With Christmas right around the corner and all the holidays that we all support today with Cody Garrett, we’re going to specifically talk about the spouse side of things. The non working spouse side of things. And I think that’s going to resonate with a lot of our listeners. And again, the series is to relate to others and let everyone know that they’re not in this thing called life alone. And there’s a lot of us professionals that are here to help you. So without further ado, Cody Give us the client profile and let’s walk

Cody Garrett, CFP®:
0:30

through this one. Yeah, absolutely. This is a fun one. And in quotation marks, if you’re listening, this is the quote unquote non working spouse. We’ll talk about what that means and what that doesn’t mean. Here’s my client story. So I have imagine Steve and Susan. Okay. So there’s going to be the names along the way. So these are fake names, by the way, of course, confidential. So this story is about one spouse retiring before the other, but we’ll also talk about stay at home spouses stay at home parents and things like that. So Susan retired from her career in 2018. They were, they worked with me like 2020, 2021 era. So Susan retired from her career in 2018 and her husband, Steve, continued working through 2022 for an additional five years because he loved his job, right? They didn’t have, he didn’t have to work, but he loved his job and want to continue working. Susan was just waiting there on the sidelines, like waiting for him to retire so that they can enjoy retirement together. And she was patient at first, but after a while, she started feeling guilty for not earning money for the family. Especially when the stock market dipped 20 percent at the end of 2018. So she began discovering ways to influence their financial success as a family. So she thought about ways to so he’s, Steve’s like earning money she’s on the income side. So she initially goes to the side of trying to reduce expenses. If I can’t earn money through a traditional job, maybe I can reduce our expenses as a family to help financially. So to save money, she does some things that might be pretty healthy, right? So she finds some credit card bonus offers, to get, to pay less for travel and for groceries and gas and things. She cuts digital coupons for the groceries. She spends some of that time in her own quote unquote retirement doing those things. She creates a master budgeting spreadsheet. She tracks every dollar that they spend and they’re like, retirement transition. But here’s where it goes off the rails and where we got in a really deep conversation. She said, okay, it’s not enough to save our family money. I need to figure out a way to earn our family money, even while I’m not working. So she starts, so she tells me this quote of. Investing is my new job. It’s my only way to contribute to the family. So to give a little financial profile, we understand what does investing mean here they have a 3 million total, a 3 million total investment portfolio, plus they’re going to receive about 80, 000 a year from social security. They spend about 100, 000 a year after tax to maintain their lifestyle. To simplify this, they already had enough money to live their rich life or however they define that. But Susan, thinking that, investing is now her new job. She has moved 50 percent of their investment portfolio into a single stock, a single tech stock position based on what she heard on the financial news network. So in retirement, she spends a lot of time on the couch watching. Financial news to get in, to get insights, to get ideas on how she can invest better for her family. And the rest of the portfolio was split between over a dozen growth mutual funds. Based on which had performed the best over the last week. So every week she looked at what performed best last week. And now let’s buy, let’s sell what we have and buy more of that, right? So just making long term investment decisions based on short term events, rather than giving every dollar a job and a use by date. So they weren’t really aligning their investment decisions with when they needed to use the money, but rather making investment decisions based on how could they potentially, how could Susan potentially make more money for their family? She thought she was doing this to make money for the family. But in reality, this was much deeper than money. This was actually that one of her basic human desires that we all have was not being met, which is the desire to be affirmed. To be told, Hey told, especially by the way, by Steve, her husband, Hey, you’re doing a great job, and one way, not just a great job of investing, but talking about overall, she has this limited belief that she’s not contributing to the family. So she has to do it somehow. And she chose investments as her kind of her her drug of choice in a way to release some of this anxiety. But I have two questions that we’ll cover, which is if you whether whether one spouse retires early or one spouse, like I can even share my example. My wife, Marissa is a stay at home spouse. We have no kids. She doesn’t work a traditional job. She doesn’t earn income, but she contributes incredibly to our family. And some financial ways in many ways, non financial, I can say that all day long. I Have a question here that says, how does your partner or spouse positively contribute to your family? But then here’s the big part. Are you affirming them and opening space to invite them to be heard and understood? So my wife is an incredible stay at home spouse. She contributes a ton to our family. She makes incredible meals. We have, homemade meals three times a day. Like she, she takes care of the home. She takes care of me. I would not be as successful in my business if it wasn’t for her being a stay at home spouse. And, people come up to her and say, Hey Hey what do you do all day? Now, what do you do for a living? And she’s Oh, like I’m a stay at home spouse. And they’re like, Oh yeah, yeah. Oh, I get it. You’re a stay at home wife. No, you’re a stay at home mom. She’s no. We don’t have kids. And they’re like what do you do all day? Like they had this like immediate shame and judgment toward her of if you don’t work what do you, are you just like sitting on the couch all day? Like making assumptions that she doesn’t contribute because she doesn’t earn money, or because we don’t have kids. It’s one thing for me to think that she contributes positively, but it’s another thing to praise her in private and also praise her in public. So I’m wondering for those listening, whether you are the non working spouse or you are working, or your spouse is not working a traditional job that pays them income, how are you, or how are they possibly contributing to the family and are you affirming them? Or are they affirming you for the great work that you do? Like outside of the workplace. So that’s where I’ll start. And we can definitely dive in from here.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
6:42

That’s powerful. And it’s, it really is my wife and I went through where was she not work or work? And I told her to take a couple of weeks off and feel and see how it feels like feels right. Ultimately. And she couldn’t handle it because she felt like she wasn’t giving enough now at this point, I think hopefully soon she’ll leave, but like that moment that. Someone recognizes that they’re not giving back enough to the family from my experience and probably you can test this it’s because of money, right? It’s money. It’s about I’m not bringing enough dollars and it’s not about time, value of time, upkeep of household, none of those things that actually create more in terms of happy relationship, wealth in general, all of that. And for those stay at home spouses, like we need to recognize that and affirm them that’s good. It’s always been like that. Think about generations ago, like the men would go out, work in the fields and the women would take care of the households. Now we’re in a different culture now, but it still should be the same. We have to take care of our households. Regardless of if you have children or not. So I applaud you and your wife for that. And in that spouse or in that client story, how did they come to that realization and come to work with you to begin with? Before you even got into helping, like how did they, and what did they do to get to

Cody Garrett, CFP®:
8:10

you? Interestingly enough Susan, the investing, the one who was early into the investing, she actually reached out to me because so he wanted to know, he wanted to know, hey do we have an he wanted to make sure they had enough to retire kind of the traditional question. She actually wanted validation that her investment decisions were good. She’s Hey I’ve been doing the stuff that I I’ve been doing my own investment research and investing, and I just want to hire somebody to ask, Hey can you give me a second opinion just to let me know? She, so this is interesting. If you think about it, she actually hired me to be affirmed. She hired me. So another way to say validated is she didn’t want me to say that what she was doing should be changed. She was hoping that I would tell her a great job. She was hoping that I would tell her what her husband wasn’t telling her, which was, wow, you’re doing a great job. Like you chose some great funds here, honey. But with that said, this is the powerful part. They came to me to be validated and right. I’m not going to lie to them. About the risk and return, metrics of their investments. I’m, I’m not going to tell them good job, keeping half of your investments. It’s in a volatile tech stock, right? Here’s the thing though. I, I didn’t just say actually you’re not doing a good job. I just simply asked Hey tell me about your investment experience. Hey, I noticed that you chose this tech stock. Is that a company that you really like that? That love and trust. And then she’s Oh no. Like again, like just by having that conversation, she got to a point of just saying now that I’m not working, like investing is my job. Like she literally that quote, investing is my job now. And her husband, Steve turns to her kind of like in shock, she’s telling me this, but she’s never told this to him. And this is where it gets powerful. And this is, they come to me for validation. What they actually get is like kind of marriage counseling unknowingly, which is I turned, I saw Steve’s. And um, I said, Hey, Steve, what are you thinking right now? And he said um, so she said the phrase, investing is my job. It’s my only way that I can contribute to our family. And he turned to her, after I see, Hey, Steve what, how does that make you, right? How does that make you feel? And, or what is it, what are you thinking right now? And he turns to her and says, I had no idea you felt that way. And then the conversation continued simply with me asking Steve, Hey, Steve, I would love for you to tell, not me, Steve, I would love for you to tell Susan, could you share with her some ways that she positively contributes to the family, even when she’s not working and he starts telling her things like, I love, Steve says this. I love that when I get, when I get home from work, it feels like a place of comfort and safety. I don’t leave I don’t escape to work. I escape from work to come home. When I come home Susan has made our house feel like a home. When I get home, I feel like it’s the safest place on earth. I love that when I open the door and I get home, Susan comes up and gives me a kiss and a hug. And, hands me a snack because I’m always hungry when I get home before dinner. And this is not about traditional, like coming home to Hey wife, what’s for dinner? This is just like a, there, there are seasons of trade off and roles and responsibilities in marriage. It’s not 50 50. It’s like we share a hundred percent. And with this the question I asked, about, which ways does she contribute? To the household, all the things he named had not all the things that he named, how she contributes had nothing to do with money. He actually did not say, by the way I, I love how I love how you manage our investments, right? Like he, he liked he acknowledged that he was really happy that she had a, he, she had an eye on things financially. Like he, he wasn’t affirming, like the choice of mutual fund, right? Like he, he was affirming how she showed up in their life together and was always there. And we talk about the desire to be affirmed, but she also helped him meet the desires to feel safe. To be chosen and included to be not just a firm, but blessed, which means that you are, affirmed for not just what you do, but who you are. And as he starts telling her all these ways that she contributes to the family, non financially, you can imagine like the Kleenex box comes out, right? And not until that moment, right? She had finally received permission to not chase investment returns. We could have just talked about the investments. I could have said, Oh, instead of that mutual fund, choose this mutual fund. But the way she was investing had nothing to do with money. It had to do with trying to gain enough, trying to do enough, being a perfectionist. Do enough work to finally be affirmed for all the work, hard work she’s been doing. And she got that affirmation at her last job, but she wasn’t getting it at home from her own husband. hEre’s the last thing here is that the husband Steve absolutely knew that she was contributing positively. He assumed that she knew she Steve assumed that Susan knew he. Knew that he appreciated her when in reality, just the love language of words of affirmation was not being met. And in that moment, a light bulb moment and a flip, the light switch was flipped saying, hey, Steve, now, at this moment now knows. From now on, I need to make sure that I affirm the good, the great work that she isn’t doing moving forward, but that she’s always been doing. It’s just that since another thing that you’ll notice is that with love languages, one reason that he wasn’t affirming her is that he wasn’t being affirmed. And it’s really important. I asked, I actually put this in a Facebook group today about this idea of. Are you working really hard and are you a perfectionist and you’re dealing with paralysis by analysis because you want to be affirmed. It’s not enough to know that you’re not being affirmed, but you need to acknowledge who am I waiting for affirmation from? whO do I want? Who am I hoping says, good job. I appreciate you. Thank you. I love you. And again, this is me, like I guess putting on like therapy hat for a minute. A lot of people aren’t actually hoping for affirmation from the person who’s giving it to them. They’re waiting for affirmation sometimes to peep from people who aren’t even there anymore, their own parents. By the way, even Steve affirming Susan for the great work she does, to take care of their home and take care of their family. She might also be still hoping that she would receive affirmation from the people who didn’t get, either she got it from and didn’t get enough, or she got maybe addicted to the affirmation or the vice versa, where she didn’t receive it growing up from her own parents who aren’t alive anymore. So I think that’s another opportunity that when we have these discussions about, it’s not enough to like, be, to seek affirmation and to be affirmed. It’s to really go deeper and say, why do I feel the need to be affirmed? And who. Who did not affirm me in the past, that, that goes much more into like family dynamics. And I even asked family sometimes, how are, how do you invest in your mental health? Cause we talk about financial health all the time, but how are you investing your physical, mental, spiritual and relationships, right? Those forms of wellness. Even financially and, even this example, I think some of you might be saying, Hey yeah, there’s something there. Like I haven’t been affirmed for a long time, not just by my spouse, but by my boss, by my colleagues, by my parents, maybe even by my kids. My kids haven’t said, thank you, mom for picking up, picking me up at school every day. So just ask yourself, am I being affirmed? Who’s affirming me? How have I not been affirmed? Who has not been affirming me? And maybe this is an opportunity for you to maybe hire a counselor, right? To talk about some of these deeper desires and how they can be met in healthy ways, rather than unhealthy ways.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
16:05

And I talk about a lot that’s investing in yourself, like what you just said and laid out that is investing in yourself. So we always hear, whatever the stats are around, there is always 10 percent for you invest in yourself. We don’t mean that in terms of traveling and all of that. Usually it is that stuff, your physical and mental health, financial health will come, but those two need to be in order for that. And what I want to highlight for everyone listening in all the cutups that we have, hopefully this is one of them, is the fact that you didn’t talk about a dollar or money or a factor and your clients didn’t either. Even when she was investing, it wasn’t about a number. It wasn’t saying, I need to get 10 percent return because it’s going to make us X. She was doing it from an emotional standpoint, whether it’s affirmation or whatever, in that regard. And she came to you and they came to you from an emotional standpoint, not a numbers game. And I

Cody Garrett, CFP®:
17:00

love how they won the numbers game. Yeah,

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
17:02

they won the numbers game and the numbers games, the number game. It can be one. And numbers don’t lie. If you define

Cody Garrett, CFP®:
17:09

enough, yeah. Yeah. If you define

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
17:10

it, but you won’t win life and be wealthy, truthfully wealthy, unless you can do what you did for them. And that is something that I always attest that everyone needs to have a planner a, counselor, whatever group of team that you need. For that specific reason because not only did you potentially save probably hundreds of thousands of dollars over the long run to you, then maybe potentially saved a marriage of having, lack of communication or just not being happy. And third, you saved her herself and helped her grow, which is something that. You can’t put a dollar number, you can’t, there’s no value to that, right?

Cody Garrett, CFP®:
17:54

And that’s ultimately, It’s not in the spreadsheet. That’s not in

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
17:57

the spreadsheet. And that’s, what, why we’re doing this series. This is why we do what we do in our duty is because we know that what we can provide and see that you can’t see is going to come back 10x, 100x, it doesn’t matter. There’s not a dollar for it. But what it does is it makes you happy. And happiness is being

Cody Garrett, CFP®:
18:14

wealthy. And I want to add here that there’s this phrase of your net worth is not your self worth. As soon as you I, I love, by the way instead of showing somebody a balance sheet, all that, their, what they own minus what they owe, all those things, rather than going, walking through the numbers and telling them about it, I just, you show it to them and say I show them their net worth number and say Hey what’s your automatic thought when you see that number? And it’s amazing because I’ve seen people who that, that number is 10 million. And they say, I’m doing okay. I’ve still got a ways to go. I’ve seen people with a positive number rather than a negative number there. And they’re on the flip side. They’re like, wow, like we’re really moving in the right direction. Like we’ve got this right. So it’s not about how many commas are in the number, right? It’s all about your framing and your acknowledgement that how much money is on that piece of paper is not equivalent to your worth and your value as a human being. Or as a spouse, or as a partner, or as a sibling, right? So I just do encourage everybody here that just like you said I have a trademark in my brand called keep finance personal. You hear people say something like, finances, 10 percent in the personals, the other 90 percent right? That’s definitely true that if you chase money, your whole life. You might get all the money in the world, but you’ll turn around and your physical strength, your mental wellness, your mental health, right? Your spiritual practices and your relationships will all be gone. You’ll have all the money in the world, but nothing, I think, that money is only there to support those other things. So if you’ve neglected those other things for maybe decades at a time, who cares how much, how many commas are in your net worth? If you have nobody to share it with, you can’t physically do the travel you want to do. Your mind is so stressed and you’re so anxious. You have a fear of future uncertainty that, that it’s even hard to leave the house. What is your money worth? If you can’t actually spend the time with the people you love, the who, what, where, when, why, and how of actually how you want to spend life, even with all the money in the world, that’s not going to actually make you happy. No, it’s not.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
20:27

It truly isn’t. And that’s what we’re challenging you with this episode is to think deeply. Go hire a team hire a therapist. I’m currently tracking like some data and I’m going to actually email you and a few others about this later of the percentage of clients that have a therapist and take care of themselves and how successful they are from a wealth perspective. I’ve done that internally and I’m not going to put specific numbers out yet until this is done, but I’m saying that there’s a huge correlation from people that are taking care of themselves mentally and physically. And their overall success when it comes to wealth building, I would put

Cody Garrett, CFP®:
21:01

that out. And also put that out there. A lot of people think, Oh, like Cody, Cody is a successful financial advisor, financial planner. He has it all together. I go to counseling biweekly. I literally, I’m going to counseling after this today to talk about those desires of the heart to be chosen, included, safe, blessed, affirmed, right? Like we all need mentors in all those areas. Maybe that’s a way to you know, maybe in the conversation is that do you have a mentor? Do you have a mentor in your life? It doesn’t have to be paid necessarily, but do you have somebody who can walk alongside you? Be a guide, not necessarily the hero, but the guide with you in your physical, mental, spiritual, relational, and financial wellness, a financial advisor, by the way. Now, if you work with a great financial advisor, they’re going to, they’re actually going to care about all the elements, not just the financial part. I always say, if you have a choice between choosing two financial advisors, somebody actually came to me and said, Hey, I interviewed two financial advisors. Which one should I hire? I said, which one asked you about your family before they asked you about your finances? That’s the one to hire because that’s the one who actually cares about what money supports, not just the money itself.

Black Mammoth:
22:22

The proceeding program was sponsored by black mammoth. Any awards rankings or recognition by unaffiliated third parties or publications are in no way indicative of the advisors future performance or any individual clients investment success. No award ranking or recognition should be construed as a current or past endorsement of black mammoth. Information regarding specific awards, rankings, or recognitions is available on the Black Mammoth website, www.blackmammoth.com. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. Investment strategies such as asset allocation, diversification, or rebalancing do not assure or guarantee better performance and cannot eliminate the risk of investment losses. There are no guarantees that a portfolio employing these or any other strategy will outperform a portfolio that does not engage in such strategies. This broadcast should not be construed by any client or prospective client as a solicitation to affect or attempt to affect transactions and securities or the rendering of personalized investment advice due to various factors including changing market conditions. The information discussed in this broadcast may no longer be reflective of current positions or recommendations. While information presented is believed to be factual and up to date, Black Mammoth do not guarantee its accuracy, and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed. The tax and the state planning information discussed is general in nature and is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal or tax advice. Listeners should consult an attorney or tax professional regarding their specific legal or tax situation. Past performance is not indicative of future results.