A Journey to Financial Freedom: Josh's Story

Josh: Welcome to the Wealth In Yourself Podcast where we help people to design their ideal life and take control of their time and money. I’m your host Josh St. Laurent. 

Today we have no guests for you. I’m talking about my journey. My journey specifically on how I came to be an advisor for business owners and real estate investors.

How I decided to go get a graduate degree in financial life planning and pursue a certified financial therapist designation. A lot of the routes that I took are unconventional and I get a lot of questions about why. So I wanted to talk about that and really start at the beginning and kind of paint a picture of how this came to be and hopefully you get a better understanding of me and why I do what I do.

So no guests today, no filters, just me kind of laying out my story and I wanted to invite listeners to reflect on their own financial journey as I talk about mine. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some overlap, some similarities, and certainly there’s going to be some very different aspects as well. Would love to hear about it. Feel free to write to me at podcast@wealthinyourself.com.  Let me know what you think. 

So I wanted to kick it off with actually a money memory that came up for me in my financial therapy curriculum. My very first money memory, right? I thought it would be a good place to start and it did have an impact on the rest of my life and kind of some of the different paths that I went down. And I think it’s helpful to kind of understand why I chose some of the paths that I did.

My very first money memory was actually something I had never had. Really thought about it all until I was forced to, right? And until someone said, go back to your very first money memory and paint a vivid picture of it. At first I was really drawing a blank, you know, I didn’t really have any interaction with money as a kid.

There was no allowance. I mean, I started working at 15 years old and that was sort of the first time that I got to interact with money. I was really struggling for a while. Actually, this took me a long time to kind of go back and say, okay, well, what was this first memory that made me start thinking about money or realizing its presence in the world.

What I settled on, I couldn’t tell you how old I was, maybe five years old. And, financially, we weren’t able to buy propane. I remember, I think my dad was out on strike at his company. My mom was in school. And they just weren’t able to afford the propane. to paint the picture, this is winter time in New Hampshire.

So it was very, very cold. You know, where we’re eating, saltines and, rationing saltines and, piling under a bunch of blankets to stay warm. And so this was the very first memory that I could really come up with where I went back and I said, you know what? I remember this and I probably didn’t realize it at the time how intertwined money was in this story.

But looking back, that’s when I started to realize, you know, Hey, there are the haves and the have nots of the world. You know, there are people who can have all the heat that they want, right? And all the food that they want and money is not an issue. And that’s not really the case with me and my family.

And so that started to kick off the journey of Wow. Like this is a really important force in life. Like without money you know, you can be pretty darn cold in the wintertime and pretty darn hungry. And so I think that lesson really early on in life is sort of what started to lead me down the path of curiosity really to say, you know, Hey, this is important.

I need to find ways to make money. I need to find ways to learn about money. and it’s funny to think now, I mean, that really didn’t start for another 20 years, but that was the very first memory that I had and it had a lasting impact on me. Just realizing the importance of money, I think, was the lesson that that taught me?

And so, as I think through all those younger years, the teenage years It was a real struggle. At first I had a lot of success in school. I skipped a couple grades you know, which created its own issues being, you know, much younger than than your classmates and smaller in sports and all the fun things that come along with skipping grades.

And then, you know, I started working relatively early. I mean, I had my first job when I was 15. That was my first experience. and a Having my own money had no mentorship or guidance or role models really on how to go about, using or spending that money. So, exactly what you think happened, happened, right?

I was paycheck to paycheck from 15 to 25 trying to figure it out. You know, looking back, I was trying to solve the problem by working harder. Like many listeners you know, I had kind of had this mentality instilled in me that, you know, in order to be successful, you have to work really hard.

And to me at the time, that meant, Two jobs, three jobs you know, buying the junky old car to save money, right? And in hindsight, it probably costs more money than buying the new car, you know, because it broke so often. But some of those struggles and some of that lack of financial education, I think, really paved the way for me to get to, Sort of my own rock bottom, my own point of frustration where enough is enough.

I gotta figure this out, right? I mean, working, two, three jobs obviously burns you out so quickly. And so there had to be a turning point. There had to be a rock bottom for me. That was the 10 years of struggling, you know, job to job, call them jobs and not careers because they were, you know, everything under the sun, paving, sandwich shops, YMCA, different jobs in retail and outdoors, and blue collar labor type jobs.

And I learned a lot. You know, I think my wife can attest like I have all kinds of random skills from all of these jobs that I had in my younger years and I don’t regret them, but You know, they kept me on a hamster wheel financially and I knew that the paycheck to paycheck cycle that I was suffering in Had to end and so that was the transition point the turning point for me to say, okay I need to seek out some financial literacy some financial wisdom at the time.

I had no idea what that even meant. I started to look for mentorship and Lots of books, anything I could get my hands on still do today. But I remember my, one of my first mentors he worked at a, credit union, which is so funny in hindsight because you know, he wasn’t a financial wizard or you know, not even a financial planner at all but from my perspective at the time in, New Hampshire in a little town, you know, where there isn’t really investment advisory firms everywhere you know, this was the person that I gravitated towards.

And so he helped provide me with books and education on banking products that the credit union had. Eventually, he and I actually both got into real estate together and started listening to things like Bigger Pockets Podcast and moving in that direction towards something bigger, I’ll say. Right?

Instead of, you know, a job that’s going to pay me by the hour, I started thinking more in terms of investing my time, investing my money into something more. You know, it wasn’t the cost of the book wasn’t 10. It was a 10 investment in the book to learn that knowledge that I could then apply in my own life.

And, you know, as it turns out, 10, 20 years later to help other people too. So you know, I think that turning point was huge. It wasn’t an overnight success story. I’ll say that after the real estate job I decided to actually. You know, basically jump in the deep end of the pool is how it felt at the time into an insurance job.

So I worked for a large national insurance carrier, interviewed around, tried to do my due diligence with the limited knowledge that I had at the time, and landed in a, basically an insurance sales role that taught me an incredible amount about what I wanted and what I didn’t want as well. You know, certain skills, the door knocking, the cold calling, the education on life insurance and planning with life insurance you know, was invaluable.

But I quickly realized You know, life insurance sales was not really what I was wanting to be doing. There were other people who had worked in the company before who had worked for large broker dealers and financial firms. And after talking with them, you know, I think I realized. It’s not just insurance that I want to do, but I want to get into more holistic planning.

I want to work with people’s investments, with their savings, with their retirement. I want to help with tax issues. And that just wasn’t going to be a reality in the insurance firm. So at the time, you know, living in New Hampshire, in my mind, there was really only one option. There was a really big national financial advisory firm.

You know, you’ve all heard of them. They have Superbowl commercials and they were, in my mind, sort of the prize, right? They were the best of the best that I knew of at the time. And so I set my sights on Getting a job there, and it turned out to be a lot harder than I thought, you know, I was still in community college I still was working two jobs I was staying very, very busy And so, I remember one of the prerequisites of the job was to have an undergraduate degree that I did not have wasn’t going to stop me.

I was beyond determined. So I ended up applying seven times over the course of, let’s call it a year and a half before they finally were willing to give me an interview. I think it was a situation where the squeaky wheel gets the grease. So finally I get this interview. I’m, I’m beyond excited.

If you’re a client listening, you’ve probably heard me tell this story, but I showed up a week early to the interview. I was a little too excited. , long story short, I did end up getting the job. and that sort of started the journey down that path of financial education.

They helped me finish my undergrad, my CFP. You know, and, I got a tremendous amount of experience over the next 10 years working for that company. I moved all over the country. I worked in different departments. I shadowed some of the best people in the country at their jobs and got promoted, you know, until ultimately I landed in Silicon Valley basically is where they had recruited me to last.

So what a journey it was. Moved all over the country, got all this great experience and learning. I think really it speaks to kind of the value of tenacity, right? That squeaky wheel gets the grease scenario proved beneficial for me over and over again. As I look back I don’t want to say setback after setback, but it was not an easy road.

There was a lot of competition, certainly. There was a lot to be learned that could not be quickly learned. You know, having to pass the Series 7, the 63, the 66, finish community college, transfer to undergrad, and finish that in tandem with the CFP it’s just a lot of work, a lot of work, a lot of time.

I had to be relentless in my pursuit of knowledge because knowledge is power in this industry. you can’t help people unless you intimately understand the systems and processes that they’re working within. Right. And so. I would spend, you know, two years specializing in 401ks and all things, you know, rollovers and loans and investments within 401ks, the rules, the workarounds, the tips and the tricks.

You know, and then I move on and I would specialize in stock plans, right? And I’ve talked to people all day long about different stock plans of all these different fortune 500 companies. I was really fortunate to get all this different experience in different areas. You know, it really opened my eyes to how big the financial world is.

Part of my journey was actually realizing you can’t do it all, you know, back in these times that I’m talking about when I was, you know, working 60 hours and, learning all the things that I could learn and shadowing all the people I could. I have this vision that I could sort of do it all. You know, I could be the tax expert, I could be the stock plan and 401k expert.

All I needed to do was just learn all of this knowledge. Well, fast forward to now and having gone through, you know, graduate work in advanced financial life planning, like you come to realize It’s impossible for everybody to know it all right. And if someone’s telling you that they do I would take a hard look at that.

You know it’s possible to have experience in lots of different areas, but I don’t think that you really want to wear all the hats. Right. What I mean by that is if I’m in a meeting with a client, I would much rather have a CPA or tax expert there, regardless of how much tax knowledge or studying I do in the tax field.

I don’t want to be wearing two hats, right? I don’t think it makes sense. And so that was a big part of the learning journey as well, realizing no one can really know it all. a lifelong learning pursuit. You know, and you can always be getting better and learning more and of course staying up with the constant changes, right?

That’s another aspect, I think, of the education that gets taken for granted. it’s one thing to go and get your CFP. I had a lot of people at my old company who I sort of had this mindset where they could just go get the CFP as a checkbox activity and, and never apply it, right? And never do any sort of continuing education or upskilling.

they just wanted the letters after their name. And so I would argue that that’s not equivalent to the people who are lifelong learners in the field love what they do and demonstrate that by their pursuit of knowledge. So I think it’s important to make that distinction along the way.

And the other thing that was a realization for me was the importance of work life balance. especially towards the end of my tenure at that company, became very, very obvious, right? Now I’m in my thirties. I’m engaged. I’m realizing all these things that I love to do, I have sort of sacrificed over the last 10 years of this company in the pursuit of knowledge, in the pursuit of excellence, you know, I wanted to be top in the country.

So I would climb until I got there, you know, and then I’d find the next challenge and I’d want to be top in the country again. So I’d put my head down and I would work and I would get there. I am proud of those accomplishments. But when I think back to my twenties, you know, and all the trips, all the hikes, all the motorcycle rides, all the hockey that I missed out on, you know, when I was young and limber and could do those things with a little less pain.

You know, as I look back, was it all worth it? You know, hard to say, that work-life balance has become my main focus, I’ll say more important than business, even more important than education. That work life balance is crucial because you’ll never get that time back. And so that started to become more and more apparent to me towards the end of my time with that company.

And I still felt something was missing. I had spent 10 years learning a lot of the Technical information, you know, how the different plans and investments worked, the rules, the regulations behind things, right? A lot of the technical information that is important to know as a financial planner.

I still felt something was missing and what that ended up being was life planning and all that comes along with it. The human side of money, right? People’s behaviors and habits around money, coaching skills to help people actually implement and act upon some of this advice, right? Like one of the I’ll say thorns in my side for a long time was no matter how much technical knowledge I could absorb into my brain.

No matter how much I practiced boiling it down in an easy to understand way there were still those people who weren’t acting upon it, right? And so I think of this as sort of a stair step throughout my career where at first it was, you need to get this knowledge for yourself.

You need to learn this and absorb it. And then the next step from there is… You need to be able to explain it in a way that makes sense to people and for them to understand because if you understand it, but you can’t help them understand it, then the information is no good. And so I felt like I had really gotten to that point.

I was explaining concepts in ways that people could really understand. I had thousands of client stories that I could fall back on and say, you know what? I met someone in your situation. they said a lot of the same things that you’re saying to me. Here’s the path that they took. and be able to give people these examples.

And all of that was extremely helpful. And even still, there was people who would leave. You know, I’d give them action items. You know, and they, and they wouldn’t do them. Or they wouldn’t do all of them. And so, this was a missing link to me. And there was no education available at that company around the human side of money.

And so I went out searching for it. And that’s where I, when I landed at Golden Gate. And I’m really glad I did. I mean, it changed my life. You know, I say that a lot and it’s not hyperbole. It absolutely changed my life. I mean, within maybe two or three classes, I had quit that job of 10 years.

To pursue financial life planning, I started a company the day that I quit focusing on financial life planning and helping people. It was quite the leap, obviously leaving that company of 10 years, I walked away from the most money I’d ever made by far, never even imagined that I would make that sort of money in Silicon Valley of all places.

So walking away Took a lot of conviction, and I’ve never questioned it, I know I’m on the right path now. So I wanted to tell that quick story, if you will, from around five years old to 25 when I started the big national firm to 32 when I quit.

And, Pursue this, this business and financial life planning, helping people in a different way. And I think that just speaks to the changing landscape of financial planning. One of the biggest things that really got me about this old company and the way I was working with people was the commission based financial sales culture.

The more I learned about finance, the less I believed this was the best way to help people. My conversations there I came to realize were not so much about helping people as they were about, did you sell this many products? Did you sell this many widgets? All the meetings were starting to revolve around, use this tactic or this language to sell this product.

And I was at the point where I had the technical knowledge to say, well, wait a minute, this is not actually the best thing for these people. And I think it became really obvious in Silicon Valley, working with younger, high net worth, successful people. A lot of times financial products were the exact opposite of what they needed.

they just needed some financial education, an organization and maybe some, you know, partnership and accountability in some cases, but certainly not, products that, financial I’ll say advisors in quotation marks. we’re selling them things that they didn’t need.

That’s when you know, I was already in grad school at this point. I started to learn more about, okay, different ways that people were charging flat fee models, commission free organizations groups that promoted transparency alignment of money and values. And I was hooked. I joined an organization called the NAS root and project. It’s sort of this underground collective of amazing people and financial planners and people who help others with money and who are all aligned in this way of thinking, a way of helping people. I mean, I was totally bought in.

This is what I had been searching for. I knew very quickly this is what I wanted to do. This is what I was looking for back when I was 25 years old. It just took me 10 years of learning technical finance skills to get to this point and to realize it and to understand, yes! This is exactly what I want to be doing.

Shortly after that, I left that job, took a gigantic leap of faith, basically saved up a year of expenses and walked away. You know, I walked away from the highest paying job I, potentially could ever have. And so, to me, this was worth it. To be able to partner with people on a much smaller scale, I think that’s worth mentioning too.

I had anywhere between 1,300 and 1,400 clients when I walked away from that company. That’s way too much. That is way, way, way too many clients for any financial advisor. I couldn’t help people the way that they needed to be helped. I had very limited time. Sometimes I’d finish the day with 40 voicemails.

I was giving a watered down service, I’ll say. So that’s why when I launched, my target has always been 70 to 75 clients. And even then, I have a small team helping me. It just makes more sense. I want to help people on a deeper level. I don’t want it to be superficial or commission based.

That’s why I set my company up the way that I did. That’s why we have a flat fee model where you know what you’re going to pay before we ever even… That’s why the fee doesn’t go up when the stock market goes up, I really wanted to err on the side of transparency and what’s going to be best for the client and the people working with me.

Right. And so that’s kind of the story of how wealth and yourself came to be. I wanted to talk a little bit about. Some of the education qualifications, credentials, even some of the client experiences and, and my experiences moving around the country and how that feeds into who I am as a planner today, why I approach the conversations the way that I do and how it’s very different. I hear that a lot, you know, from, especially in intro meetings, you know, wow, this is not what I expected, especially people who have worked with a financial advisor before. You know, we’re not talking about investments or taxes or anything in our initial meetings.

You know, I really want to understand, like, what is the ideal life? That you want to create, you know, tell me about this vision that you have, you know Where do you see yourself in a perfect world five ten years down the road? Like that’s what these initial conversations are sounding like And so I wanted to talk a little bit about like how did that come to be?

How did the conversation shift so much and what was the education that led to that? For me, I’m almost wrapping up here. My master’s in advanced financial life planning. And so I want to start with that. That has arguably had the most profound effect on me. I would say a lot of the curriculum focuses on therapeutic communication, financial coaching as well as executive coaching certainly facilitating financial health.

And that was sort of a gateway for me into financial therapy. You know, and of course, life planning. A lot of the classes revolved around life planning and all that goes into that as well. And so this, to me, was a whole other realm of financial planning I’d never been exposed to. You know, in hindsight, it’s actually…

I think it’s worrisome that people don’t know about this, in my opinion. Even some of the professors that I’ve had, you know, they don’t even think of it as financial life planning. They don’t like that terminology. They just call it financial planning done right. And I like that context because I mean, that’s, that is a great way to think about it, right?

How, you know, now that I have the education that I have, I wonder how… You would ever do financial planning without addressing the human side and where they want to go. When I think back to my 10 years at the large corporation, you know, it was maximizing everything. All the time. Even if that really wasn’t best for the client at hand.

So I’ll give an example. I had a client in Silicon Valley who was just. not happy at his job. You know, he really really needed a break. He was extremely burnt out. You know, I think the best thing in hindsight for him probably would have been to set up a financial runway and, take some time off, take a little sabbatical and really do some soul searching and figure out what is it that, I want to be doing with my life, with my career.

Instead, really the upper management, you know, their feedback was, well, help him maximize his stock plan, make sure he’s maxing out his 401k have him open up another account and start saving into that, and in hindsight now it’s like how silly it’s not going to help him in the way that he needs.

That’s just an overly simplified story, but the message there is you have to start with the human side and what’s important to them. What are their values? Because if you don’t start with that, the likelihood of following through on the plan just diminishes the less that you know about them as a person, as a human being.

And so I think that was the missing link all along, before I had talked about implementation and people not always following through. Well, they didn’t have a why behind it. You know, well, why am I maxing out my 401k? Why should I even go in and adjust these contributions? You know, what does it matter?

Why should I go change these investments to these new ones that you suggested? The old ones are doing just fine. You know, if you don’t have a why behind it, if there’s not a larger vision everything becomes more… obscure and difficult to understand. And so that’s why like the crux of life planning, you know, from my estimation is, really understanding the human being first, what is important, where do they want to get to and what is their ideal life?

And so that’s what I’ve tried to build my business around, helping people design their ideal life. I’m going to transition a little bit to business owners. And real estate investors, why? Did you choose that, you know, segment of people? I get that question a lot. A lot of my colleagues, you know, are concerned about, well, you know, a lot of those people are self directed and they want to do their own research and they don’t typically hire people, right?

There’s always the naysayers, there’s a lot of truth in it as well, right? A lot of business owners and real estate investors, Do you want to do their own research? They do want to be self directed. And I admire that. That’s a small piece of why I work with these people, but also it’s my story.

I’ve been real estate investing for a decade. This is my third business. Like I’m proud to be an entrepreneur. I enjoy the challenge of building something, of creating something, the uphill battle of it, being your own boss, right? That’s the shiny object that people on social media talk about a lot, about having your own businesses, you know, while you can take time off whenever you’d like, but I think once you actually are an entrepreneur, you really develop a respect for other entrepreneurs because you see the challenges that they face.

They wear all the hats, especially the solopreneurs, right? they do it all. They’re the bookkeeper, the accountant, the financial advisor, the marketing specialist and head of compliance, right? Maybe even the janitor. So I just have a lot of respect for these people. On the other side of that equation is the fact that you can get very creative with business owners and real estate investors when it comes to financial planning. There are just things that you can do from a financial planning standpoint for business owners and real estate investors. There are just deductions that you qualify for that people with W2 jobs just don’t have.

And so that was the other side of the equation is, well, this is my story. I can really relate to these people and I really respect what they’re doing and I love talking to other creators and builders and people with real world experience. You know, they want to be self directed. That’s great. I fit in there somewhere.

I can help with some education. you know, maybe it’s a self discovery form that they’ve never seen before. You know, that really helps them design their ideal week in retirement. Or really get a sense of, what are the big picture, not just goals, but also aspirations that they’re shooting for.

And so I think that’s actually worth talking about. I’ll go off on a tangent here really quickly about goals versus aspirations because I think that’s important. Nearly everybody that comes to me has a list of goals, right? A lot of people can say, yeah, here’s some of the things that I’m shooting for.

And that’s great. I’m not going to sit here and say I don’t have goals, but I think that going that extra step to the aspiration setting was pivotal for me. So let me just kind of break this down. A goal. is something that is time bound, right? It can be achieved. So, I think the easiest example is, you know, I want to lose 10 pounds.

Okay. It’s doable. You can set a time limit to it. You can say, in the next 90 days, I want to lose 10 pounds. And you can break it into smaller actions, and you can achieve that goal, right? In 90 days, you know, maybe you’re down 10 pounds, and you’ve achieved that goal. Well, now what? Right? Because this is the common problem with goal setting is, well, what comes after that, you know, or what if you fall short of that goal, then what?

And so the reframe, if you will when it comes to aspirations versus goals is an aspiration is typically framed as a to be statement. So instead of wanting to lose 10 pounds, I want to be an athlete. Or I want to be someone who likes how they look in the mirror. You know, you’re going to reframe it as a statement.

Maybe lose 10 pounds in 90 days is still one of the goals that falls under that aspiration. But an aspiration, if you think about it, that’s not time bound. And it’s really something you strive for every day. You might achieve it today. You might be an athlete today or like how you look in the mirror today.

But you need to continue. setting goals to maintain that aspirational goal and to live up to that. So I think that we use a chart basically that, you know, helps you define some aspirational goals for yourself. And then we break those down into goals. And a lot of people like to even go and break those into smaller bite sized pieces.

But I think once you understand, Let’s say three to five main aspirations in your life. What are the things that really just make you feel alive? You know, you want to be a good dad. You want to be a world traveler, right? You want to be a project management professional that is respected in your industry.

You know, if you have these core things. Everything else becomes so much easier, right? It’s my job to help you build a plan around that. How do we use money as a tool to really emphasize those aspirational goals and make sure that, you know, on a regular basis, you feel like you’re making progress towards them.

And so, you know, that’s my tangent on goals versus aspirations. I think that’s important to cover. I think that’s something that we do that’s not seen very often in the industry, but I think could help a lot more people. And so I’ll just wrap here, you know, talking about why entrepreneurs and why real estate investors having gone down that path, I would love nothing more than to make your life easier.

I’ll say, you know, having gone through some of the challenges of, you know, trying to buy your first rental property, I want to say it took me 71 offers. You know, before I was even able to get to a closing you know, having some of the knowledge that I have now, you know, back then would have helped me just so, so much, you know, what are, what are some of the software that I can be using?

What are the tax deductions that I know about? Oh, do I need to be bookkeeping? How do I go about that? Do I need a program? Do I hire someone? On what cadence do I do this? You know, do I need an LLC or an S Corp? Like all of these questions that you encounter when you’re a new you know, entrepreneur or real estate investor.

Like if I can get you up to speed in a fraction of the time that it took me That makes me feel good. that, you know, I’ll wrap with that. I think that working with someone who I’m also on that same path, I’m going down that same path with you. To me, that made a lot more sense than, you know, specializing in you know, Medicare and social security benefits.

I’ll just use that as an example. I’ve never applied for social security or medicare. It’s very difficult for me to put myself in the shoes of someone who is am I trained technically in these, you know, areas? Yes, absolutely. Have I worked with thousands and thousands of clients and had conversations about these?

Yeah, absolutely. I have. But when I’m starting a business focused on life planning with you know, the goal of only 70 really awesome entrepreneurs and real estate investors to work with. You know, I wanted to actually exclude groups of people as well so that I could really hone in, focus on the issues that this group of people were having.

And so, you know, that in a nutshell is why I’m here. I chose to work with solopreneurs a lot of times. It’s couples, you know, one person’s an entrepreneur, one person has a W2 job and maybe they both invest in real estate together. There’s a lot of creative financial planning that can be done to help offset different, you know, sources of income and really put you out ahead at tax time and just maximize all your effort that you’re already putting in when it comes to investing.

I’m going to pause here and just ask again, I would love to hear some financial stories. So if you have a story that you want to share I’ll feature it in a few episodes from now, but go ahead and email podcast@wealthinyourself.com. But I do love to hear people’s financial journeys.

You know, it can be a story of great success. Maybe it rags to riches. But don’t sugarcoat it. You know, I want to hear the trials and tribulations, right? From my experience, almost everybody comes to this pivotal moment, right? You can call it their rock bottom or their light bulb moment or whatever it is, but those are the stories that I’m looking for.

I really like to hear these stories where it’s like, I couldn’t do it anymore. You know, I was stuck in this cycle. It was at that moment I decided to take action. So write in, share some of those stories. I’ll share them with the listeners. podcast at wealth in yourself. com. I’m just going to summarize some of the different kind of takeaways from my perspective.

Would love to hear some of your perspective too around my journey, any area you want me to dive deeper into. I’m happy to do it. But really the journey, you know, was this. Grew up with you know, very little to no money, right? It started working at 15, multiple jobs, no financial education. So what happens?

You get paid and you spend all of that money. It’s gone a few days before you get paid and you’re anxiously awaiting you know, that next paycheck. I was stuck in that cycle for a decade. Let’s call it 15 to 25. And that was the pain that really open my eyes to needing to educate myself, you know, it was too painful to keep Repeating that cycle and I had to do something about it.

That’s what got me on the path of financial education you know, so I started to find mentorship, started reading endlessly and I’ll put it in the show notes. I have a list that I keep and I update it all the time, but it’s the books that have helped me along the way. So I’ll put that in the show notes if you’re interested.

I think it’s wealthinyourself.com/books. But that, 25 years old, was the pain I needed to turn around and say, okay, I’m going to educate myself. The next 10, 11, 12 years were the education I needed, the experience, the sitting across from thousands of different people and hearing their stories their struggles, their hurdles with finance, learning all the technical information, getting the certifications.

so I knew the technical knowledge, then the grad school to learn the human side of money, the coaching skills, the financial therapy I feel like I’ve come full circle. I love what I do. Seeing the difference in people’s lives I think is what keeps me going. I hope for the day that I’m able to share testimonials.

Because of the rules and regulations in California, it’s actually illegal for me to share client testimonials, believe it or not. But I’m hopeful that one day, you know, we’re able to all collaborate and talk about, you know, Hey, this is where I was. This is where I am now. This was the journey because I think it can only help other people.

There’s a lot of bad stigma in the financial advisory industry as a whole. A lot of trust issues, rightfully so. I think it’s a byproduct. A lot of this commission based sales and people who aren’t financial advisors giving financial advice, right, there, it’s certainly not a perfect industry by any means.

But I am optimistic that the industry is moving in a direction where values are connected with money, where human beings are put before the numbers. And so that’s my story. I’m sticking to it. I want to dive into the three questions that I ask everybody on the podcast. Like, you know, I can’t let myself off the hook.

So “discuss what living a wealthy life means to you” is one of the questions that I ask nearly everybody on the podcast. So for me, a wealthy life is time. Time freedom is above and beyond anything and everything else the most important thing. And so, for me, you know, if I had a hundred million dollars or whatever, whatever the dollar amount is, and I wasn’t near family, friends, had no contact with them, I’m poor, I’m extremely poor at that point.

You know, there’s only so much you can do with all that money, right? Money is typically things. So for me, a wealthy life really comes down to being able to spend time with the people who are important to me. And then financially it’s, not needing, you know, not needing anything. I have a roof over my head.

I eat probably too well. Right. But being able to spend time with the people that are meaningful to me and be able to do the activities that are important to me because there is a financial aspect to it, right? I love to travel. My wife and I love to go wine tasting. I live on the west coast and most of my family is back in New England on the east coast.

So there is a certain financial number or burden that comes along with living a wealthy life. But It’s not as high as you might think, right? I don’t need to be a multi millionaire to visit family in Boston a few times a year and to go hiking and to ride my motorcycle and spend time with my wife and family.

So that’s a wealthy life to me. Right. Being able to do what I want to do, not be restricted, whether it’s, you know, by someone else’s demands or, you know, needing to work, you know, whether it’s more hours or another job in order to do the things I want to do. That’s what a wealthy life is to me. So the second question is to offer a motivating message to those striving for financial freedom, or I think how I typically word it to the guest is, what would you tell someone who’s striving for financial freedom and who isn’t quite there yet?

 you know, I think the message really is keep going. Discipline is, I think, above all. You know, you hear a lot about motivation and I just think that that kind of, for me anyway, misses the mark. To say that you’re always motivated I think is, you know, maybe a, a nice saying for social media, you know, or grandstanding in a way, because I don’t think there’s anybody, who’s always motivated.

You know, you even look at the David Goggins of the world, right. You know, he even admits, you know, he’s not motivated every day. I think discipline is really the word that comes to mind for me. the message for someone striving for financial freedom really is to be disciplined, stay disciplined, don’t chase.

Get rich quick schemes, you know, it’s something ridiculous. Like over 99 percent of millionaires got there slowly, not quickly. It’s not overnight success in crypto or something like that. It’s typically the people who are disciplined in their savings disciplined in their investments who get financial literacy education.

They start, you know, setting aside money every paycheck and investing it and, and learning about the different accounts that they have access to. That’s my message: stay disciplined, keep educating yourself. And I think the last thing I would say is, if you are going to spend money, focus that on experiences over things, of course.

And I don’t think anyone will be surprised to hear me say that. But also, prioritize growth If you’re familiar with the saying built, not bought, you know, I got off on a tangent with a client yesterday about this, where, you know, built, not bought stems from people who, you know, work on Jeeps and trucks and things, but it’s like, the crux of the saying is, I, built this.

I didn’t just buy it this way. I put in the work and I built this and I learned how to put in the, you know, X, Y, Z part. Think about your own life that way. You know, you’re, you’re building something, right? Your knowledge is something that nobody can take away from you. your physical condition, you know, no one can take that away from you.

You know, if you’re healthy and staying in shape and you’re building your knowledge, right? You get to keep all of those things. That’s part of the message where we focus on building something, not just buying things. And the same goes with experiences, right? Not all experiences are created the same.

Going to a concert is fun. Going to a real estate seminar might not be as much fun. but the knowledge that you get from that and the impact that it’s going to have on your life will probably take you farther than the concert ever will. So food for thought. Last question, share what you would do with 1, 000 if you were starting over.

And everyone takes this question a little bit differently. I’ll put my own little spin on it too. I’m gonna take the question this way. As if I have the knowledge that I have now and I’m starting over with $1,000. You know, what would I do? You know, I feel like my answer changes all the time on this question, but it’s got to be something related to either education or mentorship.

Maybe I would split it, you know, a thousand dollars, another guest made this comment. Like it’s a lot in a lot of respects, but it’s also not a lot. And so if I could get into some sort of. Mentorship, masterclass around business or real estate. Maybe I would spend it on books.

Some sort of education would be one component. And the other component would be building or creating something. Starting a business, you know. Maybe I would take 500, spend it on education. And the other 500 I would work on opening a business. And… Getting my messaging out there to the world, you know, which is much easier to do nowadays than it was when I started out with social media and, you know, all that comes along with that.

So that would be my answer for the thousand dollars, spend some on education and mentorship and the rest building a network and connections and getting my name out there and finding other people who are already doing what I want to do at a high level and connecting with them.

So that is the podcast. I want to emphasize the value of, you know, meeting with a financial planner, right? I talked a lot about self education and all that comes along with that. If you want to go down the same path that I did and spend, you know, the next 11 years getting all this education, by all means, you know, change my life.

I would absolutely encourage it. If you are someone in a very specific industry and you say, well, I don’t, you know, I don’t need to go do a decade of financial education. I do think there’s a lot of value in meeting with a financial advisor. So I wanted to emphasize that let’s say you’re not ready to meet with a financial advisor.

I would still seek out some sort of education related to the field that you’re in or the area that you work. That could be a newsletter that could be listening to this podcast or something similar to it. We have a bi-weekly newsletter. It’s very much targeted towards business owners and real estate investors, but if that’s you you know, there’s no harm in signing up for that get some knowledge in your inbox bi-weekly. And that’s just wealthinyourself com/newsletter. 

I want to thank everyone for listening. Let me know What I missed, what else you want to hear, to share your stories at podcast@wealthinyourself.com is the email. We’ve got some awesome episodes coming up for you guys tax experts real estate investors doing big things at a big level more financial therapists coming on.

And so we’re going to be talking a lot about financial behavior, financial habits, stories of how you went from zero to 10 properties. So stay tuned. Don’t forget to subscribe. Appreciate you guys all being here and listening. This has been the Wealth In Yourself Podcast where we help people to design their ideal life and take control of their time and money.