Before you reinvent your career, there’s one thing most people avoid: Looking at their finances honestly.
In this episode, we sit down with David Mandell JD, MBA – a financial and legal expert who’s spent 30+ years advising professionals – to break down the real foundation of career ReInvention.
Because no matter how exciting your next move is…if the numbers don’t work, the plan won’t either.
We talk about what most people get wrong when making a career change, why “hope” isn’t a strategy, and how to create the financial runway that actually gives you freedom to move. You’ll hear:
- Why most people don’t know where their money is going (and why that matters)
- How to build a realistic financial runway before making a change
- Why career transitions take longer—and cost more—than you think
- The importance of getting your spouse or partner aligned early
This is a more sober, practical conversation – but it’s one of the most important ones. Because ReInvention isn’t just about vision and courage, it’s about giving yourself the space to make good decisions. If this conversation resonates with you, visit ReInvention.biz to explore our guided workbook, learn more about us, and start creating what’s next!
**Subscribe to the ReInvention Podcast to stay plugged into fresh ideas, frameworks, and real-world tools for navigating the future of your work and life.
Episode Transcript
David: And the first thing is understanding your current position, doing a financial model. How much do you spend a month? A lot of people don’t know that answer. Forget about reinvention. You ask most people, where’s the money go? They’re like, ah, well. I think it goes here in my, you gotta know that if you’re going to be making a change.
Chris: All right, Todd, what do we got for our reinventors today my man?
Todd: Well, Chris, when you’re running your own podcast, sometimes you can bring in a good friend just kind of because you can. And sometimes a good friend can be someone who adds tremendous value to the point of the show that you’re putting out there. And that’s 100% the case today, and I’m excited to have this conversation with David Mandell, a friend, a colleague, and a master financial and legal wizard, who spent over 30 years helping physicians and professionals, with financial and legal matters and what we’re gonna cover today cannot be more relevant within the reinvention conversation. We each need to have more awareness, more oversight, and more tactics in the day-to-day when it comes to our money as we move into a rapidly changing future. And before we get into all this great stuff, David, I just wanna first welcome you into the conversation.
David: Awesome. Great to be here. Todd and Chris, really psyched to do it.
Todd: Yeah, man. And you know, I had a chance to be on your podcast recently, and that was a lot of fun, and now you’re returning the favor. And I gotta tell you, man, when I first met you, I didn’t know you were a Harvard grad with a JD MBA from UCLA, who had written several books on wealth management and asset protection and been published in dozens of huge publications while speaking all over the world on these topics.
All I knew was that it was surprisingly hard to block your jump shot. Okay. Just so you know, all right. But as we talked about privately, this conversation is about as important as any when it comes to mid-career professionals who are peeking out onto the horizon or reinventing or exploring new career options or maybe even looking into entrepreneurship.
So let’s start there, my man. Okay. Like what’s the most important first step financially a professional can take before or as they are reinventing their careers?
David: Yeah, and I reinvented myself sort of how you described my bio. You know, I started as a lawyer and then, decided that that wasn’t what I wanted to do full-time and shifted into financial, and wealth management. And along the way created a network of lots of other firms that you and I worked together on.
And so I’ve done it and what my advice that I’m gonna be giving today, I’ve done myself. Right. And the first thing is very, big picture. And it’s probably a theme I would guess, in your podcast, and in your work with clients, which goes back, you know, 2000 years or plus, uh, Socrates know thyself.
And what that means is from a financial point of view, is understand your financial position. Because if you’re gonna make a choice to leave a, a, job that you’ve got that steady income or, even a situation where you, it’s not your choice, but you’ve been, downsized or whatever, and then you’re thinking about your options.
You wanna make good decisions around, how are you going to make that change? And the first thing is understanding your current position, which is doing a financial model. What does it look like? Right. You know, we use the term business run rate, things like that or expenses, or budget, lots of different ways you can talk about it, but, how much do you spend a month? A lot of people don’t know that answer. Forget about reinvention. You ask most people, where’s the money go? They’re like, ah, well. I think it goes here in my, you gotta know that if you’re going to be making a change, because you may be going for a while without income, and how much do you have to cover you that way?
And if you’re married or you have a significant other and you have a family, that gets even more important because there are folks relying on you, not just yourself. So I think the first thing, big picture is know thyself, and where that sort of ends up in the financial world is doing a model looking at your best case, medium case, worst case, both in terms of maybe your spending and how much you can impact that, but also how long is it gonna take for this thing, whether it’s an entrepreneurial thing or getting that next job or whatever it is.
Realistically, how long is it gonna take? And then add 50% to that, right? And make sure, okay, I’m good. I can do this because the last thing any of us want for ourselves or our clients is just overwhelming money worries. Because that’ll get in the middle of your plan. That’ll, you know, get you off your plan and have you make bad decisions and add a lot of stress to your life. So, gotta know thyself. Gotta be sober and realistic, and it starts with knowing where you are, status quo, and then you can make decisions off that.
Chris: Let me ask you, ’cause you said something that I think is so foundational and fundamental right. It’s to know where the money is going,
David: Yeah.
Chris: yet, I don’t know the exact percentage, but my guess would be that probably 85% of Americans don’t, or something like that
David: Yeah.
Chris: When you work with people, like, do you have an understanding or a theory of why that is?
Because I don’t think anyone would run a business and say, I’m simply not gonna know my costs at all.
David: Right.
Chris: Do you know the psychology around that in any
way or?
David: a great question. Uh, it’s interesting on our, podcast, maybe in season two I had this orthopedic surgeon who’s down here, who’s at Cleveland Clinic. So he is certainly a top guy. But he actually took time away from his practice to get a license in financial therapy, and we had a whole conversation about money scripts and why people, behave around money. You know, he’s an immigrant. He came from another country, so he’s like overly frugal sometimes to the point where it’s actually a problem, you know, because they’re actually making enough money. But to answer your question of why don’t people know, it’s probably a combination of not prioritizing it, and maybe some sort of maybe subconscious resistance to like buckling down.
You know, with credit cards and lines of credit and all this stuff, you don’t really have to live within your means. And this is a big picture, you know, a thought. But, when you’re making a transition, you’re gonna have to, in fact, probably live below your means for a while because you want those means to carry you.
So I’m not a psychiatrist to answer your question, Chris, like exactly. But I do agree with your, estimate of 85%, I would say five outta six, don’t.
Todd: And it’s interesting ’cause, I mean, we just can’t help ourselves like understanding what the foundation we’re coaches Dave, right? So like understanding why, why we’re all set up, not to know where our money’s being spent. I mean, it sounds ridiculous. We’re on this call, you know, and that is part of why we wanted to have this episode because in reinvention we want people to be sober. We want people to be realistic, and we want people to turn towards things like this that they might not turn towards. ’cause you said we have credit cards and all the stuff that we don’t look at. Right. And so that’s why we have this workbook, Chris, you know, that helps people walk through their financial plan at least just a little bit in the beginning as they’re reinventing. But Dave, something struck me when we were talking about this before as we were preparing for this episode, and you said that your recommendation is that people should understand in their mind that it takes two times as long and costs two times as much when they’re making a change or a transition.
Right. And so I wanna talk about that a little bit and how you recommend people to build that into their financial plan. ’cause a lot of times when you’re reinventing, especially with people like us, we’re very excited. We want people to go for their career. We want people to kind of marry their passion with their money making.
It’s like a very energizing thing. Then people get all excited and then we have this other conversation. It’s like, all right, well look, this might take a minute. Right. You know? And so you need to also do the other side of this and really kind of like overextend yourself mentally with how long it’s gonna take and how much money you’re gonna need.
So from your experience, can you talk a little bit more to that point?
David: I have two thoughts on my experience. One is my brain has sort of been trained that way, for better or worse, meaning when I did the JD MBA program at UCLA this is probably true of anywhere. You know, in law school, you’re basically training yourself to think of the downside constantly.
What could go wrong? That’s basically what it is, right? You’re thinking about a fact pattern and you’re trying to protect your client with a contract. You’re trying to put in a contract, everything that could go wrong and cover it, right? If you’re defending somebody, you’re thinking of, you know, every single claim that could come up and you’re trying to, defend and prepare against that.
So you’re constantly thinking of the downside. This is why people sometimes get frustrated working with lawyers. The MBA part, right? And, and the entrepreneur part, which I followed a lot of my career, is the upside, like, you know, looking at the potential, you know, looking at what could happen. you know, follow your dreams, the things that you’re helping people with.
So my whole career, I’ve always been sort of aim for the best plan for the worst. Right. And so I have not been afraid of being an entrepreneur. I have never really up until us selling our company, three, four months ago, uh, had a boss, but now I do.
So, I’ve lived it, right? I’ve lived it personally. My wife, you know, her background is accounting, so we’ve had a budget from the get go that she does, and, and it’s like literally tied down to the dollar almost. Doesn’t mean we don’t, make mistakes, spending, or we’re perfect, but at least I know where the dollars are going.
And so I’ve known in my own career, you know, as we built our firm, that it does take longer than you think things come up that you can’t anticipate and everything takes longer. And why not prepare for that? Because if you achieve it earlier, you’re only, it’s only gravy. You’re only in a better position.
Right. You can only be, better financially if you’ve sort of allocated and saved and planned for the longer period, and if you’re able to achieve that earlier, fantastic. I think most of us being, you know, uh, in business, being entrepreneurs on this call, would say it probably is, you know, twice as long and twice as hard.
But if you’re one of the lucky ones that gets it done earlier, then you’re only in a better position.
Chris: and I think I want to build on that too, right? I’ll say so reinvention itself, right? A year ago, Todd and I didn’t know each other, right? This was not even, on my radar as something I was gonna do. I was building my one-on-one practice. But because I have the runway and the financial plan, I could actually shift gears when an opportunity came up that I knew, hey, we’re gonna have to put in some sweat equity to build this thing.
that I abandoned the one-on-one practice, but I put it in the backseat to focus on building this. And so I have the, you know, 6, 12, 18 months to give, to build this thing that, in the long term, I think is gonna be huge. Right, so we can put the MBA positive opportunistic thinking onto this pattern of saying
David: Right.
Chris: prepare for the worst to give yourself the opportunity to go for the best and play with house money in a sense.
David: I totally agree, and I think if you look, you know, I don’t have any data on this, but I’m guessing that especially folks mid-career, or beyond who’ve done things entrepreneurially. If certainly they’ve had an exit before or, you know, just had a successful career early, that’s what gives ’em the freedom to be able to do it.
You know, I mean, there’s so many people who probably have the idea early on or have some ideas and they, you know, so they see somebody else do it or, they just can’t get around to it because they don’t have that planning and that sort of, you know, budget, and it’s hard for them to make that change.
So I agree with you like the ideal situation would be for people in my view, like reinventing is have that budget, that plan, and then be thoughtful about what path they’re going to go to. And they can make a good non rush decision because their finances are supporting them, rather than, they’re trying to like, sort of shift it into something, on the run.
Todd: Yeah, and I think it’s really important because look, when you’re reinventing, either you have a certain amount of money in the bank that can support, like Chris said, 12 months, 18 months, or you don’t, right? So this, this is why this is a sobering conversation. It doesn’t matter what the situation is, but you gotta turn towards your reality and you gotta look at realistically what can you do.
And understand that reinventing, especially if it’s a bigger shift than just something new, that it’s not gonna happen overnight. And we don’t wanna have pie in the sky thinking, all by itself, you know? ’cause I’d say in our podcast, like a lot of it is like, well let’s go, let’s go. Like we’re very motivating wanting people because we think it’s necessary, like the world is changing rapidly.
But I wanna ask another question here around, you had mentioned that it’s very important to have, like, especially if you’re married or you’re in a family or partnership around those people that are closest to you around your financial matters, you know, when you’re in transition or reinventing, right? So getting spouse buy-in if you’re married or like, having those open conversations.
Now, I know you’re not a therapist, right? But I’m sure this comes up, you know, when you are helping people along this matter. And so that’s the first part of the question. But I also would love you to talk about the value of getting a professional, a financial planner, you know, that a lot of people don’t have.
Because I think from my experience when I was doing this with my wife and we were having stress around it, right? Like we weren’t seeing eye to eye. When we did bring in a financial planner, it made it actually a lot easier because now there was a third party that was sober, that was smart, that was professional, that we could both kind of trust, and that actually allowed us to kind of move forward and make decisions faster.
So talk to us about that, the value of getting buy-in from your family or your spouse, like really opening yourself up to your inner circle, and then the value of getting a professional on your side that really does this.
David: Yeah. I mean, you know, if you, if you’re married, you have a significant other, it’s, it’s absolutely, a hundred percent in my view, a necessity. That doesn’t mean they have to be a hundred percent on the page, but it’s, you gotta have those conversations. Uh, I think of my father who was a physician, you know, in a radiology practice for 30 years, partner, and then they transitioned some, a lot of it really kind of forced on them for some other reasons, to go into what’s called locums work, where you’re basically a contract worker, 1099 and going to different hospitals and like traveling around.
Well, that meant. All of a sudden, not just being in one place, but my, my parents had to actually travel. This is after we were out. And when I had, interviewed my dad on our podcast about that, he’d said, like, getting my wife, you know, on board, was, you know, the difference between making it happen or not.
Now, a lot of folks you’re consulting with might not have to, reinvent into something where they’re traveling or moving. But the same thing because the finances are typically joined, especially if you’ve got kids and, and you’re working together on that. And to your point, one of the values a financial advisor can bring, is that third party, neutral, no emotion about it. Seen it a thousand times. You know, like this is what I’m seeing. I understand, you know, your feelings about it. Understand yours. Here’s what the numbers say. Let’s get real factual, sober, as you guys like to say. And I think that feedback from a third party who has no skin in the game can be really helpful to manage that and kind of come to a common ground whatever that is. That could be, if you’re going, you’re thinking about doing X well, is there a way to do x on a part-time basis? Is there a way to straddle it so you’re not all in? Maybe that’s what comes out of that sober third party advice, or maybe it is, Hey, you can do this, but you’ve gotta cut some expenses and, you know, spouse who’s looking to do this as your part of the career.
More expenses need to come from your piece, you know, less golf, Dave. that’s what would be in our conversation, you know, so that’s a really important resource. Some couples can do it without, I’m not saying it’s an absolute must, but for many, I think it’s very helpful to have a third party professional who’s experienced with it.
Chris: When you say financial advisor, at least for me and think for a lot of people
David: Yeah.
Chris: The first thing that pops up is like the top end of like, how do I grow my retirement accounts? How do you know, make the right stock picks and asset allocation, you’re saying something that’s more than that. Right. I’m sure that’s in the picture, but, to me, there is a financial therapy element to this, right. So how would you recommend, if we have a Reinventor or someone who’s like reinvention curious as we say, and they’re
David: Yeah.
Chris: starting to talk to their spouse about this possibility, how would you guide them to find the right advisor to work with?
David: Yeah. So, you know, I think one of the benefits of where we sit today, like, you know, just to give you my experience so people understand where I’m coming from, you know, as Todd mentioned in my bio, our firm’s always been focused on physicians. That’s my family, I wrote a book for doctors as a lawyer back in 1996, so, you know, literally 30 years ago, yeah, I’m an old man.
Our clients have always been around the country. We have just as many clients in, you know, the New York City area as we have, in California, so what that meant is that the doctors who are finding us we’re doing it because of our expertise, and they weren’t just looking across like, you know, who’s in the building,
right, or who I play golf with. And so to answer your question, Chris, I think there’s enough resources online that people can find, like they find you guys as great coaches with the content and expertise you have that that’s the world. Like if I’m a potential reinventor and I’m looking for a financial advisor who has a financial therapy element to it, and this one that I had, you know, who’s an orthopedic surgeon, does it sort of part-time for doctors.
You know, he had like, five session or three session program, for spouses where they took a diagnostic, they figured out, okay, these are your sort of money hangups. These are your, you know, spouse money hangups. Let’s figure out how to get through that. Not a long session, literally over a month or two. Let’s figure out how we can get ourselves on the same page and save ourselves a lot of grief.
And so, Chris, what I think is using the content, using what’s out there, uh, that we can find through the internet, et cetera, to find the right advisor that fits the challenge I’m going through. And they’re out there.
Todd: Yeah. Thank you for that. And I want to ask you something even a little bit more personal, right, because you mentioned before that you know, you’re a reinventor. You’ve had a career of reinventing and you kind of alluded to it in the conversation that you just had a, your company got sold, right? So you’re in a, not surprisingly yet another really good situation for yourself, you know, just where you’re at in your career. Because we have a lot of clients who come to us in reinvention who have done really well.
You know, they actually have plenty of money. They have plenty of resources behind them. And now they’re at this point of, okay, what’s next? We talk about what’s next a lot, right? And so I’m curious for you in terms of what’s next, because I know you’re not out of this company now. You have a contract and you’re gonna be there for a little time. But I know that you’re starting to think about the future a little bit differently. You have some freedom in front of you, and you have some ideas, and you’ve done a lot of interesting things. But I think it’ll be helpful to understand how you are thinking about it, because I think it’ll resonate with those of our listeners who like have done well in a certain career and then it’s either happening now or on the horizon of, well, okay, I have resources and I can do stuff, and I’ve done really well. How are you thinking about it, Dave?
David: Yeah, so you know, I think a lot of your, viewers and listeners will get this, like, I’m sort of the in-between phase where yes, I’ve had an exit, but I’m part of a company I’m very excited to be part of, and, you know, likely for five years that’s the contract’s sake, et cetera. So, but I do have in my phone a Notes, ideas come across, like what, what I’m gonna be doing in my next phase, right? So let’s just say this goes for a full five years. I’m 58 now, so it’ll be 63. My father worked as a physician till he was 80. You know, I am not interested in, hanging it up, you know, talk about like financial mistake,
how about me staying at home with my wife all day and then getting divorced because, we’re driving each other crazy. So that’s not going to happen. You know, I start to think about what could I do after this? That’s probably completely different because just the way things go, you know, get into the lawyer, but whatever transaction that happens next, whatever exit happens next, I’ll probably be locked up and not be able to perform in these areas that the company that purchases our company, which is basically wealth management, practice of law and all that kind of stuff.
So it’s really kind of different things. Um, and I’m just keeping a list of ideas and it’s too early for me to really start doing the research on it or to like spend a lot of time and effort on it. But it’s there, it’s there in the background. And I think those who are even more, let’s say, fortunate than I am in that their whatever first exit allowed them really to say, Hey, I don’t need to work anymore.
You know? You have the, dilemma of choice in that you can do almost anything, but it’s hard to then narrow down what it is, is going to be most fulfilling and closest to your life goals. And that’s where you guys can be really helpful because I could see if really I could do anything at all, I might be sort of analysis paralysis and you know, it’s a year or two and it’s like, God, I haven’t really done anything. and, um, people need help with that.
Chris: You brought up a really, really interesting point around work in general, right? So many people are in this framework of I’m waiting till I retire, or I like, I can’t wait to get out. And you actually said the opposite. It’s like looking for the next thing and finding the next thing you know, not only just to occupy yourself. I do think it’s more than that, right? I think there’s a purpose and a reason for being that’s
David: sure.
Chris: inherent in work but, people come from different channels, but a lot of people are coming to reinvention because the work itself. The purpose doesn’t really align with who they are.
Right. The mission
mission isn’t there. Right. And I guess I want to ask you a bit of a personal question.
David: Sure.
Chris: How much of you know your own success and the work you’ve done, how aligned was that to sort of like who you are? I know you, you went through a reinvention, right? So
David: Yeah.
Chris: Is that something that you felt like a really deep alignment to? And, tell us a little bit about that Dave.
David: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, I could say I was born to do what I’m doing. Because my father was a physician. My brother’s a physician. My grandfather was a physician. You know, I had the chair where my grandfather had patients come at their house, you know, their, their office in Providence Rhode Island in the 1930s when they just had food, because they didn’t have money. Basically bartered for medical advice and care.
And so like my mission from the beginning was to help physicians, first protect themselves from liability, uh, as a lawyer. What’s called asset protection planning. And then, you know, broader to everything related to taxes and finances and getting retiring and, you know, college education funding and everything we do at a wealth management firm.
So, when I get up and do a talk, and Todd knows this, he’s seen me do it many times in front of a medical society. My first slide is a picture of my brother, my father, and my grandfather. And you know, it certainly it’s, there’s a marketing element to that because doctors will say, Hey, this guy’s on my side. He’s not just another lawyer, or financial guy trying to take my money. But it’s true. That’s the bottom line is it is true. You know, I realized in a ninth grade science, in biology, I was not gonna be a, a doctor. That’s just not what I wanted to do. But, I could help physicians, that would be a good calling for me.
And I know my father was very proud of me before he passed away. And my brother and a lot of other docs, so. You know, I mean, there’s certainly a lot of other things I could be doing in life. It’s. Not like I’m an artist who just said, Hey, this is the only thing that I’m here to do. But it’s always been a very good connection between my work and sort of who I am.
Todd: Yeah, and I want to just share a little bit on that also a little personally, you know? ’cause I know you lost your dad just a year or two ago. You know, obviously heart goes out to you brother, you know, and, um, actually Chris and I are gonna be doing an episode on being fathers or on fathers for Father’s Day.
We’ve talked about that, and I was actually, as we’re recording this, I was just in New York for the last three days, helping my dad as he’s getting older. I mean, there’s a lot up in the air around what does it mean to be a man in this world and all that. But I do wanna talk and even give you a little live coaching on this call around one particular point. I can’t help myself, okay? I can’t help myself. So, you know, my dad, like you went to Harvard, you know, and also was, was born to do what he did. You know, he worked at Merrill Lynch for basically 30 years. He was like a top analyst on Wall Street, like he was born to do that. And he always knew that it was gonna be really hard for him once he retired ’cause he didn’t know what was next.
He would say it even when I was younger and he tried, like he’d really tried to find different interests and stuff, and the way that the world went, he didn’t get laid off, but he was basically forced to retire young. I think he was 58 or 59 years old,
David: oof.
Todd: He was your age. He, the one favor that he had asked of Merrill Lynch for his years of service that, Hey, I don’t want to be shown the door with like boxes, let me walk out with my dignity. And they did. They let him do that, but still, he was forced to retire young. And I watched him really struggle, Dave, you know, with trying to figure out what was next.
And even though he knew, you know, maybe he didn’t have a list on his cell phone like you do right now. And I know that you have five years in this company right now where you’re gonna do that, but I will say, you know, and this is a message for all reinventors or people in your boat. To turn towards that even maybe a little bit more and start getting a little bit more tactical around this idea that this is gonna end at some point.
Right. And you’re gonna have plenty of resources, which is great for you, you know that you’ll have freedom to be able to do. But I watched him really struggle for a long time of trying to find that thing. And I’m not trying to scare you at all, but I’m just saying there’s a lot that you can do of course.
And and turn towards it more now. And this is just that message for all reinventors.
Really think about it. ’cause we all know as we get older, time goes by faster and like five years is gonna go by like this. I mean, you’re gonna blink it, it’s gonna be five years from now. We all know this. So take it on, you know, a little more, what comes up for you when I say that?
David: I think of on our podcast two docs who tell two different stories. One, an orthopedic surgeon who is close to the end, but he became, you know, really interested in and passionate about wine. So he’s retiring and what he, the way he worded I thought was great. He saw so many surgeons the day after they’re done surgery, like they’re totally lost, right? Because this is, they went to being the most important person in the room, life and death, to you know, take out the garbage, basically. Right? And he saw a lot of his mentors really do poorly with it.
And so he talked about retiring to something, not just from something. And I thought that was great language. It’s not like he invented that, but that was great. And then another doc who sort of left it to, Hey, I’ll wait to I get there. And very frustrated and kind of like realizing, you know, he made a mistake.
So for me personally, I take your advice. I think it’s like really good advice, and I am keeping my eyes open, and next time you have me back on here in a couple years, maybe I’ll have some more better ideas.
Todd: I wanna see that children’s book. I wanna see, I don’t know.
David: Yeah, well, I’ve got some ideas off the I’m not ready to go become a DJ yet, but you know.
Todd: Me saying this is not scare tactics, it’s part of reinvention. I mean, there is a large subset of people out there that are in your situation, whether it’s five years, whether it’s one year, or whether it’s tomorrow, that need to think about it.
Right. And so we’ve been talking about financial planning. That’s not gonna be so much of an issue for a lot of people like yourself. But I will say that crossing that chasm, is a big deal. And this world is changing so fast. I mean, we’re doing this podcast because of AI is coming in and really gonna disrupt things over the next couple of years.
I’m actually curious, like, do you have any thoughts on that? Uh, is that affecting financial services at all? I mean, what are you seeing in your world with AI, you know, and, and how is that being integrated?
David: For sure. You know, one of the six partners I had was very concerned, like, we should exit soon because of, you know, AI’s coming. I’m not in a, in a panic mode, but I did just watch a webinar that was put on by a professor at MIT. Talking about AI in the financial services. And they’re trying to build a tool that would even have fiduciary liability, which is, you know, hard to do with a product.
So that, that, that’s like a big thing. And it, it may take them years to get there. ‘Cause it that involves the law and, and regulation, et cetera, to democratize it, to bring good financial planning to people who can’t afford it. And you know, where companies even like ours, you know, they’re just for clients who wouldn’t fit. For us. Right. And for really most of the financial system. Which I think, you know, I applauded, I think that’s a great thing to do. But it just shows you that people who are very smart places like MIT, et cetera, are working on how to use AI to not so much replace myself and my partners, but augment. Certainly as someone in a field, and I’m sure a lot of your listeners, you know, are hearing the same thing. Hey, this is gonna come help you do your job better, but there’s gotta be some factor people are thinking,
Yeah, but it also could help make it so I’m not really needed anymore. Right. Or there’s a lot fewer of us needed. We used to need five wealth managers for 500 clients. Now we only need two because AI does so many other things. So has it really replaced? No, but it’s replaced in that example, 60% of the workforce.
So it’s big. It’s coming. I’m sure it’s in every industry and, finance is not immune.
Chris: There is a theme we’ve talked about on this podcast that I think you, you tap into there, which is that, what I hear from that, if I’m thinking forward, as to how I would adapt to AI coming into my realm. So unlike wealth management, you know, we already have robo balancing robo-advisors and things like that, right? But what that doesn’t do is sit in the room with you and your spouse and understand intuitively who’s got scarcity mindset. Who’s got abundance mindset, how we layer the, the human element on top of it. And I think this applies to, almost every field we’re looking at, up to, and including the really technical fields. Where it’s like what AI can’t do and maybe will never be able to do is the human aspect, the envisioning, the real true creating and connecting and intuiting. So much of this money stuff in particular is tied up in identity and who you are as a person, right? So let’s talk about that human bit a little bit, right? If you’re, you’re sitting in the room, you know, with me and my wife, and we’re talking about what our financial plan is. What are the maybe archetypes you run into or behavior sets you run? Like maybe there’s like a sneaky, thing that people miss about themselves that you often catch in these types of conversations or something Dave?
David: Well, yeah, I mean, again, you guys are the experts on sort of the why, right, as coaches I’m not. But I’ll tell you one major thing, and it probably applies to a lot. It applies many things in life, is the folks who are sort of on the do it yourself to delegation spectrum. Right meaning there are a lot of people, and I think you know, a lot of entrepreneurship and successful entrepreneurs will tell you you need a team around you.
You want to delegate, you want to go to your highest and best use. You know, there’s a reason why the surgeon doesn’t answer the phone when you call the office. Right. But you know, until AI scribes, and I had a doc talking about this just on our podcast a couple weeks ago, most docs are still doing keystrokes.
That’s not what they should be doing in a room with a, patient. They should be talking to the patient and listening, right. Not listening and just not making eye contact, but typing down notes. That’s changing ’cause of AI. But you know, in terms of sort of archetypes, that’s really important for us to understand because if someone’s in the room of, let’s say a spouse and they really wanna find help, they say, look, we need help doing this, the investments, the taxes, et cetera, and then the other spouse is, no, I got it.
I know how to handle this. do this. I’m a do-it-yourselfer. That’s gonna be an issue, right? Because there’s gonna be conflict there. And you know there are times when doing it yourself in different pieces, and this is my personal opinion of a wealth management. all the different tasks that go in make a lot of sense.
You can save fees. You, no one cares more about your finances than you, et cetera. But oftentimes in many areas, uh, and this is why I went into this. I think people would be, uh, much better off doing what they do well and managing the people, their team, right? Not just telling a lawyer do it and then never reading it, or not just, oh, I’ll just sign.
I don’t even know what’s in there in the will. No, understand what’s going on, but outsource and work with other people. So that’s a big thing that in our world we’re trying to assess when we work with clients, which certainly it’s investment risk tolerance is there, there’s a lot of things.
Goals. I want a second home. I don’t, I want to send the kids to private school. I don’t, there’s lots of all that, but big picture delegation versus do it yourself is a big, range is important for us to understand.
Chris: Can I ask a little inside baseball question? I have a
David: Yeah.
Chris: have a very good friend who’s a physician, right? And I’ve heard this about, do you find with doctors that you run into that DIY mindset sometimes of, because these are very smart, very accomplished, very successful people. Do they sometimes overextend to say, I can do everything. And is that something you’ve had to encounter or talk to?
David: Oh, for sure. I mean, you know, if I’m in a room with a bunch of other wealth managers and everybody has their own niches, they’re gonna say, why you work with doctors? Oh, such a bad, I think they’re the smartest people in the room. They don’t listen to you, et cetera. You know, we’ve developed a niche and certainly it’s self-selected.
We have, you know, 1% of the physicians in the country, so, you know, people who come to us are looking for advice, et cetera. But I’ll tell you a story, you know, down here at Orthopedic Surgeon, who’s a client of ours, he did it himself, till he was about 60 and he said the numbers are bigger. I’m too close to retirement to screw this up. My spouse has been on me for a while. I need to hire a firm to help me with this. Now, from an investment point of view, he still manages a piece of it. He loves doing it. Fine. You know, we have other clients who they love rental real estate or whatever it is.
We don’t try to like change for who they are, but we do try to bring a little bit of professional discipline about it. But yeah, Chris, it’s, for us, it works. We can talk the talk and have enough happy clients that they’ll listen to their, uh, their brethren and, and sistern, uh, to say, yeah, these guys are, you know, gonna be helpful to you. But, sometimes it’s just not a fit that, that’s life, you know.
Todd: I mean, look, I’ve worked with you for five years and I know the level of professionalism and trustworthiness that you have as an individual and also your partner. I know Jason, you know, like you guys are amazing, and so if you’re listening to this, , and you’re like, yeah, I probably need some financial help or financial planning, like, you know, David and his company are obviously a really good option. I think kind of closing this out, Dave, you know, of course I wanna end this with this massive appreciation and I think what I’m getting outta this conversation is this is a time to be sober around your finances.
This is a time, to have like tough conversations and really look at it, you know, with clean eyes, and to extend the timelines around reinvention, potentially around what’s realistic for you to do if you’re somebody that’s not fully there yet, like you are, like, it’s a time, at least from the coaching perspective, to accelerate that because time’s gonna go by fast.
And I know from personal experience in my family that it doesn’t get solved overnight. Like, it’s not that you have an aha and I’m like, I’m gonna go ahead and you know, create a new kind of motorcycle. That was always my dream no. Like, this is a process that needs to be turned towards and accelerated. And that really is exactly what we’re doing in reinvention. We have tools that allow people to envision and think, from, you know, a foundational mindset attitude. You know, you need to have an imagination when you’re reinventing, you know, at the end of the day. We spurred that. And I will say I am very curious.
We talked a lot about the financial therapy and I know you have somebody, you’ve mentioned this gentleman to me a couple times. I would love to get connected and maybe even have him on the show because I think this is the, the money piece, you know, does have a massive emotional and psychological component to it. And I just love that idea of financial therapy. I think this makes a lot of sense and I wanna learn about it potentially. I think Chris does too. So let’s see if we can get you know him on the show. And I wanna thank you, you know, for your advice.
I would love to have you back here in a couple years, like you said, and like follow and track you along personally. And also let’s see how things are changing here and let’s just continue to get better with our money. ‘Cause what we’re a stand for is people being successful over the long term. Right. And there’s a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty out there. But this is a big piece man. So you really brought it today and I thank you and just good to be with you.
David: Thank you so much for having me. I’ll say, two things. One is that I mentioned physicians a lot that certainly are focused, but I would say about 25% of our clients are not, because like they have brothers and sisters. They have neighbors who are been told about us. We’ve written some stuff that’s in the bookstores that’s not physician focused.
So if you’re listening to this and you say, Hey, I really like what Dave said, but I’m not a doctor. Can I talk with them? Happy to talk. We never charged for initial consult and we’ll put our stuff in there. The second thing is, I do take your point, time guy goes by quickly. It seems like the Red Sox just won the, world Series with Mookie Betts, but now that’s been like eight years.
So,
Chris: It’s a long time
Todd: you got Yankee fans on the line,
David: time for us, bostonis. We’re, we’re, we’re looking for a championship every couple years, you know that. So, um, I’ll just end with that, Todd,
Todd: You gotta do that publicly. Huh? You gotta do that publicly. Well, I, I still got like 18 or.
Chris: We can edit that out. We’ll take, we’ll
David: Yeah,
Todd: do I have on my finger? How, how many rings do I got? 26 on my fingers I dunno. I I got a lot of rings on my finger over here, Dave, man, you’re the best. Uh, so
much appreciation and, uh, you know, we’ll catch you next time.
