PopEnomics: Retirement, Rockstars & The Stories That Shape Our Future

Hey, one more thing before we go.

Is this the real life or is this just retirement planning?

For millions of Americans in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, the emotional rollercoaster of what comes next feels a lot like Queens most iconic anthem.

And we're going to get into that.

It's dramatic, it's uncertain, and it's full of unexpected turns.

Today we're talking to someone who believes the soundtrack of your life might just hold the answers.

I'm your host, Michael Hurst.

Welcome to one more thing before you go.

Today's guest has spent more than 36 years helping people move life forward with clarity, confidence and smart financial storytelling.

Jesse Hirsch is the CEO of Impel Wealth Management, a best in state wealth advisor, and the author of the upcoming book Poppynomics.

A great title, by the way.

A guy that blends retirement planning with the pop culture movements we all grew up with.

He's written nearly 700 financial lessons since 2010, using movies, music and TV to make complex financial ideas finally click.

And today he's here to help us understand why your retirement might be hiding behind the Beatles lyric or a Friends episode or even a classic rock anthem.

Welcome to the show, Jesse.

Thank you so much.

I'm happy to be here.

Well, now I'm.

We have something in common.

We both have the same last name.

It's just spelled a little tiny bit different.

Little different.

So, and, and yours, yours, yours doesn't have the H E. Like that's a.

You probably got that a lot when you were younger with the Patty Hurst thing, right?

People always asking you.

Yep, yep.

Either the A or the EU or you automatically do it.

They write it that way and you go, no, no, no, that's not the way it's spelled.

Yeah, I gotta do it this way.

But hey, it's all good.

I still think we're brother in arms, kind of sort of.

I always like to start at the beginning of everything.

You've got an amazing journey of what you bring about.

I'm really fascinated with the fact that you kind of tie pop culture into us learning about financial aspects because everybody, we're all, I'm an old guy.

I can admit that we're all kind of iffy as to how we plan and how we do things, but it's one of those things.

I'm excited about this, but I like to start at the beginning.

Where'd you grow up?

Yes, sir.

Any brothers, sisters?

Yeah, I grew up in a little town called Stowe, Ohio.

It's suburb, just north, a couple towns north of it of Downtown Akron.

So I'm up in northeast Ohio between probably about 20 minutes north of Akron, about 30 minutes south of Cleveland.

Cleveland.

So I have a, I'm the oldest of three, I have a younger brother and a younger sister and you know, kind of grew up in a very lower middle class, just bordering probably just above the poverty line.

Family.

My dad was a navy trained electrician and my mom was a stay at home mom until I was 10 years old or so when she went, went back to teaching.

So as a little kid, right, we had one car, we had a family of five living in a two bedroom house that I shared a nine by nine bedroom with my brother and sister.

And you know, if we needed the car for the day, we'd have to get up at 6:30 in the morning and drive my dad to the factory that he worked at.

And as you cross the bridge into Akron, you could smell the rubber factories from Goodyear and Firestone and B.F. goodrich and so forth.

So you know, it's, it's way different in Akron today, but that's kind of the world I grew up in.

We have similar stories in regard to that.

My grew up with my parents, got an early divorce and I grew up with a single mother.

And of course in the 70s it was hard for any single parent, but mothers in particular because you couldn't get a checking account till 1974.

Yeah, so I, some of that I can relate to.

We had one car, same thing.

Had to learn how to do all that stuff.

So never taught, never taught how to do fine.

I had to learn myself how to do financing.

I had to, you know, high school kind of, kind of taught you how to do a checkbook but you know, nothing really past that.

Had you always wanted to get into finance?

Yeah, I mean I was always interested in money, banking, finance.

I mean I remember even as a little kid, you know, you remember the old piggy banks and stuff and you roll coins and you take them down to the bank and they, they'd stamp it in your past book, savings account and so forth.

And, and from, from the time I was very young, I was basically told if you wanted any money for anything extra that you wanted to do or buy, right, you had to go earn it.

So that meant I was shoveling snow, I was raking leaves, I was mowing lawns, you know, and then as I got older, it was umpiring baseball.

Oh, When I was 11 years old, I told my dad I wanted a, a 10 speed bike.

And my dad was like, you want a 10 speed bike.

Go, go get a job and earn some money.

And so I became a paperboy for the Akron Beacon Journal and which was an after school newspaper at the time.

But the interesting thing is, is that you bought your papers from the Akron Beacon Journal.

You paid the newspaper, you went door to door and delivered and then you had to collect from your clients.

And if, if you were good at collecting.

Right.

The difference between what you collected and what you paid the Beacon Journal was your profit.

So at 11, 12 years old, you know, I learned that if I was good at collecting, if I provided good service and I got extra tips that, hey, I made more money and more profit from my business.

So it was a great thing to help you kind of learn the basics of running a business and finance and, and profit and all that.

And it's one of those things that I don't think most kids today have those kind of opportunities.

Yeah, I agree with you.

In fact, I was a paper boy too when I was a kid, so I grew up that way as well.

And it's.

I don't think, I don't even know if you still have that puny that delivers papers like that anymore.

Yeah, I know here in the area, you know, there's.

It's all done electro.

All the collecting and subscription stuff's all done electronically.

Somebody just delivers the papers, you know, in the Beacon Journal.

What's left of it anymore is at 6:30 in the morning paper.

And so kids don't do that anymore.

Somebody in a car drives by and throws them out.

Sounds a lot easier.

And pedaling a bike, I was going to say.

So growing up in Northeast Ohio, I was born in 1965, so I just turned 60 last October.

So during the Blizzard of 77, I remember all the schools were closed, all this and so forth, but I still had to go out and deliver newspapers.

12 years old.

There was no that.

They didn't close the newspaper because.

Because it was cold out.

Right.

So the good old days.

Right.

So it's.

Yeah, that's interesting.

Well, I, you know, I'm really interested in learning how to retire like a rock star.

Obviously.

I think we talked earlier.

I am of an age where even from my perspective, I know that, you know, in doing some little bit of research, you, you talk about how no matter what age you're at, yet you could start doing something to help your retirement.

You know, I'm 66 years old, on the downhill slope to 67, things like that that you present.

How did you come about wanting to.

Create that environment for People, the environment of helping them.

Like, I kind of picture myself as somebody who helps people accumulate the financial resources, income resources and asset resources, help them paint a picture of what they want in retirement life and then use those resources to make a successful transition from work life to retirement life, which is difficult for a lot of people.

It's difficult financially, it's difficult psychologically and emotionally for a lot of people because a lot of people kind of develop a lot of their own.

Develop a lot of their own self worth and a lot of their own identity from who they are in their work lives.

Yeah, I can relate to that.

I.

It took me, when I, I was putting, as we spoke earlier in my audience, my community understands and knows that I was forced to retire.

There was something that just was presented to me in such a way that I had no choice.

And even from that perspective, it took me a really, really long time to kind of.

I wasn't just a cop.

That's who I.

That's who I was.

It was my identity.

That's who I.

It was very difficult to come out and to learn to kind of evolve from that and to redefine my purpose and being stuck with.

I've seen both men and women struggle with that.

But I think it's worse for guys in general.

I hate to stereotype, but like a lot of guys really derive their self worth from, from their career.

And when that career disappears, you know, it's sometimes hard to.

You know.

I had a client who, who retired and, and in his first few weeks at home, he was president of a company and he, his wife reminded him, you're not CEO of this house.

Right.

Like, like hello.

Yeah, right.

You might be used Patel, giving everybody else direction and bossing them around and what.

That doesn't work here.

Remember, I can smother you in your sleep.

Right.

Right next to you.

It's all good.

You wrote a book, which I think I love.

You open it with Bohemia Rhapsody.

That's.

We talked about Queen and your opening.

What a brilliant opportunity to kind of.

I'm excited to learn how you piece together pop culture and music and things like that to see how we can understand how retirement feels.

Just like that.

Like uncertain and dramatic and full of mood shifts and stuff like that.

Can, can we talk about how, how, how you did that?

How'd you come about that?

Well, it was, it's interesting.

So I started writing blog posts back around 2010.

Right.

And, and at the time I was, I was a partner in a firm we had started in 1997.

And when we started that firm in 1997, my two business partners were 46 and 48.

I was 31.

I was the young kid in the firm at the time, right?

But when we got to 2010 and we started putting out a weekly post, you know, the three of us just kind of took turns writing.

So I was writing, you know, one or two a month.

And then by the time we got to 2016, 2017, my partners were 68, 69, retiring, and.

And I was kind of left on my own.

So I started Impal Wealth Management.

As a matter of fact, February 10th, it'll be nine years that we started in Power Wealth Management.

That was me, my three team members that helped me with servicing my 180 clients.

And at the time, it was about $160 million of investment assets that we oversaw.

So since I was the only partner at that point, I was now writing every week.

And then what happened was when we got to Covid In March of 2020, you remember the whole two weeks to bend the curve, right?

And next thing you know, you can't be face to face with anybody.

You can't do face to face meetings, and, you know, communication was somewhat limited.

I kind of doubled down on it at that point and started writing two blog posts a week just to make sure I was communicating with my clients regularly.

So.

In between 2010 and 2020, every once in a while I might find a topic that tied to a song or a movie or a Broadway show or something that I thought might be a little humorous.

And.

And so I did that once in a while.

But then in the real two turning points in March of 2020, in March of 2020, you know, at the very end of the month, after the economy had shut down, government had shut down most employment and so forth.

They pad.

The government passed the CARES act, and that was the stimulus checks and the enhanced unemployment benefits and the PPP checks and so forth.

And at the same time, the Federal Reserve bank cut interest rates to zero and kind of opened up the floodgates of liquidity.

So we had this massive amount of fiscal stimulus from the government and monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve Bank.

And Jay Powell, who was the Federal Reserve bank chairman, and Steve Mnuchin, who was the treasury secretary at the time, came out and did a joint press conference.

And they said, this is an unconventional recession.

It's an unconventional economic shutdown, and we're going to need unconventional weapons to fight it.

And literally when they said that, the first thing that popped into my mind was the scene In Animal House, where after they've all gotten kicked out of college, where Otter says, you know, we could fight them with unconventional weapons, but that could take years and cost millions of lives.

And so I wrote a blog post comparing the actions of the federal government and the Federal Reserve bank to the frat brothers in Animal House.

And people loved it.

They thought it was funny.

My wife thought I was out of my mind.

Rachelle edits everything I write, right?

And she was like, you can't do that.

You can't compare them to the frat brothers.

And I just sounded funny in my head.

So I thought, okay, let's try this.

And we got great feedback on it.

And then what happened was a few months later, in.

In later that summer, July, August, there was a report that came out that showed that the U.S. economy at the end of 2019 was at $21.7 trillion.

Right.

By June of 2020, six months later, the economy had shrunk from 21.7 to $19.5 trillion.

And I was thinking about it, and I went, you know, it's like the COVID shutdowns dug a $2.2 trillion hole in the US economy.

And the first thing that popped into my head was the Friends episode where Joey and Monica and Chandler go walking on the beach, and Joey digs a big hole and the waves come rushing in, Monica gets stung by a jellyfish.

And I was sitting there going, well, Covid dug a $2.2 trillion hole, just like Joey.

And just like the ocean came rushing in, the federal government and the Federal reserve bank stuffed $6 trillion of stimulus into a $2 trillion hole.

What could possibly go wrong?

And so I wrote.

I don't know if you remember this, but all the Friends episodes are called the One where.

Right.

So I wrote a blog post that was titled the One where Joey and the Economy Dug a Hole.

And people loved it.

And it was like.

So then I started going, okay, if I can tie a financial investment retirement planning topic to some sort of pop culture theme, it makes it fun.

It makes it interesting.

More people open it, more people read it, and more people remember it.

And.

And so it became much more intentional after that.

I would say it's absolutely brilliant doing it that way, because we all.

I mean, especially Friends, iconic.

Our daughter, our youngest daughter has every one of those episodes.

She can repeat the word lines word for word for word for word.

Oh, yeah.

Something that sticks in her head.

Yeah.

We bought the house.

We had the first house we moved into here in the Phoenix area.

It was like, we're trying to figure out, we got to fix this.

We got to fix this.

We got to fix this.

We got this.

First thing that came to my mind was the Money Pit with Tom Hanks.

I actually have a blog post about housing that's themed to the Money Pit movie with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long.

Right?

Yep, yep.

And.

And so absolutely makes sense, because pop culture, pop culture sticks with us.

Pop movies stick with us.

Film sticks with us.

How come we all always down, down the road, anything we talk about, you get somebody to say, what'd you say?

You think of Robert De Niro.

You're talking to me.

Are you.

You know, you talking to me.

Here?

Just at the end of December, you.

I don't know if you saw any articles about this, but the US treasury, the US Mint stopped printing pennies.

Yeah.

Stop minting pennies, because it cost, like, 3.4 cents to.

For everyone.

So I wrote a blog post titled Memories of Penny Lane, and I used the Beatles song and asked people to share their memories about pennies and collecting and so forth.

People sent stories and stuff, but.

And the fun part for me was when my oldest son, who was a touring Broadway actor, was a senior in high school.

He was a trumpet player in the marching band, and they did a Beatles halftime show, and.

And he got to play the trumpet solo for Penny Lane.

Right.

So, like, every time I hear that, that's what I think about.

Oh, very cool.

You know, it's just kind of connection points for people.

Very, very cool.

Was a brilliant idea.

So how can.

I mean, we just kind of touched on it a little bit.

But how can pop culture like the stories we grew up with, those.

Those films, those.

Those comments, how does that help us make smarter, more confident decisions about our financial future?

How do you tie that into it?

Yeah, So I think it's not so much.

I think that the pop culture reference points have the lessons embedded in them, but I think the pop culture reference points can tie to the lesson and make it memorable for people.

So I wrote a blog post last year.

So last year was probably the first time in 10, 12, 14 years where international stocks had significantly outperformed U.S. stocks.

And so I wrote a blog post, and I use the Led Zeppelin song Rock and Roll.

Right.

It's been a long time.

Been a long, lonely, lonely time since international stocks had outperformed.

And the funny thing is, the next week, a retired teacher who's a client of mine who's 73 years old, came into my office, and she looked at me and she goes, you know, I sang Led Zeppelin songs around my house all day last week because of your blog post.

And I went, perfect, right?

Because that, maybe that meant that a 73 year old lady, instead of reading some dry, boring charts and numbers based economic topic, she read it because it was fun and it was memorable.

And a week later she still remembered the lesson because she had walked around the house selling, you know, singing Led Zeppelin songs all day.

So, you know, and I wrote the book.

If you've got the, you've got the COVID up there on the, on the screen, right?

I wrote the book.

And there's puzzle pieces on the front of the book, the book, the 12 chapters of the book are written as the 12 puzzle pieces that each person has to put together and solve for to create their own unique retirement vision.

And really what I start with is kind of a, it's, it's, it's more of an everyday analogy.

It's kind of like how do you start?

Where do you start?

And I, I remind people of this all the time, right?

Like if you, if you are in a big airport, Phoenix or Denver or Dallas or Atlanta or Chicago, right, and you have to make a connecting flight, you get off your plane, you get on the concourse, what's the first thing you do?

You look for the concourse map.

And once you find the concourse map, you look for the little dot that says you are here.

Because if you're trying to get to gate B37 and you don't know where you are, you don't know how to get there.

And so the first thing we do is try to help people inventory where they are, get a good sense of where they are, what their income resources and asset resources are, so that we can then start creating some visioning exercises for where it is they want to go.

And then we can start helping them take little steps to get there, get some small wins under their belt and start building momentum for the future.

Well, I like the fact that I think I read somewhere you said people don't remember charts, they remember stories.

Yeah.

And pop culture, I like this.

Pop culture is the universal language of memory.

We all remember things that would relate to something else.

We just talked about it a few minutes ago.

Something in a movie, something in a song, something in a film that we can relate to, we can understand a little bit better.

And I think understanding a financial aspect of our lives, understanding how that plays a part, I think that, that it's about identity and emotion, isn't it?

More than, more so than a kind of a Spreadsheet.

Oh, oh, yeah, yeah.

And, and one of the things that I think is really interesting in life, watching this.

So I, I just turned 60.

As I said, I started doing this right out of college.

I've done this.

Last August was 38 years.

So.

So you watch this with people over time and a lot of times people give kind of word credence to the idea that.

Give credence the idea that they make fact based intellectual decisions, but that's really not the way.

Actually studies of the human brain show that people make emotional decisions then justify them with logic, not the other way around.

So there's a lot of emotional values based, family based things that tie into, you know, creating that retirement vision.

And then people need, they, they need some level of the charts, graphs, numbers and basic skills to, to fulfill that.

But that's not where we start.

Well, you know, it, it's interesting because, I mean, I think we all get a little distracted from charts because especially if we don't understand them.

You know, you could put a chart up in front of me and you can say, this does this, this does this, this does this, or here are some numbers for you to look at.

We all know that people are visual, people are audible.

Sometimes people can do both.

Your approach to this process, I think is a brilliant way for people to kind of have a better understanding of where they stand and not be so apprehensive.

Congratulations on a happy belated birthday.

I don't know how soon it was.

It was, but 60 is a milestone, man.

It.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Well, it's funny because people ask me, they were like, hey, you're turning 60 years old.

You starting to think about retiring yourself.

And I happen to be extraordinarily blessed in that.

First of all, I love what I do.

I love my clients.

I've been doing this long enough that I have dozens and dozens of clients that have worked with me, you know, 15, 20, 25, 30 years or longer.

And, and you know, on our value statement for our company, you know, one of our core values is clients are family.

Right.

And it's like, hey, I get to do something that I love now.

I, I said, I don't sit still.

Well, I, I would be horrible being retired.

My wife would probably be scared to death if I was retired.

I said, she'd probably love it if I work 55 hours a week instead of 75 hours a week.

But, but yeah, we'll take it in small steps.

I think one of the videos you have on your site, it has a, a woman who talks about the.

The whole company being family, and not just company, but the clients as well.

The.

That you guys, the perspective is that everybody.

It's here that works with us or for us is family, which I think is a brilliant.

And one of the things that.

That I talk about with my team a lot.

Right.

Cause there's three certified financial planners and.

And five teams.

Team members that help support us, is that I talk about the difference between internal and external clients.

Right.

My team is my internal clients.

And I always remind them that I better be treating them at least as well as I treat my external clients.

All the client families we serve.

If I want to walk the talk and model what I want them to do, to serve our clients with excellence.

Yeah, that's a good way of doing that.

I.

When I was a cop, I kind of did that.

I parked the car and I would get out of my car, walk.

I'd walk downtown, I'd walk into the shop, the stores, walk the neighborhood and get to know people because I felt that, you know, we're all human beings.

We're all people.

You know, we all have a job to do, but we're still people.

And when you talk to us as like people, when you talk to someone like a person and not just like a client, I think it means more deep down inside than it does if he just spoke to them as a client.

Yeah, well, and it's interesting.

Like, I call every client on their birthday.

You know, I talked with.

I talked with three clients on Sunday who happened to have birthdays.

One was 89, one was 65, and one was 53.

But I called and talked to all three of them and had some really fascinating conversations because it wasn't.

I wasn't calling them about what the Federal Reserve bank was doing or what the outlook for inflation is or whatever.

It was just like, hey, what are you doing today?

What's going on with your kids and family?

What exciting things do you have planned and so forth?

And, you know, it's, It's.

It's those connection points that I think make you different than the average, you know, financial advisor who wants to know how much is in your 401k plan and when can you roll it over to me?

Well, it's personal.

It's personal.

I think that brings a personal touch to it for the people that are in their midlife.

You know, I told you I was.

I was forced to take an early retirement.

And it was a complete shock to us because at the time that I was a cop, it was Nothing's going to happen to me.

And we didn't take the extra disability insurance and things like that.

You never know.

Life can change in an instant type thing.

For those of us that.

That are in their midlife, I know that it can feel overwhelming.

From that perspective, how can you help?

How do you think?

We may have kind of covered it, but how does pop culture help us understand from that perspective?

Do you think it's easier from somebody in midlife to really take a pop culture approach or.

I think what's interesting from the book's perspective, in the opening chapter of the book, which is the determining where you are, I use a.

A discussion about the difference between hopes, dreams versus specific goals, right?

Because a lot of people will.

Will say, hey, you know, I'm whatever, 42, 47 years old, and I'd like to retire someday and have a comfortable lifestyle.

And I'm like, well, that's kind of a.

A wish or an aspiration.

It's not really a goal.

It's not specific.

It's not measurable.

It's.

You don't know whether or not you'll exactly achieve it or certify it, whatever.

And so helping them start with defining goals and getting the picture for what retirement looks like to them, much more specific, right?

I want to retire when I'm 64 years old.

I want to have my mortgage paid off, and I want to have $10,000 a month of income so I can do what I want during my retirement years.

That's specific, measurable, achievable.

And.

And I use the analogy again of putting together a puzzle to help start casting that vision.

Because I.

And I'll ask people, I'm like, think back to when you were a kid doing a puzzle or when you were doing puzzle with your kids or grandkids.

What's the first thing you do?

And they say, people are very funny about this, right?

They say, well, you got to turn over all the pieces, right, so you can see the pictures.

Or I got to find all the edge pieces, or I got to find the four corner pieces or whatever it is.

And I'm like, well, I think the first thing you should probably do is look at the box, right?

You should probably figure out what we're solving for, what we're trying to put together.

And that's what we try to help people do through that measuring process.

And the song that I used in framing all of this in the first chapter of the book is the old Curtis Mayfield song, People get ready, right?

People.

People get ready.

There's a train coming and it's your future retirement and we need to define what that looks like so you can get on board, right?

And so, you know, there's, there's lots of things along those lines that we can do to help people kind of figure out where they are and then cast the vision for the future so we can start down the path together.

Well, I mean, I like the fact that the 12 puzzle pieces are a framework for understanding where you're at and where you're going.

I think that makes it a little bit easier for, for us to kind of understand because again, where I think there's a large portion of us as human beings that are afraid, what can I expect?

What do I expect?

How do I know this is going to be right for me?

And if you're forced, not really forced, but if you coming up to retirement, you've been doing it for so long, it's always, I, I don't have this anymore.

How am I going to make sure my bills are paid?

How am I going to make sure my money mortgage is either paid off or if I still have one, how are we going to keep paying that and still be able to eat and go to the movies and go out to dinner or take a trip?

I remind people, I remind people all the time, right?

People spend all this time thinking about and planning for like a European vacation or a two week vacation out west or whatever it is, right?

Well, your retirement, going back to the Aerosmith analogy, right, you, your, your, your retirement becomes your permanent vacation, right?

The, the old Aerosmith album from years ago.

And, and what are we going to do when you don't have that paycheck coming in, right?

What are the income sources that might come from Social Security or a state pension or for those who still are worked long ago enough or lucky enough to have a small pension from a, from a company and then you know, you look at and go, hey, if I, if I want whatever the number is, right, If I want $10,000 a month of income, I'll just use round number to maintain standard of living and do everything I want to do with my kids, grandkids, create shared experiences and memories and so forth, right?

If they retire and their Social Security is $3,500 a month and their spouse's is $1,500 a month, well that gives them $5,000 a month of income sources which then you got to have enough asset resources to make up the other 5,000.

And how do we, how do we solve for that?

Like what's the number you need.

And there was an old insurance company that used to have, I think Fidelity used to do this as well.

I think ing the old insurance company used to have commercials about what's your number?

And, and you know, I always, I always framed it in the terms of, you remember the old Schoolhouse Rock, Vinnie Club stuff?

Right?

I always, I always turned it and framed it in terms of my hero zero.

Like how many zeros do you need in your, in your bank account to be able to have enough resources to do the things you want to do in retirement?

And I think that's one of the other things people ask all the time, like what, how much do I really need?

And it's kind of like you need what you need to do the things you want to do.

Like what your situation, your goals, your activities, how you like to travel, what your kid and family situation is, the charities you want to give to, whatever.

It's all unique to you.

And it's kind of like it's a custom made suit.

Doesn't matter if it fits anybody else, it just has to fit Michael.

Right.

You know, from a personal perspective, a family perspective, you know, I appreciate that approach because I know that there are other financial planners that we have spoken with and their main goal is how much money do you want to raise?

How much money do you want to have?

How much, how much?

It's.

I'm on the board here in this community and we have some individuals that are bankers on the board that whenever we do our budgets and things like that, their bottom line is how much money we're going to make and how fast we're going to do it.

Oh, yeah.

And then they kind of go, then we can turn around and charge or increase the cost to each one of the community members in order to cover that.

Oh, sure, I had to make them pause sometimes.

I think it's not just about how much and how fast, it's also about what works for the community.

And it seems like you help create that puzzle piece that understands that there are round edges and there are square edges and you have to make them fit where they're supposed to fit so that everybody's happy.

And I think it's a really decent approach.

I, I appreciate that.

From that perspective, do you think that there's an emotional shift from accumulation to distribution?

How do we handle that transition that terrifies people?

You mentioned earlier, that's what brought me up.

My salary was cut immediately, less than half when I retired with a disability.

And it was a shock to our System like an immediate shock.

Yeah, well, you said you did.

I heard you say you didn't take the extra disability insurance.

Because I'm invincible.

I'm young, I'm healthy.

Nothing's going to happen to me.

All that stuff, right?

And we all think that.

And just along those lines, even the idea.

And I'm going to come back to your question about the accumulation versus the distribution, because it's a great question, but, you know, my whole career and what we do in helping people is all tied to, to.

It's all tied on helping people cast a vision for the future.

And then what are their goals, what are their resources, what are the assumptions we make and what are the steps we have to take to get you there, whether it's five, 10, 15 years down the road or whatever?

And it's all kind of.

It's all kind of based on the assumption that we're in control of that.

And as you learned very quickly, right.

We're not all always in control of that.

There's other things that can happen.

An accident, you know, a health situation, a job loss.

I just had a client email me this afternoon.

This is a very successful couple who just unexpectedly got downsized, right?

And you know, he and his wife are 53 and 52 years old, and they had plans for an early retirement and all of a sudden things could change really quickly for them because that wasn't part of the assumptions and goals that we had.

So, so, so, you know, I, I think to remember that, that these are, these are assumptions, but we're not always in control of everything in the future is is first thing.

Second thing that you address that I, that I think is really important, if you saw me smile about it, it's because this issue of helping people shift mindsets, when I always say there's two big phases of financial life that people go through, right?

You've got this accumulation phase of life where you're.

No matter what you make, you're spending less than what you make.

You save and invest the rest your assets.

You, you pay down your mortgage, you pay down debt.

You don't make crazy buying decisions based on credit cards.

You don't make crazy investing decisions off, off, you know, tips you got off online, website or, you know, tips from the golf course or whatever.

And the cumulative effect of good habits over long periods of time is you will almost inevitably build wealth.

You don't even have to be a great investor.

You just have to have good habits over long periods of time.

But the problem that a lot of people have is they get from the accumulation phase of life to the distribution phase of life.

They, they retire and they've accumulated these assets and now they have a hard time flipping the switch.

Right?

They go, well, I have these assets because I did these habits for 25, 30, 40 years.

And if I change those habits, I might not have those resources anymore.

So getting people to feel comfortable spending at a certain level what they have and giving them permission to spend is a real challenge for a lot of my clients.

I can relate to that and understand that because I think that we, I mean, I still, I'm guilty of it myself.

Even now we've got our house paid off and I still am terrified to spend the money we have in savings because I know what happened to me before.

So it's taken me a long time, my wife, but we have it, it's okay, we got this, we got that.

I still have that mindset of what happened to me when I had to retire and all of a sudden it was cut off kind of a thing.

So I think that, you know, other people, and obviously I know I'm not the only one.

How do we tune out that kind of noise?

That kind of noise, the headlines, the fear, the, you know, that kind of stuff.

I think a lot of it just comes from getting a handle on.

Like we help people create a retirement income plan and it says, you go back to the example we used before.

You've got, you and your spouse have 5,000amonth of income coming in from Social Security and so forth.

And we want, you know, 5,000amonth from our investment portfolio so we can create this.

Yeah.

Have you ever heard of something called the 4% rule for withdrawals from retirement income assets?

I have not.

It's, it's based on studies that started back in the early 90s.

It's been reaffirmed multiple, multiple times.

And basically what it says is if you, if you have, throw out a, throw out a number, let's just say you had a million dollars in retirement investment savings.

If you took 4% a year from that, which is 40,000 a year to start every year, you could increase that by, inflate by the rate of inflation, call it 3% a year.

And that given a reasonable asset allocation that that money would last without running out over a 30 year retirement life expectancy.

So part of it is just helping people visualize.

You know, the idea behind that is, is that if you earn 7%, 8% on your investments during your retirement years, if you withdraw 4, then the 3 or 4% that you earned that, that you didn't withdraw stays in your account and your account goes up by 3 or 4%.

So next year you can take 3 or 4% of a slightly larger amount without depleting your principal.

So if you can forecast that forward for people and they start seeing it work.

I had a client, I'll give you a real brief story.

It's one of my favorite stories.

I had a couple that are clients of mine and between the husband and wife, and they're both their social securities and he actually had a small pension income from the years he worked for B.F. goodrich.

Both their social securities and pensions ran about 6,500, 6,600amonth.

It was about 80,000 a year that they had of income coming in from pension and Social Security.

Well, they had another two and a half million dollars of investment assets with us.

They were debt free.

They had two kids who were both educated and successful and didn't need mom and dad's money.

And, and so, you know, if you take two and a half million dollars at 4% a year, it's $100,000 plus the 80,000 of pension and Social Security.

So they could be living on $180,000 a year.

And they're not coming close to spending this like, but they're, they're barely spending half that amount.

And, and I talked with them, I forecasted it and I started getting them to spend a little more money.

They saw they didn't deplete their assets and they got more encouraged by it.

And finally last summer they came in and said, we have some big news for you.

And I'm like, what's going on?

And this is a couple that have been clients of mine since 1991, I think, and we've kind of all grown up together.

They're in their late 60s now.

And they said, we're taking a three week trip to Australia and New Zealand.

I said, that's great.

I said, I know you guys have talked about that before.

They said, well, the really big news is we decided to fly first class, which is like 25, $26,000 for, for flying from Ohio to Australia first class.

And I said that's great, great.

I said, what finally gave you the comfort level to do that?

And they said, well, first of all, we could just hear you over and over saying to us, it's okay, you're allowed to spend this.

And this was the key.

The wife finally turned to me and she said, well, we finally came to the realization that if we don't Use our money to fly first class.

Eventually our kids and grandkids will, you know, and that was kind of moment for them, you know.

Oh, so.

Oh, that's funny.

Yeah, that's.

That's it.

That's a really good story.

We kind of have to give ourselves permission to be able to spend it.

Not that we don't want our kids to have it, but yeah, I.

This all the time.

And I use this in the second chapter of the book.

A really good friend of mine who was a really good estate planning attorney who unfortunately I lost.

He was only 63 years old.

He's one of my two close friends that I lost to Covid back in the early part of 2021, before the vaccines came out and stuff.

But.

But he used to say to my clients for years, he'd say, look, in the whole history of mankind, there's only three things we've ever been able to figure out that you can do with money, right?

You can save it, you can spend it, or you can give it away.

And if you don't give it away while you're living, you'll give it away when you're gone because you can't take it with you.

So if you get to the point where between your pensions and social securities on the income side and your assets on the other side, if you've got enough, you don't need to save anymore, which then that means there's only two things left.

That's save it or spend it or give it away.

And so it's like, what are we going to use these resources for that makes life meaningful for you, your kids, grandkids, charities and so forth.

And what do you want to do with the surplus, right?

And sometimes you.

It takes years of talking with people to get them to the point where they feel comfortable with that.

I think that, yeah, it's interesting because it's hard to break the savers mindset.

You know, as a kid growing up, my father was always save, save, say, put the savings account.

I tell my kids that.

I tell my kids the same thing in the bank.

You get extra money put in the bank.

You know, I.

If we very rarely do, we go to a casino, but if we go to a casino, just when we visited Vegas or something, I do that thing where I say I'm gonna spend $25.

It might be a little bit more, but I got $25.

And then when I start winning, I take the winnings and put it in the other pocket.

And I keep playing on what I have left.

When I'm done.

I walk away with something in their pocket that I took winnings from because I still have this saver.

Save, save, save, save, save.

Waste your money.

There's a lot of financial conferences in Las Vegas, so I'm out there usually at least once a year.

And I've been there probably 15, 18 times in my life.

I still have never so much as dropped a quarter in a slot machine.

And it's just.

And it's one of those things where if I spent a few hundred bucks on a really nice meal, I'd be fine.

If I spent a few hundred bucks on a show that I really wanted to see, I'd be fine.

It was.

I lost a couple hundred dollars gambling, I'd be out of my mind.

And part of it is I'm just really competitive, and I hate to lose.

And the other part is I'm just arrogant enough about my math skills that I think I should be able to sit down at a blackjack table and figure it out.

So I just go, that's a bad combination.

I probably shouldn't start.

Yeah.

I relate to you on several factors in that regard.

Because I grew up the way I grew up, and what has happened to me is kind of a.

To.

No disrespect to anyone listening to me, it's a waste of money to gamble because I grew up with this in my head.

That's why I start with 25 bucks and I leave with 25 bucks, or I lose 25 bucks, and that's it.

I would rather do it just like you said.

I would rather have a good meal, have a good show, because then I walk away with something more valuable, like a full stomach, comfortable.

And it's one of the things we talk with clients about all the time, is as you're.

If you have surplus and you have money that you can.

You can use with kids and grandkids, I'll ask clients all the time.

I'm like, do you remember what you got for Christmas when you were 10 years old?

Do you remember what you got for your 12th birthday?

And nobody remembers that stuff, but I'll say, do you remember piling in the family vehicle to take a trip or a vacation or whatever?

And people can tell you stories all day long.

And I remind them, the reason that is, is because the value of stuff goes down over time, while the value of shared memories and experiences always goes up over time.

Absolutely.

One more thing before you go.

We started for that reason.

Life can change in an instant.

Spend the time, say what you want to say, take the time with your family, your friends, because you may never get the opportunity back again with that.

So, yep, from that perspective, I read something about the millionaire next door mindset.

Quiet wealth, intentional choices, long term thinking.

How does that kind of philosophy shape a healthier retirement?

Yeah, well, it's interesting being here in the Midwest, you know, Northeast Ohio, rust belt.

You know, you had all the steel factories up in Cleveland.

You had all the rubber factories down here in Akron and stuff.

You know, that millionaire next door mindset.

I don't know if you've ever read the book.

It's Thomas Stanley book From, it's either 1997 or 98, but he kind of posits that there's two types of people, right?

There's people who live very affluent lifestyles, right?

You might have a dual income family, they make 200, $300,000 a year, but they got a giant house with a giant mortgage and maybe a second mortgage.

They've got two really expensive cars, they take really fancy trips, they send their kids to private school, and they live this kind of like rock star, affluent lifestyle.

But they don't ever accumulate wealth because there's, there's, you know, they're making 250,000 a year and they're spending 280,000 a year and they never, never get there, right?

The, the, the wealthy people are the people that no matter what they make, they spend less than what they make.

They save and invest the difference.

They put money in their 401ks, their IRAs, they have reasonable diversification, they stay disciplined with it.

They don't make crazy emotional buying and investing decisions.

And that accumulates wealth almost inevitably.

And I've had clients say to me, clients have been with me 15, 18, 20 years.

They get to that retirement crossover point, that transition, and they'll look at me and they'll go, I never thought this day would come.

Thank you so much for helping us get here.

And I remind them that where we are today is probably at least 2/3 your habits and maybe it's a third.

We gave you really good advice.

We helped you make good decisions, we helped you with good tax planning or the right investment asset allocation.

But it's kind of like, it's kind of like, you know, if you're a doctor, you can give a patient the best advice on, you know, health and wellness and so forth.

But if they eat a pizza and drink a six pack of beer and smoke two packs a day and never exercise, you can't out doctor those bad habits.

It's the same thing on the financial side.

So I think that Millionaire next door mindset really sets people up for success because it.

The habits themselves, even regardless of.

Of the advice from somebody like.

Like our teen.

Right.

Really sets them up to.

To build wealth over time.

I agree.

I think you and trying to keep up with the Joneses or keep up with the Smiths, I think it's detrimental to us in the long run.

Well, social media has been brutal with that.

Right.

Because I don't know.

I know you said you have two daughters.

How old are they?

33 and 35.

Okay.

Okay.

So I have.

I, Rochelle and I have three children.

My sons will be 30, 35, and 33 in April, and our daughter will be 31 in July.

And if you ask one of them to take a picture, they grab their iPhone and they take 12 pictures.

Right.

And then they look for the best two, and then they edit it to make sure you look good.

Right.

I think when we were kids, we had Instamatic cameras or Polaroid.

You took one picture, and if you look stupid, that's just the way it was.

You didn't have.

Right.

But people take these pictures and they, they, they.

They create this vision of this great life and these great experiences.

And then what happens is people get on social media and they're like, well, why isn't my life that good?

Right?

And they want.

They want what?

Other people.

And it's not reality.

No, no, no.

Yeah, it really isn't.

And again, it's detrimental trying to keep up with the Joneses because it just creates this unrealistic vision of what you should or should not be doing when reality.

I could tell you from personal experience, reality is we need to appreciate what we have right now and the people we have in and around us right now, and that we can make our own memories without having to go broke and doing it.

So I appreciate that.

I know that you offer a lot of help for someone that's trying to kind of figure out where they're at and what they're doing in life.

We can do this at any age.

40, 50, 60, kind of as a situation.

Tell us how they can get a hold of you, how they can benefit from coming to your website and reading this wonderful, fantastic Poponomics.

Yeah, so.

So the book's available on Amazon.

Poponomics.

It's available through other book vendors, but Amazon's where most people would find it.

Impel Wealth Management is my firm, so it's just impelwealth.com.

you see it down there under My picture on the screen.

And really as much as I always say, you know, no matter where you are, you can take steps to move forward, get better and improve your situation, there is some truth to the fact that the younger you start that process, the better off you are just because of the time value and compounding of money over time, right?

So if you're 35 or 40, you have 20, 25, 30 years of work until you retire.

If you start when you're 55, maybe you have seven to 10 years.

So there is some benefit to starting earlier.

One of the problems that we've seen is that, you know, there's young people out there, young, young couples, young families, you know, 30, 35, 40 years old, who have real financial issues, right?

How do I, how do I buy my first house?

How do I save for my kids college education?

How do I take advantage of the company benefit plans, my 401k and company benefits that are included?

You know, just do I need life insurance?

What kind of estate documents?

Do I need a will?

Do I need whatever.

And a lot of people won't talk with them because they don't have large incomes and large assets yet.

And so we actually created a second, we actually created a next gen offering for our, for our clients, kids and grandkids.

It's really geared for people 25 to 40 years old.

And it's called Simplify Finance where we help young families on a subscription basis, just like they pay for their Netflix and their gym membership and all that stuff and they pay a monthly subscription fee and we help them get started because those are the people that if they start young and build good habits, they're over time going to accumulate wealth and then they're going to need us a lot more as that, as that grows.

So that's something that's available for our younger people as well.

You know, a lot of people think, well, I can't talk to somebody until I have 250 or $500,000.

Well, that might be true if you're going to one of the big wirehouses or one of the big banks, but we actually have a service that we've created to help people with that.

Now, do you do this not just in the Ohio area, but you do it outside of there as well, correct?

Oh yeah.

We have clients all over the country.

I think I have clients in 32 different states and so forth.

Yesterday we did our 2026 investment and market Economy Lookout podcast, not podcast webinar that we did for our clients and centers of Influence and We had people tuned in from all over the country.

You know, Zoom's great.

You know, it's.

It's really.

It's so much easier to start a relationship and build a relationship with somebody when you can kind of see them face to face on Zoom and at least connect with them versus just a phone call.

So.

So, yeah, we.

We have clients.

I have clients in states, and I've never met them face to face, but I've been working with them for years because they're inevitably a friend or a cousin or a brother of somebody who was a client of mine who moved to that area.

Well, I mean, the age of the digital age.

The digital age has its benefits.

Yep.

We're talking to each other right here, sitting across from each other, and it works really well.

Yep.

This has been absolutely wonderful.

I wish I could talk for another hour, but I know that we can't at the moment.

But you.

You could come back and we can.

We could talk again.

Hey.

Well.

And one of the things I. I do.

One of the last things I'll tell you is on our website, on impelwealth.com under the Resources tab, there's a blog.

You know, our blog page is on there, and I generally write two blog posts a week, so you can subscribe to it.

The.

So somebody asked me one time, they said, like, after writing hundreds and hundreds of blog posts through the years, why did you decide to write a book?

And I pulled out my copy of the Born in the USA album from Bruce Springsteen, right?

And inside that is the single of Dancing in the Dark.

And I said, look, Dancing in the Dark is a single.

It's like a blog post.

It's a moment in time.

It's a little snippet.

I said, writing a book, I said, that's like the.

That's like the album.

I could tell the story from start to finish, right?

Oh, that's brilliant.

That's cool.

That just.

That's just brilliant.

And I had to practice Poponomics.

I kept messing it up a little bit before we come to the show.

I had to keep practicing Poponomics, but now it kind of rolls off my tongue.

Yep, Yep.

This is one more thing before you go.

So before we go, do you have any words of wisdom for someone listening right now who feels stuck or scared or unsure where to begin?

What's the first step?

The first step is just to realize that you're not the only one that's there.

And I think more than anything, a lot of people have regret syndrome, right?

They sit there and go, I wish I would have done this.

I should have done this five years, 10 years ago.

You are where you are now.

Nothing's going to change that.

And all we can do is cast a vision and move forward from here.

And we can help you with that.

Brilliant words of wisdom.

Brilliant words of wisdom.

Thank you again for spending the time with us, sharing your wisdom, your experience, and everything associated with this.

It's been a pleasure getting to know you as well.

I really appreciate what you do for the world.

Well, thank you so much.

We had a great time.

And as we, as we said before we started, it'll probably go fast.

And it did.

It did.

Went way too fast.

I'll make sure everything's in the show, notes for people to connect with you and where they can find you, find your book and your services as well.

So thank you again for being part of One More Thing before you go.

Thank you so much.

It was a great time.

I appreciate the offer.

Pop culture has always been a mirror reflecting who we are, what we fear, and what we hope for.

Today, Jesse reminded us that planning for the future isn't about numbers.

It's about meaning.

It's about the stories we tell ourselves, the songs that shaped us, the TV shows that enlightened us, and the films that we love, the puzzle pieces we've been collecting our entire lives.

So whether you're 40, 55, or 70, it's never too late to rewrite your next chapter.

And maybe, just maybe, the soundtrack of your life already knows the way.

That's a wrap for today's episode.

Hope you found inspiration, motivation and a few new perspectives to take with you.

If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to like subscribe and follow us.

Stay connected and you can find us on Apple, Spotify or your favorite listening platform.

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Please share with us and write us a review.

We'd love to have it.

In the meantime, have a great day.

Have a great weekend.

Thank you for being part of our community.

Until next time, I'm Michael Hirsch and this is One More thing before you go.

Thanks for listening to this episode of One more Thing before you Go.

Check out our website@beforeyougopodcast.com youm can find us as well as subscribe to the program and rate us on your favorite podcast listening platform.