Lisa Intro Ep

[00:00:00] Stoy Hall: Like little mixes after we’re just bullshitting around. Oh, like the outtakes? Yeah. Little outtakes. That’ll be pretty fun. All right, well let’s get into it. Lisa. Welcome. What’s up? What’s up? Welcome. So what do you got to drink tonight? Little chardonnay. Little chardonnay. Love of wine, little wine. So I’m not really good on the whole white stuff.

[00:00:20] Where’s Chardonnay fall between sweet and dry as hell? 

[00:00:24] Lisa Grefe: Well, I like Dr. You can have a sweet Chardonnay, but I’m more dry. Dry end. 

[00:00:30] Stoy Hall: I think that comes with age. Do you think so? I’m 

[00:00:32] Lisa Grefe: the oldest one here, so is that true? 

[00:00:35] Ryan Hall: Oh, it’s true. It’s true. 

[00:00:37] Stoy Hall: Is it for sure though? I don’t know. When’s her birthday? I’m not telling, but I’m oldest.

[00:00:40] I mean, we can’t that for 

[00:00:42] Ryan Hall: sure we 

[00:00:42] Stoy Hall: can. Yeah, we don’t know. See, look it up. I just saw her E four today. I’m pretty sure we could look it up. . So it’s debatable. Um, He’s 38. No, 36. Yeah, I’m older. Dude. Forgot his birthday. It doesn’t matter. Last week. It’s all good. Last week, I forgot my birthday. Happy birthday or my girlfriend.

[00:01:00] Thank you. Yeah. Um, she did. She’s like 27th. Yeah, the 27th, not 27th. So little, little white wine. So is white wine in your go-to, or what would you say your cocktail choice is? Is it like Ryan’s when he said tequila? 

[00:01:14] Lisa Grefe: Well, cocktail, I like specialty drinks. So Margarita, my Thai beach drinks, but white wine is my standard go-to of those aren’t available.

[00:01:26] Stoy Hall: Yeah. And yours red, right? Yeah. Is it dry or sweet? Uh, it’s dry. It’s dry. It’s dry. Well, that’s good. Cheers. Yeah, it’s a grown man drink. It’s a grown man. I, a grown man. Sophisticated. Sophisticated. Gets you more drunk, quicker. Some more alcohol content. Uh, is there, I don’t know if that’s actually, there’s more alcohol content and wine than there’s a beer.

[00:01:51] Oh, I thought you were talking between white and red. Oh no. I was like, uh, they’re comparable. These two come on. I think white’s 11 red’s 14. Depends. 

[00:01:59] Lisa Grefe: I haven’t looked at the numbers recently. 

[00:02:02] Stoy Hall: It’s not as as bourbon though. I can’t draw, 

[00:02:05] Lisa Grefe: hurts my throat. All the matters is, I enjoy it. It’s nice. Bingo. 

[00:02:08] Stoy Hall: Exactly.

[00:02:09] So Lisa came to newer, newer to the firm. Like a day. 

[00:02:13] Lisa Grefe: I like day. I’m pretty sure the before 

[00:02:15] Stoy Hall: is filed. I got the email today. So, um, tell us a little about where you’re from. Um, and we’ll start there. Yeah. 

[00:02:22] Lisa Grefe: I’m from your childhood. I’m from Des Moines, Iowa. Moines, Iowa. What? What? Iowa. Love Iowa. Where are you from?

[00:02:30] James 

[00:02:31] Stoy Hall: Danbury, Connecticut. 

[00:02:33] Lisa Grefe: Born and raised. Love it. Love the east coast. See, I grew up here, uh, went to college in Minnesota, have lived a couple different places. Where at Minnesota? Uh, St. Joseph, Minnesota. Small town. Is it our northwest of Minneapolis? That’s 

[00:02:47] Stoy Hall: what I was about to ask. Is it, Could you get cold there?

[00:02:50] Lisa Grefe: Fast? St. John’s University. Yeah, pretty much. You’re wearing winter coats and. September ? Not really. What, so what took you up there? Uh, sports. Sports. Huh? And, and school. You know, both. Both. The 

[00:03:04] Stoy Hall: both. You started with sports, So I think we’re all athletes here. We went athlete, athletics, and then school 

[00:03:09] Lisa Grefe: fell in there.

[00:03:10] Yeah. I was division three athletes, so I played soccer four years, golf, One year basketball one year. She has a 

[00:03:16] Stoy Hall: stick though. Glad she’s on the team now. Golf. She has a stick. She is a stick. Oh, like good at golf? Mm-hmm. . I wouldn’t know any, Saw her take one shot and it was the best drive in the world. . It was the best.

[00:03:28] So clearly. It literally was good. And I go and then I had to go. Um, so growing up in Des Moines, how was it growing up in Des Moines? I’m, I’m from Omaha, bigger city. It’s like twice the size of Des Moines, but I, I relatively think they’re the same in terms of things you can do. But How was growing up? 

[00:03:45] Lisa Grefe: I loved it.

[00:03:46] I mean, I, I think Des Moines changed a lot. Iowa changed a lot. Um, but I went to Roosevelt, had a lot of really great friends. Was an athlete. Gotten lot involved in a lot of activities, family, friends. Um, I loved it. I came back, I’m here sounds for some reason I came back. Watch you. Why back? It’s 

[00:04:06] Stoy Hall: warmer, It’s more south.

[00:04:08] I don’t, I don’t, I don’t have anything really besides that. In, in growing up in Des Moines and go into Roosevelt, what did you think you wanted to become besides a pro athlete? Cuz of course, 

[00:04:21] Lisa Grefe: Well, I had pro athlete. I had dancer. Wow. I didn’t see that. I never, I never went that route at all. . Just, just a dream.

[00:04:30] I didn’t bend in that way. Just a dream. Um, and then psychology. So I was really interested in psychology, people, how people think, emotions, all of that. So I went on and got a degree in psychology and a master’s in psychology. So potentially that I would go on and become a psychologist. I just, I didn’t get there.

[00:04:47] Stoy Hall: I mean now you 

[00:04:49] Lisa Grefe: are, Well, I’m using 

[00:04:50] Stoy Hall: it. A lot. Oh yeah. . I mean, um, you know, we talked about on Ryan’s was, I mean it’s money mindset. Like money psychology is a big deal. 

[00:04:59] Lisa Grefe: Yeah. It’s a huge deal. And I just think even with couples, individuals mindset in general, it comes up a lot. I mean, all the time. 

[00:05:08] Stoy Hall: Right. All the time.

[00:05:09] It kind of came up when you were trying to accept this position, didn’t 

[00:05:12] Lisa Grefe: it? It did come up. Yeah. I had, I had, uh, I have money mindset issues. Right. I’ll just, let’s just, let’s just sort out there. Yeah. You have money mindset issues. You good? Oh yeah. . 

[00:05:22] Stoy Hall: Absolutely. I need more wine. We all do. I 

[00:05:25] Lisa Grefe: got money, everybody.

[00:05:25] I’m out. You said money. I’m out. Mindset. No, I think mindset in general is, you know, it’s really interesting concept and whether it’s your life, your career, money, anything it can get in the way, it can be helpful. All of that. 

[00:05:41] Stoy Hall: So you’re coming into this career. They call ’em second career. I don’t, I know what they call ’em, Late career changer, career changes or whatever.

[00:05:48] All the fun terms, all the fun terms that insurance companies throw at you. Um, one, what, where were you before? What’d you do and then like why the initial transition to principal? 

[00:05:59] Lisa Grefe: Yeah. So I spent the majority of my career in athletics. So I was played semipro, soccer, went on to coach. Wait, what? Yeah, I didn’t know that.

[00:06:06] Yeah. Where at? Long time ago. Kansas City. Oh. Um, yeah, after college. So I wanted to be a goalkeeper in, there was a professionally that just started. I submitted a video. Um, they’re, I played division three. They were like, No, division three athletes gonna make Right. The pros because That’s right. Yeah. Um, I got on the draft list, but I didn’t get drafted, so I decided to play sort of next level down W League in Kansas City.

[00:06:30] So I played that and then really loved coaching, um, psychology. So got into coaching, college coaching, and then went on and got my master’s in psychology. And then got into athletics. So I was out in New York for a long time doing athletic administration, a variety of ways. New York. New York. New York new.

[00:06:49] Hello. My New York friends. So, um, my NYC friends, hey NYC friends and my Troy friends. Look at all that. Look at all the shoutouts. 

[00:06:56] Stoy Hall: How was living in 

[00:06:57] Lisa Grefe: New York? It’s amazing. We had, so my wife and I, so we lived out there together. She was in grad school at Columbia. We lived in New York City. So we lived in the Bronx.

[00:07:08] Ooh, in the Bronx. Kind of a wanky Bronx. Riverdale. Riverdale. Well no, you too. It’s like, it’s gonna be swanky. It’s gonna be swanky. Um, I worked on the Upper East side of a sports facility, Asphalt Green. And she was at Columbia and we loved it. We loved every weekend going to a different neighborhood, walking around, finding drinks, finding food, whatever.

[00:07:28] Um, Cause she’s an east coaster. She’s, Yeah. So she’s in New Englander, so New England and New York. Yeah. Are not equal. However, they’re on the east coast, they’re on the East coast, but they’re very different. I learned really quickly, New York is not part of New England. Noted. Noted. Um, so yeah, we, we have a lot of great friends out there.

[00:07:48] We, I think it’s great to visit super expensive money mindset, uh, back there. Um, but we had a lot of fun and loved it. And then, um, moved up north. So upstate, almost upstate, Troy, New York, which near Albany, I was a athletic director in all girls boarding school. Awesome. In the Lord, so, Wow. So, yeah. So sports has been, he’s back majority of my career.

[00:08:10] Welcome back, man. Welcome back. Welcome back. I mean, I’ll 

[00:08:13] Ryan Hall: let James in some of the fun, right? 

[00:08:15] Lisa Grefe: Yeah. I started asking him questions and he ran. 

[00:08:17] Stoy Hall: Yeah, he did. We’ve talked about money, , money mindset. And he went, I got, I got get a drink, I gotta go. I gotta go. I’m out. And he probably messed with your headphones.

[00:08:25] Yeah. . Um, so big head, New York to upstate. Um, You know, met Abby wife, and then what brought you back? 

[00:08:38] Lisa Grefe: Yeah, so I had an opportunity to, again, work in sports here in Iowa, in Des Moines and part of Iowa Soccer Association. It’s a governing body. Um, so I wanted to do that. I wanted to get home. My family’s here.

[00:08:51] I had just strong passion to come back and wanted to do that and make an impact here. So we moved back here and, uh, got working there. And then I was diagnosed with a really rare neurological condition called Kiari, which I’d never heard of. Totally rare, totally random. Um, just popped up, uh, women in her thirties pop up with 

[00:09:11] Ryan Hall: symptoms.

[00:09:12] What, what did you Web? No, I haven’t . Yeah, wed, I have not WebMed this, but like, 

[00:09:19] Lisa Grefe: so everyone’s symptoms are different. So, um, basically your skull is either too small for your brain, or your brain is too big for your skull. So 

[00:09:28] Ryan Hall: you’re super smart. Oh, so your big brain. So super smart. You’re a big brain smart.

[00:09:31] Yeah, super smart. You’re super smart. Yeah, 

[00:09:33] Lisa Grefe: that’s what, that’s what I tell everybody. I’m super smart. Um, so causing lots of pressure in my brain and it was causing me symptoms, like right side symptoms. So horrible pain. I couldn’t move, couldn’t turn my head. Loss, loss movement. When I got really bad, I lost ability to talk, like find the right word.

[00:09:51] Yeah. So starting to have sort of neurological word symptoms, which is kind of crazy. So at that point I was like, Okay, I’ve gotta do something. So I can’t live like this. I was actually, I was living in a chair cause I couldn’t lay flat. . It was crazy. So, 

[00:10:04] Stoy Hall: and for scour for everyone sleeping in a chair, it’s one of the worst things I’ve ever, It’s one of those things I to do for my shoulders.

[00:10:10] It’s not, it’s not. So 

[00:10:11] Lisa Grefe: it’s like a couple days. Yeah, 

[00:10:13] Ryan Hall: sure. It’s okay. I’m supposed to have no surgery and my cousin’s like, yeah, to sleep in a chair, like cracking chair. You have to sleep upright so it drains. I’m like, yeah, 

[00:10:21] Lisa Grefe: it’s, it’s not, I don’t recommend it. I don’t recommend it. No, not, it sounds bad. Yeah.

[00:10:25] So I had to have, I had to have brain surgery. Basically they take out the, that back of your skull and give you some more room and I got a titanium plate back there and you know, I’m good. So 

[00:10:36] Ryan Hall: only should You both are 

[00:10:38] Lisa Grefe: bing. Yeah, we’re both bionic so we have something common. I 

[00:10:40] Stoy Hall: have clips and stuff. I think they dissolved 

[00:10:43] Ryan Hall: though, so, So with titanium, This is gonna be a stupid question cuz I’m pretty sure don’t go to an airport.

[00:10:51] No, neither do I . Yeah, but 

[00:10:52] Stoy Hall: they but they show up an X-ray. Have you looked at it? So that big body one that’s spin. Oh yeah. Which we don’t, I don’t, Do we have that at at Iowa? Yeah. I 

[00:10:58] Ryan Hall: don’t know. They don’t 

[00:10:59] Stoy Hall: do it all the time. They don’t do it all day. It usually doesn’t work, I feel like. But if you look back, you can see it because I have clips in, uh, when they did my achilles, they took some of my hamstring.

[00:11:09] Yeah. And it always flares and I’m like, and they always pat me down. They’re like, What’s in your left ham? Nothing. A clip. I don’t know something. But if you look back I bet you guys could see it. It’s cool. Yeah. 

[00:11:20] Lisa Grefe: Yeah. So 

[00:11:20] Ryan Hall: bionic. So bionic. It’s good to be the bionic team. Really smart and bionic. Basically. I Robot is coming to life.

[00:11:27] We are, we are. We iRobot. We have it. We are robot. Yeah. 

[00:11:32] Stoy Hall: So, so you’re back here? Um, yeah. 

[00:11:35] Lisa Grefe: Back here. Had surgery recovered. I left my, left my career. Left work. So, um, thinking about like life changes. Kind of the why in life. Yeah. Like I, I didn’t, I didn’t go back to being a sports admin person, so it was a lot of kind of deep reflection and what’s next and what am I gonna do

[00:11:58] Ryan Hall: with that. Like, what, what was, you know, I, I kind of, I kind of alluded to this and we’ll kind of mingle stories a little bit. Like it took me to a different place of that. What if that unknown? Did you have an idea or direction where you wanted to go after that happened once you left that career? Not fully.

[00:12:18] Lisa Grefe: I mean, I was, I was taking some classes at Drake and Drake 

[00:12:22] Stoy Hall: University. Drake University, Go Bulldogs, baby, let’s go to undergrads. So offense right now is not playable Bulldogs. We won’t talk about it. . 

[00:12:31] Lisa Grefe: Yeah. So I wasn’t quite sure. I think same with you. Like I have a lot of skills. I have the coaching passion, I have the teaching education passion, like where can I do that?

[00:12:39] How can I best serve people? That’s kind of where I’ve been trying to figure out where I best fit. In my career in these next steps. Um, so one of my professors at Drake when I was there, she has her own HR consulting business. Who’s HR Hotline Associates? Julie Casper. Oh, I didn’t her. We just had a connection.

[00:12:55] She actually went to the same, uh, college I went to, and she took me under her wing and mentored me and, um, in hr. So I did a lot of recruiting for her, which has been awesome. And then I was thinking more, you know, what’s next for me? I wanted to maybe build something, be a part of a team, how could I use all of those skills?

[00:13:14] So I kind of, I kept searching and, um, networking. Somebody at Principal asked me if I’d be interested in being an advisor, and I went through the whole process. There I am. And we 

[00:13:25] Stoy Hall: all had that same training and beginning of our careers. , there I am, which we’ll probably reflect back to a few times. Um, at 

[00:13:32] Ryan Hall: least, at least a few.

[00:13:33] Uh, just a couple . 

[00:13:35] Stoy Hall: So just a couple. We won’t speak too much about the principal, um, career path. Um, don’t wanna talk bad about other companies as much as we can. However, the insurance industry, I believe is archaic in itself right now and is transitioning is going to have to transition very hard to the RA standpoint or even a wire house standpoint.

[00:13:55] Yeah. Um, which we’ll talk about, um, later on this podcast, but so we’re, we’re in principle for a year. Um, now you’re like, I’m, I, I gotta find something that, uh, you know, reaches past that. So talk us through, you know, kind of that mindset when it started to, you know, officially being yesterday, October or whatever day it was.

[00:14:15] Jumping on board Yeah. And jumping on board. 

[00:14:17] Lisa Grefe: Yeah. I think, you know, I wanted a place I could be myself. I didn’t fully feel the same. , there was a lot of bars, guidelines to kind of fall into. I didn’t feel like I could use my voice, which now I’m getting to use my voice, literally like literally, literally, literally.

[00:14:34] Um, so that was important for me, just personally. And I like to be creative. I like to write, I like to speak, I like to do those things, and I wasn’t able to do that. Um, and I think for me, learning wise, I wanted to be part of a team and part of a cf like a founder that has a cfp that was important for me when I was looking.

[00:14:53] And I think it was, you know, somewhat of a leap of faith. It’s like, I don’t know the industry a ton. I’m newer to the industry and my career changer, so it’s where am I gonna have the best fit? And we’ve had some great conversations about females in finance and I really value your vision. So here I. And here we are.

[00:15:09] First. First, female. 

[00:15:11] Ryan Hall: Female. Female. Female in finance. We can shout out Cheryl A. Little bit. Oh yeah. Shout out 

[00:15:15] Stoy Hall: Cheryl. Shell females in finance. We’re gonna hashtag at you a lot. She’ll actually, Fun fact, she’ll be here in November, so we’ll have her as a guest in November. That’ll be amazing. And she’s gonna bake us cookies.

[00:15:26] What kind of cookies? Uh, chocolate chip’s her go-to. I believe so. But really, I guess whatever we request, uh, we’ll have her make while she’s here. Um, so that’ll be good time. Yeah, that’ll be good times. It’ll be amazing. So when you say creativity and, and I’m not doing a comparison thing, what are some things that, like aside from writing and stuff like that, that you’ve wanted to do for a client that you haven’t been able to do or had access to those resources?

[00:15:52] Lisa Grefe: Well, I think in the full planning perspective, that’s important for me. So budgeting, looking at what they can invest in different opportunities rather than what I was looking at on my chart of this is what they can go into. Um, being able to really look at their situation and then take care of them, like actually do some of the things, take it off of their plate and actually do some of the things for them, which I think is important in this industry.

[00:16:18] And they maybe don’t have the time or they don’t know how to do it. And being able to be that advocate for them and go out and negotiate on their behalf or do other things, I think is really important. And I think having different ways to look at wealth is also important. Like there’s one, there’s one way you could look at it.

[00:16:34] There’s multiple ways and I think creativity is gonna really come into play with that. Yeah. 

[00:16:39] Stoy Hall: Yeah. Um, so for like, an example of what she’s talking about is, um, I’ll use one of our clients right now. Um, she has a van that she wants to get and she says, Hey, can you recommend lender? Yeah, I can. But actually what we’re gonna do is give us that pa, we’re gonna go to lenders and get your best.

[00:16:56] And get it all the way to the point where all you have to do is sign and we’re good to go. Right. And that’s, that is the, the biggest difference from our previous careers to what we do now, is we would just send them somewhere maybe, maybe. Um, and if it sees through, it sees through. Now we’re saying no, we’re gonna go find the best thing that fits this entire plan.

[00:17:15] We’re gonna get it all the way to the paperwork site point, because your relationships with us, you don’t need to deal with the lenders. That’s our job. Yeah. There’s a lot of paperwork that goes back and forth. There’s a lot of headaches. All we wanna do is take that off them and say, it’s done. Go by the van, or whatever it is.

[00:17:29] Yeah. 

[00:17:29] Ryan Hall: And that’s like you said, like you said, it’s a relationship thing. We have a relationship with the client and we use our relationship with that lender. They don’t, they don’t know that person per se. So allowing us to use that relationship and get them that best deal. And I think you made a good point on the creativity, Lisa, and kind of to allude to that is using the same numbers that you might have seen anywhere else.

[00:17:52] Being able to open the box and think, and I think we’ve all seen that differently. Like seen the emoji where like the cloud is coming out of the brain. Like that’s what it is now. Right. That’s what I got to experience. And now you’re experiencing it as well. Being a little bit newer is like, it’s a lot to bring in, but now, now it’s, now everything’s open and it’s, it’s mind blowing right now.

[00:18:16] Yeah. 

[00:18:16] Stoy Hall: And I think that’s the, the most difficult thing we do in, in problems that we have of getting more clients is the fact that we do this and it kind of blows their brain to say, Oh, it’s kind of too good to be true. You don’t do all that. Right. And I’m not saying that clients say that, but if you would come to me and say, Hey, I’m gonna take care of everything for you.

[00:18:35] Like, you’re, you’re good. I got you. Right. That’s kind of overwhelming in itself. Mm-hmm. Because in almost no one’s life, has anyone ever said that about their finances? Right. We don’t get taught it in school at all. Um, a lot of our parents don’t have the knowledge. and the ones that are luckily too, they have the knowledge, but they probably only give ’em a little bit, right?

[00:18:56] We have a couple clients that just now got told that they’ve had all this money sitting in accounts , I’m not kidding. Yeah. Just now got told all this. Right? So like you’ve got that side of it and now we’re saying, we’ve got you. Every question you need, we’re gonna handle it and we’re gonna get the situation or the solution dealt with.

[00:19:13] Um, that’s a lot, that’s a lot to 

[00:19:16] Lisa Grefe: unpack. So that’s a lot. And it could be a huge weight off their shoulders too, if they look at it that way. 

[00:19:21] Ryan Hall: So, so being new and hearing kind of all these different ways to unpack everything and, and hearing this mind blowing experience and saying, Okay, maybe this, this two good to be true type deal.

[00:19:34] Being new and kind of in a sense, Floyd did this with me, showed me it from the client perspective. Hey, this is, I’m gonna walk you through this, this first meeting or this client process, Seeing that firsthand. How did that kind of change your vision, maybe of the industry or what you thought about the industry coming over from that insurance world?

[00:19:55] Yeah. Well, I have the 

[00:19:56] Lisa Grefe: benefit of the doubt of not knowing, not being in here a lot. So I don’t have a lot of like habits, right? Yeah. But I think overall, being able to look at it from a different perspective and educate clients and even myself on opportunities, challenges, whatever’s coming their way, um, made it really fun for me and exciting for me again, rather than a prescribed this step, this step, this step.

[00:20:22] And I think we can take ’em along the process and they feel empowered to be part of the plan as well. And I think that’s, for me is really important coming from that coach advisor guide perspective, that they’re empowered as well to make these choices. They feel educated, they feel good about it, and they can really enjoy life.

[00:20:39] And what they. And then be prepared for whatever’s coming in the future. Unexpected, expected. Absolutely. 

[00:20:45] Ryan Hall: No, that, that makes a ton of sense. And I love that you keep alluding to the coach, the coach portion of it. Cuz that’s just my natural, like exactly. Like that’s my natural thing too. Zone here. That’s 

[00:20:54] Stoy Hall: all it really is.

[00:20:55] I mean, having a psychology background and being a coach, I mean that’s, that’s what we do . Exactly. I mean the stories that we, we get told and we help them through. Yeah. I mean we might as well have a psychology degree. I’ve got enough hours in it, I think I can go get it. You know? Um, and, and I think that’s vitally important.

[00:21:14] What do you believe in our industry that we lack the most in that we are going to attack or that you want to attack? 

[00:21:27] Lisa Grefe: I think a couple things coming from the psychology side, empathy, emotional tolerance relating to people. So just having them feel welcomed. And no matter where they are in their journey of wealth, beginning, middle, end, um, or there’s, you know, old, young, all of those things.

[00:21:51] Um, I lost my train of thought where I was going. That happens. Dang 

[00:21:58] Ryan Hall: it. Dang it. Edit. Edit now. Stop it. Edit, edit. Quick. That’s, that’s a good one though. The, that you like, we’ve both brought, brought it up now, is that empowering, letting them be themselves, empathy, not, not putting them in this bubble or bullying them, basically making them feel bad about their finances.

[00:22:19] Yeah. And that’s what a lot of, a lot of the industry does, is even sitting across the table, we can read people. Whether we think we’re doing it or not. Subconsciously we’re always reading somebody. So if, if I show this big negative number when it comes to net worth or something like that, or I show a ton of debt when I’m sitting across the table, sometimes in this industry you get that reaction of, or that sigh of, Okay, well maybe this isn’t gonna be as much money as what I thought, or whatever it might be.

[00:22:50] So I think, like you said, that the empathy thing is 

[00:22:52] Lisa Grefe: huge. Yeah. And I think, I mean, the two other things for me are, are making complex, simple. So I think there’s a lot of complexity, language, even how we talk with people. So I think that’s gonna be important. And then, you know, I’m a woman, I’m, I’m a woman at the table

[00:23:10] Um, you know, and being able to speak with women and, you know, have a real conversation about money and, um, making sure they’re being taken care of. I was working with somebody this past year and she was telling me a story of an advisor. Who happened to be a man, no big deal, but only would talk to her husband.

[00:23:26] But the solution was about her, didn’t acknowledge her. So I think, you know, bringing, making sure we’re bringing everyone into the fold and having that conversation, they feel like part of the process is really critical for me. 

[00:23:37] Stoy Hall: I think that’s a great point and I was literally just thinking that as you were just about to say it, is, um, not only are you a woman, but you’re also a lesbian, right?

[00:23:48] Yes. Great. Um, and have two kids have two baby girls. Two 

[00:23:52] Lisa Grefe: baby girls. Look at that. Maggie 

[00:23:53] Stoy Hall: and Mary. Where’s your second one? Oh, you haven’t had your first yet. You’ll get there. . Um, and in all of that, how, in, in your experience, not only as an advisor, but you were a consumer at one point, um, prior to this, what are some weaknesses in our industry that you see from that point of view?

[00:24:10] And, um, what are things that you are wanting or think we can change the most in that point of view? 

[00:24:20] Lisa Grefe: Well, I mean, on the LGBTQ side, I think, you know, there’s a potentially a lot of extra expenses that come down the line. Family planning, we talk about that, two kids. Um, so you have to think about a lot of different things when you’re planning.

[00:24:31] I’m not sure every advisor is prepared for that. Um, you know, being a woman, not being part of the industry, I understand money, I understand what’s happening, but the education part is really critical for me. And I’ve found when I’m working with clients, they really value, especially women clients, they value the education part, not just to be told what’s happening.

[00:24:51] So I think that’s gonna be really critical as well, working with women moving forward. 

[00:24:55] Stoy Hall: And, And when you mean like education, not being told, like they want to know, but they also don’t want to do, right? Yeah. Like it’s, it’s like I just wanna know what’s going on, but I don’t actually want to do 

[00:25:04] Lisa Grefe: it. Yeah, no, I wanna educate.

[00:25:05] Like, so whether it’s a real estate investment or ETF or what kind of investment it is, like, or maybe it’s an insurance policy or their whole plan, they wanna understand what’s happening. . They wanna see all the, the pictures and the pieces. They don’t necessarily wanna do it cuz they have a lot on their plate.

[00:25:21] I mean, I’m thinking myself, two kids under two right now, my wife is also working like we’re super busy. We’d like to give some stuff off our plate so we can just have a glass of wine at night. , right? Chardonnay, Chardonnay, 

[00:25:35] Stoy Hall: shout 

[00:25:37] Lisa Grefe: out chardonnay, send us wine and just, you know, relax a little bit and not be worried.

[00:25:41] The stress of the, of money, of the planning can really take you down. I think alleviating that will be cr will be 

[00:25:48] really 

[00:25:48] Stoy Hall: key. Yeah. And I, in our industry, obviously it’s male driven, white male driven. Um, we all know that, um, in America, however money is, is flipped to the females cuz females live a lot longer obviously.

[00:26:01] Right. But I think in that mindset is exactly why our industry is shaping into being advice and being education driven. We’ll do everything on the back end, but like, just that focus because one females are taking. Over the wealth, if you will, if you want to talk about it with a money situation. Um, but also men rely on their wives to take care of all this stuff, right?

[00:26:25] So when you offload to a man, a man, and he, he just wants to do it, he’ll either do it or shove it off, right? Well, now all the, the females are getting, and the women are getting, they’re going, Well, I don’t, No, I have too much other on my plate. Why would I want this? And so in our industry, like it’s, it’s, it’s very important that we get to the point of getting them educated and getting everyone involved.

[00:26:48] Um, because when that starts to switch, a lot of these firms out here are gonna be in a lot of trouble. Um, because they’re not prepared to have those conversations. Whether that is with women, lgbtq, black, it doesn’t matter. They’re not ready for that because they’ve never done it. 

[00:27:05] Ryan Hall: Yes. So, so I think on honest, on a point, when you talked about the industry being archaic a little bit, and, and again, Me in the future going to be fitting into that mold, mold of being a white guy, old white guy in this industry.

[00:27:21] Kind of how you said with the, the female that you were talking to where it was only talking to her husband, different stuff like that. Is it safe to say, and when I ask this question like is it safe to say that your passion now, or one of the, one of the things that you wanna do is break that mold, make everybody feel included in the process and not somebody’s just sitting on the sidelines and taking notes and make everybody part of that financial decision.

[00:27:43] Is that safe to say that you just wanna break that mold and kind of hit the ground running with it? Yeah, I mean, let’s 

[00:27:49] Lisa Grefe: do it. I think some of the things too, like the diversity in the industry, which I mean we can all talk a lot about that. Um, but having diverse voices in the room, having diverse people in the room, different, different ways to think.

[00:28:04] Um, and then if you are working with a couple, you know, making sure everyone wants a trusted partner, trusted advisor, right? Doesn’t matter, a man, woman, whoever. Um, so they’re looking for someone to trust and you need to build that relationship over time and you need to take the time to do it. Yeah. So I think no matter who you are, where you are and whatever you’re doing, if you take that time, that’s gonna matter and it’s gonna be important in the 

[00:28:27] Ryan Hall: future.

[00:28:28] So be being that team, just like you said, you wanna work with a team, so being that team with your clients and, and those couples and, and working on our team as well and with us, you know, bringing those clients into a team, team 

[00:28:38] Lisa Grefe: atmosphere. Yeah, I mean, I think about, so my surgery I had, I called the care team, so I had the surgeon, there was like a nurse practitioner that also specialized in medicine and all this stuff.

[00:28:48] They also had a food person. So it was like this whole team taking care of me, getting me through this time. And it was a period of time where they then leave at the end. I mean, hopefully we stay with families, clients for long time. Um, but it was important to have all those pieces in play and everybody working towards those same goals.

[00:29:07] Did you have a PT as well? Maybe . That’s a whole other story. Shout out because my wife is a pt. Shout out to 

[00:29:15] Stoy Hall: the PTs and the PTs TTAs out there, the ocas and all of them. Select medical, Select medical hashtag at Give us Money. . Um, uh, let’s wrap this up with the same question, um, that we did for Ryan. Is, um, talk to prospective clients out there of why they should work with us and how you want to change the industry to develop around them and, you know, bring clients to us.

[00:29:42] Lisa Grefe: Well, one day in, But what I can tell you guys, I got one day in . I can tell everybody from what I know about Black Mammoth and everyone that’s working here is, is they really care. Um, they really value your opinion and they wanna make an impact in your life now and later. And I think that’s, that’s what’s so unique is you think about retirement.

[00:30:06] you’re putting money away, you’re putting money away, but what’s happening now in your life? How do you set them up for success? And I think we can do that differently. I also think we have other opportunities that they can look at to build wealth and accumulate wealth over time. And I think that’s really interesting for people moving forward just with what’s happening in the markets and everything.

[00:30:24] So I think that’s important. I also think a team perspective for me is the future of where this industry’s going and having the team we have here and then having our partner firms that will be able to help them in different capacities, I think will make a huge impact in their lives and in their families.

[00:30:40] Love 

[00:30:40] Stoy Hall: it. We’ll, cheers that one. Cheers. Cheers. . Cheers. So we’ll end yours, but I have a question for you guys, and this will be some good, um, content for them later. Um, when, when we ask about retirement or we say the word retirement, you’ve been here long enough to probably answer it the way I will, but you’re newer.

[00:31:00] What, what is your answer to that? What is retirement? When you ask a client that, what are you actually asking? 

[00:31:07] Lisa Grefe: Good question. Like, when do you wanna be financially 

[00:31:09] Ryan Hall: independent? It’s actually a lot more in depth than what you’re gonna get from a client. That’s, that’s a pretty freaking good answer. When do you want, when do you wanna be financially independent?

[00:31:20] Um, is one of those things. But like, 

[00:31:22] Lisa Grefe: I mean, in the money guy pros, what age is it? Mm-hmm. ex, like age in industries. 

[00:31:26] Stoy Hall: Five Or industry, What age and how much? 2 million or whatever. Yeah, 

[00:31:30] Ryan Hall: but what, like one thing that we always talk about, like why, why put an age on it? What is it? What do you want retirement to look like?

[00:31:38] Rather than when do you want our retire? That’s the big thing. What do you want it to look like? Do you wanna be on a beach? Do you wanna be sip my ties in Hawaii or do you want to be in Montana often in the mountains by yourself? Right. Do you wanna be looking, You wanna be working part time? Do you wanna be looking at the seas of the corn right.

[00:31:56] In Iowa? Like, some people just don’t wanna leave and they’re, they’re comfortable here. Like, what does that look like? Do you wanna just take vacations randomly? Right. However, 

[00:32:04] Stoy Hall: what is the hardest question we ask is exactly the same one, right? Because they’ve never came at it that route. They always think of an age in truthfully.

[00:32:13] Um, age isn’t nothing but a number. Exactly. You remember that one. It isn’t, it really isn’t because it’s, it’s truthfully irrelevant to the fact of yes, there’s some tools we can use to help with taxes and you can take it out with it, right? Yeah. But that’s our job. It has nothing to do with you. What we need you to do is be like, Hey, I want a full-time work, whatever job or career you’re doing right now, until, you know, I get to this point where I can step away and travel or whatever.

[00:32:39] That’s what we need to know, because then we can take that and do our little, you know, our nerd stuff and get to a point of like, okay, yeah, guess what? At 48 years old. You’re going to take, If you can go part-time, cool. If not, we’re gonna start a business of the things that you want to do and you’re gonna be able to travel and we’re gonna take the rest of this money and we’re gonna allocate it differently.

[00:32:59] Most people would say in our industry, um, advisors, not planners like us, would be, Hey, let’s max out your 401ks, you’re off and all of that. Well, that hurts that person. If they don’t want to work until 65, they wanna start 45. We need more actual liquid cash now that’s not gonna get taxed in, in feed. And so, um, that’s what’s fun about, I guess, our mindset that’s different.

[00:33:20] That is tough for clients to understand. And I’m glad we’re doing the podcast. Yeah. Um, we’ll have more content to push out because this is the hardest education piece Yeah. Is the mindset of how we work compared to others, because they’re gonna compare what we do to, you know, what Joe Blow does on the street and it’s apples 

[00:33:41] Ryan Hall: to oranges.

[00:33:41] Yeah. And so another thing with that retirement is. In the industry, The longer that we hold those people’s money, the longer we make the money. Right? So people don’t necessarily want people to retire early because that’s less money in their pocket. So just had a client earlier this year that said, I’m just ready to be done.

[00:34:08] I want to retire now. Can I do it? Oh, okay. Let’s crunch the numbers. Yeah, she’s just 42, 40 over 40, somewhere in there, just over 40. And we’re like, Yep, go ahead. Now we have our ideas of what she’s probably gonna do in the future, and we have our guesses, but at the same time, it’s live your life. Go ahead. I, I think one of the coolest things that a lot of people always say is like, I, I wanna take 15 years from 35 to 50 or.

[00:34:40] That can be my retirement years and then I’ll work until I’m 70 or whatever, 77, 80 years old. But let me take those 15 years of retirement in the middle so I can fully enjoy life, spend time with my kids, still be active and not have this retirement where I can’t swing a golf club or something like that.

[00:34:58] That’s tear man. Um, 

[00:34:59] Stoy Hall: the injuries we’ve all had at 65, 70, it might be a coin flip if we’re able to swing it off club, we won’t 

[00:35:07] Ryan Hall: know. We, we won’t, we won’t know now. We might be fully robotic by then. . 

[00:35:11] Stoy Hall: Yeah. Right now, again, our wives are in the medical industry, so we’ll probably have a better chance than others, uh, to recover from this.

[00:35:17] But, um, you just never know. And I think that’s what, how don’t we even call ’em generations? That’s what the world has changed transition to is living in the now as opposed to work your ass off, see you in 40 years. I think it’s living now and getting those experiences and all of that and letting, letting the future take care of itself.

[00:35:36] Um, and just focus on the day to day. And I think that’s what we can take the most off of people’s shoulders is this, this stuff live in the now be with your kids who are running around our office right now. Um, those types of things. So cute. If you, you miss those experiences, those are the regrets you live with when you’re 70 something years old, can’t move and cool.

[00:35:57] I’ve got a couple, few million dollars, but I can’t do it. I can’t use it. Yeah. There’s nothing I can do with it because, 

[00:36:04] Lisa Grefe: Well, there’s no guarantee of the future either. No. Right. Which is sort of, you know, sad to say, but you, you just don’t know. 

[00:36:10] Ryan Hall: You don’t, Yeah. You never know. You don’t know. So, and we talk about it all the time.

[00:36:15] The happy, happiest people live in the moment. They don’t try and project everything and taking that off of our client’s shoulders, let us handle those projections, let us control that. Live in the now. Be able to live your life. For sure. 

[00:36:28] Lisa Grefe: Yeah. I mean, I think you think about now like what are your best memories now or experiences your ex experience, your travel.

[00:36:36] Hanging out with friends, gonna the bar for six hours, whatever. Right. You know, like memories now is like that’s, that’s what makes up life. Exactly. 

[00:36:43] Stoy Hall: For sure. Cool. For sure. Well, how was your first podcast? All right, Thanks for having me. Was it good? Was it, Was that a scary, I was gonna say you sweat in a little bit.

[00:36:51] Lisa Grefe: No, I was gonna say sweaty balls. Sweaty. It reminds me of sweaty from very life.