SPEAKER_02 0:00

Because the military is not just a job. It's in most cases a way of life. It's the entire community that you have, most social circles built around that. So when you step away from that, either like I did prior to retirement or going all the way, most people revest for the military pension, military tri-care for life, and things like that at the 20-year point or greater. You kind of have that bisection between the two, but you got veterans who are going to have a variety of experiences there.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the show where financial planning meets human understanding. As an exceptional financial advisor, you know that financial planning is about more than just numbers. It's about giving clients the clarity they need to align their money with what matters most, which is why each episode is designed with that goal in mind. You'll learn how to uncover the psychology behind client decisions and gain insights and behavioral strategies needed to create deeper, more meaningful client relationships. You'll discover techniques for navigating emotional client situations, drawing from conversations with leading industry experts in behavioral finance, psychology, communication, and more. Whether it's mastering discovery meanings, handling sensitive client conversations, or understanding what is truly keeping your client stuck, you'll walk away with not only strategies that you can use in your next client meeting, but also the confidence to do so. Oh yeah, hi. I should probably introduce myself. I'm your host, Ashley Kwame, a therapist who somehow wandered into the world of financial behavior and kind of decided to stay. My mission is to help you bridge the gap between financial planning and human understanding. Because remember, finances don't have feelings, but your clients do. Let's dive in. Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the podcast where financial planning meets human understanding. I'm your host, Ashley Kwame, and today I am thrilled to be joined by my friend, my colleague, Daniel Copp, CFP, who we are going to be diving into and talking all about his specialty in an area that is really near and dear to my heart, which is serving our military clients. Daniel brings invaluable insights into the unique psychological and emotional landscape that service members, veterans navigate when it comes to money and financial planning.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Daniel, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you here.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

Thank you for inviting me, Ashley. It's a privilege to come on shows like this, even more so since I am a regular listener and excited to give back to the audience what I feel like I've already gotten so much from you and the many amazing guests that you've interviewed already.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate that. And I have no doubts that you are going to be giving back because you're brilliant. I've listened to you, I've heard you speak, familiar with your work. So I'm excited to have you on and sharing all of your wisdom here today. But before we jump into all of that, can you share a little bit with people who are listening, a little bit about your background? This is a unique area, client population to serve. What drew you specifically to working with military clients?

SPEAKER_02 3:18

I serve them because I was one. I am still part of that military veteran tribe. So this is a career transition for me as a financial planner now. I spent the first nine years of my working life after college and ROTC in the Air Force as an officer, doing something very different called air battle management. Short answer is kind of like combat airspace management. But a lot of life circumstances happened. We may get into those today with my late wife Sarah before her health kind of took a serious decline. That turned me onto the path of ultimately what was now financial planning. So as I ultimately separated from the military at about that nine-year point, I was like, well, I got to do something else and found my way to what is now I believe is my true calling, which is financial planning. And so it was very easy for me, had lived the life speaking the language, understanding all the stuff to transition and pivot to offer a service model and financial planning expertise because I was there. When you're in the tribe, like you speak the language, you know the stuff. So it was an easy fit. And sure enough, the marketing, at least on the military side, has turned to be one of the easiest things from that. Obviously, the planning expertise has to be table stakes for that. But yeah, it's been a wonderful way to give back and serve my tribe.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Yeah, I love that. And so appreciative that you do that. I uh so many, uh, many people might know, and you knew as well. Clayton's active duty in the army. And I remember being stationed, we were stationed in South Korea. And the army bases compared to the Air Force bases, I mean, it just was kind of unfair. Like Air Force just has it figured out. Like they've got the good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

That's very true.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

There, uh, I I won't speak for Clayton, but I was always very envious of the Air Force bases, at least over in Korea, uh, while we were there. They just had all the good stuff. It just wasn't, oh, just wasn't fair. So I wish Clayton had joined the Air Force, but you know.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Yeah, that's the way it goes. Sometimes it was just based on our service age. The Air Force is a newer branch, and for a long time during the Cold War, there were just more money thrown at the Air Force, which helped build nicer bases and facilities. The running joke in the joint world service world is, you know, how do you know how to build an Air Force base? Well, first thing you do is situate the runway, second thing you do is situate the golf course and everything else around that.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

There you go. Yeah. See? Yeah, man. Yeah, hindsight's 2020. So if I'd go back, I would definitely encourage Clayton to, man, go, Air Force. Don't be in the Army. Nothing against, well, I guess kind of something against the Army. They need nicer facilities, some different colors other than brown. But I'm so glad that you're here. And I appreciate you sharing that a little bit about your journey. And that makes sense as far as why like you would be so passionate about serving, you know, military clients and veterans, given just your history, your experience there personally on the personal side. Can you maybe share a little bit with us, though, from I guess the psychology kind of standpoint, or even like the culture, maybe place? What makes military clients different from non-military or as we call civilian clients in terms of how they approach money or financial decisions?

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Yeah, there's a lot of layers to this. I would say one of the first things is sort of the rugged self-reliance that happens, tends to be a group of people who join the military, right? I think the latest statistics, like less than 1% of the US population has served at any one point or time. So it's a it's a minority of the population who raises their right hand and says, yes, I will write a blank check up to and including my life for the service to this country and the Constitution. Now, obviously, that impacts the service member, but as you mentioned, your own journey, the military spouse, right? Families get brought along with that. So for those who aren't familiar, right, what does that mean? Well, you go off to some sort of basic training or officer school, and then you get assigned a job. You may or may not have opportunity to influence that or give a vote for what you do. Certainly very little votes, uh, not a whole lot of control of where you get stationed, where you go. And so the military will pluck you up and then send you to the far corners of the world or the US, where you probably show up, not knowing a single soul, right? And you've got to make life work, settle down, build a community, restart. And then guess what? A couple years later, you're gonna do it all again. We call it PCS, permanent change of station. Here we are in the middle of summer recording this, and this is PCS season here in the United States. And lots and lots of people. So pretty much everybody, military, generally two, three, five years, something in that range for most people, and you're gonna do it all again. And you're gonna pick up and you're gonna move and go to a new place and sell it. So it just creates a culture, whether you started with it or not, of like pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, like figure it out. You know, you're gonna have friends and people that you can quickly connect with because you're all living that same life. But at the same time, you know, if you don't do that, then you're gonna kind of get stuck, left behind. So that creates a culture in which you, as a financial professional, trying to work with them, you know, there's skepticism about some of the things in financial services as well, because of the predatory nature of some financial institutions that target and work with the military community. But most military clients that I work with have never had a true financial advisor, financial planner before. So if they're coming to you, recognize that there's that rugged do-it-yourself that's kind of just inherent in the culture.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Yeah, I love that. And I a thousand percent agree with all of that. So seeing it on the clinical side, but also with Clayton and just hearing some of the military professionals that he's come to work with, whether it's active duty indoor veterans, there is that do-it-yourself kind of aspect there. I'm curious, though, you mentioned, you know, a little bit here, kind of about culture and just like the mindset when it comes to how they are thinking about just their life, their lifestyle characteristics there. Have you seen or how have you seen maybe some of that apart from maybe just the kind of do-it like yourself? How does how is that translated maybe into financial decisions around? I know that you're big on a state. You're an estate planning guru, you and Emily, you and my girl Emily. How does that kind of translate, though, to other areas of financial planning, making financial decisions?

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Risk perception, risk tolerance, risk capacity, risk composure, things that we might think about strictly in the context of maybe a portfolio allocation, stocks versus bonds, all that kind of stuff is very much different in the military community, in my experience, because again, you've got people who have volunteered to go do hard things like join in the first place. And then you've got subcultures within the military community of people doing hard things like spending long times and distances away from family, choosing to go do hard things like special forces training and all the kind of lifestyle that goes along with that. So when you start talking about risk component and risk capacity and things like that, this population, my experience, anecdotally is they're just higher tolerance towards a lot of those things, and that has positive effects. Like you're probably maybe having an easier time getting equity allocations to the portfolio, but maybe a more difficult time encouraging them to do things on the risk mitigation side, like estate planning, like life insurance. Even though the military provides free estate planning, which is typically basic wills, healthcare power of attorneys, healthcare directives, financial power of attorneys, free to military members. That's the part of the jag. So as a result of that, it should be easy, right? It's free and generally mandatory before you go on a deployment, but it's amazing to me how many people still haven't done that or put it off or don't want more life insurance because I'm invisible, right? I'm a thousand feet tall. I joined the big bad Marine Corps, whatever the case may be. I don't need any life insurance. My family's gonna be fine, even though you know you're gonna face some increased risks or just general risks in general.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Yeah, it can be real challenges too. And I think that it's certainly the case with military clients, but also just clients in general, right? Those things are so far off in the future, right? That'll quote never happen to me, right? And that that mindset. And so that can be a challenge, but then you couple that with the risk piece that you talked about and good grief. That can definitely be a challenge on the advisory standpoint. I guess in that lens, taking kind of all of that into consideration, I would imagine trust is a huge piece of being able to help clients, you know, if they're resistant to those decisions, right? Helping them see where that can be helpful. I would imagine, right? Trust is a huge component of that. How or what have you learned about earning, maintaining trust with service members and veterans? Is it any different than maybe other clients, non-military clients? I would say.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

That's an excellent question because it goes to the heart of like communication style. Like most military families who are going to be in a busy, young, professional stage of their life, time is at a premium. And even more so with some of the ops tempo that many units are have. So we call it the bluff, bottom line up front, like short, concise, get to the point generally sends to tends to be better received by that community versus, you know, a 10,000-word flowery thing that buries the lead in the middle. That's not going to go over as well. Also, you know, just the little things like setting clear expectations. I mean, this certainly has application across all client relationships, but probably even more so of this, right? Uh military life often brings, we call it the hurry up and then wait.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Yes, hurry up and wait.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Uh yes. Sorry, actually, I'm getting you triggered here.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

I'm having my own response to that.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

Okay, we got we got lots of fun phrases like mandatory fun, you know, like I don't know if you know that. And the whole idea of, okay, so military is good at sometimes changing the plan. So military people tend to be flexible, adaptable. But that doesn't mean that you as professionals should throw that extra stress onto them. So when you say you're going to do something, do it. Keep your word. Like timeliness, another key factor of promptness. Um, build that into your business model. I mean, don't promise a four-hour email reply if that's not gonna work, right? But if you say you're gonna respond within two business days, then you should do that, right? So all these little factors, much like much of the population, but even more so with this community, is gonna help to engender trust. And also, like if you personally are wanting to work with military, but maybe you didn't serve yourself, like tying it back to a family story, maybe someone who did. So getting that family connection for better or worse, I think in the United States we are trending more towards, I don't even know what to call it, other than like almost a caste system, where one of the major factors of people today choosing to enlist, choosing to go and serve, go to the academies and commission or ROTC, something like that, is because they did have a family member connection. Okay. So if you have anything like that in your background bio, highlight that, share that, and use that as a way to engender rapport.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

I will say that when I was doing full-time couples therapy, I would just was fairly new to kind of the area. So I'm located here where Fort Eisenhower, previously known as Fort Gordon, here in the Augusta area, and I would serve couples and I had a lot of military couples. And it was always so fascinating and kind of shocking to me that when my new couples found out that my husband Clayton had served, that I also had worked for the US Army as a civilian, it that trust was like just almost immediate. And I would get referrals too, because of that. If like, oh, it, you know, clients would say, like, you understand what we're going through, like you know exactly what we're talking about. So look, I'll be honest, sometimes I did and sometimes I didn't. And I would have to say, like, hey, like I actually don't know like anything about that particular area or what that acronym like, you know, means. But I think you're speaking to something around the story piece and you know, sharing that connection, that clients, when they can see, you know, part of themselves in you, it does help to build that trust factor there with them. And, you know, they'll be more likely to engage and you know, open up and trust in the process and ultimately trust in you and your advice.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Yeah. People work with people they like and trust.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. So now many people know that when it comes to service members, that oftentimes, or it's not unlikely, that there can be some emotional stuff attached to their journey of being in service, right? More specifically, sometimes service members encounter traumatic events, traumatic stress. There are just unique situations that service members experience that civilian clients just don't, right? And those, whether it's trauma from deployments or what have you, they show up and they don't just go away just because, you know, maybe we're not in service anymore or we're not on deployment anymore. And I know that from at least my experience, those can be really difficult to navigate those types of stresses or traumas, if you will. Can you share a little bit about maybe what you've seen or maybe even experienced when it comes to the unique challenges of service members who maybe, maybe do struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder or any other kind of trauma as a result of the military and their financial decision making or financial planning.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

Yeah, that's such a deep question there. Speaks to the team.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Sorry, Daniel, we're going to get right to it.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

Is the continuum, which is financial planning, counseling, blending into financial therapy work that I'm so passionate about doing. Before we go there, though, I'm gonna just pause and just say, like, again, many people join the military from a wide strata of socioeconomic statuses and families of origin. But as a general rule, more often than not, it's probably the bottom quintiles rather than the top, because it ought military officers a way out of those circumstances with education benefits, getting away from challenging and rough communities, and also that family connection, right? The adventure of the spirit. So many people coming in the military are coming from backgrounds that maybe had more challenging money origin stories. So that's going to be layer number one. Layer number two is gonna be then that rugged self-reliance, just figure it out. But at the same time, a lot of, much like other parts of our money culture in the United States, shame and fear of like making mistakes. One helpful thing in that, though, is that the pay grades are transparent. You everybody knows exactly what everybody else is making. And so there's a little bit of, well, you're not living beyond your means necessarily to your life circumstances, but it kind of helps keep everybody in the same strata, if you will. So with that, you're approaching it from okay, some things are known, what grade you are, how much you're getting paid right now, that's visible. And the invisible below the surface stuff would be their background and their socioeconomic status and family of origin, everything that comes along with that. So then they're getting in the military, they're getting moved around the US, financial stressors are getting piled on. Particularly right now, one of the challenges many families face is housing allowance doesn't always keep up, especially in the inflation adjusted in the past years post-COVID, is create enormous housing stressors. So you've got that financial stress that many ordinary Americans who are living in one place and not having to move around frequently may not experience. If you're stationed overseas, now you're getting a cola with cost of living adjustments, which fluctuate based on the currency. So your pay, while most people think the military pay is like consistent, yes, basic pay is, and to the other extent, other allowances are, but there's many things that impact variability, which again add another layer to this. Now you start adding in long absences and deployments. So now that creates financial challenges where one member of a household may be gone, military spouse staying home is kind of managing as the household CFO. So now you've got delegation roles, responsibilities. Often typical academic research shows that happens pretty regularly in couples, right? But now you've got one spouse absent distance, you may create marital conflict. Probably not a surprise. Money is typically the number one reason cited for marriage, divorce in the military. And now you start adding in like, okay, now let's take all that and throw in a dose of extra trauma from things like combat events. Okay. Money is the culture that we live in. It's the air we breathe, the water we swim in, and it touches every aspect of life. So it often will be the first live wire that shows up with these things, like spending decisions to get that dopamine hit to try to relieve the anxiety related to that, or a fear-based culture that gets amplified from a family of origin. And now you're seeing this level of deprivation, seeing friends and combat buddies and stuff like that going through the challenges of injury and care and military medical retirement, and now dealing with the VA system. So all these things come together. There's no one story when it comes to how military families and service members and veterans deal with it. But yeah, you start layering on an enormous amount of challenges that the average American does not experience and might be even difficult to relate to.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Yeah, I love the way that you frame that just in terms of the layers piece, because you're right. There are so many layers that, as you said, the average American just doesn't and can't experience, right? No fault to their own. But from a financial planning standpoint or for an advisor, being able to understand that there are multi-layers going on here that impact just the financial decision-making piece too. And then you add on any potential trauma, whether that's from family of origin, right, or combat, if you will, like, you know, it just amplifies the emotions around that oftentimes. Now, we're talking a little bit kind of about like active duty service members, but there are a lot of veterans out there, right? A lot of veterans. And that transition from active duty to civilian life, I don't know how it was for you, but in my experience, at least working with couples, it was one of the most challenging life transitions that most couples andor individuals experience. And I don't, again, I don't know how your experience was, but just from what I've seen, it is really incredibly challenging. What are for maybe advisors who are working with clients who are coming out of the military, let's just say kind of in that like one to three year kind of post-active duty time frame, like what are some of these psychological considerations that, you know, maybe show up or that you see or focus on kind of during this transition period?

SPEAKER_02 21:31

Well, there's a huge amount of loss of identity that occurs because the military is not just a job. It's in most cases a way of life. It's the entire community that you have, most social circles built around that. So when you step away from that, either like I did prior to retirement or going all the way, most people re vest for the military pension, military tri care for life and things like that at the twenty year point or greater. You kind of have that bisection between the two, but you got veterans who are gonna have a variety of experiences there. For most people who have a good plan coming in, right? It's going to leap into that next career and provide a lily pad, a jumping off point. But for many people, because that loss of identity, that loss of community is such a profound change, this is where you start to see other factors show up that may have been more well managed, like mental health conditions or a social support network. It's one thing when your sergeant says, hey, you got to show up every day and you got to clean your room and you got to do your duty. And if you don't, here's all these lists of resources, including chaplain and mental health and military family and life counselor. There's an enormous amount of resources and support that's built in automatically to the activity structure. And you take away that structure. And if you aren't self-motivated or you're dealing with challenges that make that that much more difficult, there are plenty of great resources out there that the VA does and excellent work. But most of the time it's incumbent upon the veteran or people supporting the veteran to help them get that. It's not like the sergeant is dragging you to go and do it. So that's probably the biggest thing that comes to mind with that transition.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Yeah, I always would laugh, but not like to their face, like not to like the client's face, but like kind of, you know, inside that one of the biggest challenges that I would have service members, I don't know where their spouses say is what am I gonna wear?

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Every day.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

Like I miss, I miss putting on the uniform because it was zero decision.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Yeah. Or like I, you know, I would have like we talk about like in couples, like where they would get into arguments because they would be going out and having to shop for now, quote, work clothes. Like I have to, I have to go and buy clothes now for work. And, you know, that would create, you know, whether it was like budgeting, like arguments or you know, what have, you know, it was just the clothing piece, something that you maybe just don't think about or take for granted, right? For those of us that, you know, yeah, it's totally normal that we have to pick our clothes out every day. We don't wear a, you know, maybe a uniform. That would be just one of those, you know, things that would just cause sometimes a lot of distress financially, but also, you know, mentally, emotionally, and relationally uh as well. But I love that you mentioned the identity piece because it is, it's so true. Like it is part of just who, you know, these men and women like are. And to transition, you know, out of that, there can be, you know, at least I've seen like clients feel very lost in that space. Now, I am curious, I guess, you know, kind of going off of that, when you're talking with maybe more of like the family system. So like the couple, like the service member, whether they are active duty or a veteran, and and the spouse, the partner, how do you like approach financial planning conversations with those couples? And are there any dynamics, I guess, that you observe in particular?

SPEAKER_02 24:46

I love using open-ended questions, like many of your guests have talked about on this podcast before, kind of illicit because more often than not, right, that household financial manager is the one who's booking a call. There are generally like a couple of uh pain points or things that cause people to reach out to hire me. Again, four out of five of my military clients who have hired me have done so with never working with a financial plan or financial advisor before. A few of them I got a sold a product here or there along the way. And so their financial complexity is rising. So the majority of my clients happen to be officers because that's tends to be where things are going. So you've got managing many of them dual military. So you've got two careers going on, right? And so busy professional lives, having to figure out how do we delegate some of these decisions, get some additional support. So good open-ended questions about what's been working well for you up to this point, what are the challenges, using scaling questions on a scale one to ten, how confident are you to make some of these changes or implementations? Using the number below, the answer and kind of using that self-talk. But a lot of it is also goes back to for a traditional married couple who comes in more often than not, the married service member is the one who's been deployed doing all this kind of stuff. So it's that military spouse at home. So in many cases, with a heterosexual couple, that's the man out deployed, woman staying at home. And so, in contrast to many classic financial planning couples that maybe listeners of this podcast might be, where the man might be running the show of the finances at home, it might be very different here. So don't go in with an assumption on who's running things, right? I mean, that'd be the biggest, probably most basic one to start with. And then also just an understanding of because you've got things like military pension to plan around, potential VA disability compensation, education benefits that can be transferred to kids. You've got a host of government benefits that offer up extra planning opportunities. So back to that loss of identity piece. Many of my people come in with an initial goal of I want to be financially independent at military retirement. And many of them, because they are super savers, can be, especially dual military, like two 20-year pensions at 43 years old, they probably don't need to work for income ever again. So it's like, okay, well, that's great. You're gonna get bored after six months sitting on the beach. True story, I see that happen with clients pretty regularly. So let's talk about what's important, the meaning, the hopes, the fears, the dreams conversation to start to build towards that now. The thing that comes up pretty regularly is with those Super Saver clients. This probably applies to all clients, not just military. It was like, all right, well, you're on track for even faster than you expect for some of your goals. So why don't we slow down and spend more now? I the clients still get amazed, like what? A financial planner's telling me to save less right now and spend more, especially in some of those core memory years for kids in the household. Well, like one of my clients, they're in stationed in Aviano right now in Italy, and they get to do that for three years. So I told them, all right, not too many times in your life when your kids are gonna be this age and you get an uninterrupted time to explore and travel and fly the grandparents over and let's do all these things. So again, their jaws dropped, like, what? We're gonna spend that much extra over these next three years? Yes, because you've told me what how that's important to you and why it makes sense in this season of life. So, really just being that reflecting that partner, that thinking partner to help clients understand what's important to them and then use money as a tool to do it. Much like I hope that all of our guests to this podcast listeners are already doing and shared.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

Yeah, I would hope so too. And that's such brilliant just advice right there, connecting that spending. And I love that you said if we're gonna be reaching that goal of financial independence like sooner, can we slow down and enjoy life in the here and now? I can only imagine. Like I can, I'm like literally seeing like clients, like the jaw, like just drop at hearing you say that, or really any advisor, right? Because that wouldn't be something right that we would expect your advisor to say, but what a gift you are to those clients. Uh, at least I think so, right? You're that's such a gift to be able to give them because you're right, especially for military clients where they have opportunities to be stationed in some really cool places. I will tell you that our time in Korea is just so near and dear, at least to my heart. Like it's unforgettable. And I'm so thankful that we had that and took advantage of our time, especially before kids, because yeah, you know, to be able, you know, to do that. So I love that you suggested there, especially if they're in good shape, like can we slow down and just enjoy whatever that season it is of life that they're in. And also, can we go back to this dynamic that you talked about about not assuming, right, from a gender standpoint? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

I thought that would be important to mention because if you don't come from that world, you might come in with assumptions based on your other client interactions.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Absolutely. And it is true, like working with the female partner who would be behind, especially if their, you know, husband, their, you know, male husband, they're deployed, or you know, they were on TDY, right? So they were out training, you know, somewhere else traveling, like they would be the ones holding down the fort, literally from a financial standpoint. And so yeah, I love that you mentioned that, like not assuming right there. I'm curious, like, how would you like mentor or like kind of coach and advisor on how to lead with like asking, like, who is who runs the finances here? What are the roles here? Do you have any particular scripts or ways of framing that?

SPEAKER_02 30:09

Well, the first clue is always looking at the email of the primary person who booked the calendarly appointment on my schedule. And second clue is did they automatically invite their spouse's email in the calendarly link, or did they just both show up on the first one? And then it's like, because I use a right capital planning software, it's like, which of your emails should I send the first invite to to kind of get things started, the or the ball rolling? Like an open-ended question like that. And that's usually the person's going to self-identify, or if they don't, the lesser interested or the one who doesn't do it as much will poke the other partner and be like, hey, it's your job. You do it.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

It's you. Oh yeah, you can just send it. You can just send it to her. She'll take care of all that.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

So those tend to be like two innocuous ways to kind of do it. But again, just reading body language, understanding when you're asking good open-ended questions. Like one of my favorite ones in the discovery process is you know, imagine we're meeting three years from today and tell me what that feeling looks like. How does it feel to have accomplished the financial goals that and hopes, fears, and dreams you've talked about today, and seeing how they both respond to that? One of them may take a lead on that. But ultimately, again, back to the idea of not making assumptions. Both of them are going to be want to be involved in the process. That's my goal. I want both of them to be engaged. And I will say, I'd say I were half of my married couples who hire me explicitly state in the process at some point or another, I'm hiring you because I want my spouse, my partner, to be more informed, more knowledgeable, to bring in an expert or another person who can help us do this better.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Yeah, I love that. All right, Daniel. Last question here. This might be another deep, another deep one. I feel bad. I feel like I've just like I set you up and I was like, this is gonna be so easy. We're gonna talk about your favorite thing. And then I hit you with like some really like deep and heavy questions. But I cannot get off of this call with at least asking you about some of just your own insights or strategies around or when it comes to intergenerational planning or even legacy planning. How or what are some of maybe the what are some insights there? What should advisors like keep in mind from, you know, kind of the psychology or emotional place uh when it comes to that?

SPEAKER_02 32:19

Yeah, you referenced my love of estate planning earlier. So I'm I'm excited to circle back to this because it is such a key topic. Understanding where clients are at and not having one and just the whether they know it or not, that lack of peace, that lack of confidence in their plan bleeds over and into so many other areas. And so having created an estate planning process where we help clients implement and actually get the plan done in-house with some of our uh back office team and support some of the technology that now enables advisors to do that really just transforms their personal confidence level. I we have clients self-assess across a wide variety of areas where they feel confident in, including cash flow and retirement and savings and spending, conflict in their relationships. And inevitably, estate planning tends to always be one of, if not the always, lowest score, confidence. Even if they've done it, even if they've say got their documents from the JAG or have hired an estate planning and done it, very rarely do I find that clients actually understand them. So taking the time, not as someone giving law advice, I'm not an attorney, I'm not trying to venture into UPL unauthorized practice of law, but education tied to their financial planning goals, the hopes, fears, and dreams that they talked about. Like how do we care and love on your spouse, your minor children. Uh, we referenced earlier with my personal story, but in addition to working with military, I work with a lot of gold star widows and young widows in general. And so I get to see lots and lots of situations in which things were done well, and in many cases where things were not. So being you using those to weave the stories to help clients find their own self-motivation, a whole transtheoretical model of change, right? Getting clients ready to take action on this. But inevitably, when we've gone through the process, they finish their own personal estate plan, just the level of confidence and peace of mind that that spills over. It's like a beach head that allows so much extra progress in other areas of the financial life, which then leads to the I wonder if mom and dad have this estate plan. I don't know that we've ever talked to them about that. Or they'll ask me, how should we talk to mom and dad about this? I'm like, well, tell what it was like for you. Share your own personal story. We didn't know what we didn't know, or we thought we had a plan and we didn't have a plan. And now we've talked to Daniel, and we've learned all these things, we've read this stuff, we've got it. And here's what it did for us, and use that as an opening door. And Evelyn clients will come back and say, wow, we had a good conversation. I didn't think my parents would even talk about this. And now, so not going up one generation, starting to open up those doors, and now obviously changing the money narrative, the money story for their own children and modeling what that behavior can look like and starting to have those open, transparent conversations. So there's just so many powerful benefits. I can't recommend enough to financial planners to find a way to integrate this into your process beyond just a cursory review of estate planning documents, but to educate, to teach, to empower clients to understand where they, whether they have an estate plan, I mean they have one, it's just defined by the state and probate, but what it would look like if their own estate plan reflected all of that.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

Yeah, I love that. I'm glad that you shared that. One of the things that I would hear often, and something for advisors to keep in mind, is that a lot of would have a lot of military clients that they would say, you know, yeah, well, I just know that like she gets everything if I die, right? Or like, yeah, I've got a will. And like, yeah, I mean, pretty much just says like she gets everything. She and the kids get everything, like if I die. And they probably do have that in place. But I really appreciate what you mentioned, just about educating a little bit further, because more than likely, you know, service members, active duty, they're gonna have something like basic in place. That doesn't mean that they really understand everything there. It also doesn't mean that it can't be better. It can't be, you know, something that really does focus more on the legacy really that they want to leave and what they want. So for advisors, if you know you have clients, military clients that say, Yeah, I've got a will in place, and like, yeah, I mean, you know, she gets everything. Uh, you know, take that time. And I would imagine you would probably agree, Daniel, but like take that time to maybe dig a little bit deeper. Is that fair? Is that fair to say?

SPEAKER_02 36:12

Yeah. And like if they don't have an estate plan, like, well, using the idea of well, what would be important to you? I always like asking the opening question, what does the words estate planning mean to you? And then using that to lead into have you seen it done well? Have you seen it done poorly? So leveraging those personal stories, personal examples, because inevitably most people have seen probably done poorly more often than done well, and use that as a way to kind of get that self-motivation going. So you can tie it back to. We mentioned resistance earlier, related to like, well, nothing's gonna happen to me. I'm invincible. It's like, well, let's let's talk about that, right? How many people in your career field like has something happened to, right? And does nothing have to be in combat or training, right? Just my one of my most recent clients' spouse died from melanoma at 26. Oh my gosh. And so you know, we can't control those things. So we can control what we do today. And the financial plan, the empowerment, the education that we as advisors, as planners can do and bridge that gap so powerfully.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

Yeah, yeah. I appreciate that. Well, Daniel, our time is sadly coming to an end. I hate it because I could sit here and talk military clients for a lot longer than what this podcast episode is gonna be able to record. But thank you for coming on and for sharing all of your wisdom here with us today as we are wrapping up. Is there one or two maybe takeaways that for advisors listening who have either an interest in working with military clients or um resources where maybe they can learn more if they have military clients and want to do better? Are there one or two takeaways that you might leave them with?

SPEAKER_02 37:49

Yeah, so for those who might be interested in learning more about this as a career changer or someone getting into that space, I've hosted a podcast called Military to Financial Planner. You were just most recently a guest on that as well. And we share the stories of those who've been in that space and how they got into it. It's in primarily intended for those career changing into financial planning careers, but there's many great parallels for learning about how to do planning well based on people who come from that background. I'm also a founding member of the Military Financial Advisors Association, MFAA. So it's a group of us who are fee-only financial planners who are all military spouses or veterans ourselves. And we've come together to kind of coordinate our marketing and be a collaborative environment. So we host a monthly mastermind on Zoom. We have an internal Slack channel that is open for people who are interested in serving the military community and want to come in, just pop in and ask questions, things like that. And then there's also a new qualification, the designation Military Qualified Financial Planner MQFP. You can learn more about that, mqfp.org. And it's a way to again demonstrate some expertise for those of in the military tribe to the broader community at large. So three resources I'd love for people to check out.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

Yeah, we'll make sure that we include those in the show notes, links to all of those. Thank you. I didn't know about the new uh certification there. Yeah, so that's interesting. I appreciate you sure. I'm gonna check that out. And and I'm gonna send it to Clayton as well. He doesn't know it, but I'll be sending that to him there as well. Well, thank you, Daniel, for joining us. And thank you to all of you for tuning in and allowing Daniel and I into your ears and into your mind today. If you found value in today's episode, we both would love to stay connected with you. Daniel, I'm speaking for you here, my friend, but you can follow both of us on LinkedIn. That's Isle's where I hang out. Daniel, where do you hang out mostly? LinkedIn would be best. LinkedIn, LinkedIn would be best awesome. You can hang out with us on LinkedIn where at least I share. And Daniel, you share too. We share a lot of great resources and strategies out there around working with clients. You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter at beyondthefp.com, where I share exclusive resources and strategies that you can use in your practice. Don't forget to follow the show wherever you get your podcast so that you never miss an episode like this one. And remember, my friends, finances don't have feelings, but your clients do. Until next time, keep planning, keep growing, and keep going beyond. Thanks for joining me on this episode of Planning and Beyond. I hope you found today's insights valuable and inspiring for both your practice and your personal growth. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps us reach more advisors like you who are dedicated to making a difference. For more resources, tips, and to continue the conversation, visit our website at beyondthefp.com. You'll find articles, tools, and information about upcoming episodes designed to support your journey and practice. Stay connected with us on social media and never miss an update. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. And remember, the best way to grow is to keep learning and sharing. Until next time, keep planning, keep growing, and keep going.