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

5 Questions To Ask When Interviewing A Financial Advisor

• Ari Taublieb, CFP®, MBA • Episode 236

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A clear understanding of how to select the right financial advisor can simplify your journey toward financial success. We discuss five essential questions that are key to uncovering an advisor's capabilities and compatibility with your needs, ensuring that you are well-informed before making a decision. 

• Importance of asking if the advisor is a CFP 
• Assessing whether the advisor works with clients like you 
• Understanding their tax planning role and approach 
• Evaluating the advisor's commitment to accountability through holistic planning 
• Clarifying how the advisor is compensated and structure of fees 

If you found value in our discussion, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify! 


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

Speaker 1:

These are five questions that I would ask. If you are interviewing a financial advisor, I'm going to tell you the questions and I'm going to give you my answer, and if you're interviewing multiple advisors, you can even compare my answers to those other people you're talking to. Now, many of you who watch these podcasts on YouTube, as well as listen on the podcast app, you know I'm all about transparency here at Root. That is one of our foundational beliefs. So, with that being said, we're going to hop right in. These are the five questions. So, number one are you a CFP, which stands for Certified Financial Planner? And I would go to your advisor and this is the first thing I would do or potential advisor that you're considering to hire and see what they say? So, part of these questions, I'm going to need you to be like an investigator and read between the lines.

Speaker 1:

I am a very skeptical person reasonably, in my opinion, because my parents were burned by four advisors. They started at one firm where they really liked it it was a household name but they found their service was lacking. They only talked once a year. They didn't feel they really cared about them. They felt like a number. So they went to this other firm. I'm not going to say the names and get them in trouble, but they went to this other firm and my parents have a million dollars and they allow me to talk about that. They live in Malibu in a beautiful home, but they're working largely because they like spending a good amount of money and there were some poor financial decisions along the way, although they gave my brothers and I a great life. I promise I'm going to get back to the questions, but the point as to why I'm telling you this is that was their second advisory firm, where my parents live on a street with a lot of wealthy people. They're less wealthy than them, and so this one couple my parents make movies for a living. They made the Vow. If you've ever heard of that movie Rachel McAdams, channing Tatum, rom-com go check it out. And so they also do documentaries which aren't as financially savvy. Should I say financially rewarding? That's the word I was looking for there. And so my parents have a friend that has $20 million, and so they said hey, you know, tal Bleebs, I think I can get you in to work with our advisor. And they're like that sounds great. And you know, then we're with the big shots, you know. And what happened is they got even worse service because they were such a small client there, they were barely looked at. And then they're like okay, we're going to go to this other company Many of you are going to know this by just the way I talk about it Super low cost, well known, yeah, maybe we could do better elsewhere. But look, we don't know, we don't know, and so we're just going to start here. And we're just going to start here, and then they're like that's still, I need tax help, I need a state help, and there's no organization here. And so then they're like I still need help. What do I do? That's in large part why I'm an advisor today.

Speaker 1:

But to answer the question, I hope you connect the dots here. My first question is are you a CFP? Cfp stands for certified financial planner. If someone goes and says, yeah, oh yeah, I'm a CFP, certified financial planner, how cool am I? When do we start working together? Sign right here. I mean, I know you worked hard to get this $2 million, but trust me, I'm going to take better care of it. You don't really know what you were doing. Let's put it in my.

Speaker 1:

I'm just joking here, but the idea here is just because someone's certified, do not hire them. How many MDs would you never let touch your body? I would not allow 99% of certified financial planners to manage a dime of my money. Now, that sounds bad and I bet other people would have a different number. Maybe it's 90% or 70% or hopefully 10%. But there are a lot of people that I studied with for my certified financial planning designation that I spoke to and in three seconds immediately would never let them order for me at Chipotle which I take my Chipotle order very seriously for those who do not know Extra white rice guac every single time, double chicken, depending on how it looks. So anyways, obviously I get some other toppings, but too much for today.

Speaker 1:

So, number one I'll kind of cut the stories and jokes because I want to get through all these. But are you a CFP? Cfp is the minimum. That's to even talk. That is maybe we should talk. That's all that means I'm a CFP. You should not work with me because I'm a CFP. All of that work for me here at Root are CFPs. You should not work with them just because they are CFPs.

Speaker 1:

Number two do you work with people like me? So a lot of this is ask the question and then just shut the heck up and hear what they say, because you're gonna be able to get their tone. It's really not only about what they say. So, if you say so, do you work with people like me? And they go, of course, you know I help people retire. I love helping people retire. Okay, awesome.

Speaker 1:

Well, what if you want to retire early? Oh, of course, yeah, I help people retire early too. And yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, well, I have a lot of equity comp and so how does that get brought into this? Oh, don't worry, we have specialists that can talk about that. Oh, is that a different person I'll talk to for that? No, no, I can do that, don't worry. Okay, what about my spouse? Because they're not going to be interested in this. I'm the one kind of running the financial show. Don't worry that they won't be involved. What if I require them to be involved? Oh, then they'll definitely be there. Yeah, it's important they're there.

Speaker 1:

So what I find is people just change their answers left and right, both from an advisor's perspective to try to get new business and from a client's perspective to try to become a client. That does not lead to a good long-term relationship. So you need to be clear on what your goals are in your advisor and they need to be clear, in my opinion, about who their dream client is, because if you're not their dream client, they're not going to love working with you and it's not their specialty. For example, we help people at root retire early with confidence, but they don't actually always retire early, which means they go. Well. It's good to know I don't need to keep working. I'm going to keep working because I want to, not because I have to, and if I don't want to work anymore, I don't have to. It's the early retirement aspect, in addition to the tax strategy. That's why most people are coming to us.

Speaker 1:

I tell this story often, but I'll tell it real quick, and this is number three. Most people are coming to us. I tell this story often, but I'll tell it real quick, and this is number three. Number three who will do my tax planning? That is the question that you should ask. Who will do my tax planning If they go like this? This happened to my parents. So you know, advisor, I'm really interested in working with your firm because you guys are just so awesome and you put these videos out, you're so cool and you think you're cool, but I just, I don't think you're that cool, but anyway, I need someone, so maybe you'll manage my money. Who's going to do the tax planning, the tax strategy? And if they say, don't worry, I'm going to connect you to an awesome CPA, they're going to help out. That is a red flag, and the reason that's a red flag is for the story I'm going to tell you right now. So this is about eight months ago. I'm recording this in February. This will be launched in March, most likely maybe April, but 2025. So there's a true story.

Speaker 1:

Someone came to me. They said Ari, my CPA sucks. I said that's a weird word. Why do they suck? They said well, they didn't tell me tax brackets are changing soon and that's important because that impacts my plan. I said what else they're like? Well, they didn't really tell me that if I keep my income low, I can pay way less in these healthcare premiums. I learned that from you, not even my CPA. I said what else? They kept going on and on. I said don't worry, I found the problem. They're like thank God, you agree, we caught them. They suck, omg. I said they don't suck and you're beating up a waiter. They're like I don't understand the analogy. You and your dang analogies. I said your CPA's job is to file your taxes. They have the competency to do tax planning. They do not have the time. They have the worst schedule in the world from the IRS. They are already burdened. Their job is to bring food to your table and 500 other tables. They are not going to come to you with the ambience of the restaurant and seasonal menu.

Speaker 1:

An advisor is supposed to do tax planning and what I find is most of the time, if you're working with an advisor, I'd say about 70% of people that come to work at Root are coming from a different advisor. They go yeah, every time I ask my advisor a tax question, they'd tell me to talk to my CPA. My CPA says talk to my advisor. Now I feel like I'm just coordinating all of this all the time and I said, yeah, that's crazy. They're like what do you mean? Isn't that how this works? No, that's the job of an advisor. We do all the tax planning. We do all the harvesting, roth conversions, rebalancing, equity comp. We do all the tax strategy. We just tell your CPA what to put so that they file the return properly. So CPAs love us, and that's what planning is supposed to look like. So, if they go, yeah, you know, we have an outside team that you'll talk to. Okay, there's probably gonna be a lot of different outside teams for a lot of different things, and then you're going to be a coordinator.

Speaker 1:

And so number three really is that tax piece. So if an advisor doesn't ask for a tax return, that is the red flag. If someone cannot see your tax return as an advisor, I do not know how they could give any guidance at all, ever. That is just the truth. Number four is accountability Do you do holistic planning?

Speaker 1:

So, for example, if you were to ask, do you do holistic planning, they might go yeah, we do holistic planning. Whatever it is you need, we'll take care of it. Okay, what does that really mean? For example, I would tell a client we do holistic planning. What that means is we're going to manage your portfolio, we're going to be giving you tax guidance, we're going to be actually making the estate planning documents, meaning creating those wealth, whether it be trust wills, medical directive, power of attorneys. You're gonna be filling out our purpose finder, which is something that we take very seriously, so that when you do retire, you go oh my gosh, I know exactly what I want to do. I'm excited. It also gets your spouse more involved and interested in finances, who traditionally is less so. In addition, we're going to evaluate all insurance but we don't sell anything because that's a conflict of interest. And, by the way, we're also going to have a dynamic withdrawal strategy.

Speaker 1:

But that's not the reason you should hire us. You should hire us so you don't have a new job, so that we can be proactive and act as a partnership, because we talk way more often than twice per year At first. When someone works with Root, the first one to two months, we talk every single week, biweekly if your schedule prefers it, because there's a lot we need to go over, build the blueprint On an ongoing basis. We're speaking a minimum of three times per year because when we meet with clients, we want to meet with you. That's what keeps our job fun. So when we do holistic planning, I'm excited for the meetings because there's a lot we need to talk about. That's how I would answer that. But some people will say, yeah, we do. You know investments, insurance, taxes. But what they're saying is insurance question yeah, go talk to an agent, I'll send you someone tax planning. Yeah, I'll send you to a CPA, they'll answer your tax questions.

Speaker 1:

So this happened to someone recently. Someone reached out and said Ari, I'm retired. And I said I don't believe you. They said, well, you're nuts because you don't sleep next to me. So how the heck would you know? I go, yeah, I just don't think so. They're like well, you're crazy. I go, I already know that. But my point here is I said, look, I'm not saying I don't really believe you. What I'm saying is I think you also have a new job. So, yeah, you're retired from your traditional W-2 job, but I now think you're coordinating your retirement between a long-term care specialist, between a CPA, between an estate planner, between your financial advisor. And they're like yeah, yeah, yeah, isn't that how this works? I said, no, that's what a financial advisor is supposed to do.

Speaker 1:

The tough thing about our industry is we're all called financial advisors and we all do very different things. So, knowing that holistic planning, the next one number five I have here is how are you compensated? So this is very important. The next one number five I have here is how are you compensated? So this is very important. Most advisors are compensated based off new dollars that join the firm because that's more revenue for the firm. That's how most advisors work. That's not how we work.

Speaker 1:

The way we work with clients is based off two things. Number one is net promoter score. For those of you familiar with net promoter scores or NPS scores, our net promoter score is a 90. With net promoter scores or NPS scores, our net promoter score is a 90. The traditional, actually the average in our industry, in the financial industry, is a 44, which is not very good. And so net promoter score is basically how likely are you to promote or recommend those services? That's taking one aspect of the compensation. The other aspect is our client staying is their retention. So my advisors, their incentive is to not take a client who they don't think is a good fit, because if they don't think they're going to stay long-term because they don't think it's going to be a good fit, well, that won't compensate them well over time, as opposed to certain advisors and I know this happened to my parents my parents spoke to an advisor. That advisor sold them a certain product. Once they had bought the product, that advisor had no incentive to come and be proactive with my parents. They had already made their money.

Speaker 1:

So understand how your advisor is paid and understand if there are any other hidden fees. For example, the only fee is the one fee that people pay us and that is based on assets we're managing, so that's a tiered structure. So let's assume we're managing $2 million. The first million is billed at 1% $10,000. The next million is billed at 0.75%, that's $7,500. So $17,500, that's the annual fee working with an advisor. The thing is that many people don't know is where are those funds coming from?

Speaker 1:

Now stick with me because this is an important analogy. If you already know what I'm going to say, I'm going to be incredibly impressed because I bet 2% of you are going to know what I'm going to tell you right now. But for those of you who do know, you work at Root, so you're aware of this like work with Root. And for those of you who don't know, this is probably already happening and it's just a nice benefit that you may have never been explained. So let's imagine you went to the grocery store and you went to go buy some eggs and you said I want to check out at the grocery store, I'm going to buy eggs, I want to do with my 401k. You know what happened.

Speaker 1:

The person checking you out would probably laugh at you. Now they might go hey, you're a big baller, you got a million bucks in your 401k. Can I be you one day? Oh my God, did you get this from OnlyFans? No, they wouldn't say that. Okay, I'm just messing around here. But they would probably go.

Speaker 1:

Okay, like, excuse me, sir, ma'am, you can't check out with the 401k. You put money into that. You got a tax deduction. It grows tax deferred, so you don't pay taxes along the way. But then eventually, when you take the money out, you have to pay taxes. So if you want to buy these eggs, you got to go sell something in your 401k. And I don't care how old you are. If you want to do it before 59 and a half and pay a penalty, be my guest Depends how bad you want the eggs. I mean, I know they are pasture raised, so if you want you can get them.

Speaker 1:

But there's also something you probably don't know about anything I just told you, which is what? If you could go to the grocery store and check out with your 401k, I mean how cool would that be right? Well, that's how it works with an advisor, in a way, let me explain the way we work with clients, the way we can bill. This is legal. This is not Ozark style. If you've seen that Netflix show, it's based proportionately on the assets we manage.

Speaker 1:

So someone's probably not going to try to explain this to you because they probably just think you're not smart enough in reality, or they're. It sounds harsh saying it that way, but I know if, like, imagine, you go to the doctor and they're explaining here's why you need to take the pill, because of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like I know even me might be like hey, I trust you, you're my guy, I'm taking the pill, but I know people that wouldn't, so maybe I take that statement back. Regardless, my point here is they probably don't want to spend the time and energy to explain it, even though they should, and I see this all the time. So here's the point. Let's imagine you have $1 million, okay, and you're going to go to an advisor and 1% is the fee. That's $10,000. Well, let's assume that's all.

Speaker 1:

In a 401k, $10,000 is the annual fee, right? I don't care how I get paid, I just need to get paid. If I send you an invoice that's not really tax efficient for you. You have to go pay me with after-tax dollars. How cool would it be if you could pay me from your 401k? You can. That's what's cool about working with an advisor. It's not the reason to work with an advisor. But what if you're in California, like me, between federal and state? What if your tax bracket is 40% because you're a big baller? Okay, if you're a big baller, well, you put money into this 401k. You got a tax deduction. It grows tax deferred. I don't know if you can hear the sirens through my microphone right now, but they're freaking out about this concept too right now. So you can see you put money into a 401k grows tax deferred. You take the money out. You don't pay taxes on that when you pay the advisor. So it's essentially like you're saving $4,000 a year because you can pay me directly from your 401k. I can debit that account. Why is that so powerful? Well, the reason it's so powerful is, if $10,000 is the annual fee, it's still the fee I need to get paid 10,000, but I don't care how I get paid it. I can go to your tax preferred accounts, your tax advantageous, tax preferred, whatever you want to call it 401k rollover IRAs, and I can debit those accounts directly.

Speaker 1:

Now, who does this not apply to? Well, let's assume that all of your money is in what I call a superhero account or a brokerage account. I'm talking you have $5 million in there. Well, you're still the annual fee on $5 million. I'm pulling up with my fancy dancy spreadsheet here and I'm going to share this with my screen so all of you guys can see this. If you're listening, awesome, keep listening. If you're watching, I'm going to have this pulled up so that you can watch it along with me. But $5 million, the annual fee be $40,000 a year, which is a lot of money I'm the first person to recognize to go.

Speaker 1:

Here's what it makes sense to do this and when. It definitely does not. And the annual fee is 0.8%. But let's assume their tax bracket this person was in the 40% tax bracket Okay, well, that'd be a 16,000 a year annual savings If all this money was in a 401k. So their true fee would be $24,000 a year or 0.48% on a tiered structure.

Speaker 1:

What does that mean and why am I going through this? What I'm saying here is, if you have a brokerage account and that's all you have, there's not an additional tax benefit. You might still want to work with an advisor, but you don't get like extra points for it. You can't buy eggs with your brokerage account and get a special benefit If you're at the grocery store and you wanted to buy eggs with your 401k, you can't do that unless that person is an advisor. So the point as to why I'm going through this is someone left a comment on a video that I put out, and the video I put out said the following.

Speaker 1:

It said is it crazy paying 30,000 a year to an advisor? That was the title of the video. I asked my marketing team I go, are you sure you want that as the title? They go yep, I go. Okay. So here's what they said. Ari, thank you for saying something to me that was an epiphany in the financial rationale for working with an advisor. 22 minutes into the video, you broached a fee payment mechanism that focused on paying for the most tax efficient location in one's portfolio IRAs under management. I only learned this recently, but it's a no-brainer for any penny-pinching prospective clients On tax-deferred accounts. It means paying 22, 24, 32% less on management fees than if you paid those same fees after taxes.

Speaker 1:

Why other financial managers, rias, registered investment advisors don't trumpet. This is beyond me. This is the first I've seen. On breaking this down. As my journalism teacher in high school would have said don't trumpet, this is beyond me. This is the first I've seen. On breaking this down. As my journalism teacher in high school would have said, don't bury the lead. Thank you for an insightful and well organized video on the value of advisors, including financial. So all of this, if you said, ari, I don't understand the eggs and the 401k and none of that, it's just over my head I wouldn't blame you because it's not a perfect analogy I'm trying to find a better one but the idea is you get a big discount working with an advisor if you have a pre-tax balance, which most of you have, which is why I'm referencing that Now.

Speaker 1:

Finally, the question the sixth bonus question to ask an advisor is why are you an advisor? An advisor is built off of trust and if they go like this which I've heard, by the way, because I interview advisors if they go, you know I love the work-life balance and I just love that I can help people Okay, great, that's kind of any job, and that does not tell me that you love your job. For example, why do I love being an advisor. Well, as of today, obviously, I'm making lots of videos and doing podcasts and running the business and training. Advisors do a lot of different things.

Speaker 1:

But I'm gonna ask one of my advisors this and I'm gonna steal their answer because their answer is great for this. I said why do you like being an advisor? And I have one advisor here, his name is Jeff, and he gave me the answer where he said because I gave great advice to clients and they wouldn't take it. And I said that's not a great answer. Why don't you just tell me that he?

Speaker 1:

I've been working at Schwab for 11 years and I would give these clients great advice. I'd show them these graphs and numbers and I'd realize that, no matter what I told them, they wouldn't take the advice. And so the reason I love being an advisor is I'm just talking to people, and Jeff has a degree in behavioral finance, which is basically why is it that, no matter what I see on a graph or what numbers, I still don't feel confidence to retire? I still don't feel I know exactly how much I can spend. I feel somehow like I'm behind sometimes. Well, that's because you're a human, you're not a robot, and most of my advisors love being an advisor because they want to advise in a way that a friend or family member did not receive advice, in a way that they felt was ethical. That's most people.

Speaker 1:

My advisory story started when I was at a gas station and I need my car to get fixed and someone gave me a quote to get my car fixed. That was totally unethical and they were taking advantage of me and I could feel it because I was a young kid and they went this kid's from Malibu, so we're gonna just make sure we get as much money on him and he doesn't understand his privilege and it's like, hey, I know a ton of people that I felt that way about in high school and otherwise. But, like, my point here is, I did not like the feeling of being taken advantage of. I want life isn't fair, but as much as possible I want it to think I'm in a fair world. And the point here is I want you to know that the person you're working with has a drive and a fire to do awesome work for you, and that's very different to have a job than a career of. Do they want to be an advisor? And so we have some episodes, if this is of interest, on our Root Financial YouTube channel where we go deep into culture behind the scenes how I select advisors, what advisor requirements are to work here at Root, how we go to these kind of next level depth to find the best talent.

Speaker 1:

Some of you are mad at me. You're like why is there such a long waiting list to work with Root? Well, I don't just hire anyone. I wait for people who are proactive to get this job because that tells me they'll be proactive working with clients. So these are some questions to think about. There's way more. I mean, honestly, I'll just do off the top of my head because I didn't put this agenda in for today, but I love getting to do this, as you know.

Speaker 1:

Other questions I would ask is hey, what's your investment philosophy? For example, ours Generally low-cost ETFs, but we don't just sit there and do nothing, because there are times where we need to be advantageous. But we also don't believe in market timing. So we believe in a dynamic approach built with the foundation of what we call root reserves, so that you always have enough safe money where you're never worrying about if markets don't do well. Do I not get to take the trip I want to take. So it's built in this foundation of we believe in low fees.

Speaker 1:

We don't believe in active management. We believe that's like going to Whole Foods and buying paper plates you don't need to do that. But we also don't believe in just only index funds, because that's like the dollar store You're going to eat. It's better than 80, 90 percent of what's out there in the industry. But we also don't believe in active management. So there's almost like a middle ground of Trader Joe's, if you will, and I use that analogy with clients. And so investment philosophy is important. But wait, do you do alternative investments and rate real estate and equity comp? And yeah, we give guidance on everything. But our investment philosophy is we want to keep it simple and we don't believe in ROH return on hassle. Look, we could get super complex and fancy and all these amazing reports and that that what we find doesn't give confidence. What we find is clients understanding how much they can spend comfortably gives confidence.

Speaker 1:

I would ask questions hey, what's turnover for advisors? How often are advisors quitting at your firm? I'd ask them why are they working at their firm? They might go well, it's a big household name and we've got lots of technology and assets behind us, they might go. No, it turns out we're actually. I'm here because I started my career here and I've built friends and family, and you know you'll be surprised the answers you get. I would say, hey, what's your succession plan Like? What happens if you retire? What if you win the lottery? What happens if, by the way, after a month, I don't like your guys' services? Like what then? Well, those are the questions that I would want you to go deep into when hiring an advisor.

Speaker 1:

The reason that we do specific holistic planning at Root in our process is the first step is you reach out to get all these questions answered for you and your situation. So by the time you do start working with Root, you're like I'm over the moon, peace of mind, this is my team, let's get into it. But everything is done monthly, all billing is done monthly, and the reason for that is when my parents were with one of their advisors, they wanted to leave after a year and they couldn't, and that doesn't make any sense. Now, the reality is they could, but there were some things that were going to create issues if they did, from a banking and annuity and other perspective. And so it's just I don't believe in that. I believe we need to add value every month or you shouldn't pay us, and there's value from tax, investment, estate, healthcare, withdrawal and then, of course, partner trust that there are things that you can't quantify. So good planning, a good relationship with an advisor I don't think everyone needs an advisor.

Speaker 1:

I'm the weird guy that says that If someone comes to me and they're 50, with a million bucks and a 401k and they want to retire in five years, I don't think they need necessarily an advisor. Maybe they need some advice and that's where I'll recommend my academy as an option for that. But they don't need to pay us 10,000 bucks a year. There's not a ton we can do, because the reality is their money's in a 401k. They need to go, pick the five right investments, max out their brokerage account or 401k and then put money to a brokerage account, make sure they're on track, like that's what they need to do. But that's very different to someone who's generally one to five years out from retirement with enough assets to go. Hey, there's a level of complexity where an advisor could really help, because there's things I otherwise just couldn't know. So hiring an advisor is all about timing and for some people it's hey, they need an advisor right now and they could get help. For some people it makes sense in a year. For some people it makes sense in 10 years. It has to be custom. That's what planning looks like. So these are the five questions. I know I went even longer, but hopefully this was helpful. If you're interviewing other advisors, we certainly recommend everyone, before they even reach out, to work with Ruth. They've either had an advisor in the past or they've interviewed two. And then the final thing. I'm going to share my screen here for this part. Once again, I'm going to explain it so in case you are just listening all good there, and many of you are just listening In the Root Collective, which is our community, there are clients in there.

Speaker 1:

There are listeners, just like you. There are viewers you might already be in here. There's a section here that says clients like why did you join Root? If you're a current client, please share these four things. How'd you find us? Were we your first advisor? Do you come from another firm? Which advisor do you work with and why did you ultimately join Root? Bonus, what's one word to describe your experience. And there are hundreds of people putting their answers in here and some of them are really interesting, and so some of them are hey, it's. I share the same values as root and I just you know there's a comfort there. Some people are saying you know the truth is, is it felt weird Like I was hiring an advisor I was listening to on Spotify and then I went to their YouTube videos and so now I just I'm working with one of my you know advisors here at root and it just feels different. There's one answer I'm going to share here that I just like because of how transparent it was, and so this is someone. They said let me pull it up right here. Okay, they said we found Root while watching many YouTube retirement income shows. Root is the first advisor we've ever hired.

Speaker 1:

We joined Root to get help to implement our successful journey from switching from a saving to spending mindset. I had a major health issue four years ago and it is comforting to us to have some place and help in case my wife is gone. And I said thank you, appreciate it. And they replied saying JJ and Ben, the couple that they work with here, the team. They've been instrumental in getting my wife to relax and to dream about what's possible in retirement. In a way, I couldn't have Looking forward to next steps. We just booked a trip to Kona, flying first class, and another to Jamaica. Lots of discussions about what is possible and the changes we may be able to make in the way we approach vacations as well as daily life.

Speaker 1:

The reason I'm mentioning that is many people think talking to an advisor is here we go. More numbers and graphs. Hit me with it. That is not most of our relationships, like, yeah, we're going through the deep planning, but it's rooted with, hey, what is the goal? What is it? Is it to retire early? Is it to spend more time with family or friends? Like, why are we really doing this? So definitely, at a minimum. I encourage all of you guys go in this community, go join, see what people say in here. And that's all I got for you today. I'll see you guys next time. If you like this, please do leave a review on Apple podcast or Spotify or drop a comment on YouTube. That helps more people find the show.

Speaker 1:

I love getting to do this. Hopefully you guys resonate with my little wacky style. I try to keep it entertaining for you, but if there's any other comments or feedback. I'm super open and transparent, so just send me a note. Thanks, guys. Thank you all, as always, for listening to the Early Retirement Podcast. I love getting to host these shows and make different content for you guys every single week. I've not missed a single week in years and that is because I love getting to do this.

Speaker 1:

Now, please be smart about this. Before you actually execute any strategy that you see me talk about or hear me talk about, should I say please talk to your financial advisor, your tax preparer, your estate attorney. Please be smart about this. None of this should be construed as financial advice. This is for fun, educational, informational purposes only. Once again, just quick disclaimer here. Guys, please be smart about this. Appreciate you listening, as always, and you can, of course, submit a question on my website, earlyretirementpodcastcom, if you, of course, want me to address a specific case study or topic. I will not promise I can get to it, but I respond to every single person and if I find it will be helpful for a lot of people, I will absolutely make an episode on it. At the very least, give you some insight. That's it.