Yohance: Emily, why is it so hard to get our clients to spend their money?

Emily: You know, I think people are shocked that that is such a big part of our job. You know, the hesitation that people have when they've just been in this saving and accumulation mode and saving, saving, saving, saving, saving, and then turning that spigot on and starting to actually take money out of that portfolio is physically painful for clients to go through. So you know, it's not just the math of telling people they're ready to spend money. There are a lot of emotions around that.

Yohance: Yeah, I find that like you said, there's a physical or a physiological, psychological barrier that because, and I've shared this with clients too. It's like you've been in the habit of only sending money in one direction to your 401k, to your 403b, to your IRAs. The idea of it going in a different direction is just foreign to you. But at the same time it's like, what were we saving for? Like, like that was the whole point. Like you're going to get to this point of financial independence and we're going to spend the money now. They can easily pull money out of 529s for their kids education. They can easily pull money out of an investment account to, to buy a house or take that vacation. But when it comes to the retirement spending, I mean, how many projections have you looked at where the math just starts to look ridiculous?

Emily: You're gonna Monopoly money.

Yohance: Exactly. You're have tens of millions of dollars if this keeps up. It's just, but to get them to spend. So, so what, what do you do? How do you have that conversation with clients?

Emily: Yeah, you know, I, I start with kind of gentler approaches and nudges and showing them the numbers and talking through it. But I eventually get to much more aggressive tactics. So just last week I was talking to a client and he wanted to delay retirement because he wanted to have a goal of hitting a certain balance in his investments at the point of retirement. And I went through this line of questioning, okay, are you going to upgrade your home? Are you going to upgrade your boat? Are you going to buy more cars? Like, are you going to travel more? Like, what's going to change if you work more and you have more in your account balance? He said nothing, I'm already doing everything I want to do. He's on track to hit all of those goals. So I said to him, you're going to die with more money. That's the only difference here. You know, you're going to trade working two more years just to hit this balance, this, like, number in your head, and you're gonna. You're just gonna die with more money. So he just laughed at that, you know, and. But it's taken many conversations to get to the point where I can just be blunt in that way. But to. To kind of start, you know, it's. A lot of. It is, I tell clients that we like to meet their security needs first. So I like to understand from them how much is enough to hold in a checking account or savings account for their, like, security blanket of money, and how much feels like enough to hold in various other accounts. And so I like to understand what those anchors are in their heads so that I can kind of honor that in my planning. Because if I start to suggest that they send money in from their savings account and it, like, depletes them to a level they're not comfortable with, I'm going to put them in a place of feeling insecure. Right. So I want to make sure I understand all those metrics. But I also, you know, we do a thorough spending study. We do a lot of what if scenarios. And so I'm showing the projections, and that is sometimes enough to kind of start to plant those seeds about, okay, we're going to have those tens of millions of dollars at the end, and, you know, maybe we might want to start spending and utilizing some of this money. But a lot of clients, it takes multiple meetings like that and a lot of conversations to really remind them what this money is meant for and. And show them the outcome of what happens and talk through the outcome of what happens if we don't spend. So it's a lot of conversation, and very rarely do clients just get it and say, yep, I'm going to retire and I'm just going to start spending. It is kind of. You've got to let them process through that, think through that, plant some seeds, and then we get to a place where they feel comfortable spending that money.

Yohance: Now, Emily, how long have you been a financial planner?

Emily: 19 years.

Yohance: Okay, so you were here for the recession of 08 and 09?

Emily: Yes.

Yohance: Can you share what some of the experiences were for clients that were in retirement that maybe still had a sizable amount of money in equities? What was that like for them and how did you coach them through that period?

Emily: Yeah, it's incredibly difficult for anybody. You know, I. I'm not anywhere near retirement. I don't like watching my account balance go down. It's. But for people who are in Retirement especially and brand new retirees or people just about to step into retirement, it can cause them to absolutely panic. And the, the big thing that I like to do in those types of moments and what I remember having a lot of conversations around is reminding them that certain money has certain jobs for them and is meant to be spent at different times. And so I literally just bifurcated some of the, like, this is your stock investment, these are your equities, this is what they're doing right now, but this is your long term money. You know, you're 62 years old, you're going to spend this money when you're 85, right? You're going to spend it when you're 92. Accounts recover, right? And you have bonds and you have cash. And so part of that is just reminding them, okay, this is your short term money. You've got plenty of money here. You've got three years worth of cash or you have, between cash and bonds, you have five or seven years worth. And so just reminding them that yes, it's incredibly scary and so recognizing that and understanding where they are emotionally. But then also maybe looking at it from a different account balance perspective. You know, you mentioned, for example, people are okay spending 529 money or out of a specific account that is labeled in a certain way. So I in some cases physically segregated that money and said, long term money, don't look at it, don't think about it. Short term money, okay to spend. You know, sometimes that, that can be helpful just to give that money a job and a role instead of just looking at the entire account balance and focusing on the amount that it is currently down.

Yohance: Did you ever or do you recall having any clients that just completely capitulated during the 08,09 and just wanted to take everything out and just had, you know, they were so gripped with fear, especially for the retired, the younger folks, it was like, okay, you guys can, you can make that mistake and you'll be, you can recover from it. But do you remember experiencing that with any clients back then?

Emily: Yeah, thankfully during that recession I did not have anybody significantly go 100 to cash. I did have some clients secure a little bit more. So as the market was going down, I specifically remember know In October of 08, you know, the market was down, you know, in an 11 day span, like pretty quickly. And then just saying, hey, I want to move a little bit of this over to bonds. And so the, the question then is, okay, well when is that money going back in? And so let's be Right, twice. Yeah, let's make a plan now for, for when that's potentially going to occur. So I had some slippage there, but I had the, the one notable one for me that like sticks in my brain is actually during COVID And so I had a conversation with a client in mid March, like March 13th maybe, and talking about, no, we're just gonna ride this through. You're several years away from retirement. You know, this is something we're gonna be able to handle. And they emailed me on, on Monday, like the Monday the stock market was down the most. And they said, we did something over the weekend. We took our 401ks to cash, and it was on the lowest day during that time period, looking back. And so we got on a call that week and just said, okay, let's make a game plan. Maybe let's start to put money into some sectors or areas you are comfortable with maybe dialing some of that money in. And we just. Dollar cost averaged that money back in over a few months. Now overall, they did lose money during that time period because the market never went down further than that in that exact point point.

Yohance: So they dollar cost averaged up.

Emily: Yep, up, you know, up into the market and just slowly got there. But they're, they're still okay. They actually just retired this year. So it was that amount of time, it was like six years away from retirement that they had that kind of panic moment. But they, even when they called me, they're like, we think we did something wrong here, but couldn't put them. They couldn't get themselves to put, put it all back together. So we, we just made a plan. So it's just executing a plan and having some rational thought around it. So rather than just saying, I'm going to like, decide what day to put this money back to work, they said, you know, ultimately, I can agree to just a little bit every week of a set quantity, regardless of what's happening, and we're just going to get there over time. So we had a little bit of a penalty there, but not nothing that stopped their ability to retire when they wanted to.

Yohance: So for the, the new retiree that's coming to see you now that shows up at the office and let's say they have their number. Let's pretend their number is $3 million. They have the $3 million, and let's pretend it's all in equities and they're someone that, that's, you know, they understand markets go up and down. They've rode the waves all that Fun stuff. And when you look at their projections, as we mentioned earlier, that sort of client, let's say they're 65 years old, if their spending rate is somewhere south of 4 or 5% of that $3 million, and you take Social Security or any pensions into account, so maybe the rate's even lower, you know, they're destined to have, if they live to be 95, 20 million dollars. So what are the opening conversations with them about their ability to spend, their ability to gift?

Emily: Yeah, I spend a lot of time. I do goals and values meetings and flourish meetings where I spend a lot of time understanding, speaking my language, Emily, understanding what they ultimately want to spend money on. And we go multiple layers deep. So I do a Wheel of Life exercise where I like to understand eight dimensions of wellness for them and understand how they feel about their health, how they feel about their, you know, mental health and physical health, how they feel about their relationships, how they feel about their home. And so it's not just like it's really hard sometimes to go up to somebody and ask, what are your financial goals or what do you want to spend money on? So it's. It helps to create some categories around certain areas. And I ask about specific types of purchases or specific types of upgrades or specific types of giving. You know, you have two kids that are, you know, 22 and 24 years old. Like, do you envision vision helping to support weddings in the future? Or what type of support do you want to provide to them? How and when do they ultimately want to receive money? You know, I tell clients that. That you want them to receive money. I tell clients all money is going to be spent. So money is going to be spent by you now, by you later, by your beneficiaries, or by the government. And so we, yeah, so we like

Yohance: to think about early, be talking about the government. Emily, I just woke up. Let me finish my coffee first.

Emily: Yeah, you know, so tax reduction, right? So that's a big goal, right? So we can reduce taxes, we can increase the money. You can spend now, spend later, or your beneficiaries can spend. And so sometimes when you look at things from that context, it's thinking about, well, how and when do we want to maybe spend some of that money? So there are a lot of different types of questions that I ask that help me to understand how clients would ultimately want to spend money if they felt free to do so. So I'll ask clients, if $50 million landed in your bank account tomorrow, nobody knew about it, what would you do? How Would you feel, what would you spend?

Yohance: Not even the government. So the government doesn't know you.

Emily: Well, I always say taxes already paid.

Yohance: Okay, taxes paid. All right, so net 50 million.

Emily: Net 50 million.

Yohance: Do with 50 million? I probably first build a podcast studio so I'm not doing it sitting in my office anymore. So I'd have one of those state of the art studios and I would set up a budget so all my guests can fly in for the day. Let's see. Well, I guess I top off my daughter's 529 plan be easy one. You know, I'd probably with that amount of money that's like lottery money at that point. I'm one of six sibling living siblings at that point. Everybody's getting their house or house paid off. Like where's your eyes? If you don't have one, go get one after that. I think I'd probably be bored. I mean I'm sure take a couple trips around the world, but I'm already work on doing that on my current salary. But yeah, I mean does that happen with clients? Do they run out of things to do when you give them that big number?

Emily: Yeah, but what, what it allows for is for you to think bigger than you are currently limiting yourself to now. Because right now on your, you know, current salary, current income, the thought of flying every guest in and building podcast studio, there's some limiting like oh well, I've gotta like save for retirement and put money in the 529 and you know, do do everything else. Right. So as soon as it's not your money too, that also helps, but that also helps people to dream a little bit bigger. And so we get these interesting conversations from people. I had one a couple of weeks ago in a goals and values meeting where I asked that same question. And she first said nothing, I wouldn't change anything about my life. Right. We start to have people who think that that is the right answer. And so I said, well you know, just let's dream a little bit, let's think, you know, if this is sitting in your bank account. And she had told me over multiple conversations, I wouldn't change anything about my life, I don't need any more money, I don't need to spend any more money, I don't need anything. And this went on and on and on and on. But with that question, she actually admitted, she said, you know, it'd be really nice to have a vacation home, you know, something on the beach, bring the kids there, have my grandkids come and she started just dreaming as soon as she stepped into that and started speaking out loud. I mean, paint colors for, like, she just envisioned it. And, you know, for me as a planner, I start to then look at her plan and think, is this possible on, you know, current assets or income? Or maybe it's not. Maybe we're just having a fun conversation. Right. So not every single dream can be realized, but this was something that was never admitted to me previously and I didn't even know was a possibility. Not everybody wants a beach home to have to take care of or to go back to the same beach every single year or whatever it is. But for some people, they can envision bringing the family together and having these family experiences. And so that's something now that's in my mind to think about. Okay. You know, do we encourage her to get an Airbnb for a month every summer at the same beach, or is it in the budget to purchase a beach condo? And I'm on Zillow, kind of, you know, pre shopping. So it's starting, you know, just starting. Sometimes it takes just different questions and different angles and different conversations and different moods and, you know, do they have lunch? Are they hungry? Like, are they busy thinking about something else? You know, what's going on with them? Because for a lot of clients, it can sometimes take just catching somebody in the right moment to understand maybe some of those goals that are underneath that maybe they haven't allowed themselves to think through or imagine. And those are so fun to capture and understand about our clients.

Yohance: I. Emily, I. I'm. I hope you don't mind if I borrow that one. I. I want to ask. There's a few clients I'm thinking of. In particular, I want to say if you had 50 million, I might have to say 100 million just to get them to think beyond where they are currently. But I'm curious to see what some of those answers are going to be. I really am. So thank you for that. If you don't mind if I borrow that.

Emily: Yeah.

Yohance: So let's. Let's have a. Let's talk about the tougher conversation. How do you address the client that doesn't have enough that our projections, they're already retired, so the likelihood of them going back to work at the same capacity is low, very low. How do you address the client that is destined to run out of money before they run out of life?

Emily: Yeah. So first I always like to double check my math. So we'll do more of a spending study just to confirm, you know, did I buffer expenses or double count things. Our financial planning software kind of has you enter some of the outflows in a bunch of different places. So did we somehow double count anything? Is there anything that maybe we're missing here? So I always like to check the math first, and then I like to ultimately just frame it in a way of, here's how we can make this plan workable for you. So here's a path that can make sense for you. And so if somebody's still working, it is okay. Right now, I bumped up the retirement age, but, you know, if we look at spending a little bit differently or adjust a few other variables, we can kind of chip away at that number again and get you back into a place that feels good. But for clients that are in retirement, that becomes more tricky because you're right, because it's harder to talk about income streams. So I do share the math and talk through it and say, I have a workable plan if this is your spending level. So clients are typically coming to me, at least at an asset level where there is something to be spent. I'm not typically working with people who just have a fixed pension and fixed Social Security. You know, they have assets, assets to manage. And so there is a spendable number. You and I can both retire today if we're okay living on the money coming in the door from our investments. Right. But you typically have to build your. Your nest egg to a certain level to produce the income that you want to match for your lifestyle and. And everything you'd like to do. So ultimately, I, I don't like to suggest to clients where to make cuts. So I don't feel it's our job to tell somebody you need to travel less.

Yohance: Yeah, I say I'm not the budget police all the time. Like, I'm not the budget police. I'm not going to tell you to swap out the filet mignon for the ground beef. That's not me. Yeah, you're going to see the numbers. You're going to see the categories. That's for you to have those conversations with yourself.

Emily: Yeah. So part of it is, is really understanding priorities. So I tell clients going into a goals and values meeting or flourish meeting, you know, talk to me about the things that are most important to kind of anchor and keep in your plan. So we don't know that about clients. We don't know if that, like, Pilates class is, like, the one thing that keeps them feeling healthy and sane and balanced. Like, I'm not going to pick that out and cut it out, right? There might be other cuts that, that they ultimately want to make, but ultimately it's just talking through priorities and understanding what's really important to them to keep in their plan and then going back to them and saying, let's think through this together. So let's talk through some of the different budget items. And I let them ultimately determine where those adjustments need to be made or to brainstorm what the other opportunities are. Because a budget has two variables, inflows and outflows. So are there any ways to increase inflows? So are there either investment changes or adjustments there or do they want to pick up a part time job or do they want to make a change there? And then when we take a look at expenses, sometimes it's really just, I always say the numbers kind of talk to you. And so as soon as you kind of out show people kind of where their expenses are, where their money is flowing and, and what's really interesting about looking at more of like a waterfall type of diagram that kind of shows the blocks of color for all of the outflows. You know, sometimes something jumps out like, wow, I have a lot of money going into housing, like, do I need to maybe move? You know, so sometimes it's just, I don't like to suggest that because I don't want to be the one to say you need to sell your house that you have lived in for 20 years to make this work. But I like to just kind of show them those numbers and brainstorm and think through and you know, is there a way we can maybe use the equity from your home? Or you know, ultimately, were you already thinking you might want to do something different there? So it's just thinking out loud and working together to work on some of, some of the kind of trimming mechanisms there and then say this is, this is getting you to a workable plan. Like this is a number we ultimately want to get to and here's what things look like if we stay on that path and how does that feel? So I feel like this is a collaborative event and thinking through and talking through, but ultimately letting them decide where those cuts come from. So I had a client come to me who said, my previous money financial planner told me to stop traveling. So much so that stuck in her head and she fired him. So you know that those types of stories stick in my head. Like, I'm not going to suggest that, but let's talk about it. You spend $15,000 a year on travel. You know, it's just showing Them those numbers in that context allows them to ultimately trim and see where it makes sense. And I'm just helping to supply the projections and the math in that working meeting where we're kind of tinkering together.

Yohance: I recently told a client, it's like you don't have to stop traveling, you just never get to stop working.

Emily: Trade off. Right. And some people are fine with that. Right. So you know, some people are fine with that, but part of it is. So my niche client, I work with mid career tech professionals actually just did an interview on Friday with the Wall Street Journal about how with tech professionals specifically they don't always have that option in, in, you know, I have a client who works in AI and you know, every time they start to spend a little bit more, more money, I worry about like you can't do this job at 74. Like there is generally in certain industries there are layoffs, there's ageism and that just exists. Right. And it's something that we have to be aware of. But maybe working in a different capacity or whatever it might be, but just sometimes ticking up that high income in a high income industry isn't always possible. And you know, you and I have both seen probably people who become ill, disabled, they have to caregiver for somebody else, they have to step away from their career. You know, some people are pushed into retirement faster than they ultimately want to be. So my goal is to get them into work optional territory as quickly as possible.

Yohance: Yes.

Emily: So I like, let's secure this down and say, okay, I've got a workable scenario for you. Now if this is our spending level, you keep working, we, we can then buy the nice boat or buy a, you know, a third fun vehicle or you know, do redo your kitchen or travel more or whatever it is like. But I like to attach those additional goals like that carrot on the stick of you're continuing to work and this is the result. It's not just a instead of dying with $20 million, we're going to die with $25 million. It's you know, what are we unless that's the goal, but what are we ultimately going to do with that? So really just going again back to those goals, values and priorities that are in the client's plan.

Yohance: That's beautiful. So what are your meeting. You keep mentioning your meeting titles which I think are very creative. So I heard you say goals and values meeting. I also heard you say a flourish meeting. So what are the titles of your meetings if that's not a trade secret? You don't mind sharing?

Emily: No, not a trade secret. And it's. They're right on our website, too. I. I am obsessed with. I'm very organized, and every single meeting has a name, an agenda, a workflow, and a series of certain types of questions or things that I'm sending assessments, things I'm sending out to the client. Part of that came from, you know, just over the last 19 years, I've been a collector of really cool questions. You know, you listen to Dr. Megan Lurtz on a podcast or Brendan Frazier or your podcast, anyone, right? And you learn these really cool techniques or questions, questions or assessments or ways of kind of conducting a conversation. And so I got a little overwhelmed. I actually have a spreadsheet of questions. You know, how and when and where do I apply certain conversations? So when do I gather money history? When do I dig a little bit deeper here about giving? You know, where am I going to apply these conversations? And so I actually had somebody who is a financial therapist that I think you and I both know come in and help, consult and say, you know, here are the right times to address certain topics and ask certain questions and gather certain information. And she helped me phrase my questionnaires that I send out to clients, like, exactly how do I ask this question to get the best answer? And so I went through that process. So all of our meetings are titled. And so we have. When a new client is onboarding, we have an introductory meeting, we have a discovery meeting, we have an investment onboarding meeting. And then they hit goals and values. So before I start to ask for tax returns, estate planning documents, insurance documents, all of that, I like to really understand and get to know this person. So I got to know them a little bit through intro and discovery meetings. Discovery meetings are also B5 infused. So I ask a lot of dreaming questions there. But when they become a client, we do goals and values meeting, where I want to know the specifics, like, what do you drive now? When do you need to replace your car? How much are we going to spend? Ask some of those specifics, but also, how much of a priority is this for you? So how do we think about a car purchase in the context of a home improvement project or putting more money in a 529 plan? You know, those are all things that I like to understand so that as I am moving levers around, you know, how important is it to you that you retire as quickly as possible or, you know, have more travel? And so understanding those relationships, there's a lot of questions I Ask to understand that about the client. But we also do a lot of dreaming because I want to get somebody really excited about seeing the outcome of their plan to really kind of get into that dreaming mode. And so when I have captured and gathered and really interviewed a client about their goals, values, priorities, trade offs, everything, then the next thing I'm going to do is ask for things like, well, just need a few documents from you, send over your tax returns, this other information and clients send it so quickly. So when I changed that order and I got them really excited about their plan build and where we're going to take them and what we're imagining together, they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, here's all my stuff. So that sped up that process for me. So the next meeting after Goals and Values is I do data confirmation where I review all the data, make sure I have everything kind of input into the financial planning tool so that we're checking for accuracy. And then we go into plan delivery. So that's when the goals and values meet the data and we're looking at the projections and I'm delivering out their plan that has really a 360 degree view of their whole financial life. And then we come up with an implementation plan together. So this is something where coming out of that, you know, do they need to work on their estate plan or taxes or update insurance or maybe dream a little bit more like you're going to die with $64 million. Let's do an additional meeting where we think a little bit more about this. And so that would be a Flourish meeting. So Goals and Values is traditionally in an onboarding process. It's really kind of an initial take on their, where they are now with their goals and values. Once a year we do a refresh of some of their goals because as you know, every client changes every single year. So those, those get stale pretty quickly. So we need a little bit of a refresh there. So we do kind of an update each time we have an annual review of their plan. But a Flourish meeting is really when a client gets stuck and they maybe just don't know. I don't know. They didn't build out a lot of goals in their planning. Maybe they didn't know me well enough or feel comfortable. They didn't know the number at the end and so they just didn't like get over that, that kind of block in their head about spending. And so a Flourish meeting is really a meeting that's really intentionally not about math. It is really talking through and thinking through you know, just dreaming again. So let's spend a little bit more time here. So we, in the plan delivery meeting, I showed you a number. How did you feel about seeing $64 million at the end of your plan? You know, and one, you know, people don't believe that number, especially in your, your example. You know, they had $3 million or 5 or 10 kind of at that retirement point. Like that runaway train of compounding growth is sometimes hard for people to conceptualize. But when we talk through it, we think through it, I allow them to have kind of digested that a little bit. We talk through that a little bit more. And then ultimately to say, how do you feel about that? You know, if you're 95 years old and it's $64 million, tell me what happens next. How old are your kids at that point? Or, you know, what charities or organizations or beneficiaries do you care about? Like, what state are they in at that point? And so sometimes it's just kind of asking them, well, what, what do you think the result of this is going to be? So I like to put a lot of that back on the client to like, share with me how that feels.

Yohance: I would feel like a failure if I was 95 years old and had 60 something million dollars. It was like, I. That means I missed out on a lot of fun. I missed out on a lot of, of seeing the fruits of my charity while I'm here. Yeah, I, yeah, but it's a delicate bound because it's like, okay, well, how much is too much to spend or how much is too much to give away? Now, I'm still in my 40s, so I got time to think about those things. But, but, yeah, no, I've got a couple of clients now that are retired. I have one that we got extremely lucky with, a annuity product that we purchased. And I don't do a lot of annuities, but where it makes sense, we do, especially if the client's asking for it. I'm like, okay, you want that security? Here you go. But that annuity just hit its 10 year mark and the client is already comfortable already giving away money through QCDs and charity, all that fun stuff. And now this annuity can start to kick off another $5,000 a month of guaranteed income for the rest of their life. And I sent a gentle email like, hey, you did it. You made it to 10 years. You can get another 5,000amonth of income. Have you thought about what you want to do with it? And the response was I have no idea. And so now we're trying to think through, okay, what, what, what, what do we do here? How do we, I mean of course you're going to pay some taxes on it, so maybe it's 3, $500 or something a month, but you know, where, how much good can you do with that? So now he's thinking about a scholarship fund. He's thinking about, you know, just looking throughout his community to see where the need is. But it's still, it's kind of cool to see that he has the option of just figuring out how to give it all away. And they're in a situation. I tease them often we'll start our calls and say, so did you start any bad habits yet if you didn't, don't know how you're going to spend all this money? And they'll joke you like, yeah, the drugs weren't for us. Gambling really didn't give us too much excitement. What else is there? So, and I'm like, well you could always start hoarding, you know, just start buying things like Pokemon cards or something. They're like, yeah, no. So but instead we have to think of ways to give away money.

Emily: Yeah. And you know, some of it is and I, that's why part of I, in a flourish meeting or in a setting like that, I like to go through Wheel of Life exercise because what I always want to make sure is that somebody's taking care of themselves too. And so I found out that a client just had this block around having somebody come clean her home. So they're both retired. Her husband had cancer, she's caring, caregiving for him. She had grandbaby, she was busy, retiree already. And we talked about it. She said, well I can just do it myself. Said, well do you enjoy cleaning? Is this something that brings you, uplifts you, brings you joy? Do you like watching things get clean? She's like, not necessarily just kind of have to do it. And so we just kind of talked through it about it's nice to have somebody come in and just everything's clean all at one moment. Right. And so it's just sometimes helping to people to think through some of those specific things of, you know, what are you doing to care for yourself. And sometimes it's also going to see a concierge doctor or having a personal trainer or you know, starting to add some self care or mental health support or you know, I work with mid career professionals who have young children and we talk about house managers or family assistants or people who can come in and just support the household in some way. And so I also like to think of, you know, of course, let's talk about some of the different organizations or maybe even a big check moment at a charity. Instead of, you know, dripping it out, we look at all the different techniques with giving to family or to charity. But also, let's also make sure that you are taking care of yourself. And what does that look like? And what could you imagine? And so one of the questions I'll ask somebody is, you know, with that annuity money coming in, let's say the first month's payment actually came to you in cash, and it's sitting right in front of you on your desk. So that $5,000 is right there on your desk. Here's the trick, though. You have to spend it on yourself doing something that supports you.

Yohance: So the opposite of Brewster's Millions. Yeah, where he had this. He had to spend it. Just couldn't. Well, he could spend it on himself. I don't know. But yeah, it's like the Brewster's Millions challenge.

Emily: You have to spend has and you can't give it away. So how. How would you spend it on yourself? And sometimes I just think it's some of those different questions or reframing that helps people. Like, well, you know, I do have a shoulder that kind of hurts me a little bit. And, like, I've been meaning to maybe go see if I should see a physical therapist or, you know, like, that's a quality of life thing. You know, when you have something that is bothering you taking care of that, and for it, people just don't necessarily take those steps. And so we set goals of, okay, I'm going to put a tile in your plan. And, you know, I always put an emoji with it, so it'll probably be like the muscle emoji. So, you know, taking care of this one specific thing. So in a financial plan, I have these tiles that are big and small things that are. Instead of just having a total, like, outflow of monthly expenses, I like to call out, you know, the. Some. A dishwasher fairy to come unload your dishes and just reset your household for you or whatever it is, so that we're more intentional about how that money gets spent. So sometimes it is helping clients to imagine, you know, I'll give them some examples. Yep. When some clients are in this situation, like, these are some things we see. So, you know, not to suggest anyone in particular, but I just want to talk out loud if that'd be helpful. To you to kind of hear what kind of other clients maybe kind of think through or talk through at these moments. And so I think sometimes you finding some of those wins. I get these emails from clients to say, hey, I just had my house cleaned last week. That was money that was well spent. Like, thank you so much for suggesting that and pushing me towards it. Because I grew up in a household where, you know, that's something that like the bad rich people do and that people who work hard and are productive clean their own home. You know, we have these beliefs, right, and biases and just, I don't know, these, these feelings about certain topics that you uncover over time with clients that are like, no, get your house cleaned. You know, you're caregiving for somebody with cancer and you have all these other issues going on and you want to spend time with your grandbaby. And it's really nice to come home to a clean house where everything's kind of organized in one day. So, you know, those are just things that I think clients need from us beyond just showing them the math.

Yohance: Beyond the fp, as someone else so accurately named their firm. Let's talk about Even More Than Money. So you are one of the co authors of Even More Than Money. Out of curiosity, was this your first foray into being an author?

Emily: Yes, in the sense of books. So I do some writing for Investopedia for our blog for LinkedIn. So short form is a comfort, a place of comfort for me. But this is my first time contributing to a book.

Yohance: Okay, all right. So it was my first time as well. So it was a joyous experience. Tell us a little bit about your process when writing, whether it's for the LinkedIn or the Journal and Investopedia and the book. What's your process? How do you get into the zone to write your pieces?

Emily: Yeah, and I've fought with Michael Kitces about this before and sorry, this is like an ongoing conversation that I've had over years. I don't. I can't time block it in. I can't set time on my calendar ahead of time and force myself to write at a specific time. It just doesn't work that way for me. I don't know, I get demand avoidance or something during that time period. So I like to write when I'm really excited and interested in doing it. So I will write LinkedIn content when it pops into my head. So some of my best performing posts have been, you know, sitting outside a coffee shop getting ready to walk in and grab my coffee. And this Thought came into my head and I was really excited about it and I wrote it one take for LinkedIn and pushed it out there and it spread. So for me, I like to leave enough time in my day in general, that allows me to make space for things like writing. And as I feel that inspiration, I do that. So sometimes following a meeting, I will have a really interesting client story come up and I'll just sit down right after the meeting. Like, man, that's interesting. I want to save all these details and remember how this, this conversation felt. I'm going to write it right now. So I get that kind of like, impulsive surge to write. So I don't really have this writing process where I'm like, at 8am on Friday, in two weeks, I'm going to sit down and write. I will if I need to meet a deadline for something. But I always like to kind of let, let the timing kind of come to me, if that makes sense.

Yohance: So you wait for the inspiration fairy to come and sprinkle inspiration dust and then you say, all right, I got the dust, let's go.

Emily: Yeah, that's when I produce my, my best content. Because anytime. And I can see it in my posts anytime. We're like, oh, I have to make a post today because I do some thought leadership work or whatever and I have a deadline. Okay. I just need to, like, think of an idea and get it out there. I know I'm not like, full in that flow state and I'm just like, trying to make it good. And I'm using that, like, muscle and like, really working hard to push that rock up a hill. And so I like to kind of know when those deadlines are, but then know that, you know what, I feel really good right now about writing. Like, I'm gonna sit down and take care of this. So it's just if you have enough time, you can have that. You can afford that, that opportunity to strike you. So how about you? Are you a time blocker or are you so for.

Yohance: For writing? I am a similar to you. I'll get that inspiration and then I'll just take a voice note or if I'm somewhere where I can just type it out, I'll just go thumb crazy and just, you know, let it all out. But it'll be very disorganized, just a stream of consciousness. Then I'm. I'm actually pretty good about taking that time aside to say, okay, let me formulate this into something that I can actually present to the masses. So that's for Writing. However, for podcasting, I had a similar debate with Matt Halloran about scripting my podcast. And I can tell the difference from when I script versus when. Like, for instance, for you this morning. I mean, I know who you are. I've seen you in the, you know, marketplace for years, those sorts of thing. I read your chapter five minutes before we got on and just hopped in because for me, it feels more of a. The I get to pull the curiosity from the conversation versus coming prepped with, okay, I'm gonna make sure I ask these questions now. Of course, I knew I was going to ask you about your writing process because I'm doing that with all the authors, but I didn't need to kind of figure out, okay, when will I ask this question? When will I do this part? What's the whole structure? The only thing I keep my eye on is the time. And I'm like, okay, as long as I stay around 45 minutes, I'm good, and I just let the conversation happen. And that gets me more excited to do podcasts than to sit down and say, oh, let me structure this podcast for this person. Let me do the background research. I still have my team do it, but that's more for when we post it, that they can put all the links and all the good things that are happening with that individual. But for me, I want my podcast to be more of a, hey, I just met you today. Maybe I know a little something about you, but we're just meeting today and we're having a conversation on whatever comes up during that call. And I feel so much better when those podcasts go into the world and the feedback of, wow, that was great. It seemed like I was. Just. Seemed like you guys were having a conversation. You forgot there was an audience. It was like, I usually. Most parts, I do. Genuinely having a conversation with this individual, learning about them. You were just so lucky you got to listen.

Emily: Yeah. You know, it's a. It's a different part of your brain when you are listening and reacting and having a conversation versus saying like, oh, no, no. Like, I've got, like, we gotta talk about this right now. So I feel like that creates more authentic communication and writing and all of that, but I. I get how it's. It's not. Everybody can find the time to write, and so I get that. Having that blocked makes sense as well, for sure.

Yohance: Just not how I. I don't always. I don't always honor my block, but it's there. So, Emily, if individuals want to find you, how can they Find you.

Emily: Yeah. So on our website. So with Archer investment management. So archerim.com is where a lot of my blog writing occurs and then on LinkedIn. So LinkedIn is the one social media that I post on and write on and I love to connect with other people in our community and talk to like minded advisors and I get a lot of great ideas from other people and I always love to share as well. So I think there's a really nice community out there.

Yohance: I've grown to love LinkedIn. Like LinkedIn is my favorite social media right now because I feel I get to actually have conversations with people and have some spirited debates, which is a lot of fun.

Emily: Fun. Yeah, yeah.

Yohance: So if you have not done it yet, now I'm talking to you listeners or viewers there on YouTube, of course, let me say the usual, like subscribe, share. That's the best thing you do. Share this episode with someone else. It needs to learn ways on how to spend their money. Emily has a fabulous chapter in Even More Than Money, which is right back there behind me. For those of you that are looking, you can find on Amazon, you can find it at barnes and noble.com. if it's not at your local Barnes and Noble, call them and ask them for it. We'd appreciate that. And they say, oh, you can order it and pick it up. Say, no, I want to get it from the store off the shelf. So yes, do pick up your copy of that. And I, I do encourage you to really think about your relationship that you have with this money that you're accumulating and start to ask yourself some of the questions about, you know, what is this all for, for, who is it for? Why is it for? Or going to what Emily was sharing. Like, what are the things that you could do with this? What are some of the quality of life things that you could, that you could enhance because you have the ability to do it. If you had $50 million, what would you do? I know some of you probably say, ah, nothing, I wouldn't change a thing. I doubt that's really true. Or for those of you that have the, the more income coming in than you can spend, what if it was all in cash and you had it on your desk or on your kitchen table and you had to the end of the day to spend it all, what would you do? Let's get a little creative because again, that's what we were all saving for. Emily, thank you so much for joining us on the Money Script podcast and I will see you at Future Proof. Probably, probably all right, we'll look forward to seeing you then. Thanks for joining us, Emily. We'll see you next time.

Emily: Yeah, take care. Thank you.

Yohance: All right, good job. That was great. So we'll chop this up. We're about. I think we're about four episodes deep right now, so it might be about a month before it comes out. But as you can see, it was a timeless episode. We didn't say anything about the date or anything, so. So it'll be great.

Emily: Yeah. Okay.

Yohance: But, yeah, well, Jessica will reach out, let you know when it's posted. And the only thing I ask of you is when I start talking about you on LinkedIn regarding episode, comment, ask, question, tag somebody else that should get in the conversation. And let's. Let's be popular.

Emily: Absolutely. Sounds good. All right, thanks for having me.

Yohance: Oh, wait, one other question. I'm sorry.

Emily: Yeah.

Yohance: Pronounce your last name.

Emily: Rasam.

Yohance: Rasam. Okay. See, I'm glad we had this conversation because I was definitely not going to use am I useful? So. Rossam. Got it. Okay.

Emily: Yeah.

Yohance: Go ahead and do the intro. Enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you.

Emily: Thanks. All right. Bye.

Yohance: Bye. Welcome to the Manuscript Podcast. It's your host, Johannes Harrison. So happy to be with each and every one of you today. I have another author, contributing author from Even More Than Money. Today I'm speaking, speaking with Emily Rasam. She's actually in the Queen City, as in Charlotte, North Carolina, my hometown. Of course, she's a fan of all the sports teams. She'd like to remind me that there is a championship in Charlotte. There is a trophy there. I forgot that the Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup. So shout out to the Hurricanes. At least someone can get a championship in Charlotte. Panthers, Hornets, we await. So Emily and I, we had a great discussion about just how to spend more money. Yeah, sounds kind of counterintuitive. Financial planners talking about spending more money. But it's often that we meet clients that are able to save enough to have a comfortable retirement, to have that financial independence. But then when we look at the spreadsheets, it shows that they're going to have 20, 30, $40 million by the time they're in their 90s. And sometimes it's because we just don't know how to spend money. We've just built that muscle of so many years of save, save, save, save, save. And we do a good job of it. But then we have so much that we may not know of ways to spend it all. And I know that everyone is not as fortunate as that, but there is a good source of the. Excuse me. There's a good piece of the population that is. And so we want to talk to those individuals right now. And then, of course, we do have those that aren't able to have that that amount of capital. We're going to talk about some of the things that you can do to help improve the longevity of your finances as well. So without any further ado, we'll get to Emily and we'll see you next time. It.