2021 EP1002 Planning Matters Radio

We want you to plan for success. Welcome to Planning Matters Radio.

And welcome into the program. This is Planning Matters Radio. I am Peter Rishon, founder, president at Rishon Planning. And you can find us online if you visit richonplanning.com. That's what it looks like, richonplanning.com.

It's my last name, rishonplanning.com. And you can download a copy of my book, Understanding Your Investment Options, absolutely free if you do visit. And we'll even get in contact if you leave that contact information and ask if you'd like us to send you out a physical copy. So again, go online now, visit richonplanning.com. Or if you would like to sit down and review your current plan and financial outlook, we do offer the opportunity to put together that optimized retirement plan for you as well.

Just give a call 919-300-5886, 919-300-5886. And we had him on a few weeks back on the program. A lot of people enjoyed that program, as we talked about a number of different topics. Johnny Mayfield is with us once again, Johnny, welcome back. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. Hello, hello to you. One more time. That's right, folks, we've got a deal for you. I better turn off my announcer voice.

I should do that. You have a great radio voice. Well, actually, I tell people I have the face made for radio. Well, you talked last time on the program about dialect and trying not to have what people could determine to be a regional dialect and you know where that is most commonly useful and utilized is in news media. News anchors try not to have any kind of regional dialect. You can't really do that because in most cases a regional dialect or an ethnic dialect gets in the way of proper enunciation of anything to do with news. Case in point, how would you like to go to New York City, tune in the local broadcast, say WABC and the WABC announcer says, hey, what's the matter here? You guys got a problem today in the traffic sector. Things ain't going right down there.

Better take the subways. It doesn't work. It would certainly limit your career mobility. Exactly. There are many other areas where you can't say certain phrases or certain words because they have a totally different meaning just by going several hundred miles in any one direction. You can go from totally understandable to not understandable at all. But if you listen to most of your broadcasters, you find that there are no ethnic, racial or regional inflections at all in their speech.

And that's necessary because for everyone to understand you, you can't have any localisms included. Well, on today's program, we'll talk a little bit more about that. Maybe we'll talk about some stories, some tidbits, some food for thought from a financial perspective, of course.

And as always, we talk about what is important in your planning. And well, Johnny, the theme for today, scary financial topics are be scary now. The ghasties, the ghoulies, the spookies and the specters and all the things without buddies to be going bump in the night.

They'd be picking your pocket. Now they are high. It is October, the leaves, the seasons, they're beginning to change. And of course, Halloween right around the corner. So we're seeing those ghouls and goblins, those specters and scaries, the witches. But we're also dealing with, Johnny, a lot of scary financial topics right now.

Extremely. And they're as scary as your local grocery store. They're as scary as your local gas station. You don't have to really look for them.

In many cases, they find you. And therein lies the problem because people are caught off guard because they've been taught not to be concerned because these things are beyond their control. They just happen.

There's nothing you can do about it. When in reality, there's a lot you can do about it. You don't have to go with the flow. You have a lot of control over much of this, much of these occurrences and happenings simply because you don't have to buy these things. You don't have to go to these places.

You don't have to do these things. And once you exercise your control as a group, as a population, then you have the control and those around you do not. Well, I would say there are a few things that we do have to do. One of them that is scaring a lot of people right now is taxes. And any, any of us as individuals have very little control over what tax rates are, what tax brackets are, what tax laws are. But Johnny, as you alluded to, we do have some level of control. We just have to recognize where that is. We have choices and decisions and options for how to save and invest and classify our dollars.

And right now I believe to be really a window of opportunity that could be use it or lose it for better controlling and minimizing the tax burden that people have. But right now, if we are not having those conversations, it's just something that we're scared, scared of. Well, fear is the controller of government of the people.

If you can generate fear, then they can get you to go where they want you to go. Do you remember as a ask a question, do you remember the theme song for Alfred Hitchcock on television? I remember Alfred Hitchcock. I don't remember the theme song for him. Well, the theme song was March of the marionettes. Now, the name of it was March of the marionettes. And if you could imagine marionettes, the strings are being pulled as they march along. That's the way governments want people to function. They want to pull the strings and you march to their tune. We have the ability to cut our own strings and march to our own tunes. And those of us that do, we can be successful, both in work, in life and in retirement, because no one controls us.

No one pulls our strings. We can set our own course. Well, I think there has been a lot of that fear and a lot of that string pulling here as of late in what we are seeing in society and what we're going through and a lot of it by design. But we want to be more of our own captain of the ship and determine our own outcome. And I always stress and emphasize that your outcome is only as good as the assumptions that your plan makes and the variables that you leave yourself exposed to.

There are going to be variables, but in many times we can take steps to better protect ourselves against them or isolate ourselves from them, that people simply don't take those steps. They are not being proactive in being prepared and planning ahead enough to address things like taxes, like inflation, like market corrections, long-term care expenses, and running out of income in retirement. All of these, I think are the scary financial issues that we take an ostrich approach to. Bury our heads in the sand. But I always remind folks that the head that may be in the sand, but the backside is still exposed, Johnny. Very much so. And therein lies the ostrich's weakness because he doesn't realize that the backside is exposed. And people have the habit of not wanting to rock the boat as it were.

If Charlie and George down the street are doing this, then it's okay for me because they're getting along just fine. But you have to look in the mirror and look around you at your own personal situation and where you want to be. If you're say 35, where do you want to be in 35 years?

The wife and I were looking at that at 35 and we knew where we wanted to be at 35 years down the road. And it's not an easy thing to do because once again, the choices you make will go against the stream. You're going to be swimming against the current quite often, but you have to set the money aside. You have to decide what's necessary and what's not. What is now and what is later. You must make your own decisions and not rely on others to do this for you. Because if you rely on others, you become the marionette and others will pull your strings. However, I think that in today's day and age where there's so much information, there are so many AI and robo do it yourself services. Yes, absolutely. We've got the ability to do things ourselves, but it's also what we don't know that can hurt us.

And there are limitations there. So the experience of a qualified professional in looking at your situation and helping you to identify maybe those stones that have been unturned in the holes in the plan or the things that have been unaddressed can be helpful, can provide many benefits. In fact, Dave Ramsey, if you're familiar with that name, he conducted what is to date the largest survey and study of millionaires that has ever been done. And seven out of 10 of those that he had in the survey did in fact trust and rely on the help of a qualified financial advisor, a professional in managing their wealth and in building to reach that status and then in making decisions about what to do moving forward.

So I think that that speaks to the benefits of trusting an advisor, but that alone could be said to be, Johnny, one of our scary financial topics of how do you find the right person and how do you trust somebody at that level with your money and your life savings? Well, therein lies the question, because I remember my father many times, he would say that if ignorance were in fact bliss, there's a lot of very happy people out there, because it's not that they are stupid. It's not that they are dumb. It's the fact that they're ignorant. They simply don't know. No one's bothered to inform them of the options available, the things that they have available. And because of this, they just leave it alone. They just don't worry about it. They just stay away from it because they simply haven't been informed as to what is available for them and what they can do for themselves to help their condition. So therefore they're just totally in the dark.

They put themselves there and that's not the place to be. I like my grandfather saying it's better to have it and not need it than to be in need of it and not have it. But in order to have it, you have to make decisions to make sure it's going to be there in the first place. And that is where trust and knowledge come in. If you don't look into the possibilities and what's available and have knowledge of the people you're dealing with and what they do and what in fact they can do for you, that's the main thing, then you're going to be in the dark and you're going to have those strings being pulled and you'll be marching with the marionettes like everyone else. I think that's not good.

Indeed, no. That's the value of having a relationship with an advisor to identify those areas. But how can we find one that we connect with? Well, there are certain questions I think that you need to ask. And going back again to Dave Ramsey, he's got a list right on his website of questions that you should ask a financial professional. Good questions. Number one, what do you love about your job? Johnny, the thing that I think I most appreciate is that I can help illuminate those subjects and bring light to them and help people be more informed about them. Not everybody has a fantastic handle of money and finances.

Let's just be frank and real and honest. But being able to give somebody the confidence that I am doing good things with my money to build for a better future is one of the most satisfying things to have that evolution and that metamorphosis from somebody having questions, having concerns, having doubts and worries of do I have enough? Can I ever afford to retire? Am I going to be okay once I do retire? Am I going to meet my financial goals to putting a plan in place to examining those those scary variables that sometimes can seem overwhelming and outside of our control and formulating a plan for how to address them and then watching the evolution as somebody's shoulders rise and they build more confidence with their money.

They're more informed and educated and they can make those decisions. That's one of the things that I think I love most about this job in this profession that is most rewarding. The success is in success.

Indeed. And success breeds success. The last thing you want is to be taking advice from a failure. You just don't want that because obviously the person that's giving you the advice as the saying goes, why do you want to listen to advice from a prisoner if you're in prison yourself?

It doesn't work that way. Well, there's a couple other old sayings about that as I don't think that this is necessarily the case, but those who can do those who can't teach. And that I think is a very big disservice to the job that teachers do. I think that many teachers themselves are masters of their subject and their craft and that seeking that advice. And not only that, but once we have mastered something, relaying that information to others, oftentimes reinforces what we do know helps us learn as well.

And through the experience of dealing with many, many different situations, I have the benefit of seeing what has worked and what has not worked in other situations. I know I only want to retire once. I don't want to have a do over.

I don't want it to be a mistake. I don't want to look back and say, whoops, that didn't work out better luck next time. Having the benefit of somebody who has seen this multiple times over really cannot be under emphasized or understated. It can never be under emphasized and understated because if you practice what you preach, you can always preach the success that you've had.

And therein lies the difference. Too many people will listen to somebody say, well, that don't work. How does he know it doesn't work?

Have you tried it? As the saying goes, it's better to have tried and failed and then never tried at all. But well, if you've never tried, you failed. Exactly. I think a lot of the regrets that we have in life, looking back and saying, wow, I really regret not doing that, not taking advantage of that, not taking that opportunity.

It's the things that we had the ability to do that we try that are oftentimes the regrets. Well, a lot of people, they will say, well, I can't do that because they, whoever they are, won't let me. I can't do that because no one else I know has done that.

Or they keep telling me that it won't work. All you're hearing is negatives. I was always taught that positive people should never shake hands with negative people because negative thoughts. If you shake hands with a negative person from an electrical point of view, you have a short circuit, you trip the breakers, you blow the fuses and everything goes dark. So if you're a positive person, you should beware negativity because it'll turn your lights out. And that's the last thing you want to do is put yourself in the dark.

Never turn your own lights out. You are the product of the closest people that you hang around and thoughts become things. And if you are hanging around naysayers and, and folks that are condescending or that doubt your ability, successful people don't have those. And even when, even when somebody tells them that they can't, or they're not allowed to, they take that as a challenge. It is a positive motivation and they seek to prove them wrong. And I think that's the attitude that we may need to have when looking at the difference between success or failure is the mindset is the most important thing. The mind is the most powerful tool, but in, in our financial lives, it's also the knowledge and the mastery of the other tools that we have available to face these unknowns and these scary factors like taxation and inflation and market corrections.

None of those Johnny within our individual control, but we need to have an attitude that we can take steps to better control our exposure to them. Exactly. Because I can remember my grandfather back in the 1880s and well into the nine, well in the 1990s and even today, in many cases, they would spend an entire year growing an entire crop to make sure that they could pay the taxes on the land. Once you paid the property tax, that ensured that you could maintain your lifestyle and any leftovers were then yours. And I can remember, he said, you only had one pair of shoes a year after you got your crop in and you only wore those shoes in church and in school, you didn't wear them to church or to school because you wear them out. So I said, well, what did you do in the meantime? He says, well, you wrapped your feet in flour sacks or whatever you had available and then you wore your shoes when you had to. But that way you did not wear them out. And I said, OK, but we're looking at myself as a young boy in the 1950s talking to my grandfather, who was born in 1880. So we're looking at a totally different century.

But the knowledge and the practice is the same. If you don't want to be without, you don't waste what you have. And as a case in point, my mother's had a story she used to tell us, she said a lot of people are talking about being in the ghetto. Well, people are if you're you're always born in the ghetto, if you're not born with rich parents, you're in the ghetto.

Why? Because you're always talking about what you're going to get if you make it successfully. So you're standing there in the street corner or you're in the corner bar and I make that hit on the lottery. I'm going to get me a big house on the lake. I'm going to get me a boat. I'm going to get me a car from me and the wife.

Well, let's just say that they do things right and everything works well in their favor. That's when they graduate to the from the ghetto to the got. Oh, that's when they're talking about what they've got. I got me a house on the lake. I got me a boat. I've got me and I got me and my wife, new cars.

But if they are not careful, if they listen to the wrong advice from people that are unsuccessful and they lose that what they have acquired, then they are in the third level. And that's the Haddow. They go from what to get to what they got. And now they can only talk about what they had. See that Mercedes? I had one just like it. The wife did to see that boat down there.

I had one just like it on the lake. They can only talk about what they had because they took the wrong advice in the classes that I teach and some of the financial conversations that I have. I talk about how reaching retirement is a very high level of financial success, being able to confidently say I'm going to walk away from a secure paycheck that I can depend on and not look back and then moving through what we hope to be 25, 30 years of unemployment with confidence. That takes a high level of financial success.

Unfortunately, not everyone maintains that level of success. And oftentimes it's because they don't have a great understanding of the tools that they have available and the risks that they will face. And so part of our planning process is to really examine the assumptions that we are making as we have that transitionary period, maybe five to 10 years before retirement, five to 10 years after retirement. That's really the red zone, if you will, of when examining those assumptions and learning and understanding the tools becomes important. Your outcome is only as good as the assumptions your plan is based on. If your plan projects out that we will make a steady, consistent 8% rate of return.

And then we have a couple of years where it's like the dot com bubble and the market loses 50% or a couple of years where it's the great recession and the market loses 40%. And you're taking out income because it's retirement. After all, you're taking out income at the same time and you're burning the candle from both ends, then your plan and your outcome will not end up where you assumed where it was projected. And I would rather plan and prepare for that ahead of time. In fact, I sort of take the Murphy's Law approach to planning. What can go wrong will. Let's be absolutely pessimistic in the planning process.

And I don't know if you've ever heard of O'Toole or are familiar with O'Toole, but O'Toole said Murphy was an optimist. We're looking at the plan and making the bad things happen on paper as if Murphy's Law is the rule and the set of circumstances we'll face in the future. Taxes will probably go up. Inflation will probably be higher than we've seen the market. We'll probably correct three or four times over a 30-year retirement.

We may encounter long-term care needs and therefore expenses. Does the plan still work under those conditions? Every plan with rosy, optimistic assumptions is going to look fantastic. It's going to work. We're going to have income for our entire life.

And we're going to pass away with millions of dollars to hand to our children. But then real life is what happens to plans. And the outcome is nothing like that. And that's why we've got to take that proactive look from a conservative or even a pessimistic standpoint. Well from the conservative point of view and from a historical point of view, the saying is very simple. No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. As soon as the battle begins, you can throw the plan out the window because what the enemy does determines what your functions will be to stay ahead. Or Mike Tyson said it very eloquently, everybody's got a plan till I punch him in the nose.

Exactly. Or as I believe it was back in the 1930s, it was another heavyweight boxer by name of, he was fighting Billy con and he was known as the high speed, a puncher runner, you know, he'd get around. And the saying was, what do you intend to do to combat his ring style? And it says, the answer was very simple.

He can run, but he can't hide. You have to stay within the ring and therein lies the difference because you can't leave the ring. Once the bell rings, it's just the two of you. And you have to look at planning for yourself and the wife. You're planning for the future.

It's just the two of you. You can't rely on your children because they have their own families. They have their own lives. You're planning for your life, your family, what you intend to do, and you can't control taxes. You don't know what the taxes will be other than the fact that taxes always go up. They never go down. And if you look at historically all taxes are temporary.

They just simply forget to remove them. Indeed. Well, I always give the analogy and a lot of people I talk to want to help their children. They're in a position where they're accumulating wealth, they're planning and building toward their own retirement, but they're making a priority to help the kids with things like college education, which, you know, very, very selfless and very worthy effort. However, I remind them that if you are not putting yourself in the most stable position possible, you're not serving to stabilize those around you.

Just like in an airplane, when you take off the same, the standard safety speech that the stewardess air air crew always give is that if there's turbulence in the air and the masks fall from the ceiling, if you're traveling with small children, be sure to secure your own mask before helping those children that you're traveling with. And the same thing for our financial life, because we don't want to become dependent on our children later in life during their peak earning years, taking them away from their own financial preparations, nor do they want to take an unpaid three or four month vacation to come and take care of mom and dad. There's a lot that goes into that, but there are ways to, to plan and prepare and protect ourselves against those, those costs and expenses. Well, my wife is in home healthcare.

She's a nurse and we see this on a daily basis. In fact, quite often, uh, we'll spend weekends going to yard sales and things of this nature, and we'll buy items that her patients need that they simply can't afford. Uh, things like walkers and wheelchairs and shower chairs and all of these odds and ends and bits and pieces that no one really thinks about. But if you don't have the 40, 50, 75, $150 to purchase these things, it's very difficult to do without them when you need them.

So we will spend a weekend and that's what we do for fun. Literally is shopping for items for people that simply can't afford them. And in most cases, we just give them away or we'll just say, if we spend five or $10 for them, that's what they pay for it.

It's something that fills an empty spot. But once again, it's one of those things that was not covered by planning because they never assumed that they would need these items in the future. So there was no, no point in quote, looking into providing it because once again, the assumption may have been, well, Medicaid will get it for me or I can get it through another service. And that's nobody's ideal plan by the way. That's not really, that's really not a plan. That's more like a fallback excuse. And you don't want to live in a, in a position where are you depending on something being there that may not be there. You know, there's nothing like a safety net with a hole in it. There's a lot of that going on. There is indeed. Well, we've talked about a number of different topics on today's program and with Johnny Mayfield, as always a very entertaining conversation on today's show, as we have talked about some of the scary financial issues and the theme of the holiday here coming up, October Halloween, right around the corner, the ghouls, the goblins of the financial world, trusting and advisor taxes, inflation, market corrections, long-term care, outliving our assets.

These are the things that have people scared, that have savers and investors, even those proactive and in a good position are reasonably empowered and concerned. Absolutely. May I be a pirate for a minute? Be make you were on the making for the voyage of your life. Be making your mark here. The name, there may be no pay, but you be getting your fair share of the loot booty and plunder B survive the voyage.

Will you survive the voyage? That is the question. We have to be better prepared and we have to take those steps. That's one of the reasons why at Rashan planning, we offer the opportunity to have those conversations.

Ladies and gentlemen, pick up the phone, give a call. If you would like to sit down, review your current plan, the assumptions that it's based on some of these scary factors that we'll face into our future, how to prepare proactively for them. And if you would like, we will run you through that optimized retirement plan, looking at your income, your investments, taxes, healthcare, legacy, all you need to do, pick up the phone, give a call costs, not a scary factor here, free of charge, no cost, no obligation for that conversation. 9 1 9 3 0 0 5 8 8 6 9 1 9 3 0 0 5 8 8 6. And if you'd like to get a better understanding of your investment options and choices that you have, go to rich on planning.com.

That's my last name, Rashan planning.com, but it looks like rich on planning.com download a copy of the book, understanding your investment options. And if you leave your contact information there in the form, we will be in touch and ask if you'd like a physical copy of the book mailed out to you. Johnny, again, always a pleasure, very entertaining time with you on today's program. Thanks for being here. And I thank you, sir. And like the terminator says, I'll be back. We certainly hope so.

And that's not a threat. That's a promise. We're looking forward to hearing from you. Give a call.

9 1 9 3 0 0 5 8 8 6. We'll talk to you soon. Take care. Take care.

Bye bye. This has been planning matters radio. The content of this radio show is provided for informational purposes only and is not a solicitation or recommendation of any investment strategy. You are encouraged to take investment tax or legal advice from an independent professional advisor. Any investments and or investment strategies mentioned involve risk, including the possible loss of principal advisory services offered through Brooke's own capital management, a registered investment advisor, fiduciary duty extends solely to investment advisory advice and does not extend to other activities such as insurance or broker dealer services. Advisory clients are charged a quarterly fee for assets under management while insurance products pay a commission, which may result in a conflict of interest regarding compensation.

This has been planning matters radio. The content of this radio show is provided for informational purposes only and is not a solicitation or recommendation of any investment strategy. You are encouraged to take investment tax or legal advice from an independent professional advisor. Any investments and or investment strategies mentioned involve risk, including the possible loss of principal advisory services offered through Brooke's own capital management, a registered investment advisor, fiduciary duty extends solely to investment advisory advice and does not extend to other activities such as insurance or broker dealer services. Advisory clients are charged a quarterly fee for assets under management while insurance products pay a commission, which may result in a conflict of interest regarding compensation.