How to graduate into being a Financial Grownup (and eventually retire!) with Eric Brotman

 

Episode Description: From financial wellness to tough love on what it really takes to control how and when you retire, Don't Retire.. Graduate author Eric Brotman shares a unique perspective on how financial grownups can make their long term goals a reality- even if the math doesn't work at first.

A little sneak peek into Eric Brotman’s episode!

Timestamps & Main Points:

  • 00:00 - Introduction

  • 04:20 - “There’s a difference between rich and wealth.”

  • 06:31 - You can’t jump into a college experience as a senior.

  • 10:09 - …a financial advisor is almost as intimate as a doctor.

  • 13:31 - It requires you to think about what you want to be when you grow up.


Eric’s Bio:

Eric D. Brotman, CFP®, is the CEO of BFG Financial Advisors, host of the Don’t Retire… Graduate! podcast, author of the Don’t Retire… Graduate! book, and regular contributor to Forbes.com. He and his team believe that financial literacy is the key to financial freedom, so they provide free and affordable educational resources and accessible financial planning with no asset minimums.

 
 

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Full Transcript:


Eric Brotman:

A financial advisor is almost as intimate as a doctor. We joke that there's no gown that you have to wear, or disrobing or anything, but it's very intimate. When you talk about money, you're talking about things that go well beyond, "Here's my balance." You're talking about, "I have a kid with a gambling issue." Or, "I'm worried about my spouse's spending." Or, "We have a substance issue," or, "special needs." I mean, it's incredibly emotional. It's not just a math problem.

Bobbi Rebell:

You are listening to Money Tips for Financial Grownups, with me, Certified Financial Planner Bobbi Rebell, author of Launching Financial Grownups. Because you know what? Grownup life is really hard, but together, we got this.

There's an important financial moment that I'm about to talk about. I don't know if you guys have experienced it or not, but I want everyone to focus. So hit pause on whatever else you're doing. Stop the multitasking, if you're like me, because I do do that when I'm listening to podcasts, and just really focus on what I am about to say. Is there a time when you feel you actually graduate into being a financial grownup? Has it happened yet? Do you think it's going to happen? What needs to happen to get you there? Is it a number you have in your head, in terms of what your net worth needs to be? Is it a feeling, like when you have a fully funded emergency fund, where you just feel like you have that weight off your shoulder, and you feel like you have just a sigh of relief? Or is it when you can see retirement on the horizon, and it doesn't scare you anymore?

My guest this week is Eric Brotman, and he is going to help us figure all of that out. Eric is a Certified Financial Planner, as well as the CEO of BFG Financial Advisors. He is also the host of the Don't Retire... Graduate! podcast, and author of a book by the same name. He's also a regular contributor to forbes.com. And as you will hear, Eric will also keep us laughing and smiling even while talking about some of the most awkward financial topics. Here is Eric Brotman.

Eric Brotman, you are a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.

Eric Brotman:

Thank you, Bobbi. I've been called lots of things, but never a grownup, so this is a first.

Bobbi Rebell:

All right. Well, congratulations. You are a grownup. And by the way, we went to the same college, University of Pennsylvania, a couple years apart, and I can assure you, by our graduation dates, we are both grownups, whether we want to fully accept it or not.

Eric Brotman:

Fair.

Bobbi Rebell:

You are the CEO of BFG Financial Advisors, and you are also the host of a podcast called Don't Retire... Graduate! And now the book by the same name, Don't Retire... Graduate! And I want to read the subtitle, because it's a key part of here. "Building a path to financial freedom and retirement at any age." And I want anyone that hears the R word for retirement to stay with us, because this is really important. It is a book also for people nearing retirement, but it is very much a book for people that can't even imagine retiring, because it's coming for you. The alternative, well, that stinks. We're going to all get to the point where we retire. So we want to talk about it early so that you are ready.

And Eric, first of all, thank you for writing this book. The book, it has a sense of humor. It has your personality that just comes through right away. Do people just smile when they read it? Because you don't normally smile when you read a money book. You kind of decide to do it as a task, like a New Year's resolution task. This one, I was kind of giggling a little.

Eric Brotman:

Well, I'm glad to hear that. I have no filter, and so usually I try to very much be myself. And in the book, I try and quote great philosophers, and one I chose was Chris Rock. So no one's confusing him with Aristotle necessarily, but he had some great wisdom about wealth and about money, and I just think we take ourselves real seriously. And if money is, if it's taboo, or if it's considered boring, or something to sort of go the ostrich approach, you're not going to get where you want to be. So I think we have to make it relatable.

Bobbi Rebell:

What is the Chris Rock quote?

Eric Brotman:

The Chris Rock quote, and I'm paraphrasing, because it's not directly in front of me, but he said, "There's a difference between rich and wealth." And he also said, "Wealth is relative." He said, "If Bill Gates woke up tomorrow with Oprah's net worth, he'd want to jump out a window." And that's really a fascinating thing, because to you and I, I presume, if we were living with Oprah's net worth, we'd be okay.

Bobbi Rebell:

Yeah.

Eric Brotman:

In fact, we'd be better than okay. I would sign up for that. But it's all relative. And so the concept of wealth, really, first of all, there's lots of different ways to define wealth. There's a wealth of experience, and a wealth of knowledge, and a wealth of certainly financial and other types of wealth. But it's all different. And if you live in Manhattan, New York, or you live in Manhattan, Kansas, the same net worth doesn't necessarily mean you're equally wealthy in either place, either. There's a lot of relativity.

Bobbi Rebell:

One of the funniest things in the book, or at least an example of one of the funny things, is right out at the start, right out of the gate, you talk about the different courses, and I should say, the book has the structure of sort of going through college. So you've got the freshman year, or sophomore year, or junior year, and senior year, and then you have extra credits. But before that, you sort of introduce the concept, and you say you're going to choose the courses, right? You're going to plan your curriculum. And one way to go is the fully funded retirement. And that's a tough entry standard, but most rewarding, and you're going to take steps to get people through that program. But then the other one is the, "Work until I die." This is the alternate course of study. Let's find ways ... And then your solution here is, "Let's find ways to get your grades up," and you talk about extra credit assignments.

Talk about that perspective. It's sort of a tough love with some humor in it, but you're kind of saying, because I feel like a lot of financial advisors say, "Well, whenever you start is the best time, and you can always catch up." You can't always catch up, Eric.

Eric Brotman:

No. You can't always catch up. And it is better to start today than not to, no matter where you are, and you have to start wherever you are. But to me, the biggest exponent, and we talk about math in the book, and everyone loves math. No one hates math ever, right? But the exponent in the equation is time. It's the one thing that impacts the outcome the most. And so starting sooner is absolutely better. You can't jump into a college experience as a senior. You have to start, you have to sort of pay your dues. You can't jump into a sports team as a veteran. You're a rookie first. You have to sort of crawl before you sprint. And so doing some of the things, some of the blocking and tackling that you have to do to get there, the earlier you start, the better. And we try and get folks to start when they get their first paycheck, even if they're 14 at the time.

Bobbi Rebell:

Yeah. My 15-year-old does not have an income stream yet. Speaking of children, one of my favorite subheadings, so again, the book is really funny, one of my favorite subheadings, and I guess you're alluding to the great Whitney Houston, the great singer-

Eric Brotman:

Yes.

Bobbi Rebell:

You say, "I believe the children are expensive." Talk to me about that.

Eric Brotman:

That was a Whitney Houston thing, and I was like, "I don't know if they're the future or not, but they're definitely expensive." And it's an entire chapter in the sophomore year about what it means financially to become a parent. And there's so many things about parenting. First of all, if anyone out there decides, "We want to wait until we can afford to be parents," they will never have children. Because no one can, at least in their current situation, afford to have children. It is wickedly expensive. It's also wonderfully rewarding, most of the time. And so I think, yeah, most of the time. I have a teenager too, so most of the time. But it's not something to take lightly. I mean, it really is expensive. And for families with two, and three, and four kids, some of the mistakes that we see people make around children is that they put their children's financial needs before their own.

And it's kind of like when you're on an airplane, and we talk about the airplane safety lecture in this chapter, one of the things is, they always say, "If there's a loss of cabin pressure, masks will drop down. Please secure the mask for yourself before securing someone else's." And I'm very pleased that I've never had that experience. I hope I never do. But if I do, it's going to be my instinct to protect my daughter first. That's a parental instinct. But if you do that and then you pass out, you're of no use to her at all. And so financially, we see people who literally make it impossible for them to retire so they can educate their kids. Retirement's the only thing you can't borrow for. You can borrow for anything else in this world except financial independence.

And so I will tell folks, and it is tough love, and it's meant to be funny, but it's also tough love. And I will say, "You are going to have some really well-educated kids. Which one are you planning to live with?"

Bobbi Rebell:

Yeah. That is some tough love. I mean, look, I talk about that so much in my book, Launching Financial Grownups, because we do over-indulge our children. We talk about the movement from helicopter parents to concierge parents. We're available at all times to solve their problems, often with money. But then where's the money for us when we go to retire? And it is true. The greatest gift you can give your children is your own financial independence, so that they can live their lives and not feel that they have to subsidize your life as they get older. And all of you, we all get older.

Another thing that I love that you brought into this book, that I don't know that I've really seen in a financial book, we always tell people when you're not feeling well, when you have a health concern, go get a second opinion, maybe even a third opinion. Very often we just send people to a financial advisor, and that's it. And they often find the fit based on personality, which is absolutely an important thing, but it also, I mean, you're here with tough love. Some people might be like, "Well, I like the guy that tells me I can spend more money. I'm going to go with him." It might be good to maybe meet with a few different people and see a different perspective. Talk to me about the idea of second opinions when it comes to money.

Eric Brotman:

I think no one person or individual or company has a monopoly on good ideas. You're going to get them lots of different places. And so a financial advisor is almost as intimate as a doctor. We joke that there's no gown that you have to wear, or disrobing or anything, but it's very intimate. When you talk about money, you're talking about things that go well beyond, "Here's my balance." You're talking about, "I have a kid with a gambling issue." Or, "I'm worried about my spouse's spending." Or, "We have a substance issue," or, "special needs." I mean, it's incredibly emotional. It's not just a math problem. The math is simple. You need to find someone with whom you relate, but you also have to find someone where you're in their wheelhouse.

Bobbi Rebell:

Yeah.

Eric Brotman:

You don't want to be someone's biggest client, or their smallest one. You want to be in a place where an advisor works with folks like you. And by the way, if that's the answer, if you walk in and say, "Well, so tell me about your clients. Who are your clients?" And they say, "They're just like you," make sure they articulate that a little further. I can tell you specifically that we work with multi-generational families, and most of the folks who show up at BFG are 40 to 60. They're sandwich generation. They look a whole lot like you and me. They are worried about their parents who are getting older, and their health concerns. They've got kids to educate. They're working 50, 60 hours a week. They're making money. They have tax issues. They're busy. They just want to know that they have an advocate and a set of eyeballs on everything.

We tend to play whack-a-mole financially, where we'll have a real estate person for this, or a mortgage person for that. And it's like, "Well, check the box." "Oh, insurance agent. Check. Got it. Let's move on." And the problem is, people don't talk to each other. And so you could have the best eight or 10 people in your world advising you, but if they don't know what one another are doing, that's like having 10 musicians on stage with no piece of music, and say, "Go play something."

Bobbi Rebell:

Yeah.

Eric Brotman:

And they call that jazz, and I don't love jazz. So that's not the way to do it.

Bobbi Rebell:

Yeah. No. I completely agree. I want to, just before we wrap up, I want to ask you a question about something we are talking about in 2023 here on the podcast, and that is financial wellness. Because one thing that you talk about in the book, you say, "Breathe. Pace yourself in making the big decisions in life, and focus on before you retire, the moment you retire, and after you retire." In other words, get some perspective, because people tend to get so, as you just said, caught up in these numbers and checking the boxes. Tell me more about the idea of just taking a breath, taking a moment.

Eric Brotman:

Some of that comes from my yoga training, because I do love yoga, and it does help to meditate or to be mindful. The reality is, most of the big decisions in our lives financially should not be made quickly. They have to be made thoughtfully. They have to be made in a paced way. These are rarely things that are urgent. It's extremely rare that something comes up and you're like, "Ooh, it's Monday, and by Tuesday I have to make this decision." And the times when that does happen, sometimes it happens when you're house hunting, if there's a competitive situation for a piece of real estate. I understand there are exceptions to that, but the decision to retire, the decision to give up your paycheck, and either to start doing consulting, or to be a grownup in a different way, and graduate into some other activity, it's major, and it requires more than just the math. It requires you to think about what you want to be when you grow up.

Bobbi Rebell:

Yeah.

Eric Brotman:

And we don't get asked that. Last time somebody asked me that, I was seven, and I was going to play for the Baltimore Colts, and there's lots of reasons why that didn't happen, but we don't get asked that. "So what do you want to be when you grow up?" And I know you're going to guest on my podcast, and I'm going to ask you that, and I'm going to expect a very creative answer. I can't wait. But I do think it makes sense to take your time.

These things, anyone who says, "They're almost gone. Get one now," that's a red flag. This is not the Cabbage Patch Kids of the eighties, where people were losing their minds at Toys"R"Us. This isn't something we're going to run out of. Take your time and do it well.

Bobbi Rebell:

Thank you so much. Eric Brotman, your book is Don't Retire... Graduate! It's a joyous book. Rarely will you find a money book that will make you giggle along the way. So I encourage everyone to pick up a copy. Eric, where can people be in touch with you?

Eric Brotman:

The best place to find our resources is brotmanmedia.com, which is where you'll find the podcast, some of our online courses, a lot of free resources, and of course the book and the workbook that goes with it, because we don't believe in homework. We like extra credit, so they're all extra credit assignments. And then for folks who want to check out our firm, it's bfgfa.com. That's BFG Financial Advisors.

Bobbi Rebell:

Thank you so much.

Eric Brotman:

Thank you, Bobbi. It's been fun.

Bobbi Rebell:

A big thank you to so many of you that have already bought my new book, Launching Financial Grownups: Live your richest life by helping your almost adult kids become everyday money smart. This book was not easy to write, because I had to get honest with myself about what was working with my teen and young adult kids, and what was not working, and I also had to be prepared to share it with all of you. So first of all, thank you for your support and your wonderful responses to it. There's definitely some things in there that you may not have been expecting to hear.

By the way, I got a lot of help from my money expert friends and also financial therapists and parenting experts. I am really happy with how Launching Financial Grownups came out, even though it really was hard to be, like I said, that honest. And it was a lot of work, but I really loved doing it, and I'm really happy with how it came out.

On that note, if you have not already, please pick up a copy of Launching Financial Grownups today. After you do, please share it on social media. Please leave a review on Amazon. Those reviews are super important, because the algorithm picks up on them, and that can make the book a lot more visible to more people. So I truly appreciate it, and I really also appreciate all of your support.

I love that Eric doesn't give homework, just extra credit. Keeping it positive there. Very much appreciated by this parent of a teenager. I wasn't joking, by the way, about Eric's book. He's got so much personality in it that it's really the most fun I've had reading a financial book in some time. Don't Retire... Graduate! is, like I said, it's really fun for a financial book, so you definitely do want to check it out. Eric was kind enough to have me on, by the way, his podcast, which is by the same name, Don't Retire... Graduate! So please check out my interview on Eric's podcast when you have a chance.

I am always looking, by the way, for ways to improve this podcast, so please DM me at BobbiRebell1 on Instagram with suggestions, and please help me grow the community. Take a screenshot of the podcast and share it on social media. Tag me so I can thank you as well. And by the way, some of you take pictures of you with my book, Launching Financial Grownups, and share it on social media. Thank you for that, and please definitely tag me on that so I can thank you. I really appreciate all of your support with Launching Financial Grownups.

If you missed anything on the show, you can of course listen to it again, but you also can check out our show notes, which has not only links to everything that we spoke about, but also how to get in touch with Eric, and as always, a complete transcript. You can do that right on my website, bobbirebell.com. Look for the podcast tab. While you're there, please be in touch by signing up for our free newsletter, where I share tips and insights on how to live a financial grownup life. Thanks everyone for joining us, and big thanks especially to Eric Brotman for helping us all be financial grownups.

Money Tips for Financial Grownups is a production of BRK Media, LLC. Editing and production by Steve Stewart, guest coordination, content creation, social media support, and show notes by Ashley Wall. You can find the podcast show notes, which include links to resources mentioned in the show, as well as show transcripts, by going to my website, bobbirebell.com. You can also find an incredible library of hundreds of previous episodes to help you on your journey as a financial grownup.

The podcast and tons of complimentary resources associated with the podcast is brought to you for free, but I need to have your support in return. Here's how you can do that. First, connect with me on social media at BobbiRebell1 on Instagram, and BobbiRebell on both Twitter and on Clubhouse, where you can join my Money Tips for Grownups Club. Second, share this podcast on social media and tag me so I can thank you. You can also leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Reading each one means the world to me. You know what? It really motivates others to subscribe. You can also support our merch shop, grownupgear.com, by picking up fun gifts for your grownup friends, and treating yourself as well. And most of all, help your friends on their journey to being financial grownups by encouraging them to subscribe to the podcast. Together we got this.

Thank you for your time and for the kind words so many of you send my way. See you next time, and thank you for supporting Money Tips for Financial Grownups.

 

 
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