Dr. Ellis is a current client and was not provided with any compensation for her participation in this podcast.

Kyle: Welcome to Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most. It’s a podcast with Moneta’s Gast Freeman Troyer Racen Team. My name is Kyle Luetters, advisor on the team, and I am joined on this podcast by Danton Troyer, a partner on the team.

Danton, a very energetic conversation today. We have Dr. Holly Ellis here of Ellis Dental and Ellis Sleep Center joining us on the show today. And I think what everybody’s going to hear here is a lot of passion, a lot of energy, and the exact way that you can get onto a game show while being a dental student.

Danton: There’s definitely step-by-step instructions, so if anything else, you want to make some money on the Wheel of Fortune circuit, we can help you there.

But yeah, it’s great to get an interview with Holly in here, just how she kind of grew over the years in her business, and I’m sure people will be able to get a lot of takeaways from that.

Kyle: For sure. Well, without further ado, here’s our conversation with Dr. Holly Ellis.

And now joining us here on Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most, perhaps one of the most lucky guests, and not just because she’s a guest on the show, but because of some of the things I found out about her in doing some research.

Joining us today, Dr. Holly Ellis of Ellis Dental and Ellis Sleep Center. And Holly, before I kind of dive in, I know you maybe froze a little bit when I said that, because I did my homework for this interview. But number one, how are you doing? And you’re coming to us from your office, your dental practice, is that correct?

Dr. Ellis: Yes. Yeah, I’m in my dental practice right now. It’s a busy day, but I’m excited to be here on the podcast.

Kyle: Hopefully it’s more fun than filling cavities. You just have to let us know at the end. That will be for us as well.

Dr. Ellis: Yes!

Kyle: So Dr. Ellis is someone that Danton and I know, a successful entrepreneur, a wonderful smile if you go to ellisdental.com, you happen to notice everybody has a great smile, so it’s wonderful marketing. But what I wanted to lead into here was, where did your love of Wheel of Fortune come from?

Dr. Ellis: You know, that show’s been on my entire life, Kyle. It’s been around so long. So I think I just grew up with it in the background.

And then as I got older, I realized I was good at it, you know, but it’s kind of fun to play when you’re good at something.

Kyle: Right…

Dr. Ellis: So it could be on, Wheel of Fortune’s on in the background, so you could look at the TV and like, oh, solve a puzzle, then go back to making dinner type thing.

But I love word games, stuff like that. And so yeah, I love that game.

Kyle: And you were actually on the show.

Dr. Ellis: I was on the show over 20 years ago, I think. But I had gone online when I was in dental school to look up how to get on there. And they had a form you could fill out for them to contact you if they came to your city for auditions. And at the time, I was in Kansas City. So, I filled out the form. And you know, maybe six months later, I got an email that said, you’re invited to an audition at the Marriott, downtown Kansas City. So, I skipped class because it was during class.

Kyle: The attitude of limitations is gone. Yes.

Dr. Ellis: Yeah. I wore my dental school scrubs. You know, I wanted to play the whole poor student aspect, got down there, ended up running into one of my instructors who was also positioning for Wheel of Fortune, and we both had a good laugh over that.

Yeah, I got down there, they had about 250 people, they gave us paper tests and things on paper we had to fill out – like hangman almost, and had like a info sheet to fill out. And then they narrowed it down to 50 from that. And you had to write some interesting things about yourself, stuff like that.

And then we had to play some mock games. And then they told us if you’re selected, you’ll be on the show within the year and you’ll get a letter. And sure enough, about three weeks later, I got a letter in the mail saying you’re invited out to record and yeah, it was a lot of fun.

It all just kind of worked out perfect. You know, all the stars aligned, I guess.

Kyle: That they did. Oh my goodness, that’s cool. And when you were on the show, what was, and we’re going to get to the rest of the story here, but I really kind of want to hone in on this because I think this is really interesting. What was that experience on the show like?

Dr. Ellis: Super fun. So they record six shows in a day, and I was the first show and they just kind of get you out there and you’re in the recording studio meeting Pat and Vanna and you just start playing, just like it is on TV. They don’t make you take a lot of breaks, just for commercials and, you know, I hit bankrupt a couple times, but I solved two puzzles.

I won a prize and about $3,600 in the end, I came in second. So it was a ton of fun.

Kyle: Not a bad haul for a dental student. Not a bad haul, right?

Dr. Ellis: It was great. So fun! And when I went, my class at dental school wished me off well and gave me all kinds of goody bags to go. So it was fun. Yeah, I highly recommend it, Kyle.

Danton: We have Kyle on the Wheel of Fortune next.

Dr. Ellis: Yeah.

Kyle: We’ll have to make sure we give you a call. I don’t think I can use a lifeline on that show. You know, so what I wanted to go into that story and you had kind of mentioned Kansas City, but native of St. Louis, went to Missouri State and then over to the University of Missouri, Kansas City for dental school.

So, let Dan and I kind of dive in here just a little bit, but what made you, what would foster the interest in wanting to go into the dental field? Let’s start there.

Dr. Ellis: Well, I’m an odd bird; most dentists are. We have something about us that’s a little off, but I knew I wanted to be a dentist since I was very young and I was fortunate enough to have dental care when I was young. My parents took us every six months. So what I witnessed in the office was my dentist walking around whistling, having so much fun. I knew he had his own practice. And I remember just telling my parents when I was young, you know, this looks fun. Like I think this would be great, right?

And of course, my parents were like, yes, you should do that! They were very encouraging. And it’s funny because I look back and I didn’t even know that like dental hygiene was a career opportunity I could have gone. I just went right to, I want to be the dentist.

And my parents were very encouraging. So they would point out, yeah, how great would that be? If you could own your own business, run your own practice, you could take care of people and you like to talk to people…

And it really just was a good fit and I knew that. And as I got older, I knew I wanted to be the boss. And I think that’s played out really well for me. But I knew my personality that I just wanted to lead something and have my own thing. And this was an opportunity and a career that I could actually do that.

So I shadowed a lot of people in high school, college to make sure. But everybody I talked to was so kind and they all really enjoyed their job. So it just made sense to keep going down that track.

Danton: So even from a young age, I mean, not only a dentist, but you knew you want to own your own practice on top of that as well.

Dr. Ellis: Yeah, and I think that’s what’s a little different for me is when I talk to younger dentists now, they don’t go into it for that reason. You know, they want to do the dentistry;

it seems like a good career. And I wanted all that too. It’s just I also knew I needed to do something where I was in charge.

And maybe that’s just my personality. And I wanted, you know, the buck to stop with me at some point, whether I was managing people in a role or working towards being a manager. This one just panned out perfect, though, for my personality and my interest.

Danton:

And how does, you know, running your own business, I mean, it seems like, you know, that’s obviously very important to you. But the flip side is the buck does stop with you, so you got to make all the decisions and the day to day can be a little bit more stressful. So how are you managing that with…you’ve got family now, you’ve got a dental practice and now multiple businesses, really. So, I mean, how has that been for you guys?

Dr. Ellis: Well, the good news is I didn’t graduate and walk into this big business. It was an evolution over time. If you would have asked me when I graduated 19 years ago, if this is what it would look like, I would have had no idea that this was possible for myself.

Danton: Sure

Dr. Ellis: It evolved over time. And I just luckily leaned on the people who had done it before me and who did it well, and took their advice when they would tell me, hey, you need to hire this person to help you with this, or you need to hire this person to help you with payroll, accounting, financials, because you don’t have to do it all by yourself. So even though I am at the top of the pyramid, and I make the decisions, the support team I have right next to me is probably equally as important to making this successful.

So yeah, I started out small, I was an associate, I worked for another dentist at first, because you don’t get any business acumen in dental school. And I was green, very green, when I graduated, and I met a woman who said I could come work with her in her Kirkwood office in St. Louis. And she would teach me things she loved to teach.

And she said, I don’t have a ton of patients for you, but come and you can build up your patient base here. And I did that, and she was so kind and taught me more than I could have imagined. She knew ultimately I wanted my own practice, so she was super supportive three years later when I decided to go do that, and purchased a practice, and took over for a dentist who was leaving the state and moving out of the area.

So when I left, she let me take any of the files on the computer, and said she wanted me to succeed, so I could take the office manual, I could take the standard operating procedures and things with me if I wanted, which was really kind, because it helped me get set up. And I had four employees then, and they all stayed on board when I came, and that was another reason it worked out. And then I really got to do things the way I dreamed of doing, just designing things, treating people the way I wanted to treat them, and rewarding my team, and having just a ton of fun, really.

Kyle: I want to, in birth order, Holly, and forgive me, are you the oldest, or where are you at in the order of the kids in your family?

Dr. Ellis: The baby out of two.

Kyle: You’re the baby! See, the reason I asked that is there’s always this misconception out there that it’s the firstborn that’s always, it’s got to be like, my way, and this, I want to do it my way, and yada, yada, yada. You’ve actually, again, odd bird, your words, not mine, but you flipped the script with that in kind of like, normally, my wife always likes to say, like, yeah, the secondborn’s the silent child here, or so on and so forth, the firstborn’s always the one making the noise. You were actually the one coming on the end, doing your thing, which is cool.

Dr. Ellis: You know, I would love to tell you, it was all me that pointed out all the benefits of owning a business, but I think my parents were just like, when I said I had an interest in dentistry, they made sure I knew the benefits of if I ever had my own place. You could do all these things. And they aren’t business owners themselves, but they knew people who were, and they’d say, oh, Holly, you can actually own a practice if you go this route, and you could probably have X, Y, Z opportunities, which you cannot have when you don’t own your own business. So again, I would just listen to a lot of people along the way who just solidified my decision to go this route.

Kyle: Goodness, for sure. You know, it kind of begs more questions, so really, since you purchased that practice, you went out on your own and started with that. You’ve obviously grown, because by the time our timelines have crossed and everything like that, it is definitely much larger than that.

Can you describe overall what the practice looks like today? So kind of give folks the idea of where you came from to where you guys are at today, because there’s a big jump.

Dr. Ellis: Sure, so Ellis Dental started in 2009, and when I bought that practice, I was the only dentist and one hygienist, one assistant, one front desk. So not many of us, four to five.

And now we are four dentists strong with 25 total employees. So you can kind of do the math how we grew over time, and we grew in different ways. Organically, yes, new patients coming on board, treating patients really well, I’m big on getting out in the community and doing a lot of community events and getting to know people so that they know who to refer to.

But I’ve also bought other dental practices to merge into mine, and that was a big key to my growth is purchasing practices of retiring dentists who didn’t have a buyer or who had smaller practices that they wanted to merge and they wanted a good dentist that they could trust and who had similar values. And that’s worked out really well to help the growth of the practice.

Kyle: That’s really interesting because our industries, you know, we’re in financial planning and all that other things. They’re very service oriented. And so when you make those purchases, can you describe, you did a little bit, but describe a little bit, there has to be just a little bit of anxiety when you do purchase because there is no hard assets. There’s no, I mean, you’re buying essentially goodwill. And I think that’s very fascinating.

Dr. Ellis: Yeah, and I think that’s like anything else. The way I purchase a practice now to merge is different than how I did it the first time because you just learn all the lessons along the way. But now I’m very, very specific with what I look at, whether it’s insurance plans that that person’s in, how far they are from me, verifying active patient records, whereas in the beginning, I didn’t necessarily do that. I paid a lump sum and, you know, it worked out fine, but I wouldn’t do that again. There’s just different ways to set up a purchase like this. And I’ve shared that with colleagues now and I’ve learned some of that from some of my other colleagues, the way they’ve done it, to make it a win-win for both parties, you know, because these dentists that I’ve purchased their practices, most of them remain patients of mine then. And I take care of them and their spouse at no cost and it becomes a good relationship and they get some money. I grow and it works out really well, but I’ve changed the way I’ve done it over the years just to benefit both parties a little bit better and do my due diligence.

Kyle: So, again, very fascinating. Another thing, too, is like you and your husband both are very entrepreneurial.

And is that something that kind of drew the two of you together? Did it just happen by accident? Or how did that go?

Dr. Ellis: Oh, Kyle. No, that’s not what drew us together. Jungle Juice at the fraternity party drew us together.

But he has an entrepreneurial spirit, too. It wasn’t always that way. But, you know, we kind of grew up together, if you think about it. We started dating when I was 18 and he was 19. So our goals then are different than they are now, but they just complement each other really well.

And after he had been in corporate, I mean, I did try to get him to go to dental school. I thought he’d be really good at it. But he thought that was ridiculous. So he got into corporate America, got a lot of great experience. And then after he was working 60-hour work weeks, watching somebody do that is kind of hard because it takes the life out of them. And I would beg him for a couple of years to stop doing that.

And finally, he ended that company and started his own consulting company. So now we really do complement each other really well. His position, what he does, complements my office. I’m fortunate in that way, not everyone has that. But he has great resources. I have different resources. And I think for both of us seeing the benefit of having our own businesses, the freedom, the opportunities it has afforded us, I don’t think we’d have otherwise in different careers.

Kyle: 100% agree. And again, I figured there were other reasons why you guys came together. But sometimes, you know, kind of it takes a mindset to be an entrepreneur. And you knew very early on; he kind of got there over time.

Dr. Ellis: Yeah.

Kyle: So it’s just interesting how that fits together because there are some folks, like, I would say I’m very entrepreneurially oriented. My wife is not. She is super happy to be a public school teacher.

You tell her when to be there, you tell her when her breaks are, you tell her what her pension is when she retires. She is happy.

Dr. Ellis: Yeah, and most people are like that.

Kyle: Correct. But if you told her, said, hey, you’re probably going to make no money. You can make your entire schedule the way that you want it to.

She would look at you like you have three eyes in your head.

Dr. Ellis: Of course.

Kyle: Yes. So, I mean again, it’s kind of that mindset deal.

Dr. Ellis: Yeah, I mean, I have three associates now and they have no desire to be owners. They know what I do above and beyond the clinical side. And they don’t really want any part of that. I don’t necessarily tell them all the benefits that I receive by being the owner.

However, they make really good livings. They like to come to work three days a week and go home when they’re done. It’s been such a wonderful match because they take such great care of our patients. Well, two days a week, I’m doing management stuff, you know, but I enjoy that.

And again, I don’t want them to want to be my partner because I’m not offering that. I still want at the end of the day, if a decision needs to be made, it’ll be mine.

But they have been so helpful for me to open my eyes to see things a little bit differently. One of them is my age, the other two are 10 years younger so they bring a different perspective to decision making, which has been super valuable. But, yeah, most, I mean, they’re happy, super happy with their jobs and what they do. But, yeah, they don’t want anything to do with the management side, which is hard for sure, I’ve gone through so many things with management that I never thought I would have to. But at the end of the day, I feel like I learn something every time. And the next time I have to do it, it’s a little bit easier.

Danton: Well, I mean, with us talking about what matters most, the name of the podcast, and things have changed a lot for you over the year. Has your mindset really shifted as a business owner and family, trying to balance the two as we talk about? But, as your mindset changes, as far as your priorities throughout this kind of journey. And then do you see that changing in the future as well?

Dr. Ellis: You know, it’s tricky. I always knew I wanted to be the business owner, but I also knew I wanted to be a mom and have kids, so, I mean, that was part of the plan all along.

It’s been a lot to juggle, but I think I just made sure I had a support system, whether it was I had enough people in my practice to take care of things when I couldn’t be there.

So little things we changed along the way, you know, we used to have hours that were eight to five. Now we’re seven to four. Part of that was because I had kids and I wanted to be available sooner at the end of the day versus getting home at 530. I talked to the whole staff; everyone was on board, they all liked that also. So, honestly, we changed it one year and it was seven to four since then.

Bringing on my associates, part of that reason was to free me up, but I felt bad taking vacation when I was all alone as the only provider, because if I was gone and someone had an emergency, I didn’t have a solution for them necessarily. And now we always have coverage here. No matter what, if somebody has an emergency, somebody is here. And with my admin time, as I got bigger and hired more associates, I was able to back off treating people in the chair a couple of days a week, which like today my daughter had an orthodontist appointment at 7:30. Well, because I don’t have patients I have to see on a Thursday, I can go take her to that, get her back to school, and come back to the office. So there is a lot of flexibility. I’m fortunate that my team and I try to just be really supportive of one another when we need stuff like that.

And in dentistry, most offices work on four-day work weeks. So we are open five days a week, but each team member typically works only four of those five, so everyone has a day, a flex day, and we just ask that they make most of their appointments then and give them some time to take care of stuff like that.

Kyle: It’s really neat. I never really realized that as far as the work week goes. Danton, maybe we should take some notes.

Dr. Ellis: Come on, Danton. You can play more golf, you can do all that fun stuff.

Danton: Hey, it’s the financial industry. We took away the tie mandate, so that was something, right?

Dr. Ellis: That’s something. Baby steps, right?

Danton: We’re working on it.

Kyle: We kid a little bit here, but as we kind of head for home here, again, Dr. Ellis, number one, thank you for sharing your time. It’s obviously very valuable. And it was great to get to know more about you and really, what matters most to you.

But anything else, any other words of wisdom or piece of advice? You’ve already dispensed a ton in our time together. But is there anything else out there that you would tell someone that’s thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, thinking about becoming a business owner, maybe to the young Dr. Ellis that might be out there for some odd reason listening to this podcast at a young age? I don’t know why. Is there anything else you have?

Dr. Ellis: I would say the biggest reason I’m here is because people told me I could do it. You know, I’ve had a lot of colleagues who didn’t have that support, and they don’t end up in the same place. But I just feel like anyone can do this. If I can do this, anyone can do this. I did not graduate in the top of my dental class or college class. That’s not what makes a good business owner, in my opinion. You just have to want it. And the benefits far, far outweigh the hard times when it comes to ownership. You know, I would never have imagined the opportunities and the benefits I have now as an owner that you don’t get as an employee.

And so you can do it. You just have to have the right people in your team. And it’s okay to hire vendors and partners to take care of certain aspects of your business for you. You just find trusted partners, much like you Danton and Kyle, you help my husband and I so much. But we just trust you. And if you just find the people you trust, you can do it. And it’s a beautiful way to live, in my opinion.

Kyle: Well, number one, thank you for that. And that was Dr. Ellis on Wit, Wisdom and What Matters Most.

And that was a very fun as well as enlightening conversation with Dr. Holly Ellis of Ellis Dental and Sleep Center. Danton, you know, number one, glad that we did a little homework and you remembered some stories because I thought learning how a dental student gets onto Wheel of Fortune was pretty awesome. But truly, and I want to turn the teller over to you…a fascinating conversation about perseverance and realizing a dream and pursuing it. And you get to see what the outcome is now.

Danton: Yeah, I think to hear someone that kind of knew at such a young age that they want to be a dentist is certainly not not usual. And then on top of that, to say is, you know, a younger person that you want to be an entrepreneur as well is amazing. And then on top of it, to actually do it.

And the reason behind it, I thought was really great: people telling her she could do it and having that support system. And, I think it helps people maybe realize that if you’re supporting someone, or you’re being supported, it does really matter.

And to hear somebody so successful and really kind of give all the credit to that is pretty amazing. So I think that was my biggest takeaway, just the ability to be so humble and say, you know, a lot of this was because of other people supporting me and doing it.

Kyle: I’m going to I’m going to piggyback on that and saying, you know, she mentioned often she gave credit to those that helped her along the way, but also to those that are helping her now. And the way that she has put people, blessed to have the right people in place at the right times. You know, obviously, shifting schedules and hours of operation is a big thing because it catches a lot of people out of routine. All it would have taken is one person raising their hand and saying, I don’t think this works or it just doesn’t work for me. And but everybody was on board and she kind of has those leadership qualities to galvanize a team to follow her. And, you know, to your point, knowing that she wanted to be an entrepreneur from an early age, pursuing it, her there was mentorship there with her parents saying that, hey, you can do this. As well as the dentist she mentioned in Kirkwood.

Danton: Yeah.

Kyle: You know, just somebody coming along. This is look, I don’t have many patients for you, but you’re allowed to come in here and learn. I will mentor you. And then the way that she kind of set Dr. Ellis up for success.

Danton: And for Holly to be able to accept that opportunity, that could be intimidating to some people out of dental school. I don’t have very many patients for you, you can figure that part out.

I mean, a lot of people go, yeah, I’m not. No, thanks.

Kyle: Right.

Danton: So I think that was a big leap of faith there on probably both of their parts.

Kyle: I 100 percent agree. We touched a little bit on a wonderful husband, Justin, and then Reed and Ivy, her two kids. They’re really fun to watch and they’re on the go as well, too.

But all in all, my friend, any last thoughts on this? This was just fun; it was a fun interview.

Danton: Yeah. I mean, I think that that sums it up pretty good. I mean, they’re always fun and it’s just fun to go through these different guests and hear all the different stories of what matters most to them.

And surprise, surprise, it’s different for everybody.

Kyle: 100 percent. Well, Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most is a production of Moneta’s Gast Freeman Troyer Racen Team, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. So on behalf of Danton Troyer, I’m Kyle Luetters.

And until next time, keep pursuing what matters most.

© 2025 Advisory services offered by Moneta Group Investment Advisors, LLC, 100 South Brentwood Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63105 (“MGIA”), an investment adviser registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). MGIA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Moneta Group, LLC. Registration as an investment adviser does not imply a certain level of skill or training. This is an advertisement. The information contained herein is for informational purposes only, is not intended to be comprehensive or exclusive, and is based on materials deemed reliable, but the accuracy of which has not been verified. Examples contained herein are for illustrative purposes only based on generic assumptions. Given the dynamic nature of the subject matter and the environment in which this communication was written, the information contained herein is subject to change. This is not an offer to sell or buy securities, nor does it represent any specific recommendation. You should consult with an appropriately credentialed professional before making any financial, investment, tax, or legal decision. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. You cannot invest directly in an index. All investments are subject to a risk of loss. Diversification and strategic asset allocation do not assure profit or protect against loss in declining markets. These materials do not take into consideration your personal circumstances, financial or otherwise. Trademarks and copyrights of materials linked herein are the property of their respective owners.

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Wit, Wisdom, & What Matters Most podcast

Episode 5 featuring Steve

Kyle: And welcome to another edition of Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most podcast with Moneta’s Gast, Freeman Troyer Racen team. My name is Kyle Luetters, joined alongside Danton Troyer. And Danton, very special guest on today’s show as we continue to talk about retirement and the conversations around this particular area and topic.

Well, we have a wonderful guest; someone that you’ve known for a long time, his name is Steve, he works at Charles River and quite a unique story. I’ll bring you in to chat about him a little bit.

Danton: I have known Steve for several years now and really got to know him both as a client and I’ve gone on a couple golf trips with him. So, you know, it’s quite a unique relationship as far as working with a client goes, but I’m definitely excited for this interview and to hear the stories that Steve will share with us.

Kyle: And with no further ado, here’s our conversation with Steve.

And jumping in here to our conversation, we have Steve with us here. Steve, welcome

to the Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most podcast. It’s good to see you, good to talk to you today.

Steve: Great, thanks for having me; appreciate it.

Kyle: So, I know that I’m going to bring Danton in here on this one because you and Danton have had quite a relationship. I’ll let Danton kind of take over from here because Danton and Steve, you’ve known each other here for quite a while.

Danton: Yes, Steve and I have known each other for several years now. It’s been a fun client relationship and even getting to go play some golf outside of the office, as well. So, we’ve definitely had some fun times over the last several years as well. And so hopefully today we just talk about as you approach retirement and what that feels like and looks like for you. And I’m sure we’ll get some good stories out there as well.

Steve: Oh, good, yeah. Perfect.

Kyle: Right, so Steve, you’re at your Charles River Labs.

Steve: Yes.

Kyle: How did you end up there because the fascinating stories are how do people end up in the situations and the places that they end up? So, give us the lay of the land, give us the journey, how did you get to where you are today?

Steve: And it is kind of an interesting story. So, I’ve been working, I have a PhD in toxicology. I’ve been in the toxicology pharmaceutical business now for 25 plus years. I’ve worked at a number of major pharmaceutical companies throughout my tenure. And when I was at the last one, I was recruited to Charles River Labs. And they made me an offer to come and help set up a new facility and I took it.

What’s funny about it is years later my boss at that pharmaceutical, that last pharmaceutical company, is the one who gave the recruiters my name. I found that he really wanted me to come. And through some offers they made that I basically couldn’t refuse,

I took the job. Then I found out years later, he told me that, hey, I got you recruited

here.

Kyle: Oh, that’s quite the story. So, you mentioned a PhD in toxicology -describe kind of how you get that degree, what goes into your day-to-day world and lifestyle because we talk to folks that come from all sorts of different walks of life. This is not necessarily your run of the mill accountant or engineer or dog catcher. I mean, this is, this is a bit different. So, what does your day actually look like?

Steve: So, my day or how I got here? So let’s start with how I got here. Like everybody else, I went to college and was one of those people who did very well in high school, graduated third my class in high school, knew I wanted to do more. At first, I wanted to do medical school, like many, many people do, but I spent time with my own physician. He allowed me to go in and see patients and I realized that medical school wasn’t for me. So, I started doing research as an undergraduate and that clicked and I knew that I wanted to go on. And so I ended up getting my PhD actually in molecular and cell biology from the University of Connecticut. And back then, everyone did what they called the postdoc, which is kind of like a residency or internship for PhDs, which I did at a very well-known lab at the University of Wisconsin.

And then was recruited to my, unless my wife says it, my first job at what used to be called

Park Davis Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I was brought in to do a variety of toxicology jobs. I was then recruited to another major pharmaceutical, and then ended up at Charles River, as I mentioned.

My day today is, now my title is chief scientific officer for safety assessment. I spend a lot of time working with our clients, many of my major pharmaceutical clients. I work on strategy, direction for the organization, general problem solving, and a lot of harmonization and alignment of our sites throughout our organization. I answer a lot of questions on a day-to-day basis.

Danton: So, this is right up your alley then. Steve, you were talking about kind of high school on, but what was the thing you wanted to be when you grow up? How far off is it, or was it in the ballpark?

Steve: Well jokingly, I don’t know if I should tell this story in my role, but when I was in

graduate school, I always thought I wanted to go into an industry and do research and

industries, discover new drugs and things of that nature. And we had a grant, we were a joint grant, basically my PhD is in biochemistry, molecular and cell biology, with a heavy emphasis on protein chemistry. And we shared a grant with a toxicology group, and I figured I would sit in on some tox courses just to see what that discipline is about. And I swore to myself, after just sitting in on the classes, that I would never be a toxicologist.

And it’s kind of funny now that I am the head of or the lead toxicologist for the largest

non-clinical CRO in the world. It’s kind of funny that I ended up in this role. So, you never know where life’s going to take you.

Danton: Yeah, I definitely agree.

Kyle: You make good mention of how you’ve gotten to the point that you’re at, it’s this fascinating journey. This is one of the reasons why I love having these conversations is the pathways are always really interesting.

But we’ve talked about the past a whole lot, and let’s talk about the future a little

bit, because part of what we’re doing on this podcast, at least in this series, is talking

about retirement. It’s not just necessarily folks that have been in retirement for a while, or they’ve just gotten into retirement.

Walk us through maybe a little bit, how much longer you potentially see yourself working,

and would anything change that? Do you have an eye toward that? I mean, at a certain point, everybody’s going to kind of be done. But describe where you’re at these days.

Steve: So last year, I turned 60, so I’ve reached that threshold. So, as you know, as you’re getting to your 60s, and you’re now in the age group and your peers and your friends and family are probably of similar age. They all either have or are looking at retirement as well. I’m in that same ballpark.

When I exactly retire, Danton and I have kind of set a date on paper, but it’s not written

in stone. I really still like what I’m doing. I like contributing to the organization. But it is on the horizon, I’m not going to say how far. I’ll say somewhere between four and seven years, right now.

So what could change that? I think everybody who works, whether they just started or are in my shoes or a person a year from retirement wakes up every day and says, is today the day I retire?

Danton: Yeah.

Steve: You know, you open your first email and you’re like, oh, gee, I think I should retire today.

Kyle: Today’s the day!

Steve: But then there are successes and the things that work really well, and so you keep going. So, you know, that’s for me, but I do think about it because I am getting closer. I have, as I said, peers and friends and family who are either looking at retirement in a very short amount of time. But as I said, I really like what I’m doing right now.

What could change that? Of course, winning the lottery. I always think about my first phone call after winning would be to Danton. Like, okay, how do we take this money and what do we do?

You know, the industry is always changing. That could have an impact. Either one way I stay longer, leave earlier, whatever. But right now, it’s again, I really don’t know what could change that. Those are the probably the biggest things is what’s going on in the industry or if I don’t like what I’m doing anymore. But I don’t think I’m one of those people that can just stop.

Danton: You mentioned a lot of people around you are contemplating retirement.

Have you seen either family, friends, or co-workers who went into retirement and did

it well, you thought? Or the other side of it, have you seen anybody who you were like,

I’m not doing it that way; I think that was a big mistake?

Steve: I’ve seen all of it. I’ve seen people who have retired and have walked away and never looked back. A friend of mine who I’ve known since my very early days at Parke-Davis retired. Said if he ever did go back, he would maybe join a biotech, but never in large pharma again. Within two weeks, he was back in large pharma.

So, you know, I see people who, a friend of mine recently retired in the last year or two,

retired, but now he’s off consulting. I think it’s just that most of the people I know and interact with are similar, similarly educated as I have, reached the same or similar levels or even higher in organizations, and they’re not people who can probably just walk away automatically. There’s always something; they’re going to do something. They’re not just going to sit and go play golf forever.

Danton: How do you see that relating to you and your retirement then?

Steve: Yeah, I’m thinking, you know, I always have thoughts. I’m going to have to do something, whether it’s…I think about food banks, volunteering at food banks, watering plants at a nursery, you know, anything just to keep me busy, you know.

Will I consult? I don’t know, I think about it once in a while. But then again, I’ve been in our business, while we help companies develop drugs, we are a service provider and, you know, you get kind of tired of that.

I’ve also talked, thought about, could I go work for another company, a small biotech

and just say all I want to do is develop the next drug? No management, no decision making in that regard, just be a workhorse to keep my brain going, keep myself going.

Danton: As you’re talking about that, I think the answer is yes, but are you looking forward to retirement?

Steve: Yes and no. Yes, that the day-to-day, every day getting upmand going and doing it is one thing, but so that, yes, that from that part.

But no, from a point of, as with many of my peers, is where we’ve gotten an education, where we’ve gotten our careers, it’s not just a job, it’s not just a career, it’s also a lifestyle and part of who you are. So, you know, tomorrow, you retire and now you’re not the global head of X or the chief scientific officer, you’re just Steve or Jeff or whoever, you’re just not that anymore, and that was a big part of who you were.

Kyle: Mm-hmm, yeah, thank you. You touched on a big thing right there, Steve. So much when we’re working, our identity is tied up in our work. That’s an interesting thing to ponder and consider and you did a great job of kind of exploring that.

To take it back to the family thing a little bit, we talked about family and friends and how does that impact? You’re married, your wife’s name is Sue, how does, what does she think

about all of this stuff? For lack of a better term, is she wanting you to retire or is she fine doing her own thing? Or how do you think that’ll impact that or the relationship there when you retire?

Steve: Well, we’re joking I know a lot of people, so one of my previous people in these jobs at our company, I do a lot of traveling. And the first thing that spouses want to do when

you retire is travel, and I remember her saying like, really? I traveled so much

in my career, next, I really don’t; I want to just stay home for a little bit. So, she’s looking forward, I think, she’s looking forward to it. She’s very supportive of any decision I make, a lot of it has to do with working with Danton and Moneta about when I can, how much will I have and that, so, but she’s looking forward to it, she thinks I deserve to do whatever I want to do.

Danton: Do you think the dynamic will change and how do you see that changing with you? Not only with Sue, but you have kids and just family in general.

Steve: I think it’ll change; like many parents as the US bank of dad, so you got to dinner, do you think they ever reach for the check once? No, they still expect that. So, when you’re retired, you start thinking a little more closely about finance because that new source of income isn’t there. It’s based on your investments and things and depending on how the market is, you may have a lot of money or not so much money. So, I think that’ll change, kids will have to get used to that.

I think being home all the time, I’ll just say that just before COVID hit, my wife, my

office that I’m sitting in right now, it basically didn’t have a doorway, it was a big frame before COVID. We built a door and she says that’s the greatest investment in the house she’s ever done is build a door with a lock on the outside.

So, during COVID, when I went from traveling, the last year before COVID, I traveled 300,000

miles air miles, and went from that to zero. There were times where she

said, just go stand in the front yard and get out of the house. So, I think it’ll take some getting used to, but, you know, I think it’ll be fine.

Kyle: It really does sound like you got a good grasp on it, and we’re kind of coming up here on time a little bit, but Danton, you’ve obviously got the chance to work with and know Steve for a long time. Any other things that you think about here as we head for home in our time together?

Danton: I think a good last question maybe is if you could give yourself advice when you were 18…? Now you’ve had a successful career and you’re approaching retirement, is there anything you would change and maybe go back and tell your 18-year-old self, don’t do that?

Steve: I think it would be to invest early. I look at, when you see the statistics out there that most people have a small amount of money they have in savings or for what they’ve got for retirement. I know not everyone can do it, but I would look for ways to save because you want to retire, you want to be comfortable. I would tell myself that I would look at things more, the financials of my future a little differently. I think that would be the biggest thing I would do. You know, I think that’s probably it.

Kyle: Solid, sage advice.

Well, Steve, we appreciate it very much. Thank you so much for that time today, appreciate it very much. And that was Steve on Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most.

That was our conversation with Steve and Danton, and what a conversation. The guy had a tremendous amount of energy, number one. One thing we didn’t get to is he still plays lacrosse and when we were talking with him offline a little bit, he talked about his knee and a few other things like that. So, he’s still quite an active guy, again, a lot of energy. But what was your big takeaway from this conversation? Because it was kind of fascinating to follow the entire story.

Danton: It’s always good to talk with Steve, and the first time I heard he was still playing lacrosse and at a pretty high level, I was a very impressed. And I’ve definitely seen his war wounds and bruises from the competitions and tournaments he plays in.

But, for me, the single thing that kind of stood out from our conversation was just that difficulty, potentially for especially high-level executives, is your job has really become your identity and that’s who you are. And that goes away in many ways when you retire. And so maybe thinking about it a different way, we always ask what are you going to do in retirement, but maybe it’s like, what do you want to be in retirement? So, that was really the, obviously there was a lot there, but that was the biggest thing that I took out of our conversation.

Kyle: Yeah, I agree with you 100% because so much of what we do, when you think about it…you spend the most amount of your time doing something, it’s a job, a vocation, a career, whatever you want to call it. And when you retire, that kind of stops. And to your point, it becomes so wrapped up in our identity that I’m no longer X or no longer Y, you kind of have to redefine yourself, maybe. And I don’t want to get too flowery with it, but maybe there’s that period where you kind of redefine who you are and how you identify the contribution that you’re making to the world. And sounds like Steve’s got a wonderful perspective and some options that he’s floating around in his mind about what he may do when the time comes.

Danton: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we see it all the time where folks that are in those high-level positions, they have the retirement date kind of picked in their head and the date usually comes and goes, and that’s probably part of it – pulling the trigger and being certain that you’re actually going to be done. And I think it could be a scary part of retirement.

Kyle: Certainly something to think through. So, Danton, as always, appreciate it, appreciate you.

Wit Wisdom and What Matters Most is a production of Moneta’s Gast Freeman

Troyer Racen Team, headquartered here in St. Louis, Missouri.

And we appreciate each and every one of you for listening and until next time, enjoy what matters most!

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featuring Bruce Williams

Kyle: Welcome to Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most, a podcast with Moneta’s Gast Freeman Troyer Racen Team. My name is Kyle Luetters, joined alongside Danton Troyer.

Very excited for this episode because it’s someone, Danton, that, you’ll hear me mention in the actual interview, but I’m kind of a fanboy of. His name is Bruce Williams, owns a very unique company down in Farmington, Missouri, called US Tool, and the conversation really spans a lot of different topics.

Danton: Yeah, and I think when you first talk about US Tool, it doesn’t maybe sound terribly exciting.

Kyle: Not on a script, yes.

Danton: Yeah, but once you hear Bruce start talking about it and his passion around making tools, and it’s certainly more than that. I think the business is, what it’s doing obviously matters, but his culture and the story behind it is fascinating. From the culture he’s built, going from 20 employees to 1,200, and potentially having a fourth generation in the business, it’s not something you hear about every day.

Kyle: It really is not, and in this interview, there were a number of things that I learned, like how all of this really did get started, and I won’t give it away right now, let Bruce take the punchline on this, but it’s definitely not what I originally thought it was. And he really starts to speak about the genesis of the company, how they transitioned amongst now two generations, and really what he’s kind of carved out for himself.

Danton: Yeah, it’s really one of the more interesting stories from a family business that I’ve heard.

Kyle: All right, without further ado, this is our conversation with Bruce Williams.

At this time, it’s our pleasure to welcome Bruce Williams to Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most. Bruce, how are you doing today?

Bruce: I am doing just great. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Kyle: Awesome, and frankly, I’m gonna fanboy out here a little bit. This has been one of the guests I’ve been looking forward to the most, because I really find your and your family’s story interesting.

Bruce: Well, good.

Kyle: So, if you could kind of briefly describe the company that you and your family have, and describe a little bit of where you all are today, the area that you play in or work in, and kind of how you’ve integrated your family into the business.

Bruce: Okay, yeah. Well, I’ll start out, my father actually started the business. He was in the shoe business in the early ’50s, right after the war. And he manufactured women’s shoes, of all things. And that was one of the first industries that kind of got shipped overseas and became very competitive. And one of his vice presidents came in his office one day and said, boy, this business really stinks. We need to do something different.

And so they got into reconditioning cutting tools. And that was the origin of the company. It’s called U.S. Tool Grinding. And we started, my father started grinding twist drills and other cutting tools. And the company has grown, I joined the company, it’s grown over the years. And back in, I think it was 1974, I joined the company, and there was about 20 employees. We now have 1,000 employees, actually 1,200. And we’ve grown quite a bit over the years.

And primarily our business now is reconditioning cutting tools for the aerospace industry, mostly fighter jet manufacturers and commercial jet manufacturers. And also, providing manufacturing supplies to our customers. We do that by having warehouses throughout North America. And we supply materials and supplies to our customers on the shop floor through vending solutions. We actually have vending machines, kind of like, you know the vending machines where you go up and you’ve got a sandwich in there and you press a button and the little wheel turns around. You say, that’s the sandwich I want. And then you put your money in and the door opens.

Well, in this case, these are high-powered sandwich machines that have computers in them. And the mechanics go up to the machine and they punch in what material or supply they need…a precision micrometer, gloves, safety glasses, precision cutting tools, diamond cutting tools, those kinds of things, very sophisticated things. And they punch that in and then the wheel turns around and the appropriate door opens up and they take out that item. At that time, we charge the customer for it and we can track what program it’s being used on, who’s using it, and all that kind of stuff. So, then we keep track of the fact that they’ve used X number of these and then we buy replenishment for that and obviously refill our warehouses and make sure that they have the right tools, the right supplies and everything at the right time.

Kyle: I told you it was interesting.

Danton: That’s quite a jump from women’s shoes.

Bruce: Very big jump, exactly, yes, yes.

Danton: So, when did that transition really occur? I mean, women’s shoes to grinding tools is quite a jump.

Bruce: It’s a big jump. Actually, the cutting tools, the women’s shoes was in the early ’50s. And when my father moved away from that and went into the drill reconditioning business, that’s when the shoe factory was closed and that was the end of that, of course.

So that’s when my father started building the company up and getting various customers. And in the beginning, his thinking was he was gonna do business primarily with McDonnell Douglas, which is now Boeing, here in St. Louis. And that was his first customer.

And then he realized that he could venture out into the other industries like automotive business and trailer body manufacturing, bus manufacturing, and so on. But most of our business now is aerospace, fighter jet manufacturing. Boeing is a big customer of ours. Northrop Grumman, General Electric..we have a number of customers spread out through North America.

Kyle: Very cool. So, you had talked about that your dad got this business going after women’s shoes kind of went overseas and he got into the tool grinding. You’ve been instrumental in growing the business, and then now your son, or one of your children, has really now – third generation. And we talk a lot around here about succession planning and family business. There’s a lot of analogies…the first generation comes along and really blood, sweat and tears grinds it, the second generation grows it, and then the third one ruins it.

Bruce: Your words, not mine.

Kyle: We’ve had the pleasure of meeting your son, Brent, and kind of describe how you guys work in the business together. Because again, you were very instrumental in growing US Tool, and I got to imagine that the transition, the handoff to that, can’t necessarily be, all right, son, here’s the keys. I’ll see you later. It is much more involved in that.

Bruce: Absolutely. And, first of all, Brent does a fantastic job. And that analogy of the third generation ruins the businesses, that really isn’t quite true. And certainly, in this case, it is not true. Brent is actually the president of the company now. He’s been with the company 15 years now. And he basically runs the business now.

I’m still very involved. I’m concentrating more on the things that I like to do more and more.

I like to design machinery and equipment and work on some of the technical aspects of the company. And that’s what I focus on. And I do training and training videos and those kinds of things.

He basically runs the business as president; I’m the CEO, which is the title that you give to the person you kick upstairs to get them out of the way.

Danton: Good to know.

Bruce: Exactly, very good to know.

Danton: So, you started working for your father…

Bruce: Yes.

Danton: And now your son is working for you. How has that dynamic changed? Or were there differences between working for your father and now obviously your son? Or did you try to take some takeaways from that?

Kyle: Well, and too, and to piggyback on that, I’m curious to understand. There was a period of time where I worked with my dad in his business, and we are obviously not working in the same business anymore. So, was there, to piggyback on Danton’s question, were there lessons you learned in working with your dad, things that he did well, or things that you would change when you started to have Brent come along, and you kind of shifted roles from being the generation coming in to the generation doing the mentoring?

Bruce: Well, first of all, when Brent first came into the…

Well, let’s go back even earlier. When I came into the business, there were about 20, maybe 30 employees. And I was concerned about that: How are my father and I gonna get along? And we’re gonna work together well? and all that kind of stuff. And we did. And we did so because he basically gave me free reign.

I’d say, I think we ought to do this, we ought to do that. And he’d say, that’s fine, that’s fine. I didn’t find out until many, many years later when my mother told me after he had passed away, when he was, unfortunately, when he was 61, he passed away after I’d been with the company about five years. And I found out many, many years later, she said, my father used to come home and say, you won’t believe what he’s doing now.

Kyle: I can imagine.

Bruce: But it was a different thinking process. When I first started there, I can remember the tools that we used to, the hand tools we used, there’s a hand tool called an Allen wrench. It’s a very inexpensive tool. Probably back then they cost 50 cents or a dollar or something like that. And when I first arrived at the company, the company was probably 2,000 square feet or something like that in size. But they only had one set of Allen wrenches. And everybody was running around, hey, do you have the Allen wrench? Do you have the 3 /32nds Allen wrench? I need it now.

And so I thought, well, this is crazy. So I bought like eight sets of Allen wrenches. And when my father found out about it, he said, what do you think we’re made of money?

Kyle: Spent a whopping $4.

Bruce: Right, exactly. So, he really…at that time, we were running the business very much on a shoestring, you know, and all that. But he really gave me the…he didn’t second guess me on things, He let me do things and make my mistakes. I made mistakes and then he went back and corrected them.

I remember the first day I walked in and I sat down and we chatted for a little while, and finally I said to my dad, what should I do? What do you think I ought to do? And he said, well, I don’t know. Why don’t you go out and watch the guys grind tools and you know, you’ll kind of figure it out. And that was the last time we had to sit down and lay out a strategy or say, dad, what should I do? I just went out there and started figuring things out and started making changes in the plant and that kind of stuff.

But my mother, as I said, said many years later, he’d get furious at some of the crazy things I do, but they obviously worked, right? And we kind of had a different vision. I remember in the early days I said, dad, we’ve got, I think we should move these machines over to an area where we can accommodate more of these machines in the future. And he said, well, we got six of these now. Why would we? We don’t need any more. And I said, well, someday we’re going to have like 12; and we’ve got 40 of them now, so, you know, it’s that type of thing.

So, then Brent, when he came into the business, he has his MBA. I have an engineering degree, but he has an engineering degree and an MBA.

Kyle: All right.

Bruce: And when he came into business, I thought, you know, I really didn’t have very many business classes and he’s going to come in here. He’s got his MBA and we’re probably going to be clashing on a lot of things.

And so, but he would come in, he’d come in my office, and he’d say, well, dad, how do you, what’s your philosophy on how you set pricing? What’s your philosophy on how you do this, how you do that? And I’d give it to him, you know, and he’d come up and say, well, that’s pretty much what I learned in school. That’s pretty much what my professor said. And I thought, really? So, kind of out of the school of hard knocks, I figured some of those things out.

Danton: You should have an honorary degree somewhere.

Bruce: That’s exactly right. I should have. Yeah, absolutely.

But Brent and I get along very well. And he’s got very good judgment and we are very much in agreement on many of the thought processes of running the business. And we have the same desire to have a really good culture in the company. And he’s very good at supporting that culture, as I think I have been too. And he makes, you know, really good business judgments and we’re building a great team, He’s building a great team around him.

And, I built a good team around me and many of those people are the same people. But then as they are, as my team is kind of starting to age out and retire and so on and so forth or get close to that, he’s building his own team underneath and alongside that team. So, it’s been a really good process.

Danton: So have you gone home, has there been a time when you’re like, what is he doing now?

Bruce: You know, actually, no. There really has not been. You know, we agree on things. It’s almost scary how much.

Danton: I was gonna say.

Bruce: And, you know, in the beginning when he first became president, he’d sometimes come to my office and say, you know, the whole management team is thinking this way and I’m thinking we ought to go this way, a different direction here. And what do you think?

And I’ll go, well, I agree with you, Brent, because it’s really hard when you’re a leader when all of your team agrees, and says, yeah, I think we should go this way, that makes it easy. But when they don’t agree and they don’t agree with your approach, now you’ve got to question, to say, well, am I right or wrong on this? And it’s really nice to have somebody there to go to and say, well, this is kind of what I’m thinking and get a little bit of confidence.

That doesn’t happen very often because even the team gets along well and thinks similarly, although you don’t want a team that thinks always the same. You gotta have alternative views and other ideas and things that go like, whoa, I didn’t think of it that way. I need to reconsider my position.

And you need to also be careful you don’t get locked into your way of thinking and not be open to other people’s suggestions, other ideas, and that sort of thing.

So, I miss that with my father. And unfortunately, when he passed away, I’d only been with the company about four or five years, and I really did rely on him. I’d go and say, what do you think about doing this? Or what do you think about doing that? And he’d have an opinion. And sometimes I would say, well, I think I’m gonna go ahead and do it anyway.

And that’s when he’d go home and say, well, I can’t believe he did this!

Kyle: You bring up a fantastic point about leadership in that so much of this is we have a lot of data, we have a lot of analytics, we have great teams around us. There’s an element I still think, too, and you might be able to speak to this, sometimes you can take all of that in…you have an opinion, you have something formed and it might be deadlocked, but there’s almost like a gut feeling at times. The great leaders really, I think, listen to their gut.

And has there been a time in the business with either with you or with Brent where maybe whether it was an acquisition, a product line or something in the marketplace where you kind of swam in a different direction just kind of based on a gut feeling?

Bruce: Actually, I can tell you a specific story. This is actually before Brent came, but my team and I were meeting about, at that time Boeing was ramping up and we were needing to build some new equipment and to cope with this buildup, okay? And they came to me and said, well, we got together and said, well, what are we gonna do here? And I said, well, I think we ought to build this new piece of equipment that would be more versatile. So, and they said, no, I think we should build what we know works even though it’s not a versatile piece of equipment.

So, we went back and forth and ran around for like a week or two on this. And I said, guys, I don’t think you’re thinking right about this. And I, but I couldn’t get any progress. And my gut told me, I think they’re making a mistake by thinking this way, okay?

So, I really try to run the company on a consensus basis and it’s really unusual that we all don’t eventually work it out and finally decide. We kind of all agree on this path and either I would change my mind or they would, or we’d come up with better ideas. That happened all the time. So, I never liked to come in and say, okay, you all, we’re gonna go this direction and I don’t care what you say. That’s just not a team building thing.

So, in this case, and I’ve done this only on rare occasions, but in this case, I came in the next day after we had had a long discussion and I said to them, you guys, I know we’re on opposite pages on this thought process, on this machine. I still feel very strongly that we need to go direction A, and you think we should go direction B. So, I said, I took it to the board of directors last night and I asked them to help resolve this. I told them and I gave them your point of view. I was completely fair, and I explained the whole thing. And they came back and said, no, Bruce, we agree with you. We should do A. So, I’m telling you now, we’re gonna go with the direction of the board of directors. We have no choice there.

Of course, they knew that I WAS the board of directors.

Danton: It was a unanimous vote though.

Bruce: It was a unanimous vote.

Kyle: Well, I mean, at least you took it to the board.

Bruce: Right, exactly. So, it was my way of saying, hey, we’re still on the same team, but these big, ugly, terrible board of directors are making us make the decision that happens to favor my side of it. And they all said, we get it. This is your company and I understand you are the board of directors and you are the president at that time. And we made that decision.

Interestingly, we ramped up and we built 10 of these machines, and we built them in a rapid succession. And then all of a sudden, the Boeing project slowed down, they went through a down cycle and we had 10 of these machines sitting there. And it took us about two years after that to get the versatility built into them where they could do other product. And those machines now are the backbone of part of our departments that really make us efficient, and it worked out. But there for the two years, it was like, I hope they don’t come in and say, we told you so. Those machines are sitting there doing nothing.

Kyle: Well, at that point you say, the board of directors really just kind of messed us over.

Bruce: There you go. So that’s a great idea, I never thought of that. It’s a wonderful idea.

Danton: It kind of leads into, you said culture is very important and, obviously, you are the leader. You talk about the other board directors – it’s kind of a joke – but talk about the culture of your company and why that has been so important and instrumental to the growth.

Bruce: Well, first of all, both Brent and I really believe in, and my father started this, the golden rule. You want to treat people the way you would want to be treated. So many companies miss out on an opportunity to treat their employees fairly and considerately and with respect, and it’s just bad business thinking. And besides, it’s just not the right thing to do. So we are very, very, feel like it’s very important to treat people like family members. And we promote that, and it’s not easy. The bigger you get, the more difficult that becomes and so we try to be fair. Many, many, many years ago, we would have department meetings and stuff like that, and somebody would say, I can’t believe the company has this policy that does this and that. And we’d stand up and be very defensive about, oh, well, we do that because of this and this.

We started learning, I started learning, many years ago to quit being so defensive about that and go like, and now I can say, really, we have a policy like that? That happened to that person? We need to fix that. But we really work at having that, we have a good culture.

We have a lot of events in the company to show appreciation. We have a picnic, a company picnic and we have an event pretty much every month, some kind of an event. We’ll bring in pizza during the day and just say, hey, great job last month on production. Appreciate it. We have the coffee truck come every once in a while and give everybody one of these $5 coffees. I can’t believe how expensive coffee is now.

But the main thing is, our employees also care about each other. We have a Care and Share. Probably one of my favorite things about the company, we have a Care and Share where employees each week, if they choose to, put money in, you know, $1.50, $2, whatever they want. And that goes into a fund where if one employee runs into a difficult time, a health issue, a family issue, a housing issue or whatever, then a group of employees take that money and help out our fellow employees in the company, which is great. I really, really think that’s fantastic. We care about each other, and I think that’s important. You know, our employees have to be in there to earn a living for their families; they need to be there 40 to 45 hours a week. And we need to work hard, but we can have fun while we’re doing that. We have music piped in to the whole plant, we’re air conditioned, in fact, we just finished air conditioning. We had one third of our building, the biggest part where most people were, air conditioned for years. We just, this year, air conditioned the second part of the building, and in about two months, about October, when the weather turns good, our final air conditioner will come in and we’ll have all of our employees in air-conditioned comfort, which really makes a difference, I think.

Kyle: Definitely does, especially in Missouri summers.

Bruce: Absolutely.

Kyle: We’ve talked a lot about the business. We’ve talked about your family, the lineage that you have, and how that is such a powerful thing for US Tool. But pivoting to you directly a little bit, you mentioned what your role is today, kind of working on what you want to work on. We’ve had some conversations, you’ve got a wonderful engineering mind. And so you’re working on those things. Is that what keeps you excited and engaged day to day?

Bruce: Yeah, it really does. That’s for me, if you’re going to be involved in a company and in a leadership role, you’ve either got to be in or out, okay, you know. But most of the time when I’m, what I really enjoy doing is the design work and stuff like that. But you’ve got to go to meetings, and you’ve got to help manage the company, and you got to help make decisions, and stuff like that. But for many, many years, I pretty much solo made those decisions and ran the company and was very, very involved in every decision and that sort of thing.

And about 25 years ago, actually Peter called me up and said, hey, we’re having a seminar here in St. Louis you may be interested in. And it was actually a seminar on preparing your company to sell, okay, which I have no interest in doing. I want to keep the company, I’m passing it on to, and we’ll talk about that later, I’m sure. But I want to keep it in the family, all right.

But I went to the seminar, and it basically said there’s two types of entrepreneurs. There are entrepreneurs that build their company up to about $9 million and they continue to do everything, they continue to make all the decisions, and all that kind of stuff. And usually those companies just kind of fizzle out and decay.

There’s other entrepreneurs that recognize the fact that they can’t do it all and that there are other people that are smarter than them and that they need to hire those people and have them help run the company. And that usually happens around $9 million, as I said.

So, I went back and I looked at our sales and we were at $9 million, coincidentally. I think they actually said $10 million, but we were at $9 million, okay. And I thought, you know, I want to be one of those entrepreneurs, and so I said, I need to go out and start looking for people that are smarter than me to help run the business because you can’t do everything yourself. And I thought at first, well, there’s nobody smarter than me. And then I started hiring other people and realized everybody was smarter than me!

So that’s when the company really started taking off, was when I started getting in good and promoting and passing on responsibility. And one of the things I learned in that seminar was quit making all the decisions yourself.

So, by this time, emails were starting to come in and you kind of run your business by emails. And it used to be that somebody would say, we’ve got a big problem, and I’d get on there on my keyboard and boy, I’d answer that problem, say, this is what we need to do. This is what we’re going to do. And all discussion ended at that time. Once the boss speaks, that’s it, that’s the solution. So I learned to say, that an email would come out that there was some problem and I would say, I’m not going to answer that. I’m going to, I’m just going to see what the group says. And all of a sudden I started looking at the solutions that they came up with and I started realizing, you know, their solution is actually better than what I would have pounded out at the very beginning.

And I started realizing I need to kind of just sit down and let things happen and let these skilled, smart people around me make the decisions in their areas. So gradually over about a 20-year period, I feel like I’ve gotten the company independent of me. In fact, I have. Twenty years ago, if I got a cold, the company got a cold, if you know what I’m saying. That isn’t true anymore. The company runs itself. I’m not involved in every decision. I don’t need to be involved in every decision. We have capable, competent people that are perfectly capable of doing that and they do it all day long.

Danton: I guess that kind of leads into the next question of how long do you think you will continue to do this and what does that look like? I mean, if you’re doing what you like, why stop?

Bruce: Well, I have a lot of friends and a lot of people and many employees, that that’s all they think about is how much longer till I retire. I actually have no interest in retiring. I could right now, I could retire. I could be very comfortable and all that. But I actually enjoy being involved and having a purpose and a need and the ability to help the company be better and grow and improve and all that sort of thing. And, you know, I’m not crazy about going to meetings all the time and answering emails. And, you know, you sit down at your desk and there’s 500 emails you got to answer and you go like, oh my gosh. So there’s good and bad with everything, but I enjoy getting up in the morning and having something that I need to do. I do have hobbies and I’m able to incorporate those with my work. I can be away from the plant and still, with the internet and everything like that, I can get my work done, do the parts that I like, and also go to the meetings and all that sort of thing. Obviously virtual meetings are very effective.

So you asked, how long will I work? I actually don’t have any plans to officially retire. They will probably haul me out of the plant in a wheelbarrow. And I always joke and say, you know, I did the layout of the plant where we are now and I always say, well, I’m going to work until I’m driving around in my hover around thing. I’m driving around like that. I’m going like, I should have put more bathrooms in this place, they’re too far apart.

But I probably will be working until I get to the point that I can’t, and more and more, I think I’ll do more of the design work and training videos and things that I enjoy doing and continue to take myself out of the day-to-day management and operations of things. Although I’ll always be somewhat involved.

Kyle: You’ve done, like I said, at the top of this time together, definitely a fanboy type of a deal, because the way that you’ve structured the company, the way that you put things in place, the way you’ve kind of designed and carved out your role, very inspiring. There’s going to be a number of people that are, you know, maybe potentially at that $9 million mark and you’ve just given them like the golden ticket for business, I think, to a degree. But, you know, just so cool to hear the story and to hear family business continue on throughout the generations, which is something that we think is fantastic. It’s amazing to hear too, that your desire to have that continue to carry on. And frankly, your humility with it too is pretty awesome.

Bruce: Well, I’m lucky too, because I have a son who is capable and interested and who also wants to carry it on through his family. And so many entrepreneurs build their business up and then, what do you do with it if you don’t have a lineage to pass it down to? You end up selling it.

Well, I’ve seen, I’ve had a lot of friends who have built businesses up and they sell it and they work for the company for a while and then it just seldom works out. You know, the company comes in and starts making decisions that are totally financially-based, maybe not culturally-based, and the companies just change.

And one of the benefits that I’ve got is I can ride off into the sunset and I have a very capable son that can do all the, run the company and keep it going, keep it healthy, and then I can just start doing the things that I like to do, which is design machines and stuff like that. And, you know, maybe here or maybe in Florida or wherever I wanna be, you know.

Kyle: Well, it doesn’t have $5 coffee in it, but we do have a small token of our appreciation for you coming on the podcast today. It’s one of our mugs.

Bruce: Well, thank you, appreciate that.

Kyle: So the next time you do have the coffee truck on site, you just roll that up there, maybe that’ll only be $3.50.

Bruce: Okay, very good, I appreciate it so much.

Kyle: Well, Bruce, just wanted to say thank you again and appreciate you joining us here on Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most.

Bruce: Okay, well, thank you. Thank you for having me. Thanks.

Kyle: And Danton, that was a fascinating, and I mean fascinating, conversation with Bruce Williams about his family business, US Tool. A lot of things that I learned through that whole deal, mainly women’s shoes was the original genesis of where all this started. But also too, like, you know, how this business has now spanned three generations, the way they’ve set it up. And really to me, I’ll start off by sharing some takeaways, like really what Bruce’s inflection point was, and when the business really started to take off, what that kind of looked like. So I open it up to you. I mean, it was a fascinating conversation.

Danton: Yeah, I think one of the things that I picked up on that I’ve seen across doing several of these, you know, podcast interviews, you know, and enjoying maybe later stages of work, and I won’t say retirement, because Bruce says he doesn’t ever really see himself retiring, but focusing on the things you like, and being able to have that flexibility within your work.

And I’ve seen that for business owners, but I’ve also seen people, or just – it’s not just – but employees, where they’re able to maybe refocus their attention and their duties on the things that they like to do a little bit more. And I think just having the freedom to be able to do that is very empowering. And part of that is all the decisions you’re making along the way to save and put yourself in a position to really, if it doesn’t work out, you’re able to walk out the door.

I think Bruce has done that with finding a good succession plan, which isn’t easy. But he’s able to kind of check all those boxes, which I think has given him the ability to keep working the way he wants.

Kyle: Yeah, and he hit on something that was very important for a business owner, especially whether you sell the business, or in his case, keeping it in the family now, three generations sounds like it’s gonna go to four, is finding that successor and then also empowering. He learned that lesson from his dad; he’s passed that along to his son. So, it was interesting to hear kind of both sides. And I think the funniest part of the podcast was when his dad would come home and tell his mom, can you believe…? It’s so interesting, but that next generation feeling empowered to leave their mark on the business ultimately helps it grow and really got Bruce to the point where he was able to carve out what he really wants to do. And frankly, where he’s probably the most helpful and most useful to the business. Because that was the story he shared about bringing in the additional capabilities from the plant in California.

Danton: Yeah, and that obviously, you know, all of this didn’t happen overnight. So, being able to think forward enough and not just say, I’m 65, I’m gonna retire. I think having that plan in place, it was key. I mean, just being able to think through what that’s gonna look like. And I’m sure it didn’t end up exactly the way he thought it was, but it seems to have worked out pretty well for him.

Kyle: It definitely did. And to hear from him saying, you know, look, they’re basically gonna have to take me out of there in a wheelbarrow.

So that speaks to if you’re really enjoying what you’re doing, if you’re using your God-given talents and you’re having fun and engagement, why retire?

Danton: Yeah, and he’s the one who created that for himself. So you can’t look for other people to do that for you. I mean, you have to have that intention to be able to do that.

Kyle: Again, any final thoughts from Bruce here as we kind of wrap up and head for home?

Danton: Yeah, I think it just illustrates once again, having a plan and thinking through these things that are important to you. And we all get busy in the day-to-day life, but stopping to think about what truly is most important.

Kyle: Yeah, I could not agree more.

Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most is a production of Moneta’s Gast Freeman Troyer Racen Team, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Until next time, enjoy what matters most.

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Kyle: Welcome to another edition of Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most, a podcast about the nuances of life. I’m Kyle Luetters, joined by Danton Troyer, and we’re both on the Gast Freeman Troyer Racen Team at Moneta, a registered investment advisory firm.

Danton, typically, we will have a guest on the show and we’re talking to someone about their experiences in life, their stories. But today…no guest, but we’re still sharing some of what I would say is the wisdom that you and I have gleaned over our time in the profession that we’re in. And we’re talking about retirement.

We’re talking about some of the best practices that we’ve observed in retirement. And again, everybody’s story is different. Everybody’s story is unique.

But we’ve kind of been talking about the things that we’ve noticed that the folks that seem most happy, most fulfilled in retirement, what they kind of do.

Danton: Yeah, I mean, we’ve heard stories from different individuals. But there’s also stories that we just share from doing this over the last 17 years and seeing some folks have been more successful than others in their retirement; how they approach it matters.

Kyle: And so that’s what we’re going to talk about today, just some of those stories. Yeah, and so we’ve kind of taken some of our observations here together and it will just kind of start rolling with those.

But, you know, Danton, it’s been very interesting. You mentioned the time that you’ve been doing this. I’ll say that hasn’t been quite as long, but it’s now been long enough, I do have a few gray hairs to help mark the passage of time and I’ve had the privilege of working with a number of folks that were either retired when I started or have since retired. And one of the things I wanted to kind of toss out there was this idea of the folks that seem to be the most happy, most fulfilled in retirement…they have a good idea of the types of activities that they want to do when they get there.

But they’re also open to changing them. You know, we hear the story all the time of like, if I could retire and just play golf every day, that would be great. And I know that’s probably right in your wheelhouse.

Danton: It doesn’t sound too bad.

Kyle: Exactly. But sometimes what we hear is, is that folks will retire, they think they’re going to do one thing, but then they end up doing other things and they kind of find themselves a little bit in retirement.

Danton: Yeah. And we’ve seen folks that go in thinking, I’m going to have all this free time. I think that’s the biggest thing people maybe are surprised about as they start to plan out their activities is that they don’t have that much free time between, maybe volunteering and maybe golf and a couple other things. I mean, your schedule is pretty full. Hopefully it’s doing things that are more enjoyable than going to the office every day, but people are a lot busier than I think they anticipate being when they head into retirement.

Kyle: You know, that was one of the funniest things. We have a client down, down in the Mid-South, I would say. And he says, gosh, I don’t know how I ever had the time to work! So, to your point, there is a lot that goes into the activities. And then we’ve seen, we’ve mentioned golf, so activity type stuff, taking more yoga classes or Pilates classes, volunteerism.

Danton: Yeah. I think that’s a big one that we’ve seen a lot and also contributes to maybe filling up calendars potentially a little bit faster because there’s plenty of folks that need help out there and plenty of opportunities to volunteer. And so, if you are willing to volunteer for one of those organizations, they’ll use you as much time as you’ll let them.

Kyle: Well, and also too, it does help fulfill this kind of innate human feeling of needing, or excuse me, wanting to feel needed, wanting to feel like you belong. And when you think about it, we work for the majority of our lifetime, we have a purpose when we get up in the morning and it’s usually to go and do a vocation. When you get into retirement, sometimes that volunteering, that having a place to go, that sense of being needed is actually very, very powerful.

Danton: Yeah. And we’ve heard that from even guests talking about not quite being ready to retire simply because they feel like they have more to give. And I’ve heard that from especially higher level executives and they just feel like there’s more to give back into maybe the business world. And I think part of that is they haven’t figured out how they can give back in retirement as well and maybe in a different way.

Kyle: And one thing that we’ve heard too is that a lot of folks will say, I want to retire from something, but really it’s retiring to something or somethings, so to speak.

Danton: Absolutely. Well, I think one of the other ones that I’ve seen is folks trying to rely on their friends, family, coworkers, nowadays, social media, as they’re going into retirement or really any financial decision. And I think those folks that are able to be secure and confident in their financial plan have less distractions as it comes to making these very important decisions. And, unfortunately, we’ve seen people make some pretty poor decisions in doing that, but also folks that have been able to kind of block that out. And then they bring the questions to us all the time and I think in a good way, versus some folks maybe don’t bring them to us and just execute on them on their own. And a lot of times we end up cleaning up mistakes that they thought were a great idea, but potentially were not.

Kyle: We call this brother-in-law at Thanksgiving dinner advice, and not to pick on brother-in-laws, I am a brother-in-law, and sometimes I do have bad ideas at Thanksgiving dinner. But, you bring up an excellent point in that one of the most beautiful things about what we do is each individual plan, each individual set of circumstances is customized to someone’s retirement, to someone’s goals and objectives. And frankly, selfishly, that’s one of the most fun things about what we get to do is that no financial plan is exactly the same. No set of circumstances is exactly the same. So, each day, each year by year, it’s different.

Danton: Correct. Yeah. And I think my example, I won’t say which family, but I was at Thanksgiving one year and there was an argument over basically what Medicare supplement someone’s having. Someone said, I’m on a, well, they didn’t say exactly, but I’m on a Medicare Advantage and it’s free and you should definitely be on that one. And I always sit back quietly. I was like, well, they may have other health issues. I mean, you have no idea what their circumstances are to give them that advice, especially not at Thanksgiving dinner.

So, I hope that person kind of went back and thought about it as it relates to themselves versus just taking blanket advice. And I may see that with social media, you know folks send us these -what seem like great ideas – but if you peel back a little bit, it doesn’t work for them in any way. And in fact, could potentially hurt them if they would have tried that strategy just because it didn’t work for them, but it may not have been necessarily wrong.

Kyle: At times it’s very difficult to paint with a very broad brush. There’s a lot of little nuance and detail that some of those smaller brushes can help provide the color on. You know, one thing too, to bear in mind as well, that’s different for each and every plan and client and family is, and this is I think a best practice, is having a good idea on monthly and or annual spending numbers. Because when we’re working, we can continue to earn a paycheck. So, if we’re spending money, we know that we’re still going to work. Hopefully we’re getting a raise or we’re going to move to a different job and make additional money and that’s going to take care of that when you get into retirement. It is really kind of interesting because you’re no longer earning. You’re now shifting gears to spending rather than accumulating at that point. So, the vast majority of the time, when we’re taking a look at financial plans and projections and things like this and that, one of the biggest things that drives success is that expense and that spending number.

Danton: Yeah. I feel like that’s something we talk about almost every meeting with a client and it’s either one or two ways where they have been a great saver their whole lives and they’re actually struggling to spend the dollars versus the other side where they’re calling up asking for more money every year. And they thought that they were only going to live on X amount of dollars, but it turned out to be quite a bit more and it was a surprise to them. And so I think having a good handle on that, going into retirement is one of the biggest keys, certainly for success. And obviously the goal is not running out of money.

Kyle: Now, I think that’s very important to notate that. And one thing that is kind of like a subset best practice I would say is, is that in the maybe two to three years before someone fully retires is, is going through some sort of a tracking exercise to really kind of get an idea. A ballpark is really what we’re asking, like a ballpark because some years are going to be more expensive than others. Some months are more expensive than others. We both have kids so it seems to me like December’s always usually more expensive than June, but then again, who knows, depends on when you take a vacation. So, that’s definitely one I think we would like to share with everyone is just kind of having an idea of the spending amounts, just that way we can have confidence in the plan.

Danton: Yeah, I agree. We see folks that have, like I said, done a good job saving on the flip side of that is allowing them to enjoy their retirement with the money that they’re spending. And we see so often where someone’s like, well, I can’t take that trip or I can’t, you know, do this home upgrade that I’ve always wanted to do. And the reality is once we run the numbers, they absolutely can and should. But then they also maybe say, well, I want to increase my spending on a monthly basis. And that has a much larger effect on their plan than that one-time spending. They should do that one thing, but maybe not increase their spending by 20% every month. That may not work out for them in the way that they think.

Kyle: You hit on something that I think is one of the most fascinating aspects to retirement, which is we spend, again, the majority of our life working and saving. And then there’s a mindset shift where, and some folks handle it better than others, but kind of unpack a little bit what you’ve seen in your experiences, Danton, from when you have a really good saver that in the lead up to retirement has done a phenomenal job. The portfolio looks great, but then they struggle when they get to retirement about actually spending, because you touched on a little bit about, hey, doing that one thing or this or that.

Danton: Yeah. I think of one client specifically, she recently retired and they had great pensions, which makes it easier. And they thought they couldn’t get a new house. There was no reason they couldn’t upgrade their house, math-wise. I think that was just a big stumbling block for them because they saw it as they almost didn’t deserve it. Like they just worked. I mean, she was a teacher and they just really saved really, really well, which they should be able to do those things that they worked their whole lives for. And so by having the conversation and showing kind of the numbers of how that would actually work out, we were able to make that happen for them. And, it’s not that we did anything necessarily different than we would for anybody else, but just giving them the confidence to move forward with that, I think is huge because they may still be living in the old house and not taking the trips that they wanted to do. But their monthly spending is fairly low, so that’s how they’re going to be able to afford that is because they did such a great job saving. And, but because they did such a great job saving, they’re not used to being able to spend and take those trips that they kind of put off until retirement. And there’s no right or wrong. I mean, some folks want to spend more of their money during their working years and maybe a little bit less in retirement. There’s no one way to do it, but in their case, they had basically put everything off and now we’re going to do it, but it’s hard to mentally get over that block of, I can do this now.

Kyle: Yeah, what else you got on your list?

Danton: I think that was some of the bigger topics that we covered actually. One of the other things I guess that I see kind of along the same lines though folks plan the retirement, not necessarily about what they want, but what maybe the government tells them that is available. So, everybody walks in and says I want to retire at…you should pick an age, like 65, 62, 70, even, and those are all numbers that have to do with social security payments, Medicare payments. So I think, maybe stepping back and asking the question of when do you actually want to retire? Not necessarily because of one of these deadlines. Does 63 makes sense? Then let’s figure out how to make that work versus, well, I’m going to wait until 65, just because that’s when I get Medicare.

We can easily account for private insurance and those types of things. That’s probably scary for them. But I think once you have that plan in place, it allows you again, to have that confidence to be able to retire at 63 versus wait an extra two years that maybe you don’t even need to. And so I think that’s one thing I see a lot of folks target ages more around the government benefits versus what do they actually want? What makes sense for their life?

Kyle: You bring up a very good point that it always just seems like there are these cultural, there’s these cultural flags in the sand, so to speak, and there’s these various ages. I was meeting with a couple the other day that are originally from Brazil and their view on retirement and their view on how we do retirement in this country fascinates them because it’s so culturally different than what they grew up with, what they saw their grandparents go through, what they’re seeing their parents now go through. So, again, because they’re asking all these questions about, Hey, well, we have these different types of accounts here in the United States, where in Brazil, there’s one and healthcare is basically a flat fee per month for the rest of your life. So Medicare, and all this other stuff is not even a consideration. Whereas in our society, in our culture, I mean, we’ve got these flags here. So, fascinating stuff.

One thing I wanted to touch on, and this is kind of one of the final bigger pieces that I had was, there’s a word out there we try to use when we’re talking about retirement and goals and everything like that. And that word is contentment. And I think in this instance, contentment means that you’ve defined your goals, you know what you’re aiming at, and you’ve kind of designed this retirement and you’re at peace with it. And to your point about speaking with others and trying to do this and that, your plan may not support that, or your plan may more than support that.

So having the contentment, not only to be happy with the plan, but also maybe you need to have the contentment and the confidence to adjust it up as well too, as if your desire is not to leave a large sum of money or a large sum of assets to the next generation, then, be content with not doing that and spending some more of it while you’re still walking the earth, so to speak.

Danton: Yeah, I think having that plan, as we’ve talked about, is vital for a number of reasons. And really, we see kind of those different stages – that five years leading up to retirement is kind of a special stage of when people start to realize it’s coming.

And I’ve seen many folks get to that date we said we were going to retire and are like, I can’t do it. And I think a lot of it is because it was this abstract in their mind, no matter how much we planned and put into it. When the date comes, it can be tough. And so I think the more time you spend talking through it certainly makes an easier transition.

And then you’ve got those five years afterwards, where you’re still trying to figure out and everybody’s a little different, maybe it may not be fully five years, but people are adjusting to not going to work every day.

We’ve heard some good stories about that transition from other folks on the podcast, and everybody’s a little different and how long it takes. I mean, some people jump right in and they’re fine. I would say that’s not typical. I mean usually at least a year to maybe on the short side maybe six months, then I think folks really start to settle into the retirement. And then again, they come back to the plan, they have a new perspective, again on the planning process. And then 10 years into retirement, they’re pretty comfortable with their plan.

But even later in life, then there’s those questions of should I be gifting to kids, grandkids? What does that look like? So, I think there are phases even as you’re in retirement, that are important and take time to adjust to,

Kyle: We had a couple in here earlier this week, the husband has been retired for a year and some change probably, and the wife just retired. And one comment she made that struck me, she looked at her husband and kind of grasped his hand and said, you took to retirement so easy, and are so content with your day-to-day reading, going here, taking a walk, this and that, and she’s really struggling. Now, she’s been retired less time. But she, by her own admission, said, I’m going to struggle with this for a while. And it’s really the way that she’s wired. You know, so I thought that one was an interesting story based on what had kind of happened today and what we’re talking about in this episode.

Danton: Yeah, it is interesting, there’s two spouses and one is they don’t retire at the same time or close to the same time. And you know, maybe someone’s working five, 10 extra years additional years, right? And how that affects their transition. And, you know, I think that’s more common now that one spouse retires sooner than the other. And then maybe there’s a couple years of transition. And you always find it interesting to see how then that second transition goes where the second spouse retires, when then they’re both home, basically, you know, for a very long weekend.

Kyle: Well, and it brings up a good point, because when someone retires, there’s a changing of the routine. And so it’s in a way where you talk about staggered retirements, it’s almost like going through a couple of routine changes, because you have the first spouse retiring, so that’s a little bit of a different routine from both spouses working full time. And then there gets to be a bit of a development going in that regard. And then the second spouse retires, and then the routine changes again, because now all the time is opened up. So that’s a good thing to think about. I’ve shared this story in some meetings, so I know you’ve heard it before. But my wife and I teach premarital, and one of the things that they teach us as facilitators to help share with newlywed couples, even couples that have been married for a while, is choose your ruts carefully, because they are difficult to get out of.

Danton: Yes.

Kyle: And so that can also kind of play into the retirement thing as well.

Danton: Yeah, I agree. For sure. I mean, we see that, especially, like I said, with the spouses, and even, you know, single folks mean there’s different transitions that they’re going through with their life as well. So, it’s good to be able to help those folks from a financial standpoint, but also just thinking through those things and sharing these stories, because they help other folks make those choices as well.

Kyle: So as we kind of head from home here, we’ve told a lot of stories, just kind of to recap a little bit, I’ll give my best practices, I’ll have Danton give his. But really, as we’re having this discussion around retirement, the idea behind this podcast episode, and the idea behind some of the stories we’ve been sharing is really to just give some perspective. And so that’s what we’re hopeful to be able to do with these. So again, I’ll recap mine, and I’ll turn it over to Danton to recap his.

1. I would say have a good idea of the types of activities you want to do, and be open to changing them. If you get to retirement, you say, Hey, I thought it was going to be this way, it’s really not I need to go find something different.

2. Having a good idea on your monthly and annual spending, because it’s going to be one of the biggest drivers of success of the plan.

3. And then lastly, for me is finding that contentment, you know, finding that peace. And when I think of the word contentment, I always think of the word peace, but kind of finding that in your overall retirement story. And for that season of life.

Danton: Yeah, overall, the theme of this is having a plan and not necessarily just a plan around the money. I mean, obviously, that’s important; that’s what we do for a living. But having those conversations around what that’s going to mean for you mentally day-to-day, it can be a challenge on the psychological side and that’s what we want to talk about as well.

When we’re making these plans, how do you actually make this work, as a spouse and a couple; you’re going from one mindset to another. So, I think having those conversations, in addition to the dollars and cents, that’s where you can have the most successful retirement.

Kyle: I appreciate that very much. And, hey, this was kind of fun, you know, where we didn’t have a guest, we’d normally like having them, but it was nice to sit here and chat with you and talk about an interesting topic. So awesome. Any other final thoughts you have?

Danton: Might have to do this format again.

Kyle: Well, until next time, enjoy what matters most! Wit, Wisdom and What Matters Most is a production of Moneta’s Gast Freeman Troyer Racen Team, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri.

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Wit, Wisdom, & What Matters Most podcast

Episode 3 featuring Sean Zalmanoff

An entrepreneur asks, “Where do you see yourself…”

Kyle: And welcome to another episode of Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most. It’s a podcast by Moneta’s Gast Freeman Troyer Racen Team. My name is Kyle Luetters, joined by Danton Troyer.

And Danton, on this episode of the podcast, the way we met this guest, or the way I met this guest, you met him when he came into the studio, but I met him at 5:30 in the morning in a park in Kirkwood about three years ago. So the gentleman’s name here today is Sean Zalmanoff. And Sean owns a mortgage company, Better Rate Mortgage.

And before we get into the mortgage industry, Sean and I do this thing, it’s a men’s workout group called F3, and you get together and you work out early in the morning. And you can tell a lot, I think, about someone’s drive and their goal setting by whether or not they’re going to show up at 5:30 in the morning, no matter rain or shine. And so in this episode, we kind of talk about how Sean got into this industry, the journey that he took to get to where he is today, because he was at one of the larger companies and won’t give away the entire thing, but there was a bit of a hard right turn, and a few other things that he brought up in his conversation about the industry itself.

Danton: Yeah, and I found it interesting just from his perspective and working through different firms, as you mentioned, and then hearing some of the stories of what to avoid, especially as a consumer in the mortgage industry, and those free lunches you hear on the radio or the TV sometimes aren’t so free. And so it was good to hear how to avoid some of those pitfalls, as well as how he manages a business, but also works with his family and is able to take care of his kids and really have a good relationship with them and use that as a drive for his business as well.

Kyle: It really was a story about an industry as well as entrepreneurship, but I think most importantly, and what I hope everyone takes away from this is the power of clear vision and what that means.

And with that being said, here’s our conversation with Sean Zalmanoff.

And back on Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most with Sean Zalmanoff, Sean, welcome to the podcast.

Sean: Thanks for having me today.

Kyle: Perfect. So, Sean, very interesting type of a conversation you and I had here a while back over a cup of coffee. We’ve been, I guess you could call it workout buddies, for quite a while through an organization called F3, and it was really the first time you and I had the chance to sit down and talk about business and what we did and how we do the things that we do.

So, you know, Better Rate Mortgage, your firm now. Describe the genesis. How did you get started in the mortgage industry? And then kind of take us through the steps, because I found it to be a very interesting story of entrepreneurship.

Sean: So I graduated college in ’00, and I wasn’t quite ready to leave school yet. So played in Columbia, Missouri for another year. 9-11 happened, and I basically become a professional job interviewer. I think I interviewed for like 60 or 70 different jobs. And so during the course of that time, what I really realized that I wanted to do, I wanted to help people and I wanted to solve problems. And sales was just a natural fit, because I like to talk to people.

And there was a gentleman who came into the bar that I managed all the time, who was very successful in the mortgage industry. And then after 9-11 happened, interest rates dropped a lot, so there was even more opportunity.

But it was really interesting from the restaurant standpoint. You know, everybody’s heard of Reagan and trickle-down economics. And so during the course of my entire college career, I mean, it was just faucet on economics. Kids had lots of money. Parents’ stock portfolios were doing really good. They spent lots of money.

9-11 happened and portfolios got cut in half and nobody spent money anymore. So, I was like, oh, you know, I think it’s time to go get a real job. Yeah.

Kyle: And obviously, too, as we’re recording this, just coming up on 23 years of that.

Sean: January 2nd will be 23 years. Yeah.

Kyle: For you inside. OK. Wow, all right. Sorry. Go ahead.

Sean: So he had an office in O’Fallon, Missouri. I worked there for a few short months. It was probably seven or eight months. I learned everything that was wrong with the industry. If you imagine like a boiler room set up where kids in the back were ripping pages out of phone books. This was before the do not call lists, and we’re just like calling people for refis and transferring up – that was what I was learning.

I almost started a company that was just going to charge a flat fee and review people’s – we called them good faith estimates at the time – where terms were laid out and just consult them and be like, pick this deal, because what they were doing was terrible. Bounced around to a couple of different companies over the next four years.

And then in 2005, I opened my own mortgage brokerage company at that time; ran that for four years. But I had never worked in a big corporate environment.

Kyle: Okay.

Sean: And so I didn’t have some of the experience that I felt that I really needed to grow and take my career to the next level. So, 2009 happens, great recession, end of days of our industry is upon us once again.

And I had an opportunity from a company too, that didn’t have a presence where my office was in St. Louis City at the time. And so they asked if I would open up an office for them. And I did and I ran that for the next 13 years. And it was a great place to work; it was a great ride.

But the last nine years that I was there, I grew my region, we were doing a lot of loans. I don’t need to share numbers, but we did a lot of loans, we helped a lot of people. But I was managing offices in five states, I was managing 70 plus people.

And the interesting thing about loan officers is loan officers are typically sad when they’re sad. And then they’re sad when they’re happy, too.

Danton: I haven’t heard that.

Kyle: That’s a wide range of emotion right there.

Sean: And so it just, it grinded on me. And so a few years ago, I was on a vacation sitting on a dock and I was just like, what do I like about the industry? What do I not like about the industry? So, I just took out the old scientific sheet of paper and I wrote everything that I liked on one side, what I didn’t like on the other. And what kept coming up was, you know, the same thing that I got me in the industry was helping people.

And for a while, I was able to help a lot of loan officers. Maybe my time had just come. Maybe my message was a little bit dull, but I wasn’t helping them in the same way that I felt I used to. Some of them were grinding on my soul a little bit as well, too.

And then I wasn’t forming any relationships. I hadn’t originated in nine years, so I wasn’t – an origination, that’s actually helping the individuals who need mortgages get mortgages. I was just managing the team.

Kyle: It’s like boots on the ground, like meeting with actual clients.

Sean: Meeting with actual people, yeah. And so I wasn’t doing that and I wasn’t forming relationships with financial planners, with realtors anymore. And it just kept coming up. These are the things that I like to do.

So, I actually cut the vacation a little bit short and I went home and I wrote a business plan and then was like, well, what company fits this model that I want to do? And there really wasn’t one out there. And just with being in the industry at that time, 20 years, I knew that I could open a company to help individuals at a cost – I could close loans at a cost that most other companies couldn’t open their doors at. And one of the things that, I like listening to other successful people, and so something that Jeff Bezos said about a decade ago that I saw in an interview. Somebody asked him, Jeff, what do you do in your industry to prepare for the next 10 years? And what is changing and how are you adapting to those changes? And he said, great question. Very political answer, you know, great question. And then answered how he wanted to answer it.

And he’s like, well, we really ask ourselves is what’s going to be the same five years from now? What are we doing better than everybody else? And how do we continue to do that better than everybody else?

And in my industry, people like to call it something different, but we’re a commodity. People say you got to be, if you’re cheap and fast, you can’t be easy. I mean, in the mortgage world, if you’re not cheap, fast and easy, you’re dead. And if you’re not dead now, you will be in five years because technology helps us a lot. And when I coach other loan officers, one of the things that I often tell them is that there’s going to be a time, and it’s not in the very too distant future, where they measure the money that they make, not by how much they make a transaction, but by how much they make an hour. Because consulting people and then delivering AI and a lot of things takes a lot of work off of my plate. So I can close more loans now than I could 10 years ago in the same amount of time and in 10 years from now, I’ll still close more loans, but I will within the same amount of time.

And so I wanted to build a company that 10 years from then would still be relevant, competitive, and industry leading in rates, because that’s what matters. And that’s why I just led with Better Rate Mortgage and opened the company that way.

Danton: Wow. So, outside of the office, what do you have family that supports you or what else is there for you?

Sean: So, I have two amazing boys; they get the majority of my time. A lot of my community outreach and things that I did in the past, they’re eight and ten, so it really revolves around them. I get to take the third grade Cub Scouts camping this weekend. I’m the den leader, I coach both my kids’ baseball teams, I help with volleyball, but there’s only so many head coaching jobs that one man can take on.

So really, just a lot with them, and the outdoors is something that’s really important to me. So we go camping a lot and take them fishing, make sure to instill that in them with just hiking and anything that we can do to get outside and keep moving. Because, you know, Kyle, like we talked about in F3, I’m 46 right now and my mom passed away when she was 55 and I was a sophomore in college.

And when I’m 55, my boys will either be just of college age or a year away from entering college. And like, it’s great to come home in the morning. like Both of my kids run a mile a week with me. And then my eight-year-old loves to work out with me in the basement.

And so they’re like, hey, dad, let me see your muscles, dad. And it’s awesome. But when I’m 55, I want them to struggle to keep up with me or at least want it to be competitive.

And so I can show them something different than, unfortunately, the health issues that my mother had at the time. So that’s a big motivation for how I lead and live my life and lead them.

Kyle: I want to kind of touch on the cyclicality of your industry a little bit. We talk an awful lot as financial planners that markets go up, markets go down. You’re in a similar type of an industry where there’s always usually those same similar questions like what are rates going to do? When is this going to happen? How do you, having been in this industry for 20 plus years, how do you kind of manage the ups and downs, the ebbs and flows? Because you mentioned you’ve been through a couple of big downturns in your industry and now, we’re kind of like on a high from a rate standpoint, like people asking a lot of questions. So just how do you navigate through all of the ups and downs of the industry?

Sean: You know, the mortgage industry gives a lot to people who put a lot into it. And so the good times are really good times. And unfortunately, when you’re able to do well financially in an industry, it also brings an element of people who shouldn’t be in the industry. And it also brings an element of poor planners. So sometimes those people buy an extra car and a boat and an extra vacation house because it’s like it’s always going to be like this.

Like in ’20 and ’21, the industry did four trillion in loans.

Kyle: Wow.

Sean: It had never crested above 2.8 trillion before that. And everyone’s like, it’s going to be like this forever. And I’m like, it can’t be like this forever. And so, you know, you just have to save and budget during those times.

But the good thing is, is that when you take care of people and you build a good business, there’s always business to have. You know, people are always buying houses. They’re always selling houses. You may have that two and a half percent rate, but you just got transferred from Philadelphia to St. Louis. You just had your second kid that you weren’t planning on having since buying that house. And, you know, those two bedrooms are really small; you need three bedrooms; you need four bedrooms. So, there’s always business to have.

It definitely ebbs and flows in the volume, but it’s always there if you do a good job and put people first.

Kyle: And then from an entrepreneurial standpoint, like what do you see? What do you experience as being the biggest challenges of being a business owner and maybe going up against some of these bigger name brand institutions?

Sean: So that was a really big challenge in 2005 and 2006.

Kyle: Okay.

Sean: It’s not now. The experience I have, what I deliver and what I provide, it’s not a challenge. What is a challenge is misinformation. What is a challenge is there are mortgage companies, and even some great companies, but they just have some bad apples at them and they will tell people anything they want to hear.

So one of the things that’s really prevalent right now is selling everybody on this free refinance. There’s a really good chance if you buy a house today, you’re going to refinance in the next 6, 8, 12, 18 months. Rates are probably going to come down. I mean, if you bought a house eight months ago, you’re probably refinancing right now because rates have come down. And so what happens with these nquote unquote free refinances is nothing in life is free, friends. And so, mortgage companies are marking up the rate and then crediting money back.

And so, I can promise you a free refinance if that’s what you want to hear, but I’m also going to tell you you’re going to pay more to get that free refinance. And so some of that information, when I explain that to somebody, one of the things that I do that’s pretty unique is when a when a client meets, I will show them the rate stack, we’ll show them how much money we’re making on a loan.

They’ll be able to see, hey, if your rate’s here, it costs this. If it’s here, we credit you that. And by the way, that free refinance, look how much we’d have to mark up your rate in order to do that.

And so, you know, when people will go down that road, they understand how things work. Some people just they want to be right or they want to hear what they want to hear. And it’s great because they weren’t meant to be my client and it’s okay, too.

Kyle: And, you know, that open hand. Yeah. The open hand.

Yeah, it’s it’s just kind of a fascinating thing because we kind of see that in our industry as well, too. There’s a lot of promising at times. There can be a lot of different things that are open to interpretation. And you made a good point, too, like sometimes you’re not meant to work with everyone.

Sean: Yeah.

Kyle: And that can be as a challenge as a business owner, because you’re always trying to grow and you’ve obviously done a successful job with that.

Sean: So I’m a big, I’m really into stoic philosophy. And one of the things in stoic philosophy is acceptance. There’s just sometimes even though I know I could provide somebody a better offer, I know the load that somebody is feeding them is not in their best interest. But I can only do so much. And if that’s what they want to buy, that’s what they want to buy. And we just weren’t meant to work together. But there’s other people I can really help.

You know, one of the things that people don’t understand about a good mortgage professional, we work so much in tandem with financial planners because as you’re managing assets, my job is to manage their debt. People will come to me, they’ve sold a house. They want to put down 20 percent.

I’m like, well, do you understand if you put down 5 percent? They’re like, oh, no, I can’t put down 5 percent. I’m going to have mortgage insurance.

And like you have a 780 credit score, lthis mortgage insurance costs 50 bucks a month.

We can take this other 80 grand you were going to use and all these credit cards, which, you know, consumer debt is once again at an all-time high, and other liabilities that they have. And I’m like, look, we can free up three thousand dollars a month in cash flow for you. How would that work for you? Would that be great to take to your financial planner and put some more money in that 529 plan that your college costs are probably going to be underfunded as college costs balloon. Or we show them, look, what if we put this back in your mortgage and then that 30 year mortgage you pay off in 16 and a half years.

And so there’s really, you know, when people are just looking at a mortgage, they miss the fact that somebody who really is a nerd for numbers – and you really want to work with somebody who’s a nerd for numbers – understands that how they can put them in a situation for greater success versus just what’s the cheapest rate. I mean, we can always get you a cheaper rate. It’s just you’re going to pay to get that rate. And again, in an environment like we’re in today where rates are probably going to go down, you want to do a mortgage with some of the least cost possible because there’s not enough time to recoup the expenses if you’re paying extra points to get into those things. You know, the other thing, too, is the Fed, everybody’s worried talking about the Fed right now. We’re finally getting into a cycle of interest rate cutting.

And, you know, so how much are rates going to drop when the Fed cuts rates? That’s what everybody wants to know. I’m like, we’re down a point and a half and the Fed hasn’t cut rates yet. I’m like, they only meet eight times a year. Rates move like Tesla stock every day. They’re moving up and down a little bit like the mortgage rates are not set eight times a year. And we could go into yield curves and all that of what it really affects.

But that’s when, that’s the policy. It’s like when rates started to shoot up during Covid, rates were up two and a half to three points and the Fed had only had one meeting where they raised rates a quarter of a point. You know, it’s the inflation numbers. It’s the jobs report. It’s the consumer price index. It’s those things are what really matter in numbers. And if people understood that a little bit more, read my blogs a little bit more, they would understand. They’d have that information in their fingertips.

Danton: It sounds like you spend a lot of time with your clients, which is, you know, I argue a good thing. How do you balance your time? And if you’re spending more time, I’m assuming than maybe most mortgage folks, how are you able to keep your business profitable and get the clients what they need as well?

Sean: I believe in leverage. I’ve learned a lot about it over the course of years. I have great technology built out and I have an amazing team. The most important thing that I can do is build relationships and work with clients. Most of our technology collects the documents that we need on their behalf already for them. And then I just have people who follow up on those things. You know, my underwriter underwrites the loan. My processor works to package everything together to order the payoffs, order anything that we need.

And so my time is really efficiently spent.

Danton: Especially with two boys, I’ve got one boy and I know they take up just a little bit of time.

Sean: You know, it’s a great business and like your guys’ business, because my schedule is really flexible. If I want to take off for three hours on a Wednesday because there’s a field trip, I can take off for three hours on a Wednesday. But I also sometimes answer the phone Saturday and Sunday afternoons and Tuesday nights because somebody wants to buy a house then.

Kyle: Well, and life happens in your clients’ lives. There’s so much going on and you are so intimately intertwined with them, hopefully, because they’re really good clients, that they seek you out as that trusted advisor and they’re trying to make those decisions. And normally, decision making is not happening for most families like nine to five. It’s happening nights, weekends. It’s conversations around a dinner table. If you get a free night, if you’ve got kids, you get a free night with a spouse and a glass of wine. And those are the types of times where it makes most of that decision-making available. So you have to be available to talk through stuff if they have an idea.

Sean: Yeah, they’re having that glass of wine; they just pulled up Realtor.com and they’re like, oh, my God, we need to buy this house. It just came on the market. And so, you know,

Kyle: That’s when you’re working.

Sean: Yeah.

Kyle: As we kind of like head for home here, I’m kind of pivoting back and forth between mortgage industry and an entrepreneur. Danton asked a great question about how you keep all the balls spinning with the boys, your community involvement, your business. You talked about automation and AI a little bit.

And then going back to the Bezos quote, where do you see yourself? Where do you want to see your business? Five, 10, 15 years. And I realize I’m asking the hard, opaque question. But do you have kind of that vision of what you want to see the next iteration of your business to be?

Sean: Well, I have an amazing right hand who helps me with my mortgage business and a few other things that I do. I have an ops manager who runs the mortgage company and she’s fantastic as well, too. So, they understand there’s contracts on their lives if they ever decide to do anything else. So, we have we just have a great system set up, like my business from the mortgage side is set to win 10 years from now.

So I we do need to continue to evolve. But if we can continue to provide the service that we are, at the margin that we are, it’s going to be very hard for others to compete. There was a time where I wanted to close a billion dollars in loans a year.

And I again, just going back to the stoic principles, closing more…your clients come to you and they’re like, I want to have five million dollars when I retire. And you’re like, well, what do you want when you retire? you ask them. They’re like, what I really need is X amount of dollars per month.

Well, if you have three million dollars and I can guarantee that you have X amount of dollars per month, do you really want five million dollars or do you want to have this lifestyle?

And so, I’ll be 55. My kids are going to be of college age doing something. I’ll still have the mortgage company. I will have that rolling. But, I don’t know if I have a future electrician or a college professor on my hand, probably more so electricians. And, there’d be nothing better than when I’m in my late fifties and early sixties, to like have them graduate, get some skills, and then help them open a business. There’s just nothing better than being able to work for yourself and help others. And if I can instill a little bit of that in my boys and then help them succeed with that afterwards. Not only is it incredibly rewarding for myself, but I’m doing my part to help society and help build that next generation of people who we need to lead.

Kyle: And that’s what sounds like is your what matters most: imparting what you’ve experienced in life, the things that you’ve enjoyed, and trying to pass that on to the next generation. Because you’re talking about this feeling of empowerment is working for yourself, and you’re trying to really pass that along to your boys, which is really, really cool.

Sean: I mean, it’s great to have people who 10 years ago, 15 years ago, when we told them to…one of the things that I always do is I pull up the compound interest rate calculator when I’m talking to somebody. We’re always on Teams, I share my screen. And when we’re talking about these down payments, I’m like, here’s what 5 percent down is. Here’s what 20 percent down is. Now let’s take this other 15 percent. What if you just invested in the S&P? What if it gets the 10 percent that it’s gotten since 1957? What if it only gets 8 percent?

And then they see over the course of 30 years, they see 20 grand, 40 grand, 100 grand. And they’re like, wait, this turns into hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars.

And so I get the pleasure now of after doing this for a couple of decades that people are coming back to me and they’re like, Sean, I’m going to name my next kid after you. I can’t believe how much money I have because I invested this cash. And so there’s just a lot of things that I can do, those little microcosms to help an individual or, you know, maybe a lot more to help my sons down the road.

Kyle: I think it’s really neat. You know, again, we got together, we’ve known each other for a while. We’ve done some really stupid things out in a park that were, by the way, all legal.

Sean: Yes.

Kyle: Nothing, nothing bad. Workout related,

Danton: We need to clarify that a little bit…

Kyle: All workout related, yes. But I wanted to have this conversation because on this podcast, we’re talking with folks, a good number of them entrepreneurs, a good number of folks that are trying to be money savvy. They’ve had stories. Your story of, and I learned even more today, about where you started from in college. You went through this and then you went and kind of climbed a peak. You sat on a dock. You decided, hey, I don’t really want that anymore. And then you, the empowerment that can come from you just said, hey, I want to design this. And you went out and you built it.

Sean: Yeah.

Kyle: That’s an inspiring thing. And I think that more and more people, if they hear those kinds of things…it’s a pretty awesome story to share and that’s what I really think a lot of the purpose of this podcast is. Thank you.

So before you get out of here, we have a couple of gifts for you. Everybody that comes, you need another mug.

Sean: This is a nice mug, too.

Kyle: There you go. And then, I tried to find something healthy, but then this just caught my eye. So, enjoy some craft beer mix. If you are out there with a yellow legal pad again, trying to start another business or something, maybe it’s a little brain food.

Sean: Thanks for having me, man.

Danton: Yeah, it was great.

Kyle: Yeah, I appreciate it very much.

Sean, here on Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most.

And that was our conversation with Sean Zalmanoff of Better Rate Mortgage. And Danton, we were kind of talking offline about takeaways from this episode. And really, Sean’s story is just, I think, a really neat case study in the power of clear vision, because the story he told about sitting on a dock, I’ll kind of let you run with it here anyway from the takeaway. But that’s not what normal people do on vacation, or at least it’s not something I’ve ever come back or ended the vacation with.

Danton: Oh, yeah. I think we’ve all sat on vacation and whether it’s just dreaming of moving to that place because it’s so beautiful or you’ve got this great business idea, maybe you write it down. But I don’t know too many people that sit on the dock and then come up with a whole business plan. It usually stops there. But Sean decided he’s going to end his vacation early and go execute on this. I mean, that takes some dedication. But also, I mean, you could see that throughout his business is, you know, it’s well thought out. It’s not just kind of flying by the seat of his pants. He definitely has a plan to execute on these things. And that makes a difference.

Kyle: You know, one thing that we didn’t really necessarily get into was more of the genesis of this conversation really started from when I got the chance to meet with Sean for a little bit. It was how much he has very intentionally designed his business and the systems and processes and even he mentioned a kernel of it with AI, but how he is really building this business that sees a lot of change, a lot of turnover. He’s really building it to last and get out of it what he’s looking to get out of it.

Danton: Yeah, that business plan, he definitely has his why defined. And we talk about financial planning and obviously we are kind of biased that that’s important. But there’s other types of planning that people can do. And it typically goes back to the finances. But having that why defined makes a big difference in going to work every day and being able to execute that plan. If you don’t have a why, it really becomes difficult.

Kyle: And that why, what he wants to get out of life. He is a very not only for the business, does he have a very crystal-clear vision for what he wants the business to be, but also to what he wants to impart in his sons. Which another thing I thought was really cool was he knows what he’s trying to help impart in the next generation. And whether that’s a business plan or even as we talk to folks at various stages of life, whether they’re in the accumulation phase or they’re kind of in their spend down phase. That clear of a vision, you could tell it by him sitting here, there was just that subtle confidence when he spoke as to what he was looking for. And in a certain way, I think, you know, calms the soul a little bit as well. So, but anyways, wonderful conversation with Sean.

Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most is a production of Moneta’s Gast Freeman Troyer Racen Team, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri.

Until next time, enjoy What Matters Most.

© 2024 Advisory services offered by Moneta Group Investment Advisors, LLC, 100 South Brentwood Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63105 (“MGIA”), an investment adviser registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). MGIA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Moneta Group, LLC. Registration as an investment adviser does not imply a certain level of skill or training. This is an advertisement. The information contained herein is for informational purposes only, is not intended to be comprehensive or exclusive, and is based on materials deemed reliable, but the accuracy of which has not been verified. Examples contained herein are for illustrative purposes only based on generic assumptions. Given the dynamic nature of the subject matter and the environment in which this communication was written, the information contained herein is subject to change. This is not an offer to sell or buy securities, nor does it represent any specific recommendation. You should consult with an appropriately credentialed professional before making any financial, investment, tax, or legal decision. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. You cannot invest directly in an index. All investments are subject to a risk of loss. Diversification and strategic asset allocation do not assure profit or protect against loss in declining markets. These materials do not take into consideration your personal circumstances, financial or otherwise. Trademarks and copyrights of materials linked herein are the property of their respective owners.

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Wit, Wisdom, & What Matters Most podcast

Episode 8 featuring Travis Freeman

Kyle: This episode includes a book recommendation, which is intended to be helpful or interesting to the listener/reader of this podcast. The book is not intended to be a source of financial or legal advice, please consult a qualified professional before making any financial or legal decision. This is not an endorsement or confirmation of any of the content, opinions, or recommendations within the book, or from the author. The author, Travis Freeman, earns compensation from sales of the book. As he is a Partner with Moneta, this can be a conflict of interest when the book is recommended to clients of Moneta. Please contact Travis if you have any questions about this relationship. Any trademarks and copyrights of materials presented herein are the property of their respective owners.

Kyle: Welcome to another edition of Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most. It’s a podcast with Moneta’s Gast Freeman Troyer Racen Team. What Matters Most is different for everyone, and of course, you need to make wise decisions to be sure you and your family are financially secure, but that’s only one aspect of your well-being.

My name is Kyle Luetters, joined by Danton Troyer. And Danton, a guest on today’s show that is actually very close to us physically, he’s in the office next door. His name is Travis Freeman and he’s one of the partners here on the team. We sat down with Travis because he has now written another book. Again, spoiler alert, it’s about finance, but it goes much deeper than that.

Kind of give us a little bit of a preview of what we ended up talking to Travis about.

Danton: Yeah, it’s a fun interview. I’ve known Travis since college. Just talking to him and understanding he’s written one book, now he’s writing a different book, still finance-related, but completely different, which we’ll talk about in this podcast. But also just understanding his process, and how it was different from one book to the next, and the motivation was completely different as well. Really just understanding, why would you write another book? I had the, I don’t know if privilege is the right word, but I saw him in the time he was writing the first book, and it certainly didn’t create less stress in your life. It’s a big commitment to write a book. Why would you do it again? There’s obviously a good reason for that.

Also, you see on TV, writer’s block. I guess it’s a real thing, apparently. Understanding how he was able to get through that quickly enough to keep the book on track without really just losing the entire book.

Kyle: Exactly. The momentum thing, that was very interesting. He also gets into some of the nuances there of what’s included in this book that’s not included in your typical financial book, which I thought was really interesting. With that all being said in that primer, here’s our conversation with Travis Freeman.

At this time, we’d like to welcome a partner on the team, Travis Freeman to Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most.

Travis is here today to talk about a new book that he has written, the second book that you have written in your career. Travis, number one, welcome, and then two, tell us a little bit about the new book, the title, what’s the general gist of this new work?

Travis: I appreciate you bringing up both books, but I will tell everybody don’t go out and buy my first one. My wife told me it’s boring and it was only about 92 pages long, but this one took me about four years, the new one, The Fortune of Youth. I’ve been told I cannot write a third one until the kids are grown because it took me four years of banging away at the computer for this one.

Kyle: That’s what your agent and your business manager said, correct?

Travis: Yeah, yeah, there you go. Something like that.

Kyle: Got it.

Travis: Yeah. But this was, it was really written to help tell the story of what people have done, right? Because in this industry, we are blessed to talk to a lot of people and many people have found significant success, financial success. So, the book was about what have people done to reach the fortunes that they sought out to have? Not everybody wants to be a billionaire. Some people are really happy when they get to the enough threshold, right? And what could you do early in life to position yourself to get to that point? And if somebody is in their twenties, thirties, early forties that reads it and uses even half of what’s in there, I think they’ll do just fine.

Kyle: Perfect. And so you mentioned that first book and you referenced it a little bit. How is this book – beyond just looking at it here on table, you’re well beyond 90 pages – what’s the major difference between the two books?

Travis: So, the first book was more of a niche. You know, years ago, Danton and I were doing a lot of corporate presentations and trainings, right? And it got to the point where literally I could not travel and do more. So, I wrote a book on how folks could have their own training at a place of employment. So it was more for managers, HR folks, maybe a small business owner to have, right? This is completely different focus.

Danton: Yeah, true. So, you know, maybe what was the difference? I mean, obviously between the two books, but you know, when you go into this, what was maybe a different mindset? Because, you know, you had your first book and you’re like, I’m going to do this again. Why would you want to do this again? And what made it different?

Travis: So, the first one I wrote in a year, this is BK, right? Before kids. Nice delineation there. Yeah, it was me at the computer pretty much every night after work. And I saw the first one as telling the story, but also just more of as a business card, frankly, to show that I have expertise in this area, to say I wrote the book on that.

This one, I kept telling myself, okay, put together something that people are going to love and can practically use right away. And there were points where I had written an entire chapter and I’d go back over it and I’m like, this is silly. It’s very technical, but I need to be able to have someone not fall asleep, right? I’ve got to have more stories in here and figure out how to take this technical thing and make it real simple to where they can just start using it, right? So, there were multiple times over the last four years where I would actually go back and just erase a ton of material.

And it was hard, but that didn’t answer your question, right? What was I thinking? I kept thinking, I have to make something that people are really going to appreciate and tell their friends about. And the hard part was having to hit backspace so many times and delete stuff, but it took some time and I think I got there.

Kyle: I want to jump in here. So, four years of writing the book and you mentioned having to basically go back to maybe not a full blank page, but was there ever a point in that four-year period of time that you almost gave up on this pursuit? And maybe your wife had other words we can review later, but was there ever a time, did it mess with you mentally a little bit when you’re going through that many revisions as to wanting to get the whole thing done?

Travis: There was a point where I had, there was a lot going on in life and I hadn’t touched the book in something like six or eight weeks. And then I went back down to the computer and had maybe an hour and I was just lost on where I stopped and had to go reread things. And I lost so much momentum that I ended up not even going back to it.

I went back upstairs, got busy with the kids. I don’t think I touched the thing for four or five months.

Kyle: Wow.

Travis: And the hardest part of writing a book is the momentum part. The first one was great because I just had a pattern. I did it in one year.

The pattern, if I broke that, I just lost my momentum, had to go backtrack and read about what I wrote. And once I got back into the pattern, then I was able to go through that. So that’s the one thing I’d recommend if anybody ever tries this is just carve out time and make sure you’re always doing that.

I probably deviated a little bit from your question there, Kyle, but that’s something I learned a lot with the second one.

Kyle: Yeah. Part of the reason why we ask the questions is we get the stories behind it once we get you talking.

Danton: So yeah. I feel like you answered about six of my questions with that answer. But with the book, there were obviously different motivations for writing each of the books.

What do you hope to get out of writing this book as compared to maybe the first one? But I mean, this is a completely different animal.

Travis: What I hope to get out of this one is one of two things:

One, let’s say a younger person, right? Let’s say someone just got out of college or high school. They read it. What would make me so happy is if I hear from them years or even a decade or so later and they go, hey, I read this book and I implemented these things and I can’t believe I just hit a million dollar net worth or just bought my second home. Whatever their goal is, right? That milestone.

Kyle: Yeah, some milestone.

Travis: That would be so neat. And I really hope that happens.

Or, someone reads this book and says, hey, and this has actually started to happen, I bought four of these, one for each of my kids and my niece and nephew because they absolutely need this, right? So that’s started to happen.

But I think the most fulfilling part will be when it comes full circle and people say, I did it; I followed it and it was life changing.

Kyle: Yeah. There’s something about like, here’s the plan, follow the plan instead of trying to deviate too much. But if you actually work the plan, the result was what you were looking for. And that’s got to be gratifying because you are kind of the person that’s laying out the plan and providing that guidance.

To get a little technical into the book, and then there’s a wealth of information in here, but I really was intrigued by how you started the book. Because again, there’s a lot of financial books out there that are very technical. You started with helping people shape what the why was. And can you talk about that and the six layers of why and why you chose to start the book that way?

Travis: Yeah. I’ve read many books and many of them have a why section. And I worried a little bit that if somebody sees a why section in a wealth building book, they go, I don’t want to go through this. But you almost can’t exclude it.

The reason I put why in here is if somebody wants to, let’s say, start a business and grow that business into what you might consider generational wealth, or they want to have so much wealth, they can give a ton away to charity or start their own, change the world… There is a lot of work and sweat and tears and sacrifice and complexity that goes into that. Now, this book, someone could just work at a company all their life and get promoted and save really well. They could do that, too. But if somebody ends up going the entrepreneur or intrapreneur route, there’s going to be a lot of headwinds ahead. So, to be able to have the staying power, to be able to have enough in the tank over time to go through all these things I’ve outlined, you have to have a solid why. It’s your foundation. And as soon as the ground shakes, if you don’t have that solid foundation, everything crumbles underneath you. And the six layers of why that you ask about, that’s an exercise I went through years ago.

And I had done why exercises, you know, why do I want to have success in my life? Why do I want to do these things that are stressful, right? And I thought I didn’t need to go through another one. But when I went through the six layers of why, I got deeper than I had ever gone. And that’s why I wanted to share the message.

A great quick example. If I, if you, let’s say you guys ask somebody, hey, why do you want to buy the second home? Or why do you want to reach a $5 million net worth? Whatever, whatever their goal is, right? They might give you an answer. And you ask them why again.

And by the time you’ve asked why six times, either they’re going to be crying, and you got to get your tissues out, or they’re deeply frustrated.

Danton: My six-year-old has his down for sure. He wants to know why for everything.

But I get the point.

Kyle: Hey, he’s just working the system that he saw in Travis’ book here.

Travis: He’s a future author.

Danton: He’s waiting for the audio book he can’t read yet.

Travis: But you get it, right? You just peel away layers. And once I did that, and I peeled away all these layers, it was actually a moment, you know, the moment where you kind of get goosebumps in your skin, right? And you just feel it. That happened to me. That actually happened to me. And I did it. I wrote it on a piece of paper six times, the why answers, and then it hit me. That is my why, and I just never had peeled it back that far.

Kyle: So, there was like a physical reaction when you peeled it that far.

Travis: For sure.

Kyle: That’s pretty interesting.

Travis: It was neat. It was a neat experience.

Kyle: Is there a certain way that you have ordered the book? Is there a specific reason to the chapters, is the way they go in sequence? Is there any thought behind the ordering of it? They should do these in these certain steps? Or, you know, kind of go through it. Because there’s a lot of tenants here that talk about our financial well-being, and it’s interesting the way that that’s kind of laid out.

Travis: That was another time-consuming thing is I wrote the book in a certain order, and then when I thought it was done, I said, this doesn’t make any sense. And I started reordering it all, and then I would reference, you know, hey, by the time you get to chapter five, and I had to change all that. I mean, that took another probably three or four months.

Kyle: Catching all of those.

Travis: Oh, just to reorder it and then change it and cut things out. I mean, truly, and it was about trying to—it was a passion behind just trying to make the book as great as you could. But by the time I got all the chapters right, I got the foreword and 16 chapters in here, you get the why first, then there’s some history and going through the basics, and eventually you get into some of my favorite chapters, like the health-wealth connection and the compound career path. The compound career path is probably my favorite one.

Kyle: Okay, why is that?

Travis:: Even as financial professionals, anybody that understands the concept of compounding, for example, whenever—most people, they go through their life and their career, and they think about the next months or year ahead, or maybe their next performance review. But if you start thinking about your career as something that can be compounded over time, and you think about it over the course of five, 10, 20 years, all of a sudden, you can reshape and rethink the way that works.

I’ll give you a quick math example. Take two 25-year-olds. One makes $70,000 a year. One makes $45,000. Actually, in the book, it’s $48,000 a year. Now, you might think, hey, good for the one that’s making $70,000 at the same age, right? But the one that’s making $70,000 only gets a 2% cost-of-living adjustment each year.

The one that’s making $48,000 has a 4% cost-of-living adjustment. Not a big difference, right? The one at $48,000 that started out in a position with more growth potential, by the time these folks get into their mid-40s, they’ve actually crossed, and the person who started out on the lower end but had 4% growth winds up with almost $100,000 more of annual income.

If I was talking to a group of college students, or they were about to graduate from college, I would say, look, yes, I get it, I know why you’d be going out and looking for the highest salary you can possibly find, but look for the growth potential. Look at your entire career, because that is life-changing, and you tie that into how you can save, and invest, and have the things you want, and give to the charities you want.

Kyle: Amplifies it more.

Travis: Oh, my gosh, right? That’s the reason that’s probably my favorite chapter, because I don’t want anyone to look back over their life and go, gosh, I wish I would have thought about it differently. It’s in the book

Kyle:. You wrote the book on it.

Travis: You got it. You got it.

Danton: There’s a lot of those lessons that, as you get older, it’s common sense, but to your point, when you’re 20, that may not be common sense. You do, you think, well, I’m going to go get the highest-paying job, because that’s what everyone tells you to do. But thinking about it in a more broad picture, I’ve seen that with family members where it’s like, well, she had an opportunity to take a higher-paying job, but it was going to be a little more stress, and it wasn’t worth it to her because she was safe. But it was like, well, you’re going to be compounding off that higher salary for the rest of your life, so if you stay at this lower one, that opportunity to make that larger jump now may never happen again, and then we compound off that, to your point. So, I think a lot of times, we don’t think about these decisions and how they affect us in the broader impact, especially as we’re younger, it’s harder to have that context. I guess I’m 41 now, so I’m in the middle of the road, and to think I have all the answers is not correct either. So maybe we need another chapter once the kids are out of the house on the new set of life lessons.

Travis: I would enjoy that.

Kyle: An addendum to the book, that’s good.

Danton: I’ll honor the no kids at home, though, so we’ll have to wait a little while for the next chapter.

Travis: So ironically, right out of college, I stepped right into this industry, and rather than going and getting a salary somewhere, I decided to go directly into starting a practice, which as you guys know very well, is really tough. You have all these expenses and no income.

There was a point where actually a friend of ours said, hey, I’m planning my bachelor party. It’s going to be in Las Vegas, and I’d love for you to be there. I was part of the wedding party, and my response was, look, I’m still living at home. I have no money and no income. What little money I do have, I’ve got to hold on to it. I can’t go to the bachelor party. And that was really tough to do at the time, and I imagine a lot of young people would have, it would be really tough. But we ended up having a local bachelor party, and I was able to go, and everything was fine, but there were many examples of where I decided to just sacrifice and focus on my goal, and over time, it helped, and now I don’t have to sacrifice those things.

I planted the seeds early.

Kyle: Exactly, and you farmed well, and that’s a lot of what I think the book is talking about, is cultivating this over time, and you talk about networking to wealth. You talk about side hustles. There’s a lot of things that go beyond what I would say are the basic core tenets of financial literacy and financial planning. Describe some of those at the end, because those were chapters that I had not seen in “financial books,” like Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover comes to mind, and this and that. This went deeper, in my opinion, in those types of areas, so if you want to speak to that, why you included that in there.

Travis: Sure, and feel free to jump in if there were some other examples. In the retirement section, I went through some of the history, and some of the history, whenever I went down that path, I didn’t know about. Obviously, we all know how and when Social Security came to pass, but a lot of the demographic reasons, and what was going on with the president at the time and the global economy, all kind of led into the way that we think about retirement. So part of this was just giving the history, giving people the technical aspects of what they could do to prepare for retirement long term, but also just reframing what it means.

Some people think about retirement as, you know, Friday’s my last day at work, Saturday’s the party, and I never work again. But if you can plan out a life where you can find something that you really enjoy doing, ironically, you don’t have to end up saving so much, so a little bit of this was counter to what you might see with some of these other books: save like crazy, budget, and cut your expenses down.

If somebody would rather not just go through all the stress of starting a business, and saving well, and everything, there’s another method, and that is that, look, manage your expenses, create this lifestyle you love, and as long as your health is there, and there’s a part on health in here, you can continue to do that until you’re 80 years old, because you took care of your body and your mind, right? So, it was fun to write some of that.

Kyle: Yeah, it goes beyond a little bit to your point of what you typically see in a finance book, which is very cold, hard math, and usually is to the tune of just save, save, save, save, save, and work to get your investments to achieve x. But what it’s missing, though, is the personalization, and realizing, going back to the six layers of why, like why you would be doing this. Because, you know, any task, if you have to continue to do it monotonously, without a strong enough why, you just break. There’s only so long you can do it, but if that why is there, and you have a really clear picture of what you want, you can endure much longer.

Travis: For sure, well said.

Danton: Yeah, I think the why, and I think that’s a lot of what misses from a lot of just financial advisors that are trying to help clients. And then we see with clients when they come in, and kind of start asking them, maybe not six times why, but maybe we should get to that that point, but their answers start to evolve as we have more questions, and more discussions around their goals. So, it’s hard, I think, to your point, to have the answer going into it, but asking why maybe more than once, and asking the why over time, because it changes. I think that’s very important, and helps you ground these decisions, because as you kind of talked about it, there’s not one way to do this, and everybody wants the solution. They just want the easy button. This is how you do it. The little pill.

Travis: Yeah.

Danton: What pill do I take? As we’re talking about that, I said that to my doctor yesterday. I was like, could someone just put a box on my doorstep? This is what you need to eat. This is what you need to do. Just do that, and you’ll be fine.

Kyle: Process, yeah.

Danton: But it doesn’t, it’s not that simple. I’m learning that, as well. You know, health and wealth are very interconnected, and the process it goes through, and so I’m learning the health side a little bit more. But that’s, I think, what people come to us, and they just want us to just fix this.

Kyle: Yep.

Danton: But there’s not a fix, because we don’t know what is your why, and that’s what we have to get out of clients to better serve them better. And that’s the nuance.

Kyle: Yes, that’s the nuance, and what all of this is about, and the things we talk about in the book, is that’s the nuance, and because, again, there are simple things that you can do, but they may not be the best thing for you, or you, or me, for what we’re trying to do. So, fascinating book.

Travis, any other things that we have not covered about this book that you feel are pertinent, that you want people to hear, that you want them to understand? And then, finally, you know, where can they get the book?

Travis: Sure. So, where they can find it is on Amazon, The Fortune of Youth: Create Wealth, Happiness, and Success Early in Life.

And I’ll leave you guys with a parting story.

Kyle: Okay, I like stories.

Travis: So, my wife and I have identical twin boys, and when we were ready to put them in school, we were looking for some Montessori-style schools. Long story, but the Montessori-style was good for them. So, we go to this school, we meet some of the faculty, see the facility, it was beautiful. They sit down and hang out with the kids to assess them.

So, a couple days later, they called us back and said, hey, we know that we told you guys when you were leaving that this is a good school for you, we’d love to have them come in, but we actually just talked to our consultant, and you and about five other families are all involved in this, and I’m so sorry to tell you, but your kids are too old to enter our school.

I said, now, hang on a second. I know we held them back one year before we would try to get into kindergarten to let them age. I said, but you’re telling me because they weren’t in a Montessori pre-kindergarten program, that they’re too old to now enter kindergarten at your Montessori program? And they said, I realize how it sounds, but our program is so rigid in what we need them to understand and learn that since they haven’t learned what we think they should have already the last two years, unfortunately, we cannot allow anybody who doesn’t have that pre-kindergarten experience into the school.

Kyle: Wow.

Travis: Yes. So, we found another great school, and the school has wound up great.

Kyle: They’re in school today, right? Okay, good. Okay, that wasn’t the end of school?

Travis: Yeah. They’re thriving at the school they’re in, but the reason I tell you that story is that it sort of relates to the theme of this book. If somebody wants to have a certain definition of their own financial success in life, and they wait, and they wait, and they wait to begin it…eventually, they will time themselves out.

Kyle: Oh, wow.

Travis: And it is like the opening section of the book about the dentist drilling, filling, and billing. If somebody doesn’t employ these types of strategies, they will waste that precious commodity of time, and it will be near impossible, if not impossible, to reach the things they want because of the time aspect.

Kyle: Wow, powerful stuff. Do you have anything else?

Danton: I mean, yeah, we see it all the time with clients. It’s easier to have these broad goals the younger you are, but the difficulty is when you’re younger, you may not know what those goals are. So, it’s always a juggling act, and it sounds like this book can help folks at least start thinking of those things earlier than later. Because most of us, you get out of school, you hit the ground running, and you go, and you never stop and think about what you’re doing, and does it actually still align with the things that were actually important to you that started all of this. And I think we get too far down the road, and we’re like, oh, we didn’t stop and ask the six whys, and our choices are limited at that point.

Kyle: So, again, everyone, The Fortune of Youth, Travis Freeman is the author. You can pick it up on Amazon.com. And with that, Travis, thank you so much for taking the time and sharing some of the stories and some of the wisdom in the book. It’s been a pleasure.

Travis: Yeah, you bet. Thanks, guys.

And that was Travis Freeman, writer and partner here on the Gast Freeman Troyer Racen team with The Fortune of Youth, his second book.

Danton, and again, in the interview, number one, excellent guest, extremely well-spoken, and really covered a lot of ground inside of that book, and we alluded to it a little bit in the interview, but it really seemed to go beyond some of what I would maybe consider your blocking and tackling concepts in financial planning. It really delved into a lot of different areas.

Danton: Yeah, I think as just people in general want to focus more, I think it’s seen as more exciting, what investments do I pick? What do I do as far as, do I get a Roth IRA or 401k? And they’re focusing on the individual tasks that need to be done without stepping back and really asking themselves, why is this important to them? Because you’re going to need to make probably some sacrifices along the way to be able to do this, and without discovering the why, the investments -they obviously matter – but it’s not going to actually move the needle for you as much as really defining that why.

Kyle: I really enjoyed hearing his physical reaction when he went through that exercise with the six levels of why. We talk about the things in our life that make the hair stand up on our arms, they may trigger something in our brains, but to hear him describe him going through that exercise and eliciting a reaction like that was pretty cool. Again, the other things we’ve talked about, too, it was really unique to hear the difference between that first book that was very targeted and this one’s very broad. I thought that was pretty interesting as well too, as well as the story of going through the whole thing.

Danton: Yeah, two completely different books for that matter. So I think this book is certainly, as you said, more of a broad audience that anybody can actually take something from this. Especially the younger you are, the better this book probably is going to be for you to be able to get that good foundation that a lot of times, like I say, you hit the ground running and you don’t take the time to build that foundation of why.

Kyle: Correct. And this is a great book if you’ve got some young people in your life, it’s great to pick up a copy here or there and distribute that out. Because in Travis’s own words, the sooner this gets into someone’s hands and they can start working the process, the likelihood of them achieving their own defined success, I want to say that implicitly, their own defined success is different for everybody, the higher likelihood there is.

So any final thoughts you have on this one?

Danton: Yeah, you kind of just spurred a thought there. I think a lot of the typical financial books go in with the mindset that you want to be a multi-millionaire and you need to have lots of money and that’s going to buy you happiness. I can tell you firsthand, that is not true.

We have clients with more money than they know what to do with and there’s not a direct correlation to happiness there. So, I’ve said it probably a hundred times and I apologize, but the why matters.

Kyle: Very, very much so.

So again, Travis Freeman, author and partner here on the Gast Freeman Troyer Racen Team at Moneta. The Fortune of Youth: Create Wealth, Happiness, and Success Early in Life is the full title of the book. Be sure to check that out on Amazon.

And Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most is a production of Moneta’s Gast Freeman Troyer Racen Team, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri.

Until next time, enjoy what matters most.

© 2024 Advisory services offered by Moneta Group Investment Advisors, LLC, 100 South Brentwood Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63105 (“MGIA”), an investment adviser registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). MGIA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Moneta Group, LLC. Registration as an investment adviser does not imply a certain level of skill or training. This is an advertisement. The information contained herein is for informational purposes only, is not intended to be comprehensive or exclusive, and is based on materials deemed reliable, but the accuracy of which has not been verified. Examples contained herein are for illustrative purposes only based on generic assumptions. Given the dynamic nature of the subject matter and the environment in which this communication was written, the information contained herein is subject to change. This is not an offer to sell or buy securities, nor does it represent any specific recommendation. You should consult with an appropriately credentialed professional before making any financial, investment, tax, or legal decision. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. You cannot invest directly in an index. All investments are subject to a risk of loss. Diversification and strategic asset allocation do not assure profit or protect against loss in declining markets. These materials do not take into consideration your personal circumstances, financial or otherwise. Trademarks and copyrights of materials linked herein are the property of their respective owners.

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In this episode, a woman who retired several years ago reveals the two words that were the sign it was time to retire, and her path for transitioning out of full-time employment. She also discusses the ways her career skills have led her shift into an active, adventurous retirement.

Episode 2

Kyle: Welcome to episode number two of Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most, a podcast with Moneta’s Gast, Freeman, Troyer, Racen Team. What matters most is different for everyone, and of course, you need to make wise decisions to be sure that you and your family are financially secure, but that’s only one aspect of your well-being. My name is Kyle Lutters, advisor on the team, and I’m joined by Danton Troyer, one of the partners here on the team.

And Danton, very excited for the guest in this edition because we get the chance to meet a lot of folks, and today’s guest is probably one of the most full-of-energy people I think I’ve had the pleasure of coming across – it’s Judy Lampe today.

Danton: Yeah, I’ve known Judy for, gosh, almost probably 15 years now, and it’s been interesting. I met her when she was actually working at Scottrade and doing some of their build-outs for their new buildings, or new offices, I should say, and so it was interesting to see her journey and help plan her and her husband’s retirement throughout the years. And now they’ve been retired for several years, so it’s been interesting, especially as she was really approaching that retirement deadline. Unique for her was her company was getting bought out, so Scottrade was getting purchased through TD Ameritrade, so it was interesting to see how that affected her, personally, and her retirement decisions as she was making those very important decisions.

Kyle: Yeah, very much so, and we’ll get into a number of different topics in this interview, but we talk about TD Ameritrade, we talk about what it was like and what kind of precipitated her retirement, what she’s doing, and also, too, what skills that she had that transferred from her working lifetime to her retirement.

So, with that all being said, here’s our conversation with Judy Lampe.

Kyle: And now we’re sitting down here on Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most with Judy Lampe. Judy, welcome, and thanks for being here today.

Judy: My pleasure.

Kyle: Awesome, awesome. So, Danton and you have known one another for a long time?

Judy: Yes.

Kyle: And so, I kind of wanted to extrapolate a little bit and start kind of at base one, but when did you know that it was time to retire?

Judy: Well, my boss told me two words, and with those two words, I knew it was time to retire. Many people said, you’ll get a sign, and for several years, I thought, boy, that’s interesting. I wonder if I’ll recognize the sign.

I had a very demanding job, and my boss, who I had trained and used to do the same job as I did, she was now my boss, and she asked me if I would fill in for someone for a week. They had a very time-consuming job, as did I, so I thought that would be almost impossible for me to do both jobs, but I had a solution.

So, I said, well, Susie Q just started working for us, and she was a temp, and she’s already done that job, and she doesn’t have any full responsibilities yet, because she’s new. Could we just have her fill in? And these are the two words she told me, absolutely not. And I just knew at that point, that’s the sign.

I mean, to me, that was a big sign. So, I was very calm. I was 68 at the time, so I didn’t really have to keep working, and I made an appointment to see the vice president, who I used to job-share with; she knew what I did. I said, “Well, I could do my job from 7 a.m. to 5 pm, and I could do the other job from 5 pm to 11 pm, but I said, I just really don’t want to do that, and as a matter of fact, I’d like to go part-time.”

And she said, “Well, I understand.” So, she asked the COO, and she said right away, “Well, Judy can’t go part-time; she’s too busy.” And they said we’d have to hire another person and that’s not in the budget.

So, I was very at ease with all of this, because I was at the stage where I didn’t really have to work. I thought, it’s winter, I’m not going to resign at this time, I’ll wait until spring. And I’d written my letter, I didn’t tell anyone, except my husband, what I was going to do. And right before I was getting ready to turn in the two weeks resignation, my boss brought me into the conference room and said, “We decided to let you go part-time.”

And I said, “Oh,” I said, “Well, that’s good.

“And you can start Monday.”

And I said, “Well, I’m going to have to check with HR to see about my insurance coverage.”

So, it worked out, I went part-time at 68. And I asked one of the other bosses, I said, you know, I’m kind of surprised everyone changed their mind. What made them do so? He said, “Well, we decided if you would have left, it wouldn’t have been good.”

So, my best advice is, you know, don’t get rid of the workhorse. And that’s the second time in my 40 years working that I asked to go part-time. And both times I was told no. And both times they came back and said, okay.

Danton: How did, or I guess, how long did you end up working part-time then for them and continue to do that work for them?

Judy: Well, there came a little wrinkle because our company, Scottrade, got bought out by TD Ameritrade. So then I was told, you can’t leave until we tell you we don’t need you anymore.

Now, I could have walked, but I’d have to give up a year’s severance pay. So, I worked till I was 70 and a half. And I’m glad it was part-time instead; I worked three days a week.

Danton: Do you regret extending your career through that part-time or do you think it was the right choice?

Judy: No, I don’t. And by going part-time in my job, I would do like 30 buildouts at a time throughout the United States. So I had a lot going on, but once we were going to be sold, we stopped doing buildouts. So, there were a lot of jobs I could do because I had worked there 18 years. So they could tap me on the shoulder and ask me to do different projects or whatever. And that was fine; I was happy with that.

Kyle: You mentioned buildouts. Help us understand a little bit about what you were doing. You’re talking about like building out different branch offices?

Judy: That is correct. We had 506 offices. And when we started early on, I would actually do a schematic on graph paper. I would call people, does your door open in, does it open out? Can you measure this for me? Because I wasn’t there.

I really didn’t have any expertise in this; it was on the job training. The president of the company just decided from what I was doing, he said, I think you can do this job.

I go, okay, I’ll try. And that’s the type of person he was. He was an excellent believer in people. And so that is what I did.

So, saying that I had 30 projects meant they were all throughout the United States at different stages. The year that we were told, the two of us, that we were going to build 100 offices, I thought, boy, that is just mind boggling. That is the year we hired an architectural group, which was fabulous. And then we also, once in a while, I’d go out and do site searches and then we’d hire a realtor. That was good, too.

So I wore a lot of hats, but that was fine. And with the help of the architects, who would then give me big construction documents, and they would do the schematics professionally, it was good.

But it was still fast-paced, though, because now we’re going to do 100 buildouts. And we probably brought on another person at that time, but it was a lot of responsibility. And I didn’t shy away from it, but I certainly embraced the help of the architectural firm and also, it was Sansone Group in the end, and they were very good.

Kyle: Okay, so you mentioned something earlier that I wanted to circle back to. You mentioned that this was the second time in your career that you asked to go part-time. Can you tell us a little bit about the first time that you asked, and how your career genesis went from the first part-time back to then full-time?

Judy: I first worked at Monsanto for five years, and this gentleman that I knew socially from St. Louis County government kept asking me to work for him in the Bureau of Finance, and that was Highways and Traffic. And I said, well, no, I really don’t want to do that.

“Oh, I’ll pay you more money.”

Well, you know, I was single, living in an apartment. He said, but you have to pass a test. You have to be one of the top three passing this test.

So, I thought, oh, all right, I’ll just take the test. I thought, I’ll never be one of the top three. There were probably four people there that day, I don’t remember.

But I passed the test, and I went to work for him. It really was a mistake, I feel, because Monsanto was a much better company to work for. But I worked for him five years.

Then I got pregnant, I was a stay-at-home mom, but he kept calling me up. Oh, could you work? So-and-so needs surgery, and can you come in for five weeks? And this, he asked me five different times to come back in, and that would be five days a week. Finally, I said, “You know, I’m really trying to be a stay-at-home mom, but I will work part-time until I have my next child, if that’s okay.” And he goes, oh, no, the director, he would never say that’s okay.

I said, “Well, you know, I’m sorry, but that’s my decision.” But he called the next day, and he said, “Now the director said you could.” So it just kind of happened organically.

But part-time is a good gig, if you can get it.

Danton: You stuck to your guns, and you got what you wanted in your career.

Kyle: So you would be someone that we would not want to play poker with.

Judy: Bridge, probably, bridge.

Danton: As you’ve now transitioned, and you’ve been, how long have you been retired for now?

Judy: I was 70 and a half, and I’ll be 77 in June, so that many years.

Danton: Well, just generally speaking, how has that transition been for you and your husband?

Judy: Right, I think it’s been good for both Bud and myself. The transition was going very smoothly until one major event occurred, COVID.

So I go from carefree living, doing whatever you want, to now I’m sequestered. And I thought, boy, this is not going to rock well with me. So what I decided to do was get three people that I trusted to come to my house and play bridge, because I was in several bridge clubs, but a lot of them wouldn’t come out. So that worked out fine. We played bridge at my house.

Then I also, I’m in a volunteer group, and there were like 50 people in my chapter. And I thought, you know, I’m going to start a walking group. We can go outside. That seems to be okay. We got up to 11 members, and we walked 18 months every week except Christmas and New Year’s, no matter what the temperature, because no one had anything to do.

I would pick the best day and the best time of day, and everybody wanted me to pick the location. So I had to make sure that the locations were okay, and I would walk them ahead of time to make sure that I could say, well, you park over here and you walk to the right, because we were walking like three to five miles, do you didn’t want to get lost; it wouldn’t be too good. And we walked 58 different places.

Danton: Oh, wow!

Judy: Some were hikes, but we would tell them ahead of time, this is a hike if you don’t want to do it.

Danton: Yeah, it sounds like you had a part-time job going even in retirement.

Judy: You know, I just can’t stop working, yeah. But also, I kind of took over the book club.

Kyle: Wait a minute, Judy, you said you retired, right?

Judy: I know, yeah, I know. You know, there is a work mode, and I know you fellows are in the work mode, and it’s hard to get out of the work mode.

Even my brother, who lives in the Villages, plays golf, and I was just visiting him, and he said to me, “Judy, aren’t you paying attention?” And I said, “No, I’m retired. What did you say?” But he’s still in the work mode part of the time, especially playing golf.

Kyle: I can see that. And what’s interesting, I think, too, is that when you talk about your career and your jobs at TD Ameritrade and Scottrade, and then what you’re doing in retirement, it seems like there’s this gift of organization that you have has translated from work mode to retirement mode. Do you feel that that was kind of seamless in a way; that you just kind of naturally gravitated towards finding those types of things and using your skill set in retirement?

Judy: Yes, absolutely. I think those are the perfect words. You use those skill sets if you have them. You don’t shy away from looking at something or being in a situation and thinking, oh, this is a trainwreck, maybe I could help. So I’m fine with that. I’d rather do something more organized than watch everything be haphazard when it doesn’t have to be.

Danton: Have you had any challenges or things that you have found that have been beneficial for you and Bud as far as that transition? Because he retired before you.

Judy: He retired before me, 11 years before me. He worked 30 year; I worked 40 years. Going part-time was a nice transition. And so we’re kind of like the tortoise and the hare.

And that’s good. There really wasn’t a big transition because when I was still working , I’d come home and make dinner and do whatever. And one day I thought, well, this is silly. You should make dinner. You should do the wash. But I said, “If you don’t want to, I’ll just quit my job.”

“Oh no, no, I’m happy to do those tasks.”

So that made my life easier. And as far as transitioning, I get up about two hours before Bud, which is good. I drink my coffee, read the paper, you know, look at the news a little, read my email. And then when he gets up, I’m ready to do something else.

Kyle: So that’s interesting because, one of the topics or the questions that we like to ask folks in retirement is, what does your day look like? And you’ve started to kind of describe that even in retirement, you still have a routine.

Judy: Yes.

Kyle: And do you think that that’s kind of key to getting the enjoyment out of retirement?

Judy: Yes, I do like the routine of getting up and easing into the day. But I started playing bridge with people I didn’t know at community centers. So, I’d have to get up earlier and wouldn’t have time to read the paper. But I feel that since there’s eight billion people in this world, I’d like to meet more of them. I don’t have to play with the same people I played with for 30 years.

And the people don’t care what you did for a living, they just care if you can play or not. But they’re interesting. The one guy was a CIA agent, but you would never guess it. Of course, I guess that’s a good thing. Well, that’s about all I could say. He said he flew a plane, but he didn’t have any dog tags or identification. And I thought, you know, this is fascinating, you know; I thought that was very cool.

Also, I use my organization skills, especially since it was during COVID, to downsize my house. I would put items on Facebook Marketplace, and while my friends are having things carted away for $2,000, I am making $2,000. So that was very good and I did it gradually. It was a game. I’d turn to Bud, well, what can I sell today? I sold my chandelier, I sold my dining room set, my treadmill, my exercise bike, anything that you could carry out of my house that I couldn’t lift. That was a benefit.

I’m still selling things; just give it a look-see.

Danton: Well, it sounds like you have a lot of activities in your retirement. Other than walking, is there anything that you found has been beneficial as far as just staying active and keeping health at the top of mind?

Judy: Health is very important. So, in addition to walking, for over 10 years I’ve taken a stretch and flexibility course once a week that seems like, well, how hard could that be? And I thought, it’s not hard. It’s about 10 minutes up and 40 minutes down on a mat. But it really helps with gardening, getting up, bending, stretching. I’ve taken some yoga classes, also. So, I do feel that’s a wonderful benefit and it makes you feel better.

Danton: I was curious because I know you’re active and a lot of people, especially with work, it keeps them active. But when you’re retired, it can be difficult to continue that.

Judy: But I do have one thing to say: don’t play pickleball! Because if you’re 70, because your body says go, but your mind says go, but your body says no. So you know, you pivot over to the right and left and all of a sudden your knee is still there or your ankle.

Danton: I’m 40 and that happens to me. I tried to play sand volleyball with my daughters’ 14-year-old team. We won, I will point that out, but I’m not sure how much longer that will last.

Judy: Right!

Danton: So for you chiropractors listening to this…

Kyle: Exactly! In getting to know you over the past year and a half or so, you like to travel. What have been some of the most memorable places that you’ve been since you’ve retired and had the opportunity to explore a bit more?

Judy: Well, because of COVID, I didn’t get that opportunity until recently. So last year I did take a trip to Canada, landed in Calgary, went to Banff in Lake Louise, which is fabulous! Then got on a train for two days and went through the Canadian Rockies and ended up in Vancouver. And these, even my brother and the Villagers, now, Judy, those are really nice places.

Yeah, I kind of figured that. And got to see the Northern Lights, which, you know, I never thought I’d see. But anywhere I have not been, would be exciting for me to travel to.

Kyle: You have any trips planned right now?

Judy: Yes, I do. I have six, which would be five little trips and a big trip is going on my birthday, June 26th, going to leave, fly to New York, for two days. This is a plane, a train, a bus and a boat.

Kyle: Oh, wow, you’re just missing the automobile.

Judy: Yeah, it sounds like a movie, doesn’t it? So, two days in New York, then you get on the train, go through the Adirondacks, and then you go to Quebec, Montreal. Then you get on the ship and you do Nova Scotia into Canada. I’ve done a lot of this trip before, but I’m going with some friends and I thought, well, you know, I’ll just kind of revisit it. Bud’s not up for traveling like that, but he’s seen a lot of it also, so that’ll be kind of fun for him to know where I am. He’s been there.

Danton: Sure, yeah. As you’ve been retired for several years, have there been any big surprises that have really jumped out at you from the time you’ve been retired?

Judy: Not really, because I always have low expectations and, therefore, then you’re not disappointed.

I felt that it would probably be more relaxing. The first thing I did was I gave all my watches away; so I don’t wear a watch anymore and, yes, I was a big watch person. Oh, I’m going to do this, got to do that. But a friend of mine years ago told me when she retired and stayed home with her kids, she threw her watches away. And I thought, wow, I don’t think I could ever do that, but I did.

And I’m not really a phone-aholic either. I don’t walk around with my phone, but it’s worked out fine. If I do need to be somewhere, I’ll write notes. I can set the alarm on my phone. But also watches, when you get older, you realize they don’t have any numbers on them; you can’t read them anymore. They’re fashion watches. So, I did buy a watch for the walkers, because there are some trails that aren’t loops and I’d be talking and talking. I thought, I’m going to get a little Timex $10 watch with numbers on it because ladies, we’ve just walked an hour. You have to go back. So that is the only time I would wear a watch.

Danton: Makes sense.

Kyle: Yeah. You know, as we kind of head for home here and wrap up our time together, I think in this series that we’re doing about retirement that Danton alluded to at the beginning, we’re getting perspective. And so what I’d like to ask you is, at the end of the day, what advice would you give the younger version of Judy in the lead up and the build up to retirement? What do you wish you could go back and tell yourself to be either prepared for or to do differently, anything like that?

Judy: The best advice is live below your means. Because you’ll be a lot happier. And I even tell my children, I’ve lived both ways, you know, even as a young single person, live below your means. We paid off our house years ago. I felt very good about that. Danton has been a wonderful advisor for us. And I didn’t even know if it would be possible to retire. But Danton said, no, I think you’ll be okay. And I really don’t see any big changes in my lifestyle.

Another hint I would say, be a volunteer. I’ve always volunteered. I’ve been the president of three different organizations for their chapters. One time, I was asked to run for the Parkway School Board, but I didn’t want to embrace that volunteer job.

Danton: You don’t seem like the political type.

Judy: Yes. But volunteerism is important, exercise is important, saving your money is important. Have a hobby. For me, it’s walking, gardening, bridge. But I also have always been wanting to write a book. At 19, my first book was Contemplations for a Tuesday Night. And I’d always think of the titles first. But I never finished these books. So my latest book is People Along the Way. And what I like to do is if I met a person I found special, they would get their own chapter, and that’s what the book would be. Then I decided, well, that’s kind of hard to write a book, I get about seven or eight chapters in. I think I’ll write a song first.

So I wrote a song and my brother, one of my brothers, and my two sisters-in-law and myself recorded it. My other brother was recording it on the phone and I wrote the words and the melody. And my one brother, who’s a musician, and he goes, well, can you read music? And I said, no, but I can sing into my phone. That’s the melody. And so that was kind of fun. But I hope to someday finish that book. I think it would be kind of cool.

Danton: It would be. Yeah, it’s great to hear all, I don’t know, the risk you kind of took throughout your life.

In doing the things that maybe are less conventional and most people maybe think they want to write a book, but no one does it. So it’s great to hear that you actually took the time and do the things, and continue to do the things, that you want to do. I think a lot of people back down and get scared to do those things, so I’m glad to hear you’re doing them.

Judy: Be a risk taker. I think that is good advice.

Kyle: And I think that’s an excellent way to end our time together. Judy, thank you so much. We appreciate you stopping by and giving us a piece of your time. I know it’s pretty busy.

Judy: It was my pleasure. Thank you very much.

Kyle: Thank you.

And again, Judy Lampe today on Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most. And Danton, I thought this was a fascinating conversation. You know, going part-time twice, that was interesting. And then also seeing too, how forces beyond your control can precipitate and facilitate the retirement story.

Danton: And it’s always interesting for me to hear the more full story as we do these interviews because I hear bits and pieces through helping think about retirement, what that looks like, but to hear what’s kind of going on in the background is always interesting as well.

Kyle: Right. And then, the way that she described – I still think it’s just amazing – it was those two words. And then she made the phone call to you to say, hey, you know, you’ve said that I can retire, but can I like really retire? Because it’s just something that triggered it, and that’s what I thought was very interesting about her story. And then too, the genesis, the transition of using the skills that made her successful in a 40-year working career – she didn’t shut them off in retirement; they naturally gravitated over really.

Danton: And it was interesting to hear all the things that she’s doing in retirement and while it maybe doesn’t make you feel as busy, it absolutely sounds like she’s very busy, even in retirement.

Kyle: And then the one thing that was touched on was when she retired, the world shut down.

Danton: You don’t think about how COVID affected all these different nuances of our lives and not just our economy, but also people as an individual. And so it’s interesting; it’s been several years now, but it still is having a lasting effect on people.

Kyle: There’s no doubt about that. And if you had to summarize a little bit, maybe two to three points, like what Judy’s story really can teach us about retirement, what would you say in that regard?

Danton: Yeah. I think she had some good words as far as summarizing things, as far as just living below your means. And we see that all the time as professionals, but what that means kind of at the individual level is different as well. And so really trying to have that mantra, and as she said, from the start, because it’s very hard once you get out in front of it to pull it back. So from the start, when you’re young, to try and live below your means, which is always easier said than done, it is a challenge. So I think that was a big takeaway.

And then maybe a surprise for me, it was all the, I called it, risk that Judy took. I don’t know that she saw it as risk necessarily, but I thought it was very interesting. Working over the years, you don’t always hear every story, or at least how they’re connected, and so that was very interesting for me to hear that side of things.

Kyle: Really enjoying these conversations around retirement and, now that we’re getting some more of these in, I’m really just enjoying the storytelling and appreciative to Judy, appreciative to you, and appreciative to folks that are taking the time to go on this journey with us. So again, thank you very much.

Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most is a production of Moneta’s Gast Freeman Troyer Racen Team, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Until next time, he’s Danton Troyer and I’m Kyle Luetters.

© 2024 Advisory services offered by Moneta Group Investment Advisors, LLC, 100 South Brentwood Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63105 (“MGIA”), an investment adviser registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). MGIA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Moneta Group, LLC. Registration as an investment adviser does not imply a certain level of skill or training. This is an advertisement. The information contained herein is for informational purposes only, is not intended to be comprehensive or exclusive, and is based on materials deemed reliable, but the accuracy of which has not been verified. Examples contained herein are for illustrative purposes only based on generic assumptions. Given the dynamic nature of the subject matter and the environment in which this communication was written, the information contained herein is subject to change. This is not an offer to sell or buy securities, nor does it represent any specific recommendation. You should consult with an appropriately credentialed professional before making any financial, investment, tax, or legal decision. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. You cannot invest directly in an index. All investments are subject to a risk of loss. Diversification and strategic asset allocation do not assure profit or protect against loss in declining markets. These materials do not take into consideration your personal circumstances, financial or otherwise. Trademarks and copyrights of materials linked herein are the property of their respective owners.

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In this episode, a recent retiree discusses how he knew it was time to retire and the shift in self-identity that transition causes. We also discuss what gets him out of bed in the morning and how he stays active, socially engaged, and mentally stimulated in retirement. Balancing his retirement while his wife is still working creates a somewhat unique situation for them as a couple.

Kyle: Welcome to episode number one of Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most – a podcast with Moneta’s Gast Freeman Troyer Racen Team. My name is Kyle Luetters, I’m an advisor on the team, and I am joined on this podcast by Danton Troyer, a partner on the team.

Danton, this is our debut episode…the mics still smell new; everything still works. But this has really been an idea that we have had for a while – to get together with folks and tell stories. At the end of the day, the big crux of what we’re trying to do here is tell some of these stories and there are some quite interesting ones.

Danton: Yes, we do financial planning on a day-to-day basis. It’s looking at numbers. But the reality Is, that’s not why we do this. So, the point of this podcast is to go a little bit deeper in these conversations and really talk about what actually matters most. And that’s different for everyone. So obviously everyone needs to make wise decisions with their finances and be sure you’re financially secure. But that’s not the full equation. If you don’t have a plan going into retirement, it could be a bumpy ride and not everybody thinks about it in the same way.

Kyle: Well, it’s funny you mentioned retirement because the first three episodes of our podcast are going to be devoted to that very topic. And we want to highlight retirement without recliners or rocking chairs, because I think there’s a cultural stigma that we experience that I’m going to retire and I’m just going to kind of sit around. I might play golf all day every day. I’m going to sit around and read or this or that. But you and I are going to find out in a lot of these conversations, there’s a number of folks that kind of wonder how they had time to work because now they’re so busy in retirement.

Danton: I’ve heard everything from as simple as doing puzzles, to playing the piano, to traveling the world. So, the answer isn’t the same for everybody, but having that conversation and at least thought process, I think is very valuable for everyone.

Kyle: Well, one of the folks that we’re going to talk to – the very first guest we’re going to have on here – is Charles Crossiant. Charles is someone that you have known for a while and just recently retired in the summer of 2023.

Danton: Yeah, Charles recently retired in July from Saint Louis University, and we’ve been having conversations and he’s been a client for well over 10 years. So, it’s interesting to know someone for that long and work with them and now it’s happened. He’s actually retired. It’s great on the financial side of things, but it’s just great to hear the stories and his success while being able to achieve his goal of retirement.

Kyle: Well, we’ll go on and get out of the way because now here’s our conversation with Charles Croissant.

Kyle: Well, Charles, welcome to the podcast. It’s good to have you with us here today. Thanks for coming by.

Charles: You’re welcome. It’s good to be here.

Kyle: So, you know, kind of tell us a little bit about how did you know it was the right time for you to retire?

Charles: I had planned, well, let’s see, I got into my long-term professional career. I got into

that, you know, somewhat later in life and knew that I wanted to get as much earning time in as possible before I retired. So, I had always planned on working at least until 70. When I actually started at the place where I ended my career – St. Louis University – I started there in 2000. I would have been not quite 50 at that point, 48, I guess I was. I sort of knew going into that that I was going to want to work until I was 70. I had very good fortune at St. Louis University. I met my wife, Jackie, in 2002 and that was a terrific development because one thing that I do find is going into retirement as part of a couple, I think…well, I would not want to do it as a single person. I would much rather be part of a partnership. So that caused me to feel a good deal more stability about going into my later years and I think I would have felt different if I’d stayed single.

But even so, I knew that I wanted to work past 65, and I’d sort of envisioned 70 as my target age. I turned 70 in 2022, and so at that point I was thinking, you know, this is time to make an exit and it turned out to be a good time in a number of ways. Things that had nothing to do with me personally, but there was a change in leadership at the library where I was employed and the new director who came in and took charge. I began to feel early on that she and I weren’t really on the same page. She was a younger woman and didn’t have much of a sense, I don’t think, of the kind of work that I did which on a high level, we call cataloging where you put records that go into the online catalog for the books in the collection. And I was dealing with mostly foreign language books, a lot of European imprints from Germany, France, Spain, and Italy and subject areas like church history, philosophy, and theology and that was, I think, rather foreign to her background and when we talked it was literally foreign to her. I didn’t feel like there was a great deal of appreciation for what I was doing. So that really settled for me that yes, sometime that year would be the time to retire.

So, in the fall of 2022, right after I turned 70, I formally declared that I was going to retire on June 30th of 2023, and that’s what I did. So, it was knowing that basically I had spent as much time as I should in the place that I was and that it was time to step away from that. And also a feeling that things were changing and I see looking around me and other people of my age, you get the feeling that there’s a younger crowd moving in and beginning to take charge, and at least for me and I think also for my wife Jackie, there’s this feeling that that younger crowd doesn’t necessarily place a high value on the institutional knowledge that you have; they’d rather be left alone I think to do it their own way. So, it felt like it was a good time to leave and I was also affected in that whole process insofar as the colleague that I was closest to at the library was a man about my age I think he’s a year older than I am and similar academic background to mine, similar interests. He worked with the same subject areas that I did and he had let me know sometime before that he was going to be retiring in June of 2023, so we went out together. It felt good for both of us to be leaving at the same time and we had a joint party together to celebrate our going away and so it worked out really quite well.

But mainly for me, it was that financial consideration that I wanted to work at least until 70. I was interested in being able to put off applying for Social Security until I was 70 in hopes of getting the maximum benefit, which I did. So those were the things that guided me. I just wanted to make sure that I had earned enough basically to have a hope of a good retirement. And then I will say that,

you know, the last 10 years or so that we’ve worked with Danton and Mike, it’s been very comforting for both of us that the positive reports they give us so you know, yes, you have the funds that you need to retire, so that made it easy to do.

Danton: I think as far as the time we’ve been working together, I think that has been your goal is age 70. So, as you approached that age of 70, you didn’t retire obviously on your birthday, but you did push it back a couple months. What was the thought process as you were just really in that final month?

Charles: Well, actually when it came down to it, I turned 70 in August 2022, and I enjoyed doing what I was doing and it’s an intellectual activity, so I was physically able to do it and all that kind of thing. I had some thought of continuing on some kind of a reduced time basis or something like that and that’s where I came to realize that the new head of the library was not interested in that, so I just went ahead and said well, in that case, I’ll just name the date of June 30th and leave then.

Kyle: You’ve done and mentioned a ton of things that we definitely need to unpack a little bit. There’s been moves, there’s been this and that, but I want to hone back in on your wife Jackie. Tell us about her story right now because I understand, is she still working right now?

Charles: She is still working. We married in 2008 and it was the first marriage for both of us and later in life for both of us. And she’s also a librarian; we met at the library at St. Louis University and then after we had been colleagues for a couple of years she took a different position with the American Association of Orthodontists and became the librarian at their headquarters which is here in St. Louis. For most of the time, that’s been a really good position for her, and then recently not so much, so she’s now looking forward to retiring, but she’s not quite there yet. She is a number of years younger than I am and at this point she’s 62, so she wants to sort of make it to

65 before she actually leaves and that’s fine. As far as that goes, I think we would both prefer to both be retired, but she has projects that she wants to wrap up and then, of course, the main consideration for her, and I think for a lot of people, is making it to 65 so that she can get Medicare.

Right if you don’t do that then you’re on the hook for all the money that needs to be spent on health insurance and she is not, you know neither one of us are, willing to pay what you’d have to pay if she retires early. so that’s the goal there it’s for her to work until she’s 65.

Danton: So, with Jackie still working, how are you guys finding your time, because I mean obviously, you have a lot more free time now and she’s still working, so how are you guys still coming together to spend time together?

Charles: Well, we still get up together and have breakfast together, part of our routine is that I always make breakfast, so I continue to do that and get her out of the house and on the way to work. And then you know I have to find ways to occupy my day, which is usually not a problem because there always seems to be chores to be done or some errands to run, that kind of thing. And then she gets home in the evenings and several times a week we go to the YMCA in Brentwood

together and swim for 40 minutes or so, that’s our little exercise thing. Then we come home and get ready for bed. On weekends we’re just trying to get caught up with things and do a few errands, a little shopping, and occasionally maybe take a little trip somewhere just for the day.

Danton: Did you find that that was just natural, it just happened, or did you guys have a conversation that this is what we’re going to do?

Charles: I think it’s just sort of happened on its own. I wouldn’t say that we sat down and had a conversation about it. I can certainly always find things to do, that is definitely not a problem. In fact, I would say it’s more the opposite – that I’m still looking to balance things a little more so I have a little more time just to relax. I’m still busy with a number of things and, in particular, right

now I’m on the council of the church that I’m a member of and have some committee responsibilities there that I’m dealing with. We’re working on upgrading the live streaming for our church services and I had to put together a little group to research what we were going to buy and who we were going to contract with, that kind of thing. So, there’s plenty to do around, things like that. I have at least one rehearsal, sometimes two rehearsals, a week for the choirs that I participate in and the other things that I enjoy doing. I’ve always played piano and for years I’ve had a good friend that we get together on a regular basis and we play piano duets together, and now that I’m retired we’re able to do that once a week which is nice. We used to do it well before COVID, and during COVID we had to stop for a while. But this past year we were able to get back into doing it. Back in the day, we often did it every other week, but now since I’m retired we’re able to do it once a week which I enjoy. So, I’ve got that and other little practicing and playing moments and, yeah, I find that really does a lot to fill up the time.

Kyle: There’s a number of folks that you talk to and they say that in retirement they’re so busy, they don’t know how they had time to work.

Charles: I do feel that too, and I go back and think about the work years and I don’t know how

I managed back then because I certainly have plenty to do now and even now I could probably use a little more downtime than I actually have. I feel like I’m still seeking to find my way toward that kind of a balance. You know I’ve only been retired now since the beginning of July, so I look at it as it’s definitely a work in progress. I’ll find out how to best spend my time these next couple of years and then, of course, Jackie and I both know things will change a lot when she’s also retired. Then we’ll have to think about how to spend the entire day together which I look forward to and I know she does, too. But of course that’ll be a whole other adjustment on top of this one.

Kyle: Does she have like any has she expressed to you anything that she really wants to do? I want to get back to the choir and the piano, I think that’s interesting, But has she expressed to you anything on the top of her mind that she really wants to do? Is it travel? Is it taking classes together? Has she expressed anything to you that when she’s done working, what she really wants to do?

Charles: We’ve talked a good deal about the fact that we would both like to travel but I think that will be a few years away for both of us right now. We have to be thinking some about all of our parents being alive, my parents and her parents. Mine are in their mid-90s and we’re sort of focusing right now on being there to spend time with them. And Jackie’s parents are not far away in Cottleville, by St. Peter’s. But my parents are up near Chicago, so we travel up there three or four times a year to spend a week with my mom and dad. They’re in a very comfortable situation in a really nice three-stage senior community.

Danton: What has been the biggest surprise or just over the last couple of months maybe for you in your retirement?

Charles: It does feel different being retired and then trying to get your head around that I am retired, realizing that you have to figure out ways to spend your time trying to fit in the things that you want to get done around the house and that kind of thing. I would say just accepting the fact that all your questions don’t get answered right at once, as to how you’re supposed to be negotiating this. You just have to sort of let things be for a while and see how they develop on their own basically.

Danton: We had talked a little bit, kind of leading up, about beyond the dollars, what you wanted to do. But how much thought did you actually give leading up to retirement about how you’re going to fill your day versus maybe the reality of how you are filling your day?

Charles: I mean I had thought about a couple of things that I was interested in pursuing, and that hasn’t actually come to fruition yet. Like there was a friend who’s been retired for a number of years, and she years ago started volunteering at the St. Louis Art Museum as a docent and I thought that would be a really attractive thing to do. So I did make an attempt to get it to touch with somebody there, but so far that hasn’t borne any fruit. I think they’ve cut back on the number of training events they do for new volunteers in this program, so I’m still sort of waiting to see if anything comes of that. But in the meantime, I find that I’ve got more than enough to fill my time as it is and so I’m really okay with that. I’ve been glad that I have more time to play piano but I find that I’d like to be doing even more of that than I am and some of these other obligations that I’ve taken on are sort of pulling me away from some of these things I would actually prefer to be doing. So I’m sort of trying to figure out well what steps do I need to take – do I just need to accept that this is the way it is with my schedule right now and the level of responsibilities I have for some of these volunteer activities that will come and go, and I think I just need to relax and accept that.

Kyle: We’ve had a wonderful conversation with you and so glad that you are into this journey now even if it is abbreviated what you’re into it so far it’s still good to hear. I have one last question but I would be remiss before we go – we have a gift for you. It’s that mug that’s right here on the table and there’s a little treat in there for you as well. And we know you love coffee so we wanted to make sure that you had a little gift from us for being on the show.

But the last question I really wanted to ask is if you could go back in time, and I’ll let you pick however long that time is, what advice would you give the younger version of yourself heading into retirement that you wish you would have known?

Charles: I think in terms of my younger self I think I would say it’s been a huge improvement to my life to get married and I was 56 when I got married and I’m very glad I worked out that way. My experience certainly is that life has been better since I’ve been part of a couple and I’m very glad that I waited till I did because I think I’ve found the right partner. But I would certainly, people who are single and just starting out in life, I think I would definitely give them that advice to look around them and look for the right partner to be with. I wouldn’t want to be going through this part of my life as a single man, most definitely. And looking toward retirement has become a much more secure prospect for me since I got married. When I was a single man, I really had no idea at that point whether I would ever have enough money to retire on comfortably. And that fear went away once Jackie and I were married and both contributing income into these retirement plans. But I think that partnership is a very important thing and I would certainly, if the younger version of me or other people who are still single are listening to this then, I would say definitely do your best to look around you for the right partner.

Kyle: Good partnership leads to a great retirement. Charles, thank you very much for joining us today. I appreciate it.

Charles: You’re most welcome. Thank you; it’s been a pleasure.

Kyle: And Danton, that was a wonderful conversation with Charles Croissant. So great to sit down and talk to somebody that had really a unique story, working in library sciences for that long, met his wife in the same field. They find each other later on. And if you listen there at the end, them finding one another was really kind of one of the best pieces of advice he’d give a younger version of himself, was to do this together with somebody.

Danton: Yeah. I mean he had a lot of unique aspects to his retirement. But I think we all deal with a lot of these same thoughts as we’re heading into our retirement. And really there’s three points I had that came out of that:

The first one was just thinking about how do you stay active, socially engaged and just really mentally stimulated in retirement?

Kyle: And you know for Charles that was, you know, he mentioned the piano and the choir. He also mentioned that he is on a committee at church or several committees at church. He mentioned that he and Jackie go swimming together. So he’s really kind of hitting all of these points. And frankly, you know, when he started talking about making breakfast every day, it got me to thinking what does this guy make?

Danton: We should have asked him what his dish of choice is. We definitely missed out on the next time we see him. We’ll definitely have to ask.

I mean that’s really the second point is, you know, what is going to get you out of bed in the morning?

You know, you work for 20, 30, you know, sometimes 40 years and that’s your motivation to get up in the morning. And that all goes away. I mean if you haven’t thought about that, that can be life changing.

Kyle: Yeah.

And then kind of the last one that we had jotted down as well was, how does your self-identity

shift in retirement?

And Charles talked about it just a touch about, you know, from working, working, working to, he kind of realized that maybe his identity was his work, but he started to get shifted out a little bit. And then the landscape changed a little bit, so it forced him, to a degree, to look into retirement. And I think he’s still new in it.He mentioned himself, it’s going to take a little while for him to really kind of figure the thing out.

Danton: Yeah. I mean, just as your working career has phases, I think so does your retirement. I mean, we think of, you know, the retirement is one phase, but there’s really different phases even throughout retirement. And we’re seeing that with, you know, Charles and I’m sure when Jackie retires, it’ll start a whole other phase for him.

Kyle: You know, it’d be interesting, I think here on future episodes, to do this again and then have Jackie come in with him and do like a compare-contrast type of a deal. That to me would be something to be a worthwhile conversation.

Danton: I agree.

Kyle: Well, 100 percent. Well, Danton, episode number one in the books, this was fun. And I look forward to doing more of these. We’ve got more folks and more things to talk about retirement.

But as we, you know, get ready to sign off here, what did you have the most fun? What stands out most to you from our conversation with Charles today?

Danton: Well, I’ve known Charles and Jackie for over 10 years now. And it’s just always good to hear beyond the dollars and cents, what’s, you know, their life, their life story. I mean, it matters.

And it affects the financial planning that we do as well as the why behind it. It really helps us do our job better as well.

Kyle: Well, you nailed it, my friend. So, until next time, enjoy what matters most.

Wit Wisdom, and What Matters Most is a production of Moneta’s Gast, Freeman Troyer, Racen team, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri.

© 2024 Advisory services offered by Moneta Group Investment Advisors, LLC, 100 South Brentwood Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63105 (“MGIA”), an investment adviser registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). MGIA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Moneta Group, LLC. Registration as an investment adviser does not imply a certain level of skill or training. This is an advertisement. The information contained herein is for informational purposes only, is not intended to be comprehensive or exclusive, and is based on materials deemed reliable, but the accuracy of which has not been verified. Examples contained herein are for illustrative purposes only based on generic assumptions. Given the dynamic nature of the subject matter and the environment in which this communication was written, the information contained herein is subject to change. This is not an offer to sell or buy securities, nor does it represent any specific recommendation. You should consult with an appropriately credentialed professional before making any financial, investment, tax, or legal decision. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. You cannot invest directly in an index. All investments are subject to a risk of loss. Diversification and strategic asset allocation do not assure profit or protect against loss in declining markets. These materials do not take into consideration your personal circumstances, financial or otherwise. Trademarks and copyrights of materials linked herein are the property of their respective owners.

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