Early Retirement - Financial Freedom (Investing, Tax Planning, Retirement Strategy, Personal Finance)

My Story | Why Do I Do This?

July 08, 2024 • Ari Taublieb, CFP®, MBA • Episode 188

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I didn't like financial advisors growing up - so why did I become one?

Learn my story so you can understand more from the voice you hear every Monday of the Early Retirement podcast and Vice President of Root. 

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Ari Taublieb, CFP ®, MBA is the Vice President of Root Financial Partners and a Fiduciary Financial Planner specializing in helping clients retire early with confidence.

Speaker 1:

This is not your traditional episode and I'm going to be talking about me. It feels even gross kind of saying that because you're like, what are you just going to talk about yourself? But I get asked a lot about why did you start this podcast? What was it that prompted this kind of holistic approach, designed for an early retirement? How did you meet up with your partner, james, and grow Root to where it's been? And so today is about me.

Speaker 1:

I can tell a lot of you that you are not going to need to listen to this episode if you are the type of person who's like just give me the content. How much do I convert? And I need to know about that five-year rule and the tax gain harvesting. How do I optimize that? You can, and I invite you to. If you are that person, nothing good or bad about that, but if you are that person, please go look at those episodes. I do not want you listening to content that does not engage you.

Speaker 1:

This is for those that want to understand me and why I started this podcast and what prompted everything that's going on. So I'm going to talk about how I met my partner James and the approach to planning and kind of why I even do this today and how it all went down. So today, once again, not your traditional episode, but I'm asked this frequently because you guys are all very nice people that ask about me and it's fun when I get to talk to people and a lot of the emails I get, as you can imagine, are yes, should do a 15 year or 30 year mortgage, should I implement conversions if I'm 57, or should I do healthcare subsidies? And then sometimes I'll get questions like hey, you bought a soccer team, why'd you do that? And the fact that you said your dad's, you and your brother bought this sauna, but it didn't make sense. Like, why, financially, would you do that? And so I want to allude to more of the stories that I talk about often and provide more color. So, like I said, it even feels gross being like here we go episode about me. It's like no, I just want you guys to know where I came from.

Speaker 1:

So the podcast where I want to start the podcast wasn't me going. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I woke up and everyone needs to know. Here's how you optimize. That's not how it went down. So I went to and I won't give you that. You know, I was born in this hospital not doing any of that. I promise I'm not going to put you guys to sleep. This is designed for you to understand why I am giving you the type of guidance I am.

Speaker 1:

So I went to the University of Puget Sound, which is in Tacoma in Washington State, and I went there because one of the few schools that said we will let you play soccer here and I love soccer to an unhealthy degree, just like I love finances to an unhealthy degree. Those are my things that I'm okay with. I, like many of you know you send me an email, but hey, here's my approach, or here's what I'm thinking. I might get back to you on a Sunday and it's not because I feel like I have to, I just like it. And I think it's hard to be good at anything if you don't like it. So I'm good at soccer because I like it a lot.

Speaker 1:

People used to say you're so diligent with your training in college and I didn't get a lot of playing time. I didn't like my coach and that's actually inspired me to do a lot of what I do today. But they say you're so disciplined. I go no, I just like doing it, like yeah, but you're always putting more reps in and doing more practice. I go. It's just fun. There's zero diligence about this that makes me go. You know, I'm going to do this to improve me as a player, and I really wasn't. I was going I have a lot of fun kicking this ball, getting the ball and kicking it again like an absurd amount of fun. And people just couldn't understand that. So then I was like you know what, maybe I want to be a professional soccer player. This was in college. I was going oh, maybe I want to be a professional soccer player. You know 10 years ago now. And oh, maybe I want to be a professional soccer player. You know 10 years ago now.

Speaker 1:

And so I did an internship at a company really not a company, it is a company, but it's called Burnley Football Club, now Burnley Football Club. A lot of you might be like listen, I'm not a soccer fan. What are you saying here? Burnley plays primarily in the Premier League, which is, in England, the top division. Sometimes oftentimes, more than I'd like they get relegated to the lower tier. So think about it like you know, aaa baseball and I spent a summer there where I would train with the team.

Speaker 1:

Quickly realized, not at the professional level like my brother who is a professional and was for many, many years, who is a big inspiration for why I do what I do today, and I'll allude to that later on. But I spent my time with the marketing department, the financial department, specifically accounting, the merchandise department. So I was working as an intern in different departments, thinking maybe I want to be a professional, maybe I want to own my own soccer club, I don't know. So I would spend my time doing that. I quickly realized I'm pretty good at this financial club. I don't know, so I would spend my time doing that. I quickly realized, you know, I'm pretty good at this financial stuff. So that's when I was declaring yep financial major throughout college, won the analyst scholarship award and won all the entrepreneurial awards and all this stuff. And it's not because I'm a whiz at it, it's because I liked it and I believe I'm going to be better than other people at it if I'm doing it more often.

Speaker 1:

I my partner now of five years is like well, you really love going to the gym. Like I appreciate that I go. I don't like going to the gym. Like then why do you go? I go, I like playing soccer and I don't like being hurt, because then I can't play soccer. So you're all hopefully starting to see the method is I am not by any means nor that I've ever said it, not any of you guys have said it this person who's got it all together. I don't. I've got plenty of my issues, trust me, and I go to therapy for it, but I do care that you are optimizing what you've worked so hard for. So I'm gonna tell you why this podcast even started. So here I am.

Speaker 1:

I'm currently in Burnley which, by the way, burnley in England is known as like the Compton of England and I grew up in Malibu, california okay, a little different than the Compton, and I grew up in Malibu. We were not one of the wealthy families in Malibu and I saw a lot of children that let's just say they weren't the nicest, and I was like you know, I don't want to be like these bratty kids here, and my family's not like them. And my mom worked for someone named Haim Saban, who's one of the biggest donors to the Democratic National Committee. And some of you are like, oh, are you going to go political now? No, okay, I have clients on both sides and I don't care either way which side you're on, I care you don't run out of money. But that's what my mom was doing. And so my mom was kind of the power woman that was, hey, I'm growing and doing a lot of, and this guy, haim Sab, created the Power Rangers. And so my mom's in kind of the entertainment world.

Speaker 1:

And then my mom met my dad and my dad at the time was like total surfer. He watched this movie, endless Summer, which a lot of you know, and that changed his life. And his dad was an accountant and he watched this movie Endless Summer and said wait a second, I could be a surfer and live out of a van like people are doing in this, or I could be like my dad, who's an accountant. And he thought they paid the same. So he just picked surfing. He realized that they do not pay the same and my mom's like you got to get a real job and if we're going to start a family, here's what we're doing. So my dad's like I love surfing to an unhealthy degree. We're moving to Malibu because it's where the best waves are. He's like I'd rather live in a shack in Malibu. And we weren't in a shack. But he said I'd rather live in a shack in Malibu than a beautiful home not near the water.

Speaker 1:

So I grew up in Malibu and my parents were burned by four financial advisors, which I've mentioned many times. They're okay with me mentioning that that is why I became an advisor. I quickly realized that there is a value from good planning and there is a real risk from bad planning. Now that's what made me go. I'm interested in being an advisor because my parents early on I hated financial advisors. I'm like these people are just making my parents' life more miserable. They're more stressed. I see the fees they're charging. They're not telling my parents the fees they're charging. And so in college, that's where I started to take a deep dive. And my parents are busy making money. They're great at making money like incredible. They make movies. They make a lot of documentaries. You can see their work on literally my last name, so Taublieb T-A-U-B-L-I-E-B filmscom. They've done stuff with Ferrari and they've made 30 for 30s and they've done amazing work. But they're still working in their 70s and it's because they didn't have a lot of great guidance along the way. That's why I became an advisor.

Speaker 1:

And then when I was in high school and I'm kind of going back and forth, but I promise it's for a reason here. When I was in high school, I was at a gas station. My car was broken. So I went in and I said, hey, I need to get serviced. And I said, hey, I don't know a lot about cars, but I just trust you. Like, what's broken in here, what should get fixed?

Speaker 1:

They look at me up and down and if you're listening on the podcast app, just imagine me, kind of someone eyeing me up. I'm only five, four, okay, it's not a big guy. So they looked me up and down, which didn't take long because I'm not very tall and they go yeah, this is going to be a thousand bucks. And they're like, I'm like, was that the standard process? Like that's how oblivious I was. And they're like no, it's actually now 2000. I go what, what are you? You just said it was a thousand, now it's 2000.

Speaker 1:

And I realized this guy's just taking advantage of me and he was like you're some Malibu kid because of that, what can I get away with? And I'm like, oh my gosh, is that like how my parents feel with these advisors who aren't adding value? So it's why I tell people and I'll say it on my videos, a lot on YouTube, and I'll even say it on my podcast. I'll say if you're going to hire an advisor and they're going to tell you to rebalance, don't hire them, and maybe don't hire any advisor. Now I'll say that in other advisors that are really nice people, they're watching my videos because they either want to work at root or they want to learn or whatever they're trying to do, and they'll send me an email. They'll say hey, do you mind not saying that because you're kind of like hurting my business? I don't care, that is not my problem.

Speaker 1:

My job is to add significant value. Now when I say it it sounds harsh, but if we didn't do all the tax and the withdrawal and the healthcare and the insurance and the optimal we couldn on, we couldn't add value. We are adding value through all of that and, yes, you're sleeping better and there's peace of mind. There's quantifiable value working with an advisor. And there's the first time I'll tell people don't work with us. If you're 55 right now, you've got a million and a half bucks. It's all in a 401k. Don't go, pay us tens of thousands of years. A dollar a year. We can't add value. There's a point where it makes sense and a, and my parents were burned by a few.

Speaker 1:

I was like I want to become an advisor. And so after my year in England that was freshman summer in college I said hey, you know, I'm better at the financial stuff than soccer, but I still love it and so I want to get an internship. So I got an internship at Northwestern Mutual, which is a big insurance company, and I quickly realized it was an insurance company and not a financial planning firm. Now they'll say we do financial planning and I am very transparent. If you guys can't tell, some people think I'm like the mean guy. I'm not mean, I'm just very thorough and I'm naturally a skeptic, so it's who I am.

Speaker 1:

So I go up to the manager at Northwestern Mutual I was interning for. I said hey, why is it when I sell this product over this product, my commission's bigger. I thought like it wouldn't matter, it's just are we getting everyone the right policy? They go don't worry about it, because your name is going to be higher on the leaderboard on Friday. I go no, I get that, I don't care. Why is it, if we're going to give holistic guidance, that I'm paid more for this over that and they really couldn't answer the question. So I'm like I'm not going to work here because this is not actual holistic financial planning. They make great insurance products. I like actually a lot of their insurance products.

Speaker 1:

But one of the companies my parents were burned by was Fidelity. Now a lot of you have Fidelity and you're like, oh my God, do you hate Fidelity? No, but if your advisor is working at Fidelity and they're recommending Fidelity, there's a conflict of interest. There Doesn't mean they're evil. I like Fidelity Okay. I think a lot of their products are actually awesome, but I don't want your advisor recommending Fidelity if they work there because there's a kickback or commission or some leaderboard they're going to be higher up on.

Speaker 1:

So I realized that I knew the difference by that point. I was like, okay, I was kind of pushed the other way, to be honest, where I was like after North venture, mutual and just other financial stuff and like you know friends who are in the industry, it's like maybe this isn't for me. I don't really love this concept of that. They joke now called finance bros the people who are in Patagonia Vest, maybe the investment bankers, and I just didn't get a good sense from them. But I realized after I graduated college I wanted financial independence. I had a scholarship to play soccer and I was very fortunate for that, but my parents were still helping out with food and other stuff and so I just felt guilty.

Speaker 1:

For the majority of my life and growing up in Malibu I was around a lot of money and I naturally did not want to spend a lot of money because I knew my parents weren't kind of the traditional Malibu couple and they had both of my brothers, and so I was like I want to get a job. I don't really care what it's going to pay me, but I was the quote unquote whiz kid and I had the financial background and so I went to Nuveen. Now I'm not trashing Nuveen by any means. Nuveen is an amazing company. They were purchased by TIAA, so TIACREF Amazing mission. I actually enjoyed a lot of my time there Nuveen.

Speaker 1:

They are the number one municipal bond shop, so you're going to see how all this connects in a second. Nuveen is the number one municipal bond shop literally in the world, and so municipal bonds are bonds that are tax-free. Now there's a lot of nuance involved, whether it's a general obligation or revenue bonds. I'm not going to bore you to death with that, but that's all I was doing. I was talking about municipal bonds and I was helping people, not even people.

Speaker 1:

I was helping pensions and endowments create tax-free income and my manager's like, ari, aren't you stoked over the moon? You know you're making this amount of money and you know you're in the Beverly Hills with the parking and the lights and I was like, no, I'm not happy. And they're like, why not I go? Well, I'm the only one that does not drive an Audi or a Lexus on the team. I'm the only one that brings my lunch to work. I work out at lunch, which is really I'm going to work and eat at my desk so that I don't like lose more workout time Because once again, I want to play soccer.

Speaker 1:

You're probably starting to see the theme here and I said, yeah, no, I don't love it. And they're really confused, like I just don't know why. Like my manager was great, but everyone else kind of in the authority positions, like I don't understand, like we gave you this big role and other people would have dreamt for this role, and I'm like don't know what to tell you. And what I realized is I was talking to these big pensions and endowments and they would send me on flights to conferences and you know, for 300 people talk about. You know why we're so great and we had a lot of great products, some of the fees higher than I would like, which I learned more so as my time went on there and why I'm not there today, but not the only reason but I really went wow, there's an opportunity One. I didn't feel anything. So I'm helping these pensions and endowments save literally hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. And I didn't feel anything because I'm like, great, I'm just making institutions even richer. And I was thinking back to Malibu and going, yeah, am I just helping you know, the dad that was dropping off their son in a Lamborghini make even more money? That I'm like. It just didn't rub me the right way.

Speaker 1:

So I went to my manager and this is the big kind of changing point in my life and I said, listen, we're talking about tax-free income and how to create it for people. When people retire early, their income's really low and they have an opportunity to implement a lot of the stuff not just municipal bonds, but conversions and harvesting and stuff we talked to our clients about. Why, like, should we start talking about that. This wasn't me, like, yeah, I'm going to create a podcast. I didn't even know about that stuff. I didn't listen to a single podcast at that time. I was just going okay, there's a method to be had here. When your income drops and you can go this is great, I pay tax my whole life, I don't want to pay a lot anymore. And then wait a second, if I do pay a little bit in taxes, I'm not going to be forced to pay a lot later in life, and so that's really the method that I took from what I learned at Nuveen.

Speaker 1:

Went to my manager at the time and they said and this was not my direct manager, this was someone else. So if my manager is listening right now, this was not you and you're going to listen. Going, did the other person really say that? And yeah, they said, don't worry about it. All right, that's old no-transcript. And my partner used to say why do you talk to the wall every Monday? Like, what do you mean? She goes, well, no one's listening to this, so you're just recording and looking at the wall. I go, you're right.

Speaker 1:

In the first month, three people did listen. I go, that's three more people. Now I didn't know if they actually liked the podcast, if it was helpful, but I go. You know what? Three people, then nine people, then 12 people. I go. By the end of the first year it wasn't a lot. There was a total of like 1400 downloads, which I would argue is a lot. Now, now you know, relatively speaking it's minimal, but you know it's still a lot of people that care enough to tune in to hear me talk about tax gain, harvesting and conversions and health insurance and all this stuff that I feel like I was just talking to really, really wealthy institutions about, who didn't even care when I was telling them about it, because they weren't even looking at me. So that's what I was doing.

Speaker 1:

I was at Nuveen. I quit because a lot went down, but COVID occurred. They actually said hey, for anyone who doesn't want to be here anymore, we're going to pay you out to leave. I go quit a job I don't want to be at. Say less, I quit the job and I didn't have anything lined up, but I was in contact with James Canole, my partner Now. I was in contact with James Canole since 2018. So he formed Root Financial in 2017. He was at a previous firm and he was at Merrill Lynch before that and he's like hey, there's a better way to do planning.

Speaker 1:

And when I was at Nuveen a lot of my job I was speaking to pensions and endowments and advisors who were interested in buying Nuveen products. Now my issue why I really did not like financial advisors is because a lot of people that were advisors would call me up and go hey, how much is Nuveen going to pay me if I pitch this product to my client? I go hey, don't you want to know if we've done well in the performance history and the fees? They go no, how much will you pay me? So let me give you guys all the dirty secret of the world right now, which is there's a reason your 401k has limited options.

Speaker 1:

I spent one week in the Nuveen 401k department and I left because what happens is Fidelity is gonna call me and go all right, how much is Nuveen gonna pay me? Pay us, should, I say, to be offered on the platform? I go did you just ask me how much money Nuveen will pay you so that you are getting paid more or so that it's best for the people that are investing in these products? And they go how much are you gonna pay? Now I was like, okay, wow, they just care. There's a reason. There's eight products listed in your 401k, or 12 products, or 20. Those are the products that are paying your employer the most amount of money and they're offering it to all of you. It doesn't mean they're bad. There's not much you can do about it. It's the reality. But when you're 59 and a half, you can move the money into an IRA. Invest in whatever you want. You love the products, keep them, but you want different ones with lower fees. You can do that as well.

Speaker 1:

So in the 401k department, I learned a lot that week. I was like, okay, maybe not the most ethical. Then I spent more time talking to advisors and I was like I wouldn't give any of the advisors my money. There's a phrase that I tell everyone now, because right now, if you reach out to Root, I'm the person you talk to. And I said someone said I heard you're a certified financial planner. So like when should I begin working with you? And I said don't work with me. Like what do you mean? You're a certified financial planner? I said how many doctors have you met that are MDs that you wouldn't let touch your body Like what do you mean? I go just because someone's certified I have a certified financial planner designation, I have my MBA in financial planning Don't hire me. That's the reason for a conversation, that's the reason to consider working with us. So to me it has to go a lot deeper than do you have the credentials? Are you a fiduciary? Are you a CFP? Okay, great, that's just kind of blanket stuff. Now it's got to go deeper.

Speaker 1:

So I connected with James through a mutual connection, which is a different, crazy story. But James went to Pepperdine in Malibu and I'm from Malibu and I went. This is different. This guy feels different. This is someone early on I trust I'd give my money to, I know and I, once again, was not an advisor at that time, but it just felt different, couldn't even explain it. It's like some of you go yeah, I know the spreadsheet says I can retire, but I don't feel it. And then you talk to James and you go wow, I feel it. I either feel I'm in a good spot or I feel I need to work two more years. But it's clear I'm working two more years so I can retire and do what I actually want the rest of my life like with James, and you feel that way and we, you know, a month ago or so, had our webinar where we told everyone about our vision and how we're growing at root and everything going on. And so in 2018, I didn't start working with James I started my conversation with James and he was in touch with me and we would talk often while I was at Nuveen, and so it wasn't really until 2020 that I joined him and I went yeah, this feels different. So here we are, and nearly four years later, I've been with James and he's my partner and I would not want to do everything I'm doing without him, because it's just not as fun.

Speaker 1:

Going back to soccer at the beginning, could I? You know, I could do a lot of stuff. It's more fun with James. James tells me the same thing yeah, we could grow further and we could do this and we could do it. And but my brother, which I alluded to at the beginning, is a big influence for me. My, which I alluded to at the beginning, is a big influence for me.

Speaker 1:

My brother helps you play college soccer and he tells the story of my experience in college, which was not the best with my coach, because I was recruited by an assistant coach. Then the coach didn't really play me and I didn't really enjoy my time. And my brother will do a call with someone that's interested in working with him and he'll say my job is to scare you away from playing college soccer because it's a big commitment and you'll have a lot more fun if you don't do it. But you're gonna have a ton of fun if it's really fun and fulfilling for you. But if you're not a 10 out of 10 interested in college soccer, don't work with me. Not worth the time and effort and energy. And he tells the experience that I had where he goes.

Speaker 1:

My brother was good at soccer. He enjoyed soccer but he had a bad coach and that coach made the whole college experience so much less enjoyable. Now he had great friends and he could have transferred and done a bunch of stuff. But he liked it up there and Puget Sound is almost known as like the Northwestern of the Pacific Northwest and I like the quality of education. I like the small classrooms. I wasn't going to leave. But my brother is very transparent about the experience and if you just go to the right school and on paper everything looks good and they have your major but you don't like the coach or they don't play in a way that resonates with you, you're not going to have a fun time.

Speaker 1:

That's what I tell my clients. Just because someone's a CFP or fiduciary or the advisor sounds good, don't work with them. Make sure that you go. Wow, this feels different. This is someone that I trust and that's not, you know, built tomorrow. That's built over time. But what's really special about what we're building? The advisors working for us. They're currently at Fidelity and Schwab and Vanguard and they're like I want to be able to provide a higher quality of planning and this company won't let me. So I want to work for you guys. So it's almost like you have a secret language where you're hopping in the meetings with our advisors, going, hey, how much cauliflower am I going to eat? And you know James talks about that candy bar example. And yeah, I'm going to buy the $10 candy bar in the hotel mini you know the mini bar even though I don't need to. And you almost have a secret language with your, your advisor. So all this to say, I partnered up with James and it was just me and him for a while. It was just me and him, for him, me and him. For a while it was just me and him for him, me and him. And we're in this small little office in Solana Beach with his Northern San Diego and we're enjoying it.

Speaker 1:

Podcast and YouTube hadn't grown at that point and fast forward. And now early retirement podcast, this show doing 60,000 downloads a month. James, my partner, more of the traditional retirement, less early retirement specific, but still brings in a lot of early retirement concepts. And we partner together on everything. North of 100,000 downloads a month. Youtube channel I got notification today one and a half million views.

Speaker 1:

Since I started, I knew people cared. I didn't know they cared this much and this is why I love what I do today and I don't feel like I ever work. So I realized that I don't get to work with all of you, which is why I created this Academy. It's where I am your instructor going through and whether you're 20 or 30 or 40 or 60, you are going to see me teach you to understand when you no longer need to keep working, when it's truly optional. You're doing it because you want to, not because you have to, and it's with the same software and tools that I use with my clients and I recognize all of you don't have 2 million today. You will one day and I want to give you a solution. So that Academy for early retirement is designed for that. And if you're looking for holistic strategy and want to work with us directly, we of course, love doing that and I want to make sure you're with an advisor that you resonate with.

Speaker 1:

So, of course, can do a lot longer on my story, but I feel like 25 minutes is more than enough for anyone to talk about themselves. So that is it for today's episode. Thank you guys for listening. If you've made it this far, I wanna hear from all of you because it makes my job more fun. So drop a comment, send me an email, ari, at rootfinancialpartnerscom if this resonated with you, and I want to make sure that you guys are getting the most out of what you're working so hard for, and that's what I'm obsessed with. So that's all I want to go through today. Of course, more stories and if you go, this was helpful, do another one of these, like I will. I just want to make sure it's not just Ari talking about Ari show kind of thing. So I always want to make sure this is your show. It, it's not mine. That's it for today's episode. Love you, guys.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Early Retirement Show. If you have a question that you want answered in a future episode, you can always go to my website, earlyretirementpodcastcom. That's earlyretirementpodcastcom, and you can go ahead and submit a question that I'll look to answer in a future episode. Thank you all for listening. Please do rate it, review it and share it with someone who you think would benefit from this information. If there's anyone out there that you know, I certainly appreciate it and I will see you all each week. Hey guys, it's me again. Please be smart about this. Nothing in this podcast should be construed as financial, tax or legal advice. Consult with your tax preparer or financial advisor before taking any action. This podcast is for informational purposes only.