you have
579
00:28:36.480 --> 00:28:40.079
the emotional maturity to say, wow, this is for this
580
00:28:40.119 --> 00:28:41.720
is good for me today, this is good for me
581
00:28:41.759 --> 00:28:42.920
thirty years from now as well.
582
00:28:43.279 --> 00:28:45.920
And maybe maybe the convincing argument isn't the numbers in
583
00:28:45.960 --> 00:28:50.720
the spreadsheets, it's the emotional support and reinforcement as you're discussing.
584
00:28:51.119 --> 00:28:52.400
I do think it might.
585
00:28:52.200 --> 00:28:54.359
Be helpful to know, because I think when I was young,
586
00:28:54.440 --> 00:28:57.480
I was pretty clueless around this that you know, And
587
00:28:57.559 --> 00:29:01.960
there's many stories of essentially blue color workers who have
588
00:29:02.039 --> 00:29:04.640
had a modest income but were just in better at
589
00:29:04.680 --> 00:29:08.880
savers and invested it and they have millions.
590
00:29:08.519 --> 00:29:11.759
Of dollars to retire on the absolutely no modest income.
591
00:29:12.200 --> 00:29:14.079
Yes, I have met with people who make a half
592
00:29:14.079 --> 00:29:16.279
a million dollars a year and they spend six hundred.
593
00:29:16.440 --> 00:29:19.440
That doesn't really matter how much money you make, it's
594
00:29:19.480 --> 00:29:21.519
what you know. It's just like if you want to
595
00:29:21.559 --> 00:29:23.759
be fit, you know, I keep using this fitness analogy.
596
00:29:24.039 --> 00:29:28.039
It's calories in, calories out. That's it. Everything else is details, okay,
597
00:29:28.480 --> 00:29:32.039
And so you're right, it is about, you know, the discipline.
598
00:29:32.160 --> 00:29:35.839
I have had some wonderful success stories of people who, yes,
599
00:29:35.960 --> 00:29:40.359
were modest, blue collar or they were just working a job,
600
00:29:40.480 --> 00:29:43.400
raising their family, live in their life, but they make
601
00:29:43.480 --> 00:29:46.799
good financial decisions. They treated their life like a business.
602
00:29:46.880 --> 00:29:50.000
They knew what their inputs and their outputs were. Okay,
603
00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:52.599
That's one of my first clues when I'm talking with
604
00:29:52.640 --> 00:29:55.400
someone is if they have absolutely no idea how much
605
00:29:55.480 --> 00:29:58.400
they're spending, if they have absolutely no idea where their
606
00:29:58.440 --> 00:30:01.000
money is or anything. It's like, hey, we need to
607
00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:04.480
start tiding this thing up. Hey, let's first clean up
608
00:30:04.480 --> 00:30:07.640
your life. Today is day zero. There's no judgment and
609
00:30:07.839 --> 00:30:10.680
no shame in that's okay. I'm glad that we're having
610
00:30:10.680 --> 00:30:13.119
this conversation. But going forward, we have to have a
611
00:30:13.160 --> 00:30:15.519
new approach because the approach that you've had up till
612
00:30:15.599 --> 00:30:18.400
now hasn't worked out. Right, That's the reason maybe why
613
00:30:18.400 --> 00:30:21.839
we're talking. And so let's treat our life like a business.
614
00:30:21.920 --> 00:30:24.440
Let's know what our inputs and our outputs are, and
615
00:30:24.519 --> 00:30:27.680
let's make sure our inputs are greater and move forward. Yeah.
616
00:30:27.680 --> 00:30:29.440
I think that's a really powerful idea and what I
617
00:30:29.559 --> 00:30:31.119
use and a lot of the coaching work I do
618
00:30:31.200 --> 00:30:33.519
with folks is really realizing that we're all in business,
619
00:30:33.599 --> 00:30:36.079
whether we think we are or not. We have talents,
620
00:30:36.119 --> 00:30:38.480
we have energy, we have our time, and we offer
621
00:30:38.519 --> 00:30:41.240
that to the world. We get compensated for it. And
622
00:30:41.279 --> 00:30:43.960
then how successful we are is how well we manage
623
00:30:43.960 --> 00:30:45.920
all that, how well we manage all the inputs and
624
00:30:45.960 --> 00:30:47.799
the outputs right, and what do we do with the
625
00:30:47.839 --> 00:30:49.839
revenue that's coming in, and how do we manage it
626
00:30:49.960 --> 00:30:52.319
just like any other business, right. I think that that
627
00:30:52.440 --> 00:30:56.079
shift and consciousness can really make a huge difference in
628
00:30:56.079 --> 00:30:58.319
people's lives because in the world of business, a lot
629
00:30:58.359 --> 00:31:01.519
has been learned about just the base of operating a
630
00:31:01.559 --> 00:31:04.519
business in a good way, and most of us probably
631
00:31:04.519 --> 00:31:08.160
aren't applying those principles to our lives much. Your own debtriment,
632
00:31:08.519 --> 00:31:10.880
So let's talk about growing your business. So you were
633
00:31:10.920 --> 00:31:15.680
working for a financial management mutual fund hedge fund company,
634
00:31:16.160 --> 00:31:18.480
and at some point you decided to go out on
635
00:31:18.519 --> 00:31:21.279
your own and you took a little time off, and fortunately,
636
00:31:21.319 --> 00:31:23.400
I think that was a time when you'd already really
637
00:31:23.440 --> 00:31:26.880
made a shift where you had multiple sources of meaning
638
00:31:26.920 --> 00:31:30.000
in your life and you were already focused on service
639
00:31:30.079 --> 00:31:32.759
and things like this. So I think you were inspired
640
00:31:32.799 --> 00:31:36.160
to create your own business in alignment with that from
641
00:31:36.160 --> 00:31:39.480
the very beginning. But nonetheless, you had to figure out
642
00:31:39.519 --> 00:31:42.599
how to be successful with your business. You think you
643
00:31:42.640 --> 00:31:44.599
probably took a couple of clients with you, but you
644
00:31:44.680 --> 00:31:48.559
started off very, very small, and you've gradually grown your business.
645
00:31:48.880 --> 00:31:50.880
And I wonder if you could talk about that, just
646
00:31:50.920 --> 00:31:54.640
that pathway of learning how to be a successful business
647
00:31:54.680 --> 00:31:56.359
owner and grow your business.
648
00:31:56.839 --> 00:31:59.559
Yeah. Well, I think I may have told you this fleet,
649
00:31:59.599 --> 00:32:01.920
but you were on the first people. When I ended
650
00:32:01.920 --> 00:32:05.039
my employment there, I took two three months off. I
651
00:32:05.039 --> 00:32:07.720
mean I went to Africa for two three weeks. I
652
00:32:07.759 --> 00:32:10.240
came back, my wife and I went to Australia and
653
00:32:10.279 --> 00:32:13.039
New Zealand for a couple of months. It was wonderful.
654
00:32:13.079 --> 00:32:15.680
We still talk about it twenty years later. I mean,
655
00:32:15.759 --> 00:32:18.759
just one of those magical trips. And then I came
656
00:32:18.799 --> 00:32:21.880
back and now it's reality. Okay, great, vacation's over. Now
657
00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:24.720
what I knew the intention, but I didn't know how
658
00:32:24.759 --> 00:32:28.799
to execute it. And to someone who you know, has worked,
659
00:32:28.839 --> 00:32:32.480
it felt like every single day since I graduated college.
660
00:32:32.519 --> 00:32:35.880
That was a weird feeling to say, wow, what is
661
00:32:35.960 --> 00:32:38.359
my purpose? I kind of know what I want to do,
662
00:32:38.440 --> 00:32:41.119
but therefore what And I reached out to you and
663
00:32:41.160 --> 00:32:43.920
you started to give me some books to read. You're like, wow,
664
00:32:43.960 --> 00:32:45.960
you know, I think you should read Bearing Witness by
665
00:32:45.960 --> 00:32:48.759
Bernie Glassman and Instructions for the Cook and you know,
666
00:32:48.799 --> 00:32:51.039
you kind of guided me through. And as I recall,
667
00:32:51.319 --> 00:32:53.200
you said, oh, well, why don't you come along to
668
00:32:53.279 --> 00:32:55.799
this charity thing on Thursdays? I go down in to
669
00:32:55.920 --> 00:32:58.640
work in this prison. And before I knew it, I
670
00:32:58.640 --> 00:33:00.359
think it was maybe two weeks later, You're like, well,
671
00:33:00.400 --> 00:33:02.880
why don't you run it? So you got me good,
672
00:33:03.160 --> 00:33:06.079
and here I am still on that board twenty years later.
673
00:33:06.640 --> 00:33:09.519
I did take a couple of years off to kind
674
00:33:09.559 --> 00:33:12.319
of figure out what my next steps were. I didn't
675
00:33:12.359 --> 00:33:13.759
know it was going to be a couple of years,
676
00:33:13.759 --> 00:33:15.359
but it turned out to be that way. I thought
677
00:33:15.359 --> 00:33:18.160
it was going to be six months okay, And after
678
00:33:18.200 --> 00:33:20.640
six months I still didn't know, and after a year
679
00:33:20.680 --> 00:33:22.680
I didn't know, and after eighteen months I didn't know.
680
00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:26.079
But eventually I did, and that's when I moved forward.
681
00:33:26.279 --> 00:33:30.160
And yes, some clients actually reached out to me to say, Mike,
682
00:33:30.519 --> 00:33:32.440
you know, we would like to be your first clients,
683
00:33:32.440 --> 00:33:34.960
we would like to help you out. And whenever you're
684
00:33:34.960 --> 00:33:37.960
starting a business, if you haven't done that before, there's
685
00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:39.720
a lot of decisions you got to make. I mean,
686
00:33:39.799 --> 00:33:43.400
like what filing system do you have? You know, what's
687
00:33:43.440 --> 00:33:46.519
your logo, what's your name? Just all these things that
688
00:33:46.680 --> 00:33:49.079
you never really think about that you have to make,
689
00:33:49.160 --> 00:33:51.799
and many times you're doing it all by yourself. It's
690
00:33:51.799 --> 00:33:55.119
a very lonely business. It did take me three, four,
691
00:33:55.680 --> 00:33:58.079
even five years for me to be profitable. Okay, it
692
00:33:58.119 --> 00:33:59.279
took me a while. I wish I could say it
693
00:33:59.319 --> 00:34:01.440
was an overnight sixth us, but it wasn't. You know,
694
00:34:01.480 --> 00:34:04.640
there's certain fixed costs and it took me a while, okay,
695
00:34:04.160 --> 00:34:07.599
as I was spending down my savings okay, towards this.
696
00:34:08.159 --> 00:34:11.119
But I had a vision, okay, I had a vision
697
00:34:11.159 --> 00:34:13.760
of what it could look like. Who I was going
698
00:34:13.800 --> 00:34:16.320
to attract. I mean, I was very specific about that.
699
00:34:16.519 --> 00:34:20.679
I want the right people who allow me to, you know,
700
00:34:20.760 --> 00:34:22.840
to live my life, to make an impact in it.
701
00:34:23.239 --> 00:34:25.440
As a matter of fact, when I met with people,
702
00:34:25.639 --> 00:34:27.400
my job was as much to find out who I
703
00:34:27.440 --> 00:34:30.000
didn't want to work with as it was to see
704
00:34:30.039 --> 00:34:32.000
who I would want to work with. Okay, if you
705
00:34:32.039 --> 00:34:34.360
need a guy, need a suit in the corner office,
706
00:34:34.400 --> 00:34:36.480
or you can just stop by every day and hang
707
00:34:36.519 --> 00:34:39.079
out with that, that's not me. You know, you will
708
00:34:39.119 --> 00:34:41.880
not be happy if that's what your expectations are. Let
709
00:34:41.920 --> 00:34:43.800
me tell you who I am, and then you can
710
00:34:43.800 --> 00:34:46.480
decide whether or not we can jointly decide whether we're
711
00:34:46.559 --> 00:34:49.039
right for each other. And that's right from the beginning.
712
00:34:49.159 --> 00:34:52.840
That's the way I built a client by client. And
713
00:34:53.239 --> 00:34:56.639
what's nice about my business and the wealth management is
714
00:34:56.679 --> 00:34:59.559
it's a cumulative business. You know, if you do treat
715
00:34:59.559 --> 00:35:03.320
people right. You know, last year's ten clients, so you
716
00:35:03.320 --> 00:35:05.119
add two more. This year, you got twelve, and then
717
00:35:05.159 --> 00:35:07.960
you got fourteen, then twenty, then forty and one hundred,
718
00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:10.320
and to you know, it kind of grows, and so
719
00:35:10.800 --> 00:35:13.559
it does take a while, but I did once I
720
00:35:13.599 --> 00:35:16.719
got that word out there, and great people were. They
721
00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:19.039
believed in my mission as well, and they believed in me.
722
00:35:19.519 --> 00:35:21.800
And I guess maybe that gets back to you know,
723
00:35:21.840 --> 00:35:24.280
live your life where people are going to say nice
724
00:35:24.280 --> 00:35:26.880
things about you even when you're not around. And I
725
00:35:26.880 --> 00:35:29.440
would always tell the people that I mentored, we don't
726
00:35:29.440 --> 00:35:32.480
want to walk down the grocery aisle and worry about
727
00:35:32.480 --> 00:35:36.559
who we're going to bump into. Okay, so always treat
728
00:35:36.760 --> 00:35:40.559
everyone even if the relationship doesn't continue. Okay, they're going
729
00:35:40.599 --> 00:35:43.199
to only remember the end. Okay, you did great for
730
00:35:43.280 --> 00:35:45.199
them for years. If they want to move on for
731
00:35:45.239 --> 00:35:48.239
whatever reason, you treat them like a king or a
732
00:35:48.360 --> 00:35:50.880
queen at the end, because that's what they're going to remember.
733
00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:52.840
And it's just the right thing to do anyway, and
734
00:35:52.880 --> 00:35:54.000
we want to treat people well.
735
00:35:54.079 --> 00:35:57.679
So in my expanis a lot of successful people have
736
00:35:57.840 --> 00:36:01.400
experienced failures in their life and been, you know, been
737
00:36:01.440 --> 00:36:04.760
to bankruptcies and all kinds of things before they ultimately
738
00:36:04.760 --> 00:36:07.639
get on a real stable trajectory of success.
739
00:36:08.119 --> 00:36:10.239
And I know when you made that transition early on,
740
00:36:10.320 --> 00:36:12.000
you took a pretty big financial hit.
741
00:36:12.079 --> 00:36:16.199
You had some wealth, some sweat equity and company and
742
00:36:16.239 --> 00:36:19.440
so forth, and you took a really significant financial hit
743
00:36:19.599 --> 00:36:22.639
at an early age, which I would imagine could have
744
00:36:22.679 --> 00:36:25.280
been pretty deflating because one might have say, well, I'm
745
00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:27.039
in pretty good shape here, I'm just going to build
746
00:36:27.079 --> 00:36:29.719
from here, and suddenly I'm kind of starting over. I'm
747
00:36:29.760 --> 00:36:32.480
curious about how that played out for you and whether
748
00:36:32.519 --> 00:36:36.000
you feel that contributed to in any positive way to
749
00:36:36.039 --> 00:36:37.079
who you've become today.
750
00:36:37.440 --> 00:36:39.360
Oh my gosh, Well, let me just tell you that
751
00:36:39.400 --> 00:36:42.119
I remember when that was happening. It was very painful. Okay.
752
00:36:42.280 --> 00:36:43.880
I don't want to sit here and put, you know,
753
00:36:44.320 --> 00:36:47.159
this rosy picture on it. I always joked that I
754
00:36:47.159 --> 00:36:50.679
didn't sleep for about two years, Okay, But I remember
755
00:36:51.079 --> 00:36:54.159
right in the midst of that thinking, I know, I'm
756
00:36:54.159 --> 00:36:56.360
going to look back on this and say that this
757
00:36:56.519 --> 00:36:59.880
was a great educational experience. I'm really looking forward to
758
00:37:00.079 --> 00:37:04.639
looking back on this, okay, because the president wasn't much fun. Okay.
759
00:37:04.880 --> 00:37:07.400
What happened, you know, at the very highest level is
760
00:37:07.440 --> 00:37:10.000
I left that firm and they did owe me, you know,
761
00:37:10.280 --> 00:37:13.400
a lot of money, okay, some deferred compensations of equity
762
00:37:13.519 --> 00:37:16.360
because they bought my interest out, and then they went under. Okay,
763
00:37:16.360 --> 00:37:19.199
two thousand and eight hit. They had not done a
764
00:37:19.199 --> 00:37:22.360
good job in certain areas of mitigating risks, etc. And
765
00:37:22.559 --> 00:37:25.719
so two thousand and eight was very painful for them,
766
00:37:25.880 --> 00:37:29.119
which then kind of blew back to me as well.
767
00:37:29.159 --> 00:37:31.800
And so that was here. I was my mid to
768
00:37:31.920 --> 00:37:36.719
late thirties thinking I kind of had it. Okay, I'm like, great, now,
769
00:37:36.800 --> 00:37:39.559
I can. I've worked hard, you know, it feels like
770
00:37:39.639 --> 00:37:42.039
every day for thirteen years. You know, I've got a
771
00:37:42.119 --> 00:37:44.800
nice number of zeros there. I'm good to go, and
772
00:37:45.079 --> 00:37:48.360
very quickly that evaporated. And I have to say that
773
00:37:48.440 --> 00:37:50.719
the firm, you know, i'd done very poorly for the
774
00:37:50.760 --> 00:37:54.000
clients as well. And it turned out to be one
775
00:37:54.039 --> 00:37:56.239
of the best things that ever happened to me, because
776
00:37:56.800 --> 00:38:00.519
you know, I rallied those clients, you know, to really
777
00:38:00.559 --> 00:38:04.440
help them out. Because the other firm wasn't communicating with them,
778
00:38:04.519 --> 00:38:07.840
wasn't helping them. I had an opportunity, frankly, to go
779
00:38:07.880 --> 00:38:09.440
to the other firm and help them out. But no,
780
00:38:09.639 --> 00:38:11.440
I didn't like what they did. There was a reason
781
00:38:11.480 --> 00:38:15.039
why after I left it didn't turn out well. They
782
00:38:15.079 --> 00:38:19.159
had changed some philosophy, They had changed some major things
783
00:38:19.239 --> 00:38:22.639
after I had left that I was unaware of and
784
00:38:23.280 --> 00:38:24.880
I didn't want to be a part of it. But
785
00:38:24.960 --> 00:38:27.000
it could have been financially good for me. But you
786
00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:29.599
know what, I decided not to do that. It decided
787
00:38:29.599 --> 00:38:31.800
to really help out the clients, and it was one
788
00:38:31.840 --> 00:38:33.519
of the best things that ever happened. It makes me
789
00:38:33.559 --> 00:38:36.440
a better person, makes me a better financial advisor because
790
00:38:36.440 --> 00:38:39.599
I can empathize with my clients. It's not like, oh,
791
00:38:39.679 --> 00:38:43.559
you've been successful since you graduated, you know, thirty seven
792
00:38:43.679 --> 00:38:47.079
years ago or something thirty five years ago. No, I've
793
00:38:47.079 --> 00:38:49.599
had some ups and downs. I had no money. I
794
00:38:49.639 --> 00:38:53.320
made some money, and then unfortunately I got some humility.
795
00:38:53.480 --> 00:38:56.719
The universe decided that Mike needed some humility. I got
796
00:38:56.719 --> 00:38:59.679
that humility, and then I built it again with the
797
00:38:59.760 --> 00:39:03.320
right people in the right way, with the right attitude.
798
00:39:03.719 --> 00:39:06.119
And you know, my wife I've been married to for
799
00:39:06.159 --> 00:39:09.119
almost thirty years. We've been together thirty two or thirty
800
00:39:09.159 --> 00:39:12.920
three years, and so I know, you know that she's
801
00:39:12.960 --> 00:39:15.760
always with me. We've gone through this together. I know
802
00:39:15.880 --> 00:39:18.159
who I am. It's a little bit like a soldier
803
00:39:18.239 --> 00:39:20.559
who wonders, wow, you know, when I'm really there in
804
00:39:20.559 --> 00:39:22.400
the war, am I gonna run away? Or am I
805
00:39:22.400 --> 00:39:25.360
gonna be the brave soldier that I have in my head? Okay?
806
00:39:25.440 --> 00:39:27.679
I haven't been tested in my life. It was actually
807
00:39:27.760 --> 00:39:30.440
the first test of who am I. You know, what
808
00:39:30.480 --> 00:39:33.079
are your principles and your values? And when your money
809
00:39:33.159 --> 00:39:36.239
is on the line, what do you do? Okay? What
810
00:39:36.480 --> 00:39:39.199
do you do? And so that's very nice that I
811
00:39:39.199 --> 00:39:41.840
did choose wisely. And you know, only as it kind
812
00:39:41.880 --> 00:39:44.519
of played out did I realize not only that I
813
00:39:44.599 --> 00:39:47.599
do the right thing, but it also played out properly
814
00:39:47.800 --> 00:39:50.360
for me. You know, if I chosen a different path,
815
00:39:50.559 --> 00:39:52.320
I know I would be happy and it wouldn't have
816
00:39:52.320 --> 00:39:54.800
turned out as well. And so let's it is. I
817
00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:57.159
talk about it all the time. I'm proud of it,
818
00:39:57.199 --> 00:39:59.400
to be honest. You know, you fall down seven, you
819
00:39:59.440 --> 00:40:02.559
get up eight. Okay, you learn from your failures, and
820
00:40:02.599 --> 00:40:06.360
if you're afraid of failure, you got to keep moving forward.
821
00:40:06.599 --> 00:40:09.119
And that was painful that I learned a lot from.
822
00:40:09.559 --> 00:40:12.199
You know. It's what it is, you know, and I'm
823
00:40:12.199 --> 00:40:13.480
a better person because of it.
824
00:40:13.800 --> 00:40:16.519
I've witnessed you through all of that, and I've really
825
00:40:16.559 --> 00:40:20.360
always admired the approach you took. And so for the
826
00:40:20.480 --> 00:40:23.599
entrepreneurs in our audience, and it really applies to anyone.
827
00:40:23.639 --> 00:40:25.559
But a lot of people get into business and start
828
00:40:25.599 --> 00:40:27.119
businesses are.
829
00:40:26.920 --> 00:40:28.519
Looking for freedom on some level.
830
00:40:28.559 --> 00:40:30.519
Maybe they don't want to work for somebody else, Maybe
831
00:40:30.519 --> 00:40:32.400
they want to be more the captains of their own
832
00:40:32.440 --> 00:40:35.159
destiny in some way, and they're looking to create some
833
00:40:35.239 --> 00:40:37.920
wealth and looking to create some freedom. But often they
834
00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:42.320
find themselves wearing all the hats and overwhelmed, and now
835
00:40:42.360 --> 00:40:45.480
they've got all this responsibility and all this stress that
836
00:40:45.559 --> 00:40:48.480
before somebody they worked for was carrying. Now they're having
837
00:40:48.480 --> 00:40:51.039
to carry all that, and it turns out to not
838
00:40:51.159 --> 00:40:54.239
be quite the dream they had hoped for. And I
839
00:40:54.239 --> 00:40:58.320
think you've modeled really creating a business that works for
840
00:40:58.360 --> 00:41:01.880
yourself all along. I'm sure there's been moments and highlights
841
00:41:01.880 --> 00:41:04.199
and some lows, but at least what I've seen from
842
00:41:04.239 --> 00:41:07.400
the outside, you've seen to have always had time for family,
843
00:41:07.800 --> 00:41:11.639
time for your philanthropic work, your community work. You kind of,
844
00:41:11.679 --> 00:41:13.519
you know, live where you want to live. I know
845
00:41:13.599 --> 00:41:16.119
you have your home in Colorado, but you also have
846
00:41:16.159 --> 00:41:17.760
another place where you spend a lot of time on
847
00:41:17.840 --> 00:41:20.599
cabin that I think came down to your family. It
848
00:41:20.599 --> 00:41:23.920
seems like you have really been able to achieve a
849
00:41:23.960 --> 00:41:26.320
lot of that freedom that people get in the business
850
00:41:26.360 --> 00:41:26.880
looking for.
851
00:41:27.000 --> 00:41:28.960
I wonder if you could talk about that.
852
00:41:28.880 --> 00:41:32.360
And maybe if you had got caught up in the
853
00:41:32.400 --> 00:41:35.760
allure of something else, you might have created a business
854
00:41:35.760 --> 00:41:38.360
in a different way that could have been more overwhelming
855
00:41:38.400 --> 00:41:41.400
and never actually gave you that freedom you were looking for.
856
00:41:41.960 --> 00:41:45.920
Boundaries make great neighbors. Okay. No truer words have ever
857
00:41:45.960 --> 00:41:48.159
been said. And that's how I kind of live my
858
00:41:48.239 --> 00:41:52.000
life boundaries meeting this is what's important to me, and
859
00:41:52.719 --> 00:41:55.039
if it doesn't work, it doesn't fit there, then I
860
00:41:55.119 --> 00:41:57.800
have to say no to it. Okay. I always say
861
00:41:57.840 --> 00:42:00.480
that people who get taken advantage of let themselves be
862
00:42:00.480 --> 00:42:02.880
taken advantage of because you can say no. And that
863
00:42:02.920 --> 00:42:05.480
doesn't work for me. And I appreciate that. I know
864
00:42:05.559 --> 00:42:08.719
your intent is good, but that conflicts with something that's
865
00:42:08.760 --> 00:42:11.440
important to me, some value. So you've got to stick
866
00:42:11.519 --> 00:42:14.280
up for yourself. At the very beginning, I think I
867
00:42:14.320 --> 00:42:17.239
alluded to this, you know, earlier in the interview, but
868
00:42:17.400 --> 00:42:20.360
people would come in this is what I really needed clients.
869
00:42:20.440 --> 00:42:23.199
Every client was like, oh my gosh, I hope I
870
00:42:23.239 --> 00:42:26.000
can have this. But I was very clear, Hey, listen,
871
00:42:26.079 --> 00:42:28.480
going over to Africa. I go over there for a
872
00:42:28.480 --> 00:42:30.960
couple of weeks every April. This is important to me.
873
00:42:31.039 --> 00:42:33.239
So if that doesn't work for you, you need to
874
00:42:33.280 --> 00:42:35.840
say something now. Okay, And oh, I'm just gonna let
875
00:42:35.840 --> 00:42:38.800
you know that I also fly around the country periodically
876
00:42:38.880 --> 00:42:41.400
and do other things. I'm not always here in the office.
877
00:42:41.480 --> 00:42:43.880
Does that work for you. Oh it does great, you know.
878
00:42:44.039 --> 00:42:46.719
So I was very clear and setting those expectations with
879
00:42:46.760 --> 00:42:49.239
the people that I interacted with that this is what's
880
00:42:49.239 --> 00:42:53.280
important to me. So if I didn't do that, then
881
00:42:53.320 --> 00:42:56.679
it's not their fault. Okay. If they intrude in that,
882
00:42:56.719 --> 00:42:59.239
they try to change my life, okay, So I've got
883
00:42:59.280 --> 00:43:02.079
to communicate negotiate that with them. But I do the
884
00:43:02.079 --> 00:43:04.800
same thing with my team members. Hey, you know, I'm
885
00:43:04.800 --> 00:43:07.440
going to go up to my cabin in Wyoming, Okay,
886
00:43:07.519 --> 00:43:10.440
which is thirty minutes outside of a nine hundred person town.
887
00:43:10.840 --> 00:43:12.559
I'm gonna go up there for three months of the year.
888
00:43:12.760 --> 00:43:15.280
That is important to me. Okay. Now I have fiber
889
00:43:15.280 --> 00:43:17.719
optics there now, which is wonderful. Okay, I can continue
890
00:43:17.719 --> 00:43:20.360
to work there. I could be there now for all
891
00:43:20.400 --> 00:43:20.840
you would know.
892
00:43:20.880 --> 00:43:21.199
I'm not.
893
00:43:21.360 --> 00:43:24.079
But you know, in today's world, this is I can
894
00:43:24.079 --> 00:43:27.480
continue the business there. But that was important to me,
895
00:43:27.679 --> 00:43:30.840
so therefore I made it important. It's just like my
896
00:43:31.280 --> 00:43:34.760
interactions with the community and the generosity that is important
897
00:43:34.760 --> 00:43:39.239
to me. That gives me happiness, okay, And just like
898
00:43:39.360 --> 00:43:44.960
someone else might get happiness from skiing or from you know, golfing, Okay,
899
00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:48.599
that makes me happy. So therefore it's a priority that
900
00:43:48.679 --> 00:43:51.119
the seminar a couple of weeks ago, and people are
901
00:43:51.119 --> 00:43:53.199
talking about what they're struggling with. What are you struggling
902
00:43:53.239 --> 00:43:56.280
with right now? And time management and then second person's
903
00:43:56.320 --> 00:43:59.320
time management, et cetera. And as one guy says, stop
904
00:43:59.360 --> 00:44:01.920
holing and time management. You don't control time. It's called
905
00:44:01.960 --> 00:44:06.840
priority management. Okay, what's your priority? All right? And if
906
00:44:06.840 --> 00:44:09.920
you don't do that, don't blame time, blame yourself, your
907
00:44:09.960 --> 00:44:13.760
own discipline and you not doing the priority. So if
908
00:44:13.800 --> 00:44:16.519
it's important to you, you'll figure it out. And for me,
909
00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:21.599
I'm incredibly disciplined. If it's on my calendar, it happens.
910
00:44:21.840 --> 00:44:23.639
You know, I'm just a very disciplined person. But if
911
00:44:23.639 --> 00:44:27.280
you're not disciplined, find somebody who is and have them
912
00:44:27.440 --> 00:44:29.880
work for you. It's that simple. If I don't know
913
00:44:29.920 --> 00:44:32.199
how to fix my car, I can't complain that the
914
00:44:32.239 --> 00:44:34.320
car doesn't work. I guess I got to find somebody
915
00:44:34.400 --> 00:44:37.239
to fix the car. I mean, there's no excuses. Radical
916
00:44:37.280 --> 00:44:40.960
responsibility right for what you want, okay, and everything else
917
00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:41.840
are just excuses.
918
00:44:42.280 --> 00:44:43.119
That's absolutely right.
919
00:44:43.119 --> 00:44:46.159
Well, I think fortunately, you know, when you start your business,
920
00:44:46.679 --> 00:44:47.880
you kind of figured.
921
00:44:47.559 --> 00:44:49.079
Out who you were by that time.
922
00:44:49.400 --> 00:44:51.559
Yeah, And I think for a lot of us, our
923
00:44:51.639 --> 00:44:55.360
business can become our total identity, and then you know,
924
00:44:55.400 --> 00:44:58.360
it can tend to take over and our whole self
925
00:44:58.519 --> 00:45:01.000
esteem in sense of meaning in life, and everything's going
926
00:45:01.079 --> 00:45:03.280
up and down with you know, with the numbers month
927
00:45:03.280 --> 00:45:05.039
to month, and that can be a terrible.
928
00:45:04.800 --> 00:45:05.320
Way to live.
929
00:45:05.400 --> 00:45:09.239
So you built a business around who you actually are
930
00:45:09.920 --> 00:45:12.559
and one that seamlessly.
931
00:45:12.519 --> 00:45:15.920
Works with what your priorities are, and that's incredibly admirable.
932
00:45:15.960 --> 00:45:17.719
And I don't know that it's that common.
933
00:45:18.199 --> 00:45:20.239
Yeah, I'm not sure how common it is either. I
934
00:45:20.519 --> 00:45:23.719
tell people all the time to get external feedback, okay,
935
00:45:23.760 --> 00:45:25.920
And you were part of that, and another person that
936
00:45:25.960 --> 00:45:28.760
we worked with there at the company. You consulted with
937
00:45:29.280 --> 00:45:31.199
the company. That's how we know each other. But you
938
00:45:31.199 --> 00:45:34.360
were not of the company, all right, And that's important
939
00:45:34.360 --> 00:45:36.320
because just like a fish, you know, the fish is
940
00:45:36.320 --> 00:45:40.880
saying what water, they're clueless. I was in a unhealthy
941
00:45:41.480 --> 00:45:44.920
personal dynamic with behind closed doors. Even though we were
942
00:45:44.920 --> 00:45:49.679
externally very successful, internally, there was a mismatch and I
943
00:45:49.760 --> 00:45:52.639
just didn't know it. It just I couldn't articulate it
944
00:45:52.800 --> 00:45:54.960
why because I was in my twenties and thirties, you
945
00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:57.679
don't know anything. I mean, I hadn't had a life
946
00:45:57.760 --> 00:46:01.599
experience yet. And just like sometimes you have to get
947
00:46:01.599 --> 00:46:04.960
out of a bad relationship. Okay, whether it's a boyfriend, girlfriend,
948
00:46:05.079 --> 00:46:07.840
or domestic abuse, whatever it is, sometimes you have to exit.
949
00:46:08.079 --> 00:46:10.000
You look back at it and you're saying, Wow, it
950
00:46:10.039 --> 00:46:12.199
was so obvious. Oh my gosh, I can't believe I
951
00:46:12.239 --> 00:46:16.800
was so clueless about that situation. So I encourage people
952
00:46:17.159 --> 00:46:21.519
to have some external checks, reality checks. Whether that's a
953
00:46:21.559 --> 00:46:25.119
life coach, whether that's some strategic coach, whether or not
954
00:46:25.199 --> 00:46:29.559
that's just a religious leader, doesn't matter who. Somebody who
955
00:46:29.559 --> 00:46:32.480
can say, wow, this you're blind to it. But I
956
00:46:32.519 --> 00:46:34.800
think that you have a mismatch. That's why you're unhappy,
957
00:46:34.960 --> 00:46:38.280
or you don't have enough time, or you say that
958
00:46:38.519 --> 00:46:41.199
this is a priority, but you never prioritize it. Someone
959
00:46:41.239 --> 00:46:44.039
who can help guide you because you might be clueless.
960
00:46:45.079 --> 00:46:48.679
I mean, join a business group and with other entrepreneurs,
961
00:46:48.960 --> 00:46:51.840
and frankly, they'll find your problems and you'll find theirs.
962
00:46:52.679 --> 00:46:54.800
They'll find your problems that you're clueless too. You'll find
963
00:46:55.079 --> 00:46:58.559
problems of theirs that they're clueless about, and that's just
964
00:46:58.679 --> 00:46:59.800
that's community right there.
965
00:47:00.119 --> 00:47:02.320
Well, I think that segues into my final question for you,
966
00:47:02.440 --> 00:47:04.519
because I know you've been at most of your careerson
967
00:47:04.599 --> 00:47:07.320
starting your own company. You've been kind of essentially a solorepreneur.
968
00:47:08.239 --> 00:47:10.360
But now I know you're kind of building out your
969
00:47:10.360 --> 00:47:13.679
company a little bit to provide broader services, not necessarily
970
00:47:13.719 --> 00:47:17.920
building a huge company, but bringing together a complementary professionals
971
00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:20.519
to be able to offer a full spectrum of wealth
972
00:47:20.599 --> 00:47:24.880
management and also exit planning strategy for business owners and
973
00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:28.079
entrepreneurs and various things. And I know you have joined
974
00:47:28.159 --> 00:47:32.119
a mastermind where you're with other entrepreneurs learning and so
975
00:47:32.199 --> 00:47:34.360
that this seems to be a little a new stage
976
00:47:34.639 --> 00:47:36.760
in your career and the growth of your business. And
977
00:47:36.840 --> 00:47:39.159
I just wonder if you could talk about that both
978
00:47:39.199 --> 00:47:41.599
your inspiration and maybe you know, kind of take what
979
00:47:41.639 --> 00:47:43.559
you're doing your business to the next level, whatever that
980
00:47:43.679 --> 00:47:47.239
might be. I'm sure still in alignment with your core purpose,
981
00:47:47.679 --> 00:47:50.280
not just driven by ambition to grow just to grow
982
00:47:50.280 --> 00:47:52.719
a company, but something you've seen a different possibility where
983
00:47:52.760 --> 00:47:55.199
you can still do this with that same alignment you've
984
00:47:55.199 --> 00:47:57.920
always had, but you're also not trying to figure it
985
00:47:57.920 --> 00:48:01.199
out by yourself, you're getting involved with other entrepreneurs so
986
00:48:01.280 --> 00:48:02.599
you can do it in the best way. So I
987
00:48:02.599 --> 00:48:04.000
wanted to think it just maybe that could be our
988
00:48:04.079 --> 00:48:05.920
last question. You could just talk about that a little
989
00:48:05.920 --> 00:48:07.199
bit and where you see all that going.
990
00:48:07.599 --> 00:48:10.159
Yeah. Absolutely. As I look back on my life, I'm
991
00:48:10.159 --> 00:48:12.079
fifty seven years old, I've just kind of noticed that
992
00:48:12.119 --> 00:48:14.360
about every ten or fifteen years, I feel like I
993
00:48:14.400 --> 00:48:18.440
reinvent myself. Okay, it's not unnecessarily intentional, but as I've
994
00:48:18.480 --> 00:48:20.559
kind of looked at like, wow, this is an important
995
00:48:20.920 --> 00:48:23.119
you know, pivot, you know in my life, or this
996
00:48:23.320 --> 00:48:25.320
was I could see how the next ten years was
997
00:48:25.360 --> 00:48:28.559
because of this one year or this one period. And
998
00:48:28.639 --> 00:48:30.880
I'm just in one of those right now, Okay. And
999
00:48:30.920 --> 00:48:34.239
I can feel it because I am energized. Okay, I
1000
00:48:34.320 --> 00:48:36.599
have a lot of energy. I have even more energy
1001
00:48:36.639 --> 00:48:39.760
than normal. Right now. My brain is always going because
1002
00:48:39.800 --> 00:48:43.639
it's so exciting as you're creating something. I was in
1003
00:48:43.679 --> 00:48:45.599
my mid fifties. Okay, I'm fifty seven. Nows with his
1004
00:48:45.679 --> 00:48:48.239
mal two three years ago, I was like, okay, well
1005
00:48:48.320 --> 00:48:51.440
I've got all this information in my head. Okay, I've
1006
00:48:51.440 --> 00:48:53.559
got it in my head. It feels like a waste
1007
00:48:53.840 --> 00:48:56.320
if I don't pass that on in some fashion. So
1008
00:48:56.360 --> 00:48:59.360
there's a little bit of legacy. Okay, I don't have children,
1009
00:48:59.440 --> 00:49:01.400
so that kind of well, I don't have DNA that
1010
00:49:01.480 --> 00:49:03.679
I'm going to pass on, but hopefully you'll pass on
1011
00:49:04.239 --> 00:49:08.119
some knowledge, some wisdom, a way of living your life.
1012
00:49:08.159 --> 00:49:11.079
And so that was actually the big push for me
1013
00:49:11.320 --> 00:49:14.800
rethinking my business and bringing on other people so that
1014
00:49:14.880 --> 00:49:18.039
I can kind of expand the impact that we're making
1015
00:49:18.320 --> 00:49:21.079
beyond Mike Brady and a few other people, you know,
1016
00:49:21.199 --> 00:49:25.000
kind of evangelizing getting other people here, which is exciting
1017
00:49:25.159 --> 00:49:29.239
because we're having that conversation right now. What are the
1018
00:49:29.320 --> 00:49:34.199
appropriate key performance indicators your KPIs. Okay, it's not just oh,
1019
00:49:34.280 --> 00:49:37.559
let's just increase revenue by you know, ten percent or
1020
00:49:37.599 --> 00:49:41.639
fifty percent. No no, no, no, let's not have some you know,
1021
00:49:41.719 --> 00:49:46.119
lagging indicator of some success that society says that we
1022
00:49:46.159 --> 00:49:49.840
should be. We're right now working on what are the KPIs.
1023
00:49:49.880 --> 00:49:53.320
What's the impact that we can quantify with the number
1024
00:49:53.320 --> 00:49:55.400
of people that we're touching and then the impact that
1025
00:49:55.440 --> 00:49:58.199
they're making out in the world. So right now I'm
1026
00:49:58.199 --> 00:50:01.599
working on this less easy All right, there's more difficult.
1027
00:50:02.039 --> 00:50:05.239
What does it mean to have the right key performance
1028
00:50:05.280 --> 00:50:08.760
indicators that I can spend and work on as I'm
1029
00:50:08.760 --> 00:50:12.239
building out the company so that it lasts beyond my
1030
00:50:12.920 --> 00:50:15.679
you know, beyond my death. Okay, you know you start
1031
00:50:15.760 --> 00:50:17.519
as you get older, you start to think about that
1032
00:50:17.920 --> 00:50:21.199
and say, hey, I want this that we started, that's
1033
00:50:21.239 --> 00:50:24.159
doing good, that feels good. That is you know, people,
1034
00:50:24.599 --> 00:50:27.480
you know, I think are enjoying being a part of
1035
00:50:27.840 --> 00:50:30.280
How can we continue this instead of just well, I
1036
00:50:30.280 --> 00:50:32.280
think I'm just going to you know, go off into
1037
00:50:32.280 --> 00:50:34.480
the sunset. I don't want to do that. And the
1038
00:50:34.599 --> 00:50:37.800
creation of it, the imagination, just me talking with you
1039
00:50:37.920 --> 00:50:41.559
right now is exciting. I do work with other entrepreneurs. Yes,
1040
00:50:41.719 --> 00:50:44.440
every quarter I fly to Chicago as part of this
1041
00:50:44.559 --> 00:50:47.880
coaching program. I really enjoy it. Many of them are
1042
00:50:47.880 --> 00:50:49.760
not even in my industry. As a matter of fact,
1043
00:50:49.880 --> 00:50:53.440
most of them are not in my industry. So the
1044
00:50:53.519 --> 00:50:56.880
basics of running a business, what are the possibilities? How
1045
00:50:56.920 --> 00:50:59.800
do you do it? It just gets applied to my case,
1046
00:50:59.800 --> 00:51:02.199
to health management and finance, but to other people it
1047
00:51:02.280 --> 00:51:04.920
might be solar panels and to somebody else who might
1048
00:51:04.920 --> 00:51:07.280
be consulting and you know, a fourth person at something
1049
00:51:07.280 --> 00:51:10.880
else CPA firm, okay, And so there's some basics that
1050
00:51:10.880 --> 00:51:13.280
we can talk about and we're helping one another. I
1051
00:51:13.280 --> 00:51:16.280
think man and human beings. Man, men and women are
1052
00:51:16.480 --> 00:51:20.159
social beings, okay. And that's why I feel that you're
1053
00:51:20.159 --> 00:51:23.440
better off just talking with you know, having your team,
1054
00:51:23.519 --> 00:51:27.519
whether it's a CPA, a lawyer, your friends, your colleagues,
1055
00:51:27.639 --> 00:51:30.760
other entrepreneurs. You don't have to go through this alone.
1056
00:51:30.840 --> 00:51:32.800
I mean, that's the point. You don't have to go
1057
00:51:32.880 --> 00:51:36.119
through this alone. At the very least, get feedback from them,
1058
00:51:36.480 --> 00:51:38.800
we really hear it, and then decide how to move
1059
00:51:38.800 --> 00:51:40.960
forward with it. That's where I am right now. It's
1060
00:51:41.119 --> 00:51:43.440
very exciting, you know. I mean, I'm going to hire
1061
00:51:43.480 --> 00:51:45.400
somebody I think in the next couple of weeks that
1062
00:51:45.519 --> 00:51:47.599
will bring them on to the team, and then I'll
1063
00:51:47.679 --> 00:51:50.079
hire the next person, you know, over the next quarter
1064
00:51:50.159 --> 00:51:53.039
after that and keep adding them on, so that we're
1065
00:51:53.480 --> 00:51:58.960
intentionally hiring, we're intentionally building according to our strategic plan.
1066
00:51:59.440 --> 00:52:00.519
And it's exciting.
1067
00:52:00.880 --> 00:52:03.199
That is exciting, exciting. Indeed, I look forward to it
1068
00:52:03.199 --> 00:52:04.760
being able to witness that as you grow.
1069
00:52:04.880 --> 00:52:08.519
That. So Mike Brady, Generosity Wealth Management, thank you. Very
1070
00:52:08.599 --> 00:52:10.880
much for being on the Radical Responsibility Podcast.
1071
00:52:11.320 --> 00:52:12.239
Thank you very much.
1072
00:52:12.679 --> 00:52:16.480
Taking radical responsibility for our lives means taking action, and
1073
00:52:16.599 --> 00:52:19.360
today you can start by helping us grow this community.
1074
00:52:19.639 --> 00:52:23.079
If these insights into healing and transformation have served you,
1075
00:52:23.400 --> 00:52:27.440
please subscribe on YouTube and follow us on Apple Podcasts
1076
00:52:27.599 --> 00:52:31.519
and Spotify. While you're there, leave us a review. It
1077
00:52:31.599 --> 00:52:34.679
takes thirty seconds, but it's the most powerful way to
1078
00:52:34.800 --> 00:52:38.639
help our message reach someone else seeking deeper self awareness.
1079
00:52:39.000 --> 00:52:43.000
Thank you for being part of the journey towards lasting change.
1080
00:52:43.400 --> 00:52:47.239
Thank you for joining me on the Radical Responsibility Podcast. Remember,
1081
00:52:47.360 --> 00:52:50.039
real change happens when we commit to our growth, face
1082
00:52:50.079 --> 00:52:53.639
our challenges with compassion, and stay open to transformation. If
1083
00:52:53.679 --> 00:52:56.920
you found this episode helpful, I encourage you to subscribe
1084
00:52:56.960 --> 00:52:59.679
and help us spread the message of healing and personal
1085
00:52:59.679 --> 00:53:03.039
and palme. Stay grounded, stay present, and stay true to you.
1086
00:53:03.360 --> 00:53:03.840
Take care
1
00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:01.720
I have met with people who make a half a
2
00:00:01.760 --> 00:00:03.919
million dollars a year and they spend six hundred. That
3
00:00:03.960 --> 00:00:06.879
doesn't really matter how much money you make. It's just like,
4
00:00:06.919 --> 00:00:08.240
if you want to be fit, you know, I keep
5
00:00:08.279 --> 00:00:11.679
using this fitness analogy. Calories in, calories out. That's it.
6
00:00:11.759 --> 00:00:14.519
Everything else is details, Okay, it is about, you know,
7
00:00:14.560 --> 00:00:17.839
the discipline. I have had some wonderful success stories of
8
00:00:17.920 --> 00:00:21.719
people who, yes, were modest, blue collar, or they were
9
00:00:21.760 --> 00:00:24.800
just working a job, raising their family, living their life,
10
00:00:24.879 --> 00:00:27.879
but they make good financial decisions. They treated their life
11
00:00:28.039 --> 00:00:30.399
like a business. They knew what their inputs and their
12
00:00:30.440 --> 00:00:33.079
outputs were. Okay. That's one of my first clues when
13
00:00:33.079 --> 00:00:35.439
I'm talking with someone is if they have absolutely no
14
00:00:35.560 --> 00:00:38.280
idea how much they're spending, if they have absolutely no
15
00:00:38.359 --> 00:00:40.920
idea where their money is or anything, It's like, hey,
16
00:00:41.039 --> 00:00:42.799
we need to start tiding this thing up.
17
00:00:45.600 --> 00:00:49.240
Mike Brady hit the pinnacle of traditional plans, only to
18
00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:53.119
watch his world evaporate in the two thousand and eight crash.
19
00:00:53.200 --> 00:00:56.560
But that loss became his greatest teacher, forcing a ship
20
00:00:56.640 --> 00:01:02.159
from chasing numbers to stoking the fire of generosity. Today,
21
00:01:02.159 --> 00:01:05.840
he's redefining wealth management by proving that money doesn't just
22
00:01:05.959 --> 00:01:11.040
buy things, it magnifies who we already are. In this episode,
23
00:01:11.159 --> 00:01:14.040
we dive into the discipline of abundance, the power of
24
00:01:14.079 --> 00:01:16.879
boundary setting, and what it really looks like the lead
25
00:01:16.920 --> 00:01:20.799
a life where your assets finally align with your soul. Hi,
26
00:01:20.920 --> 00:01:24.480
Welcome to this episode of the Rack Responsibility Podcast. This
27
00:01:24.560 --> 00:01:27.200
is doctor Fleet Mall your host, and I'm really happy
28
00:01:27.239 --> 00:01:30.959
to be here today with longtime friend and colleague Mike Brady.
29
00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:32.599
Welcome, Mike, glad to be here.
30
00:01:32.680 --> 00:01:32.959
Fleet.
31
00:01:33.280 --> 00:01:35.400
Well, I've been looking forward to this. We've been working
32
00:01:35.400 --> 00:01:38.159
together for a long time. You were president of the
33
00:01:38.200 --> 00:01:41.040
company where I was doing executive coaching, and as a result,
34
00:01:41.120 --> 00:01:43.959
you later became my wealth manager, and you've been doing
35
00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:46.280
a great job of stewarding my little nest egg for
36
00:01:46.359 --> 00:01:49.079
quite a while now through some real ups and downs
37
00:01:49.120 --> 00:01:51.640
in the marketplace, and so I'm happy to be able
38
00:01:51.680 --> 00:01:54.480
to have this conversation about everything we've kind of learned
39
00:01:54.480 --> 00:01:55.640
together and been through together.
40
00:01:55.799 --> 00:01:57.920
I'm excited because you and I have known each other
41
00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:00.519
for twenty five years and you have seen me from
42
00:02:00.560 --> 00:02:03.599
pretty formulative time, you know, in my early thirties to
43
00:02:04.040 --> 00:02:06.920
where I am today at fifty seven. Years old, and
44
00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:11.240
not only have we shared a business relationship, but we
45
00:02:11.360 --> 00:02:14.199
have had some pretty interesting I have had a lot
46
00:02:14.240 --> 00:02:17.960
of personal growth through your mentorship, and we have shared
47
00:02:18.039 --> 00:02:20.759
some great adventures together, you know, not just in the
48
00:02:20.879 --> 00:02:23.639
United States, but you know, in Africa and in Europe.
49
00:02:23.719 --> 00:02:25.080
So I'm pretty excited to be here.
50
00:02:25.479 --> 00:02:28.400
Yeah, and those have been been very formative experiences for
51
00:02:28.479 --> 00:02:31.439
both of us. So excited to explore all this. And
52
00:02:31.560 --> 00:02:33.759
I'd like to talk about to begin talking about a
53
00:02:33.800 --> 00:02:36.479
little bit about so the nature of money, the nature
54
00:02:36.479 --> 00:02:38.599
of wealth, and it's kind of a mirror.
55
00:02:38.319 --> 00:02:40.680
For our lives. And you know, a lot of us
56
00:02:40.719 --> 00:02:41.400
think of money.
57
00:02:41.599 --> 00:02:43.319
Well, we may just think of we have someone we
58
00:02:43.360 --> 00:02:45.599
don't have some, and it can be tied to a
59
00:02:45.639 --> 00:02:48.240
real sense of scarcity, or we may think of it
60
00:02:48.280 --> 00:02:51.159
in terms of you know, numbers and market and strategies
61
00:02:51.199 --> 00:02:51.879
and so forth.
62
00:02:52.199 --> 00:02:54.360
But your firm, generosity wealth.
63
00:02:54.159 --> 00:02:58.120
Management, as I understood it or understand it today, is
64
00:02:58.319 --> 00:03:01.439
focused on a deeper, more conscious relationship with.
65
00:03:01.479 --> 00:03:02.400
Money and wealth.
66
00:03:02.680 --> 00:03:04.560
So I wonder if there was a time in your
67
00:03:04.599 --> 00:03:07.439
life or career when you realize that money is more
68
00:03:07.520 --> 00:03:11.199
than just a financial tool, but perhaps our relationship with
69
00:03:11.280 --> 00:03:13.560
it kind of mirrors many aspects of our life.
70
00:03:13.960 --> 00:03:17.319
Yes. So I was working at a traditional investment firm
71
00:03:17.520 --> 00:03:19.680
in the nineteen nineties and into the middle of the
72
00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:23.120
two thousands, and I remember very vividly that a client
73
00:03:23.159 --> 00:03:25.360
of mine came up. He was the first AIDS doctor
74
00:03:25.479 --> 00:03:27.879
in Boulder, and he came up and he's like, Mike,
75
00:03:28.120 --> 00:03:29.960
do I have enough money so that I can retire?
76
00:03:30.080 --> 00:03:32.800
My answer was, yes, you do. And what did he do?
77
00:03:32.879 --> 00:03:37.080
He retired and he went to Uganda and as a doctor,
78
00:03:37.159 --> 00:03:40.759
a medical doctor, he helped the doctors there on better
79
00:03:40.800 --> 00:03:44.240
ways to do palliative care with those that are stricken
80
00:03:44.319 --> 00:03:47.639
with AIDS. And his wife went along and did a
81
00:03:47.639 --> 00:03:50.159
lot of great work. And so that was my first
82
00:03:50.199 --> 00:03:53.840
kind of opening to Wow, what I'm doing is enabling
83
00:03:53.879 --> 00:03:57.919
people to follow their dreams and allowing them to make
84
00:03:57.960 --> 00:04:01.439
an impact in the community. And that's when I kind
85
00:04:01.439 --> 00:04:04.400
of had that realization. I'm like, I'm removed from it,
86
00:04:04.520 --> 00:04:07.039
you know, as their advisor, I'm kind of behind the scenes.
87
00:04:07.280 --> 00:04:10.960
How can I integrate more fully that lesson into what
88
00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:12.680
I'm doing and kind of be a little bit of
89
00:04:12.680 --> 00:04:15.479
a preacher, be it an evangelist for that way of
90
00:04:15.560 --> 00:04:18.079
thinking about money with my clients. And so that's when
91
00:04:18.120 --> 00:04:21.079
I within a year or two, I left that firm
92
00:04:21.199 --> 00:04:24.439
because that firm is going to stay traditional and I
93
00:04:24.519 --> 00:04:27.040
needed to kind of spread my wings, take a couple
94
00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:29.360
of years off to figure out exactly what that meant.
95
00:04:29.560 --> 00:04:32.920
And that's when I created Generosity Wealth Management. And you know,
96
00:04:32.959 --> 00:04:36.079
we talk about realign wealth with purpose and possibility, which
97
00:04:36.079 --> 00:04:37.600
I'm happy to talk a little bit more about, but
98
00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:41.600
that's what we're doing. We're aligning wealth with purpose and possibility.
99
00:04:41.879 --> 00:04:44.480
And money is money is just a thing. It's just
100
00:04:44.519 --> 00:04:46.680
a thing, and it can be good, it doesn't. It
101
00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:49.319
magnifies what's already there. If you're a good person with
102
00:04:49.360 --> 00:04:51.839
no money, you're going to be a great person with money,
103
00:04:52.079 --> 00:04:54.319
and the opposite, unfortunately, if you're a jerk with no money,
104
00:04:54.319 --> 00:04:55.439
you're a big jerk with money.
105
00:04:55.480 --> 00:05:01.639
So so Radical Responsibility, which is the themeless podcast. Within
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that philosophy, I talk about, you know, the power of ownership,
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the powers of living in choice, and we address the
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many ways in which we often avoid ownership for our
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inner lives. And so I'm wondering how you see, you know,
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the inner dynamics that we often arrive in adulthood with
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at various levels of fear and self criticism, shame, inherited
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stories about money from our childhood and so forth, driving
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just kind of avoidance around our financial life or self
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sabotage or things like that. I mean, you've been listening
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to people, You've had conversation with people about their money.
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It's a pretty sensitive subject often, I think you know,
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for thirty years or more, and so you know, when
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you see people they're even in kind of over control mode,
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or they're just avoidance and just kind of not really
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taking responsibility for managing their money properly, or they're even
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sabotaging themselves financially.
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What have you learned about all that?
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Yeah? Well, I wish I could say that I talk
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with people, I see it identify in them. I say
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a few words and they're they're converted. I wish it
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was that easy. It's not, but I do try to
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guide them over some time. And the way I approach
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it is, you know, life is filled with three buckets. Okay,
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one bucket are those things that we can control, Okay,
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I can wake up and get out of bed, all right,
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Things that we think that we can control, or that
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we're we have some influence over whether I get to
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the office or not on time is something I can influence.
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But there might be a car accident, there might be
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extra traffic, and then things that I have absolutely no
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control over. And my experience has been that we have
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a tendency to spend an inordinate amount of time on
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the things that we have no control over. Okay, and
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geopolitical events are sometimes those things. No one ever asked
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Mike Brady what he thinks, come to find out. And
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so I like to with clients say, hey, what are
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those things that we can control, and let's really spend
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our time on that. What are the things that we
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can have some influence, We can mitigate, you know, any risks,
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or mitigate bad things happen happening, But understand that we
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don't control, you know, everything, that's part of life. As
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I've gotten older, that cliche that life is a journey
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becomes more and more evident to me. That's true. That
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cliche actually has a wisdom behind it. We don't know
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about the future. It's inherently unknown. So I talk with
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clients about let's live to We can't undo the past, Okay,
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we're here in the present. What can we do to
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take control the power position to be intentional in our
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lives about going forward. And part of that is saying,
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what is it that we can do, you know, what
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are those things that we can focus on. And that's
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kind of how I work with clients.
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To your question, M Yeah, well, speaking of things we
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can control when we talk about, you know, kind of
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how things have been evolving societally and globally, but then
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how do we work with that as individuals. So the
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whole issue of wealth, you know, when I was growing up,
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you knew maybe there was a certain neighborhood somewhere, the
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big houses up on the hill where these wealthy people live,
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but it was a small thing.
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Most people were not wealthy.
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As I came into my adulthood and middle adulthood, wealth
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really became a thing, and it became much more in
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the media and everywhere, and people kind of worshiping celebrity
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and wealth and so forth. And there has been a
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huge increase in wealth. I mean, there are you know,
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even relative even if you you know, do the mask,
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so you do it in today's dollars, but there's still
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huge amount of wealth globally and growing disparity between the
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wealthy and the not wealthy, and the inequality around income
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and wealth and so forth. So with that growing wealth,
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ideally it would come responsibility. As you mentioned, you know,
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wealth just tends to exacerbate what's already there, right, So
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I wonder, you know, we could discuss a little bit
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this area from your experience, about how we can work
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with this as individuals, how you work with your clients.
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You know, when wealth is growing, either collectively or individually,
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wealth is going faster than responsibility. And I think you've
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really modeled a community spirit and respond.
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Ability to try to get out there and give back.
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And the work you're doing in Ukraine with orphans, the
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work you do with young men and fraternities, as well
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as the work you've done in Africa and other places,
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you know, just really exemplifies that you're going to focus
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your life on doing good and giving back. And that's
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not always the focus. So at least our society doesn't
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encourage that so much around money and wealth.
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Yeah. Well, you know, when I started Generosity Wealth Management
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in the late you know, two thousands or so, my
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belief was that people want to do good. And maybe
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this is my own optimism, Maybe this is my you know,
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just kind of my attitude that people want to do
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good in the world, but they don't know how and
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they need to be guided or at least they need
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an example of what you can do. And so that's
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kind of how I've led them over the last eighteen
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years or so, is that I want to meet you
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where you are. You know, I because the name of
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my company is Generosity Wealth Management, because I'm very you
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know out there that hey, we care about aligning wealth
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with purpose and possibility. We want to be generous in
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the world with yourself and family, community. I mean, these
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are messages that we're always kind of shouting out to
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the world. We attract some pretty incredible people who are
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attracted to that positive, forward thinking, proactive approach of living
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your life. Now that being said, some people are further
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along than others, and I meet where they are. What
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do you want to do? What impact do you want
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to make in the world? And it might just be
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you and your family, and that's fine, Okay, there's no
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judgment about that. Frankly, it might just be you. How
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can you live your life so that you're happy and
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that you're generous with yourself and if you can really
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get so that you don't are not fearful, then maybe
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you can be generous with your family and then from
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there kind of the last part is being generous in
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your community, both local and global. I do try to
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live a life of example. You know, I put sweat
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equity in, I put some financial equity ad I try
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to show a path to those that one to be engaged,
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and I counsel with people many times. And that's one
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thing I really love about that kind of local community foundations.
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Is there a wealth of knowledge. They're like a little
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bit of a chamber of commerce for charities and for goodness.
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In a community, whether it's a town or city, you're
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and there's probably some kind of a community foundation, and
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I meet people where they are, I guess is my
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ultimate answer, and a lot of people when they see
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how happy it makes you. Because that's another thing that
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I have found is that we always talk about how
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we're going to make an impact on others, but we
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forget about how that impacts us. You know, we learn
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an awful lot about ourselves, and we're better off and
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we're happier the more we're engaged with the more we're
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helping them out. It really helps us out too, and
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people need to know that it's like a gym. Most
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people don't wake up saying, oh, I'm so glad that
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it sits in the morning. Are going to go run
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and yeah, but once you're there, you feel so great.
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And when you leave the gym after a great workout,
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now you feel good and you have to remind yourself, Okay,
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tomorrow morning, when I don't want to it's cold outside
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and dark, I'm going to do this again because I
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have to remember that great feeling and being involved in
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your community getting out there kind of the same thing.
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So the name of your company really points to this
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and everything you've been discussing so far, a distinction between
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an abundance mindset and a scarcity mindset. And a lot
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of us suffer from a scarcity mindset in general, but
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especially when it comes to money. And it's surprising how
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many high networth individuals they have plenty of resources and
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they still suffer from this scarcity mindset. And in some
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ways it seems like the more wealth they have, the
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more the fear goes up. Maybe if there's more to
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lose or something, if you have that scarcity mindset. So
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I'm wondering if you run into that with your clients
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and how you work for that. Can people make that
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shift from having a fear based scarcity mindset or all
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money no matter how much they have, they're having more
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of an abundance mindset and the ability to find meeting
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and a sense of security in life sort of regardles
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so you know what their net worth is doing at
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the moment.
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Yes, I periodically do meet people who You're right, no
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matter how much money you have, if it's a part
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of who you are, if you add another zero or two,
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that doesn't change who you are. It just means that
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the number is bigger. I mean truly, it's a number
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on a sheet of paper, and you still might have
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the fear that you had or always thinking that you're
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going to run out that scarcity. As you say, over time,
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I have seen people shift, okay, and they might fall
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back to I might have taken them forty or fifty
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years to sixty years of living a certain way. It's
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not going to change overnight or you know, over a
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couple of weeks, but over time by really becoming comfortable
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and having lots of conversation with them about hey, there
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is enough and let's talk about how we're going to
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turn that negative that you're feeling right now in the
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pit of your stomach into a positive. And so how
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I've shifted a lot of people is saying, instead of
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taking that negative and focusing on the negative, how can
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we turn it into a positive? And once they start
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seeing that, Wow, I have the abundance where I can
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give five hundred dollars, I can give a thousand, I
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can give whatever the amount is. It could be significantly more,
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at least starting small and getting bigger and bigger to
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where they're feeling that they're making the impact that they want.
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Is the way that I have helped shift. I wish
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that I had one hundred percent success rate. I don't. Okay,
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some people it is ingrained. I'm not really a therapist. Okay,
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at the end of the day, I try to help
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people along, but I also have to say I've done
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what I can. And you know, if you really want
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to change, I can't want this more than you. If
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you don't want to change your scarcity mindset, I'm not
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going to make you do it. I can't will it
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upon you. We may or may not work together long term.
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It's just that simple, because you know, behind the scenes,
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what we don't put up on our website is you know,
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we don't like a lot of drama. Okay, we don't.
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We have no drama in our company, within the team members,
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but also with our clients. And so it will work
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with some clients and stuff, but if it's filled with
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chaos and drama, that's not the way we live our
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lives long term. And we try to help them get
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out of that. But if we're ultimately unsuccessful, okay, and
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I have to acknowledge we are, Okay, things that I
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can't control. I try to control, but I can't control them.
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It might not work out. And you're just going to
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have to figure that out on your own, mister and
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missus client.
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And well, I think that's a really important thing to
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model as a business person and human being all together,
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is we need to have boundaries, and if we don't
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have boundaries, our life is going to be chaos, right,
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And so we can help out people, we can't help everybody,
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and that we need to make our choices.
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And it sounds like.
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You've done a pretty good job with that. And I
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know you focused Mike on sort of long term financial
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planning and asset allocation, long term investment strategies, and I've
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subscribed to a few investment newsletters here there, so I
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guess that's got me on a lot of lists, right,
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So I get emails from these different you know, people
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trying to promote their investment strategy letters and so forth,
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and even from what I think a pretty famous and
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fairly reputable people, there's still so much fear in it.
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They're constantly predicting this crash or that crash, you know,
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and they claim to have called the two thousand and
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eight crash, and you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
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But it just seems like in the marketing of financial
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services and investment advice and investment strategies, there's so much
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fear in it. So it's sort of like all the
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political stuff I get around the campaigns, like depending on
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what side draw on that side of telling you this
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guy's falling and they're you know, they're cleaning out your
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bank accounts, and you know, I constantly get things about
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how you know they're going to change the monetary system,
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all your cash is going to disappear. I mean, it
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00:16:40.600 --> 00:16:43.120
just seems to be so much fear in that world.
347
00:16:43.200 --> 00:16:46.399
You seem to be a very divergent voice in that field.
348
00:16:46.399 --> 00:16:50.919
There's so much fear and scarcity thinking and communication is
349
00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:52.879
in the world of financial advising.
350
00:16:53.320 --> 00:16:55.679
Well, I appreciate you using that word, you know, divergent,
351
00:16:55.840 --> 00:16:58.240
because I don't want to be like everybody else, okay,
352
00:16:58.480 --> 00:17:00.440
and I don't think that what everyone else is doing
353
00:17:00.799 --> 00:17:04.079
is helpful anyway. When you get spam, you're like, gosh,
354
00:17:04.160 --> 00:17:07.279
why do they keep spamming? Well, it obviously works, right
355
00:17:07.359 --> 00:17:10.359
or they wouldn't do it. Or it's the same way
356
00:17:10.359 --> 00:17:13.599
with you know, telemarketing calls. I mean, it obviously works
357
00:17:14.039 --> 00:17:16.319
and it makes money for him. It doesn't work with
358
00:17:16.400 --> 00:17:19.599
you and me, but you know, hopefully but obviously worse
359
00:17:19.599 --> 00:17:23.240
they keep doing it. So unfortunately, certain things like fear
360
00:17:23.759 --> 00:17:27.319
does excite the emotions of people. It's almost like a drug,
361
00:17:27.680 --> 00:17:30.720
you know that people want. Some people want drama. Some
362
00:17:30.759 --> 00:17:35.880
people need outrage or fear or the next thing to
363
00:17:35.880 --> 00:17:41.839
get their juices flowing. And not internet. Okay, I'm proud
364
00:17:41.960 --> 00:17:46.599
of being relatively calm and even keeled. Doesn't mean that
365
00:17:46.640 --> 00:17:50.200
I'm you know, mister spock, you know, with no emotions.
366
00:17:50.200 --> 00:17:53.079
It just means that I keep I control them, they
367
00:17:53.079 --> 00:17:56.440
don't control me. I always tell you know, my team
368
00:17:56.519 --> 00:17:59.519
that when a client ends a conversation with us, whether
369
00:17:59.559 --> 00:18:02.720
it's on the phone, a zoom in the office, they
370
00:18:02.759 --> 00:18:05.920
have to leave with hope. That's it. And so if
371
00:18:05.960 --> 00:18:09.319
someone comes in their prospective client they want something that
372
00:18:09.319 --> 00:18:11.359
that's not going to happen. Okay, they want to retire
373
00:18:11.480 --> 00:18:13.400
next month and they have no money, well, I don't
374
00:18:13.400 --> 00:18:15.799
know what to tell you. I can't change I have
375
00:18:15.920 --> 00:18:19.640
no magic wand here that being said, I still try
376
00:18:19.640 --> 00:18:22.359
to provide them with some hope. Hey, you know what
377
00:18:22.400 --> 00:18:24.440
if you pay off this credit card, or you do
378
00:18:24.519 --> 00:18:27.799
this deck, or you know, you say five thousand dollars,
379
00:18:27.799 --> 00:18:29.559
you come back to me in six months. If you've
380
00:18:29.559 --> 00:18:32.160
done that, then I'll help you take them the next step.
381
00:18:32.359 --> 00:18:36.079
And so it's all about, you know, being proactive, having
382
00:18:36.119 --> 00:18:39.200
some kind of a solution. And unfortunately, you know, whether
383
00:18:39.240 --> 00:18:41.599
it's the news media, whether or not it is a
384
00:18:41.640 --> 00:18:45.319
print media, they're there to excite your emotions many times
385
00:18:45.400 --> 00:18:49.480
not necessarily inform you. And well, frankly I'm more sensitive
386
00:18:49.519 --> 00:18:53.480
to it because of my first iteration that traditional investment
387
00:18:53.519 --> 00:18:55.880
firm that I was with, we used fear. That's how
388
00:18:55.880 --> 00:18:58.359
I grew up in my twenties and thirties. I thought
389
00:18:58.440 --> 00:19:02.079
that's the way you attract the clients to you come
390
00:19:02.119 --> 00:19:05.319
to find out you attract fearful clients and can't figure out, oh,
391
00:19:05.240 --> 00:19:07.440
why are they have a mindset of scarcity? I mean,
392
00:19:07.720 --> 00:19:10.720
of course, I want to, on the other hand, attract
393
00:19:10.920 --> 00:19:13.559
the people who are not that way, people who are
394
00:19:13.759 --> 00:19:16.960
pretty even keyelled, people who are wanting, you know, positive
395
00:19:17.039 --> 00:19:21.119
and hopeful and proactive and once again powerful in that
396
00:19:21.279 --> 00:19:24.400
they have an intentional life. And that's really what we're
397
00:19:24.400 --> 00:19:27.359
talking about with purpose and possibility. The purpose is what
398
00:19:27.400 --> 00:19:30.079
you need money to do. The possibility is what you
399
00:19:30.160 --> 00:19:32.880
want it to do, and sometimes those things that you
400
00:19:32.960 --> 00:19:35.880
haven't even considered yet. And that's very hopeful, and that's
401
00:19:35.920 --> 00:19:37.759
what we want to do. We want to use it
402
00:19:37.839 --> 00:19:41.039
to help people out, not just run from things, run
403
00:19:41.079 --> 00:19:41.720
towards things.
404
00:19:41.839 --> 00:19:43.920
So let's talk a little bit about the name of
405
00:19:43.960 --> 00:19:47.960
your company's generosity wealth management. So generosity, I think sometimes
406
00:19:47.960 --> 00:19:50.839
we think generosity is something I'll be able to do
407
00:19:51.200 --> 00:19:53.920
once I'm wealthy, er, once I'm successful, or I have
408
00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:57.440
more time or something, and or that it's just a
409
00:19:57.559 --> 00:20:00.000
quality that we have. We're either generous or we're not general.
410
00:20:00.440 --> 00:20:02.960
And I wonder if you could talk about generosity more
411
00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:05.240
as a discipline, as a practice, as a thing we
412
00:20:05.279 --> 00:20:09.160
can learn, and also that generosity could be part of
413
00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:12.440
creating and developing worth rather than something that follows It
414
00:20:12.480 --> 00:20:15.799
could be something that part of creating wealth ultimately, as
415
00:20:15.839 --> 00:20:17.720
opposed to something that just follows that.
416
00:20:18.240 --> 00:20:19.960
Yes, let me talk about that, But let me tell
417
00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:22.240
you how I kind of came to this thought. Is
418
00:20:22.279 --> 00:20:24.839
I remember meeting with the client. His name was Jack.
419
00:20:24.920 --> 00:20:27.880
He's now passed on, but he came to me. He's like, Mike,
420
00:20:27.960 --> 00:20:30.359
when I die, I want some of my money to
421
00:20:30.440 --> 00:20:33.240
go towards this park bench about a mile in on
422
00:20:33.279 --> 00:20:37.160
this one trail in Boulder, Colorado. And I'm like why, Jack,
423
00:20:37.200 --> 00:20:39.720
And he's like, well, I'm always tired about a mile in,
424
00:20:39.920 --> 00:20:41.799
and so I really like to have a bench there
425
00:20:41.880 --> 00:20:44.400
because I figure that other people are also tired about
426
00:20:44.400 --> 00:20:46.279
a mile in. And I'm like, Jack, you don't have
427
00:20:46.319 --> 00:20:48.440
to die in order for that to happen. Why don't
428
00:20:48.440 --> 00:20:50.559
we do it while you're living so that you get
429
00:20:50.559 --> 00:20:53.400
the benefit from that bench. And he's, you know, looks
430
00:20:53.400 --> 00:20:55.640
at me like wow, I never thought of it. I mean,
431
00:20:55.680 --> 00:20:57.920
it had never occurred to him that you could have
432
00:20:58.079 --> 00:21:01.240
that level of generosity while you're living. He thought and
433
00:21:01.319 --> 00:21:04.680
had been programmed that it only happens upon your passing.
434
00:21:04.920 --> 00:21:07.480
And so that's what I try to do with clients
435
00:21:07.480 --> 00:21:10.680
all the time, to say, hey, while you're living where
436
00:21:10.759 --> 00:21:13.519
you get to see the benefit as well, what can
437
00:21:13.559 --> 00:21:16.920
we do? And it's not just writing checks, although that's
438
00:21:16.920 --> 00:21:20.279
good too, all right, but it's also hey, is it
439
00:21:20.440 --> 00:21:23.160
getting involved in coaching at your high school or your
440
00:21:23.200 --> 00:21:26.799
elementary your kids, or teaching Sunday school at your church.
441
00:21:26.960 --> 00:21:29.960
It doesn't really matter necessarily what you're doing, but you're
442
00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:33.359
engaged in the world and you know you're making that
443
00:21:33.559 --> 00:21:36.880
impact in that particular way. So you know, how I've
444
00:21:36.960 --> 00:21:40.640
addressed generosity with a lot of my clients is, hey,
445
00:21:40.759 --> 00:21:43.599
this is something that we can do. But personally speaking,
446
00:21:44.079 --> 00:21:49.440
whenever I give out of my genuine heart, not expecting anything, Okay,
447
00:21:49.480 --> 00:21:52.079
it has always come back to me in a multiple Okay,
448
00:21:52.119 --> 00:21:55.480
not not always, it has come back. I might do it,
449
00:21:55.559 --> 00:21:58.599
you know, be generous with a couple and you know, great,
450
00:21:58.599 --> 00:22:00.640
I made the world better. That's it. That's what my
451
00:22:00.759 --> 00:22:03.079
expectation should be is that I did a good thing
452
00:22:03.440 --> 00:22:07.960
for somebody. But frankly, I'm always doing, you know, trying
453
00:22:07.960 --> 00:22:10.240
to do good in the world, and it has come
454
00:22:10.279 --> 00:22:13.039
back and enriched my life. And it also attracts the
455
00:22:13.119 --> 00:22:14.920
right people, you know. But you got to do it
456
00:22:14.960 --> 00:22:18.160
with the right intention. Don't join or do that expecting
457
00:22:18.200 --> 00:22:20.960
something back and then being disappointed if it doesn't. When
458
00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:23.960
you have no expectations of it. You can't be disappointed.
459
00:22:24.200 --> 00:22:26.079
You did it because it was the right thing. But
460
00:22:26.359 --> 00:22:30.200
my experience has been that generosity in your life when
461
00:22:30.240 --> 00:22:33.880
you genuinely are being kind to other people, when you're
462
00:22:33.920 --> 00:22:37.799
genuinely being active in your community, your neighborhood, your school,
463
00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:42.400
your church, whatever it might be, that charity people see that,
464
00:22:42.640 --> 00:22:45.839
people can tell when you really just are caring and
465
00:22:46.039 --> 00:22:48.000
kind and they want to be a part of that.
466
00:22:48.359 --> 00:22:50.839
It attracts the right people, and that has always come
467
00:22:50.880 --> 00:22:54.200
back and helped my business. Frankly, it's a cycle. Okay.
468
00:22:54.359 --> 00:22:57.480
That helps my business means my business grows, the means
469
00:22:57.519 --> 00:22:59.799
I can then do more in the world as well.
470
00:22:59.880 --> 00:23:02.119
I can write checks, I can be out there, I
471
00:23:02.119 --> 00:23:04.400
can you know, I can afford someone to join my
472
00:23:04.480 --> 00:23:06.960
team so that I maybe spend more time out in
473
00:23:06.960 --> 00:23:11.039
the community. So it's just this wonderful, beautiful cycle of
474
00:23:11.119 --> 00:23:12.839
goodness that keeps coming back.
475
00:23:13.599 --> 00:23:14.359
Yeah, And I want to.
476
00:23:14.359 --> 00:23:17.000
Talk a little bit more about your experience of building
477
00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:19.759
your business over these years in a moment, But first
478
00:23:19.799 --> 00:23:21.680
of all, I want to talk a little bit about
479
00:23:22.160 --> 00:23:27.240
wealth creation and financial management, stewarding money with some both
480
00:23:27.279 --> 00:23:29.720
sanity and insight. So I think a lot of us
481
00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:33.599
don't even really think about, you know, trying to create
482
00:23:33.640 --> 00:23:36.640
some wealth or create some financial security until we start
483
00:23:36.960 --> 00:23:40.480
imagining that, oh, maybe I'm going to need to retire someday, right,
484
00:23:40.920 --> 00:23:42.759
And you know, we grow up kind of living at
485
00:23:42.759 --> 00:23:44.559
the edge of our means or beyond our means. We
486
00:23:44.599 --> 00:23:47.519
live in such a kind of consumerius materialistic society, or
487
00:23:47.519 --> 00:23:50.519
getting these constant messages to spend and live like others
488
00:23:50.599 --> 00:23:53.400
and so forth. And you know, if you don't start
489
00:23:53.400 --> 00:23:56.920
thinking about retirement until your sixties, you don't start thinking
490
00:23:56.920 --> 00:23:59.480
about how you're going to retire until your sixties.
491
00:23:59.039 --> 00:24:00.400
It gives you a shorter window.
492
00:24:00.720 --> 00:24:03.319
And for those who are younger in our audience, especially
493
00:24:03.839 --> 00:24:06.440
if someone in their twenties and thirties starts taking a
494
00:24:06.519 --> 00:24:10.200
proactive long term view of wealth creation, even if they
495
00:24:10.240 --> 00:24:13.680
have modest income. With the power compound interest and the
496
00:24:13.759 --> 00:24:17.279
general upward trajectory of the markets, over time, you can
497
00:24:17.400 --> 00:24:19.920
end up with some considerable wealth by the time you're
498
00:24:19.920 --> 00:24:21.480
in your sixties or seventies.
499
00:24:21.759 --> 00:24:23.519
If you start early. I wonder if you could talk
500
00:24:23.519 --> 00:24:24.279
to that a little bit.
501
00:24:24.720 --> 00:24:29.279
What if transformation isn't just about thinking differently but feeling differently.
502
00:24:29.759 --> 00:24:32.599
Science shows us that true change happens when we align
503
00:24:32.759 --> 00:24:36.240
not just our minds, but also the neural networks in
504
00:24:36.279 --> 00:24:39.839
our hearts and guts. This heart mind connection is the
505
00:24:39.920 --> 00:24:44.160
key to deeper healing, resilience, and expanded awareness. That's why
506
00:24:44.200 --> 00:24:47.599
I created the Heart Mind All Access, membership and community,
507
00:24:47.920 --> 00:24:50.799
a space designed to help you rewire your nervous system,
508
00:24:51.119 --> 00:24:55.119
cultivate heart intelligence, and live with greater clarity and purpose.
509
00:24:55.759 --> 00:25:00.799
With over one thousand hours of transformational teachings specifically curated
510
00:25:00.880 --> 00:25:06.960
to meet your needs, You'll learn from world renowned meditation teachers, neuroscientists,
511
00:25:07.039 --> 00:25:11.680
and experts of neuroplasticity, all sharing powerful tools to help
512
00:25:11.720 --> 00:25:16.079
you shift your mindset and heartset, regulate your emotions, and
513
00:25:16.400 --> 00:25:21.039
unlock your full potential. You'll also gain unlimited access to
514
00:25:21.200 --> 00:25:24.039
every summit and course, we've ever produced a treasure of
515
00:25:24.119 --> 00:25:27.880
trouble wisdom worth over ten thousand dollars in growing, plus
516
00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:32.319
live gatherings and an inspiring global community to support your journey.
517
00:25:32.640 --> 00:25:35.039
If you're ready to step into a more heart centered,
518
00:25:35.079 --> 00:25:38.000
connected and conscious life, I invite you to join us.
519
00:25:38.359 --> 00:25:41.440
Clip the link to learn more and start your journey today.
520
00:25:42.599 --> 00:25:45.200
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean I think that it's not just money.
521
00:25:45.240 --> 00:25:49.039
When you're young. It's hard to think about the future. Okay,
522
00:25:49.319 --> 00:25:52.519
twenty thirty forty years ago from now is just a
523
00:25:52.559 --> 00:25:55.799
long time. I mean, if everyone thought about the future
524
00:25:55.799 --> 00:25:57.319
all the time, we'd all go to the gym right
525
00:25:57.359 --> 00:25:59.519
when you are our thirties and forties. We'd never do anything
526
00:25:59.559 --> 00:26:02.440
to our bi that. As we get older, we say, huh,
527
00:26:02.640 --> 00:26:04.319
maybe I should go to the gym a little bit.
528
00:26:04.319 --> 00:26:07.119
I'm a little bit more motivated. Maybe I'll forego that
529
00:26:07.319 --> 00:26:11.119
extra piece of cheesecake. So it's not just money. It's
530
00:26:11.119 --> 00:26:13.039
tough when you're in your twenties and thirties, but that
531
00:26:13.119 --> 00:26:16.640
differentiates those that can think that way. You know, I
532
00:26:16.720 --> 00:26:20.039
like to think of it as today money and tomorrow money. Okay,
533
00:26:20.319 --> 00:26:23.640
we don't want to only think about today, because tomorrow
534
00:26:23.759 --> 00:26:25.279
is going to be here before we know it. We
535
00:26:25.319 --> 00:26:28.680
don't want to only think about tomorrow because that makes
536
00:26:28.720 --> 00:26:32.039
today not that much fun. So there's some spectrum between
537
00:26:32.079 --> 00:26:35.400
the two that each client has to figure out for themselves.
538
00:26:35.680 --> 00:26:39.480
But every dollar that you don't spend today is income
539
00:26:39.599 --> 00:26:42.839
for you in the future. If you can get that concept,
540
00:26:42.920 --> 00:26:46.119
if you can get and understand and truly make into
541
00:26:46.160 --> 00:26:49.519
your DNA the discipline that it's like, wow, if I
542
00:26:49.599 --> 00:26:53.319
save twenty to thirty percent of today, that will then
543
00:26:53.480 --> 00:26:56.839
provide me with the income for tomorrow. And tomorrow could
544
00:26:56.880 --> 00:27:00.240
be thirty, forty, fifty years from now, but that is it.
545
00:27:00.359 --> 00:27:03.759
And so I work with young people in their twenties
546
00:27:03.799 --> 00:27:06.880
and thirties, and whenever they do something that I really
547
00:27:07.160 --> 00:27:09.480
think is like, wow, that's great, that's right on, I
548
00:27:09.559 --> 00:27:12.839
of course give them lots of praise. No one seems
549
00:27:12.880 --> 00:27:17.720
to be immune to praise and to compliments, okay, And
550
00:27:17.799 --> 00:27:21.440
so I really try to encourage that because hopefully that's
551
00:27:21.480 --> 00:27:24.039
the endorphin that they're getting. Is not only watching a
552
00:27:24.200 --> 00:27:27.720
balance go up through their efforts and through its efforts
553
00:27:27.720 --> 00:27:29.559
on its own, you know, how it's invested, et cetera,
554
00:27:30.039 --> 00:27:33.200
but also through me externally saying you are doing the
555
00:27:33.279 --> 00:27:35.680
right thing, you are knocking it out of the park,
556
00:27:35.880 --> 00:27:40.000
et cetera. Because on the flip side, you get external
557
00:27:40.240 --> 00:27:42.119
feedback from when you go to the bar and you
558
00:27:42.119 --> 00:27:44.880
buy a whole round for everybody, or you go buy
559
00:27:44.880 --> 00:27:46.880
a car and everyone's like, oh my gosh, this is
560
00:27:46.920 --> 00:27:49.359
a great car. Well, you know, all my paychecks are
561
00:27:49.359 --> 00:27:52.680
going towards it. Okay, nobody cares about that. All they
562
00:27:52.680 --> 00:27:54.359
can see is that you've got this, you know, this
563
00:27:54.480 --> 00:27:57.279
asset you know maybe doesn't really help you. Makes you
564
00:27:57.319 --> 00:27:59.440
feel good in the short term, but it doesn't really
565
00:27:59.440 --> 00:28:01.720
help you in the long So how can we The
566
00:28:01.799 --> 00:28:04.279
way my approach is how can I outer that with
567
00:28:04.599 --> 00:28:07.839
really positive feedback? Now my experience has been you can
568
00:28:07.880 --> 00:28:10.119
sit here and show all the spreadsheets in the world,
569
00:28:10.319 --> 00:28:13.839
you can do all the logical stuff. It's less helpful,
570
00:28:14.559 --> 00:28:16.519
all right. If you got to really get it in
571
00:28:16.559 --> 00:28:19.640
your get it in your DNA, have that discipline. If
572
00:28:19.640 --> 00:28:23.079
you've got emotional control and discipline that gets you through
573
00:28:23.119 --> 00:28:26.480
eighty ninety percent of what I do. And same thing
574
00:28:26.519 --> 00:28:29.119
with the working out. If you've got some discipline in
575
00:28:29.200 --> 00:28:30.599
order to get in there, it doesn't really matter if
576
00:28:30.599 --> 00:28:32.440
you use it free weights or machines. Really, at the
577
00:28:32.519 --> 00:28:34.480
end of the day, it doesn't really matter. You got
578
00:28:34.519 --> 00:28:36.440
in there, you got the discipline, okay, and you have
579
00:28:36.480 --> 00:28:40.079
the emotional maturity to say, wow, this is for this
580
00:28:40.119 --> 00:28:41.720
is good for me today, this is good for me
581
00:28:41.759 --> 00:28:42.920
thirty years from now as well.
582
00:28:43.279 --> 00:28:45.920
And maybe maybe the convincing argument isn't the numbers in
583
00:28:45.960 --> 00:28:50.720
the spreadsheets, it's the emotional support and reinforcement as you're discussing.
584
00:28:51.119 --> 00:28:52.400
I do think it might.
585
00:28:52.200 --> 00:28:54.359
Be helpful to know, because I think when I was young,
586
00:28:54.440 --> 00:28:57.480
I was pretty clueless around this that you know, And
587
00:28:57.559 --> 00:29:01.960
there's many stories of essentially blue color workers who have
588
00:29:02.039 --> 00:29:04.640
had a modest income but were just in better at
589
00:29:04.680 --> 00:29:08.880
savers and invested it and they have millions.
590
00:29:08.519 --> 00:29:11.759
Of dollars to retire on the absolutely no modest income.
591
00:29:12.200 --> 00:29:14.079
Yes, I have met with people who make a half
592
00:29:14.079 --> 00:29:16.279
a million dollars a year and they spend six hundred.
593
00:29:16.440 --> 00:29:19.440
That doesn't really matter how much money you make, it's
594
00:29:19.480 --> 00:29:21.519
what you know. It's just like if you want to
595
00:29:21.559 --> 00:29:23.759
be fit, you know, I keep using this fitness analogy.
596
00:29:24.039 --> 00:29:28.039
It's calories in, calories out. That's it. Everything else is details, okay,
597
00:29:28.480 --> 00:29:32.039
And so you're right, it is about, you know, the discipline.
598
00:29:32.160 --> 00:29:35.839
I have had some wonderful success stories of people who, yes,
599
00:29:35.960 --> 00:29:40.359
were modest, blue collar or they were just working a job,
600
00:29:40.480 --> 00:29:43.400
raising their family, live in their life, but they make
601
00:29:43.480 --> 00:29:46.799
good financial decisions. They treated their life like a business.
602
00:29:46.880 --> 00:29:50.000
They knew what their inputs and their outputs were. Okay,
603
00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:52.599
That's one of my first clues when I'm talking with
604
00:29:52.640 --> 00:29:55.400
someone is if they have absolutely no idea how much
605
00:29:55.480 --> 00:29:58.400
they're spending, if they have absolutely no idea where their
606
00:29:58.440 --> 00:30:01.000
money is or anything. It's like, hey, we need to
607
00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:04.480
start tiding this thing up. Hey, let's first clean up
608
00:30:04.480 --> 00:30:07.640
your life. Today is day zero. There's no judgment and
609
00:30:07.839 --> 00:30:10.680
no shame in that's okay. I'm glad that we're having
610
00:30:10.680 --> 00:30:13.119
this conversation. But going forward, we have to have a
611
00:30:13.160 --> 00:30:15.519
new approach because the approach that you've had up till
612
00:30:15.599 --> 00:30:18.400
now hasn't worked out. Right, That's the reason maybe why
613
00:30:18.400 --> 00:30:21.839
we're talking. And so let's treat our life like a business.
614
00:30:21.920 --> 00:30:24.440
Let's know what our inputs and our outputs are, and
615
00:30:24.519 --> 00:30:27.680
let's make sure our inputs are greater and move forward. Yeah.
616
00:30:27.680 --> 00:30:29.440
I think that's a really powerful idea and what I
617
00:30:29.559 --> 00:30:31.119
use and a lot of the coaching work I do
618
00:30:31.200 --> 00:30:33.519
with folks is really realizing that we're all in business,
619
00:30:33.599 --> 00:30:36.079
whether we think we are or not. We have talents,
620
00:30:36.119 --> 00:30:38.480
we have energy, we have our time, and we offer
621
00:30:38.519 --> 00:30:41.240
that to the world. We get compensated for it. And
622
00:30:41.279 --> 00:30:43.960
then how successful we are is how well we manage
623
00:30:43.960 --> 00:30:45.920
all that, how well we manage all the inputs and
624
00:30:45.960 --> 00:30:47.799
the outputs right, and what do we do with the
625
00:30:47.839 --> 00:30:49.839
revenue that's coming in, and how do we manage it
626
00:30:49.960 --> 00:30:52.319
just like any other business, right. I think that that
627
00:30:52.440 --> 00:30:56.079
shift and consciousness can really make a huge difference in
628
00:30:56.079 --> 00:30:58.319
people's lives because in the world of business, a lot
629
00:30:58.359 --> 00:31:01.519
has been learned about just the base of operating a
630
00:31:01.559 --> 00:31:04.519
business in a good way, and most of us probably
631
00:31:04.519 --> 00:31:08.160
aren't applying those principles to our lives much. Your own debtriment,
632
00:31:08.519 --> 00:31:10.880
So let's talk about growing your business. So you were
633
00:31:10.920 --> 00:31:15.680
working for a financial management mutual fund hedge fund company,
634
00:31:16.160 --> 00:31:18.480
and at some point you decided to go out on
635
00:31:18.519 --> 00:31:21.279
your own and you took a little time off, and fortunately,
636
00:31:21.319 --> 00:31:23.400
I think that was a time when you'd already really
637
00:31:23.440 --> 00:31:26.880
made a shift where you had multiple sources of meaning
638
00:31:26.920 --> 00:31:30.000
in your life and you were already focused on service
639
00:31:30.079 --> 00:31:32.759
and things like this. So I think you were inspired
640
00:31:32.799 --> 00:31:36.160
to create your own business in alignment with that from
641
00:31:36.160 --> 00:31:39.480
the very beginning. But nonetheless, you had to figure out
642
00:31:39.519 --> 00:31:42.599
how to be successful with your business. You think you
643
00:31:42.640 --> 00:31:44.599
probably took a couple of clients with you, but you
644
00:31:44.680 --> 00:31:48.559
started off very, very small, and you've gradually grown your business.
645
00:31:48.880 --> 00:31:50.880
And I wonder if you could talk about that, just
646
00:31:50.920 --> 00:31:54.640
that pathway of learning how to be a successful business
647
00:31:54.680 --> 00:31:56.359
owner and grow your business.
648
00:31:56.839 --> 00:31:59.559
Yeah. Well, I think I may have told you this fleet,
649
00:31:59.599 --> 00:32:01.920
but you were on the first people. When I ended
650
00:32:01.920 --> 00:32:05.039
my employment there, I took two three months off. I
651
00:32:05.039 --> 00:32:07.720
mean I went to Africa for two three weeks. I
652
00:32:07.759 --> 00:32:10.240
came back, my wife and I went to Australia and
653
00:32:10.279 --> 00:32:13.039
New Zealand for a couple of months. It was wonderful.
654
00:32:13.079 --> 00:32:15.680
We still talk about it twenty years later. I mean,
655
00:32:15.759 --> 00:32:18.759
just one of those magical trips. And then I came
656
00:32:18.799 --> 00:32:21.880
back and now it's reality. Okay, great, vacation's over. Now
657
00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:24.720
what I knew the intention, but I didn't know how
658
00:32:24.759 --> 00:32:28.799
to execute it. And to someone who you know, has worked,
659
00:32:28.839 --> 00:32:32.480
it felt like every single day since I graduated college.
660
00:32:32.519 --> 00:32:35.880
That was a weird feeling to say, wow, what is
661
00:32:35.960 --> 00:32:38.359
my purpose? I kind of know what I want to do,
662
00:32:38.440 --> 00:32:41.119
but therefore what And I reached out to you and
663
00:32:41.160 --> 00:32:43.920
you started to give me some books to read. You're like, wow,
664
00:32:43.960 --> 00:32:45.960
you know, I think you should read Bearing Witness by
665
00:32:45.960 --> 00:32:48.759
Bernie Glassman and Instructions for the Cook and you know,
666
00:32:48.799 --> 00:32:51.039
you kind of guided me through. And as I recall,
667
00:32:51.319 --> 00:32:53.200
you said, oh, well, why don't you come along to
668
00:32:53.279 --> 00:32:55.799
this charity thing on Thursdays? I go down in to
669
00:32:55.920 --> 00:32:58.640
work in this prison. And before I knew it, I
670
00:32:58.640 --> 00:33:00.359
think it was maybe two weeks later, You're like, well,
671
00:33:00.400 --> 00:33:02.880
why don't you run it? So you got me good,
672
00:33:03.160 --> 00:33:06.079
and here I am still on that board twenty years later.
673
00:33:06.640 --> 00:33:09.519
I did take a couple of years off to kind
674
00:33:09.559 --> 00:33:12.319
of figure out what my next steps were. I didn't
675
00:33:12.359 --> 00:33:13.759
know it was going to be a couple of years,
676
00:33:13.759 --> 00:33:15.359
but it turned out to be that way. I thought
677
00:33:15.359 --> 00:33:18.160
it was going to be six months okay, And after
678
00:33:18.200 --> 00:33:20.640
six months I still didn't know, and after a year
679
00:33:20.680 --> 00:33:22.680
I didn't know, and after eighteen months I didn't know.
680
00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:26.079
But eventually I did, and that's when I moved forward.
681
00:33:26.279 --> 00:33:30.160
And yes, some clients actually reached out to me to say, Mike,
682
00:33:30.519 --> 00:33:32.440
you know, we would like to be your first clients,
683
00:33:32.440 --> 00:33:34.960
we would like to help you out. And whenever you're
684
00:33:34.960 --> 00:33:37.960
starting a business, if you haven't done that before, there's
685
00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:39.720
a lot of decisions you got to make. I mean,
686
00:33:39.799 --> 00:33:43.400
like what filing system do you have? You know, what's
687
00:33:43.440 --> 00:33:46.519
your logo, what's your name? Just all these things that
688
00:33:46.680 --> 00:33:49.079
you never really think about that you have to make,
689
00:33:49.160 --> 00:33:51.799
and many times you're doing it all by yourself. It's
690
00:33:51.799 --> 00:33:55.119
a very lonely business. It did take me three, four,
691
00:33:55.680 --> 00:33:58.079
even five years for me to be profitable. Okay, it
692
00:33:58.119 --> 00:33:59.279
took me a while. I wish I could say it
693
00:33:59.319 --> 00:34:01.440
was an overnight sixth us, but it wasn't. You know,
694
00:34:01.480 --> 00:34:04.640
there's certain fixed costs and it took me a while, okay,
695
00:34:04.160 --> 00:34:07.599
as I was spending down my savings okay, towards this.
696
00:34:08.159 --> 00:34:11.119
But I had a vision, okay, I had a vision
697
00:34:11.159 --> 00:34:13.760
of what it could look like. Who I was going
698
00:34:13.800 --> 00:34:16.320
to attract. I mean, I was very specific about that.
699
00:34:16.519 --> 00:34:20.679
I want the right people who allow me to, you know,
700
00:34:20.760 --> 00:34:22.840
to live my life, to make an impact in it.
701
00:34:23.239 --> 00:34:25.440
As a matter of fact, when I met with people,
702
00:34:25.639 --> 00:34:27.400
my job was as much to find out who I
703
00:34:27.440 --> 00:34:30.000
didn't want to work with as it was to see
704
00:34:30.039 --> 00:34:32.000
who I would want to work with. Okay, if you
705
00:34:32.039 --> 00:34:34.360
need a guy, need a suit in the corner office,
706
00:34:34.400 --> 00:34:36.480
or you can just stop by every day and hang
707
00:34:36.519 --> 00:34:39.079
out with that, that's not me. You know, you will
708
00:34:39.119 --> 00:34:41.880
not be happy if that's what your expectations are. Let
709
00:34:41.920 --> 00:34:43.800
me tell you who I am, and then you can
710
00:34:43.800 --> 00:34:46.480
decide whether or not we can jointly decide whether we're
711
00:34:46.559 --> 00:34:49.039
right for each other. And that's right from the beginning.
712
00:34:49.159 --> 00:34:52.840
That's the way I built a client by client. And
713
00:34:53.239 --> 00:34:56.639
what's nice about my business and the wealth management is
714
00:34:56.679 --> 00:34:59.559
it's a cumulative business. You know, if you do treat
715
00:34:59.559 --> 00:35:03.320
people right. You know, last year's ten clients, so you
716
00:35:03.320 --> 00:35:05.119
add two more. This year, you got twelve, and then
717
00:35:05.159 --> 00:35:07.960
you got fourteen, then twenty, then forty and one hundred,
718
00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:10.320
and to you know, it kind of grows, and so
719
00:35:10.800 --> 00:35:13.559
it does take a while, but I did once I
720
00:35:13.599 --> 00:35:16.719
got that word out there, and great people were. They
721
00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:19.039
believed in my mission as well, and they believed in me.
722
00:35:19.519 --> 00:35:21.800
And I guess maybe that gets back to you know,
723
00:35:21.840 --> 00:35:24.280
live your life where people are going to say nice
724
00:35:24.280 --> 00:35:26.880
things about you even when you're not around. And I
725
00:35:26.880 --> 00:35:29.440
would always tell the people that I mentored, we don't
726
00:35:29.440 --> 00:35:32.480
want to walk down the grocery aisle and worry about
727
00:35:32.480 --> 00:35:36.559
who we're going to bump into. Okay, so always treat
728
00:35:36.760 --> 00:35:40.559
everyone even if the relationship doesn't continue. Okay, they're going
729
00:35:40.599 --> 00:35:43.199
to only remember the end. Okay, you did great for
730
00:35:43.280 --> 00:35:45.199
them for years. If they want to move on for
731
00:35:45.239 --> 00:35:48.239
whatever reason, you treat them like a king or a
732
00:35:48.360 --> 00:35:50.880
queen at the end, because that's what they're going to remember.
733
00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:52.840
And it's just the right thing to do anyway, and
734
00:35:52.880 --> 00:35:54.000
we want to treat people well.
735
00:35:54.079 --> 00:35:57.679
So in my expanis a lot of successful people have
736
00:35:57.840 --> 00:36:01.400
experienced failures in their life and been, you know, been
737
00:36:01.440 --> 00:36:04.760
to bankruptcies and all kinds of things before they ultimately
738
00:36:04.760 --> 00:36:07.639
get on a real stable trajectory of success.
739
00:36:08.119 --> 00:36:10.239
And I know when you made that transition early on,
740
00:36:10.320 --> 00:36:12.000
you took a pretty big financial hit.
741
00:36:12.079 --> 00:36:16.199
You had some wealth, some sweat equity and company and
742
00:36:16.239 --> 00:36:19.440
so forth, and you took a really significant financial hit
743
00:36:19.599 --> 00:36:22.639
at an early age, which I would imagine could have
744
00:36:22.679 --> 00:36:25.280
been pretty deflating because one might have say, well, I'm
745
00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:27.039
in pretty good shape here, I'm just going to build
746
00:36:27.079 --> 00:36:29.719
from here, and suddenly I'm kind of starting over. I'm
747
00:36:29.760 --> 00:36:32.480
curious about how that played out for you and whether
748
00:36:32.519 --> 00:36:36.000
you feel that contributed to in any positive way to
749
00:36:36.039 --> 00:36:37.079
who you've become today.
750
00:36:37.440 --> 00:36:39.360
Oh my gosh, Well, let me just tell you that
751
00:36:39.400 --> 00:36:42.119
I remember when that was happening. It was very painful. Okay.
752
00:36:42.280 --> 00:36:43.880
I don't want to sit here and put, you know,
753
00:36:44.320 --> 00:36:47.159
this rosy picture on it. I always joked that I
754
00:36:47.159 --> 00:36:50.679
didn't sleep for about two years, Okay, But I remember
755
00:36:51.079 --> 00:36:54.159
right in the midst of that thinking, I know, I'm
756
00:36:54.159 --> 00:36:56.360
going to look back on this and say that this
757
00:36:56.519 --> 00:36:59.880
was a great educational experience. I'm really looking forward to
758
00:37:00.079 --> 00:37:04.639
looking back on this, okay, because the president wasn't much fun. Okay.
759
00:37:04.880 --> 00:37:07.400
What happened, you know, at the very highest level is
760
00:37:07.440 --> 00:37:10.000
I left that firm and they did owe me, you know,
761
00:37:10.280 --> 00:37:13.400
a lot of money, okay, some deferred compensations of equity
762
00:37:13.519 --> 00:37:16.360
because they bought my interest out, and then they went under. Okay,
763
00:37:16.360 --> 00:37:19.199
two thousand and eight hit. They had not done a
764
00:37:19.199 --> 00:37:22.360
good job in certain areas of mitigating risks, etc. And
765
00:37:22.559 --> 00:37:25.719
so two thousand and eight was very painful for them,
766
00:37:25.880 --> 00:37:29.119
which then kind of blew back to me as well.
767
00:37:29.159 --> 00:37:31.800
And so that was here. I was my mid to
768
00:37:31.920 --> 00:37:36.719
late thirties thinking I kind of had it. Okay, I'm like, great, now,
769
00:37:36.800 --> 00:37:39.559
I can. I've worked hard, you know, it feels like
770
00:37:39.639 --> 00:37:42.039
every day for thirteen years. You know, I've got a
771
00:37:42.119 --> 00:37:44.800
nice number of zeros there. I'm good to go, and
772
00:37:45.079 --> 00:37:48.360
very quickly that evaporated. And I have to say that
773
00:37:48.440 --> 00:37:50.719
the firm, you know, i'd done very poorly for the
774
00:37:50.760 --> 00:37:54.000
clients as well. And it turned out to be one
775
00:37:54.039 --> 00:37:56.239
of the best things that ever happened to me, because
776
00:37:56.800 --> 00:38:00.519
you know, I rallied those clients, you know, to really
777
00:38:00.559 --> 00:38:04.440
help them out. Because the other firm wasn't communicating with them,
778
00:38:04.519 --> 00:38:07.840
wasn't helping them. I had an opportunity, frankly, to go
779
00:38:07.880 --> 00:38:09.440
to the other firm and help them out. But no,
780
00:38:09.639 --> 00:38:11.440
I didn't like what they did. There was a reason
781
00:38:11.480 --> 00:38:15.039
why after I left it didn't turn out well. They
782
00:38:15.079 --> 00:38:19.159
had changed some philosophy, They had changed some major things
783
00:38:19.239 --> 00:38:22.639
after I had left that I was unaware of and
784
00:38:23.280 --> 00:38:24.880
I didn't want to be a part of it. But
785
00:38:24.960 --> 00:38:27.000
it could have been financially good for me. But you
786
00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:29.599
know what, I decided not to do that. It decided
787
00:38:29.599 --> 00:38:31.800
to really help out the clients, and it was one
788
00:38:31.840 --> 00:38:33.519
of the best things that ever happened. It makes me
789
00:38:33.559 --> 00:38:36.440
a better person, makes me a better financial advisor because
790
00:38:36.440 --> 00:38:39.599
I can empathize with my clients. It's not like, oh,
791
00:38:39.679 --> 00:38:43.559
you've been successful since you graduated, you know, thirty seven
792
00:38:43.679 --> 00:38:47.079
years ago or something thirty five years ago. No, I've
793
00:38:47.079 --> 00:38:49.599
had some ups and downs. I had no money. I
794
00:38:49.639 --> 00:38:53.320
made some money, and then unfortunately I got some humility.
795
00:38:53.480 --> 00:38:56.719
The universe decided that Mike needed some humility. I got
796
00:38:56.719 --> 00:38:59.679
that humility, and then I built it again with the
797
00:38:59.760 --> 00:39:03.320
right people in the right way, with the right attitude.
798
00:39:03.719 --> 00:39:06.119
And you know, my wife I've been married to for
799
00:39:06.159 --> 00:39:09.119
almost thirty years. We've been together thirty two or thirty
800
00:39:09.159 --> 00:39:12.920
three years, and so I know, you know that she's
801
00:39:12.960 --> 00:39:15.760
always with me. We've gone through this together. I know
802
00:39:15.880 --> 00:39:18.159
who I am. It's a little bit like a soldier
803
00:39:18.239 --> 00:39:20.559
who wonders, wow, you know, when I'm really there in
804
00:39:20.559 --> 00:39:22.400
the war, am I gonna run away? Or am I
805
00:39:22.400 --> 00:39:25.360
gonna be the brave soldier that I have in my head? Okay?
806
00:39:25.440 --> 00:39:27.679
I haven't been tested in my life. It was actually
807
00:39:27.760 --> 00:39:30.440
the first test of who am I. You know, what
808
00:39:30.480 --> 00:39:33.079
are your principles and your values? And when your money
809
00:39:33.159 --> 00:39:36.239
is on the line, what do you do? Okay? What
810
00:39:36.480 --> 00:39:39.199
do you do? And so that's very nice that I
811
00:39:39.199 --> 00:39:41.840
did choose wisely. And you know, only as it kind
812
00:39:41.880 --> 00:39:44.519
of played out did I realize not only that I
813
00:39:44.599 --> 00:39:47.599
do the right thing, but it also played out properly
814
00:39:47.800 --> 00:39:50.360
for me. You know, if I chosen a different path,
815
00:39:50.559 --> 00:39:52.320
I know I would be happy and it wouldn't have
816
00:39:52.320 --> 00:39:54.800
turned out as well. And so let's it is. I
817
00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:57.159
talk about it all the time. I'm proud of it,
818
00:39:57.199 --> 00:39:59.400
to be honest. You know, you fall down seven, you
819
00:39:59.440 --> 00:40:02.559
get up eight. Okay, you learn from your failures, and
820
00:40:02.599 --> 00:40:06.360
if you're afraid of failure, you got to keep moving forward.
821
00:40:06.599 --> 00:40:09.119
And that was painful that I learned a lot from.
822
00:40:09.559 --> 00:40:12.199
You know. It's what it is, you know, and I'm
823
00:40:12.199 --> 00:40:13.480
a better person because of it.
824
00:40:13.800 --> 00:40:16.519
I've witnessed you through all of that, and I've really
825
00:40:16.559 --> 00:40:20.360
always admired the approach you took. And so for the
826
00:40:20.480 --> 00:40:23.599
entrepreneurs in our audience, and it really applies to anyone.
827
00:40:23.639 --> 00:40:25.559
But a lot of people get into business and start
828
00:40:25.599 --> 00:40:27.119
businesses are.
829
00:40:26.920 --> 00:40:28.519
Looking for freedom on some level.
830
00:40:28.559 --> 00:40:30.519
Maybe they don't want to work for somebody else, Maybe
831
00:40:30.519 --> 00:40:32.400
they want to be more the captains of their own
832
00:40:32.440 --> 00:40:35.159
destiny in some way, and they're looking to create some
833
00:40:35.239 --> 00:40:37.920
wealth and looking to create some freedom. But often they
834
00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:42.320
find themselves wearing all the hats and overwhelmed, and now
835
00:40:42.360 --> 00:40:45.480
they've got all this responsibility and all this stress that
836
00:40:45.559 --> 00:40:48.480
before somebody they worked for was carrying. Now they're having
837
00:40:48.480 --> 00:40:51.039
to carry all that, and it turns out to not
838
00:40:51.159 --> 00:40:54.239
be quite the dream they had hoped for. And I
839
00:40:54.239 --> 00:40:58.320
think you've modeled really creating a business that works for
840
00:40:58.360 --> 00:41:01.880
yourself all along. I'm sure there's been moments and highlights
841
00:41:01.880 --> 00:41:04.199
and some lows, but at least what I've seen from
842
00:41:04.239 --> 00:41:07.400
the outside, you've seen to have always had time for family,
843
00:41:07.800 --> 00:41:11.639
time for your philanthropic work, your community work. You kind of,
844
00:41:11.679 --> 00:41:13.519
you know, live where you want to live. I know
845
00:41:13.599 --> 00:41:16.119
you have your home in Colorado, but you also have
846
00:41:16.159 --> 00:41:17.760
another place where you spend a lot of time on
847
00:41:17.840 --> 00:41:20.599
cabin that I think came down to your family. It
848
00:41:20.599 --> 00:41:23.920
seems like you have really been able to achieve a
849
00:41:23.960 --> 00:41:26.320
lot of that freedom that people get in the business
850
00:41:26.360 --> 00:41:26.880
looking for.
851
00:41:27.000 --> 00:41:28.960
I wonder if you could talk about that.
852
00:41:28.880 --> 00:41:32.360
And maybe if you had got caught up in the
853
00:41:32.400 --> 00:41:35.760
allure of something else, you might have created a business
854
00:41:35.760 --> 00:41:38.360
in a different way that could have been more overwhelming
855
00:41:38.400 --> 00:41:41.400
and never actually gave you that freedom you were looking for.
856
00:41:41.960 --> 00:41:45.920
Boundaries make great neighbors. Okay. No truer words have ever
857
00:41:45.960 --> 00:41:48.159
been said. And that's how I kind of live my
858
00:41:48.239 --> 00:41:52.000
life boundaries meeting this is what's important to me, and
859
00:41:52.719 --> 00:41:55.039
if it doesn't work, it doesn't fit there, then I
860
00:41:55.119 --> 00:41:57.800
have to say no to it. Okay. I always say
861
00:41:57.840 --> 00:42:00.480
that people who get taken advantage of let themselves be
862
00:42:00.480 --> 00:42:02.880
taken advantage of because you can say no. And that
863
00:42:02.920 --> 00:42:05.480
doesn't work for me. And I appreciate that. I know
864
00:42:05.559 --> 00:42:08.719
your intent is good, but that conflicts with something that's
865
00:42:08.760 --> 00:42:11.440
important to me, some value. So you've got to stick
866
00:42:11.519 --> 00:42:14.280
up for yourself. At the very beginning, I think I
867
00:42:14.320 --> 00:42:17.239
alluded to this, you know, earlier in the interview, but
868
00:42:17.400 --> 00:42:20.360
people would come in this is what I really needed clients.
869
00:42:20.440 --> 00:42:23.199
Every client was like, oh my gosh, I hope I
870
00:42:23.239 --> 00:42:26.000
can have this. But I was very clear, Hey, listen,
871
00:42:26.079 --> 00:42:28.480
going over to Africa. I go over there for a
872
00:42:28.480 --> 00:42:30.960
couple of weeks every April. This is important to me.
873
00:42:31.039 --> 00:42:33.239
So if that doesn't work for you, you need to
874
00:42:33.280 --> 00:42:35.840
say something now. Okay, And oh, I'm just gonna let
875
00:42:35.840 --> 00:42:38.800
you know that I also fly around the country periodically
876
00:42:38.880 --> 00:42:41.400
and do other things. I'm not always here in the office.
877
00:42:41.480 --> 00:42:43.880
Does that work for you. Oh it does great, you know.
878
00:42:44.039 --> 00:42:46.719
So I was very clear and setting those expectations with
879
00:42:46.760 --> 00:42:49.239
the people that I interacted with that this is what's
880
00:42:49.239 --> 00:42:53.280
important to me. So if I didn't do that, then
881
00:42:53.320 --> 00:42:56.679
it's not their fault. Okay. If they intrude in that,
882
00:42:56.719 --> 00:42:59.239
they try to change my life, okay, So I've got
883
00:42:59.280 --> 00:43:02.079
to communicate negotiate that with them. But I do the
884
00:43:02.079 --> 00:43:04.800
same thing with my team members. Hey, you know, I'm
885
00:43:04.800 --> 00:43:07.440
going to go up to my cabin in Wyoming, Okay,
886
00:43:07.519 --> 00:43:10.440
which is thirty minutes outside of a nine hundred person town.
887
00:43:10.840 --> 00:43:12.559
I'm gonna go up there for three months of the year.
888
00:43:12.760 --> 00:43:15.280
That is important to me. Okay. Now I have fiber
889
00:43:15.280 --> 00:43:17.719
optics there now, which is wonderful. Okay, I can continue
890
00:43:17.719 --> 00:43:20.360
to work there. I could be there now for all
891
00:43:20.400 --> 00:43:20.840
you would know.
892
00:43:20.880 --> 00:43:21.199
I'm not.
893
00:43:21.360 --> 00:43:24.079
But you know, in today's world, this is I can
894
00:43:24.079 --> 00:43:27.480
continue the business there. But that was important to me,
895
00:43:27.679 --> 00:43:30.840
so therefore I made it important. It's just like my
896
00:43:31.280 --> 00:43:34.760
interactions with the community and the generosity that is important
897
00:43:34.760 --> 00:43:39.239
to me. That gives me happiness, okay, And just like
898
00:43:39.360 --> 00:43:44.960
someone else might get happiness from skiing or from you know, golfing, Okay,
899
00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:48.599
that makes me happy. So therefore it's a priority that
900
00:43:48.679 --> 00:43:51.119
the seminar a couple of weeks ago, and people are
901
00:43:51.119 --> 00:43:53.199
talking about what they're struggling with. What are you struggling
902
00:43:53.239 --> 00:43:56.280
with right now? And time management and then second person's
903
00:43:56.320 --> 00:43:59.320
time management, et cetera. And as one guy says, stop
904
00:43:59.360 --> 00:44:01.920
holing and time management. You don't control time. It's called
905
00:44:01.960 --> 00:44:06.840
priority management. Okay, what's your priority? All right? And if
906
00:44:06.840 --> 00:44:09.920
you don't do that, don't blame time, blame yourself, your
907
00:44:09.960 --> 00:44:13.760
own discipline and you not doing the priority. So if
908
00:44:13.800 --> 00:44:16.519
it's important to you, you'll figure it out. And for me,
909
00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:21.599
I'm incredibly disciplined. If it's on my calendar, it happens.
910
00:44:21.840 --> 00:44:23.639
You know, I'm just a very disciplined person. But if
911
00:44:23.639 --> 00:44:27.280
you're not disciplined, find somebody who is and have them
912
00:44:27.440 --> 00:44:29.880
work for you. It's that simple. If I don't know
913
00:44:29.920 --> 00:44:32.199
how to fix my car, I can't complain that the
914
00:44:32.239 --> 00:44:34.320
car doesn't work. I guess I got to find somebody
915
00:44:34.400 --> 00:44:37.239
to fix the car. I mean, there's no excuses. Radical
916
00:44:37.280 --> 00:44:40.960
responsibility right for what you want, okay, and everything else
917
00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:41.840
are just excuses.
918
00:44:42.280 --> 00:44:43.119
That's absolutely right.
919
00:44:43.119 --> 00:44:46.159
Well, I think fortunately, you know, when you start your business,
920
00:44:46.679 --> 00:44:47.880
you kind of figured.
921
00:44:47.559 --> 00:44:49.079
Out who you were by that time.
922
00:44:49.400 --> 00:44:51.559
Yeah, And I think for a lot of us, our
923
00:44:51.639 --> 00:44:55.360
business can become our total identity, and then you know,
924
00:44:55.400 --> 00:44:58.360
it can tend to take over and our whole self
925
00:44:58.519 --> 00:45:01.000
esteem in sense of meaning in life, and everything's going
926
00:45:01.079 --> 00:45:03.280
up and down with you know, with the numbers month
927
00:45:03.280 --> 00:45:05.039
to month, and that can be a terrible.
928
00:45:04.800 --> 00:45:05.320
Way to live.
929
00:45:05.400 --> 00:45:09.239
So you built a business around who you actually are
930
00:45:09.920 --> 00:45:12.559
and one that seamlessly.
931
00:45:12.519 --> 00:45:15.920
Works with what your priorities are, and that's incredibly admirable.
932
00:45:15.960 --> 00:45:17.719
And I don't know that it's that common.
933
00:45:18.199 --> 00:45:20.239
Yeah, I'm not sure how common it is either. I
934
00:45:20.519 --> 00:45:23.719
tell people all the time to get external feedback, okay,
935
00:45:23.760 --> 00:45:25.920
And you were part of that, and another person that
936
00:45:25.960 --> 00:45:28.760
we worked with there at the company. You consulted with
937
00:45:29.280 --> 00:45:31.199
the company. That's how we know each other. But you
938
00:45:31.199 --> 00:45:34.360
were not of the company, all right, And that's important
939
00:45:34.360 --> 00:45:36.320
because just like a fish, you know, the fish is
940
00:45:36.320 --> 00:45:40.880
saying what water, they're clueless. I was in a unhealthy
941
00:45:41.480 --> 00:45:44.920
personal dynamic with behind closed doors. Even though we were
942
00:45:44.920 --> 00:45:49.679
externally very successful, internally, there was a mismatch and I
943
00:45:49.760 --> 00:45:52.639
just didn't know it. It just I couldn't articulate it
944
00:45:52.800 --> 00:45:54.960
why because I was in my twenties and thirties, you
945
00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:57.679
don't know anything. I mean, I hadn't had a life
946
00:45:57.760 --> 00:46:01.599
experience yet. And just like sometimes you have to get
947
00:46:01.599 --> 00:46:04.960
out of a bad relationship. Okay, whether it's a boyfriend, girlfriend,
948
00:46:05.079 --> 00:46:07.840
or domestic abuse, whatever it is, sometimes you have to exit.
949
00:46:08.079 --> 00:46:10.000
You look back at it and you're saying, Wow, it
950
00:46:10.039 --> 00:46:12.199
was so obvious. Oh my gosh, I can't believe I
951
00:46:12.239 --> 00:46:16.800
was so clueless about that situation. So I encourage people
952
00:46:17.159 --> 00:46:21.519
to have some external checks, reality checks. Whether that's a
953
00:46:21.559 --> 00:46:25.119
life coach, whether that's some strategic coach, whether or not
954
00:46:25.199 --> 00:46:29.559
that's just a religious leader, doesn't matter who. Somebody who
955
00:46:29.559 --> 00:46:32.480
can say, wow, this you're blind to it. But I
956
00:46:32.519 --> 00:46:34.800
think that you have a mismatch. That's why you're unhappy,
957
00:46:34.960 --> 00:46:38.280
or you don't have enough time, or you say that
958
00:46:38.519 --> 00:46:41.199
this is a priority, but you never prioritize it. Someone
959
00:46:41.239 --> 00:46:44.039
who can help guide you because you might be clueless.
960
00:46:45.079 --> 00:46:48.679
I mean, join a business group and with other entrepreneurs,
961
00:46:48.960 --> 00:46:51.840
and frankly, they'll find your problems and you'll find theirs.
962
00:46:52.679 --> 00:46:54.800
They'll find your problems that you're clueless too. You'll find
963
00:46:55.079 --> 00:46:58.559
problems of theirs that they're clueless about, and that's just
964
00:46:58.679 --> 00:46:59.800
that's community right there.
965
00:47:00.119 --> 00:47:02.320
Well, I think that segues into my final question for you,
966
00:47:02.440 --> 00:47:04.519
because I know you've been at most of your careerson
967
00:47:04.599 --> 00:47:07.320
starting your own company. You've been kind of essentially a solorepreneur.
968
00:47:08.239 --> 00:47:10.360
But now I know you're kind of building out your
969
00:47:10.360 --> 00:47:13.679
company a little bit to provide broader services, not necessarily
970
00:47:13.719 --> 00:47:17.920
building a huge company, but bringing together a complementary professionals
971
00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:20.519
to be able to offer a full spectrum of wealth
972
00:47:20.599 --> 00:47:24.880
management and also exit planning strategy for business owners and
973
00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:28.079
entrepreneurs and various things. And I know you have joined
974
00:47:28.159 --> 00:47:32.119
a mastermind where you're with other entrepreneurs learning and so
975
00:47:32.199 --> 00:47:34.360
that this seems to be a little a new stage
976
00:47:34.639 --> 00:47:36.760
in your career and the growth of your business. And
977
00:47:36.840 --> 00:47:39.159
I just wonder if you could talk about that both
978
00:47:39.199 --> 00:47:41.599
your inspiration and maybe you know, kind of take what
979
00:47:41.639 --> 00:47:43.559
you're doing your business to the next level, whatever that
980
00:47:43.679 --> 00:47:47.239
might be. I'm sure still in alignment with your core purpose,
981
00:47:47.679 --> 00:47:50.280
not just driven by ambition to grow just to grow
982
00:47:50.280 --> 00:47:52.719
a company, but something you've seen a different possibility where
983
00:47:52.760 --> 00:47:55.199
you can still do this with that same alignment you've
984
00:47:55.199 --> 00:47:57.920
always had, but you're also not trying to figure it
985
00:47:57.920 --> 00:48:01.199
out by yourself, you're getting involved with other entrepreneurs so
986
00:48:01.280 --> 00:48:02.599
you can do it in the best way. So I
987
00:48:02.599 --> 00:48:04.000
wanted to think it just maybe that could be our
988
00:48:04.079 --> 00:48:05.920
last question. You could just talk about that a little
989
00:48:05.920 --> 00:48:07.199
bit and where you see all that going.
990
00:48:07.599 --> 00:48:10.159
Yeah. Absolutely. As I look back on my life, I'm
991
00:48:10.159 --> 00:48:12.079
fifty seven years old, I've just kind of noticed that
992
00:48:12.119 --> 00:48:14.360
about every ten or fifteen years, I feel like I
993
00:48:14.400 --> 00:48:18.440
reinvent myself. Okay, it's not unnecessarily intentional, but as I've
994
00:48:18.480 --> 00:48:20.559
kind of looked at like, wow, this is an important
995
00:48:20.920 --> 00:48:23.119
you know, pivot, you know in my life, or this
996
00:48:23.320 --> 00:48:25.320
was I could see how the next ten years was
997
00:48:25.360 --> 00:48:28.559
because of this one year or this one period. And
998
00:48:28.639 --> 00:48:30.880
I'm just in one of those right now, Okay. And
999
00:48:30.920 --> 00:48:34.239
I can feel it because I am energized. Okay, I
1000
00:48:34.320 --> 00:48:36.599
have a lot of energy. I have even more energy
1001
00:48:36.639 --> 00:48:39.760
than normal. Right now. My brain is always going because
1002
00:48:39.800 --> 00:48:43.639
it's so exciting as you're creating something. I was in
1003
00:48:43.679 --> 00:48:45.599
my mid fifties. Okay, I'm fifty seven. Nows with his
1004
00:48:45.679 --> 00:48:48.239
mal two three years ago, I was like, okay, well
1005
00:48:48.320 --> 00:48:51.440
I've got all this information in my head. Okay, I've
1006
00:48:51.440 --> 00:48:53.559
got it in my head. It feels like a waste
1007
00:48:53.840 --> 00:48:56.320
if I don't pass that on in some fashion. So
1008
00:48:56.360 --> 00:48:59.360
there's a little bit of legacy. Okay, I don't have children,
1009
00:48:59.440 --> 00:49:01.400
so that kind of well, I don't have DNA that
1010
00:49:01.480 --> 00:49:03.679
I'm going to pass on, but hopefully you'll pass on
1011
00:49:04.239 --> 00:49:08.119
some knowledge, some wisdom, a way of living your life.
1012
00:49:08.159 --> 00:49:11.079
And so that was actually the big push for me
1013
00:49:11.320 --> 00:49:14.800
rethinking my business and bringing on other people so that
1014
00:49:14.880 --> 00:49:18.039
I can kind of expand the impact that we're making
1015
00:49:18.320 --> 00:49:21.079
beyond Mike Brady and a few other people, you know,
1016
00:49:21.199 --> 00:49:25.000
kind of evangelizing getting other people here, which is exciting
1017
00:49:25.159 --> 00:49:29.239
because we're having that conversation right now. What are the
1018
00:49:29.320 --> 00:49:34.199
appropriate key performance indicators your KPIs. Okay, it's not just oh,
1019
00:49:34.280 --> 00:49:37.559
let's just increase revenue by you know, ten percent or
1020
00:49:37.599 --> 00:49:41.639
fifty percent. No no, no, no, let's not have some you know,
1021
00:49:41.719 --> 00:49:46.119
lagging indicator of some success that society says that we
1022
00:49:46.159 --> 00:49:49.840
should be. We're right now working on what are the KPIs.
1023
00:49:49.880 --> 00:49:53.320
What's the impact that we can quantify with the number
1024
00:49:53.320 --> 00:49:55.400
of people that we're touching and then the impact that
1025
00:49:55.440 --> 00:49:58.199
they're making out in the world. So right now I'm
1026
00:49:58.199 --> 00:50:01.599
working on this less easy All right, there's more difficult.
1027
00:50:02.039 --> 00:50:05.239
What does it mean to have the right key performance
1028
00:50:05.280 --> 00:50:08.760
indicators that I can spend and work on as I'm
1029
00:50:08.760 --> 00:50:12.239
building out the company so that it lasts beyond my
1030
00:50:12.920 --> 00:50:15.679
you know, beyond my death. Okay, you know you start
1031
00:50:15.760 --> 00:50:17.519
as you get older, you start to think about that
1032
00:50:17.920 --> 00:50:21.199
and say, hey, I want this that we started, that's
1033
00:50:21.239 --> 00:50:24.159
doing good, that feels good. That is you know, people,
1034
00:50:24.599 --> 00:50:27.480
you know, I think are enjoying being a part of
1035
00:50:27.840 --> 00:50:30.280
How can we continue this instead of just well, I
1036
00:50:30.280 --> 00:50:32.280
think I'm just going to you know, go off into
1037
00:50:32.280 --> 00:50:34.480
the sunset. I don't want to do that. And the
1038
00:50:34.599 --> 00:50:37.800
creation of it, the imagination, just me talking with you
1039
00:50:37.920 --> 00:50:41.559
right now is exciting. I do work with other entrepreneurs. Yes,
1040
00:50:41.719 --> 00:50:44.440
every quarter I fly to Chicago as part of this
1041
00:50:44.559 --> 00:50:47.880
coaching program. I really enjoy it. Many of them are
1042
00:50:47.880 --> 00:50:49.760
not even in my industry. As a matter of fact,
1043
00:50:49.880 --> 00:50:53.440
most of them are not in my industry. So the
1044
00:50:53.519 --> 00:50:56.880
basics of running a business, what are the possibilities? How
1045
00:50:56.920 --> 00:50:59.800
do you do it? It just gets applied to my case,
1046
00:50:59.800 --> 00:51:02.199
to health management and finance, but to other people it
1047
00:51:02.280 --> 00:51:04.920
might be solar panels and to somebody else who might
1048
00:51:04.920 --> 00:51:07.280
be consulting and you know, a fourth person at something
1049
00:51:07.280 --> 00:51:10.880
else CPA firm, okay, And so there's some basics that
1050
00:51:10.880 --> 00:51:13.280
we can talk about and we're helping one another. I
1051
00:51:13.280 --> 00:51:16.280
think man and human beings. Man, men and women are
1052
00:51:16.480 --> 00:51:20.159
social beings, okay. And that's why I feel that you're
1053
00:51:20.159 --> 00:51:23.440
better off just talking with you know, having your team,
1054
00:51:23.519 --> 00:51:27.519
whether it's a CPA, a lawyer, your friends, your colleagues,
1055
00:51:27.639 --> 00:51:30.760
other entrepreneurs. You don't have to go through this alone.
1056
00:51:30.840 --> 00:51:32.800
I mean, that's the point. You don't have to go
1057
00:51:32.880 --> 00:51:36.119
through this alone. At the very least, get feedback from them,
1058
00:51:36.480 --> 00:51:38.800
we really hear it, and then decide how to move
1059
00:51:38.800 --> 00:51:40.960
forward with it. That's where I am right now. It's
1060
00:51:41.119 --> 00:51:43.440
very exciting, you know. I mean, I'm going to hire
1061
00:51:43.480 --> 00:51:45.400
somebody I think in the next couple of weeks that
1062
00:51:45.519 --> 00:51:47.599
will bring them on to the team, and then I'll
1063
00:51:47.679 --> 00:51:50.079
hire the next person, you know, over the next quarter
1064
00:51:50.159 --> 00:51:53.039
after that and keep adding them on, so that we're
1065
00:51:53.480 --> 00:51:58.960
intentionally hiring, we're intentionally building according to our strategic plan.
1066
00:51:59.440 --> 00:52:00.519
And it's exciting.
1067
00:52:00.880 --> 00:52:03.199
That is exciting, exciting. Indeed, I look forward to it
1068
00:52:03.199 --> 00:52:04.760
being able to witness that as you grow.
1069
00:52:04.880 --> 00:52:08.519
That. So Mike Brady, Generosity Wealth Management, thank you. Very
1070
00:52:08.599 --> 00:52:10.880
much for being on the Radical Responsibility Podcast.
1071
00:52:11.320 --> 00:52:12.239
Thank you very much.
1072
00:52:12.679 --> 00:52:16.480
Taking radical responsibility for our lives means taking action, and
1073
00:52:16.599 --> 00:52:19.360
today you can start by helping us grow this community.
1074
00:52:19.639 --> 00:52:23.079
If these insights into healing and transformation have served you,
1075
00:52:23.400 --> 00:52:27.440
please subscribe on YouTube and follow us on Apple Podcasts
1076
00:52:27.599 --> 00:52:31.519
and Spotify. While you're there, leave us a review. It
1077
00:52:31.599 --> 00:52:34.679
takes thirty seconds, but it's the most powerful way to
1078
00:52:34.800 --> 00:52:38.639
help our message reach someone else seeking deeper self awareness.
1079
00:52:39.000 --> 00:52:43.000
Thank you for being part of the journey towards lasting change.
1080
00:52:43.400 --> 00:52:47.239
Thank you for joining me on the Radical Responsibility Podcast. Remember,
1081
00:52:47.360 --> 00:52:50.039
real change happens when we commit to our growth, face
1082
00:52:50.079 --> 00:52:53.639
our challenges with compassion, and stay open to transformation. If
1083
00:52:53.679 --> 00:52:56.920
you found this episode helpful, I encourage you to subscribe
1084
00:52:56.960 --> 00:52:59.679
and help us spread the message of healing and personal
1085
00:52:59.679 --> 00:53:03.039
and palme. Stay grounded, stay present, and stay true to you.
1086
00:53:03.360 --> 00:53:03.840
Take care