EXPERIENCE 233 | The Character and Evolution of a Planner - Jesse Jorgensen, Partner in Foresight Financial Group

In this episode of The Loco Experience podcast, I had a far-ranging conversation with Jesse Jorgensen, a Partner in Foresight Financial Group.  We discussed his early career and evolution, including his path to partnership at Foresight and the evolution of their firm to provide comprehensive financial planning services - including wealth management, tax planning, and estate planning.  Jesse shares insights into Foresight’s rapid growth, and the values and principles that guide their advising.  He emphasized the importance of having an emergency fund, managing risks with appropriate insurance, and investing wisely while being prepared for unexpected life events. 

Jesse shared the early influences that got him into financial planning, contrasting the financial lifestyles of his father’s and mother’s households as he split time between them, and reflecting on a move to Jackson Hole, Wyoming in his teenage years, where he met his now-wife Megan in high school.  We also dive into Jesse's personal growth journey, his faith, and his passion for fitness. The conversation touches on broader topics such as economic outlooks, attitudes toward regulation, and the evolving political climate, and features a robust blend of professional (but not specific!) advice and personal anecdotes.  So please enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Jesse Jorgenson.  

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Transcript

Speaker 4: 0:19

In this episode of the Loco Experience Podcast, I had a far ranging conversation with Jesse Jorgensen, a partner in Foresight Financial Group. We discussed his early career and evolution, including his path to partnership at Foresight and the evolution of their firm to provide comprehensive financial planning services, including wealth management, tax planning, and estate planning. Jesse shares some insights into foresight's rapid growth and the values and principles that guide their advising. He emphasized the importance of having an emergency fund, managing risks with appropriate insurance, and investing wisely while being prepared for unexpected life events. Jessey shared the early influences that got him into financial planning, contrasting the financial lifestyles of his fathers and mother's households as he split time between them and reflecting on a move to Jackson Hole, Wyoming in his teenage years where he met his now wife, Megan in high school. We also dive into Jesse's personal growth journey, his faith and his passion for fitness. The conversation touches on broader topics such as economic outlooks, attitudes toward regulation, and the evolving political climate and features a robust blend of professional, but not specific advice and personal anecdotes. So please enjoy as I did my conversation with Jesse Jorgensen.

Speaker 2: 2:09

Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast. My guest today is Jesse Jorgensen, and Jesse is a partner in the Foresight Financial Group here in Fort Collins and serving all of Northern Colorado and beyond. I imagine.

Speaker: 2:21

That's exactly right.

Speaker 2: 2:22

Would you, uh, like to set the stage with like, what is Foresight Financial Group?

Speaker: 2:27

Be happy to, and Kurt, thanks for having me on today. Sure. Tha

Speaker 2: 2:30

thanks for spending time.

Speaker: 2:31

Foresite Financial Group, we're a, a full service financial planning firm, and we serve individuals, we serve families, uh, business owners in their comprehensive financial planning. Okay. And wealth management needs and.

Speaker 2: 2:44

Uh, like how big a group are you?

Speaker: 2:46

Uh, yeah. We've got, uh, 14 team members, which includes our three partners. We have, uh, 10 based here in northern Colorado, and then we have a satellite office in Casper, Wyoming. Oh, interesting.

Speaker 2: 2:55

14 members. Was that, uh, like an acquisition or did you like De Novo started a branch up there? Yeah. Casper, or tell me about that.

Speaker: 3:02

Yep. Yeah, it was, it was an acquisition, uh, about, about a year ago. And, uh, I mean that, that market is growing so fast. Well, there's a

Speaker 2: 3:09

lot of, um, really old retirement planner type people. Right. You know, and so for their clients to continue to get good service, uh, they're either going to'cause. The temptation for financial planners is to like work until you're 94. But the problem is your clients don't really get good service after you're 75, right. Or something. Yep. And so for them to, you know, pass that book along to a firm that's a little more, uh, on the front edge of technology and market trends and just how to serve clients better,

Speaker: 3:41

you're spot on. That's actually one of the reasons we created. We have three owners of Foresight Financial Group, Kurt. Okay. And one of the reasons we created the organization is the, maybe the antiquated way of an advisor retiring or leaving the business was hitting some. Magical age 65, 70, 75 maybe later, to your point, and, and sort of almost by accident, springing it on their clients and not having much of a transition time. Yeah. And so we're, we're fortunate. We have a great team, and so our plan is that as we have partners in the future retiring, our hope is that our, our clients have been working with our existing team for years, and it's a very smooth transition. They're comfortable with all the existing team members.

Speaker 2: 4:18

Well, if you have, it's almost like a CPA firm in a way. If somebody really shows that they can produce well, then maybe you could become a partner too. Exactly. Right, exactly. Right. And replace some of that equity that we had to pay off the last guy with Yeah. When we bought his book. That's right. So, uh, broad spectrum, do you have an emphasis or a target clients, uh, some firms really focus on business owners, for example, and their, and their employees. Yep.

Speaker: 4:41

Yeah, we've, we've got a, a few, but interestingly it, it's not necessarily industry specific. Okay. We actually studied this recently as a firm, and we found that our, our, like our ideal client, the client we serve to the best of our abilities, that our capabilities really aligns well with their needs usually is in their fifties. Okay. Maybe late fifties now. We've got some folks that are maybe like, you know, plus or minus five or 10 years of that, maybe five years or so out from retirement or maybe five to 10 years into retirement. They've been blessed with some success. They, they have stuff in their financial life. Yeah. Yeah. And by the time we start serving'em, it's a really interesting observation. They've also accumulated a number of questions along with all that stuff that they're just not getting answers to. Things like are, do we have enough of the right stuff? Is it the right stuff in our financial plan, oftentimes our clients have great advisors already in their life. They might have a good investment advisor or a good CPA or attorney, but they just don't have anybody doing, like, tying all the work of those folks together. And so I'd say that's really where we specializes in detailed and comprehensive financial planning, tax and estate planning. Okay. Uh, our, in some cases our clients might pay us a, a flat fee for the planning experience and still retain those other relationships in their life and even implement strategies with them.

Speaker 2: 5:52

Yeah. And how did you become a partner? Was it kinda like that where, where you just earned your stripes after getting in as a, as a freshie or like. Tell me about your journey a little bit at the firm. Yeah,

Speaker: 6:04

yeah. Great. Great question, man. In fact, I might even back up a, a number of years. Sure. Yeah. Just to share it briefly. So, uh, growing up my folks divorced when I was really young. And, and that's relevant to today's conversation because I grew up in two very different households.

Speaker 2: 6:16

Oh, interesting. So you're like a week on, week off kind of guy on, week off, whatever. Yeah,

Speaker: 6:19

that's exactly right. And uh, one of the ways in which my mom and and dad were always very different was with money. And my dad was always pretty frugal. Okay. Always saved a certain percentage of his income. In fact, uh, growing up I had this little like silver, like pewter piggy bear bank and he'd come home at the end of every day, piggy Bear Bank, piggy bear. Yeah. It, it was a little silver bear. And he would take the change out of his pocket.'cause that was back in the day you paid for everything with, with cash. Sure. And he would like, I remember like this specific like ting sound of coins going in the, in the Piggy Bear bank. And I said, you know, dad, uh, what's that for? And he said, well, that's for your college someday. And I remember thinking, uh, that's interesting. I don't know what college is, but that seems like it's important to save, save money for future goals. Just a really early childhood memory. On the flip side, uh, my mom and stepdad, they always had the nicest cars, always had the nicest homes, probably had a

Speaker 2: 7:07

higher income, uh, or just about, no, not really, no

Speaker: 7:10

higher spending desire.

Speaker 2: 7:13

And I promised you full transparency today, man. That's the, that's the, uh, how do I get all this? I've been dead up to my eyeballs. That commercial. You remember that one? You do? Yeah. Everybody does that

Speaker: 7:22

commercial, and so I, I'm not making, I'm not poking fun of him. Sadly. My mom and stepdad went through a bankruptcy when I was young, so I also saw the fallout of that too. Yeah. Changed lifestyle real fast. A hundred, a hundred percent. Yep. Sadly, I took some of those same spending habits off of me when I went off to my first year in school. Had to learn some really hard, uh, financial lessons. And the irony of that though was it really sparked an interest in me of like, I, I wanna figure my crap out when it comes to money. Like,

Speaker 2: 7:47

did you, like I remember going to college and. They gave me a$5,000 credit limit credit card before I had earned$5,000. Wow. Of income in my life. Um, and thankfully I didn't get into trouble with it, but I was like. This is crazy. Yeah. I got just$5,000. I could, you know, party and do whatever. Yeah. Go Vegas. And I did, you know, I left college with a couple thousand on it or something. I wasn't buried like a lot of kids, but, um, and what was your, like, was that part of your journey was getting into debt or was it just spending all you had and not doing stuff?

Speaker: 8:17

The latter. So it was spending all I had by like October of my freshman year of school, my, if, if my wife hears this, she and I were dating at the time. Okay. And I was that load of a boyfriend that for the next seven months as a college student, if we wanted to go do something she's treating. No way. Oh dude. And I remember thinking. I hope this beautiful lady stays with me. I don't blame her if she chooses not to. Yeah. I just know I'm never gonna be in this position again. And so, like looking back, I'm really grateful for being a dummy with my money early on because it taught me a lot of

Speaker 2: 8:45

lessons. Well, most lessons are learned with bruises. Totally. You know, luckily years, what didn't include. I got into debt$20,000 on high interest rate credit cards.

Speaker: 8:53

Amen. Into that brother. Yeah, because your wife would've dumped you before she That's right. Kept up with that and Yeah. She should have.

Speaker 2: 9:00

So, so you, what were you gonna school

Speaker: 9:02

for? Yeah, so I, I was gonna school, uh, marketing major and then had a finance and a psychology minor, which is all code for, I didn't know what the heck I wanted to do. Right. Like many students coming up school open to suggestions. Exactly. And it wasn't until it was my junior year that I was sitting in an investment management class and, uh, my now business partner, but longtime mentor friend Ryan Yoder, came and spoke to us about what he did as a financial advisor. And I'd never heard of the career, but at that moment it clicked. I thought, man, this isn't. Awesome career that we get to help people with such a, what can be a stressful area of their life, but, and to turn it into a source of joy and peace and happiness. So I started in our career in an internship with Northwestern Mutual and uh, and then was a, was a solo advisor. So came outta school, uh, worked as a solo advisor. Started as a business owner essentially, right outta college. Yeah. You're

Speaker 2: 9:50

like 21 years old, like trying to find enough relatives that will sit down with you. That's exactly right. Probably looking like I

Speaker: 9:56

was 12, eight years old. Right,

Speaker 2: 9:57

right. In a, like me in that wedding photo up. That's exactly

Speaker: 9:59

right. I bought a, I was was 28 there by the way.

Speaker 2: 10:02

You look great today. I couldn't grow a GOE until I was like 34. You

Speaker: 10:06

made up for lost time though. Yeah. Yeah. Well that's why I pretty good at it. Yeah. Started late. That's, anyway, continue. Yeah. No, I, uh, I, uh, uh, so started in our career, uh, was, was this a solo business owner and, uh, you're exactly right. I, I probably looked like I was 10 years old, you know, calling anybody that I knew, but I moved down here to Fort Collins and I didn't know anybody, so it was a lot of cold calling and, you know, business events and, and, uh, looking back, I'm glad I started that way, but it, I also might have maybe changed course if, if you could redo things as well. Um, point is, I was, I worked as a solo advisor for about three and a half years or so, and right about that. I was just really struggling to grow business. The learning curve

Speaker 2: 10:44

is slow when you're by yourself kinda Right. It's, that's right. Like, even though Northwestern Mutual has great training programs and stuff like that, it's just until you can actually get into some decent. Hard cases. Exactly. You don't know how to help anybody with a hard case. Well,

Speaker: 10:59

and who's absolutely, and, and who's, who's gonna trust a, you know, 21-year-old guy new to the area doesn't Yeah. With a hard case doesn't with a hard case. Yeah. I, I wouldn't nowadays. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:09

Yeah. If I got a new job and, and, you know, I. Can put away$150 a month or something. Sure. New guy. Exactly. Yeah. Fellow broke college buddy. Right?

Speaker: 11:17

That's right. Yeah. It's kinda hard to grow a business that way. And so about that time, so I, I, I start I guess, kind of an interesting career path in the fact that I started as a business owner, shifted back to the employee model and, uh, and, and began. So Ryan, I mentioned earlier, uh, kind of, you know, offered me a role at the time. He said, look, I, I, I believe in you. You're doing great. Uh, you know, keep working hard with more time

Speaker 2: 11:39

in the industry, you will be really good. Exactly. But you're drowning. Yeah.

Speaker: 11:43

And he said, uh, I need someone to help with the, the training, the mentoring, some of the hiring of newer advisors. And, uh, so he hired me as what we call our director of development role. Yeah. Did that for probably about a decade or so. And then it's been what, probably 8, 8, 9 years I've shifted back into the financial planning career. Interesting. I've been a partner of our firm for a few years now. So now back in the entrepreneurial. Rolling.

Speaker 2: 12:04

Yeah. Yeah. That's really interesting. So it reminds me a little bit about, um, like Mark Torres with Chiba Hut and that he was kind of their first director of training, first person that trained anybody just about at, at Chiba Hut headquarters. Yep. You know, and is now the CEO, uh, a lot of the similarities a hundred percent in that journey and being recognized as a person of talent, you know,

Speaker: 12:24

your spot. Yeah. And I, I, I appreciate the comparison.'cause I, I know Mark, he's a great guy. Somebody I really respect. Yeah. And yeah, I guess I hadn't really thought about that similar path.

Speaker 2: 12:32

Yeah. Yeah. And in, in a far different industry of course Sure. In subs as all different than roll over 4 0 1 Ks.

Speaker: 12:39

Well, but yeah, same, same entrepreneurial role. So you've

Speaker 2: 12:42

really been with the same organization ultimately in different roles Yeah. Since you came outta college. 21 years. Interesting.

Speaker: 12:48

Yeah. Very grateful for that.

Speaker 2: 12:50

Yeah. Um, talk to me about what's been changing in the industry like. You know, like in, in real estate there's a lot of change to how commission structures are and stuff, and I hear a lot of things about how, you know, AI and, you know, just ETFs and different things are changing the planning industry and how much people will pay for advice. Yes. You know, that used to be just what A share and c mutual funds Oh yeah. Is when I started Oh, you know, your old terms man, started business. Yeah. Yeah. I was, I was series seven licensed twice, way back in 99, and then again in oh or 20. 15, I guess when I joined Thrivent Yeah. For a couple years. So anyway, I digress. So yeah. My, I'm rusty, but I know some jargon.

Speaker: 13:36

Yes. Yep. You, you got'em down. So

Speaker 2: 13:38

what's, what's new in the, in the biz, if you will.

Speaker: 13:40

Yep. Uh, so again, kind of, kind of talking maybe from what I've seen in the past and, and then, and then some, right. How many years now? 21 years. Wow. Yeah. 21 years. Yeah. Historically, especially on the wealth management side of our business, uh, you know, you might have an advisor that manages investments for clients, charges a plat say 1% fee. Sure. Per year or back, like you said, especially maybe back in the other days, like a shares, c shares of a commission based product. Um, and, and that's, I think that's still fine. Some clients still engage us in that. But to the exact point that you were just making Kurt, like that part of our business is getting easier for folks to do one. Right. If

Speaker 2: 14:17

I'm just that simple. Exactly. I should just do it myself and save my 1%.

Speaker: 14:21

If you go out and set up your own investment portfolio at such and such online company, you're gonna hold the same shares of Apple stock that we hold in, in our portfolio. Yeah. So now there, there are ways, there's different

Speaker 2: 14:30

mutual fund options, obviously. That's exactly right. Eagle Advisors or different kind of professionals out there helping you Yep.

Speaker: 14:37

De risk, that's exactly right. And, and bringing in like folding in alternative and private investments, that's becoming a little more common nowadays. But the, the biggest change I think I've seen is that, as I was touching on this earlier, is that clients are, are in our target market really asking for more like true, like comprehensive fiduciary advice where maybe they do have dollars to invest, maybe they don't. Maybe they want to manage their own, again, maybe they already have a, an investment advisor. But what they might be looking for is how are these decisions we're thinking about making either in our business, in our personal life, these financial decisions, how's this gonna impact us 5, 7, 10, 20 years down the road? Yeah. Not just from a retirement projection standpoint, which is important, but again, it could be estate planning, right? Sure. Help us think about what we need to be doing today to prepare in 10 or 20 years for estate planning. Uh, tax planning. So there, there's some pretty cool modeling we can do in those cases. And again, it doesn't require that clients require, and ultimately the goal is to

Speaker 2: 15:33

like maximize flexibility and to minimize what Uncle Sam gets. Totally. Yes. Right? Always, always tax efficiency. Yeah, that's spot on. It's like maximize unemployment plus minimize inflation. Yeah. Yeah,

Speaker: 15:45

that's right.

Speaker 2: 15:46

Um, and not always could that be done. And that's really where some of those alternative investments come that don't. Normally fit into that kind of standard retirement umbrella bucket

Speaker: 15:55

E Exactly. Well, and the, the private space. Yeah. Private alternative investments. I, I just find fascinating and, and again, some historical perspective. Uh, gosh, about 20 years ago, we had roughly 6,000 publicly traded companies, meaning you could go buy and sell shares of stock on any, any exchange. We've kind of seen that condense over the last 20 years, that nowadays there's about 4,800 publicly trade companies. Oh, wow. Okay. And so in my, even if I take like an index fund, ETF or mutual fund, theoretically, my fund today has less diversification that did 20 years ago. Yeah. Uh, simultaneously we're actually seeing the, the privately held company that just quantity of businesses in the US grow substantially. Yeah. Which I, and I hope I'm not quoting this number wrong, but I, I, gosh, I wanna say it's like, is, is this right? Two, 2 million? No, excuse me, I'm forgetting the number, but privately held businesses. Yeah. Way more even above a certain employee threshold. Like really like 50 employees or so. Oh, interesting. And so that's an area where we're finding we can provide a lot more investor value is in investing, either in private equity funds. Interesting private credit as well. Yeah. With essentially a bond holder.

Speaker 2: 17:04

Well, and that the private equity industry in general has become kind of a, I guess, a lever to move organizations from middle market to publicly traded. Exactly. Like a lot of times that's their, that's their goal. Or maybe there's a, you know, they move it to another fund and that fund does the, the public. Exit or whatever. That's right.

Speaker: 17:25

Yep. And, and we've seen that like the velocity of, of private equity just speed up so much since, right. Since COVID, right. When, when interest rates came down. Right. Free money. Accessible. Right. Well,

Speaker 2: 17:34

when they had all the free money in the world, they're like, yeah, why not do this leverage buyout. Yep. That's easy. But now private investment into those transactions is probably more lucrative and easier than having a bank try to do it. Exactly. Hmm. Yep. So you can get what, maybe six, 7% or something in a, in a non-traditional but still debt focused. And in some cases even more, even 8, 9, 10. And, and

Speaker: 17:59

again, just to be very clear, yeah. This is not investment advice, but yeah. We're, we're, we're seeing it in some like the, but that's

Speaker 2: 18:05

trends within the industry.

Speaker: 18:05

Exactly. Yep. That some people are looking for almost like equity, like returns, but in a, in a debt space. Yeah. Yeah. Which is pretty fascinating. We in

Speaker 2: 18:11

a debt space, but also, you know, real estate investment trusts. Uh Yep. The ability to, to sell an individual property and invest it with a 10 31 into a tree, a REIT these days. Yeah. Huge.

Speaker: 18:22

Yes, exactly. Yeah. More and more folks are, are, and yeah. The process you're, you're describing kind of provides that, that tax efficiency while maybe not having to be concentrated in one specific Right. Property. You're right. There's all sorts of unique investment strategies that we're seeing the market. Well, especially with leverage. Like

Speaker 2: 18:39

it's a little bit silly to buy a piece of commercial real estate with all cash. Like even if you have that much cash, right. Because well then your yield on your cash on cash return is pretty modest. Sure. But even if you've got 50% leverage on a piece of commercial real estate. And it sits vacant for 18 months. That hurts a lot.

Speaker: 18:57

Absolutely. You know? Right. And

Speaker 2: 18:58

so de-risking through spread risk is, you know, just logical sense. Totally agree. Um, yeah. You know, and when that, if that was a business owner and that was his building, you know, that's why you hope for some, a good operator to buy your business from you so they can pay you rent. Right. Spot on. So when that changes, or if it changes, move on down the road. Yep. Um, so a lot more ex uh, I guess, and that's part of having a big team, right? Like you're probably not even the expert at some of these

Speaker: 19:26

elements. Exactly. Yeah. We've got, of our, of our 10 folks based here in Colorado, we have. And this actually does include one, one fo one individual up in Casper, but, but about a half a dozen folks that are focused on our wealth management and, and investment front. Mm-hmm. My focus is more on the financial planning side. Okay. Like certainly armed and dangerous on the wealth management side. Yep. Yep. Where I really get excited is getting to roll my sleeves up within a client's financial plan and just kind of test different scenarios and be curious. Income

Speaker 2: 19:53

planning and risk planning. Is that where that kind of gets a lot more comprehensive? That's exactly, do you have disability insurance? Like I was just talking the other day in a chapter meeting, I should really have keyman life insurance on me.'cause I don't want Jill to have to decide if she's gonna keep local think tank running, if I die in a motorcycle accident.

Speaker 3: 20:12

Sure.

Speaker 2: 20:12

Or if she can be like. Hey, Ben. Um, you're running local think tank. Now we've got enough cash in the bank to make sure it stays alive for a while. Yes. And, uh, Godspeed, Mr.

Speaker: 20:24

Strategy is like you're referring to, man, they just provide more choices, right? To your point. Right. It would force Jill into a certain situation. Yeah. But then she can just decide, well, what do I want to do? And what are, what kind of responsibilities like did Kurt and Do Loco have to their investors and the community members? Yeah, everybody. That's exactly right. Yeah. So we had those strategies, those buy, sell and key person strategies provide her flexibility and cash to make the right choices for herself and for the business. Anyway,

Speaker 2: 20:50

um, uh, we can talk about that another day

Speaker: 20:52

Kurt as you, as you just brought that up, um, I'm just, again, naturally curious, uh, you talked about the the what if, right? What if,

Speaker 3: 21:00

yeah.

Speaker: 21:00

The motorcycle. What if I don't make it in tomorrow? I mean, you, you are kind of loco think Tank Loco experience and the founder that with, with the great team. Exactly.

Speaker 2: 21:10

And the podcast. Nobody's gonna die if, uh, nobody's gonna die if loco think tank doesn't continue. But I have a feeling there's a lot of members that would really rather loco think. Continued strong rather than dying a slow and painful death. Exactly. Six months after I got hit by the ice cream truck.

Speaker: 21:26

What would happen to Loco if something happened to you?

Speaker 2: 21:30

I don't really know that. I know, you know, obviously Jill would become the 91% owner. Hmm. You know, she's got an advisory board. Um, I'm blessed that, uh, Moses Horner, Mike Labate, and, Brandon Avery, uh, you know, basically became shareholders and advisory board members when I needed a little extra cash to hire that first intern back in 2018. Um, so they, she would have some advice, you know, and each of those guys is well capitalized and stuff. They could certainly recapitalize loco if it was struggling, but who would become the, the primary sales business development person, the visionary leading the, the charge? I don't, you know, we don't have a big enough salary to afford that person. Sure. Really. Um, and it'd be a lot to ask of Ben just to be like, okay, take it from here, dude. Yeah. You know, sorry, you're cash strapped. You know, already,

Speaker: 22:26

you know what everything you're, you're sharing, it just reminds me occurred of what we hear so often from our successful business owners. Sure. And, and tell, I could be way off base on this, but while I'm guessing maybe that this is coming to your mind once or twice, you probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about this. Not really. No. Because you're going a hundred miles an hour, the organization. Yeah. I'm not gonna die, you know? Of course not. I'm careful. Yeah. You're a healthy male, right? We always think I didn't get the

Speaker 2: 22:49

vax, so sorry. That's probably well said. Um, but yeah, no, honestly, like it would be way better for loco think tank, even if Loco had. A hundred grand in the bank. Sure. And I could probably buy a term life, a hundred thousand dollars po key man on me policy for peanuts. Well, and really relatives, what we're

Speaker: 23:12

hitting on is, is, is addressing risk. And I, I would say of all the things that we do in, in our business, it's probably the least exciting and Sure. Probably the most important and frankly, most often overlooked. Because while you and I were kind of joking about it, there's, there's truth in that, that I think male, female, doesn't matter the ages, we all think we're invincible now. You know, time slowly starts to shift our thinking and evolution of that.

Speaker 2: 23:36

I'm a lot less invincible now than I was when I was 25. That's

Speaker: 23:39

right. But thinking through those key what ifs of what if, like, and, and this, like when I ask myself this question, I really think about the answer. It bothers me, what if I don't make it home to my family tonight? Now given the nature of we, the work that we do, I, I've addressed that financially, but that doesn't, like you stole your motorcycle. That's right. That that's safer. Right. Actuaries like that. Uh, but that doesn't replace dad at home. That doesn't replace Yeah. Husband to Megan. And, and, uh, and that's just not, that's not the only what if it's what if I get sick or hurt and can't earn an income in, in our career anymore. Right. Right. So that really is the foundation of, of financial planning. That's where we start a lot of our conversations with. Yeah. Well, and

Speaker 2: 24:15

that's with Northwestern Mutual being part of your DNA. That's right. Um, that's part of the thing, right? That's

Speaker: 24:22

that's exactly right. Yep.

Speaker 2: 24:23

And so I would've, I would imagine that a lot of times, like it's great to get great yields for your investment clients, right? Or they're really happy with how good your picks are. But more fulfilling is probably like when somebody wouldn't have been protected from a tragedy financially, and then they are, because they put that thing into place a year ago or three years ago, or five or 10.

Speaker: 24:49

It, it's the, it's the side of our business that we hope our clients never use. Yeah. Any, any of the tools. And, and to your point, when I think, Kurt, when we've served either the, the family of someone who's gotten sick or hurt, or someone who's passed away, uh, man serving people in those moments in their life, number one, it's one of the main reasons that I'm, I haven't experienced it. It's, it's, uh. I'm very grateful for what we get to do in, in those cases. Yeah. And, and just seeing again, we're never, we're never replacing the person, our hope is to replace, or I should say minimize financial impact as much as possible. Kind of going back to what you were saying about Jill is give family the freedom and choices to say what do we want to do next versus having to be forced in a certain situation.

Speaker 2: 25:35

Well, and like in my case, like Jill's protected, the house is paid off. She's got a pretty good chunk of cash in the bank. She's pretty, you know, she'll find another fella that maybe not whatever her decisions there. Yeah. But again, I want it to be her decisions and if it came to be like, should I give local think tank$50,000 of, of my death benefits so it can be strong and stable into the future. I hope without Kurt there,'cause that would be a crap shoot a little bit. Sure. Um, but it would be a lot lesser of a crap shoot if there was a, a cushion, at least even to give her time to dispose of the business to the right. Buyer.

Speaker: 26:12

I, I think, and that's often the most common end result. Right. But it gives yeah, her the financial freedom, kinda the momentum to say, what are we doing? Who are we selling this to? Right. She doesn't have have to do a fire sale immediately. Right. She has time to figure that out.

Speaker 2: 26:24

Yeah. Yeah. Um, so that, like emotionally, that's probably gotta be one of the most, like, highest highs. But it's, it's bittersweet, right?'cause it's. Person has lost something, or their per or their person has been in an accident and they're disabled in some fashion.

Speaker: 26:41

When I think of the clients that we serve that there's a really deep emotional connection to, in, in some cases not at all, but in, in some cases, there has been some type of an event like that in the past. And I, I heard this term e early in my business, and I agree with it, uh, that we are fiscal therapists and, uh, you know, of course we're talking dollars and, and money initially Sure. But our, our process man, and we're not the only ones that in our business that focus on this, but we like to focus on initially on what matters most to our clients. What are their, their goals, their passions, their dreams, their fears, all of those types of things. And we want to understand that stuff, their values, their priorities. Before we get into any of the financials, my thought is a, a client could send us an email with all their details or their balance sheet. Right? Right. But they can't send us answers to, you wouldn't know what to do with their stuff. Exactly. In some ways, yep. Getting asked a question, listen, like watch our client's body language, hear their tone of voice if something chokes'em up or if there's, you know, little anger, like I wanna experience all that because it tells me again what matters and, and where they see themselves going in the future. Interesting.

Speaker 2: 27:44

I wanna zoom back'cause I kind of thought you grew up local, but you said, I didn't really know that many people here in Fort Collins and stuff. So are, are you from Casper too or somewhere else? Oh yeah. Great.

Speaker: 27:52

Great question. No, in fact, I grew up in Illinois, Northern Illinois. About an hour north of Chicago and actually didn't move to Wyoming till I was in high school. Okay. Moved there in high school. Interesting. I was, uh, I was in middle school. My mom and stepdad wanted to make a big life change, and so they moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and uh, so I went with them and then I went in-state to University of Wyoming and then made my way down here after school. Okay.

Speaker 2: 28:14

Okay. Um, is there more business things we should actually, before we jump into the time machine and, and, and see little Jesse in Illinois, let's go to what's next for foresight? Like you mentioned already you've made one kind of strategic acquisition of Yep. Both people in an office, a book of business, I presume. Is there more of those on the radar, or do you want to get bigger and be a 40 person firm someday? Or We,

Speaker: 28:38

we certainly want to keep growing, like just maybe not that big, but, right. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe if, if the right fits there. Yeah. We're blessed to be growing, uh, pretty quickly, organically right now. Sure. Without acquiring firms, but we're also open to it too. We've been, uh, having a few conversations with folks, uh, like many business owners. It's really important for us that there's a value alignment there. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:59

Well, and for a while, those buying those books of business was like. The multiples were pretty crazy. Absolutely. I don't know if that's still the case. A few. It's kind the case. Yeah. So you're like, well, why would I, why would I buy your book of business when I could just wait until you get a little older and steal your customers That's right. Ish. Ish. Or find other new customers that need to be served. Right. That's right. As, as

Speaker: 29:19

of today we're at, we're at about 350 million of, of assets under management. That's one. We, we will track growth, right. Or size in our firm. Yep. Uh, based on our current growth and, uh, you know, maybe a little bit of market appreciation. It seems like within three years we'll be at around 600 million or so. Oh, wow. Uh, which will require growing, growing our team as well. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:38

That's, uh, so you're growing really fast right now. We are outperforming your competitors, at least in some demographics. Um, why would you say that is, is it like, how do you find your new customers? Are they. Just largely referred from your existing customers or, yeah. That,

Speaker: 29:53

that is most of it, a tremendous amount of word of mouth and, uh, we're, we've done a number of studying and work over the years of what makes our clients happiest and, and client retention and Sure. Interestingly, it's, uh, like the new experience, the onboarding experience, the more fluid, comfortable, easy we can make that for folks we've found the more referable we are. Oh. And so a majority of our, of our clients are coming in, you know, maybe within the first two, three years of serving a client. You know, we have folks 10, 20 years that

Speaker 2: 30:22

they're referring us as well. Interesting. But, well, I worked in banking as you know, for a long time. I think when we first met, yes. I was still a banker. Um, and. Like one of the blessings and curses is that it's a pain in the ass to shift change banks. Totally. Right. And the easier you can make it to, you know, if you can just show up and be like, Hey, I got your loan approved and here's all the paperwork to open all your new accounts. Right.

Speaker 3: 30:47

You know,

Speaker 2: 30:48

and you've got somebody that transitions all the direct payments and different things for them. Yes. And just makes it really easy to become a new customer then. People that would consider referring know that it, you're not gonna put them through the dentist chair Yeah. On their way to becoming a new customer.

Speaker: 31:03

Absolutely. Yeah. I think the more smooth we can make it, uh, also too, just being available. Right. I, I, we client sends a, a text or, or an email, uh, as often as possible. I want to be the one that they hear from initially at least. Like, Hey, we, we got it. We're on it. Yeah. And it, it's so simple. But yet, um, I'm finding it and, and maybe it's just, you know, some of the competitors we run into,'cause you're right there, there is a lot of growth going on in our organization. Yeah. And, uh, you know, some pretty successful folks we find just aren't maybe getting great service elsewhere. So the golden just serve the heck outta your clients. Return a phone call, return text, email in a timely manner really goes a long way further than I, I always think it, it would. Right. Well that's,

Speaker 2: 31:40

uh, you know, it's a, it's a great. Path to be on, and it seems like you're excited to be on it. Yeah, very much. Um, let's zoom to Illinois. Huh? So how, how old were you when your parents split

Speaker: 31:53

initially? So they divorced, uh, when I was two. Okay. And, uh, I don't really remember them being, I mean, a couple fights here and there. I remember seeing or hearing it, but like distant memory is as a, a kid. Yeah. Right. At best. Yeah. And they both got, got like re and committed relationships pretty quickly after that. Probably within a few years. They were remarried or,

Speaker 2: 32:14

and what was, you mentioned kind of the, the whole environments were different. You have siblings as well or were you bouncing solo back and forth?

Speaker: 32:21

Uh, so good. Kind of everything. And, uh, so I had had, yeah, step siblings, half siblings, no. Full, uh, yeah, my, my mom remarried, my stepdad when I was seven. My dad, uh, remarried my, at the time, stepmom, I think when I was nine. And, uh, yeah. Bounced back and forth week on, week off. And

Speaker 2: 32:41

you were kind of the oldest then of the both families. I was, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I was interesting place to be.

Speaker: 32:47

Yeah. And, um, man, you know, you, you have, you, you, you, you work hard in life and you, you, you grow in life. You've been blessed to marry my, my beautiful bra. You have kids, right? You kind of progress and, and I don't know if this is true for everybody, but I've. I've started like reflecting back more on my early life and, and my child and almost like becoming more aware of things now that maybe I had kind of like Yeah. Semi repressed or something. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And just, just like, like owning them and Yeah. And uh, being willing to share it with, with people that you trust and Yeah. Uh,

Speaker 2: 33:20

well, thanks for that. Oh, totally. Yeah. First of all, but also I think it's part of like processing your fullness. Yeah. You know, especially if you have your own kids, it has to prompt your thoughts about. Your situation when you were

Speaker: 33:36

a child? My, my daughter and I, just a couple weekends ago, uh, there's a group in town, a nationwide group, and I think they're based in Fort Collins Restoration Project. Oh, yeah. And they, they do phenomenal experiences. I supposed to have that guy on

Speaker 2: 33:48

my podcast, highly recommend. I think I sent him dates years ago now, and I had a zoom

Speaker: 33:54

with them and I, anyway, they, they, one of their experiences is, uh, called Base Camp Girls. Okay. And it's fathers and daughters going on a, a two day, uh, like, like camping trip.

Speaker 3: 34:03

Yeah.

Speaker: 34:04

And really cool, like, you know, quality time together, a little bit of quality time separate. And, uh, it, it kind of hit me like a ton of bricks on that trip. I thought I need to tell my daughter about some childhood trauma that, that I had. And, uh, I've probably, Kurt in my life only told or shared maybe with eight to 10 people. And actually I'll, I'll share it on, on, I didn't intend to bring it up, up today, but, um. I, I had a, uh, a sexual abuse experience from a family member when I was six years old. And, uh, it wasn't until probably eight years ago I've even shared with my wife. Oh, wow. And it was just like, and, and I don't know if anyone listening to me right now if, if, I hope they haven't been through it, but if they have, have, um, this is probably a common feeling, uh, that there's like, there's shame interestingly, on, on like the, the, the kid in, in this piece, which doesn't make any sense. Like the 6-year-old you had

Speaker 2: 34:55

anything to do with it. Any, any

Speaker: 34:57

way to stop it? Any it You were just too cute, Jessie. Yeah. Sorry. That's so rude. I it's even, no, so it was a family member. It was a family member and an older male, presumably. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're, you're, you're spot on. And it was, it was a one time thing. And that though, that was. It kind of had, had created some distance and some wedge between my wife and I when, when we were pretty early married. Hmm. And sharing it with her, uh, several years ago is just really freeing.

Speaker 3: 35:27

Hmm.

Speaker: 35:27

Yeah. And, and, and so anyways, I, I brought that up because I shared it with my daughter. So she's 10.

Speaker 3: 35:33

Okay.

Speaker: 35:33

And, uh, and, and so she was kind of asking like, Hey, what were you and the other dads? What were you guys talking? And this is some of the, what we were talking through. Sure. So I thought, you know what, I'm, I'm gonna, and I didn't go into all the details. She's a,

Speaker 2: 35:44

she's a grown up 10. That's right. Right. Yeah. And so

Speaker: 35:47

I told her, and of course, a hundred questions and, and her, and, and I, I mean, I just thought like how grateful I I was to be in a safe space. Like to have that experience with her, to share it with her, uh, you know, know that she's, so, anyways, uh, so

Speaker 2: 35:59

does that affect the way that maybe you even engaged, like with your stepdad? Yeah. Uh, or your actual father over the time ahead stuff. Yeah. I think, I think it's

Speaker: 36:08

caused a, a number of things. One is, uh, like desiring to, to like, to be, to be liked, and almost like finding safety in that, like trying to, the, the book, how To Win Friends, to Influence People by Gil Carnegie, one of my favorite books. It teaches a lot of strategies about, about how to do just that, build relationships. I globbed onto that book in high school and college because I think I saw it as kinda like a, a way to be safe, right? If I can be liked, then if enough

Speaker 2: 36:34

people like me, then nobody will hurt me almost.

Speaker: 36:36

Exactly. Yeah. I, I couldn't think of a way to say it, but you're spot on. It's exactly right.

Speaker 2: 36:41

What a interesting thing. Yeah. Um, yeah, so like, like stuff, well, and I'm kinda like that too, like I'm always kind of surprised when somebody doesn't like me. I'm like, well, I'm so awesome. Right. Well, I guess most people kind of are. Yeah. But for both of us, probably the vast majority of people that we interact with are like, I like that guy. Afterwards. Sure. Yeah. You know, I had lunch with my mom and her girlfriend that she plays cards with sometimes. And, uh, and, and my wife and the, uh, the girlfriend was clearly smitten with me, like from 10 minutes into the lunch almost. And my wife is right there and, and stuff, and she's a little bit, we will just say she's on the downhill of her mental acuities and probably wasn't ever that high of a mountain.

Speaker 3: 37:21

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:22

And anyway, I digress. But it was, it was awkwardly flattering that my mom's friend crush. Totally.

Speaker: 37:31

Like we were saying earlier, man, as, as, as you age a little, like you, you just take it as a compliment, right? It doesn't really matter who it's coming from.

Speaker 2: 37:37

And Jill, you got nothing to worry about. You're listening to this episode. I know you were there and I know you know that, but yeah, I'm,

Speaker: 37:43

I'm happy. Yes. Yeah, man, you take it as a compliment.

Speaker 2: 37:46

That's cool. So, so you probably. Have in some ways only started becoming your best self in, in the last years because you were mm-hmm. Striving and driving and proving. Probably and maybe even suffering along some of those formative years, and I'm trying to hide it

Speaker: 38:03

anymore. Yeah, yeah. Just, just being, and again, I, I don't necessarily walk around broadcasting, but, but again, with you asking, and I promised you coming in today, Kurt, I, I would have full transparency and, and I think just, yeah, having man, the courage and, and some cases the space to share those types of things, right. It just. I just find authenticity so attractive in other people. That's kind of the evolved behavior of sorts. Right. And I think that's when we're most attractive to our audience is when our, we're a most authentic version of ourselves.

Speaker 2: 38:30

So tell me more about like, not necessarily the back and forth or the step families, although certainly if, if there's elements that we're interesting or worthy. Yeah. But about Little Jesse especially, were you, you looked pretty athletic, uh, were you, you know, into sports smart kid right from the start. Did you struggle?

Speaker: 38:48

Yep. Uh, de definitely not the naturally smart kid I've always had to outwork. Okay. Uh, uh, most, most of the smart problems. Yeah. Grew up, grew up playing sports. Uh, fitness is a really important, uh, part of my life today. I, I, I find it very powerful to wake up if we can get a workout, like a really hard workout in first thing in the morning, man, there's something like if it's 6:00 AM and the hardest part of your workout, or your hardest part of your day's behind you. Yeah. Yeah. Like, that's empowering to go, man. The rest of the day's gonna be easy.

Speaker 2: 39:15

So do you, like you, you get up. You don't even brew any coffee. Maybe drink a half a jug of water and just hit the gym or whatever you doing. Yeah. No

Speaker: 39:23

coffee. We have, uh, a group of buddies that have been working out early in the morning for years, and then when COVID hit and all the gyms shut down, uh, a bunch of friends, we started doing Zoom workouts from our house. Okay. Uh, but all kind of logging in and so like several days a week. We just did it this morning. Uh, I'll, I'll pull up Zoom. Half a dozen buddies log in. Cool. My wife does it as well from our, our own gym. Everybody's got a home gym now, right? All got the home gym. We'll go over the workout. We set the timer, we all go do it. So like it's that, that community is pretty awesome.

Speaker 2: 39:49

Yeah. Pretty neat thing. I've never really developed that. Like I've sporadic gym attendance, you know, and I ride my bike and I go hiking and I, but I haven't really. Ever developed a fitness group. Yeah. Experience

Speaker: 40:01

that. Accountability has been so awesome. Yeah.'cause man, that alarm goes off at, at four 40 in the morning. Four 40. You're gonna tell like, I'm raising my hand. Right. The, the brain's gonna tell ourselves every possible reason we should knock it out of bed. Yeah. Right. But knowing those guys are waiting, I'm like, well, I don't wanna be the jackass that doesn't show up, so Yeah. Yeah. Get my butt outta bed, get downstairs and Very cool. Lo and behold, they're all feeling the same way. What, uh, what time do

Speaker 2: 40:23

you go to bed

Speaker: 40:23

then? It's embarrassing. Seven

Speaker 2: 40:26

30 Exactly. Eight on a crazy night. You know, I get it. I, well,'cause I'm up at six. Okay. Uh, pretty much, you know, I, like this morning I woke up at five 40 and I was like, well the sun's pretty much up, you know. Yeah. I might as well just get up. It doesn't seem like I'm gonna sleep anymore.

Speaker: 40:42

Yep.

Speaker 2: 40:43

Um, but that extra hour that you're talking about there would require that I go be to bed before 10.

Speaker: 40:47

Pretty early. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you're, you're kind of a natural more of a night owl. It, it sounds like. Well.

Speaker 2: 40:53

By 10. I'm like, I am ready. Okay. But Jill would like to stay up till 11. Or midnight even and sleeping until 10.

Speaker: 41:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:02

I've just recently started totally compromise.

Speaker: 41:04

Okay. Like those difference in, in chronotypes, right. Because there, there are those of us that want to go to bed earlier, wake up earlier, uh, others go to bed later, wake up later. And it was, I I I it was some other podcast and that they were talking about how there's probably some survival, like some some tribe survival reasons for that. But if we have some that go to bed early Yep. But others that stay up later, I'll be the early one. Exactly right. You too. Yep. And then I'm up at four and I'm keeping an eye on everybody else else. You like

Speaker 2: 41:29

you guys are let, everybody else is drinking grogg and stuff like that and you're going to bed at seven 30. You're like, you guys got this right. Yeah. But

Speaker: 41:36

I, I don't know if I'm the early morning guy. Naturally it's become like, almost like forcing a square peg in a round hole. Oh really? I do wonder like what, what are the long-term health benefits of that? If like, if you're a naturally late night guy. Right. But you force yourself into being an early morning person. Right. Is that okay? Cognitively when we're 70 years old? Yeah. I don't know.

Speaker 2: 41:54

I think, I mean. You don't wanna just go with the flow, right? Yeah. Like if you just go with the flow, you get fat and lazy and whatever. So you always gotta push yourself to do hard things. Totally. Um, but I'm not sure if that always fits directly with that kind of how I'm built time-wise and stuff. Right? Like I recruit people for our rotary club pretty regularly. We mean at 7:00 AM on Thursday mornings, which for a lot of people is pretty early. That's early, you know, especially if they gotta get there and stuff, right?

Speaker 3: 42:23

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 42:23

Um, and I always say, you know, if you're not kind of a naturally morning person. I don't wanna see you complaining every week that it's freaking so early. Right. Just don't come. Yeah. Like don't have, don't apply. Don't even visit. Like there's too much clubs in town and an evening club you can join, but I don't want to hear you bitching every Thursday morning about how early it is. You know, when we start. Yes. So anyway, but for you, like you can come well after your workout. So if you ever want to visit the Breakfast Rotary Club. Thanks, man. Ginger and Baker. Thursday mornings. It's a great location for Rotary. It really is.'cause I've lived just west of there and I, my office is just east of there and so it's basically halfway to my office on Thursdays. Oh, that's awesome. Beautiful, beautiful thing. They were at the Marriott for years, uh, and I've been a member for 15 years. Yeah. But now I don't have to go south of Prospect on a regular basis anymore. I was

Speaker: 43:11

a long time Rotarian, uh, myself. Our, our club, uh, uh, dissolved a couple years ago. Oh. And not like on bad terms necessarily, but just, you know, a lot of folks got busy going, but, uh, love Rotary. Such a phenomen. Uh, mission and organization.

Speaker 2: 43:26

So I think you mentioned, uh, change of pace in junior high out to Jackson Hole. Yes. I want to hear about that because that's a crazy place to move to from Illinois in a way. So yeah, gimme the, gimme the setting first and then the story a little bit. You

Speaker: 43:41

bet. So, uh, yeah. Moved eighth grade, the summer between eighth grade and freshman year of high school. Okay. Moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. My, my mom and stepdad had a family friend that lived out there, and I think they were ready for a change of pace, my mom and stepdad. And so we moved out there and I chose to go with them. They gave me the choice. They said, Hey, you can come. We're leaving. We're leaving. Yeah. My dad was in Illinois and so I went with them and, uh, man, that was again, like totally outta my comfort zone, but looking back, something I'm really grateful for. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 44:10

Huge growth period.

Speaker: 44:12

Absolutely. Moving from a, a city outside of Chicago about the size of Fort Collins, but in Illinois to a small little 6,000 person mountain ski town. Yeah. Those days in Wyoming.

Speaker 2: 44:21

It wasn't quite the fancy pants down. It is now. It

Speaker: 44:23

it, I mean it was nice, but you're right, it was small population, normal people

Speaker 2: 44:26

could kind of live there. It's

Speaker: 44:27

still Yes. Yeah. And that's changed so much in the last 20 years or so. Oh yeah. Like, yeah.

Speaker 2: 44:32

Probably just about anybody that works in Jackson Hole probably commutes from more than 30 miles away. I think you're right. Yeah. These days, unless they just have some hookup, you know? Yeah. Where they run a bedroom from some friendly or something like that.

Speaker: 44:44

And it's so pretty. Like, I, I go back now, I occasion it's amazing for business. It is such a pretty place, but you're right. Incredibly expensive. Yeah. When, when I moved there, it was, uh, so it was, it was late nineties and, uh, Kurt, we were talking about fashion earlier and, and, and your hair part right down the middle. Middle. You were rocking too. I was rocking the hair part right down the middle. You remember like the big baggy Janko jeans and all those, like, you know, terrified little teenager moving to a new place. And, um, met my wife there. We, we actually went to high school together. Really? Did

Speaker 2: 45:13

she grow up

Speaker: 45:14

there? She did. She was born and raised in Jackson. Okay.

Speaker 2: 45:16

Yeah. So proper, uh, kind of West girl or what was her, what was her setting if I might?

Speaker: 45:22

Yeah, her hers. Uh, actually that family that you just described, that was them. So they, they were, they had pretty, uh, pretty minimal means early on. Both of her folks taught school. Her, her dad was a shop teacher, mom taught pe. And so, um, they did not have a lot of main, in today's

Speaker 2: 45:37

world, they would've been living in Victor.

Speaker: 45:39

Exactly. You know, your, your area around there. Well, oh, was Jill and

Speaker 2: 45:41

I a honeymoon and driggs or ton? Really? Oh, sweet. Yeah, so we've been up there a few times.

Speaker: 45:46

Oh. So yeah, so pretty, uh, so yeah, we, we met in high school. We didn't, we didn't date till the very end of high school. Uh, we kinda like, you know, she was interested. I wasn't, I was interested. She wasn't for a while. Fair. She finally gave you a chance at the end and, uh, yeah, the rest was history.

Speaker 2: 45:59

Very cool. Um, and then did you both go to UW then? We did. Okay. Go pokes. Go pokes, go pokes. I've got a lot of Wyoming, uh, friends. Uh, I befriended a couple of pokes when I first moved to town, and so it's always a good time. You know, c Wyoming games. I,

Speaker: 46:15

I, I'm biased man, but, uh, Wyoming folks are just good people. Yeah. They're just hardworking. Totally blue collar down to earth. Yep. Yep. It's a great crew up there.

Speaker 2: 46:23

Uh, I mean, frankly, my home state of North Dakota and Wyoming are culturally probably kissing cousins. Very similar. Yeah. Very much so. Remind me where

Speaker: 46:30

in North Dakota? Uh, halfway

Speaker 2: 46:32

between Bismarck and Fargo is Jamestown. Okay. And then I grew up 15 miles north of Jamestown in a town called Buchanan.

Speaker: 46:38

Gotcha. Our best buddies are from Fargo, and, uh, you don't have the weird accent like they do,

Speaker 2: 46:44

you know, what's that, uh, line from, uh, Williams learn to talk like the man on the six o'clock news? Yeah. Um, I don't know. I just never really did. Interesting. Uh, but I'm a, I'm an imitator, uh, like when, when I, 10 years ago, when I was a relatively young man, I had a very flexible voice and I could. You know, uh, what'd you call it? Falsetto with Michael Jackson or four Non blondes or things like that. Yeah. But I'm a very strong, like, imitator of other singers. Like I can hit a lot of their vocality. Interesting. Um, and I, so I think my, probably my lack of accent is a little bit like that. I just kind of copy the people. That sounded nice. Sure. You know,

Speaker: 47:27

and not the people from back home and the people

Speaker 2: 47:29

that sound like bow hugs. Yeah. Ignore that.

Speaker: 47:32

North Dakotans have found out, and again, our best buds are from there. The oppressive o it's like, oh, dont know. Descending.

Speaker 2: 47:38

Yes. I'm sorry. I'll, I'll try to, if I, if I go home for a week, uh, does it come right back? It it, it creeps right back. Yeah. Yeah. We'll say. Yeah. So, uh, so, and, and you mentioned already you studied like finance and. And psychology and all these things before. Yeah. And then you get an internship. You had to haul all the way down to Fort Collins for that. With, with Ryan and his crew then.

Speaker: 48:02

Yeah. And, and so the, the psychology piece, uh, I, I originally started studying psychology. I thought I wanted to be a, either a psychologist or a psychiatrist. And, uh, been halfway through my college career. I was in a, a psych research class, and I vividly remember this moment, Kurt, when I, I. Shifted to business. Uh, we're all working with our, our heads down, you know, writing things, and I kind of had this building feeling and I look up around the room and no one else sitting. They're all just kind of like heads down writing. And I thought, I don't feel like I fit here at all. And, uh, so shortly after I took a business class and like day one, I'm like, oh, these are my people right here. But yeah, the internship was based in Fort Collins. And so I'd, I'd work four days a week up in Laramie and then come down on Fridays usually to Fort Collins. Okay. Just to have team meetings and do some of our, our group learning and Okay. Just fell in love with, with the career, uh, as I said earlier, like kind of seeing some of the negative side of finance growing up Sure. And then seeing like, oh, wow. But you can really, like, really help people with this stuff and Right. And give vision and help take away some of the stress.

Speaker 2: 49:02

Well, and we, if we zoom up to like meta of like the problems of the world, financial illiteracy is the root cause of like, frankly probably half of poverty. Yeah. Um, yes. Some people just don't earn enough to live. Yep. Um, and other people have squandered enough so that they still can't make it work Totally. Or, or struggle all every month to make it work. Um, whereas if they would've been more intentional, more thoughtful about, you know, it ultimately comes down to investing. Right? Like saving if you save some of your income, even if it's just five. Yeah. 7%. Yep. 3% better things will find you over the long run.

Speaker: 49:49

We've had, uh, the privilege over the years to speak to different sports teams and universities in, in the area, football teams, basketball teams. Sure. I'm just like a financial wellness one-on-one workshop. Yeah. And um, it's interesting you just said that, man. Like, as, as, as we, as we give those talks, I always try to put myself in, in the shoes of like an 18, 19, 20-year-old man or woman and like, what would I want to hear? What principles, like digestible chunks could I apply to my life? You just hit the nail on the head that I believe the, the key is just building the habit of saving the amount, especially when we're younger, is really irrelevant. Hmm. It could be 500 bucks a month. It could be five bucks a month. Yeah. I think the amount is is irrelevant, but building the habit to put something away. Yeah. Every month. Every month, every paycheck. That's right. I save part of it because then as soon as the income goes up, it gets a whole lot easier to say, well, let me just keep doing this, this habit.

Speaker 2: 50:39

Right. I've been saving$5 a paycheck and I just got a big raise. Yes. Well,

Speaker: 50:43

let's start saving

Speaker 2: 50:43

$20 a paycheck.

Speaker: 50:45

Well, in, in the spirit of, in the space of college athletics, especially now Oh, right. NIL and all this money that is changing hands so fast, I, I could not imagine being an 18-year-old guy, uh, with that much money hand. I think that's dangerous in a lot of cases. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2: 51:00

Oh, yeah. Well, and it shows, like if you look at, I don't know that this is true, but you could probably find a study, but it feels like if you look at like past former NFL players or even maybe former NBA players as a demographic Yep. And you give them 10 years, they're like almost as broke as the average American on average. Sure. You know, they might have earned 5 million in dollars in the first three years of their career before they got cut. Yep. And then they, but they spent.$5 million during those three years. Exactly. And now they're broke. Yes. And they don't really, yeah. So

Speaker: 51:36

you're, and you're right, like, like the, the spending thing, and I was sharing some of my background earlier. Right? Yeah. Like that, that's naturally who we are as humans for many of us. Like we wanna spend, spend, spend, spend, spend.'cause that's the exciting stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Saving is boring. Uh, until, until it's not. Uh, but, but the spending is the really fun part. And, and so like having like kind of have like a, a Ferrari at your fingertips to, to spend, I do think that's, that can be dangerous early on. Less we do a better job, I think as a society of teaching financial literacy at, at much younger ages. Yeah. And I think that's happening a whole lot more today than it was 20, 30. Sure. Years ago. 40 years ago when you and I were growing up more. So better. Maybe still not now. At least access

Speaker 2: 52:15

to it is maybe better. That's exactly right. Um, you moved to Wyoming with your. Less financially. Yes. Uh, responsible set of parents. Yeah. And I guess that kind was, that part of even moving out there was financially irresponsible. They couldn't really afford to live there, but they did it anyway.

Speaker: 52:34

That's a really good point, man. I've never really thought that's, there's probably some truth to that. Yeah. Yeah. Of just like almost kind of needing to, to restart and Yeah. Yeah. Um, I, I do remember in, in high school, uh, it was a random day after school walking through the, the kitchen and, and seeing a, a credit card statement kind of facing up on it. And I looked at it and it had a really large balance on it. Yeah. And I just, I kind of made this association like, oh, maybe as an adult, like we should just have a lot of credit card debt. And, uh, and again, I'm not saying that that applies to all clients that we serve, but, but I mean, that can be, uh, we go back to those 18-year-old, right? I mean, credit card debt.

Speaker 2: 53:10

Like chases you away from all of your hopes and dreams. Exactly. It takes a long time. It feels time to like, uh, it's like some kind of a drug, right? Or something. It feels good for a little while. It's nice to spend more, right. Than in a month. I was talking about the, the US fiscal deficit. Uh,'cause I think in 2024 we took in like 4.2 trillion and spent like 6.4 trillion or something like that. And I'm not sure it's gonna be any better in 2025. Right? But that's literally like putting a. A third of your, uh, spending on the credit card.

Speaker: 53:49

Yes. Yeah. Or

Speaker 2: 53:50

half.

Speaker: 53:51

Well, and eventually that reaper comes calling right on, on our national debt. Yeah. And I remember several years ago, we were sitting in, in a, in an investment kind of round table and hearing from our, some of our top investment officers. And at the time, I wanna say Kurt, this was, this was like 2022. Their estimate was that we would start to feel some of the impacts of this national debt rising. Kind of right around right now. Yeah, they said like 20, 25, 20 26. I think that's kind

Speaker 2: 54:17

of happening now.

Speaker: 54:18

I, I think we are, we're, we're feeling a little bit of it. And I suppose there's, there's three ways out of, uh, out of, out of debt. You, uh, as a nation, you, you tax your way out of it, uh, which I think will be a, a likely thing in the future. Things like estate taxes, capital gains, types of transfer taxes. Yeah, I could see those, uh, being maybe like negatively impacted on higher net, net worth and fluent folks. Right. Uh, second way out of it, I suppose, is just growing out of it as, as wages grow, there's a theoretically larger Right. If you can Yeah. If you can turn

Speaker 2: 54:47

the growth rate in to 3% a year instead of one and a half Yep.

Speaker: 54:50

Then there's more to if we actually pay down the debt with that extra money. Right. Third, uh, and this is the one I think that none of us want is, is an economic winter, a period of economic pain where the, and we've heard of this for years. Sure. If, you know investors around the world lose faith that the United States will be able to honor its debts. Right. And, uh, and it, it, it is scary to your point as we see that continue to climb and climb and climb. But you know, the US is not the only government that's experiencing that. Right.

Speaker 2: 55:18

All entities equally

Speaker: 55:20

retarded. Right.

Speaker 2: 55:21

Not to use that politically correct word, but sometimes, you know, never with a developmentally disabled person, but Right, exactly. With the government people, I use that word on a regular basis. Yeah. And so like, should we talk some. Some more current events. You seem to be pretty well educated on, on what the, the, maybe the headwinds and the opportunities are in the American economy. Especially like we just, we just, uh, had Europe say yes to a 15% tariff. That's pretty big news. Um, like what's your prognosis? I guess it, it feels like the US is poised to outperform our global marketplaces. Yeah. In the ne, especially Europe, right? Like it used to be when I was an investments guy, both the first time and the second time it was kinda like, you know, you got the us you've got Europe and other developed countries, right? And then kind of the. The weird stuff. Yes. Right. The developing nations. Yeah. Or whatever. Yeah. Um, was the three big geographic kinda like emerging markets

Speaker: 56:26

is who you're referring, right. Emerging

Speaker 2: 56:27

markets and like right now, I would definitely bet stronger on emerging markets than I would on Europe because, you know, how is Mercedes gonna make any money building cars when they pay twice as much for energy as Sure their competitors. Yeah. Doesn't pencil for me.

Speaker: 56:43

Yeah. You know what, what you're, you're hitting on uh, kinda like yeah. Different types of investments or asset classes. Is it gonna be the large US companies or small US companies or international emerging markets? International developed markets over the last 15 years? Yeah. So like the beginning of 2010 through the very end of last year. Okay. Uh, we've seen us large cap investments, so like all the big, big names, SP 500, Amazon, apple, home Depot, et cetera. They have absolutely dominated all other asset class returns. So small

Speaker 2: 57:14

cap, mid caps, everything else, international

Speaker: 57:16

commodities, real estate, everything

Speaker 2: 57:18

interest.

Speaker: 57:19

How, and, and like recency bias tell, like we feel that, right. How often do you hear somebody say, well just, you know, throw all your money in a US index fund. Sure. And you're gonna, you're gonna outpace everything else.

Speaker 2: 57:27

Well, and all the, the fangs, right. Exactly. Facebook, apple, blah, blah, blah. Right.

Speaker: 57:30

And the last 15 years that has been true. You back up that same study though from 99 till the end of 2013. So again, same 15 year period. Okay. Um, it's fascinating, man. That tells a very different story that you brought up international emerging markets. Okay. Emerging markets actually dominated all other asset classes. Huh. During that same time period, US large cap investments barely outperformed cash and cash alternatives. Wow.

Speaker 2: 57:56

Now,

Speaker: 57:57

part of that was from 2008, right?

Speaker 2: 57:58

The, the recession or? Yep. We

Speaker: 58:00

definitely felt when you were in banking back at, kinda around that time, so I'm sure you know, you saw that firsthand.

Speaker 2: 58:05

Yeah. I mean, we sold houses for 220 grand that we had 400,000 into.

Speaker: 58:10

Exactly. You know, so I do think you're right. I, I think there's, there were poise for some growth internationally and, and oftentimes when we're working with clients and, and I, we probably see this more often if folks are like the do it yourself investing. Right, right. But we do even see it with other investment advisors that folks are like so heavy US large cap investments right now. Mm-hmm. Because of that recency bias Now that might continue to run for a period. I think if the Fed. Per, per, uh, your comment on, on current events, if we see the Fed bring some interest rates down, we might see the, the, the market continue cooking for a while, but in every aspect of life, there almost always seems to be a regression back to the mean Right, right. Pen swings way over here. Eventually it's gonna swing back, middle, and maybe the other way, the fact that they've

Speaker 2: 58:50

outperformed by so much over the last 15 years means it could be the small caps or the mid caps Exactly. Or somebody else. That's gonna be the next star thing. Yeah. I

Speaker: 58:59

still do believe that in ownership and US companies is a, is a phenomenal investment. We just don't want to ignore the other stuff. And it's, it may be boring to some folks, but that is why we talk to our clients about let's stay diversified.'cause we want to keep, we want to keep exposure to some of those other asset classes.

Speaker 2: 59:14

So do we want to get out of, uh, economics and get into politics a little bit. Global politics. Let's dive in. Man, that seems probably safer for you to talk about in some ways than specific stock recommendations or anything like that. That's right. I'd be happy to. Um, I was, uh, I. On a, oh, one of our Rotary Exchange students that, that our rotary club sent out went to Argentina last year.

Speaker 3: 59:34

Mm.

Speaker 2: 59:34

Uh and so he came back and told the club about his, his year in Argentina, his school year in Argentina. And the question I asked him afterwards was like, what was it like being there while there was this economic revolution basically happening with, uh, Javier Malay taking, uh, the presidency 18 months ago or whatever. Yeah. Um, and he said, you know, when he got into office, it was a lot like, like maybe like what we think about when Donald Trump first got elected here, where people thought he was a crazy person or whatever. Yeah. But the, the, like, his dollars went so much farther when he got to Argentina than when he left that it was like noticeably stronger and the level of poverty and difficulty in the country and the lever of confidence in Malay. Has just like blown up. Wow. Like it was a 50 50 thing with a lot of skeptics. Yeah. And now it's like a 70 30 thing. Wow. Um, and people are feeling better. And so I guess my question to you is, is that possible only because Argentina was so corrupt and full of overregulation and, and, and government inefficiencies and things and that it's small? Or could you actually open up America, like if Doge could be successful in actually reducing regulation and the harnesses on. Capital deployment and innovation and stuff that seemed to be there in so many ways. And nuclear power. Yeah. Being one example of, oh, we, the National Regulatory Association approved three permits over the last 45 years. Good job guys killing it. You know? Yeah. Uh, because that, that in itself is energy. Yeah. That is stock prices. Yep. You know, the, the, the ability to access energy ultimately is the thing that drives companies to be able to create and do stuff. So, anyway, it's a big, long question, but I guess the question that's boiling my mind is, is that sustainable for Argentina? And is that doable for a big, more heavily leveraged, actually less. Overall Sure. Leverage country like America. Yeah. Can we actually possibly do something like that here? Yeah.

Speaker: 1:01:53

I I, so if I don't answer your question, like can talking about for a while back again. No. And this, this is really, this is really interesting and I, I tell clients on a regular basis, like, yes, I have my political feelings. It is not a topic I get to wound up about. In fact, I love learning. I, I love asking clients. I tend to be a little more conservative. I love asking clients who are on the opposite. Like, tell me why, why? What you believe, why you believe it. In fact, uh, quick, funny story, we will get back to your question, but a client told me, uh, quite a while back, wonderful guy, got a pretty strong British accent. He said, uh, and he tends to be pretty liberal politically. And he said, uh, he said, Jesse, um, politics are much like a car. And he said, you put it in D to go forwards and ought to go backwards. And I said, dude, that is hilarious. I may not agree with it, and I think it's funny. I I see why you say it. Uh, so yeah, like, like current, uh, like us political environ. Generally speaking, and I, I will drill down to your, your answer to your question. We don't, like, if you go back 70 years and you look at politics and, and how politics impact the stock market and who's in the Oval office, right? Are the Republican democrat who controls Congress, you know, Senate house, and we look at all the different combinations of those red and blue and purple. Um, some folks are disappointed to find out that politics actually surprisingly, don't really influence the stock market. Yeah, you could have all blue, all red, all a combination, and the market tends to grow over time, regardless. Uh, now in the shorter term, I I'll, and this is not a, a pro or, or, or, or an against, uh, Trump comment, but what I appreciate is our focus on reducing expenses. So it from,

Speaker 2: 1:03:31

yeah,

Speaker: 1:03:31

from my, my, uh, you know, one guy view here in Fort Collins, Colorado. It seems like for years politically in Washington, we have focused so much on, uh, on, on, on, on wanting to grow and, and maybe, maybe, you know, spending Right. And investing Sure. But not addressing like our, our kinda our backend budgeting. Yeah. To me, that would be just like a household saying, we're not paying our bills, so let's just go make more money. Maybe that's a solution, but simultaneously, I might wanna say, well, let's look at our spending. Yeah,

Speaker 2: 1:04:00

yeah. And

Speaker: 1:04:00

find out, you know, what subscriptions, streaming, whatever we can Oh, I didn't even know we were paying for that. Let's, let's cut that out as well. I'd like to

Speaker 2: 1:04:06

say, uh, most people try to outspend their out, earn their expenditures Yes. Rather than underspending their income, because that's the more

Speaker: 1:04:12

fun part.

Speaker 2: 1:04:13

Right? Totally. That's exactly right. So I do, and, and nations are that way too.

Speaker: 1:04:17

Yes. Yeah. Uh, well, and I, I, sometimes I wonder, Kurt, like if it's, if it's just like as, as a politician, I might not know where to begin on how to cut expenses. Right. But to go, maybe drive more revenue or go invest in certain areas, it, it seems more exciting and, and, and, and maybe an easier path. Well, plus

Speaker 2: 1:04:35

nobody likes to have their money taken away. Exactly. You know? Did you see the, like the, the, the protests when the NPR funding thing was, oh my gosh. Gone away was big. It was like college and, and, uh, mulberry all the way down to Drake.

Speaker: 1:04:48

I didn't know we would see that type of reaction. Like that strong, that type of a, and

Speaker 2: 1:04:53

like I. I learned a lot from Sesame Street too. Yeah. You know, and it's a shame. Yeah. It, but, and you know, is that the government's role? Right. You know, anyway, I digress.

Speaker: 1:05:07

I, you, you get into some of these like really specific causes, right. And there's always emotion tied to it. Or maybe like if my family was, was impacted by, by some of the cuts, and that does stink. Like, and that's what we're talking about, people's livelihood. My, my, my view on it is I appreciate that we're addressing spending and eventually we have to. Cut, cut spending. Like we cannot keep going at, at this per our national debt conversation. So

Speaker 2: 1:05:30

ultimately you're kind of a nonpolitical, but conservative leaning fiscal especially.

Speaker: 1:05:37

Yeah, I, I, I would say I'm, I'm pretty conservative in, in most political views. May maybe not all like some of the lifestyle stuff, but, but like the, the financial stuff, certainly Yes. I believe like yeah, we, we gotta make the dollars and stuff line up. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:05:49

Like really if you could like even as a country, if you could just save right. 5% and apply it to the debt every year. Totally. Yeah. You know that it wouldn't take that long before it was under control. Right. And,

Speaker: 1:06:00

and you know, both sides of the political priority, you have contributed to the problem, right? Sure. Yeah. It hasn't just been one or the other.

Speaker 2: 1:06:05

A hundred percent. That's why I'm independent. Oh, are you really? Yeah. I mean, I'm a libertarian Gary Johnson. Yeah. Kanye in 2020. Anyway. That's great. Um, let's take a short break, uh, refill our drinks and Mt. Bladders. Sounds great. And be right back. And we're back. Are we right? Yep. Okay, good. Just making sure. Um, I had a thought. Oh, there it is. Um, so one of the things we've been doing a lot lately, you're kind of a student of. The world in some ways on a meta basis, but not of individuals on a, on a similar basis, because that's big to look up so big and, and intimately. What about young people right now? Hmm. Uh, I think a lot about those people that are 15 to 20 years old and plotting their course. Hmm.

Speaker 3: 1:07:47

Right.

Speaker 2: 1:07:48

You mentioned you were psychology, then business, then financey things and, you know, the psychology might be taken care of by companion AI in the

Speaker 3: 1:07:58

future. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 1:07:58

They'll just fix it all up, right, sure. Or something. Right. Like, what do young people sit their sights on today? Um, if you're, how old are your kids? 10 and six. So they got a ways to go. Yep. Right. The world's gonna be a whole different place again, 20 years, 10 years from now. Yeah. Uh, but what about young people today? Um, where would you point them not just career wise, but also. How they should invest themselves.

Speaker 3: 1:08:24

Mm.

Speaker 2: 1:08:25

You know, you fell, you kind of got lucky, like you fell right into a career that you very, were passionate about. But most people don't have that experience. They get outta college or going to college going, I wonder what I should do. Yeah. Um, what do you think about for those people in the world?

Speaker: 1:08:40

Man, I think take a swing at opportunities. You know, especially like when we're younger and getting into college, I think, or if, if we go the college route or even, even if we don't. It is a lot of pressure at a pretty young age to figure out what do I want to do with my career? And, and I think almost more of what you're trying to answer is, what do I not want to do? Yeah. So maybe I, I do an internship or take a job and I say, great, phenomenal learning lesson. I don't want to do that. Right. But I kind learn maybe somet some elements wouldn't know. Yeah. And maybe I, but I'm finding I, I do like this part of what I did, and then that can kind, so I think the only way we figure that out is through experience and, and saying yes to opportunities getting out of our comfort zone if you're just

Speaker 2: 1:09:20

in the basement playing video games until your ideal career starts. Right.

Speaker: 1:09:23

Yeah. Or if that's what I want my career to be. Right. You better be really good out it though. That's exactly right. Fair enough. But yeah, being willing to, to fail, explore a little bit. Yes. Fail, like, make mistakes. Especially on the career front, early because the stakes are low. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:09:36

Yeah. When we're young. Yeah. We don't have a bunch of ankle biters depending on you and stuff.

Speaker: 1:09:40

That's exactly right.

Speaker 2: 1:09:41

Let's shift it into principles of your industry. Like what's always true. We talked already about. Saving even if it's a little bit of a habit. Yeah. Uh, we talked about being thoughtful about risk. Yep. Um, is there other things, you know, for listeners out there that are doing their own thing for now, um, to make sure they bake into the pie?

Speaker: 1:10:02

Absolutely. Uh. Having the emergency fund, or at least a foundation, again, a very simple recommendation and yet like a, a fundamental cornerstone to financial planning. Right. You

Speaker 2: 1:10:12

don't wanna sell your, your Roth IRA the first time you have a job loss.

Speaker: 1:10:16

Exactly. Our general recommendation is if you have, uh, either a single person or a couple, what maybe one member of, of the relationship as the primary income earn, have six months of expenses in an emergency fund. If it's, uh, maybe like a dual income couple, maybe three months. Mm-hmm. And then the differences is like the chances of Yeah, because can bridge over. Right, right. That's exactly right. Okay. But having that safe off the roller coaster, not invested, but in, you know, savings, high yield savings, money market, a cd, whatever, something like that, that I can tap into it, you know, after that we can get into all the fancy investment strategies. But yeah, having the short term reserve, if something bad happens is that

Speaker 2: 1:10:52

must be really hard as a early stage, especially financial plannery person, right. Where you're like, you know, I'd really like to get you started investing, but you don't have an emergency fund at all. So, right. Start saving$300 a month and call me at eight bucks. Right. Or two years.

Speaker: 1:11:09

Well, and that's not exciting advice. Right. The person's looking at you going, dude, I could have figured, you know? Right. But it's, but it is important. Yes. And doing the right thing for folks. Well, especially if you're doing your own thing. It's exactly right.

Speaker 2: 1:11:19

Somebody, if you had a financial advisor, then they would tell you that too. Yes. Uh, but anyway, it was a, that's probably'cause I've heard that advice before. Right. And I, Jill and I have decent, probably not six months, but Yeah. But we're both earners. She actually makes same as I do basically, uh, income wise. So I guess that absolutely. Reasonable when you talk

Speaker: 1:11:37

about that young, that young person, Kurt. Uh, two other things that that come to my mind, and we've already ta talked about these earlier, but the concept of risk management and like really two key risks from a financial planning perspective when we're young, uh, and I'm, I'm assuming things like we have health insurance in place, if we have a, you know, a car, we have some, some car insurance, uh, but like protecting your income. So when we talk with our clients about what are their most valuable assets, yeah. I mean, they should be the answer, especially if they're a successful professional, either own a business or if they work for somebody. And so protecting their income from things like illnesses, cognitive issues. When we add up, you know, 20, 30, 40 years of income, if someone's a strong income earner, I mean that that's millions of dollars that people will, will earn. And if something knocks'em out of being able to earn that income, we want to have some type of tool in place. Life insurance can be the same thing, whether it's a young couple or a family or even a single individual who thinks that someday I probably will have a family. Right. Locking in your insured building, I remember

Speaker 2: 1:12:36

buying life insurance right before I got back into motorcycling. Interesting. Because I could answer that. I wasn't currently active in that, but I knew I was gonna start again. Yes. I was like, well, I guess it's time to buy life insurance. Totally didn't wanna lie. You know, I probably could just.

Speaker: 1:12:49

Well, and it's so inexpensive when we're young. Totally. When you get to be like older guys, like you and I, forties, fifties, like it just gets more and more expensive. But to lock it in in our twenties is, is a really valuable planning strategy.

Speaker 2: 1:13:00

I've looked into the, and I'm gonna play devil's advocate a little bit, but I've looked into disability insurance before, you know, even probably even sold a little bit of it over the years. Yeah. Uh, when I worked in the industry. Gosh, that seems expensive. Like unless you're a really high incomer, it doesn't feel like most people can afford it.

Speaker: 1:13:16

Yeah. Uh, certainly it's occupation dependent, right? And so a guy like me that sets on my butt and flaps my yer for a living, right? My, my insurability cost is not gonna be as high as the construction worker, someone else, maybe someone who works in hospital. Uh, and you're right. Certain levels of, of income, right? You're, you're kind of way like, man, I, I know this is important, but it's costing maybe a few hundred bucks a month or so, right? Or just don't wanna part with those dollars. And this is something clients never get. Well, you kind

Speaker 2: 1:13:43

of think, well, if I get hurt on the job or something, I get, you know, uh, workers' compensation or whatever. So hopefully I do that, but Yep. But I've been a motorcyclist for 30 years now, you know, over the course of my life. And most of the time I've earned my money with my brain, you know? So even if I had a broken leg for, yeah, four months or something like that, I could still be a banker. I could still. Kind of be loco think tank guy. Yes. I could sit there with my big old cast on the table, you know, doing the podcast if I wanted to. Um, but that's different than a lot of people how they earn their money.

Speaker: 1:14:16

Well, and and you're spot on though. Like guys, like you and I, if we physically hurt a part of our, our body, we can probably still do most, maybe even all of what we do to earn. Oh, right. So you don't even give the

Speaker 2: 1:14:25

insurance then

Speaker: 1:14:26

for talking like disability. Yeah. If you could do your

Speaker 2: 1:14:28

job, the disability, right.

Speaker: 1:14:30

The physical stuff is not the danger to you and I, right. It's, it's the cognitive, it's also Right. Brain injuries, whatever. Exactly. Could be illnesses. Right. Like we see, we see our really healthy clients get diagnoses that they just never saw coming. And that's the stuff like you really can't push. The harder you push through it, the worse it gets.

Speaker 2: 1:14:46

Yeah. And

Speaker: 1:14:47

so for those clients, that's why we want to have it in place is the stuff that you can't really see on the surface. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:14:51

So especially like, especially for people that have good coverage through group policies of assorted things through their work. Yeah. That's also their main source of income. It might make sense to have. Just a good examination of that situation. Couldn't have

Speaker: 1:15:04

said it better myself. Fair

Speaker 2: 1:15:05

enough. Um, let's talk about your family. You mentioned your wife's name earlier and then I I mishandled it. Yeah. Her name's Megan. Hi Megan. Yeah. Um, so you guys were kind of on and off again, a little high school. Yeah. And then it was kind of like. Solidified at the end in college together. Were you, were you married during your college experience?

Speaker: 1:15:23

We got married shortly out outta college. Okay. We were, we were da uh, dating in college and she said, uh, I, Hey, when we graduate, I'd like to know where we're going. AKA i, I want to be engaged, or I want to, or I want to not. Okay. And, uh, shortly before we graduated from undergrad, she got into physical therapy, doctorate school.

Speaker 2: 1:15:40

Okay.

Speaker: 1:15:41

And so I thought, oh, sweet. I got three more years to make a decision. She's not gonna graduate for like three and a half years. So I shared my logic with her one day. Okay. And I said, we got plenty of time, babe. And she said, no, no, no, no. I'd like to know, like, like now where we're headed.'cause we had, we had already been dating four years.

Speaker 2: 1:15:54

Well, and like, did you not talk about it sooner? Like, I, I don't know. It almost feels like maybe you should asked her year two. Dude, I,

Speaker: 1:16:00

I was a guy. I, I was like, you know, like just avoiding long-term commitment Right. As a 20, 21-year-old, 22-year-old. I, I, I get it. I get it.

Speaker 2: 1:16:09

So was she on board for the Fort Collins experience right away when that came fast? Oh yeah. We

Speaker: 1:16:13

used to, we used to come down from Laramie. Come down to Denver, right. Yeah.'cause you don't, you don't want to hang out there in January. Yeah. Especially not that there's not a lot to do there. So, yeah, we came down here all the time. We knew we wanted to start a life down in northern Colorado. We lived in Longmont for a number of years. Oh, while she was going to see you in Denver To get her physical therapy doctorate degree. And then when she finished, we moved back up to, to Fort Collins.

Speaker 2: 1:16:33

Cool. Um, you wanna talk about the littles? How many of those Sure. You got,

Speaker: 1:16:38

uh, 10-year-old daughter named Alex, uh, 6-year-old boy named Dax.

Speaker 2: 1:16:42

And, uh, we, we try to do the, uh, one word description of the kids sometimes. Mm. Would you like to attempt that with your

Speaker: 1:16:49

boy? I, I love that you didn't prepare me for any of these questions.'cause it's, it's just, again, authentic answers. Uh, Alex, my 10-year-old daughter, uh, all lions, I like it. That's the word I'd use to describe her. And then my, is she

Speaker 2: 1:17:02

a Leo as well? Uh, her birthday coming up? No.

Speaker: 1:17:05

I, I, I don't know when, when's, when's the Leo birthday? Leo is August. Okay. She's not a Leo,

Speaker 2: 1:17:09

so that's, uh, well, I'm diverting here, but, uh, yeah, my birthday's coming right up and, and because I was born in 1974, uh, which is the year of the tiger. And of my last name and as a Leo. So I'm a lion and a tiger and a bear.

Speaker: 1:17:23

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2: 1:17:24

Oh my. Yes. You

Speaker: 1:17:25

got a lot going on in there. Right.

Speaker 2: 1:17:27

Anyway, I digress. So when I hear lioness, I always think about that little dumb thing. Yeah. Uh, lions and tigers and

Speaker: 1:17:32

bears. Oh my, yes. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:17:34

Uh, so she's a lioness. Just'cause she's brave and powerful and uh, just a go-getter. Go-getter

Speaker: 1:17:39

finds a way to get what she wants. Right. Interesting. Um, yeah, I, I admire that in her a lot. I

Speaker 2: 1:17:44

like it. And then your son's name again? His name is Dax. Hi Dax.

Speaker: 1:17:48

Dax. And, uh, one word to describe Dax. Uh, just, I mean, I'm trying to think of a better way to say this, but just sweet. He's such a sweet. Little boy as much as his sister tries to instill her will on him. Yes. Uh, that sweetness is alive and well, he's shielded by his

Speaker 2: 1:18:04

sweetness, kind of, or does she kind of dominate his world a little bit? Uh, both in a good way?

Speaker: 1:18:08

Both. Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's used to very strong-willed women around him with his sister and with his mom around. But yeah, just a sweet old guy.

Speaker 2: 1:18:15

And, uh, tell me more about Megan. Uh, is she just focused on raising the kiddos or did she have a career? She still

Speaker: 1:18:21

does. She, uh, she's been a physical therapist for, uh, gosh, almost as long as I've been a financial advisor. Okay. So, uh, works, uh, of course I'm biased. Best damn physical therapist you'll ever come across. Okay. She will put you through the ringer and it'll hurt like hell. You'll get amazing results.

Speaker 2: 1:18:38

Is she focused on like athletes or occupational or things like that? Does she have an emphasis?

Speaker: 1:18:44

Uh, currently she's doing more in-home care. Oh, interesting. So some older patients. Yeah. Although not always. She, I know she likes working with folks that are, help them get

Speaker 2: 1:18:52

strong enough to stay home. She really

Speaker: 1:18:54

enjoys that. Or like, you know, people who are, you know, trying to like, you know, maybe they've, they've aged and, and they haven't maybe aged in a healthy way, not from their own lifestyle choices. Sure. They just haven't had a lot of stuff addressed. Getting them back to more of like an active lifestyle. She loves that.

Speaker 2: 1:19:08

That's cool. That's

Speaker: 1:19:09

cool. She works really well with older patients. She likes older patients. Cool. I

Speaker 2: 1:19:11

dig it. Um, do you want to you any further reflections, uh, or any heroes of your growing up years, mentors, teachers, crazy uncles, heroes? I dunno, I'm just kind of thinking about some formative influences.'cause you were Yeah. Kind of, you know, that transition between. Stepdad and, and mom and whatever. Yeah. And, and

Speaker: 1:19:37

you know, I just, the first thought that came to my mind and uh, don't ever tell him I said this is, uh, is one of my business partners and I mentioned him earlier. Yeah. Ryan Yoder. He, man, he ha So he was originally my, my mentor in this business, both professional and personal. Then an employer for a number of years. Sure. And now business partner. And I've known him for over 20 years. I've probably seen almost all the bad stuff. Maybe I've seen all of it. Would you like to share

Speaker 2: 1:20:04

anything here that's probably for him to share? I'll, I'll

Speaker: 1:20:06

let him share. He's every honest and he's just a good man. His family, you know, father, husband career, he's just a good man. And so I've gleaned a lot. He probably doesn't even know that from just how I've seen him treat people. I'm sure

Speaker 2: 1:20:18

he

Speaker: 1:20:18

does.

Speaker 2: 1:20:19

Um, thanks for that. Do you wanna play the ping pong ball game? I would

Speaker: 1:20:22

love to. I didn't know this was a thing. Let's play. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:20:25

Clearly you don't watch the full length videos very

Speaker: 1:20:28

often. No. So to describe, maybe your whole audience knows Kurt has now put a bowl of ping pong balls down in front of you with different numbers. Yes.

Speaker 2: 1:20:35

And so you're gonna draw three of them. Each is tied to one of these 30 questions. Okay. And, uh, it's just kind of a fun way to have you get a random question instead of just my curiosity. Grab two more while two more. We're at it. We won't stand here or, alright. Got withdraw. Alright. You can go in any order You wish. Number four. Number four. Oh, we just had this one. Maybe just last time or two times ago, what would you estimate your burp to fart ratio to be? Burp. To the fart ratio. Yeah. So the numerator is gonna be burps per day, maybe per week? I don't know.

Speaker: 1:21:12

Yeah. Uh, probably. So I've got, uh, I've got a, I've got a, a son as I shared earlier. Mm.

Speaker 2: 1:21:19

Teaching him the waist. He thinks it's awesome when he farts both. Oh, so you're, yeah. So you're elevated in your, in both measures right now. Exactly. Just for example, purposes

Speaker: 1:21:27

about a year ago when, when he farted in our house, I said, Hey bud, bless you. And he stopped and he looks at me, he goes, no, dad, I farted. I didn't sneeze.

Speaker 3: 1:21:35

It's like, I get it

Speaker: 1:21:36

bud. I would say, uh, we're, we're probably about like a, a two to one ratio. Okay. Right now. That's probably pretty healthy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It means things are moving. Everybody

Speaker 2: 1:21:44

does it. Yeah. But you know, too much is too much. Yeah. A good question. Um, you could leave them wherever you like. Uh, next question,

Speaker: 1:21:52

question number two,

Speaker 2: 1:21:57

would you rather fight one horse size duck or 100 duck size horses? One of my favorite questions,

Speaker: 1:22:10

man. Uh, what, what is the, the multitasking rule say as human beings, we can only focus on like somewhere like three to seven, so we're bad multitaskers. Oh, I

Speaker 2: 1:22:20

see. So you'd rather just focus on one horse side? I think I'd rather

Speaker: 1:22:22

focus on one large enemy, then try to focus on 99 other, so yeah. The, the horse size duck.

Speaker 2: 1:22:30

Yeah.

Speaker: 1:22:30

Yes, yes. I would rather fight the one horse size duck.

Speaker 2: 1:22:33

Cool. Yeah.

Speaker: 1:22:34

I don't know what my strategy would be. I'd have to think.

Speaker 2: 1:22:37

Just avoid the bill mostly. Yeah. At least to start with. Yeah.

Speaker: 1:22:40

Attack it from behind.

Speaker 2: 1:22:42

Right.

Speaker: 1:22:43

They probably,

Speaker 2: 1:22:44

they probably have a horse size duck. Probably can't turn that fast. It'd be like a moose or something. Right. You could just smack it on the ass and it, I kinda like to ride it,

Speaker: 1:22:51

you know.

Speaker 2: 1:22:51

Oh, so you'd try to get on it. Well, and then if you had a knife, presuming you had a knife, then you could like slit its throat, like from its back. Oh,

Speaker: 1:22:58

wow. Boy, that, that really just went somewhere sudden hurt. Geez. Yeah. Well, you thought, you've thought about this, this, I'm,

Speaker 2: 1:23:02

I'm a hunter by nature. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, their last

Speaker: 1:23:06

question, please. I love the seriousness of these questions. Uh, question seven. Wow. All

Speaker 2: 1:23:13

single digits. Uh, what's your definition of happiness?

Speaker: 1:23:22

This may sound cliche, and it's the first thing coming to my mind is that when my head hits the pillow at the end of the day, uh, and I, and I, I, whenever people ask like, how are you doing?

Speaker 2: 1:23:37

Yeah.

Speaker: 1:23:38

In life, in fact, I said this to someone earlier today who asked, how are you doing? I, I inevitably go to the mental checklist and I think, okay, how are my kids doing? They're great. They're, they're healthy, they're happy, they're safe. How's, and not always in this order. Uh, how, how's my wife doing? She's, she's great. We're good. Relationship is strong. She's healthy. Where's my, where's my faith walk right now? Uh, certain times probably really strong. Other times I, I shouldn't, I should be investing more. But, you know, so I, I, I think that's how I answered the que and I kind of do like a, I think of the, the, the, the four, uh, pillars of, of a stool. Okay. For me, it, it's, it's been, uh, faith, family, fitness, and finances. Okay. Like if, if those four areas of of my life are somewhat in balance Yeah, man, life feels pretty good. And so I think about those right now. Faith, faith walk is, is good. Yep. Uh, family is fantastic. Finances we're, we're blessed. And fitness is something we invest a lot of, at least a lot of, um, concentrated time. Time in life.

Speaker 2: 1:24:36

Yeah.

Speaker: 1:24:36

Yeah, man. So I, I, I think that's how I answered. I kind of did that.

Speaker 2: 1:24:39

I, uh, Ben and I were just noodling on a. Ha, have you done the Thrives? Uh, no self-analysis thing. Uhuh it, uh, uh, so it started years ago, floats and it was finance, leadership opportunities, administrative, and kind of a self grade on how your business works. Uh, and then I turned it into Thrives.'cause I thought, well, we didn't wanna just float, we wanted to thrive. And then it got really confusing and I forced the acronym, but we've got this event coming up in September, is aim to thrive. Hmm. Um, and so we've been kind of working out kinda what are those demographics and the, and the target is to be thriving in all, in our case, six of those areas. Um, you know, it's, it's your relationships, your, your, your systems, your, your finance. We haven't quite even defined them all right? Sure. Um, and local think tank's, job is at least in part, to help move you closer to the center of the target in each of those things. So visually it's not like a left to Right. Right. It's more of a how close. To the target. Are you, you know, how close to your ideal weight are you? Yeah. Uh, can you do 50 pushups? Right. Can you do 50 pushups? Yes, sir. Good job. I actually, I, I did 50 pushups on my 50th birthday last August. Dang. Uh, I worked up to it since March and I did 50, and then I don't know if I've done any pushups. Barely. Oh, Kurt, that's, I did 20 once in a while, but I've worked my way up to it. I was proud. Um, but you're younger than I am, so, so, anyway, I just thought I would share that with you.'cause it sounds like you're kind of like, you're thinking about, okay, are those four legs balanced? Am I pretty close to the heart of my target? Yes. In that faith journey and that family, those relationships and my fitness.

Speaker: 1:26:20

And you can kind of feel it, can't you? When things get a little bit outta whack? Yeah. Right. Maybe sometimes something needs to smack you across the face. Other times it's just like a slow gradual realization that,

Speaker 3: 1:26:28

hmm,

Speaker: 1:26:28

you know what, like maybe three of them are strong, but that one I'm not investing enough. Yeah. Enough effort in.

Speaker 2: 1:26:33

Do you wanna talk about your faith journey? Was that something that came from your childhood? From one side or the other? Or both? Yeah. Or did you develop your own walk with your wife?

Speaker: 1:26:42

Happy to, to share it with you? So grew up in a Christian household. Okay. Uh, we would identify as Christ on both sides. Yep. Both sides. Yep. And, uh, may, maybe as so Yes. Uh, strong Christian faith walk and. I love having friendships, relationships with, you know, different religious backgrounds. Right. I, I, I just really, I, I, I value that. Um, interestingly with our organization, foresight Financial Group in the name of our firm, if you look at our logo, uh, and I know we don't have it in front of us right now, the Yeah, I noticed

Speaker 2: 1:27:11

it though. It's like an arc thing. You

Speaker: 1:27:12

nailed it. That's exactly right. The, the motivation behind it was Noah's Ark and the thinking being is that very few human beings have ever had the level of foresight Yeah. That Noah did. What he did when he did building an arc at the time he did, in, hopefully you guys don't have as

Speaker 2: 1:27:28

many people calling you crazy as Noah did probably in those days. Yeah. O only

Speaker: 1:27:31

a couple we have right now. So, yeah. That, that's a big part of our, of our, uh, our family. Uh, your whole

Speaker 2: 1:27:37

firm is kind of in that space if you'll Yeah,

Speaker: 1:27:39

exactly. You know, we, of course we, we, we do not, we never interview. I ask like, we, we welcome everybody. And, and I, I think some of our team members are, are, are of the same faith. Um, there's no qualifiers in that. There's no qualifiers. It, it does feel good that I, we can consistently be who we are at home and at work. Yeah. Unapologetically.

Speaker 2: 1:27:58

Was that a shared. The experience for you and Megan as well, or like,

Speaker: 1:28:03

were you a similar background for, for me. Okay. Uh, she grew up in a, in a rather, probably just more like little more agnostic. I don't think her folks were Okay. Opposed to, to a, a, uh, wonderful people. Um, but I don't think

Speaker 2: 1:28:16

her experience in church, she grew up going, going church on a consistent basis. Groups and summer camps wasn't like yours was kind of Exactly.

Speaker: 1:28:22

Although she started doing more of that in high school. So by the time we started dating, she was very open and receptive to it. I, I was probably even a high school college. Exactly. You were drifting away Further. Further. And she's like, Hey,

Speaker 2: 1:28:31

it,

Speaker: 1:28:32

let's reel you back. She pulled me back. You're spot on.

Speaker 2: 1:28:34

I dig it. Yep. I dig it. Yeah. Um, the Loco experiences is our closing segment. Hmm. And that is the craziest experience of your lifetime that you're willing to share with, uh, Megan and whoever else listening.

Speaker: 1:29:31

The craziest, craziest experience. Craziest

Speaker 2: 1:29:33

experience. Yeah. So loco crazy kind of a, so it might be just an hour, a day, a moment, a week in the life. Yep. Um. What was that

Speaker: 1:29:43

for you, Kurt? You have to know that I'm a financial planner. Right? That's what I was trying to think. Think of. So we only get so wild, man. We like to stay right in our box. I went up right up

Speaker 2: 1:29:52

to the edge of the box one time and I looked over the edge and then I, I call outside, ran back to the middle.

Speaker: 1:29:57

You know, I think, I think back to just maybe something, and this is probably not crazy or, or low-code by any means, but, uh, I used to scuba dive oh, a a lot in, in high school and, and someone, and I loved that experience. It, it was super cool. Where did you do it? Uh, Northern Illinois, which is not the Mecca Center of Right. Or epicenter of scuba battery. Well, I can't

Speaker 2: 1:30:20

think there's a ton in my Jackson Hole either.

Speaker: 1:30:22

Yeah. No, not in Jackson Hole. We would take family vacations. Okay. So per what I was saying earlier right. Part of that

Speaker 2: 1:30:26

living beyond the means, even after the first bankruptcy kind thing,

Speaker: 1:30:30

you nailed it. Fair. We, uh, we would go to Hawaii Oh, fair amount as a kid. So we did some sweet out there. We would go to pizza hu

Speaker 2: 1:30:37

once a month when I was a kid. Holy mo. Yeah. It was crazy. That's crazy. Was that your local experience? Just about, um, but yeah. No, we, I mean, but my parents lived within their means. Mm. Like, uh, that was the difference kind of is, you know, even though they had very limited means, they always stayed within it. Yeah. Uh, anyway, I digress. So,

Speaker: 1:30:56

yeah, no, I, I, uh, my, my wife comments often, shit.'cause I, I love the routine. Like, just like, you know. Getting to bed and you're sleeping well and eating well, and yet, like staying in the, in the, in the regiment too long can get kind of tiring, at least for, for me. Yeah. And so the reason I'm sharing that with you is I probably haven't gotten very local scuba

Speaker 2: 1:31:14

diving's about as crazy as you used

Speaker: 1:31:17

to ride a motorcycle. Like I told you, I sold that. What were you riding? A Yamaha V Star. Okay. Very practical. Very practical,

Speaker 2: 1:31:25

very slow, good brakes. Yeah. Even my motorcycle life is very crash avoidance tendencies. Very in the tone in the box. Well, um, you know, some of my guests are crazy adventurers and others are slow path from here to there. That's me and that's cool. That's right. So thanks Jesse. I appreciate having you having both types.

Speaker: 1:31:45

Yeah, absolutely. I, I tell our clients oftentimes Kurt, that as I'm getting older, I'm getting a lot nerdier, but the difference is when we get older, nerds are cool.

Speaker 2: 1:31:53

Right.

Speaker: 1:31:53

So I, I feel like I'm,

Speaker 2: 1:31:54

you're getting to be as cool as you could be.

Speaker: 1:31:57

That's where I tell my kids.

Speaker 2: 1:31:59

Thanks. Appreciate you being here. Thanks, buddy. See you soon.