Jeff Rose - From Financial Planner to YouTuber: The Evolution Of Career Experimenter

Michael Gardon (00:09:52):

You ended up becoming a certified financial planner. Is that after or concurrent with some of your time

Jeff Rose (00:09:59):

Army national guard, you go to basic training, just like regular army. You come back and then basically you do your one in a month, two weeks in the summer. And my initial obligation was for six years. So I joined, I ended up, you know, going through college, graduating college, got in internship at an investment firm while I was in college. That ended up leading to me becoming a financial advisor, uh, getting a job offer. So I'm doing the guard, doing the internship, get hired. And I fulfilled that six year obligation within, gosh, I'm trying to think like a year or two of me becoming an advisor, but after the six years came up, I did what a lot of people didn't do. Uh, that joined was I reenlisted for another three years. All my other friends that did their six, they got out, you know, they got their schooling paid for, they got what they needed.

Jeff Rose (00:10:56):

I, I reenlisted. And the reason I did was because this is what I told myself. Like I went to work, I was wearing a shirt in a tie. We lived in Midwest, so you'd have to wear a jacket there. Right. But did wear a shirt and tie. And for me like that one week in a month where I could go out into the field and just be a man and get, and just like, it was a nice break from showing up to the office, you know, behind a computer. So it was like, I enjoyed that camaraderie of hanging out with these guys and telling the same stupid jokes, like month after month. But anyway, I think it was nine months or so into that reenlistment is whenever we ended up getting notified that we're being deployed. So that's when, uh, I ended up finding out, being deployed. I was in Iraq for 17 months. So I was a financial planner for about two and a half years before I was deployed, was gone, came back. They held a position for me, took over that, you know, the clients and all that when I came back and then it was about a year after that is when I obtained that, uh, my C P destination.

Michael Gardon (00:12:03):

OK. So it was really mid-career you had kind of started to build a book and then you ended up going, going over.

Jeff Rose (00:12:10):

Yeah, it was like really timing wise. It sucked because for those that don't know the financial to become a financial advisor, I mean, I had a training class that I went through up in, uh, the home office up in St. Louis. And there was like 55 of us in this training class. After a year, over half of them had already phased out, fizzled out, just did not make it. And within like, I think it was five years after it's same stats. You look at like starting a small business. Right. Probably worse. But I remember like after five years there was only like five or six of us left from that original training class. So made it through that first year. Didn't make a lot of money. And after that second year, like all of a sudden, like, I just felt that momentum like starting, you know, because after you do a bunch of seminars and you start meeting a bunch of people and getting your name out there and shaking hands, all of a sudden now opportunities start coming to you because you survived.

Jeff Rose (00:13:01):

I was getting like newer clients, bigger clients. And then all of a sudden whack now you go like, it wasn't just 17 months. You know, it was like that 93 months before I left, like, who's gonna, was like start investing with somebody who's getting ready, deployed to a combat zone. Right. Like, so I didn't get a bunch of new clients before I left. Plus I'm like, what's the point? You know? Like, do I really wanna sit in my office for the next I did for some of that, but other times, like, just like, dude, I just need to spend some time with family or friends before I leave. And then coming back, you know, you have a transition of, oh, I'm not in a Humvee, 140 degree weather scared that a roadside bomb is gonna take my life, you know, I'm back wearing a shirt and tie again. And so there was like a transition of me just getting back to normal. So it was almost like a two year break, you know, in between. But yeah, it took a little while to get back into it, but once I did, yeah. That's when it just, it started to take off.

Michael Gardon (00:13:58):

So a couple follow up questions. One is deciding to become a financial advisor. How did that process happen for you? Was that simply I was looking for something and it caught me at the right time or, or was that something that you consciously wanted to do?

Jeff Rose (00:14:13):

Yeah, no, absolutely not. After, I guess at some point I knew that I was gonna major in business. So when I started getting my associate's degree and a lot of that was because of my stepdad, who I actually did not like at all, but I guess I liked him a little bit. He was the guy back in the eighties who had the car for, which was like the bag phone that you would plug into your cigarette lighter. And for those that have no idea what I'm talking about. Like that, that was like a cool thing. Like not a lot of people had that. And he always had, like, he had this thing called the Butler, which is basically the equivalent of like your Amazon echo, you know, where you say, Hey Butler, turn on the lights. Like this is going back into eighties. Like the thing never worked.

Jeff Rose (00:14:58):

I mean, it was a piece of crap, but you know, he spent a lot of money on these types of things and, you know, he would go to work, wear a suit and cuff links and just had that part. So because of that and knowing that my real dad didn't graduate college until he was like 55, always struggled with money, like really had like that whole rich dad, poor dad experience, you know, like, which like looking back was like truly a blessing. So looking at my real, oh, sorry, my stepdad. And I'm like, okay, I don't know what he did. I just, I know he's involved in business. So I knew I was going to be a business major. And then from there I started, I, I didn't really know where to specify. So it was between finance or accounting and it almost went towards accounting.

Jeff Rose (00:15:39):

Thank God I didn't. It was actually my real dad who, when I was asking him, like, what do you think he is like, well, I know that I've never met an accountant with a good personality. So I think you should choose finance. And I'm like, okay. So that's what I chose finance as my major. And from there, I was thinking corporate finance, like doing the corporate ladder. And that's actually where I thought I was going and going back, this is a 2002 when I graduated college. And for those that don't remember, like, this is a whole, like the, the.com era. You had nine 11 also going on the company that I was interviewed for, which ended up being a broker for, but as far as the corporate office goes, ended up having like their first layoff, like in 117 year history, the year I graduate college and I'd interned at this local investment firm I had, which included me filing and shredding all the necessary tasks as an intern. I also ended up doing some cold calling for one of the brokers, one of the financial advisors there and actually landed him a few clients doing that. I hated it, but I, I did, I was okay at it. And he had made me a job offer as a junior broker, which I declined initially. And then when everything dried up in the job market, I'm like, okay, well, I guess I'll do that then. and that's how I stumbled upon becoming a financial advisor.

Michael Gardon (00:17:05):

Yeah. It was a very difficult time to get a job, especially right outta college. During that time I re I remember it very well. So I was gonna ask a about if it wasn't necessarily like your life's calling, right. You didn't, you didn't know that this was gonna be your life's calling or what you were gonna do. And, and you alluded to it just now, what were some of the skills or things that you may have been naturally good at that aligned with this type of job, cuz it's not for everybody and it can be very difficult, those to the grindstone type of work.

Jeff Rose (00:17:35):

Yeah. I, one of the things I, I didn't realize I kind of had prepped myself for this job was in college. I had, I mean, a few jobs that weren't that great, but the one that I, I think ended up having the longest was I worked at GNC, the vitamin store. And when I worked there, they had, I mean, we'll call it commissions. I forgot their term. But you know, if somebody bought a gold card, you know, you'd get $2. If they bought like a five pound of a protein, you'd get like three to $5. And I was super motivated, but not like into like a, a, I wanna try to sell you as much as I can, you know, when somebody would come in and they're interested in either gaining weight or losing weight, I would start asking questions like, well, what are you currently doing?

Jeff Rose (00:18:19):

Like, what are you working out? Like, what are you eating? And like how much protein do you get? So like, I took this whole like consultant approach, which I, no one ever trained me in this crap. I don't know how I even figured this out. But because of that, when minimum wage back then was like 4 75, I was making like almost like 10 bucks an hour. And it was this being curious, asking a lot of questions, being able to identify, you know, with these people, by the time, like I took these time with them, I earned their trust. So they were more likely to who buy from me and being a financial advisor at first, I didn't realize it was similar. Like I thought like, oh, people want to know about standard deviation and all these stupid financial terms, no one cared about that stuff.

Jeff Rose (00:19:06):

All they wanted to know was one, did I know what I was talking you about? Or was I some snake oil salesman that was trying to like, just rip 'em off and also like, did they trust me? And that took me asking a lot of questions, getting to know their situation, doing a lot of comprehensive financial planning before I was even a CFP. And like, these are all things I had to do because I was told some years old. And most of the clients that I was trying to earn their business was a minimum two to three times my age. So it's like, okay, I've been working my entire life. You know, here's my entire life savings. Do I want to give it to this kid and run the risk of like him losing it all. And I mean, that was like what the battle that I had to face, but, uh, I, I was up for it, you know? So I was definitely the, just the way I presented myself was, um, much more mature, I guess, than I probably was at the time. But, you know, I, it that's who I was underneath and that's what worked out.

Michael Gardon (00:20:07):

Yeah. I mean, I think those skills you probably learned later were classified as sales skills.

Jeff Rose (00:20:12):

Absolutely

Michael Gardon (00:20:13):

To put them in a bucket, right? Like we all think of, okay, what are sales skills? And, you know, I don't maybe wanna be a salesman and sometimes it gets a bad connotation, but the point of your entire story is it's really more so about being inquisitive and consultative and asking questions and make, and helping people be at ease with you and addressing their concerns. Then it is trying to squeeze a , you know, a, a circle into a square, whatever it, it might be sounds like you were kind of just naturally geared to that, that, and that was something that you really learned a as you went in, instead of knowing this is my strength and finding a job, like, you know, everybody wants to have a plan outta college of what to do. So take a strengths finder's test and then go after these types of things like yours, yours was kind of in, in reverse of, of that quote unquote, which I love. I mean, I think that's phenomenal.

Jeff Rose (00:21:10):

Yeah. I, I remember like one of the first bigger clients that I got, and I just remember being on the phone with him, like it was a straight cold call and this is like the fourth time I called him and he asked me a question that I did not know the answer to. And I don't know who me this. I mean, somebody, I guess gave me some, a really good life lesson here, but this is one of those times where I could have BS my way through it. But instead I said, you know, I don't know the answer to that, but I will find out and I'll give you a call back as soon as I know. And I did that. And the only reason I bring that up is because when he ended up becoming a client, he's like, listen of the reasons I, I chose you cuz you are young, but I really respect the fact that you admitted that you didn't know the answer, but you were willing to find out. And I was like, oh really? Okay. That's cool. like, it was just somehow it was wired in me kind of golden rule type, you know, less as, I guess for my grandmother or somebody, you know, somebody poured my life and being willing to admit, man, I don't, I don't have all the answers, but I'll find out for you. Like I'll, I'll do what it takes to get that answer for you. So that worked out really well.

Michael Gardon (00:22:16):

Yeah. We don't get a lot of that in society today. Like everybody's supposed to project themselves as an expert. Right. And, and know everything, but you kind of find like when you have some experience, you know, you and I have been our careers for a minute. one of the things that I found out like over the years is the bars actually set pretty low. And if you just do the X's and O's the blocking and tackling right. Like that, we would say that just the little things you find yourself in some pretty opportune places. I don't know if that's part of imposter syndrome that gets wired into us or what it is, but it's just amazing how I've seen that manifest over and over again. It's like, you just do the little things and you actually stand out among the crowd.

Jeff Rose (00:23:03):

It is crazy. You know? And the little thing is like sending up a follow up email, right. Or, oh my God. A handwritten letter.

Michael Gardon (00:23:11):

yeah.

Jeff Rose (00:23:14):

Like this is just not in people's like vocabulary and they just don't do it. But yeah. It's those simple things that make you stand out.

Michael Gardon (00:23:19):

Yeah. Well, cool. Uh, so I wanna get to, so you, you get back from deployment, you're back at it, hitting the grind, building your practice. And as you're growing that, if I skip over some steps or something like that, that you think are important, please, please ring me in. But one of the things that you end up doing to grow your practice is you just start writing online. So talk to me a little bit about how that came to be and why you started doing that and what you saw from it.

Jeff Rose (00:23:51):

Yeah. One, one of the, I guess we'll call it like one of the, uh, unknown consequences or, um, byproducts of, so the, the firm that I was working for ended up selling, they ended up being bought out, which ended up becoming Wells Fargo. And when that happened, I wasn't, I didn't wanna be a part of a big bank. I just didn't have a good vibe about it. So me and three other guys, we ended up leaving and we co-founded our own investment firm. And so now I, and for those that don't know, like I was a w two employee with the, the first firm that I was at, even though they treated me as like an entrepreneur, like, I mean, I did make my own sales, but I still had to give them a large cut. So when I left, I became a 10 99, you know, independent contractor, small business owner for the first time.

Jeff Rose (00:24:38):

And I went on what was called more the independent side instead of having like a big name behind us, like a Merrill ly from Morgan Stanley. And we got to brand ourselves as more like the local level. And when I started doing this, I started doing a bunch of research of like, okay, how can I stand out? You know, like I looked at it as like a way that I could market myself differently than every other advisor out there. And there was a couple things I tried, like, I, I paid a lot of money for these really fancy brochures that really did do it. Dang thing. That was a lot of money. And then I stumbled upon this article and this trade magazine, like financial advisor magazine that talked about how, if you really wanna stand out from the competition, you need to start a blog. And I read this article, it was like a one page article. I'm like, yeah, like that's what I'm gonna do. What's the blog.

Jeff Rose (00:25:28):

And like, this is going back. I think 2007 is when I read the article at that time, I am not on Facebook. Do not have my space, Twitter. I, I forgot what Twitter came out, but I wasn't on social media. I didn't even really like being on a computer all that much. But when I finally, like, I went to the, the advisor's blog that was mentioned this article, then I did a quick search for certified financial planner blogs. And I remember when I did that search, I was like, oh yeah, because what I found was pretty much nothing. Like there was maybe four or five financial planner blogs in the entire country going back to 2007, 2008. And if you've not heard this expression before, you know, like you need to find your niche, you need to find your niche. I'm like, did I just find something like I, and so when I went to the four or five that were out there, just seeing what they had, and then I that's when I really stumbled upon financial blogs that in general, and I was like, my mind was blown, like, wow, because I've been doing seminars, I've been doing, uh, I was like doing like this investment class, like a local park district.

Jeff Rose (00:26:41):

I was doing all this stuff at the local level. And all of a sudden, like I saw this blog as this potential to reach hundreds, maybe thousands of people. So that's when I got really excited and ended up registering the domain. Good financial sense for about nine months, I was writing articles, research, blogging, and search engine optimization and all this stuff, cuz this was all foreign to me, nine months of like investing a lot of time. I finally ended up getting my first client out of it. And the cool thing about that was, I didn't know what I was doing, man. I had no clue. And for a long time, my wife was like, what are you doing? Like you're waste a lot of time on this. And I mean, and I started to believe it cuz like I didn't really know what I was doing.

Jeff Rose (00:27:27):

Didn't have really any success from it. And finally got the first client who found me because she had typed in a keyword that I really had focused on, which was like financial planner, Illinois. And at that time she ended up becoming my biggest client and she found me through a Google search. And that was like, yes. You know, that was like finally victory validation. And, and somewhere in that process, I also learned that, oh, you can actually make money from a website. Well, that's kind of cool. So as I'm growing my financial planning practice, I became equally obsessed with how do I grow this website into, you know, kinda like a side hustle side project type thing, making some money and have my first paycheck from my website, which was a Google as check was like 152 bucks. And I was blown away. I was like, yes.

Jeff Rose (00:28:24):

And that was like a couldn't even pair like tri bill the time. But it showed me like, oh, like there's something, there's another world out here that I don't know anything about. And it was a battle because I was making really good money as a financial planner, but there was just something about the online side that I just felt like there's something bigger here that I don't quite understand yet. Everything just said, keep going, keep going, keep going. And you know, fast forward to present day, not to jump too far ahead, but I was a financial planner straight outta college. Had did that for 16 years. Ended up formed my, my own wealth management firm. I ended up selling a couple years ago, so I could focus on the blog, the website full time. So it's been a fun ride, but uh, yeah, that's kind of the journey. And I know I, I fast forward a lot there, but that sure people that the growth and where it went.

Michael Gardon (00:29:17):

Yeah, no that's all right. I mean, um, what stands out to me about the story is you didn't necessarily set out to have a side hustle. Like I talk to a lot of people in the career space about like, if you're not feeling like you have a creative outlet in your current job, start a side hustle, like you can find ways to engineer creativity through doing something like that. You were kind of trying to scratch your own itch in your current business and find a way to stand out and make the flywheel start to turn for your current business, by staying with your curiosity. And by continuing to kind of, I always look at you a is like, you're just this learner, you learn all the time, like by sticking with that and being true to it, you said, wow. Like I actually might have a chance to do this full time.

Michael Gardon (00:30:10):

And so for our audience, like the website that we're talking about really is good financial sense.com, which Jeff started back in. What was that? 2008? You said something like that. And eventually you got to a point where you had this conundrum. You were like, I'm making a good amount of money in my current business, advising clients. And I put a lot of work into that and now good financial sense is making some money. What do I do? You're at this crossroad? Talk to us a little bit about how you decided to eventually go full time with GFC.

Jeff Rose (00:30:46):

Yeah. Uh, that transition, that was a hard one. You know, it was like, as I mentioned, like my identity was tied into me being a financial planner. I mean, straight from college, doing that and growing it and just having a lot of success with it. And also just the people. I mean, these were real people that I was working with and many people had one client like lost their son, like lost their adult son, other clients, you know, lose their parents. And just through a lot, helped them from hoping to retire, to finally retire and many years into retirement. So it wasn't like these were just numbers. Like these were relationships and living in the west at the time, Southern Illinois to be exact. I, I always felt like, man, if I stay here, it's gonna be really hard for me to separate. Cuz people knew that I had a website, nobody knew how successful it was like no one had any clue.

Jeff Rose (00:31:38):

And when I finally kinda like share with people like, Hey, you know that this online thing is that actually making two to three X more than the brick and mortar business that I've spent twice as long growing. But there was still this fear cuz it is like this online thing, you know? Like could it go away? But one of the first steps I did was I moved my wife and I moved to the national area and there was other reasons why we, but the business was one of it. I wanted to see if I could separate myself. I'd already hire like a full-time guy to start like taking care of the clients, like already made that step. But moving was helpful. And I tried to sell a minority stake, you know, to the guy who was running it. He wasn't interested, still don't understand it.

Jeff Rose (00:32:22):

That's okay. His loss and finally had just, it was like a client situation. It was like no big deal, but it was like just annoying. And I already had like my take kind of like scheduled out, like producing some content and do some other stuff and I had to stop and take care of this client. And I just remember sharing with my wife. I'm like, gosh, like that was so I know it's no big deal, but like, it was just so defeating cuz like I, I wanted to be productive and creative and it just zapped like all that energy out of me. And then she finally said like, I think it's time to sell. And this is the same wife that when I wanted to sell a minority steak, like 30%, like she was freaking out. like, like she would, oh my gosh. Like what happens if, but after she saw like that the online business continued to thrive and it was like, it was time.

Jeff Rose (00:33:15):

And even when I, I got to the point where I was ready to sell, like I, I was still scared, you know, I don't know. Like it was just like turning, closing the chapter on a very, just a very fun part of my life. You know? Like I just had so much growth, so much success and fear like, man, am I gonna be able to do that over here? Even though I was already doing it, but finally that's what led to me executing the yeah. And that's, it is what it is. It's done. I don't regret it. I do miss some of the relationships. You know, I, the thing I really enjoyed about a financial planner going back the whole, like being curious, I loved meeting new people and learning what their money journey was, what were all like the good money moves they made up where all that, like the bonehead stupid money makes that they made the lessons that they learned and what got 'em to where they were like, that's the part I miss the most. I don't miss like talking about the Dow Jones dropping 2%, like every other day with the same person, like broker record type conversations. Yeah. That's glad I did.

Michael Gardon (00:34:20):

All right. We're back for the audience. We took a little break, Jeff fed to go pick up his kids, which I know plenty about. And that kind of brings me to a thought on on balance and work life balance, which I wanna maybe get to in a minute or so. But during our break, I was thinking about, you were telling a story about how you were essentially thinking about going full time with the website and maybe getting rid of your practice. But before we got to that part, you kind of saw the trajectory of good financial sense and you, you had promise there, but you know, it's not without risk, right? It's not a slam dunk. You had to make some choices and decisions in terms of putting more resources against that, right. Either you with your time and maybe neglecting other things like work life balance, or what have you, or actually spending money to build a team, to build other people that can do that for you. Can you talk a little bit about your thought process there and how that essentially went? Cuz it seemed to all work out for the better.

Jeff Rose (00:35:24):

Yeah. And once again, like I had no entrepreneur business owner CEO like DNA in my blood, just that wasn't part of my vocabulary. So I was always scared to like hire somebody, you know, pay somebody to do something. I was trying to think back on like what finally was, uh, what, what finally pushed me over the edge. And it was actually reading Tim Ferris's four hour work week and I became really infatuated with this idea of hiring a virtual assistant. Like this is like, this is before COVID uh, and probably a decade before that, like virtual assistants were like this thing that was like, wait, what is that like? That sounds cool. And I just remember, like he shared a story, like some example in the story about this guy hired somebody to book like his airfare or his airline tickets and his schedule, his dry cleaning and make doctor's appointments and even order like his wife's like anniversary gift, which I, I think he even admitted like maybe I went too far with that one, but this whole idea that you could buy your time back at a much discounted rate cuz in example, he also used was like, you could hire Filipinos, which, you know, I have Filipino in my DNA.

Jeff Rose (00:36:44):

So I remember like the first time I hired somebody was, uh, I hired a Filipino virtual assistant to help out with images on the website, the blog for each blog article, cuz I would spend, I think I calculated, I would spend about four hours a week trying to find like good images that were not copyright trademark that I could use on my blog post the idea that, oh, I could pay somebody like $16 a week and I get four hours of my time back like, okay, that makes a lot of sense. And, and I just began becoming more comfortable, basically taking tasks that I didn't enjoy doing. Maybe I was good at 'em, but for the most part I didn't enjoy doing them. And also it wasn't like the things that I was doing that were making the money, you know, it was networking. It was is content creation, building new relationship.

Jeff Rose (00:37:42):

Like that's where the money was being made. Not like trying to find the, a good image for the blog post. And that was a little bit for our work week. Eventually that was a business coaching program that I joined where just recognizing like I could do all the things or do I wanna focus on the things that I'm really good at that I'm skilled at that, give me life, give me energy and also pay the bills. So that was, was financial planning that was meeting new clients, right? Finding new clients, it wasn't scheduling appointments. It wasn't cutting retirement checks out of their IRAs and with the business or the blog that was like content creation. It was affiliate partnerships, networking, connecting, recording videos, podcasts, eventually like that's where I need to spend the time. Yeah.

Michael Gardon (00:38:30):

This is uh, I mean a couple things that really stand out to me and I, I talk to a lot of people about, which is this, this concept of investing in yourself, you're describing it as I I'm paying somebody else to do this and sort of buying back my time. Right. You did that in terms of hiring people and leveraging people kind of on a step by step basis. And then you also mentioned a, a business coaching program. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Jeff Rose (00:38:56):

Yeah, that was a, one of the biggest nontraditional investments that I've ever made. And going back to my, when I started off as a financial advisor, a junior broker, like the guy that hired me, he was the most successful producer in the firm. And I do remember in that first couple years, like he mentioned that he'd hired a business coach and I'm in my twenties. I never even heard of a business coach. Like I just knew though he was very successful and I didn't quite get it, but like I made a mental note of like, oh, that's interesting. I, you know what that means? I don't think I need that right now. And fast forward, whenever I had left that job, co-founded the new firm had the blog. I had just reached this point with the business where I was making really good money, but there was just something that was missing.

Jeff Rose (00:39:53):

I couldn't quite put a finger on it, like just fulfill element or just satisfaction. Like I was, like I said, I was making over $200,000 a year. I had no reason not to be excited, but there was just something like I just was missing. And I ended up meeting somebody that mentioned this business coaching program. And then I remember this other guy who had hired, you know, a business coach and there was just something at this program and I'm like, you know what? I think that's what I need. And back then I was like, I think seven or $8,000 that I signed up for this one year, a year long coaching program. That was basically me. I went to their place like once a quarter. So every 90 days, uh, had a follow call in between each session. And like that was it for the entire year.

Jeff Rose (00:40:38):

And had I not been referred to this program, I dunno if I would've went, there's a lot of money back then. But what I end up learning from that was what I just described earlier about making sure that I'm spending time doing the things that make me money. The coaching programs called strategic coach, Dan Sullivan is the founder. And he would refer to that as your unique ability. What is your God-given talents that give you life, give you energy. That doesn't feel like a chore that you could spend hours doing. And most importantly, you get paid very well to do it. Just spending a lot of time, delegating, remove task that just crushed your soul, that like sucked the life out of you and try to spend more time in your unique ability. And it's not an overnight thing. Like it's a process. Like one of the first things I remember was like scheduling an appointment, like or stop scheduling appointments for my client, like with my clients, like, why am I doing this?

Jeff Rose (00:41:37):

But it was just something that I just did. It's like, oh, it's no big deal. I'll just do that. And we have so many of those things in our lives like, oh, it's so big deal. I'll just do that. And, and I'll do that and I'll do that. Next thing, you know, like two, three hours is gone and you've just, you know, did all these little task that just eat up your time and your energy. That's not what you should be doing. Like if you're the CEO, like I guarantee like Jeff Bezos isn't like scheduling, you know, his appointments, Elon Musk not scheduling his appointments. Uh, just the little things like that. Right. And even like with, on the blog for me, like one of the biggest takeaways, like for the first nine to 12 months, like I was writing, I was writing all the articles.

Jeff Rose (00:42:15):

I'm not a very good writer. I'm still not a very good writer. I'm better than I was. But when I was spending like a half a day writing a 800 word article when a really good writer probably knocked that out in like 45 minutes. But like, it just took so much energy to do it. I didn't know any different. And then it became a, oh, I could hire a writer, but yeah, but that writer doesn't know my story. They don't know my thoughts. Like that was what I was kind of trapped with. And then somebody inter actually it was Dan Sullivan. What did he say? Like he wrote his first book and he's like, you know, I'm not a good writer, but I'm a good author because I have all the information, the experience that I can share and I can just talk, have that transcribed and then have somebody else who's really good at editing and make that into a book or an article, um, that shares those ideas.

Jeff Rose (00:43:07):

And that was like very life changing for me. So that began this process of like, oh, I can just call into like my iPhone, record it, a message, send that off to a transcription service. And then my editor or writer can take that and then turn it into a beautifully written 2000 word post that would've taken me a month to write that wouldn't be nearly as good as that whole process. And just like little things like that began optimizing just my time efficiency. And so I could do that multiple times a day versus like me taking, you know, an entire day to write a blog post. I didn't get done with like, I could actually do that if I truly wanted like three or four of those, I could just think about it. Kind of outline it, get my thoughts in order, call it in, have it transcribed. I'm done.

Michael Gardon (00:43:52):

So a lot of people are probably thinking, well, this is like this whole concept of buying your time. Like, that's great for people who have money, but it's like this psychological block. I deal with this all the time. I think actually the first time I wrote about this, Jeff, it's sitting on your website, it's uh, the post about investing in yourself. And I think I break it down, like basically investing ourselves or spend money in terms of an investment in sell for three main reasons. One is to make more money. Two is to buy back your time, essentially have more time. And the third is to kind of buy or engineer just general peace in your life. I think our young audience listening can still employ all of this stuff. I try to get young people to think about it. Like the first thing is what you said around your unique gift, talent, God given whatever that may be.

Michael Gardon (00:44:44):

And it's not just talent, it's interest because you're gonna do and be better at the things that you are just naturally inclined to do. And so as a young person, like if you can figure out how to do other things or, or have, have other people do other things or spend money strategically so that you can do more of that and hone that craft, you're gonna be more valuable in the future and you're gonna make more money and have more opportunity because of that. I think like there's so many times we spend money, right on random stuff. There's this like switch we have to flip in terms of thinking about investing in ourselves different than spending money and, and every investment decision being different than the act of spending money. Because you're clearly like an example of you had this, I'm sorry, I'm going on a rant here, but like you had this, you know, natural inclination to kind of nose, the grindstone, do everything right yourself.

Michael Gardon (00:45:44):

And you kind of at, at some point, picked your head up and looked out a little bit, saw the forest through the trees and said, you know, you were curious, got help. And then you said, there are people that can do this better than me. And I'm gonna see leaps and bounds of growth because of that. Even just spending the idea of spending $7,000 on a coaching program, right? Like there's not that many people that really do that, but you recognize, and you're humble enough to say like, I need help here. And I think this $7,000 is gonna be way better spent in my growth than spending $7,000 on, you know, whatever God knows what we could spend our money on. And I, so I just see that in you, I guess it's more of a comment and I, and I'm just trying to relate it to our audience. Like I just think that there's this, I don't know how we get over this psychological block of thinking about spending money on ourselves as an investment versus just spend. But I think that's like critical for young people in terms of growing.

Jeff Rose (00:46:40):

Yeah. And it's hard, right? I mean, it's like, gosh, what, I'm not, I'm not ready to hire, you know, join a coaching program, but it could be paying, buying a course. It could be hiring a coach it to be hiring a mentor, joining like a private mastermind group. I mean, there are many different ways that you can invest in yourself and the ones I'm sharing with you are the ones that worked out . There are plenty that didn't, but you know, like you said earlier, like I have been naturally curious and as long as I didn't put my, a family in a financial bind where, you know, like we had to sell the house and like, that would be a bad idea, but I was always willing, you know, to test out a few things. But I guess another thing that I could also share was, I mean, you mentioned the strength finders.

Jeff Rose (00:47:30):

Like that's a, I think a great test and I was more into the Colby index, which just measure like my personality type. And, uh, that was also very eye opening for me because I recognized with that you take this test, it gives you four numbers and ones like, are you a quick start? Are you a high researcher? Do you like to build things? I forgot the, the term. And then are you a good implementer or follow through, excuse me, follow through. And I suck at follow through. I like to research a lot and I'm a big idea guy. So I get really excited about the idea. But when it came, comes to like follow through or actually implementing that idea, I'm not very good. cause when times actually like start to do the things, if I'm truly passionate about it, or if I just recognize like, man, once I do this, like it's gonna be good.

Jeff Rose (00:48:18):

Cause obviously I did it with a blog. I had no idea what I was doing, but I'm more excited about the idea. If I need to roll up my sleeves, I'll get it done. But on the lot of these things, when I would get stuck, like great idea, Ooh crap. That seems like a lot of work. Okay. I'll put that off till later or Hey, let me hire somebody. Let me find somebody that's really good at taking an idea and executing on it. Like that's like the perfect marriage, the perfect partnership. And once I understood my personality type and how I, I was easily excitable, I was also able to learn like, oh, that's great. I have a lot of good ideas, but remember we need to execute a few of these. So it might be a great idea. It just doesn't mean that's a great idea right now. It might be something we can visit later on. So a lot of it just understanding how you're wired, uh, I think is also important.

Michael Gardon (00:49:09):

Yeah. That makes a lot of a sense. So when you were building the team, was it primarily building for, to fuel growth or was it more so building to for the time aspect? I mean, you, you have how many kids you have now?

Jeff Rose (00:49:24):

5, 4, 4. Yeah. I got four.

Michael Gardon (00:49:25):

sorry. I didn't mean to add on that, but like that's obviously coming in the picture, I think about that all the time. Right? Like, am I trying to build a maximally hypergrowth company or am I trying to engineer the best work life that I can do? Like what were your thoughts at the time?

Jeff Rose (00:49:42):

I think it was a little bit of both, you know, it was, I had ambitions of growing, but this idea that I could buy back my time and just have freedom of time was very exciting. I remember one of the first things after joining this coaching program, I scheduled it in the summer. I scheduled to take my family to the St. Louis zoo, like on a Wednesday, like during the day. And I had so much anxiety about doing that, but I just didn't do that. Like what? I mean, I would take a vacation, but to take a day off in the middle of the week. And the instructions I gave my assistant at the time was like, Hey, if this is an emergency, you can call me. If it's not, don't bother me. , you know, I'll get to it when I get back the next day.

Jeff Rose (00:50:33):

And I just like, it's just like this belief, like, oh my gosh, like if I'm not available, like my business is gonna crumble. It's gonna, client's gonna call. And I'm not there. I'm at the zoo with my family. Oh my gosh, like what's gonna happen. And guess what? Nothing happened, nothing happened fast forward a couple years. Like we end up taking a two week RV trip, which once again, instructions were I'm on vacation, unless it's an, a client that needs me, then you know, that I'll make an exception. And I think while I was gone, I talked to one client who was an, a client and I was talking to him while I was driving the RV

Jeff Rose (00:51:13):

And like, that was just unheard of like a really good book that I'm, I'm familiar with the concept. I think it just came out. It's who not how I think is the name. And there's also another one it's this whole who concept and what I finally recognized, what is, when you stop asking, how do I do that? Or I don't know how to do that. I don't even know how to get started. It's like, you don't have a how problem you have a who problem, like who do you need to talk to? Who's someone in your network that you can reach out to that can maybe connect you to the right person. And that's something like, I still work on. I mean, I still struggle at times, like, and I recognize like, oh, that's not, how do I do this is like, who do I need? You know, who do I need on my team? Who do I need to hire? Who do I need to talk to? That's going to educate me on this thing that has been sucking very, very strong with the whole sucking term, sucking the life outta me. So it's just, once again, it's the, who do I need? That's gonna help me stay in my unique ability,

Michael Gardon (00:52:16):

Unique ability, essentially, you've kind of worked this normal job. You've turned a, essentially a side hustle into a very successful business that allowed you to kind of step out of your role as a financial advisor, into CEO leader of a online internet company, which you continue to work at today. Like what does the future hold for you? What do you want to do, I guess, with specifically like your career and your work moving forward?

Jeff Rose (00:52:47):

Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. I, I was used to be very motivated by ambitious goals and numbers and growth and all this stuff and, and that's great. I mean, I think that's having some sort of target to shoot for, I think is, is important. And just because behind the scenes, like there's been, uh, some shakeups with the business and, uh, had a, a business partnership that didn't, and not the greatest of terms. So it's really kind of put me back into reassessing. What is like the long term vision? Like what are the long term goals? And for me, I don't think I've, I've shared any of this. I started the blog as a marketing tool for the practice, but underneath that was this deep desire to truly serve people and serve people because with my upbringing having, and I didn't mention this, both my parents, you know, they were divorced when I was young.

Jeff Rose (00:53:36):

Both of them struggled financially. They both filed bankruptcy twice independent of each other. And like, that's what I grew up with financially. Like those are the financial lessons that were passed down to me. And when I finally got to that point, where, when I saw my, my parents were who they were and realized like, Ooh, I don't want to become them and struggle with money the rest of my life. Like what can I do differently? And once I started making those choices, you know, joining the guard and going to school college and paying off on my debt, becoming a financial advisor, then it became this, how can I show other people not to become like what my parents became, what I was on the path to becoming. And it was like this deep desire to share my experience, you know, my expertise and helping people not make the stupid boneheaded decision that I made and help them start taking charge of their financial future.

Jeff Rose (00:54:32):

And so right now, like that's the vision like that's the goal is like, how can I serve as many people as I possibly can every single day? And that could be my business. It could be my wife, it could be my family, but as far as like the business is, it's like, I wanna serve people. And how do I do that? I create content that I think is going to help people it's gonna impact people. I just, you know, I think it was something the other day I shared something and I think it was like just sharing. I don't remember what it was exactly, but I remember I had a reader comment and they shared with me that had read like one of my Roth IRA posts from 10 years ago. And after reading that post, they started a Roth IRA. They started investing and now like they had over a couple hundred thousand dollars in their tax free retirement account in their Roth.

Jeff Rose (00:55:24):

And it's like, awesome. Like, because it's something that I did. I mean, they still had to do the work, right. They still had to actually open up the account, start investing, stay disciplined, continue to invest. Like they still had to do that. But you know, something that I did years ago gave them that catalyst to go out and do it and literally change their life forever and impact them and impact the ones around them and hopefully their kids and their kids, kids. And like, that's the stuff that going back to why I kept blogging when I didn't really quite understand what it was like when I knew that there was something bigger than me here, I'm still there. Like, there's still something bigger than, than me here that can fully comprehend. Maybe I won't have the reach of Dave Ramsey and other, you know, finance authors and radio guys, but that's okay. You know, I still can reach millions, especially nowadays with YouTube and podcasts and everything else. I mean, it's just, it's just crazy. Right. And so when I can help people and make a really good living on top of that, like that's , does it really get any better than that?

Michael Gardon (00:56:27):

Yeah. I love that. And I think you're, you've always been true to that, which is fantastic. You brought up YouTube and something that's been on my mind is like, there's all these social media outlets, right. I've always been a behind the scenes guy. I'm not super huge on, on these things, but I mean, terms of like developing an audience and all that kind of stuff, like, what do you think are some of the keys to cracking into these platforms? Like, obviously you've done well, but there's a lot of, I don't include you in this category, quote, unquote, financial experts on TikTok even, and, and all these places that are, you know, building businesses. It's, it's hard to cut through. What do you think? Like what are the keys to doing some of that?

Jeff Rose (00:57:06):

Yeah. I mean, with a lot of these platforms, I mean, it, it's easy to get caught up in comparison syndrome, you know, like you look at all these other careers out there and you're like, oh my gosh, how do I ever compete? So oftentimes it's easy to take the shortcut approach. So what does that mean? That means that you, you are either, maybe you're stealing somebody else's ideas or you are making yourself to be something that you're really not. Maybe you're just making up stories. like, I've seen like this one guy on YouTube, like build up a huge do coin following. And he just kept putting all these like crappy do coin video. This is, this is before like Elon was like on certain live, but all like these price predictions, you know? And, and because it was so hot, everybody was talking about it.

Jeff Rose (00:57:51):

I mean, he's getting 10, 20, 30, 40,000 views per video, which I'm sure he is making decent money like in his twenties. But when after a while, when you realize he has no idea what he's talking about, and like, and I was following him on Twitter and I just see all these people like calling 'em out, like, like, dude, you've been saying this for like six months. Like you're saying the same thing over and over again, like eventually like people will catch on. So it it's be willing to be yourself, be authentic, be willing to test things out, but also being consistent because if I would've stopped after a year or two and just gave up, you know, I wouldn't be where I'm at and just continue to show up, provide value. Uh, and I think that's, that's a big part of it. Now we could talk about quality of content editing and, and other things, but that's getting more into the weeds. But I think at the end of the day, it's just like, it's just showing up, providing value, you know, how can you really serve people? And there's, there's marketing, there's networking. There's a lot of different aspects of business also related into all of that. But I see a lot of the guys that continue to do it is that they just continue to show up, you know, be authentic, be their, their, their real self

Michael Gardon (00:58:59):

Authenticity consistency seem to be the two, like just biggest ones, just sheer will of continuing to create content and being yourself. And, and that what's the best investment you've ever made. That can be obviously financial in a stock or, or like we've talked about previously or earlier, investing in yourself. What do you think of the number one decision you've made? That's had the biggest payoff is

Jeff Rose (00:59:26):

Man BA BA BA .

Michael Gardon (00:59:29):

Gosh,

Jeff Rose (00:59:29):

There's like, like the CFP designation. There was the coaching program. There was starting in my own wealth management firm going completely on my own. Wow. I think, honestly, looking back the best investment was choose buying, buying rich dad, poor dead

Michael Gardon (00:59:47):

Book.

Jeff Rose (00:59:48):

Yeah. It was a book choosing to read a book. I mean, back then it was probably like 12 bucks, but that was the book that I read that started the process of changing the way that I think, you know, right. Recognizing that, oh, you're, he's talking about things that my dad never talked about that I've never even heard discussed among my peer group. There's something here. I don't know what it is, but I'm interested to learn more about it. And that, that really started that journey of, you know, they kind of just started scratch the itch a little bit, but starting to do a lot of digging now, end up leading to all these other investments that I've mentioned before, not just reading the book, but choosing to accept that there's another reality out there that you might not fully understand yet, but you know, everything that you've heard from your parents or your grandparents, whomever you run around with, except the fact that they might not know it all. And there's other things out there that exist that could lead to something a whole lot better.

Michael Gardon (01:00:52):

That's just mind blowing to me. Right. You think you talk about spending 12 bucks and it's something that's completely changed your life and all the other ones too, that you rattled off were all investments in yourself. Not one of 'em in you're a financial advisor, right? You're a financial planner, not one of 'em was I bought apple stock or, or whatever it is, right. It was all about framing your mind and, and then continuing to bet on yourself and invest money and time and effort into, into you yourself. And for most people, right? Like our number one, our biggest asset is our ability to earn a dollar over a lifetime. Right? So it makes sense to invest in your ability to continue to do those things and to be better and better at, at doing them as opposed to whatever hot stock, whatever doge coin type investment, like, it just, it makes sense. And we need to be able to, as a population need to be able to get over some of these psychological hurdles for us to accept that, right. That investing in ourselves is, is the most important thing that we can possibly do.

Jeff Rose (01:01:58):

Absolutely.

Michael Gardon (01:01:59):

What do you think is the biggest takeaway or lesson from your experience that you've talked about today and, and just over your life, as you've gone and done a number of different things and kind of come full circle with it, and I'd like to share mine after you go, but what do you think is the biggest takeaway or lesson out of your experience and what you've shared with us today?

Jeff Rose (01:02:22):

Be willing to test things out, be willing. I mean, fail, you hear that a lot. And I mean, there were so many times, like I quote unquote failed and the way that I looked at it as yeah. And I go back to cold calling, I, I feel like cold calling was what really kind of gave me, I guess, the ability to do that because cold calling is horrible.

Jeff Rose (01:02:43):

Yeah. And the idea was like, you'd make a hundred dials. And if you made a hundred dials, you may talk to 20 people and one of those might become a client. And so think about how many times I was rejected making all these calls, getting hung up on you, yelled at whatever. But what I, I remember hearing was every no is gonna get me closer to a yes. And I just took that same philosophy and applied that to testing out different business ideas, uh, business growth ideas within the business. Like, Ooh, this sounds fun. Let me try I this crap that didn't work. Okay. Well, do I need to tweak something here or that just an entirely bad idea and then like test something else out. And just to always be testing, always willing to try out new things and not letting each quote unquote failure derail me and say, oh no, that, that ain't gonna work. Yeah. That was a waste of time. You suck like, no point doing that again. I mean, like I had so many different things I, I would try out that just didn't quite work out, but every single, no end up leading me closer to that. That yes.

Michael Gardon (01:03:56):

Yeah. I love that. And I think from, from my perspective, having known you for a while, the takeaway from your entire story is you don't have to have a plan, you know, set from a young age. I think a lot of people just think that, oh my God, you know, I'm gonna go to college and then I need to know what I'm gonna do. And it's like, that's not true. Life is experienced, it's lived, it's not preordained. And by being open and keeping an open mind and being willing to be willing to do things and try things, you can into it your way there, you can, you can be a way finder and find your path. It doesn't have to be thought ahead of time. And I, I mean, I feel that way about my career. So maybe I'm a little bit bias, but I'm trying to encourage people to let that go a little bit, stop thinking, start doing type of a mentality. And so I appreciate you coming and sharing your, your entire story. It's inspirational. I love it. I really appreciate having you as a friend and, and as a, as a colleague. And so thank you so much for doing this. Where can people find more about you? You're all over the place. , if you can boil it down, give it, you know, we'll make sure we have links, all show notes, where people can find you and all of the YouTube and, and everywhere you you're at, but where can people find more about you?

Jeff Rose (01:05:19):

Yeah. Good financial sense.com that you've mentioned, uh, throughout the show. That's the blog also on YouTube. You can, uh, search actually, I've got YouTube YouTube channels. Now I've got the wealth hacker, which is more about just accelerated wealth building. Uh, we also have a, uh, corresponding good financial says YouTube channel now. Uh, there's also a good function sense podcast. And as far as like social media, I think I'm most active on Twitter. You could find me at J Jeff Rose on Twitter and same handle on Instagram, if you wanna go there. But, uh, yeah, at J Jeff Rose on Twitter.

Michael Gardon (01:05:51):

Awesome. Jeff, anything else that I may have missed or not covered that you'd like to leave our with?

Jeff Rose (01:05:58):

Mm gosh. This supposed to like, just like have that truth bomb, right? Um, no, just, just continue to, just to believe in yourself and try out new things. And if that means, like, just being brave enough to ask somebody to lunch, to coffee, because you want to learn more about them and you just really like you admire them for what they've accomplished. Don't use the phrase. I wanna pick your brain. That's just the worst phrase to use. And just trust me on that one. But if you lead in with like, Hey, I'd really admire you for what you have achieved. And I would love to learn more about what led to your success. Could I get some of your time, a cup of coffee or lunch? You have to learn more about your success. Like that sounds a whole hell lot better than I wanna pick your brain, which implies that you want something for free. That's why, so, yeah, that would be my last parting outta wisdom.

Michael Gardon (01:06:52):

I really appreciate you being here. I've enjoyed this. I think we should probably do it again. Uh, at some point

Jeff Rose (01:06:56):

That was great.

Michael Gardon (01:06:57):

all right, Jeff, have a, a great, uh, rest of your evening. Go enjoy that family.

Jeff Rose (01:07:01):

I will. Thank you.

Michael Gardon (01:07:03):

All right, man.

Outro (01:07:03):

CareerCloud Radio is a production of CareerCloud.com. Please review this episode on iTunes. We really appreciate it a lot. And thank you for listening.