There’s a wide divide between the small number of people who can afford money management and the large number of people who want help managing their money. The difference between these two groups of people also represents the audience financial advisors have traditionally helped, and where financial advisors who understand future trends are moving in search of new clients.
Mac Gardner, author, speaker, founder of FinLit Tech and Reese Harper’s guest on this Elementality podcast, explains why advisors who are looking for new clients should realize that wealth accumulation is only one facet of financial wellness. There’s a growing market of people looking for help to understand money better. Mac and Reese discuss why the need for financial literacy—along with new financial tools—for the general public is increasing.
Show Notes
https://finlittech.com/
http://motivatewealth.com/
http://www.thefourmoneybears.com
Podcast Transcript
Mac Gardner:
I like to joke around with people and, I’m like, “How often do you go to your doctor? ‘Well, hopefully once a year, if you’re pretty healthy, make sure everything’s good.'” How often do you go to your attorney? “Well, hopefully not.” If someone’s suing you or you’re trying to sue someone. But your CFP or your financial planner is someone that you hopefully have a really strong relationship in your life and you keep in contact with fairly regularly. Because they’re helping you plan your financial life and understanding what I call the three F’s. Your family, your finances and your future.
Abby Morton:
Welcome to Elementality. I am Abby Morton, CFP and producer of our podcast here at Elements. I love being a financial planner, but I know it’s a challenging profession as well. That’s why the number one goal of our show is to help you prosper as an advisor, as you better connect with your clients. We know your time is very valuable, plan on a good return when you spend it here with us.
Reese Harper:
Welcome to another episode of Elementality, everybody. I’m your host, Reese Harper, excited to get together with a new friend Finlit Tech. We’ve got Mac Gardner on the line with us today. Abby has done some amazing research for me and exposed me to somebody who I’m really excited to hear has a breadth of experience, both in both FinTech and advisory world and client interactions. And so, thanks so much Mac for joining us on the show today.
Mac Gardner:
Thank you for having me Reese, really excited. I follow what you are doing and what you’re putting out into the FinTech, WealthTech world. And so whenever fellow colleagues in this space, on this journey to educate people and get people more experienced and exposed to financial wellness and managing their money, I’m on board for doing it.
Reese Harper:
Thanks, man. I really appreciate it. I’m super excited. And I love how you really are in touch with a lot of the themes that I think are big right now that are moving in the industry. And that’s where I want to start today is, where do you see the consumer of wealth management? Where do you see the future of wealth management for this next generation, the X, Y generation? What are they looking for that might be different from what they were looking for in the past? Is it different today?
Mac Gardner:
Yeah, it isn’t. And I think there are a couple of things that are driving the change. We talk about financial wellness being this sort of large creature that’s out there that everyone is striving towards. And what we find is that, it’s more than just the numbers, it’s the emotions behind it. It’s the education behind our finances. It’s all the things that numbers touch in our lives that are now being unpacked through the planning process, through the advisory process. And people have a lot more access to information, they have a lot more access to technology. And so all these different things, that are just making this big old pot of change for our industry. And I think that’s a good thing if you’re an advisor that really wants to help people and better understand what their financial path looked like and will look like in the future.
Reese Harper:
So I think that’s awesome. And so what I’m hearing is, this whole financial health holistic wellness movement that one, you’re saying that exists. I think some advisors might not actually be aware of that, or maybe they don’t… I would say they probably agree that comprehensive planning at least, or the word planning is starting to replace or grow in importance relative to investing or products. I think that that’s been a trend that’s been moving for a while. Financial wellness, that seems to have accelerated in recent years, faster than the planning conversation. Any idea why that’s happening?
Mac Gardner:
Yeah. Because a lot of people are financially sick.
Reese Harper:
Yeah.
Mac Gardner:
I think what this COVID-19 pandemic did for folks, Reese, is-
Reese Harper:
I was going to say that. I think COVID had something to do with it.
Mac Gardner:
It’s not a think, it’s a know. It’s when people all of a sudden, we realized that, “Oh my goodness, we can no longer work.” We don’t have emergency savings. We don’t have [crosstalk 00:04:52].
Reese Harper:
We have no liquidity.
Mac Gardner:
“We have no liquidity. Oh my goodness, what do we do?” It sends shock waves. It reverberates through our economy. And for advisors who may have just been focusing on the investing, or may have just been focusing on the insurance, or may have just been focusing on the taxes, all of a sudden their clients are coming to them and saying, “Hey, what do I do?” Now they’re like, “Oh my goodness. I serve a really important role.” I like to joke around with people, I’m like, “How often do you go to your doctor? ‘Well, hopefully once a year, if you’re pretty healthy, make sure everything’s good.'”
Mac Gardner:
“How often do you go to your attorney? ‘Well, Hopefully not. If someone’s suing you or you’re trying to sue someone.'” But your CFP or your financial planner is someone that you hopefully have a really strong relationship in your life and you keep in contact with fairly regularly. Because they’re helping you plan your financial life and understanding what I call the three F’s. Your family, your finances and your future. So that’s why I think we’re in a great position as CFPs, as advisors. And then you layer in the technology aspect and how that allows us to scale so much and be a lot more efficient and effective with our practice and how we engage people. I just think it’s this perfect storm right now that we’re in.
Reese Harper:
Yeah, it does seem to be accelerating in the last 12 to 24 months for sure. And I know for me, it’s in my RIA, which is separate from Elements, we… I saw how the dental industry basically shut down for I don’t know, almost six months. It was just interesting to see how much pain and stress and tension was created by the clients that had liquidity, had emergency savings versus not. And sometimes I feel that the battle of just maintaining appropriate amounts of liquidity is something that we… We know that an emergency fund is important, but the size of that fund changes as your complexity changes. And really what we’re talking about eventually is, after tax to pre-tax mix. An asset mix question of real estate versus business equity, if you have one versus qualified plans.
Reese Harper:
Saving a thousand dollars a month into a qualified plan versus a thousand month into a taxable account, a lot of people will look at the tax impact of that and say, “Well, for sure, it’s the qualified plan is the right decision, that’s going to maximize net worth increase right now.” But that’s not taking into account the other life aspects of this, which is, what kind of price can you place on having $100,000 sitting there that you can’t touch, versus 100,000 where you’re like, “If everything went bad, I could at least fall back on that.” That changes the risk you can take in your job, that changes the risk you can take in a business, that changes the way you could take off on a Friday and spend time with your kids.
Reese Harper:
There’s all kinds of implications of a balance sheet mix that prioritizes one asset over the other, and wealth accumulation is only one dimension of financial health. And we don’t want to discount taxes and say it’s not important, but we can’t compare those two things and then say, “Which one is better?” It’s like, well, but one of them has significant emotional consequences and the other one has tax maximization consequences.
Mac Gardner:
And again, I’m all about the layers of life and the different options. And that’s all it is at the end of the day. I’ll tell my clients, “All we are at the end of the day is collection stories,” which you’re here in shrubbery stories. But then the only thing money gives us in life is options. Is the option to do that, “Okay, because I have this job or this business that allows this type of cashflow for me to put money here and take tax deductions here, or own a home here. And have the option of, because I have this equity in this house to be able to take a home equity line and access money, should I need it in an emergency situation.”
Mac Gardner:
All these financial machinations of decisions are available to people. It’s our job as financial planners and advisors, to be able to sit with folks and explain why it is, this is important. And a lot of it is education on our part. But just to tie in my books and why I wrote them. My first book Motivate Your Money… I have my practice in Houston working with high net worth, ultra high net worth folks. And it was mind blowing Reece, how little financial planning knowledge folks had.
Reese Harper:
Did you publish this in 2013? Is that about when it was?
Mac Gardner:
Yeah. It was about 2013, we’re living in Houston. And I had spent years in the business, I was a commercial lender. I was a corporate 401k advisor, wealth management, trustee. I was a trust administrator. I wore a lot of different hats. And so all of those experiences and ways of helping people sort of molded this first book, Motivate Your Money. And it was just a way to share and bring what I call my Mac-nuggets, and simplifying a lot of these complex concepts to my clients. And it really helped. And then one of my clients came to me and said, “Mac, I love the first book, would you be open to writing something for kids?” Because that’s where we can make an impact. If we can start educating the generation from age five, we can do some amazing things.
Reese Harper:
So let’s talk a little bit about… I want to dive into… I know these concepts will apply to adults as well, but in your book, I know you write about the four money bears. I do want to have us talk just at a high level about them. And I also want to dig into another topic, but let’s talk about these real quick.
Mac Gardner:
So in my first book, I talk about the five steps to financial success. Step one, we talked about earlier is, plan accordingly. You got to have a plan. Step two, spend cautiously. Step three, save diligently. Step four, invest wisely. And step five, give generously. And those five steps came about from observing and working with folks who weren’t just inherited millionaires and billionaires. These are people that just did the right thing, and all of a sudden they found themselves years down the road with wealth. And so when looking to create a platform for children, I started to do some research, due diligence and found that a child’s connectivity with money starts by age seven. And there’s only four things you can do with money. Spend it, save it, invest it, or give it away. That’s it.
Mac Gardner:
And so when I was putting together this concept for the four money bears, the book is actually a recent story of me teaching my kids about money. Any parent with children knows, you go to the store, the first place the children run off to is the toy section. And that is what we wanted to be able to share with people is the fact that, though you may be able to do it and afford to get all these nice things for your kids, children, honestly, aren’t being taught what their options are. They know they can spend it, they know they can put in the piggy bank, but the two other functions investing and giving a very important.
Reese Harper:
Yeah, it’s really. And it is really hard to incorporate those. I have a big place in my heart for trying to teach financial literacy to young people. And I think a lot of wealth managers do, but we’re also dealing with a generation and between… All of our current customers used to be children and they didn’t get taught either. So as adults we still have 120 million households in the country, and I don’t know how many of them really have some basic financial literacy, but it’s a minority group. Probably 10 million households are being serviced quite well by the wealth management market. I would say the other 20 million, probably people, 20 to 30 million, from what data… I’m just breaking down a recent Accenture survey. If you guys care to look into it, Accenture did a market analysis this year, but I think there’s another 20 or 30 million roughly that have between 100,000 and a million.
Reese Harper:
So there’s maybe 30 to 40 million households that have some liquidity. That means there’s 70 to 80 million households who literally have no liquidity, none. And the foundation of optionality with your life is some liquidity. It’s not owning… We talked about owning real estate for a long time. And real estate is important. And the American dream is having a house and being able to call a place your own. I don’t want to discount that, it means a lot to me too. And having the ability to purchase education or take a job that might require a little bit of a short-term setback to gain a skill. A lot of jobs, you have to take a short-term setback to get ahead two steps. If you’re willing to do a particular high manual labor job, the starting hourly might be higher than if you’re in a white collar entry-level position that can eventually jump you past.
Reese Harper:
And so if we have no attempt to coach people on how to build up a small amount of liquidity, because we’re not even having a conversation, we’re not even able to get the person to the table. It’s sad to me that 80% of the market doesn’t ever have a conversation.
Mac Gardner:
And so, we talk about Finlit Tech, we partnered with eMoney and we’re working with them to develop a lot of financial wellness solutions [crosstalk 00:15:43].
Reese Harper:
Yeah, I saw. That’s awesome.
Mac Gardner:
Which is cool. But eMoney realized, “Look, we work with the 1%. We work with financial advisors that are working with people that have millions of dollars. And if our mantra is to help people talk about money, we need to build tools and resources that addresses the 99% of people out there who are not millionaires, who are looking for advice, who are looking for guidance, who need resources.” And so, I personally believe that the earlier we can start having these conversations and exposing young minds to these concepts, that you have options when you get money in your hand, it’s not just going and buying the candy, the latest game, the shoes.
Mac Gardner:
And coupled with the fact that technology is allowing broader markets of people to now access the equity markets and capital markets through fractional shares and those types of things, it’s a great opportunity to bring this guidance and this knowledge to a market that had been overlooked and underserved. At Finlit tech, we have this formula that we live by, financial literacy or education, plus financial capability or tools that equals financial wellness. That’s how you get there. You can have a-
Reese Harper:
Totally.
Mac Gardner:
… overload of education out there, but if you don’t give people the tools, they don’t have access to the tools to actually enact this stuff, you can’t ever get financial wealth.
Reese Harper:
Yeah. Dude, you and I haven’t had a chance to unpack my own journey ever, but from 2000… Me and you started in the business, probably… I started in ’03, I don’t know when you started.
Mac Gardner:
’99. [crosstalk 00:17:47].
Reese Harper:
99. Yeah. So I built a nice RIA. I felt I was making a big impact mostly with half of your equation, which is the content, the education, the material. And I had created this framework that now we call Elements, that was allowing me to have some of these conversations in a great way. But again, corresponding to a higher income person generally, because they had the means and resources to sit down, pay for my time, pay for me, pay for my physical PDFs and sitting down with spreadsheets and going through this stuff together.
Reese Harper:
Even if you’re charging as little as 150 an hour, you’re barely keeping your doors open in some cases at that hourly rate, with your overhead and your compliance and everything. But that price is you completely out of the market for the 80 million households we were just talking about. There’s no way they can access that kind of person. And so, I started getting to the point where I was like, “Dude, if we don’t have some practical, simple cost-effective solution, to bring the cost of this conversation down, we’re never going to get into the broader market. We’re never going to actually make an impact on the people that don’t have the liquidity.” Because once people have liquidity, they got a ton of options. But when they don’t…. one little piece of advice, man, “How to finance your mortgage, or how to structure your debt to free up enough cash, to be able to build a little liquidity, to then take a little risk that you can then take another step of risk of modest risk.
Reese Harper:
And that risk might be a career risk, might be an income risk, it might be an investment risk. But life is just about a series of trade-offs of… In many cases, wealth is about risk trade-offs that aren’t always investing, some of them are time risk. And, “I’m going to go to school, I’m going to have a student loans. I’m going to pursue a different career. I’m going to reinvent myself in my 40s and go down a different track. But if I don’t have any support around, that choice, then I’m just a slave. Financial support, mental support, coaching support, counseling support around career coaching and all that coaching and stuff I found, was not as helpful if I didn’t have good data, good information, like you said, good tech.
Reese Harper:
And so I love the space we’re at in the world right now, where we can take technology, try to simplify it, try to not make it so heavy of a lift to use for the end client, who’s essentially the place where this begins. And then that allows us to have a sit at the table to make the coaching, the therapy, the consulting, the planning, all the cost-effective, potentially.
Abby Morton:
Something I often struggle with as an advisor is knowing if I’m doing enough. I tend to wonder, “Do my clients think I’m worth what they are paying me, or am I delivering enough value?” Having used the Elements financial planning system for over two years now, this system provides me with the peace of mind we all need as advisors. Your clients can receive professional, easy to comprehend scorecards, focused on key indicators of their financial health. They can actually see how your advice is improving their life. With an occasional update from you, they’ll know you’re right there with them watching their progress. So come check out Elements at, getelements.com/meet.
Reese Harper:
I’m curious on how you see… is that part of it when you say tech and education? Tell me a little bit more about why you ended up at that place, where you have that dynamic in your head.
Mac Gardner:
So case in point, and I was talking to Abby about this before we jumped on the call. When I published The Four Money Bears book, it was one of my clients was on the board of Jack & Jill in Houston. We had young kids, she said, “Hey, Mac, the first book was… would you be open to creating something to share with young kids?” And I said, “Okay, well, let me give it a stab.” And so I read it at my child’s elementary school at the time, shared it with the principal. She looks through the book and we have the worksheets, we have the budget stuff. She said, “Mac, do you know what you have here, a book to help my kids make better money decision?” She said, “The state of Texas just released these teaks, these requirements for financial education, and there’s nothing out there like this for our teachers to help start the conversation about money.”
Mac Gardner:
She said, “This is huge.” I was like, “Okay. I’m glad you think so.” I sent a copy of the book to 30 state school boards. And Reese, do you know how hard it is to get a book approved in a public school, mind numbingly hard.
Reese Harper:
Okay.
Mac Gardner:
And so-
Reese Harper:
Almost as hard as getting software through compliance at a broker dealer?
Mac Gardner:
You know what I mean? So I heard back from a few states and they said, “Okay, this is the process to do it.” But the thing that I noticed that children are using in their schools, they’re using iPads, they’re using technology, they’re using resources. Teachers are utilizing web based digital resources that they can access easily to teach their kids. So then I was like, “Okay, well, that’s great.” So everyone who has bought this book and I told Abby, I’m going to send her two little guys a signed copy. Everybody who has read this book has said, “Mac, this is awesome.” The next thing out of their mouth is, “Is there an app?”
Reese Harper:
Yeah.
Mac Gardner:
And the reason why is because the app is scalable. We are currently working on developing Bear Berry farm. It is a app gamified version of The Four Money Bears. And we can distribute this. The intent is to distribute through schools, direct to consumer and through financial institutions who are looking to promote financial literacy. But it’s so much easier to scale this. We’re going to be able to push this game out to schools and underrepresented overlooked communities. And can you imagine if we start educating children from the age of five as to what they can do and what their options are with money, the impact that’ll have on their lives, their homes lives, their communities lives. I think it could be amazing.
Reese Harper:
If the kid has a piece of tech in his hands and he puts in 300 bucks guitar, $200 skateboard and $50 bank account, he’s going to start figuring out this things.
Mac Gardner:
So it’s funny, I wish my kids were here. Sometimes I wish I could bring my kids with me on some of these interviews and some of these podcasts. But if I asked them, “Yes, Papa, yes. Good habits become good behaviors, become good traits. Yes papa, yes papa.” And you what Reese that, it applies to damn near everything in life, especially when it comes to your finances. Good financial habits become good financial behaviors, will eventually become good financial traits. And so for us at Finlit Tech, our thought process is, “Hey, The Four Money Bears platform and this app that we’re developing is the on-ramp to financial education for a child.”
Mac Gardner:
And once you’re on this path of, “Okay, I can just play this little game. And this game is going to teach me what owning a business is like, what entrepreneurialship is, what I can do with my money, what my options are, in a very fun, simple game of five fashion,” then we can transition to other FinTechs. Because here’s a funny thing, and You talked about it earlier. When was the last time you went to a bank branch?
Reese Harper:
I think it was pre COVID for sure. [crosstalk 00:25:56].
Mac Gardner:
But even when you could, everyone does their banking on an app, everything’s done on their phone. Investing, done on a phone, lending, everything… There’s so much tech being developed out there, for you to do stuff with your money. What technology is out there, that’s teaching you what to do with your money? And there’s very little. And that’s the space that we think there’s this huge opportunity. And if we can start the process and start the journey, as I like to say, as early as age five, with someone who’s in elementary school, we can do some really cool things.
Reese Harper:
Yeah. I think awesome, man. And I’m curious on, if we go down this different path here, I know part of your focus at Finlit Tech is primarily right now, at least you’re currently hyper-focused on this literacy in young kids and bringing up the next generation. And I think that’s awesome. And just grateful that you are pursuing a cause that you can believe in. If we move up market slightly and say, “Okay, there’s a point where the pain naturally begins for money.” The pain of, “I have a paycheck, now what?” That usually starts post-college, it’s in someone’s 20s. If you don’t go to college, it’s late teens. Sometimes it starts when you’re 16, 17, 18, if you’ve got a job. But I’m getting into my 18s, my 20s, my early 20s, at that point I have real critical life decisions that I’m going to start screwing up pretty quick if I don’t get some coaching and some guidance.
Reese Harper:
But the financial planning community, we’ll call it the wealth management community, they begin at an arbitrary AUM level. That’s like, “Half a mill, then it’s time.” So you have, I don’t know how many tens of millions of people, that are in that space between age 18 and age 30 and change or age 40, or maybe never, when they just never had a shot. Never had a shot. And so I guess what I’m interested in is, do you think the financial coaching community plays a role in that space or does the wealth management community bear some responsibility for that market too? Who’s going to help that community because the coaching community is small, 10, 15,000, 20,000 coaches, and you got 350,000 wealth managers/salespeople/brokers. We’re talking 95% of the people are working with the people with lots of money. And how’s this going to evolve? I just a want a guess. I know you can [crosstalk 00:29:15].
Mac Gardner:
So again, this is where I think technology is going to help a lot of people. And it gives me an opportunity to talk about the partnership that I have with eMoney. When I first engaged with eMoney, they were working on a sort of gamify platform for high school, college students. And it was pretty cool, it was pretty neat. And they want to pick my brain because I’m starting the conversation as early as five years old. What evolved from all of these machinations and sitting down was a financial wellness app called Incentive. And the target market for this app, this platform is that college student, is that young person who doesn’t have the bad muscle memory when it comes to managing money or no muscle memory when it comes to managing money. And it’s almost financial planning lite, understanding what the 50, 30, 20 budget looks like.
Mac Gardner:
Where in 50% of your income should go towards your needs, 30% towards your wants and 20% should be towards saving. Basic stuff like what type of insurance is out there and the multiple of your income, just some of these rules of thumb that folks like to use. And so that’s being developed now. As it stands, folks who maybe listen to this may Google Incentive and look it up. But right now, the app is being distributed through retirement advisors almost as an employee benefit. So that’s how it’s being distributed now. “Look, if you have your 401k, let’s look at this as a plugin and you can consolidate all your stuff and look at all this and get this app.”
Mac Gardner:
So I think the answer to your question is technology is going to have a huge impact in the ability to scale and leverage and impact that large swath of people who need to get… The double edge sword with technology, though Reese, and you know this, is there a bunch of coaches out there and a bunch of financial people, male and female that are spewing and sharing a lot of different things on the platform that they now have available to them, that may not be the most reputable guidance because they really haven’t been vetted.
Reese Harper:
Or trained properly.
Mac Gardner:
Or trained properly. You’re like, “Who are you?” Last I checked, they’re 85,000, maybe 87,000 CFPs in the country now. And they’re how many millions of people that need this help. So the answer is technology.
Reese Harper:
And the path unfortunately, it’s a messy one between now and… That’s the way I look at it. You got the 350,000, let’s say securities licensed, or some kind of… I’m throwing out that stat, it’s wildly loose too. But CFPs make up let’s say 100,000 max, and you’ve got this 350,000 quote, planners advisors. That competency level, even in the CFPs is quite vast. And just because we’re a new industry, we’re a young industry that… planning and advice and literacy, that’s not even been a thing till probably the ’80s. And so, we’re just not that old as a [crosstalk 00:33:00].
Mac Gardner:
But I will say just to follow up another point that you made, I believe that folks that are in this industry, who just through the nature of being and seeing this stuff more than the average person, I believe we do have an obligation to serve as educators to people who need it. A huge advocate of [crosstalk 00:33:25].
Reese Harper:
Totally agree.
Mac Gardner:
… financial planning. So I do think there’s [crosstalk 00:33:29].
Reese Harper:
Dude, I’m big into, let’s take 10 to 15% of our time and let’s be generous. But I also know that doesn’t move the needle for profit incentive does. And so, what I’m hoping, I’m just hoping, is that we can find some business model innovation that helps make this an attractive venture. And my thought here, this is where Elements is finding a lot of headway is I think there’s… I not sure. There are these quality people, these really quality trained professionals like Mac, but as soon as you pair Mac one-on-one with Lucy, who’s making $42,000 and need some advice, it starts getting real expensive. But if you can pair Mack with 30 Lucy’s in a group training session and we’re sharing similar technology, I think now we’re starting to see, “Whoa, Mac could make better money doing that than he could doing it one-on-one with Tom, who’s got four million.”
Reese Harper:
The economics of that can start to be compelling. I think we’ve got to stop thinking about that un-accessed market as a one-to-one because it doesn’t scale down, it just doesn’t work. People are paying $2,000 an hour for access to Mac when they have lots of money and they have the time for that. And they want just Mac to just think about them in that one moment for this one set of projects. And people have what… I don’t know if we could justify more than 1% of income going towards advice anyway, half a percent, 2% of income is starting to get pretty steep because people need this 2% of income to build their liquidity. So I don’t know, I’m hopeful that the wealth management community can start going, “Look, we don’t have to always be one-to-one. We could find a way to use AUM fees, use subscription, use-”
Mac Gardner:
Even in our industry, Reese, we do a many to one when it comes to support for advisory [crosstalk 00:35:45] based upon the amount of revenue that they generate, this is the type of… Here’s a cool thing I love about technology and this innovation age that we’re living in. You’ve probably run across these statistics like, how long it took before the first TV was invented? And then 60% of the country had that technology, and it was 30 years. And then you move to, how many people were on Facebook and then a million. In the age that we’re in right now, we can almost go from, “Hey Reese, remember what we talked about creating some platform that allows an advisor to multi-screen and share their message to one to 1000 people.” And a year from now, [crosstalk 00:36:35].
Reese Harper:
There’s four options.
Mac Gardner:
It will be created, which is just fantastic. And part of what we’re trying to do at Finlit Tech is to serve as a connect. I call it the four Cs of what we do. Connect people, so there’s connections, commercialization. Finlit Tech is Financial Literacy Technology. We have folks that are in this space that are trying to grow things and want to grow their ventures, we’re looking for consultation. “Hey, Mac you know someone who’s there, but we want to get there and open to sit in insurance and consulting.” And then, the fourth one is capitalization. Fortunately we’re in a business where people have money and are looking to invest. So that is what we’re looking for Finlit Tech to evolve into. Again, building a bridge between financial literacy and financial technology and serving at that place. So, and we’re getting there and we have some cool little projects that we’re working on too.
Reese Harper:
Dude, I love what you’re working on. Thanks for riffing on so many topics that are important to me. And also, this is your home as much as anyone’s. And I feel I’ve appreciated meeting a new friend today and having a chance to feel your energy, your positivity. I just really appreciate your open view on what the possibilities are for people. This is a both end world where humans and technology can accomplish a lot together. And it’s not a scary time, it’s a really great time. So thanks so much, man. I’m going to let you leave everyone with the last word and then we’ll wrap up.
Mac Gardner:
Well, thanks again for having me Reese and for meeting a new friend, I truly, truly enjoy and appreciate these opportunities to share ideas and share stories. And like I said, all we are at the end of our days is a collection of stories. And so if we can create new solutions and create different ways to hear and share stories… I talk about the three Rs of storytelling. So a story has to be relatable, it has to make sense to us. And then if it’s relatable and it’s concise enough, it becomes retainable, easy to retain. And then if something is relatable and retainable, something magical happens, it becomes repeatable. And all of a sudden, so many people are sharing your story. And so that’s what we’re trying to do with The Four Money Bears book, is to create a story that’s relatable, that’s retainable and that is repeatable. And impact children for years to come, not just here in the United States, but across the world. So it’s been an awesome journey. And like I to say the journey continues.
Reese Harper:
Thanks, Mac. I look forward to doing this again, man. Thanks so much for all you’re doing and look forward to having another conversation soon.
Mac Gardner:
Let me know when you need me brother. Thanks again.
Abby Morton:
Next time on Elementality.
Reese Harper:
I don’t know exactly how many people need to rapidly get into this subscription future, and it is hard to get there. And it’s possible that the whole financial planning market in 10 years, this finally crushes AUM fees. If there is 50 different active management platforms for 75 basis points and 50 basis points and 25 basis points, and their technology is better, their user interface is better, and they work with advisors and advisors can use them, at some point, the cost of managing money is just going to be compressed. And then you’re going to have to say, how are people going to want to access the thing they still want, which is this human touch, this personalization?
Abby Morton:
You can learn more about the Elements financial planning system at getelements.com/meet, and schedule a time to speak with one of our friendly financial planning experts. Elementality’s executive creators are Reese Harper and Chad Jardine. Elementality is produced by Abby Morton and directed by Jordan Haynes. Have a good one.