Why Most Retirements Lack A Plan

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Influential Advisor Podcast. Did you know that only about a third of Americans between 45 and 75 have a detailed retirement plan? That means most people, even smart, successful people, are flying blind with their financial future. Our guest today, Bern Steinbrenner, has spent nearly 20 years helping families change that. After 18 years in tech, he wanted to do something that made a bigger impact in people's lives. So he became a financial planner. Today, at Parliament Wealth in Costa Mesa, he helps families stop guessing and start seeing the full picture. And now he's put many of those stories and strategies into a new book called Beyond the Numbers. If you've ever wondered whether you're really on track, this conversation is for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Hi, Gabe. I'm excited to be here today and I look forward to our conversation. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Byrne, first, can you start off by telling about your background and the journey that led you from being an engineer to becoming a financial planner? Tell us about the turning point and what happened.

From Engineer To Financial Planner

SPEAKER_00 1:20

I guess that's not the obvious turning point, right? Um I was uh born and raised in Germany, just in case you haven't noticed by my unusual name or accent. I grew up there. I went to an engineering school there, got a degree in software and telecommunications, worked for 18 years in that field, and um started out in development and then got more into executive management. During that career, I moved to the US with my family and continued here in that field. My career was always very international. I always traveled a lot, and my wife was handling everything. She was taking care of the kids, uh taking them to soccer, scouts, birthday parties, you know, what happens with the family. And I'm somewhere over the Pacific flying to Hong Kong or Singapore.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Right. Missing those good moments in their lives.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Yes, definitely. And when our third child was born, uh I felt like I was missing out on the family life, and that was really not why I put three kids into this world. I also was in the proverbial rat race. My job wasn't really satisfying. I was running from meeting to meeting. I was creating org charts and budgets, sales forecasts, and a week later they changed again. Yeah, it just didn't feel like I was making a difference. So I was looking for something more meaningful, you know, something where I can leave a lasting impact on people's lives, something where I got more flexibility with my time and for my family. Uh, we had just recently joined a new church. I wanted to be able to get involved there. And I was in my early 40s, so I guess you can call this an early midlife crisis that I had. As I was contemplating my options, I was always interested in investments, it occurred to me. That was one of the things that uh I spent my time on. And then taxes, believe it or not, actually were kind of almost like a hobby.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Not many people have taxes as a hobby burned.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Yes, I know. I just love numbers. When we moved to the US tax law, it's completely different than the German tax law. I gotta learn how that works. That was one thing. And then the other thing was I've always been planning ahead. I've always been the warrior in the family. My wife kept saying, um, I don't need to worry about anything because you worry enough for both of us. You know, I was always thinking about the what is, what could happen, what should I plan ahead? And so financial planning was just a natural fit for me. And I started exploring that in early 2006. And the rest is history. I've been helping now clients for almost 20 years with comprehensive financial planning at our firm Parliament Wealth in Costa Mesa here. And uh many of my clients have become friends over the years. It's been a very gratifying career. I really enjoy seeing the clients that have been working with for many years reap the benefits of that work that we have accomplished together.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Bernd, you've recently written a book, Beyond the Numbers. Can you tell me about what motivated you to write the book and who is the book intended to help?

Beyond The Numbers And Flying Blind

SPEAKER_00 4:49

I've been thinking about writing a book for a while, a financial planning book in particular, because I learned so much over those 20 years. I learned so much from my clients, and I've heard so many stories. You know, everyone has a different philosophy about money and how they approach it. And I wanted to share those stories and share a practical guide, something not just full with numbers, but something more personal that shows the stories I learned, the successes I've seen, the strategies that have been used, just real life examples so readers can learn from them and apply the common sense strategies that I'm sharing there. Every client situation is different, but I kept seeing a pattern, and I call it people flying blind, people making financial decisions in the dark without really knowing the long-term consequences. So the book is written for professionals that are in their high earning years. They're good savers, they're making most of the right choices, or they're smart people. They're just not sure if they're on track. They're not sure if everything is really optimized. And they don't know what they don't know. They don't know if there's any gaps, and everything is quite complicated, can be quite complicated. So with a book, I want to share my process, my approach, as well as some common sense advice and strategies to help people live a better financial life.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

I think that'll feel so relatable to people about flying blind with their finances. Byrne, could you tell me a little bit more about what that specifically means? And also why do so many successful and intelligent people end up finding themselves in that situation?

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Yeah, like I said, yeah, I wrote this book for people just like myself, my former self, you know, who I was before and what I was before I changed my careers. You know, dual-income families, you're both working, passing each other like ships in the night. My wife would say, Hey, honey, welcome home. Here are the kids. Susan has talked of practice, Brad gets picked up by a friend in 10 minutes, there's frozen dinner somewhere. I'm going shopping. And uh life is just so busy. And at the end of the day, you just want to drop on the couch. You're too tired, and you never have the peace and quiet to really discuss a financial future. And even if you do have the time, you often don't have the financial facts in front of you, right? And so the conversations become emotional because you don't know the question, the answers to questions like, well, how much do we have in our retirement accounts, or what do we still owe on the mortgage? You don't have those things on your fingertips, and you don't want to dig through your computer to find the details. And so it becomes emotional. Even if you have the numbers, you get the statements, you can't project them in the future. They're meaningless often. You can't say how what that really means for the long term. But when you said flying blind, so you asked about flying blind, so Miss Air's story reminded me of Bob. He had a bit of a different story. He was a successful guy, but his marriage didn't work out, and so he got divorced. He had two kids, and he was traveling a lot for work as well. And he didn't know what his future looked like. He didn't know would he be alone for the rest of his life, or would he find another partner at some point? And he just um kept spending what he was making. He was enjoying life. He didn't really feel like he needed to think about it, his financial future. He didn't have the motivation, future was too uncertain. There was no specific goal or vision to work toward. And he told me once, I'd rather live in the now than plan for something I can't see.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

I feel like a lot of people would think that same exact thought.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Yeah, and without that vision and without access to your current financial information, you're flying blind. You're creating a vision and goals requires understanding what your values are first.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Byrne, you talk about that early in the process, you really emphasize that understanding personal values, and that's even before diving into the numbers. And so why is that starting point so critical? And what happens if people skip that step?

Values First Before The Math

SPEAKER_00 9:14

When you go on a trip, you start by thinking, where do I want to go? Right? How do I get there? How do I get around? But also you have to decide what's important for you to see at your destination. Are you a nature person? Are you an adventure person? Are you a city person? Right? There's a lot of things you can see. Let me share with you a few years ago, my wife and I, we had our 30th anniversary. We went to Costa Rica for our anniversary trip. And actually, the one of the reasons was because I'm a hobby photographer. There was an opportunity to go with a professional wildlife photographer on a guided tour in Costa Rica for a week. My wife decided to come along with that, and we tagged on another week for just for the two of us to spend in Costa Rica. But we had to decide what we wanted to see in that week. We had only a week, not two months. So we have to make priority decisions. We live in Southern California, so we didn't want to see more city. We get enough of that here.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

You've had enough of freeways and tall buildings.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Right. That's right. Yeah. So we opted out of the capital. We're not thrilled seagers, right? So we opted out of ziplining and white water rasping. What we wanted to see was the local, more urban culture, nature, hiking. We read all about those jungles and volcanoes and exotic animals. And I had created my top 10 list of animals I wanted to see in photographs. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

What was at the top of that list, Byrne?

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Sloth.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

And did you see it? Did you see a slot?

SPEAKER_00 11:01

I did, yes. Oh, that's incredible. Two cans were the hardest to capture, actually. Very colorful. Yeah, it was fun. We went to these jungle areas where you can hike through these lush green jungles and you hike around a volcano. We took a boat that went along the shore of a lake and kingfishers and beavers. Yeah, it was really fun. We had an amazing trip. But like I said, we had to narrow it down and decide what was important to us. And circling back to your financial life, that's the same there. It's your money, your time, they're all limited. You have to decide what's important. Do you prefer living in a large house with a pool and a big backyard? Or do you is it important to you to drive a luxury car? Or is it important to you to put your kids through college? Is it traveling with a family? What is it? Is it possessions? Is it financial security? Is it experiences?

SPEAKER_02 12:04

What if it's all of that?

SPEAKER_00 12:05

All of the above. What if it's all of it? Yes. Maybe we can make it happen. But more often than not, there's some compromises that need to be made. Just to wrap up these financial decisions, they all have short-term consequences, which we all know what they are, but they also have long-term consequences. Without knowing what you're trading away, you won't really know until it's too late. If you don't know what those trade-offs are, you might end up like this divorced client, you're living for the now and no vision for the future, and you fly blind. Flying blind.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

Ern you talk about in the book the six area framework, which and this goes from foundational elements all the way up to estate planning. Can you give me an overview of what those six areas are and why this particular structure really works so well?

The Six Areas Planning Checklist

SPEAKER_00 12:53

I'm a checklist guy, so I love checklists. And that's my checklist, the six areas. And I mentioned I used to fly a lot for work, and I still do for personal travel. But I always wondered how pilots can fly such a highly sophisticated plane. If you look at the cockpit, it's like so confusing. There's switches and lights everywhere, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:14

How can there be that many switches that they know what these things do? I know. Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

So hopefully they have really good training. They have a checklist, even if they've flown their plane a thousand times, they go through their checklist. Just imagine a pilot not using a checklist and getting a text message from his daughter going, Hey dad, I just accept accepted to my dream college. And he goes back and says, Oh, hooray, congratulations. And then he forgets to check the fuel level or something.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

Bert, I tried not to imagine these situations when I'm on the plane. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Yes, I know. Yeah, neither do I. But um, yeah, we're all humans. These six areas of financial planning is your comprehensive checklist for your whole financial life. If you miss one of them, you might not be able to retire, or you might pay more taxes than you should. It's that checklist helps you to get from hoping for the best to making sure everything is covered. But you ask what they are, so there's six areas quickly what I call the foundation. It's your cash flow, it's your net worth, so it's money coming in, money going out, understanding what you own and what you owe. It's the protection, right? Insurance coverage, how much do you need to protect against loss of income due to death or disability, for example? Growth is important because you've worked hard for your money. You want to make sure your money works hard for you.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

So it's properly invested. Taxes, like I said, it's one of my hobbies. You want to make sure you optimize your taxes over your lifetime. Not just minimizing it today, but look at it over your lifetime. Retirement, how are you preparing for retirement? Are you accumulating assets, but then also how you're distributing them once your paycheck stops? And then lastly, important, if you have a family you want to leave your estate to after you pass away, is making sure it's passed on in the most efficient way and according to your wishes. So that's quickly the six areas. And it's just like seeing the pilot with his checklist, but gives you comfort on the plane, knowing that he has a checklist. And with these six areas, you have the comfort about your financial future that everything works together and everything is checked.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

I liked this idea in your book that you talk about the financial dashboard. And so for somebody who's never thought about it in those terms, tell me what exactly is a financial dashboard and how is this different than me just taking out all my account statements and looking at them?

The Financial Dashboard Crystal Ball

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Dashboard gives you a lot more than that. We all know dashboards from the car, right? You have a dashboard in your car, it shows your speed, your RPM, your temperature, your fuel gauge, and gives you a snapshot of where you are today and where your car is today, and make sure that everything is green. It tells you how many miles you have left in the tank. Some cars tell you if you're in the right lane or not. That's a lot of information. But it's also extends beyond just the dashboard right behind your steering wheel. The windshield is an important part of your dashboard. You need to look ahead, you need to see the curves, watch for a deal or a car pulling out in front of you. And you need to look in the rearview mirrors, right? There might be dangers coming from behind. That whole dashboard helps you make decisions, how fast to go, how far to go, and when to turn. And that's the same in your financial lives. Your dashboard helps you make educated and informed decisions. The financial dashboard aggregates everything that is in your statements, your income, your expenses, your assets, your debts, your insurance, your tax situation. But it does more than that because it's built on software. As a former software engineer, I love software. Software is patient and powerful. And it does one thing. It helps us, it gives us the ability to project. So with that information, we can project now. If you continue on this path, you have to work till 67 or 70. It literally gives you a crystal ball. You can see the future. You can create what-if scenarios. You can say, What if I saved more in my 401k? What if I switch to a Roth? Visualize these outcomes to see how different levers impact your future. With that projection, you can make your informed priority decisions. We make priority decisions every day. We're purchasing stuff all the day, all day, right? We buy some are small, we buy coffee, toothpaste, groceries, but then we also make big decisions, like what car to drive. Say you decide to buy a nice German Porsche, for example.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Sounds great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Yeah, I know. It's shiny, right? It's beautiful. Yeah. It's fun to drive. It has an immediate emotional impact. But do you know what that purchase means to you long term? Does that mean, okay, I might have to work a year longer now, and my early retirement might not happen? Or maybe I can't do that kitchen rom remodel anymore. Or take that trip with my family. These decisions are often made blind without knowing the long-term consequences. So this dashboard shows you not just where you are at today, but it also shows you the real cost of choices that you're making, like a simulator. You can visualize and test your decisions before you make them.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

In the book, you talk a lot about cash flow and net worth, and that these are the foundational elements. And so can you talk me through some of the misconceptions that people have about those basics? And what would actually surprise me when if I sat down and was actually mapping this out for myself?

Cash Flow Tracking Without Budgeting

SPEAKER_00 19:24

This is the most critical part really of a person's and family's financial situation. Because everything builds on it. That's why we call it foundation. You know, money in, money out, what you own and what you owe. Everything feeds from that. If there's no income, your financial future is very limited. Most people know, they understand what their paycheck is, right? They know what their money is coming from, how much money is coming in, they know their retail expenses, they know their market, they know what their car lease is, they know what their utilities are, sometimes even down to the penny. Now it's$120.71 for electricity. Those things are easy, but where they struggle is with the discretionary expenses. What am I spending on vacations? Maybe$10,000 a year. Very round numbers. But it makes a huge difference if it's$8,000 or$12,000. That's a big difference over the long term. So people have huge gaps, right? When we're trying to build an expense worksheet, they know money's going somewhere. They're just not sure where.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

It does feel like that sometimes, just wondering where it all went.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

So they have in their expense worksheet this big, this miscellaneous category that's huge.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

They just put everything in the miscellaneous way. Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Trying to make that category smaller. That should be the goal, right? These unexpected things that happen, new car repairs, maybe a new laptop you need or extra trips, those things all add up, but they don't come regularly. They come unexpected. That's why they call unexpected. So tracking is important. People think when I talk about expense worksheet with them trying to figure out what the expenses are, they think budgeting. It's like a four-letter word, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:14

Right. Yeah, I don't like it at all.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Yeah, nobody wants to do it. No. It would mean that you have to give something up. And but that's not what it's about, at least not in the first step. The first step is to track your money, to track where it's going. And I don't mean tracking the pennies, tracking something that's you're just tracking 80 or 90% of your expenses. That would be just fine. If you get bogged down in the pennies and it's not working for you, then it's a waste of time. So I help my clients figure out what that system is for them and how granular do we need to get to make it meaningful and to help them make these informed priority decisions. That's what It's about a system that they can maintain so they can make those decisions and they can say for the things that are important for them.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Bernd, I wanted to ask you about retirement planning because I think that's something that keeps a lot of people up at night and something that I'm thinking about. What are the key questions that I should be asking about retirement that typically aren't getting asked? And what do you think is being missed and thinking ahead when people are looking towards the future?

Defining Retirement Before Forecasting

SPEAKER_00 22:28

It's probably the question many people ask yourself, I'm sure you're asking yours, is am I on track, right? Right. That's a big question. Am I on track when it comes to retirement? And my response to that often is on track for what? What does retirement look like to you? Describe it to me. This is where people struggle. They really haven't thought it through. And that's very important because just imagine hypothetical two couples. Couple A, the quiet retirees, they are content at home. They do maybe one small trip a year to see grandchildren, but otherwise they enjoy their backyard overlooking the meadows. They love gardening, they like reading in their backyard and sitting on the porch reading a book and having a glass of wine. And the other couple is more active. They like they love cruises. They go on three or four trips a year. They have an annual vacation where they bring all their kids together. They're more active. They like golfing and have hobbies that cost maybe more money and enjoy eating out. So if you compare those two couples, they have completely different financial needs. Unless, of course, the first couple's wine is really expensive.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

That's where all the money's going.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Typically, that would be completely different financial needs for those two families. So, how do you plan for that? So the first is to envision where you will live, what will you do? Who will you be with? You know, where do you get your social interaction from? Will it be near kids, near friends, stay in your current home? And once you have that vision of what that looks like, next important step is to put numbers to it. So I help clients not just formulate that vision, but then quantify it. You have to quantify it so you can financially plan for it. We have to make sure that your financial affairs are organized to support that vision. And the answer to that question, am I on track, is not just a yes or no, but that you know what it is, what you're on track for.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

Byrnd, I wanted to ask you also about insurance. That a lot of people view insurance as unnecessary and something that's being pushed at them by salespeople. So, how do you help your clients to think differently about protecting what they've built?

SPEAKER_00 24:57

Yeah, insurance is tricky. You don't want to pay for it until you need it.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

I definitely don't.

Insurance That Protects Your Life

SPEAKER_00 25:03

Yeah. And especially when you're young, you feel invincible. You know, insurance is just doesn't feel important.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

Yeah, that's a good word for it, invincible.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

When I was young, I I just got the minimum coverage for whatever I needed to. But it dramatically changed once I got married and once we had kids. Now people depended on me, and now I had to make sure that they are protected. And then it changed again for me when I got into this career because I started hearing stories, not just from colleagues of mine, but also from other clients, real-life stories about people who weren't properly prepared and properly insured. This couple comes to mind that I worked with many years ago. Young couple, both working, they're two little kids. As we went through their financial situation, we reviewed their insurance coverage and they had their employer provided life insurance. But we said we decided there was not enough to cover them. So they bought some term life insurance on each other. And then many years later, I got a call from the wife, and she said that her husband had contracted cancer. And then actually, within a little bit more than a year, he passed away and was still young, way too young to pass away from cancer. Was really sad. The wife was, of course, grieving. She was struggling what to do. She had all these questions, aside from all the emotions. She was trying to figure out can she stay in the house? Can she what to do with the kids? Does she need to go back to work? And then we met and I handed her the life insurance proceeds. It didn't take away the pain and the loss, the pain of loss and her grieving, but it took away her financial worry. She was able with that life insurance payout, she was able to stay in the house, to focus on her kids, to focus on rebuilding her life and grieving. That's a reminder that it can happen to anyone. It's not a comfortable conversation to have. They can always sell the house and downsize and go back to work, all of that, but you really want them to have to do that. And then many people, like the couple I just mentioned, they rely on insurance through work. But that doesn't mean it's the right amount, it's just the amount the insurance the employer provided. And if you change employer, then the insurance is gone. Who knows if your new employer offers insurance again, and now you're 10 years older, and insurance gets more expensive as you age. It's even harder to get your own insurance. But in general, I help clients evaluate what the risks are that they're exposed to. It could be death, loss of income for your family, or disability. Now you can't work anymore, your income is gone, but you're still around. Your long-term care is on a lot of people's minds. What if I'm old and I can't take care of myself anymore? Do I really want my children to base me? How do I pay for care when I get older? So we assess what those risks are, assess what coverage you have, and then identify any gaps and see if you want to self-insure or if you should look into more protection.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Bernd, are there other insurance coverages that when people come to you that you help them to see that maybe they need to think about different things other than just the health and life insurance?

Umbrella Liability And Real Risk

SPEAKER_00 29:15

I have my little pet peeve here, which is the liability insurance. I always have an extra look at my client's liability insurance. What that is basically, you get that through your car insurance, right? And your homeowner's insurance. But those coverages might not be enough. So there's something called an umbrella policy that gives you additional umbrella liability policy that gives you an additional insurance. For example, when is that important? So let's say you're driving to work, heavy traffic, and again the stang phone pings again, and you take a quick length and take your eyes off the road for a fraction of a second. And there's a kid on the bike crossing the street in front of you, and you hit them. You're God forbid, they're seriously injured or worse, and you get sued by the parents for bodily injury or loss of enjoyment of life or property damage and punitive damages, maybe even your$300,000 coverage, even if you have the maximum in California, you know, that could be gone in the blink of an eye for just attorney fees.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

It's frightening to think about.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

It's important to understand that risk and have understand what coverage you have, and make sure you have you review that coverage on a regular basis because your net worth hopefully grows. And as your net worth grows, you want to have a higher, you want to up your liability coverage. This is important to me as a pet peeve because it happened to us actually in that scenario. My son, I think he was around 15 at the time. He was on his bike and he was crossing a crosswalk, and a guy who was turning right on red wasn't stopping and hit our son. And fortunately, he wasn't injured badly, so we decided not to sue, but it really opened our eyes that this is something that can happen to anyone. And if you don't believe me, then just drive through the Southern California freeways and look at the billboards that say being in an accident, we'll sue for you. And they're everywhere. That's why it's personally important to me. And it's hard enough to deal with the emotional aspect of insuring somebody. You just don't want the financial consequences on top of that.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

I wanted to ask you, could you share a story of a client whose financial situation and life got transformed once they started actually doing this and looking at their complete financial picture through the dashboard as you use it?

A Client Case That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_00 31:52

There's a lot of stories, of course, over many years. I've had a lot of clients. Thomas and Rebecca come to mind. I've been working with them for many years. Thomas, when they came to me, or he was in his mid-50s, he was feeling tired and worried about their financial future despite being successful and good saver. He's been working a long time, he's traveling a lot, he was looking at retirement and thinking, I've got to work till I'm 70. He's still got 15 years or so to go. He just felt tired and wishing he could retire earlier, but wasn't sure if it was possible. In addition, they had a lot of changes when they came to me. So um he actually, so they had two twins, boys, they were just finishing off college. Rebecca had taken a break from her healthcare career while she was raising the kids, and now she was working again. So they had some extra income. Thomas just got a promotion and he became eligible for some executive compensation options that he had no clue whether he should take advantage of those or not. As the kids were coming off payroll, their payroll, they had some discretionary income. And so they were wondering what we should do with that extra income? Should we pay off the house? Should we max out? Well, we're already maxing out the 401k. So what do we do next? What else can we do? Should we open an investment account? And then what are we even saving for? Are we on track? They had that question, right? Are we on track? So what we did is we went through that process. We set up their dashboard, we had a conversation about their desired retirement lifestyle. I asked the question, what do you want to retire to? Not just what to retire from, but where do you want to retire to? They wanted to stay in their current home, they didn't plan on moving, they wanted to do some travel. And so we put everything in the software, all this deferred conf, the new income, all their assets, and voila, here was the crystal ball working again. And they could see the projections of their future. We played with different levers, and we said, okay, what if you do pay down the house? You know, what if you invest the money in a taxable account instead? How does the deferred compensation plan fit in? What if you reallocate your investments? They had quite a bit of cash on the sidelines because they weren't sure what to do with it. So we said, well, what if you invest that? Each scenario showed different outcomes. At the end, we found a scenario that was doable where Thomas could retire at 65. Not 67, not 70, 65. He was ecstatic. He was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe it. You that would be amazing. That would be fantastic. That gave him the motivation to take the steps that are necessary to make it happen. He didn't feel stuck anymore in this red race and saw that he had options. The dashboard really re revealed that they could be on track. They gave him the clarity and the confidence to help them to take the action. Now they didn't just know what to do, but also why to do it. And they were inspired and motivated to follow through and make it happen.

SPEAKER_02 35:22

I love that about taking the action because Byrnd, you acknowledge that having a plan, even a good one, it's worthless without implementation. And I know that in my own life so well too. But what gets in the way of people taking that action? And how do you help them move from planning to actually doing these things?

Implementation And Accountability That Sticks

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Taking action is always hard. Let's look at living a healthy life. It isn't complicated, right? We know what to do. We need to eat healthy and we need to exercise more. And yet it's still hard to do. It's the same with living a financially healthy life. We all know what to do. We know we have to save, we have to invest, we stay out of debt. It's not rocket science, and it's still extremely hard to do. With all these temptations around us, we're living in a consumer system. Buy this, buy that, pay later, and then we have the fear of making mistakes. No one is holding us accountable, other than ourselves and maybe our partner. If you're going back to the healthy life style, if you have a gym membership, you don't go. One day, maybe you decide, okay, I'm gonna hire a personal coach. You sign up for a personal trainer, you're out another 200 bucks a month or something. The other thing it does is there's somebody waiting for you. Then when you're there, the trainer keeps you focused and maybe pushes you a little bit. You can't say, I did my 10 reps, and then the trainer might decide, okay, you can do another five. So you know, pushes you a little bit. That's what I love doing for my clients, being their accountability partner, because it is hard to take action. When I work with my clients, we create an action plan for the next six to 12 months, not for the next 10 or 20 years, but the short-term most impactful actions. Go see an estate attorney, set up your trust, go change your 401k contributions from 8 to 10%. Start contributing to a 529 plan for your newborn. These are all things that we determine together through the dashboard process to help stay or get on track. I become my client's CFO while they are basically their life CEO. If you don't take action, you waste everybody's time and money and nothing changes. One client as I speak here comes to mind, Steve. He used to have been a long-term client. I've been working with him for many years. But then he came into a phase with a lot of employment changes, and he went through a divorce, and then he got remarried, and his wife is now pregnant, so lots of changes. And in that process, he fell off the rhythm of regular meetings. And when we reconnected, he admitted he'd been slacking on tracking his expenses, and he wanted to get back on track. We set up a monthly accountability call. So we go through specific tasks that we determined before, tracking his weekly expenses, evaluating a real estate that he was contemplating on selling, how to deal with his debt. And so these check-ins kept him on track, put him back on track, and then kept him on track. When we get on the call, he's like super excited. The first thing he says is, Baron, here's what I did. I updated my tracking. I spoke with my CPA, I did this, I did that. He was very proud of his accomplishments and which turned into motivation for him to keep going. That was really rewarding for me to see that I was able to help him to get where he wanted to be.

SPEAKER_02 39:04

I can see what a difference the accountability would make in moving towards implementation and not just leaving things as an idea, just like with the gym, as you pointed out.

Free Book Offer And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 39:19

Well, you can get my book at stopflyingblind.com. You can get a complimentary electronic copy there. You can uh email me at Barnd at ParliamentWells.com or give me a call at 949-471-5827. I'd love to hear from you. I love working with my clients and help them achieve what is important to them. I always start with a get-to-no meeting, no obligation, just to make sure there's a good fit on both sides. And I hope your takeaway from my book and this podcast is to take action and to not do it alone. Your financial future is too important. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

Byrne, thank you so much for being with us today.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Thank you, Gabe. Thanks for having me.