008: Plan A Is Gone. Now What? Jonmark Richardson on Starting Over

Show Notes

Jonmark Richardson is a financial advisor in Phoenix, Arizona. He's got a story. At 19, his life was headed in one direction. He knew exactly what he wanted. And then in a split second, everything changed. What he went through and what he watched his mom go through with money shaped how he helps people plan for their financial lives. Not for when things go right. For when plan A goes out the window.

Key Topics
The Accident That Changed Everything At 19, Jonmark was about to go pro in motocross. It was all he thought about, dreamt about, and doodled about in school since he was five years old. A hesitation on a jump left him two and a half stories in the air without enough momentum. He shattered his spine and was instantly paralyzed. He spent the next six months in the hospital, conscious through the whole thing.
Getting Through Day by Day First it was getting through a day, then a week, then a month. "If I could do a year, I could do two. If I could do two, I could do 20." He never had a single day in the hospital without a visitor. That support system made all the difference.
What His Mom Taught Him About Money She truly believed she was doomed to fail before she even tried. One of her favorite sayings was "I'm always an hour late and a dollar short." She fell behind on property taxes for a decade, lost her home, and walked away with $8,000. It shaped how Jonmark thinks about planning for the unexpected.
Life Is Rarely About Plan A Financial planning is really life planning. Things rarely go the way we expect. You need contingencies for plan B, C, and D. We're human. We were built to start again. "The moment you stop trying, you stop living."
You Are Worth Saving For You can't be a living martyr and be the best parent for your kids. You have to take care of yourself first. Your kids won't remember the money or the trips. They'll remember if you were happy. Jonmark sees wealthy clients all the time with blank expressions. They have everything they thought mattered, but something's missing.
Emergency Fund as Peace If your fridge goes out and you have savings, you're not panicking like his mom would have. That's where peace starts. And if you can't cut back any further, it's an earning problem. Find a side gig, earn it, and save it.
Gratitude and Journaling "You are never happier than you are grateful." Jonmark started journaling when his wife got pregnant. He writes on Sundays, reflecting on the week, and plans to hand it to his son later in life.

Memorable Quotes
"You are never happier than you are grateful. Gratitude is where you start."
"You can't be a living martyr and be the best dad for your kids. You have to take care of you."
"It's never too late to be the person you intended to be."
"Money is the lubrication in the frictions of life. But it's not a substitute for love and happiness."

Key Takeaways

1. Get out of yesterday. Don't let your past eat your future.
2. You are worth saving for. Commit to that first.
3. Start with emergency savings. That's where peace comes from.
4. If you can't cut more, earn more. Side income dedicated to savings can change everything.
5. Your kids will remember your happiness, not the money.

About the Guest
Jonmark Richardson is the Senior Advisor at The Valhalla Group in Phoenix, Arizona. He has been in the financial industry for over 16 years, helping clients with retirement planning, tax strategy, and Social Security decisions. His approach is shaped by rebuilding his life after a paralyzing accident at 19 and watching his mother struggle with money.

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 Connect: gabe@moreclientsmorefun.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to Starting Over at 50, the podcast for those navigating the financial restart of their lives while building something meaningful for the people they love most. John Mark Richardson is a financial advisor in Phoenix, Arizona, and he's got a story to tell. At 19, his life was headed in one direction. He knew exactly what he wanted, and then in a split second, everything changed. What he went through, and then what he watched his mom going through with money, both shaped how he helps people plan for their financial lives. Not when things go right, but for when plan A goes out the window. John Mark, so good to have you on the program today. Thanks for joining. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 0:44

I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me on.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

John Mark, I've been thinking about recently. I'm 53 years old, I've got three teenage daughters, and I've been divorced for two years now. And you know, it's it's a really a reset in life that the things that I had anticipated were going to be happening in my life now have changed. And I'm trying to reorganize things. And so I'm glad to get to ask you questions. And I wanted to talk to you because in reading your book, I know that when you were 19, you had a big reset in your life. And I was wondering if you could start off by just telling about what happened with you and how you handled it, processed it, and overcame and moved forward in your life.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Yeah, the the term reset is one way of describing it.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

So I had pretty much one passion in life. Um, I was one of the rare kids that knew exactly what he wanted to do when he grew up. And that was race motorcycles. It was, it was uh, I was fascinated. I was obsessed with motorcycles.

SPEAKER_03 1:54

How did that interest come about? Like what started it off?

SPEAKER_00 1:57

It's really, it's a really strange thing. So I have two older brothers, and I remember um laying in the living room floor in the in the probably early 80s, and they flipped on a television show, yeah, um, which ultimately became a motocross race.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

And all of a sudden something just came alive. I was fixated on that television set, and it helped that my brothers, my older brothers, uh rode motorcycles. But man, that's all I thought about, dreamt about, drew, doodled about in school. Right. That's that's where it started. And then uh the problem was is we were uh a water and cheerio type of family. We were dirt poor. We didn't have any money.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

I haven't heard that expression before, water and cheerio, but that's right. It paints a pretty good picture.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Yeah, the older brothers eat breakfast first, and you know, we have to water the meltdown because there's seven of us, yeah. We're the younger ones, right? It's just the pecking order. And um, so yeah, so my brother-in-law, my sorry, my brother was a contractor, a general contractor, and I guess someone didn't pay him for for a job that he did. So he traded the work for a motorcycle, and it was a little YZ-80, uh, which would become my first dirt bike. Yeah. And so here I am, five years old. Um, water and cheerlead family didn't have any money, and now in the backyard there's a dirt bike. And I would just just look at it for hours. I would always go sit on it and run around it, and it just became just became in my thoughts day in and day out. Um, it wasn't for a couple of years I actually learned how to ride it. And when I first wrote it, it was the most excitement I've had at that point in life, learning how to ride a motorcycle. Anyways, fast forward, I went through my teenage years, um, started racing, um, working and writing because it's expensive. And uh it got to be to the point where I was 19 years old, had a full-time job, and I went down to my hometown, Lake Elsinore, to the racetrack that was built in my hometown. And I unloaded the dirt bike, which was at this point in life, it's a race bike. You know, I've done a lot of racing at this point. Um, I had all my gear as where I wanted to be. I was about to go professional. And, you know, in the place where I grew up riding in the the dry, dusty lake bottom, now built a professional track. So that's why I came back.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

So I'm out there riding on the track, had my girlfriend at the time and my best best friend there. And uh I was just doing practice labs. And on the on the track, there's what's called a triple. And this is very common in Southern California. Um, they're the ones that actually created this jump. The triple consists of three jumps, it's quite large, uh, long too, maybe 60 feet to to 85 feet in length. So when you hit off, when you hit this jump, you're two and a half stories up in the air and you're sailing for you know a certain amount of distance, and then you land, preferably on the last one and you keep going.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Well, when you're practicing, you're just taking it as a double. You're just taking it as two jumps rather than and rather than all three. Because you you don't need to jump all three, or maybe you're just tuning your suspension like I was doing at that time. And I don't know what got in me. I the the the Honda trucks started to pull up, people started gathering around the jump because it was big, so they would wait to watch people jump off it. And I was kind of uh, I guess there's no other word for it, a little bit of a show off at that point in my life. So I'm like, I'm gonna do this, you know. And I've jumped jumps like that before, just never on this track.

SPEAKER_03 5:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

With that track, it was pretty sandy.

SPEAKER_03 5:52

So you you felt comfortable going into it, you thought I can handle this.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Yeah, I thought I could handle it, yeah. And uh, so I, you know, there's a whole straightaway dedicated for that thing. So I just lay into it. And and then something funky happened. Uh, I hesitated. I rolled off the throttle and I started to talk myself out of it. This is all happening in like a half a second, by the way. Yeah, and then I'm like, nah, you know, I'm gonna do it. Downshift, punch it, um, and I launch off that jump. Man, I had lost too much momentum at that point, but I still thought I had enough to carry me over all three. Well, I'm now about 22, 23 foot feet in the air, and I'm looking down and I see that I'm not going to clear it. Now, typically I'll ditch the bike in midair and then crumble to the ground. But when you're that high up, you you know, you break your legs, you know, you break bones, and and you're lucky if you get away without a lifelong limp, you know. And so the coaches teach you stay on the bike. It has suspension. Let the bike absorb the impact. So, all right, cool. I stayed on the bike, but I landed in such a way that it's called casing it when the motor of the motorcycle smashes into the face of the jump bypassing any of the suspension. So I landed so hard that all that energy uh went straight into my spine and then shattered my spine. And uh I was instantly paralyzed, and I was on the ground conscious through the whole thing. And you know, they they went to do a life flight, and I was screaming at them not to because I thought my mom was gonna get hit with some big medical bill. Oh, so they brought an ambulance in instead, but I was deep into a lake bottom with a severely broken back. That was a very rough and painful ride out of that place, yeah. Yeah, and then yeah, that's it. I spent the next six months in hospital.

SPEAKER_03 7:51

You're right when you say that reset doesn't adequately describe that, John Mark. So when you think that your life is going one direction and at 19, and then something like that happens, what was your thought process? What helped you to move forward and to make new plans and to see that you could still live a life that was going to be meaningful to you?

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Well, I mean, there's the answer that I would give you when I was 19, and there's the answer that a 46 would give you looking 46-year-old looking back. Yeah. So I think I'll answer as as I was when I went through it because I think it's more genuine. Um it was day by day. Yeah. You know, it was day by day. Uh, I at first, of course, I was depressed. I was having to live life out of a wheelchair. I just learned that I would never walk again. I just learned that I would probably never be a father biologically. Um, I would have all these difficulties. Um, I just I learned a lot of crushing news all at once.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

And so it was really about getting through the day. And then I would get through the day enough time to where uh it became a week. If the day became easier, and then the next challenge was getting through the week.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Well, I would get through enough weeks where the weeks became easier, and the next challenge would be getting through the month, and so forth and so forth, climbing the ladder of time, so to speak. And then you look back and you say, I can do this. If I could do a year, I could do two. And if I could do two, I could do 20. Yeah. Right. And so that's how it started for me. Um, but granted, not everyone reacts like that. Uh, and certainly I never thought I would. I really believe that there's certain parts of our character and our personality that doesn't come to light under, except for extreme situations like that. Um, and it kind of forced a different side of me out that probably never would have showed itself.

SPEAKER_03 10:00

What surprised you as you were going through that experience? What surprised you about yourself that when you started thinking it, you didn't know that you had that in you.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Well, I would say what surprised me the most is how precious I began to feel life was and is. That's the big thing. Life is precious. I nearly lost mine. And then you start to look through a different lens and you start appreciating things. You start being grateful. At least I started feeling grateful for the things I still did have. Um, and I tried to maximize what was still available to me. Didn't happen right away, that took a long time. In many facts, I'm still pursuing that, you know. Yeah. Um, but you are never happier than you are grateful. So gratitude is where you start, at least it was for me.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

Gratitude. I wanted to ask you, John Mark, about your mom and all of this. That first off, when you were going to go professional with racing this motorcycle, what did she think about it? Was she supportive? Was she brightened? And what sort of a support system did you have afterwards to help you and to to get through these things and to move forward?

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Yeah, so support that's definitely a big part of it. My mom she got used to me showing up with bones hanging out of my skin, basically.

SPEAKER_03 11:34

That can't be easy for your poor mom.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Well, if I was the only child that put her through that'd be one thing, but I was like the fourth child that put her through that.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

Oh no, she had her hands full.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Yeah, yeah. And she was by the time I was a teenager, she was tired. Yeah, you know, she was just she was done. And uh, and I think it was very difficult for my mom to come see me in the hospital. I think she only went twice. Yeah um she just couldn't handle it. But I had tremendous support. I had I had tremendous support. I was in there, like I said, about six months. I never had a day where someone wasn't there, or not a single day. And and that when someone is there, so that you don't even have the opportunity to dwell on your reset, so to speak, um, it makes it can make all the difference in the world. Because if you're just by yourself, man, then you're a victim of your thoughts, and then what you don't have, and then your your your brain goes all over the place, you know. Right.

SPEAKER_03 12:39

Is can you tell me, because I think this is important about your mom's experience at that time financially, and how this led to can you tell us about what was going on with her, and then how this led to you finding your career path?

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Yeah. Yeah. So a little bit about my mom. Let's talk about our psychology really quick. My mom truly believed that she was doomed to fail before she even tried. Like one of her one of her favorite sayings was always, you know, I'm always an hour late and a dollar short. And so it's like when you believe that, yeah, you know, about yourself long enough, it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And my mom had every financial trouble uh that one could have. She just made all the mistakes. So she was poor and then wound up coming into a good deal of money from the sale of a house. And she was woefully unprepared to deal with that. Part of the reason is my mom was never one to have hope. She just, it wasn't part of who she was, unfortunately. She had a very difficult life. Like her past, her upbringing was a tough one.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

And it kind of beat that out of her a little bit. Um, but yeah, so when I broke my back, my mom, who had this paid-off home, right, that she bought in cash, was losing it. And so she fell behind uh by about a decade in paying her property taxes, it accrued interest and penalties, and the state of California was about to exercise a tax lien and take the home away from her. She had to sell that home and pay that lien off, and she walked away with about $8,000 after doing that. She put the five-bedroom home in a mini storage and she moved in with my sister and brother-in-law and stayed there until she passed away. It was 25 years.

SPEAKER_03 14:41

At that point, had you studied finance in college, had you become a financial advisor? What were your thoughts as you watched that take place?

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yeah, so that happened the year I broke my back.

unknown 14:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Right. So she lost that house. So I came out of the hospital and had to move back home with mom. And then six months later had to find a new place to live because that happened. So finance didn't come into the purview for a few years, right? Um, I I spent a year being depressed. Um I moved out to Phoenix, Arizona, and uh Phoenix is where I became social and I started to get my social legs underneath me and found support systems and great friends and religion and all the things that that help add to my happiness, and that's where things really began to change. That's where I went into finance, yeah. Um, and where I've been ever since.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

How do those experiences that you had and then watching what happened to your mom working in finance and helping other people to make sense of their financial lives and to be successful? How do your experiences help to motivate you to help them to live better lives?

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Well, that's a loaded question. There's a lot of things in there. You know, how how does my experience and what my mom went through help me to help others live better lives? Right. Well, financial planning is not that different from good old-fashioned life planning. Life is rarely about plan A, you know, um, about how we thought life was going to go. Financial planning is very similar to that because you know, financially speaking, things rarely go as we plan. So you need to have contingencies. You know, what happens when life actually gives you plan B, plan C, plan D, you know, and anything else, you know, and and so that's help that helps me be able to uh break it down a little bit with my story. Say, look, when I broke my back, you know, I was I had to make a huge shift, I had to make a huge change. But it's not, we're human, we were built to start again. You know, the moment you stop trying, you stop living. Like you give me any situation, I don't care how good it looks or how bad it looks on paper, I will show you someone starting again, starting again, starting again, uh, and until they don't, and then usually that's when everything ends.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

And uh, and so just being able to relate with people, you know, they see someone that has gone through what I've gone through, which by the way, is not that bad, honestly. I'd rather have this than chronic depression. I'd rather have this than debilitating anxiety, right? Right. So it's I just mine's very visible, but we're all fighting some battle, right? Whether it's seen or unseen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:57

I love the the terms that you put that in about, you know, when your plan A is out the window, that you're really looking at plans B, C, and D, because I think that's for a lot of people what divorce represents, too. That plan A was you're with your family, you're with your kids, and you're with your spouse, and you've got two incomes, and everything is moving forward in that direction. And then divorce comes along, and all of a sudden it really is trying to find another plan. Yeah. Is what do you recommend, John Mark? That when I when I'm not thinking about plan A anymore, how do I make peace with one of these other plans or even form it in the first place? What should I be thinking about?

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Well, first you got to get out of yesterday. Like everybody has to get out of yesterday. But we don't want um our future um being eaten up by that beast called our past because it it's insatiable. It'll yeah, it'll feed for days on it.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Once we get past that, focus on the gratitude. What we do have moving forward, it's about you, and you got to say that you are worth it. What are you worth? You are worth saving money for, right? You are worth planning for the future. 50. 50 now is is a relatively young age. You could do a lot. There's many people that had tremendous success stories after the age of 50.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Um, now, 40 years ago, 50, that's a different thing. But in today's day and age, you're chipper, you know.

SPEAKER_03 19:28

Right, I'm glad you still think so. Thank you, John Mark. Right, a lot of life ahead of me. And that's and I'm trying to think about what to do with it because this is all brand new. That you know, my plants are out the window. And so I'm thinking about right now, things feel tough because as far as cash flow, there's not enough to go to everything. My kids, their expenses just seem to get greater and greater every single year. And I'm trying to think how to balance everything. And so, you know, it's like, I don't know, it may not be plan B, C, and D. It might be, you know, even beyond that. But yeah, you know, like what should I focus on first? What's the starting point there? Because I like that you said that we're all you know, we're built to start over, to start again. I think that's encouraging, it's got hope. But sometimes you need, you know, like you said, that support system, people that are there that are offering insights and and ones that really help and lead forward.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Yeah, I uh is it is there's a couple answers to that. There's there's the peace, and people define peace different ways. Yeah. Um, generally speaking, people are talking to me because it's a money problem. Um, but we get into other things because of that, you know. So when I when I'm talking about peace, the first thing I want to address is emergency savings. Like, look, if you have an emergency savings and your fridge goes out, you're you're all right. You're not freaking out like my mom would have.

SPEAKER_03 20:53

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

That's the first step. Get that under control. Um, as far as you know, children who have expenses, you could only do what you could do, right? And you know what, whatever they have to go through will help them uh themselves. It'll help build their experience as well. But you, in order to be the best dad, right, the best person, the best parent for your kids, you have to take care of you. You can't be you can't be a living martyr and be the best dad for your kid. You can't sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice constantly and be everything you need to be for your children, too. So you got to take care of you. And this is a difference of philosophy to a lot of people, but um, you know, you're you could only be as good um as you can be if you are taking care of yourself. Or what's the point? You know, you got to be happy. I'm not saying selfishly indulge in in you know, building you up and do going on trips and all that stuff. I don't mean that. I mean if you're gonna work, do something you Like, yeah, even if it pays less, right? If you're if if you're gonna spend your time doing something, make sure you enjoy it, make sure you're doing something that brings you happiness. Uh, find ways to serve, you know, and and at the end of the day, when you spend time with your daughters, you're gonna do so after have served someone else, spend your day working doing stuff that you like, ultimately being happier with that time you do have with them. And they're not gonna look back and be like, Man, dad really left me without much money at all. They're gonna be like, I don't know what happened with dad, but he's a lot happier now. He's definitely making some changes. Right. Happiness is that's what people remember, or the lack thereof. Yeah, the money. I see clients all the time late in life. It's interesting, the wealthier they are, the more of this blank expression I get often.

SPEAKER_03 22:56

What's the blank expression that they don't the blank expression is how do I put this in words?

SPEAKER_00 23:02

I have what I thought was so important in life. I have all of it.

SPEAKER_03 23:07

But something's missing, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:09

But it's just not what I thought it was going to be. You know, this wasn't it the whole time. I was sold a lie that it was all about money and wealth. It never was, it never was. That's not happiness. Money is the lubrication in the frictions of life. Frictions come and go, money makes it a little easier. Yeah, but it's not a substitute for for love and happiness and feeling of unity, you know. And so when I see poor people, which we have a lot of, yeah, many of them, many of them are happy. They don't have the choice to get caught up in some of that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 23:47

Interesting. And I think that it's really eye-opening what you say about that you have to take care of yourself first because after divorce, it really is I don't want my kids to be impacted by this any more than they already are. I mean, I want to make sure that they're okay. And so it's not that I can't say no to them. I do say no to them, you know, like if they say we're gonna go out to eat, hey, we're gonna eat at home. And I can say those things, but it's when there's a school trip and it costs a few extra thousand dollars and their friends are going, and I don't want them to miss out on these experiences because of divorce, that I really want to find the way that I can take care of it. But I I hadn't even thought of it from that there might be some understanding that they say, you know, dad wasn't able to do this for me, but he's happy. And so it it definitely will reset my thinking on that. Not that I'm gonna say no to some of these trips, John. I I can't, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Yeah, no, that's uh that's I I was more speaking in terms of funding their college or something, you know. Right. Um it's yeah, if you if you spend a Saturday, like I don't have teenage kids, so what do I know? But I do have a five-year-old son. Yeah, and it's it's interesting. He used to run right up to me when I came home through the door and just give me a big old hug. That started a stop. And I started like, what did I start to do? Where's my hugs? Oh no, you know, grandma gave him more attention, mom gave him more attention, therefore, I started getting less of his attention.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Well, then I decided to change, flip the script. I said, You and I are going on a on a father and son day. He's only five, so I thought it'd be lost on him. So two weeks ago, we went over to Scottsdale. We took him to this free little bubble event that did foam stuff with music, and he climbed on the jump houses, and we just spent all day. We went and saw Avatar together. Um, we just did all this stuff. Actually, that's the day I talked to you.

SPEAKER_02 25:47

That's right. Right?

unknown 25:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

And so I met up with you right after all of that. Yeah. So so the day after, James says, Dad, it's like late. He's laying in bed. I'm like, Yeah. He's like, Father and Sundays are my favorite. That's awesome. And that's it hit me.

unknown 26:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

That feeling inside. I'm like, that's what it's about. Need to do more of that. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:11

I think that that's so key, you know, because there is that point. I mean, since my kids are older, that you know, we're we're always this tight unit that did everything together and it was, you know, bedtimes and stories and all of that. And then it starts to change as they get into middle school and you know, on to high school and they're off doing their own things. And so I've been trying to find those connecting points where we still get together and you know sing karaoke together or play the guitar or different things like that that make those memories that are gonna be lasting. But my my oldest daughter, she's about to go off to college, and she was leaving the other day and she says, Bye, dad, she was going to work. And I said, Come back, come back. And I gave, she's like, What do you want, dad? And I gave her this hug, and I said, I'm just it's just hitting me that you know, there's only a few more months, and you're not you're gonna be off at college, and I just want to just give you a hug now. And she leaned into that hug, and I just thought, you know, really that idea of gratitude that you said, it's so important to be grateful for those moments that are coming up right now and to not let them pass you by.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Yeah, that's so key. And it's it really is the the the family is the most important. Our relationships, that's what's important. You the way that she the way that you just expressed that to her had to touch her heart. I mean, it had to have, and that's something she's not likely going to forget. The trips will come and go, you know, the fancy this and that, but that moment, that's what I would be journaling. I started to take a journal, so the stuff that I just told you about, I journaled that because it made an impression on my heart. And I'm sure it made an impression on your daughters.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

Tell me about the journaling. How you started that. How often do you write? What do you put in? How do you reflect back on it? What changes has it made in the way that you think about things?

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Yeah, I I'm old-fashioned in a lot of respects, and in a lot of respects, I'm not. I don't I know all the technology and all that stuff, but I really like the old-fashioned sense of writing hand letters, mailing them out, the personal touch. And so, journals, people do these video um Facebook journals. That's cool, that works, but I want to be able to hand off a collection of thoughts that are important to me to my son when he's older. And so when I found out my wife was pregnant, which is a miracle in and of itself, um, I started to keep a journal. And I started on Sundays. That was my time to reflect back at the week. First, it was like, okay, yeah, you're the size of a you know, grapefruit now, and now you're a little bigger, and we don't even know what your name is going to be yet, you know, just kind of expressing my thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

As I as he came, it was wow, you changed everything. Like expressing my gratitude. I want you to know, I'm not sure what our life is going to be like together, but should we, should you ever be upset at me, just know that I love you. I want it, I want you to read that here and now. Um, stuff like that, reinforcing my love and appreciation, those blessings again, right? Uh, reaffirming those blessings. And then as he started to develop his personality, of course, it was the funny things. Um, I'm like, oh my gosh, that's that's hilarious. Um, or those tender moments where it's like, Dad, father, and Sundays are the best. When's the next one? So good, yeah. So I'm just gonna give it to him when he's later, later in life.

SPEAKER_03 29:52

I think that's such a beautiful gift that it's something that I thought about when my oldest was born, that I wanted to write down everything that was happening, and then life gets busy and I didn't do it. And the funny thing is, I would say that the way that I've tried to capture their life in a way that's gonna last is through Facebook posts because you know, I take pictures, I post them. Sure, and it's for it's for friends and family to see, but it's really, I thought, looking back, because I you know caption everything, and so we remember, oh, that happened, and you know, we did this back in in 2022 or whatever it was, and so it's a way to look back and still have things that we can have conversations about later. Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Yeah, but I I love those little like Facebook memories, they put them together and you like they they cycle through and you see all this, yeah. They put some music to it, right?

SPEAKER_03 30:42

Exactly. Is you know, when I think about the kids, I want them to because of divorce. I I check in with them and I ask them, you know, how are you doing? Is it you know, if you had are you okay? Do you feel like like I think that there's things that come out in their lives, and I was like, is this because you're the product of divorce? And they're like, Yeah, dad, it's because we're you know a broken family, and so this is why we're saying the things we're saying. And I mean it's little stuff, but you know, it still makes me just wonder. And I I'm just thinking about when it comes to like the money side of it, giving them good lessons where where they, you know, just like you saw these things in your mom's life, and it helped to shape where you headed. I want them to take it in a valuable way where they say, you know, my dad and my mom that they both had to figure it out on their own and we learned lessons, and that they maybe don't have to repeat some of those mistakes. Do you think that's a possibility? Something that you know there can be good that comes out of something that was bad.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Oh, for sure. For sure.

SPEAKER_03 31:50

Um Yeah, what's the best way that I can support that?

SPEAKER_00 31:54

Yeah, I I think there's uh many different angles. Uh if we don't, it's like goes back to what I was saying earlier. Like without these challenges, uh, we don't get our best self. Like if you you you have if you have a perfect life without much uh I don't know, uh too many obstacles or challenges. You got someone who didn't grow into what they could have been. You need adversity, you need challenges. Doesn't mean everything has to go to crap. It just means without them, you don't get you need resistance to grow. Um, not everyone chooses growth, though, but it's a refiner's fire, it really is. I mean, the impure impurities get burned away as long as you allow yourself to grow, change, and become better until you it's never too late to be the person you intended to be. And that's the important part. It doesn't matter if you're 50, 60, or 40. It's not too late to be who you wanted to be, you know. But as far as finance, you know, I take the lesson from Warren Buffett. He certainly knows a thing or two about money. Yeah, you know, he he traded his first stock at 11 years old. So I'm gonna make sure my son beats that record. You know, I'm gonna have him uh teach him a couple things about a couple companies, yeah, and we're gonna buy a stock. And when he stays up a little bit more, we're gonna buy another one and we're gonna buy another one, and it's gonna be fun, and I'm gonna try to make it exciting for him until it becomes a habit for him. Yeah, yeah. Not, I'm not like, here's let's jump on the Bitcoin train. Like, yeah, there might be a place for that, but I'm talking about real companies teaching about ownership and speculation, you know. And that's where we could help teach them about saving and what it can mean and make it fun, not just oh, let's just dump it all in an account and leave it alone and never do anything with it.

SPEAKER_03 33:49

Right. I love that. I all three of my girls that I always tell them, I want one of you to go into finance and work on Wall Street, you're gonna make millions, it's gonna be fantastic. And they're all like, Dad, I don't want to work in Wall Street, I'm not gonna do that. But then my oldest daughter, who's probably the least likely to do that, she took a personal finance class in high school or senior year, and then she opened up a brokerage account. She gets her Schwab account, and I'm like, she gets it, it was just a regular brokerage account. I said, No, no, no, you got to do the Roth IRA. I mean, start it now. You're gonna get tax-free growth forever. But just that process of sitting with her and selecting her first stocks and what she was gonna put her money into and then watching, it inspired her. I don't think she's gonna go to work in finance, but I think that that's such a great way to expose your kids to investing and to those ideas.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Oh, for sure. Yeah. I and I it can be fun, you know. How you approach it, it just depends on the personality type. You know, you make it a game or you you just make it fit their personality. Yeah, you know, money's gonna be part of their life one way or another. So let's let's get on the train now.

SPEAKER_03 35:03

Where was the Warren Buffett in our lives when we were 11 years old to come along and to you know get us to open accounts and start investing? I mean, I wish it had happened early.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Yeah, I never, I mean, my never met my father. I mean, I think I was, I guess that's not true. I was five the last time I saw him. Like he wasn't around, and my mom didn't know anything about money. And you know, it's but at some point you gotta say, okay, uh, they didn't teach it, but I have agency now and I can I can learn.

SPEAKER_03 35:34

And that's why I like that you say that 50 years old these days, 53, that it doesn't mean that you're at the ending, you're at the beginning. You're at the beginning of what could be lots of wonderful years and making new decisions. So if you have somebody like if I was sitting in your office, John Mark, and said, okay, here I am, 53, what's the what are the starting points, the things that I should be thinking about now? You know, what I want is that in a few years, that, you know, even if things are hard right now, that there's some light, that I'm moving towards the light at the end of the tunnel, and that there's going to be easier days ahead. And so what should I do now to make sure that I'm getting to that point?

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Yeah, so it and it there's a different answer to every person, first of all, right? And so the first thing I do, speaking generically, is I spend about a good 20 minutes getting another person, whether that's you or the next guy. If I get to know their personality, chances are already know how they feel about money, whether they're risk adverse, uh whether they're they have a capacity to save, or what whether I got to drill that enough until it becomes a habit. Yeah. Like where if they're gonna push back, if they're gonna be accepting, you know, all of this stuff just comes from me getting to know them. But that's the type of advisor that I am. I'm a social communicative guy. That's just me. Right. Um, you you could be a good advisor, by the way, and and not be like that. Certainly there's a lot of quiet guys out there that are math geniuses. Um, but yeah, and so I I would first want to establish what is important, right? And that's what I'm gonna glean through our conversation.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

It's can't just be money. Uh, it needs to be about how you're spending your life. It's how are you earning your money? How is that working out for you? Are you getting your paycheck, paying you first, and then spending what's left over? Or are you getting your paycheck, you know, paying your bills and then saving what's left over, you know? Uh the I have my brother come to me. Uh, we had a phone call. Sorry, didn't come to me. He called me up uh three days ago. This is the same brother that I've been trying to convince to save for 20 years.

SPEAKER_03 37:48

Now he hasn't listened until now.

SPEAKER_00 37:51

It's always like, so like this is gonna this change is gonna happen in my life. Yeah, and then when that change happens, I'm gonna start saving with you.

SPEAKER_03 37:59

And so and does the change ever arrive, or just the change never happens. It's not really life gets in the way. I understand.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

Like, oh, you know, we had some extra money, so uh, we bought this trailer because we've always been poor, and now we could, you know, we could go on trips. And so he calls me up and he's telling me all this stuff, and like he's gonna have more cash flow. He's like, when this happens, I'm gonna start saving money with you. I want you to do this and this and this for me. I just said, dude, if you had the capacity to do that, this would have been done 20 years ago. You know, interesting thing, before China became the powerhouse, the economic powerhouse that is today, about 30 years ago, they were really poor, right? Some of the poorest in the world, and yet they had the highest savings rate out there. 43 percent, 43 cents of every dollar they saved, regardless. And they were poor because it was built into them. Yeah, like it was part of their their the way that they lived their lives. Um, we're Americanized, you know, we could put things on debt, we could chase the Johnsons, we could get the new TVs. Right. That becomes a habit that needs to be broken, or it can break us, you know. Yeah, or the bank at least.

SPEAKER_03 39:15

The trouble is, John Mark, that you know, I've I've written everything out onto a spreadsheet. All the money that comes in every month, all the money that's going out. But because of this time of life, I mean, there's alimony, I pay for the kids' private school education, that I put some, you know, a little bit into my travel account, and some of that goes to the kids, like traveling off to camp, some of it's for a couple of the little trips that I do during the year, but that there's nothing left. And so, what needs to get reorganized? Because I look for like, I mean, I want to be able to have more towards my 401k or towards saving for the emergency fund, like you mentioned. And so when something breaks, that I don't panic, but I'm just struggling to find out where it comes from because everything gets spoken for.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Yeah, and that could be a straight-up cash flow problem, right? Um, whether it's we I'm cutting back, but I can't cut anything else back. I'm down to the necessities, the bare necessities, right? Uh if that's the case and it's a and it's an earning problem. Well, then we got to find ways to earn. Right. It's it's back to the basics. Um, we got to be able to earn a little bit more. Um, where does that come from? Is there a certification I need to get that'll create that? Um, there's so many ways today to earn income off the side, having a little side gig, so many ways.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

And and I would entertain that. I'm a fairly creative guy and I got a million ideas, and I love interviewing people, so I get all their ideas too. And so that I would have a conversation about where can we earn some money just for you to save? We're gonna come up with this concept, and instead of spinning it, we're gonna save whatever we make from that, whatever you make from that. Yeah, that's what we're gonna be doing.

SPEAKER_03 41:04

I like that idea because these days, side hustles, not uncommon, having a second thing going on, and then, but how often do you see people, just like you said with your brother, that then that little extra money comes in and then it gets spoken for, not towards say, I mean, that's the trouble, is that I want to make sure that I prioritize that and don't just find new things to spend on. But the psychology, you know, at work sometimes it works against you in those cases.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

Yeah, you gotta, and this is where you have to say, I am worth it. Yeah, like I am worth saving money for making these sacrifices because I'm just tired of always scrimping by. Um, I don't, I may not be rich, but I don't have to live uh so close to the bottom of the barrel every week or every month or however often we're paid, right? And so you've got to be able to commit to that, commit to change because we're human, we we know how to change, right? We're we've been doing it a long time, whether we're doing it on our own action or it's being forced upon us, right? We're used to change. And so we, I mean, we're in the greatest country in the world at the greatest time. We have more choices and more options than we've ever had.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

And you know, we have the ability to do it. We just have to want to and then stick to it. Right.

SPEAKER_03 42:26

John Mark, I love that inspiration, the things that you've shared. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

I love it. Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_03 42:37

If this episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. Share it with someone who might need it, and leave a review if you're feeling generous. And if you have questions or topics you'd like me to explore in future episodes, reach out at Gabe at more clientsmorefun.com. I'm figuring this out right alongside you. New episodes of Starting Over at 50 drop every week. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube, wherever you listen. Before I go, I need to thank two people who make this podcast possible. My brother Paul, who's my business partner, and the reason I get to work daily with financial advisors, and my daughter Issa, who does the incredible job of editing each episode. I couldn't do this without them. I'm Gabe McManus, and I'll see you in a week. Until then, take care of yourselves, show up for your kids, and remember we're figuring this out together.