Why Good Savers Suck at Retirement

On this episode of The Money Script Podcast, Yohance Harrison talks with Nick Covyeau of Swell Financial about financial planning, money mindset, retirement spending, and the role of AI in advisory firms. Nick shares his first lessons around saving, why many good savers struggle to spend in retirement, and how books like Die With Zero shaped his thinking. They also talk about writing, client transformation stories, work-life boundaries, and using AI to free advisors for deeper human conversations. It’s a smart, practical episode for financial advisors, retirees, and anyone trying to use money more intentionally.

https://business.fullerton.edu/academics/finance/financial-planning 

Website-  www.swellfinancialpartners.com 

YouTube: @swellFP

Transcript

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Yohance: And now it just said recording. We didn't get a time or anything. All right. So as I was saying. So I. So we went to Puerto Rico for family vacation, and at the end of the trip, there was a conference, a physician conference. So I did take a box of books to the physician conference. I'm happy to report that we didn't bring any of those home, so that was kind of cool. And then there was another author there that he had written a book. So we did this whole. He had his camera people record us signing each other's books.

Nick: That's cool.

Yohance: So we kind of did a little, you know, book signing exchange. So that was kind of fun.

Nick: Yeah, I saw the. The video on LinkedIn you posted of what I presume to be your daughter. The two of you guys opening the books together. That was really special. That's cool. My son. Our son is 15 months old, and so I assume if we did that, he'd probably eat the books, but maybe I'll film a video of that.

Yohance: Yeah, you know, you could film a video. This would be fun. So I just had this idea. So maybe you take, like, you'll need someone to run the camera for you, of course, but it looks like you're holding Goodnight Moon and reading it to him. But then as the camera pans around, the actual book you're reading is more than money.

Nick: Oh, I like that. That might be coming to LinkedIn near you. Yes.

Yohance: There we go. Hey, I'll be all over that one. That would be fun. Definitely fun. And then, you know, of course your wife is like, what are you reading?

Nick: Yeah, Raise them young. Raise them right. Start me up. Yeah, yeah.

Yohance: So, yeah, that is my goal.

Nick: By the time he's in kindergarten, he knows what compounding interest is.

Yohance: There you go. There you go. There you go. So, Nick, what made you decide to say yes? Is this your first authorship, or have you done this in the past?

Nick: It was, yeah. I missed out on the first round of More Than Money. But I've always enjoyed writing. In fact, that's years ago. When I started the firm. That was the way that I thought I was going to grow my firm. Originally. I get all my best ideas out in writing. I like the voice that I have through that, and I research along the way. I learn a lot of things, and it's a natural way for me to become a teacher. And then as the firm got busier, I didn't have as much time to devote to my creative writing process. And this really helped rekindle that. And so when the Opportunity came knocking. I said, oh, my goodness, I have countless stories, I feel like, of client transformation stories that I could use here. And a couple came to mind. And then I kind of narrowed it down and it was just fun. It actually revitalized what I want to do moving forward with like, oh, I want to write more, because I fell in love with the process and just the art of storytelling.

Yohance: So you said that you enjoyed this process before and you said that you felt like it was going to have a larger impact on your client acquisition. Tell me, tell me more about that. Is that, Is it blog writing or.

Nick: Yeah, blog writing. I still do newsletters bimonthly, but in the beginning I felt like. And you know, it's. When you start your firm, you seem to have more time than clients, and then it kind of naturally progresses over time, and that time gets squeezed more and more and more. But in the beginning, I would write and write and write and write, and those would be blog posts that I tried to get out every week or two or three times a month, and then that just became shortened. But, you know, I'd pick a. Whether it's a topical topic or. My firm, we work with a lot of pre retirees. That gap that, you know, right before retirement that I think there's a lot of work that people could do or right after they retire, there's a big window. And so we talk about a lot of optimization, maximization, tax. But then I'm also a disciple of, you know, George kinder and that work and really focusing on what it means to live your true, authentic life and use money simply as a tool. And so I like weaving that into the technical of finding ways to build that into the story of, like, what is the actual purpose. And that's kind of the lane that I found in writing blog posts early on when I started my firm.

Yohance: So what is your process right now with. With writing? You said you fell in love with it again. So how. How do you go? What is it that you do? How do you come up with your next topic? How do you. I mean, is it. Do you sit down and just start writing in the morning? Is it a Thursday afternoon? What's your process?

Nick: You know, I wish I had a better answer in terms of it. It's so structured. I know for myself, I have to block out a certain time. So it's. It's Fridays for me to be able to have. Hey, here we are.

Yohance: What'd you write about today?

Nick: Yeah, it's, you know, here we are. It's to be able to have just that creative space. Sometimes it's not even writing. Sometimes, you know, when I go to the gym on Fridays, I'll get kind of a. A burst or a dash of inspiration. It's just like, okay, you know what? I can connect that dot to that dot. I just have a, you know, a shared note that I just jot down ideas on and then I kind of story dump and I. And I see what comes out and how I run with that. And so I'll spend usually an hour trying to run with something, having AI kind of just be my co editor there of just like, hey, I think I have this. How do I put together the pieces? And so creating that space intentionally. Even if a story or blog doesn't get published that week, I know I put in, you know, the man hours, so to speak. Like, I'm building and taking a step and then once it's ready, I'll hit publish.

Yohance: So other than more than money, what is your favorite piece that you've written?

Nick: Ooh, There was a post that I had written, gosh, I want to say about a year or two ago, and it was really just paraphrasing from the Die with Zero approach. And I have the luxury of. My wife is a trained therapist, so she's got her degree in licensed clinical, I want to say marriage family therapy, but it's licensed clinical social worker, lcsw. And we've been for a while dreaming of how we could put the two together. And Die with Zero has really, for those of you that don't know, that book, just really, I think taking the concept of like, what we're doing with our money and flipping everything that I believe we found to be true about money and just flipping on its head. And so like this idea, especially of experiences compounding, right, this idea that like you have this perfect symmetrical triangle of time, energy and money or health, and that it's really rare for it all to be congruent at the exact same time. Maybe when we're young, we have time, energy or time and health, but we don't have money. And as we get older, those things begin to shift. And I wrote this piece after we had just finished a family vacation where my wife's parents were generous enough to bring all the kids and significant others on a trip and just I tied that to the book of what it meant just to be in that moment with her parents and all six of us at the time. And how now, looking back five, six years later, we still remember the time in Italy when somebody almost got pickpocketed we still remember how that first meal tasted. We still remember looking at the Coliseum and we tell some of the funny stories. And those have now lived on five, six, seven years later. And just this concept of go spend the money, like, what is it there for? And so I feel like that voice has really. I at least try to weave that into a lot of my writing.

Yohance: Now. I have a few clients. I'm sure you have the same where I've shared with them. Unless they can come up with some really bad habits, they're never going to spend all of their money. How do you break through to those people and get them to just go spend some money? I mean, I feel like. Well, actually, I have one couple. They were doing really great until Covet came along. And then it kind of got shut in and they never really just got back out there. And I'm just. And these are this one couple I'm thinking of. They don't have any children. Well, I'll take it back. They have some. They have children, but their children are fine. So the children. They don't have any children that. That need or even want anything. You know, a couple nieces and nephews and some God children, things of that nature. But their children are in their own right, in their 40s and 50s and successful and don't have a need. I mean, we're giving away. All of their RMDs are QCDs.

Nick: Right, right.

Yohance: And it's just like, I just want to. Maybe I need to send them the Die with Zero book, but I don't know how. Do you have those conversations with people?

Nick: Yeah, Die With Zero certainly helps. And, you know, I think to some extent this is where, whether it's behavioral psychology, the kinder framework, behavioral interviewing, or motivational interviewing, I think there's a number of tools that we can use to get clients to feel. So many times, I think as financial planners, myself included, I get lost in the numbers and the data and it doesn't translate, I feel like, to actual action, it's just data just sits there and you kind of get clients nodding along. Oh, yeah, we know, we know. But deep down, even though they know, like, it's not going to inspire change or flare up any action. Right.

Yohance: Yeah.

Nick: And so I like to come back to the framework of what does an ideal life look look like to you? Like, how do we actually create energy? Right. How do we actually, you know, have some emotions tied to it? You know, kinder going through his course. You know, emotions are just energy in motion. And so this Idea.

Yohance: Yeah. Emotion.

Nick: Exactly. There it is. Emotion. Right. I like to use the analogy of like, what are we actually building for? There's this quote by Thomas Merton that says what a shame it would be to climb and aspire your whole life to climb this ladder, only to realize it's leaning up against the wrong wall. Right. And so we constantly, I think financial planning is this verb that is always in motion. So our markets. So are interest rates. But so too, it's hard to ask people where they think they're going to be five, ten years from now when the next year looks uncertain. And so I always like to come back to, what are we trying to accomplish? How has that changed? And at times I've had to wrestle with, like, I can get really excited. I could be a big dreamer. And for other people, their definition of safety or security or a content and a fulfilled life is a very different vision that doesn't need to be as exciting or as exhilarating it may be. I want security for the next generation. That's okay. But it's our job to evoke, to bring that out, to at least explore that with them.

Yohance: Great. Yeah, agreed. So what do you say then to the client? That or the prospective client, possibly that, as you mentioned, has the energy, has the time, has the potential because we can see it, because we know, but they don't quite have the money because they're choosing to, as the Youngins put it, yolo their way through, through life. How do you approach that?

Nick: Man? I remember saying a while ago, it came to me like, you don't need a reason to save. You don't like your future self will thank you. Like, when there's money left over, it creates flexible flexibility and security for anything. I think so many times we'll say the Youngins, right? It's like. And it's so hard because I think the world we grow up, we grew up in and the world that they are growing up in and the world, our parents or grandparents, it's so different, you know, with the attention economy of, you know, click to spend. And it's just so easy now. Or social media. With social media. You know, Morgan Housel has this great book, the Psychology of Money. He just wrote a new one on the art of spending, which is a really, really good book.

Yohance: I haven't picked the new one up yet. I need to do that.

Nick: Oh, my goodness. I just. You were talking about going on vacation. My wife and I, a week ago, we took our first trip away from our little guy. We went down to Cancun and the first day we slept for 12 hours, but we brought a book. And it was the first time in a year and a half I had three days to finish a book, and it was great. That's what I chose to read. But in the Psychology of Money, he has this chapter on rich is fast and wealth is slow. And I don't think enough people realize the power of compounding of time at that age, whether you're in your 20s or 30s or even your 40s, of allowing time to be your biggest assets. Because when we look at compounding interest, I mean, you and I could sit and look at our clients with possibly a couple millions of dollars and see, okay, a 10% on return on this asset right here is possibly more than most people's salary. But that same 10% of return, if you're just getting started, doesn't feel like a whole lot. And it's like, how can we get them to understand and conceptualize we don't need a reason to save, but that our future selves will thank us because whether it's saving for retirement, but that goes against yolo. The other reason just to save is like, hey, you know, I'm a disciple of I saved and saved and saved when I had an excess at my last job, and it allowed me the freedom to say, hey, I don't want to work for this company anymore. I'm leaving. Right. I couldn't see that when I was saving, but I'm so glad I did. But it's hard. It is really difficult to, you know, delay gratification in the moment. You know, I now and, you know, my family and I try and impart that to, you know, younger clients. Is in saving for your future self, like, you're withholding today for, you know, couple of thousands of dollars down the road, this money that you're putting away today, a couple hundred dollars that's turning into thousands of dollars a decade two decades from now. So, yeah, agree. It's hard.

Yohance: Yeah, agreed. Talk to us a little bit about your chapter in More Than Money, volume two, or even More Than Money is the correct, correct title there, because I know we had, we, we had different sections. Tell us about the section you're in and how you chose to be in that section. You're probably like me, you submitted several. And we collectively decided which story was the strongest for each of us. But take us through your process on your chapter.

Nick: Yeah, I, I only submitted one, but I strong, I had probably four or five clients that came to mind and that I just Kept coming back to was a client or clients of mine that I helped navigate the loss of a parent, navigate the process of inheritance, navigate the process of moving out of state, building their dream property for 20 years, and then going to visit it with them when they did like pretty much like the ribbon cutting. And it was just like that story was so it just stood out. I was like, how can it not be this one? And so I was selected to be a part of the money is for dreaming section. And I was fortunate enough. This is probably, I'm sure you're much the same. One of my favorite things about financial planning is getting a chance to see. Doesn't have to be the very early on, but being there in the early years and the starting place for clients and then seeing that dream realized. It's. Oh, it's, it's everything, dude. It's. I don't think in a lot of ways there's like, probably top five greater feelings than getting a chance to sit alongside people as a guide and a copilot and just be like, you did this, you know, and for this. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Oh, no.

Yohance: I was gonna say one of my, on that same note, one of my favorite conversations, the one that I, that I look forward to the most, is to look the parent or the student or graduate in the eye and say, so what do we do with this extra 529 money after they're already at college, is done, they graduated, and it's like, okay, well, wanna buy a car? What do you want to do with this? Yeah, I had that conversation today. So really, one of my clients daughter got her first job. She just graduated in the spring.

Nick: Okay.

Yohance: Got a first job working for a financial services company. Nonetheless, I'm like, come on. I was hiring, but not really. Not what she wants to do. She's on the legal side of things. I'm like, no, no, no, I don't, I don't need you, hopefully ever.

Nick: Right, right.

Yohance: But, you know, today we set up her 401k. She's starting to think about, okay, I want to get an apartment. And she's like, oh, I, I, you know, I, I, I got to figure out the down payment and I hope my car goes forever. I was thinking about a new car and I was like, well, what about this $4,000 that's in your 529? Like, I don't, what do I do with that? I was like, it's yours. I mean, you can spend, could be for your kids. 529. She's like I'm not having any kids anytime soon. I'm like, yeah, but it could stay there and just grow. Yeah, it's like, so I can just spend this money.

Nick: Yeah.

Yohance: I mean you're going to pay some taxes, but so what?

Nick: Yeah, it's yours.

Yohance: Yeah.

Nick: Oh yeah. It's fun when you find new ways to help clients spend money or uncover money that they didn't know they had or you know, had some stringent rules around it. You know, I just met with a client earlier this week and they started the required minimum distributions, right? Their RMDs, they both had pensions, they didn't really need the money. You know, going to the point we were talking earlier of so many times, good savers continue being good savers in retirement and you're like, how do you get them to spend money? And we look at money scripts and whatnot and it's usually, you know, there's sometimes it's two people, but it's usually one versus the other in a couple dynamic. But we're going through RMDs and they don't really need it. And they just got back from incredible vacation in France and you know, the savor of the group is like, okay, you know, okay, we gotta lock in and hunker down.

Yohance: Yep, we just spent all this money.

Nick: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And then, you know, we're looking at required minimum distributions relative to their pension. And my favorite thing was just like, hey, you know, you can spend more. And you know, her eyes light up. What do you mean? And his eyes light up in a different light, like what are you talking about? But they were spending so little relative to like their safe sustainable withdrawal rate of what they could actually spend that I just love kind of asking the follow up question of like, great, what else? What else? And it's almost as if people are asking permission for their own money.

Yohance: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick: And so it was just a fun spot. And then usually, you know, part of what I try and do myself, I get really excited is I have to tell myself like just, just like sit in the moment and let them experience that not uncomfortability but just that silence of like, I'm not going to interrupt them, I'm not going to take this away from them. Like what else do you want to spend on? And they kind of just like, I haven't thought of that before. Probably like, oh, I could use this towards the car. So.

Yohance: Yeah, you could. So Nick, how do you feel? And this is something that I've been asking every advisor that I get the opportunity to interact with. How do you feel about the influence of artificial intelligence into the advisor space? I'm sure as you are, like you said, as you hop on LinkedIn or other platforms, you can see that it's, it's. Every single app that we use is being touched by AI. Actually, this tool that I'm using to record this podcast upgraded my plan. I didn't ask them for it and it's like, look at all these new tools you have and charge me 4x more than I usually pay on an annual subscription. It just hit my account today. I just happened to log in like, what is going on? Why did you take so much money? Like, oh well, look at all these tools. Like, I don't need all of that.

Nick: Right.

Yohance: But that's just me venting a little bit about streamyard. I'll get back in the chat with them when we get off. But, but how do you feel about the influence and impact of AI into everything that we're doing as advisors and, and where do you see it going over the next I, I want to say five years. That's probably too far in the future to try to imagine. Let's just think about over the next 12 months. What do you think some of the bigger impacts and shifts will be?

Nick: It is moving fast and I think this is where really knowing our clients, providing High Touch point, that white glove service. But more than service, genuinely knowing what's most important to our clients because we've sat and accumulated the hours with them of like, hey, you could spend more or like I see that, I hear that I feel and understand this may be difficult or those table side conversations, I think that's irreplaceable by AI. I look at it personally coming out of a firm where we had hundreds, almost literally thousands of clients to now where I have more of a boutique firm. I look at it as an enhancement. The behind the scenes hours that I would have to manually do my job. It's replacing, I don't want to say the unimportant pieces, but the labor intensive pieces to allow me to be more present with my clients. That's what I hope it continues to do. I don't want to spend two hours doing follow up notes that are important so that nothing falls through the cracks but the streamline of notes and emails and calendar requests. I look at it as another employee of my firm and if I can get it, to optimize that, to get me ready for meetings, to scan tax returns, to look at blind spots in financial planning where I'M seeing this is the plan. Also seeing this. And I can trust and verify and reach and impact more clients. I also think it's a great search engine for clients to hold us accountable as well. I do have those engineer type clients. Right. We love them that are going to ask a ton of questions and they're going to do their research. But I always laugh about this because actually I hired a personal trainer recently. I played sports at a high level. And then you have the dead period of I'm still eating like an athlete, but I'm sitting on my butt most of the time. And then the age of information, like I know what I'm supposed to do, but do I do it? No. I'm hiring someone for an accountability partner, but who can also know me and create context. Because information without context, it's just information. It's slop. Right. And so, you know, I think all of the information is out there, but how we put it together relative to how it fits into our clients unique and fulfilled life, I think that's a part that AI could help. But ultimately like that, that's the role of us as an advisor, is to be that guide and that Shepherd.

Yohance: Agreed. Agreed. Now are you.

Nick: Yeah, go ahead.

Yohance: No, I, I was going to say, to answer your question, you said exactly how I feel about it wholeheartedly. My AI is another employee of the firm. It just happens to be a robot. It has to be trained, it has to be monitored. And eventually you'll probably have to be incentivized to keep doing what it is I ask it to do. I think something that I'm starting to struggle with a little bit and I was actually having a conversation with my AI tool about this this morning is my team members, my, my employees. I feel them in some ways trying to hold on to their task as if it makes them relevant.

Nick: Okay. Yeah.

Yohance: Versus allowing like. No, we can allow the tool to do this.

Nick: Yeah. That's a scary.

Yohance: So that it will free up more time for you to do something else. But then I had one employee to ask, well, what's the something else? And it's. I don't know yet.

Nick: Go find it. Yeah.

Yohance: But let's, let's take this off of your plate. And, and she's been a little reluctant. And I'm like, just, just let it go. It's like it can. We can automate this.

Nick: Yeah. It's a mindset shift, right?

Yohance: Yeah.

Nick: Scarcity, abundance. I think in a lot of ways for what it's going to take, it's going to Open up new things. And what that is, it's still to be explored. But yeah, I think I had to

Yohance: tell her I said that today. I was like, I don't know. I don't know what it is yet. But let's create the time, let's create the problem.

Nick: Yep.

Yohance: So when you have the problem of every time I call you, you're playing with your kids because you didn't have anything else to do. All right, that's, that's. I'm willing to face that problem. Yeah, it's in. Or I might just say play with your kids.

Nick: Yeah.

Yohance: I mean, yeah. What, what if, what if our. Your 40 hour work week becomes a 30 hour work week and we are just as profitable and successful?

Nick: That's a win, right?

Yohance: That's a win. And I think, and I think it's also a difference between the entrepreneurial spirit that I have as a business owner versus someone. Because I'm someone who for now 15 years have only been paid based on results. Do I, I. Yes, I have a company. I pay myself a salary, of course, but I don't have a salary if there's no results. The prior 10 years, it was a salary and results. So I had to put in some amount of time to fulfill the corporate mandate that I had. But then everything else on top of that, I was paid by results based. So you take a 25 year career of someone like myself or someone like you, and then you look at someone that's had the same 25 year career where they were, where 90% of their income was based on time and only 10% the bonuses, those sort of things are based on the result. It's probably very difficult for them to imagine that they're worthy of the salary if they're not exchanging all of their time.

Nick: There's that permission again, right?

Yohance: Yeah. Yeah. And that's the crossroads, I think I'm finding myself. And that. And this isn't just my no. Employee that I'm thinking of. I'm finding, I'm having these conversations with clients as well, that they're finding themselves inside of their company trying to validate themselves because so much has been taken off their plate from AI and they're watching their peers get laid off. And I'm speaking of some of my employees that work for the Apples, the Facebooks, the Amazons of the world that have gone through these huge shifts and the work that they do in integrating AI and then they find themselves twiddling their thumbs half the day and like, wait, but they're still Paying me hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. But I'm not putting in the 40, 50 hour weeks anymore. Maybe I'm doing 30, you know, and then they're scared, they're walking around with a target on their back. Almost like they feel, oh no, I know I'm going to be and I feel like there's no way to, it's no way to live. But I think there's, there's got to somewhere there's got to be a shift and like you said, the permission and the mindset to know that maybe this is, maybe this is the new norm, at least for now anyways. And maybe it's okay.

Nick: Yeah, I think that mindset has to exist in like a safe framework. Like the company itself can't be toxic otherwise than like you don't have the capacity to dream that way. But you know, as small business owners certainly, you know, we control the temperature there. I'm laughing because the entrepreneur and me, I remember getting so bored at my salary jobs in the past where I remember just venting to another buddy who was wired like me, where I'm like, hey, if I can get my job done faster, why do I have to sit at my desk like a good little boy until 5:00 and pencils down like let me run like I can go do things if it only takes me six hours. Give me the other two hours back. I think it was Malcolm Gladwell. I can't remember. It sounds like something he would write. And I know the big tech companies, certainly Microsoft and Apple, I know for a time it was certainly Apple would have calendar time allotted because psychologically you're able to create more when you don't have those mandates of that pressure of you just have to use these 8, 10, 12 hours to do this. They would actually schedule in breaks for creativity. And I think there's such a freedom that hopefully AI will create and not take depending on how we choose to view it. Where hey, with those other 10 hours back in our 40 hour work week, to your employees point, what if we actually had like the capacity now and bandwidth to be able to go dream right? To be able to be like, hey, I get to use creative energy that I otherwise didn't have when 90% of my job was, you know, was this and now. And what Gladwell points to is like it actually creates better outcome. That's how some of the most innovative ideas come about is like when we actually have that time.

Yohance: Yeah, I do believe that was Gladwell as one of my favorite authors and I Actually implemented something like that in my firm, where part of the KPI scorecard includes personal development, meaning my employees get paid to go to the gym. They get paid to. To read, to meditate, whatever, however they want to spend or invest that time. Yes. You get to do it on company hours. And I'm not going to ask why were you at the gym for an hour and a half? No go.

Nick: Oh, yeah. You're a healthier version of you. You're. But yeah.

Yohance: And I tell my. My employees all the time said, if you are scoring high in your personal development on your KPI, I don't see how any of the categories can be low. If they are, then it's my fault. That means I'm not generating the business for you to get whatever needs to be done. And if that's the case, I'm not going to penalize you for it. I. Oh, take that category out. Like. No, I. It actually came up. So we were. I was gone for three weeks for July, and my employees were all out for a week. And so here it is, the end of the month because they all came to Puerto Rico for the. Because we did the. We were at the conference and we did a team retreat. So everyone's July scorecard looks like crap.

Nick: Yeah.

Yohance: And so, like, so what are we gonna do about July scorecards? I was like, I don't know, maybe just take it out. You don't care about anything happened in July. I was like, I care that we were in Puerto Rico, that we had a great time. I said, but I wasn't. I haven't gotten a new client since June. I mean, so, yeah, there's no one on board. Okay. I'm not gonna hold that against you. I said, but there was. You could still get all your PD done for that week. You had plenty of time to meditate, plenty of time to work. If you chose not to do that or you're on vacation, that is.

Nick: That's on you.

Yohance: That's a you thing. It's not a me thing. So. But yeah, no, I do. I appreciate your insight on that. I believe that we. We get to. As a society, thanks to AI and thanks to things getting easier or less things that we have to do, less of the stuff that we have to do. We get to learn how to take that time and reinvest it into something that isn't work, but still makes us better human beings and therefore creates better outcomes overall for everyone.

Nick: Yeah, comes back to that word. Permission. Again, I fall so victim to this, even as an entrepreneur where I'm like, there's no one. Let me look around here. Like, there's no one babysitting. I don't have a boss, a direct report any longer. And I'm working longer. Right. You know, it's applied of entrepreneur. All this time off, but you don't use it. And so I have to tell myself, like, hey, going to the gym, making time for myself, reading a book at leisure or even a book about money, that'll help me be a better advisor. It's not selfish, it's not lazy. I can remember to take care of myself too. And my clients are better off. Marriage is better off. You know, our son, he's better off. You know, mom and dad got to take care of themselves and it's just, it's such a good reminder. I'm glad that you're implementing that with your, your employees.

Yohance: Nick. It took me six years post being an employee. Took me six years to stop working on weekends.

Nick: Isn't it true though, that the same hunger, fervor, desire. Right. That, that that leverages us can also work against us in the same way?

Yohance: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and now. And like, like we can. No, my. If I don't, if my laptop is not plugged in, it's going to die by Monday morning because I'm just not going to touch it. It's just gonna be good. It's gonna sit there and it's like. So that whole. The image slams laptop until Monday. Yep. That is. I. And it feels so good now. That.

Nick: And I'm sure your clients too, they're so happy about that for you.

Yohance: Oh, yeah. Oh, well, you know, there's always.

Nick: They're not a good fit, you know.

Yohance: Yeah, there's. There's always the occasional. We can't meet on Saturday. No, It'll just take 30 minutes. No, and then I'll give them a further. Like. Okay, well, I'm not doing it from the soccer field with my daughter. I'm not going to do it from this. From the steakhouse with my wife. And I'm not going to do it from the pool. So. No. And. And then I usually use the dot. I usually go straight to the doctor analogy. It's like if you needed to go see your doctor, you're not going to go see them on Saturday. You're going to see them in their doctor's hours. So these are your financial planners hours. Let's figure it out. Love it.

Nick: I'm so happy for you for that. Yeah.

Yohance: So. But it took. But that took six years.

Nick: Oh, yeah. Saturday mornings for me. Or even like, oh, yeah, I could take a 6:30pm appointment. No worries.

Yohance: I worked Saturday mornings for 15 years of my career. I would keep, you know, I wouldn't do anything on Saturdays before 12, because in my mind it was, oh, my clients are off, so I get to be on.

Nick: Yeah. You know, and, you know, like, if I was having this conversation, I think, to a group of aspiring financial planners that were in their early 20s, I don't know if my advice would. Would look different, you know, in the. In the sense, like, I don't know if I would change up where, like, I would probably be telling them to go do that same thing. So. Future you, you know, And I'm sure there's a balance, but I'm like, hey,

Yohance: it paid off, right? Oh, yeah, no, absolutely.

Nick: At what point? You're like, hey, I've. I've arrived. And that's a safe feeling of like, hey, you know what? I could work 9 to 5 now or 8 to 4, whatever it is.

Yohance: And that was that. Permission. Yep. I needed. I needed to give myself permission. Yeah. To say no.

Nick: Yeah.

Yohance: Yeah.

Nick: And I probably felt like, oh, man, I'm being lazy now, you know?

Yohance: Oh, yeah. The first couple. Oh, man, I know. Saturday, it's like my laptop's like, right there. I'm like, oh, I could just knock out those emails real quick or I could get those workflows. No, no, no, no. And I did also for a few years, I would say, because I'm a huge football fan. I love football. So football season is my favorite team of the year. Carolina Panthers. Yeah. I mean, I'm a hometown guy.

Nick: I was gonna ask. Yeah, I'm Pittsburgh Steelers. So. Yeah.

Yohance: Okay. Yeah.

Nick: Yeah.

Yohance: So speaking of Steelers, I met your. Your old. Your most winning this or the most previous winnings. Coach Bill Cower met him on vacation at. In Bald Head island in North Carolina. It's this tiny little island off the coast.

Nick: I think he lives in Carolina, right?

Yohance: He does. So. And so he would. Him and his wife would vacation in Bald Head.

Nick: Yeah.

Yohance: And so I'm, oh, sitting down to. To like, have coffee or something. I'm by myself. And he just comes at the bench. He's like, anyone's in here? It's like, nope. And. And he sits down and I had to do a double take. I was like, oh. And he just kind of shook his head.

Nick: That's. That's the coolest move ever. Yeah.

Yohance: And. And then I said, are we allowed to talk about it? He said, until my wife shows up we are. And so we talked football and then we saw the wives walking over from the little shop over. And he said, now let's talk about golf. And at the time I didn't play golf. I said, so you're tell me everything because I don't play it at all. And so he started explaining the nine hole courses that were on the island. And yeah, yeah, that was a cool.

Nick: I grew up with. Yeah, I was a kid when he was the coach, but man, he was nasty. Oh yeah, yeah, I grew up. My favorite quarterback growing up was Cordell Stewart. So.

Yohance: Okay, okay.

Nick: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah.

Yohance: So my reason bringing up football is I used to justify that it was okay for me to have my laptop out. No, I'm watching football.

Nick: Yep.

Yohance: Like I'm not doing. Because my wife would give me the time, allow me to watch the game, whatever. Not really bother me as long as I did whatever I had to do previous. And I was like, oh, I can just get some work done at the same time these last couple seasons I was like, no, I'm gonna watch. I'm gonna play up my fantasy. I'll go play around on LinkedIn or something like that. I'm not. No, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not doing it. And so it. But I had to give myself permission that that was okay.

Nick: So I love it. Yeah.

Yohance: All right. So Nick, if someone wants to learn more about you, how can they find you?

Nick: Yeah, my YouTube channel at Swell FP we put out bi weekly videos. So two a month, talk about all things retirement, how to lead up to retirement, and how to spend your money in alignment. So that. And then I have a newsletter that's also connected to the LinkedIn or the, the YouTube channel that you could find it as well. So I write that probably about twice a month as well. So either through LinkedIn in the newsletter or on YouTube.

Yohance: Wonderful. All right, well, we'll make sure we put some links in the show notes. Nick, thank you so much for being a contributor to Even More Than Money. This was a great, great process. I'm excited about what's going to come. I know by the time you're seeing this out there in the world, the book is available. So we did the first couple episodes. You heard it wasn't out yet. It is available. Amazon, Barnes Noble, or just reach out to myself or Nick, we'll be happy to make sure we can get a copy into your hands. Please. If you have read the book, hop onto Amazon, leave us a review. And remember, the review is not for our egos. The review is because that's how Amazon knows to promote it to other people, because they know that you're reading it, so they want other people to see it. So. And all of our proceeds are all going to non profits that help increase financial literacy in the world. So we appreciate you spending some time with us and we will see you next time.

Nick: Thanks for having me deep.

Yohance: All right, sir. I appreciate it. I didn't know about your YouTube page. I'm have to go check you out.

Nick: Yeah, man. What conferences are you going to this year, by the way?

Yohance: Next one is so my local fpa. Where are you, by the way? Where are you?

Nick: I'm in Southern California. Orange county.

Yohance: Oh, you're in SoCal. Okay. So yeah, so I'll be in SoCal,

Nick: yes. Okay. You do an XY too, or just

Yohance: Future Proof right now? Just Future Proof xy. So I. I specialize in medical in the medical space and XY is at the same time as a medical conference that I've already registered for. So they're both in SoCal.

Nick: But I'm like, yeah, I know we've never formally connected. I've heard your name a million times through AGC and just probably the small circles that we run in. But yeah, I would love to chat offline at another time about just the referral marketing that you've been able to do, man, you're smooth with it, man. I think I heard you either on Kitsas Advisor Success. I know. I've read a couple pieces by you as well. And then I know what you posted recently on the agc. So that's been. I used a little bit of Dan Sullivan. That's been a big. I. I mean, I picked up a couple million dollars this year just by asking the damn question where I'm like, why wouldn't they? And you know, it's all the head trash and all of a sudden they're like, yeah, cool. Yeah. And then I think you wrote a couple posts about just like AI and Hazel and whatnot. I. I don't use Altruist right now. I've used it in the past but then stopped. I'm at a different custodian, but, you know, just optimizing the firm, man. I think that's kind of where I am right now as a solo, trying to figure out when I want to hire versus when I need to hire.

Yohance: So how many clients do you have?

Nick: It's like 40. Just shy of $40 million. So with the pre retiree space, I've done a Pretty good job of trying to keep that minimum client's net worth or even just like asset or fee per year, like $7,500. I've lowered it a little just for, you know, not to get so top heavy on one end of the extreme. So I've brought in some younger like Henry clients as well, just to balance it out a little more. But yeah, you know, at 40 clients and like with most of my clients being pre retirees. Retirees and worked with them for over five, six years, a lot of the planning and heavy lifting is done. So it's like.

Yohance: Yeah.

Nick: And I'm not as busy as I was in my first couple of years of onboarding. So I'm kind of looking at this as like, you know, profit margin's been real nice. I've cleaned that up and I'm like, what am I going to do next? And I don't want to hire just because, you know, you're lonely or you need someone in the office or it's the right thing to do. So I was trying to figure out where that revenue threshold between them. Like I want to hire before I really need to, but like not before it's too late. And I'm like, man, I think I can go another 10, 15, 20 million. And then like at that point I want more of my time being dedicated to marketing and just, just client work.

Yohance: Yeah. My first full time hire was technically my wife.

Nick: Okay.

Yohance: But she didn't come on board. I was probably right at 40 million. That's probably about 30, 36, 38 million.

Nick: She's tested it out like last year with like a part time one. And I was like, this isn't for me. It's just like. Yeah. Sharing admin between. It's just not.

Yohance: Yeah. And. And of course my wife being a mom at the same time, she wasn't full time.

Nick: Yeah.

Yohance: So we didn't get our next. Actually, we got our. We got our next probably the next year. It's probably in the same year. So we went from right around 45 million.

Nick: Okay. Are you guys all virtual or do you have an office that everybody comes into?

Yohance: No, all virtual.

Nick: Cool.

Yohance: Everyone's virtual. So. So my wife of course is here with me. She just hired an assistant slash marketing person. I have my account specialists and then a lot of my doctors are self employed. So I have a full time bookkeeper that does all the books.

Nick: Smart dude. That's smart. Okay.

Yohance: So. So yeah, it's just, it's. It's the, the five of us. Yeah. But it's My account specialist. That's the one I was speaking of. That's like, trying to hold on to all these things she does. I'm like, it's automated.

Nick: Yeah.

Yohance: What am I gonna do? I was like, I don't know. You got two kids.

Nick: Yeah. Yeah.

Yohance: You know, but I think there's a question of. There's a. You know, she lives in an environment where also her. Her husband just got laid off.

Nick: Oh, okay. That's. That's near s. Ptsd. Yeah, yeah. He's in.

Yohance: He's in tech and, you know, and you let him tell it. AI took his job.

Nick: Of course. Yeah.

Yohance: So she's hearing me just say, AI, AI, AI and was like, AI can't take my job. I'm like, girl wouldn't. Hey, guys, I will find something for you to do. I was like, you are licensed. I will find something for you to do.

Nick: Yeah. And how long has she been there with you?

Yohance: Six years.

Nick: Yeah, dude. Yeah, that's. Yeah, that's. That's huge. That's like, trust and current.

Yohance: I was like, your salary is baked in already. I was like, I'm not. I'm not worried about you. I'm not worried about it at all. It is baked into the number.

Nick: You just gotta receive that, you know?

Yohance: Yeah. I will find something for you to do.

Nick: Yeah.

Yohance: Something. I don't. I don't know what it is yet. Something. We'll find it.

Nick: We'll find it.

Yohance: Yeah. Yeah.

Nick: Good stuff, man. Well, I'll keep you updated. If I go to Future Proof, it's like, right next door to where I live, but I don't know. With xy, the week, my wife. We're expecting our second in, like, the first week of October.

Yohance: Oh.

Nick: And so I'm like, September is going to be my grind month with meeting with clients. So I'm kind of like. And then I'm going to xy. So usually what I'll do if I don't get a ticket is I'll just still go to the AGC or some of the happy hours and.

Yohance: Got it. Okay. Smart. Yeah.

Nick: All right, man.

Yohance: All right. I appreciate you, sir. Weekend.

Nick: Likewise. Take care.

Yohance: Later. Got it. Oh, sorry for that long delay there. I didn't get his last name. Kobio. Welcome to the Money Script podcast. It's your host, Johannes Harrison. So happy to be with each and every one of you today on our show. Today, we are continuing our series with Even More Than Money. And we have another contributor that is joining us, Nick Covio. He is a swell financial. An amazing YouTuber, by the way. I just found this out. I just took a, a deep dive, fell down the rabbit hole of his videos. They are good. Like I want to be like Nick when I grow up with YouTube. I mean, I know I do all these long form YouTube stuff, but he's got kind of that medium form, you know, 10 minute videos or so. I think the last one was 10 minutes. Let's see, what was it? Okay, maybe it's a little bit longer, like 20 minutes. But still, but, but it's, it's very impactful stuff. He's talking about the amount you need to retire and what some of the studies say versus what he's actually seen in his practice. It's really cool stuff. So Nick, shout out to you. I, I should have watched a few more of your videos. We had that conversation. Now I want to learn from you. Can, can you teach me how to make YouTube's like that? So I want to get to this interview because again, one of the additional contributors for Even More Than Money, if you have not gone out to get your copy of Even More Than Money, feel free to comment below, say, hey, send me a copy. Guess what, I might have a copy lying around. Be happy to send it to you. So comment below that you'd like to get your, your free copy of Even More Than Money and I'll have someone on team reach out to you and we will drop a copy to you in the mail and maybe even I'll autograph it. Not that my autograph is worth anything, but you can say your copy is autographed, so it'll be fun. See you later.