Brad Johnson: Welcome back to another episode of Do Business. Do Life. We’ve got Derek Coburn here with us today. Welcome to the show, Derek.
Derek Coburn: What’s up, Brad? So happy to be here.
Brad Johnson: It’s a little reunion, man. As we were prepping for this conversation, you were kind enough to guest on my prior show, The Elite Advisor Blueprint. It’s been a few years. We dove into your first book, and now you’ve got a new book on the horizon, Let’s Retire Retirement, which is a fun one. Great title, by the way.
Derek Coburn: Thank you.
Brad Johnson: So, for those that aren’t familiar, I’ll just kind of give a little background here. You are a financial advisor, and you sold your practice and kind of have entered a new phase of both business and life. And this has kind of been a message that’s been brewing underneath for, I think, a number of years, and you’re finally getting it out to the world. But if you were just going to kind of kick the conversation off and say, “Hey, here’s kind of the big idea I wanted to get out,” what would you share?
Derek Coburn: Yeah. So, I’ve been a financial advisor since 1998, and I’ve been having this conversation with my clients probably since 2005, 2010, that’s been very different than the conversation that most advisors have with their clients, where I ask them if they actually want to retire. Whereas most financial advisors and most online calculators will just ask people, “What age do you want to retire?” and automatically opt people into it. And people go along, and they pick an age, and they pick a number, and they make sacrifices in the here and now to their health and their relationships. And when they get there, it’s not what they thought it was going to be for a lot of people.
And I think that’s why we’re seeing these big numbers within the un-retirement movement, as it’s called, where something like 25% to 30% of people who retired are going back to work. And it’s not because they need the money. It’s because they missed the connection. They missed the contribution. And so, helping people to understand now while they are in the planning phase, that they’ll probably want to be doing some work beyond the typical age of 65 or 67. What that means for them immediately is that they don’t have to save as much for retirement. And then what that means is they all of a sudden now have more money and more time that they can spend on themselves, on the people that are important to them, on the things that are important to them in the here and now.
Brad Johnson: Well, let’s dive into that. That’s such a cool concept. It’s not rocket science, but I relate to it personally a lot because I had a 13-year career, and as I left that career to start Triad with my co-founder, Shawn, four and a half years ago, I had a couple month little hiatus, right, like be still. I can tell you after about a week, I was stir crazy. And we were joking as we prepped, we’re like the old school retirement of sit on the front porch in the rocking chair with a cup of coffee, watch the cars drive by. I don’t know too many people that want to sign up for that these days. And so, you’re almost, to me, like let’s retire retirement. You’re kind of saying let’s actually retire a little bit more today.
Let’s spend time with the people we love, go to the places we want to see, let’s kind of pull that into the healthy years so we’re not just slaving away our whole lives. And now we hit retirement at the end, and we’ve missed all the stuff that matters. What are your thoughts as we kind of dive into that concept?
Derek Coburn: Yeah. For sure, man. I think there are a lot of ways to do this. I think that if anyone’s listening and they hate what they do for a living, the idea of doing it longer probably sounds awful. And I don’t think people should do that. I also think if you can find this thing that you love and you feel like it was your reason for being put on earth, that’s incredible. But I think that’s probably not something that’s going to happen for a lot of people. So, for me, I think finding work that you don’t hate doing that doesn’t suck your soul and maybe it’s different types of work in different phases of your life, but just knowing that you’re going to be showing up and not having a desire to just sit on your porch, to your point, and drink lemonade and not do anything at all, it just frees you up to spend your time and your money differently right now.
And I think that even though sleeping more, working out more, being home for more family dinners, taking more vacations, for some people, that means it’s less time working in the business or showing up at work. There’s a lot of data to suggest, and in my own experience that the more I do those things, the more I show up to my job, to my client relationships with more clear thinking, with more energy, with more productivity and ultimately more revenue, even though it might be less hours I’m actually spending in the business.
Brad Johnson: And I think what’s interesting that’s evolved a ton is, back in the day, you worked at the same job your whole life because you have this thing called a pension, which most people don’t have these days. And so, you now actually have a little more freedom where if I’m not in love with my job and, actually, I’m miserable every day where I show up, to actually pivot. And I just think about my own stepmom. She was a hospital administrator, did really well for herself in small-town Kansas. I think she enjoyed what she did, but I don’t think she loved it. And when she retired, she was one of those people that has this massive quilting machine in her basement. And literally that’s joyful to her.
And she goes and works at a quilt shop like 20 hours a week, part-time, because she loves it. She gets to connect with people that have the same hobby, do what she loves, and make a little extra income while you do it. So, you’ve seen a lot more of these stories play out than I have because you’ve been in it. Is that a common thing where you kind of see this kind of almost hobby that can turn into like a part-time job in retirement?
Derek Coburn: Yeah. I have an entire chapter. It’s the longest chapter in my book that shows case studies of people that are doing this in a variety of ways. So, it could be you love what you do and maybe you just want to start slowing down at some point, or you want to phase out and go into something else, or you want to take these mini retirements, or you want to have sabbaticals. One of my favorite stories is Jay Baer, who some of you may know. Jay Baer is an author, a phenomenal speaker, and he sold his digital marketing agency, I believe, right around when COVID started in 2020-2021. And that sort of freed him up to have a little bit more time, especially since now he was mainly speaking and you couldn’t really go anywhere to speak to kind of lean into his tequila drinking hobby.
So, he loved drinking different types of tequila, understanding different types of tequila. And he started just pulling out the camera and making videos and sharing them on Instagram and YouTube. And that forward to today, and he has twice the number of Instagram followers for his tequila review business than he does for Jay Baer, author, thought leader. And people recognize him in the airports more for his tequila business. And so, it was a really nice pivot. He’s doing consulting now in that industry and I even referenced at one point in the book as a bit of a throwback to the story, which is, look, if Jay Baer can find a way to monetize just drinking his favorite beverage and putting videos about it online, then there’s probably a lot of really cool, interesting, unique ways that you could find a way to make money as well.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. Well, you just made me think of Dave Portnoy, who, Barstool Sports founder, obviously built an incredible empire there. But I think the dude’s most famous for his One Bite challenge. He just, when he travels, he likes pizza. He’ll review it. He’s a pretty funny dude. And I think people know him more than that than his actual real business that made him the millions. And then he turned it into a pizza brand. So, it’s wild when you kind of pull up that thread of interest. Pat Flynn, we were just talking about, who a lot of people on the internet know because he was an OG podcaster, had one of the biggest early podcasts. Now, he got into Pokémon on YouTube because his boys were into it and now he has a million subs on his regular channel and his shorts channel, and they’re driving five figures of income monthly.
So, it’s wild when you actually kind of follow some of those passions. I want to go to a concept because it kind of aligns with what we’re talking about here. It’s in the book, and I think what you call it is, well, you did a blog post on this, we’ll put it in the show notes, “Why working longer could be life-changing for you.” So, can you unpack that concept? Because it sounds like the opposite of kind of the retirement concept you’re talking about.
Derek Coburn: Yeah, for sure. So, piggybacking on what we were saying earlier, when you decide to work longer, what you’re going to do is you’re going to create a lot more time and a lot more money almost immediately than you thought you had previously. So, I’ll give you an example on the money bit here. So, I share a story about a fictitious guy named Tony, who’s 45 years old. He makes $150,000 per year, and he has $150,000 in retirement accounts. Tony wants to retire at 65 like everybody else because that’s what his advisor and his friends are telling him. And if he does want to do this, he’s going to need to save about $2,400 per month between 45 and 65 in order to make it happen. And I’m using all of the standard fair industry assumptions, right? Like, 3% inflation, 7% pre-retirement rate of return, and him passing away at 95. If Tony decides that he’s going to work until he is 75 instead of 65, the number goes from him needing to save $2,400 a month down to $110 per month, which is a 96% reduction in the amount of money that he has to save.
And you may think, “Hey, I wouldn’t want to do it 10 more years, maybe five more years. Great.” So, if Tony wants to work until he is 70, the number goes from $2,400 a month down to $600 a month, which is a 75% reduction. And the reason for this is, in the first example, he’s got 10 less years to work. 10 less years for his money to compound. And then he needs the amount of money that he accumulates to last for 30 years until he dies at 95. In the second example, we get 10 extra years of earning an income, 10 extra years of letting that money compound, not touching it because he is living off of what he’s making, and then he only needs the money to last for 20 years.
So, you I’m sure, like me, especially given our background, we’ve seen all the articles that tell us we should have been saving more when we were 22, 23 years old. And not that we were making enough money then to make a big difference anyways, because you should have been taking more advantage of compounding interest when you were younger, and you didn’t do that. Now, I feel like an idiot. But there’s hardly any articles that show you how you can achieve the same effect, but just by extending it more on the backend. And it becomes even more impactful because we’re dealing with such a larger number at that point.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. And what I’ve seen too, there’s the work an extra 10 years or an extra five years, and you’re assuming like 40 hours a week sort of concept, right?
Derek Coburn: Sure.
Brad Johnson: The other hybrid of that I’ve seen a lot, like I’ve lived in the world of finance, and there’s an aging demographic of financial advisors, and there’s a lot of family practices where dad wants to pass business to son or daughter. And what I’ve seen typically happen, it’s not this rip the Band-Aid off, like I was working 40 hours a week, now I am retired, and I never show up to the office again. Typically, what happens is it goes from five days in the office to, “Hey, I’m going to go to three days. I’m going to extend the weekend, not going to work Thursdays and Fridays.” So, now they went from 40 hours a week to what, 24? And so, now, like the same concept can still be accomplished.
And it’s just like, “Okay. Well, I’m going to start like a little mini retirement, but I’m still not going cold turkey. I’m still driving that income.” So, I’m assuming there’s a lot of different ways to kind of play with that concept, depending on the individual. Are there other ways you’ve thought through it or seen it play out in real life?
Derek Coburn: Yeah. And look, I’ll give an example that’s now more time focused, where when I realize that I’ll be working longer, I’ve created more time for myself. So, now I’ve got a rhythm with my family right now, my two boys in particular, they’re 15 and 12. And I spend a significant amount of time with them compared to most other parents I know or most other parents I observe. And a big part of the reason why I do this is I just know that in five and a half years, when my youngest is out of the house, that I’m going to be ready to work more than I’m working right now. And so, I’ve got a good rhythm to my life, but I’m turning down some speaking opportunities right now if they’re not a great fit.
And because I sold my practice in 2019, I’ve got some money, some buffer that allows me to say I want to be able to lean into these relationships, lean into this time with them. I think society expects us to work our hardest and generate the majority of our revenue during the years when I think our kids need us and want us the most. And so, it’s more of a short term time horizon, but the same principles apply, like the two to three hours a day that I spend with my kids is sponsored by the future income that I know that I’m going to have in five or six years when I’m saying yes to more speaking opportunities, yes to more clients, yes to more coaching, consulting, whatever. I don’t know what it is, but I know I’m going to be ready to do more than I am at this moment.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. Well, that one specifically, and we’ve talked about this offline, but that one specifically resonates with me. That’s one of the reasons Triad exists today. I mean, I was doing well for myself, you were doing well for yourself, but it was kind of that grind. And I remember COVID kind of put a scratch in that record where everything stopped, and I wasn’t going to be on the road 80 nights that year. I’m like, “Wait, is this success making good like more money than I ever thought I would, but missing the ball games, missing the family dinners?” And you actually have a framing for that in the new book. I think you call it the time machine effect. So, play through that concept because that thing, it really puts things in perspective, how you talk through it.
Derek Coburn: Yeah, man. So, the story that I share, and when this first came to me, was when my kids were about ten and seven, and my wife and I, we had this nighttime routine where we would alternate lying in bed with each of our boys for about 10, 15 minutes each night. We’d read them a story, we’d snuggle next to them, we’d lay with them while they settled into bed, and I started noticing myself wishing it to speed up. I wish my oldest kid would hurry and fall asleep so I can go hang out with my wife, watch this show, respond to this email. And I knew that this wasn’t going to last forever. I knew that, especially with my oldest, that at any night, at any moment, he might be saying to me like, “I don’t want you laying in bed with me anymore, dad.”
And I tried to willpower my way into it. Like, I’m going to be really present and really grateful and networked a little bit. And then I had this thought that I wonder if one day I’m 65 years old and a company invents a time machine and they tell me that I can go back in time for one night with the 10-year-old version of my kid, how much would I be willing to pay for that? And for me, it’s a lot of money. I narrowed it down to $50,000, which is not $50,000 in today’s dollars. It’s $50,000 then. But I think most people would stroke a sizable check relative to the assets that they have to travel back in time to have one of these moments with their kids.
And so, I started treating them like the $50,000 moments that they were, and I started looking for other moments like that, other $50,000 moments where the nighttime snuggle phase is over, but now like three to four times a week I’m working out with my 15-year-old or I’m just really so like leaning in and enjoying the time with my 12-year-old in the car as we drive to and from travel soccer practices and games. And, yeah, I think I shared a stat in my book from Tim Urban, which is by the time our kids, if our kids leave and go away to college, when they leave, we will have already spent 93% of the time that we’re going to spend with them over the course of our lives. And so, we’re just really going to miss them when they’re gone. And I want to really enjoy the heck out of them as much as I can while they’re here.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. It’s wild, man, really that Tim Urban stat, and we were fortunate enough to see him at Mastermind Talks. I still remember that presentation. He was talking about AI, and that’s come to fruition too since then. But, yeah, I think sometimes in the whirlwind of life, in business, obviously you’re an entrepreneur, you’re an independent advisor running your own practice before you sold it, it’s really easy to get caught up. Like, I call it the entrepreneurial lie. I’m building this business for my family, like I’m the provider. And in reality, they don’t care. Like, yeah, they’ve got plenty of nice stuff. What they want is dad at home. They want time.
And there comes a point, and typically, where I see it happen a lot because I got a lot of buddies my age. It’s like when they hit that, I’ve got an eighth grader now, he’s graduating eighth grade in Tuesday here in a couple of days, I’m like, “The countdown is on. He’s a high schooler now, man. This is wild.” And you’re like, “Shoot. I got to…” It’s kind of like what we just talked about with delaying retirement. It’s like I got to cram all this in at the end, and how cool would it be to be just even more intentional for the whole ride? And I just love that concept because I feel like a lot of people, they’re a year out from their kid graduating high school like, “Oh crap, I screwed this up.”
And so, I just love the intention you’re living with it now, and I love that you put it in the book because I know it can serve a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of advisors out there. Are there any other things? Actually, I remember you talked about some of the cool experiences you and your wife planned throughout the year. You go to concerts together with your kids. Give me some other ways you’re spending that time while you’ve got it now.
Derek Coburn: Yeah. We just went to a concert last night, actually.
Brad Johnson: Oh, really?
Derek Coburn: In DC. Yeah. And just a smaller band, up and coming singer-songwriter, this guy, MJ Lenderman, and the kids got into them. I’ve always looked for, so I would say my North Star and the thing that I run most of my actions through, the filter that I run most of my actions through is, will doing what I am about to do increase or decrease the likelihood that my kids will want to spend more time with me when they’re adults? That is something that is very important to me. And so, I’ve always also sort of strategically thought of ways that I could increase the likelihood of that happening. And live music is one of those things. It’s a big passion for Melanie and myself. And I think it’s really probably the best way that human beings can just have fun, in general, is taking in live music, whatever that means for you.
And so, I would let them listen to what they want to listen to, but I would also work in stuff that I like. And I would be thoughtful about what I was introducing them to. And so, they’ve been to some Pearl Jam concerts with us, and they’ve been to some Vampire Weekend concerts with us. I’m taking them to see Kendrick Lamar and SZA in about a month. And there’s some stuff they like that I’m not that into, and vice versa. But I know that in 10, 15, 20 years, if there’s enough of these bands that we share in common, that regardless of what’s going on within our family dynamic, maybe there’s some tension for some reason, maybe one of my kids marries a woman who is just causing trouble, or I don’t know. But if I can get eight tickets to go see a band that we all love, everyone’s going to drop what they’re doing and go to this show, and it’s going to allow us an opportunity to come together and experience something that we all have in common.
Brad Johnson: I love that. And you’re making me now go down memory lane. Like, with my dad growing up, one of the cool things he did, he would listen to the music I was into. I remember him listening to Counting Crows with me. I remember like when Hootie & The Blowfish was big in high school, like he was willing to step into my world of music, and in turn I was willing to step in his world. I would listen to Cat Stevens with him. I would listen to The Stones, his era. And that’s something we still share today, where a song will come on and I will immediately think of him. So, I love that kind of connective tissue that you’re creating there intentionally.
One other concept before we get off this, I’ve also found like gaming, like think about your kids. You’ve got two boys. I’ve got two boys about the same age. I feel like once they hit that junior high age, all of a sudden, dad’s not quite as cool as he used to be. I don’t know if you have that same effect happening in your house, definitely happening in mine. But actually, joining the activities they’re into and like, “Hey, what game are you playing?” Let’s throw on the headset and let’s see how bad dad sucks and go ahead and kill me 42 straight times in Fortnite. But have you done anything like that or other activities where you’re kind of entering into their world versus kind of trying to pull them into yours?
Derek Coburn: Yeah, for sure, man. I think that it’s a great idea. I don’t think enough parents are doing it, and I want to share a quick story that I think I’m going to write about. But my wife and I, without the kids, went to a three-day concert put on by one of our favorite bands called My Morning Jacket. This was about a month and a half ago. And the second night we were there, we looked up in the distance a little bit, and we saw this older gentleman, like he was probably in his sixties. And he was just getting after it, and we’re just like, I just love, like those people are my heroes. Like, I go up to them like, “Tell me your secrets. I want to make sure that I’m still singing, standing, and dancing at concerts when I’m your age.”
The third night, that was the second night, the third night I just look up and he’s standing right next to me, and he’s wearing a hat, and his hat says, “Greg’s dad.” So, I said, “Who’s Greg?” And he points right in front of him. He goes, “That’s Greg.” I start talking to these guys, and I was like, “So, how did this come to be? Like, have you guys always both been into My Morning Jacket?” And they’re like, “Oh no.” The dad said, “Greg got me into them probably like seven or eight years ago.” And I said, “Oh, wonderful. Were you all close?” They both were like, “No, not really.”
“Like, we weren’t that close at the time, but my son invited me to go to this concert with him, and even though I didn’t necessarily know them or liked them at the time, I said, ‘This is an opportunity for me to spend time with my son.’ So, I went. We had a nice time. I was more there for him than I was for the band. He invited me back. I went again.” It took him like three or four shows over the span of a couple of years, but he said, “One day the band finally clicked, and then I got really into them. And so, now the two of us go to like four or five shows every single year together. And it’s a great way for us to come together.”
So, it answers your question, but also I think it’s a nice story to share for maybe somebody that’s been listening to this, that their kid is now 27 or 28 years old, and they’re hearing us talk about how we’re getting ready to lean in and be more mindful about the time that we’re spending with our kids. And they didn’t get the memo because society wasn’t talking to them about it. They were telling them to work hard and just focus on making as much money as you can. This is just a really nice, inspiring way, I think, and a nice story to hear, for no matter how old you are, you can still recreate and find that connection.
And it starts with the parents. I think it’s the parent. I think it has to be on the parents to go out of their way to try to find the connecting points, the connection points, the common interests, the ways that they can spend time together. So, I have a lot of respect for Greg’s dad, and I was really fortunate to be able to meet them and hear their story.
Brad Johnson: I love that story, Derek. Now, I want to meet Greg’s dad because he sounds like a rock star, man. Like, the fact he somehow made a hat and wore it to the concert that said ‘Greg’s dad’ that’s just hilarious.
Derek Coburn: You and I don’t want to make any hats right now that have our kids’ names on it that say ‘dad’ given our kids’ ages. That would be a very bad idea, but I think…
Brad Johnson: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Dad. I mean, we know, we already know, “Dad, don’t do that, man.” Yeah. It’s funny.
Derek Coburn: “That’s so embarrassing.” Yeah.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. Well, they’ll come around eventually. We were that kid too at one point.
Derek Coburn: No doubt, man. No doubt.
Brad Johnson: Well, let’s go back to, you know, one other thing just to kind of tie this back to the business or the career of financial advising. I think another thing we’re unlocking here a little bit is I think sometimes it can be really easy to get caught up in spreadsheets when you’re an advisor and you have to deal with money all day, and, oh, here’s the qualified, non-qualified, and here’s the distribution rate and all that. But in reality, you just talked aspirationally, “Here’s what I want when my kids are out of the house. I want to be able to pay for experiences. They create these memories.” And I immediately go to the best financial advisors I know. That’s the conversations they’re having.
They’re like, “Okay. This is all well and good, but at the end of the day, what’s it for? Okay. Cool. Let’s create a plan to get you there.” So, when you were actually in the world of advising, how was your focus, or what lens were you looking through as you served your clients? Were you talking a lot more aspirationally like, “Here’s the purpose of this at the end of the day,” or how’d you tie that all together?
Derek Coburn: Yeah. Like, I would just ask questions to get them to think differently. So, look, hardly anyone ever walked into my office with their hand raised knowing that they didn’t want to retire. And I would play along. I would humor them. So, I would say, “What do you want to do when you retire?” And they would say, “I want to travel the world with my spouse.” And I would say, “Great. When was the last time you all went out on a date together?” And they would look at each other and be a little bit of awkwardness, like I’m warming up to making my point. “I want to play golf five days a week.” “Cool. You haven’t been to the gym in four years, and you just had your hip replaced. So, when is that going to start happening for you?” Just to highlight the sort of little bit of the hypocrisy behind, like, “I’m going to do all this at some point in the future.”
I’ll give you another example. There’s a big study done that was going around on a lot of social media channels where they analyzed the amount of time that people were spending with various individuals over the course of their lives. So, I don’t know if you saw this, but it was how much time are you spending alone? How much time are you spending with your spouse? How much time are you spending with coworkers? How much time are you spending with friends? As you age and like, for most people seeing these statistics, the takeaway was, “Oh, you’re going to be spending 350 minutes a day by yourself by the time you’re 60 years old. You better learn to be comfortable being alone.”
The one that really stood out for me, though, was how significantly the amount of time that we spent with friends dwindled over our lives. When we were between the ages of 10 and 20, like, my kids and your kids are probably the same way. They wake up every day and they’re like, “Which friends am I going to hang out with and what are we going to do?” And it’s like 100 minutes a day that you’re spending with friends. And by the time you get to like 40 or 50, it’s down to maybe 30 minutes. And then less than that, it’s a couple of hours a week. And when did we begin to devalue the significance of friendship? And there’s all this time that’s spent thinking about how much money do I need to retire? And not a lot of time spent thinking about who do I want to retire with, and what do I want to do, and where do I want to go?
And I’ll just give you another example. I would let my clients talk about where they wanted to end up. “We want to have a house here, and we want to have this lifestyle, and we want to do this.” And then I would always just say like, “What if your kid or kids and grandkids end up somewhere entirely different? And they want you to live close to them.” And almost every single one of them said, “Well, yeah. We’d want to be close to where our kids and grandkids are.” And it’s okay if you don’t want to be there, but I just think that we as 30, 40, 50-year-olds are just really not qualified to accurately predict what we think is going to make us happy 20, 30 years from now.
Brad Johnson: Yeah.
Derek Coburn: And I’ve told financial advisors to really point that out to people, right? I know that you think all this is going to happen, but it’s probably not.
Brad Johnson: It’s a little bit what I hear you saying a little bit. There’s these pie in the sky. Like, here’s the dream of retirement that’s kind of been sold to me. And it might not even be my own, but here’s what I think I’m supposed to do. And in reality, to your point, how much life can change in one year, let alone 5, 10, 15, 20 years. So, to try to future cast what that looks like is damn near impossible.
You took me back with one comment there. I do remember seeing a study that reference that you talked about where basically, it was talking about the older you get, almost like the more lonely you get because all your friends die off, your spouse dies off, and now, you’re kind of sitting there by yourself. And I remember the book Blue Zone, which was talking about what areas of the world people live the longest. And one of the factors that was in there is a sense of community and mattering and belonging. Like, I need to show up or somebody’s going to be disappointed.
And they were talking about like this little Italian town where literally, until you’re 95, you’re walking to church every Sunday with your friends and community and just like, if you’re not there, they miss you. And I think that’s completely under-indexed in how we think about retirement of like, what communities am I getting involved in? What hobbies am I seeking out that have a sense of people that I can bond with when I don’t have the work friends anymore? Because I do think that’s one of the reasons why people don’t want to retire, they’re like, all the people actually enjoy, some of them I enjoy hanging out with are at work, and now I don’t see them anymore. So, what are some other ways, like you think through that, just that sense of community or belonging that all humans want and need, but the older you get, it just gets harder to manufacture?
Derek Coburn: Yeah, I think that it’s also related to just having a better time. So, I suggest in the book that I think we’re in the midst of a fun recession, I think that the majority of adults are not coming anywhere close to having an appropriate amount of fun on a regular basis. And you sort of start to fade away. You stop doing things that bring you enjoyment. If I were to ask 10 people today when the last time they had fun was, because I’ve been doing this informally for like the past 5 to 10 years, the majority of them, they have to pause and they have to think and they usually will say something like, well, the last time I had fun was a month and a half ago. We went out to dinner with this other couple and we had a little bit of wine and we talked about something, right?
And look, I know this can be triggering for some people and I don’t want anybody to feel bad. And my only intention in bringing this up is I just want people to remember that we’re supposed to be enjoying this thing, I think a little bit more than what we’re doing. And having fun is also about having hobbies. It’s about meeting people that share these interests with you. So, if you forget to allow yourself to experience these things, it’s going to be harder to maintain them and keep them going and you’re going to wake up one day with not a lot of interest and not a lot of people to hang out with.
And so, I think we’ve talked about it a little bit already, but I think that the two best ways for us to access fun as human beings are live music and standup comedy. And the reason I suggest these two is they both incorporate something called collective effervescence, a term that’s relatively new, but it has been proven in some studies that the best way for us to experience bliss and joy in our human suits is this combination of dropping into a flow state along with experiencing it and sharing with a lot of other people.
So, us going to a standup comedy club and hearing a comedian and laughing at the same joke, like that laughter is compounded. Us going to a concert and singing a lyric that we sang out of our window 10 times while blasting the song on our radio and a thousand other people did the same thing and they’re singing that lyric at the same time as us, that is like a special kind of endorphin spike that you can’t really experience doing other things. And so, yeah, and more and more of these bands and genres of music are creating environments for their fans to come together in community to experience these good times.
One really quick example I’ll share is someone recently told me this, but there are Margaritaville retirement communities now that have been popping up across the country. So, for big Jimmy Buffett fans, I am not one of those, but for big Jimmy Buffett fans, you can move into a community with other Jimmy Buffett fans and it’s all Jimmy Buffett themed and they’ve got Jimmy Buffett restaurants and Jimmy Buffett music playing and everything else.
Brad Johnson: Sounds like a dream if you grew up in the 70s.
Derek Coburn: Yeah, man, totally.
Brad Johnson: So, that’s a trend I’m seeing too. And obviously, the internet broke down a lot of geographic walls, because back in the day, let’s say pre-internet, oh, I’m a Jimmy Buffett fan. So, you either go to a concert locally, you listen to the vinyl, and I mean, maybe a record shop locally. But there was no ability to scale that community. And now, the internet, you can have the most niche weird interests, and now there’s at least a thousand other people that are into the same thing on the low end probably. So, I think it’s just wild how things continue to evolve. And I think, how I see that play out in finance, you start to see advisors where they’re doing these niche little fun activities. Like, “Hey, let’s do a Jimmy Buffett tribute concert because half of our clients love Jimmy Buffett.” “Cool.” A bunch of people are going to show up. They’re going to bring their friends. Let’s do wine tastings. Let’s do– I just think it’s exploded as far as the opportunity to dive deeper down that rabbit hole. What are some other weird nichey sort of things you’ve seen some of your clients get into, like that sort of like Jimmy Buffett sort of stuff?
Derek Coburn: Well, yeah, that was recently just brought to my attention. Look, I think that some people would suggest sports fall into this category. And certainly, when things are going well, sports can match or equal the experience that you feel at a concert or at a comedy club. But I don’t put sports to the same category because there’s a 50% chance you’re going be upset at the end of the game.
Brad Johnson: Good point.
Derek Coburn: If your team doesn’t win, right? Like, there’s really no chance that my favorite guitar player is going to go, oh, for nine from the three-point range when I go to see them in concert and ruin my night. So, look, I think that there are…
Brad Johnson: I’ve only had one concert ruined in my life, Derek.
Derek Coburn: Which one was that?
Brad Johnson: The Violent Femmes. Saw them live in Vegas. They didn’t play Blister in the Sun. I’m like, how can you not play the song that puts you on the map? That’s the only time I’ve ever had a concert ruined. But to your point, you’re right. It’s like a really hard time to not have a good time at a concert on watching a band you enjoy.
Derek Coburn: Yeah, absolutely, man. I don’t know that I have other ideas or suggestions. Like, I think that certainly, like, golfing, certainly doing things physically, hiking, fishing, like to your point, it’s not hard to meet and find people online these days that share your interests, share your passions and your hobbies. And again, I think similar to working out, if you’re listening to this and you feel like you have not treated yourself to a good time, when I say a good time, like think back to the version of you that had the most fun, whatever version that is, like what would they think about the current version of you? Would they feel like, oh, you’re doing a pretty good job? Or would they say, like, I can’t believe this version of me is never really going out, never having a good time, never enjoying this thing a little bit more? And start small. To your point, find a cover band, find something local to you that’s happening over the next couple of weeks.
There’s a great app called Bandsintown that will sync with a Spotify account. Based on the artists that you listen to, it will tell you when those artists or when similar artists are coming to venues near where you live. You can Google when and where different comedians are coming in. So, yeah, I mean, I think that you wouldn’t set off to run a marathon if you hadn’t worked in a while. So, don’t feel like you have to plan something super extravagant as a way to get back on the scene for the first time in a while.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. Well, you’re kind of going down a path I wanted to go down anyway. I think the cool thing as an independent advisor is you can do whatever the hell you want. If you’re like, “Hey, I like this cover band, I would enjoy watching them,” hire them and then invite the clients of yours that would also enjoy it. Now, you’re having a good time. They’re having a good time. Who doesn’t want to be around, as you said, more fun if they’re lacking it in their lives?
And now, you create this environment, this community, where guess what? They can invite their friends that also enjoy that. Now, there’s your referral network. And I mean, selfishly, when I looked at Triad, when I’m like, hey, I want to do business with people I want to do life with, I’m like, one of my things– our kids read Way of the Warrior Kid when we were little, the Jocko book, I don’t know if you’re familiar or not.
Derek Coburn: Yeah, Jocko.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. The kid gets bullied in there. And so, his uncle Jake, who’s the Navy Seal, takes him to learn jiu-jitsu. And I was like, you know what? I think my kids could probably use some of that. It’d be a good way for us to learn something together. So, we brought Rener Gracie in to teach jiu-jitsu at a Triad Experience, and everybody had a blast. And so, it’s like one of those things, like, that sounds fun. Why not? Why wouldn’t you give it a try?
So, speaking to creating communities and fun shared experiences, we haven’t even talked about CADRE, which was– actually, that was one of the reasons I think we originally connected because we had some mutual friends that had kind of gone through that network together. How did that come to be? And I guess, maybe explain what it is for those unfamiliar, and then how did that create more fun in your life? And then did it impact your business, your financial advising business too? I’d just love to hear that kind of how that all played out.
Derek Coburn: Yeah. So, CADRE, we’re in about our 15th year right now and we’ve got a community of over a hundred CEOs, entrepreneurs, trusted advisors, and we see ourselves as being able to facilitate introductions to great people and great content. We host a variety of larger events. We host a lot of things virtually. And I think, what I say is that sometimes, what we provide feels like it’s medicine. Sometimes what we provide feels like it’s a vitamin. But regardless, we always want to give our members a dose of what’s good for them. That’s basically like the way we’ve evolved.
And it started from me getting really good at hosting different types of events as a way to grow my wealth management practice. And so, kind of piggybacking on the point that you were just making about these concerts, like my first book Networking is Not Working, which came out over 10 years ago, I essentially said, I think that going to big, large networking events is kind of a waste of time. And what I think you should do instead is I think that you should curate smaller events, smaller experiences that involve your best clients, your best perspective clients, and give them the opportunity to bring people along.
So, my networking book was actually a book about leveraging client appreciation as a client acquisition strategy disguised as a networking book. So, it was wine to things, it was sporting events. It wasn’t as much concert going at that point, but it was, “Hey, I’ve got four tickets or three tickets and I want to invite you and I want you to bring two people with you.” And I knew that worst-case scenario that I was creating a cool experience for my client that they were not going to likely get from working with another advisor, even if I didn’t connect in a meaningful way with the people that they brought. I was getting just to give them the opportunity to do something cool for their friends. But of course, more times than not, the people they bring are sort of thinking like, why doesn’t my advisor invite me to do cool stuff like this? Why don’t they invite me or allow me to bring my friends to this sort of thing?
And look, I mean, I think a lot of advisors as they’re listening to this and they’re successful, they know that the reason that clients are going to work with them, gravitate to them, stay with them, it’s a lot of the intangible stuff that we’re doing above and beyond doing the job that we are supposed to do for them. And look, if you have clients that they’re not currently ever going out and making time for themselves to experience cool things and you introduce them to like a great night-out on the town listening to a wonderful band or take them to a comedian and they laugh harder than they laugh in three months or six months, like that’s all they need. As long as you continue to do a good job, you have to really screw up, I think, to lose them as a client. And if you’re inviting them and allowing them to bring people with them, now you’re really talking. Now you’re really giving yourself an opportunity to grow your business around your passions, your interests, while you are deepening the relationship that you have with your existing clients.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. And I’ve also found a really cool filter is if it’s the– like, you’re the type of guy I’d want to go to a concert to, you’re a good time, we can have some talk about stuff that matters, we can have some talk about stuff that doesn’t matter. But I know, like Derek probably has two other buddies that are wired not too different than you, so if I enjoy you as a client and I just want to clone you over and over, why wouldn’t I create an experience that’s just going to pull the same sort of people in along as well? And I’ve just seen that work over and over, over the years.
Derek Coburn: Big time.
Brad Johnson: Back to CADRE, because I don’t think you’ve– I mean, you’ve explained it high level, but I don’t think you’ve done it justice because it’s a really cool experience. I unfortunately haven’t been to one live yet, but I know enough people that have that really appreciate what you’ve created. What are some of the bigger names? Like if you’re painting a picture of here’s some of the speakers we’ve brought in, here’s some of the cool experience, here’s some of the connections that have come out of that, what would be some examples?
Derek Coburn: Yeah, look, we’ve had Seth Godin. We’ve had Daniel Pink three times. We’ve had Sally Hogshead. We have Hila Blum coming up in September. We get really great speakers and really great people. And I would say that like, it’s the quality of the people that make us different. And for a long time, I had people say to me, prospective members would say, “I hear the people are really cool. And why is that?” And I always gave a lip service. I didn’t really know how to properly explain it.
But I would say that when we started CADRE, it was after I decided to scale back my wealth management practice. So, I had 350 clients. I was qualifying for a lot of industry trips where I was like, younger than the majority of people there by at least 10 to 15 years, and I was asking them about their practice and they would say they have 1,500 clients and they like working with 300 of them. And I don’t have to tell you how hard it was then and how hard it still is to market as a financial advisor. Like, just how much red tape we have to deal with that a lot of other industries don’t have to deal with. Like, we’re not allowed to really use testimonials, for example.
And at the time, I wasn’t allowed to use social media. So, I said, “Look, I’m going to pair back my practice. I’m going to end up with about 75 or 80 clients of people that I really love working with and enjoy working with. And now, I’m going to spend this extra time that I have running CADRE.” And what I found out pretty quickly was that the big ancillary benefit of having two businesses going side by side at the same time, is that I really got to stick to my guns in terms of who is an ideal fit, who do I really want to work with, in a way that I’m not sure that I would have the courage to do if I had just one business.
So, I started telling people the reason why the quality control is so good with our membership is that my wealth management business is paying the bills. I don’t need one person’s $500 a month, which is what we charge like our local members, and we charge our virtual members $349 a month. But none of that is going to be used to fund my kids’ 529 Plan, right? It’s more of a passion project and I get to be really selective about who we’re going to allow to come in. And that’s what has made it, I think, really good over the years is me not feeling like I have to run it like a business, me not feeling like I have to make exceptions and bring people on so that I have their $500 a month to pay my bills a year from now.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. That’s the hardest thing as an advisor. When you’re starting out, you’re like, shoot, I hope I survive. So, I’ve kind of got like, if they’re willing to work with me and bring some assets over, okay, sounds good. Let’s go. Yeah, I might take a little abuse in the meantime, but I got to pay the bills, right?
And then by the time you mature to the point where you don’t need everybody, now you’ve got this almost legacy model that you’re kind of still having to maintain. And what I’ve found is as you reach a level of maturity where it’s like you can be a lot more selective, it’s when you don’t need the clients that you can do that, but that’s the hardest time in the early days. And you kind of almost created this snowball rolling downhill that’s hard to unwind.
So, it takes a lot of intention and I’ve heard that story over and over where advisor is like, man, I wish I would’ve done it differently out of the gates. Had I known chapter one would play out like this, I would’ve planned for chapter two differently. Do you have any advice for advisors down there? Maybe that have gone down that path that they’re like, if I’m honest, like a third of the clients, when they call me, I cringe. Like, how would you get that back on track?
Derek Coburn: I think goal setting was very good for me until it wasn’t. I was very good at hitting goals. I knew, in the early days of my career, I knew if I made 500 cold calls a week, I knew exactly how much money that was going to translate into at the end of the year. And I think I just woke up one day with just a good portion of my clientele that I didn’t enjoy working with. And I think I ended up with them because I woke up several Octobers in a row, recognizing that I was nine clients away or X amount of assets under management away or X amount of insurance policies away from hitting my goal. And I started getting focused on hitting my goal at the expense of making sure that I really wanted to attract people that I wanted to work with.
So, yeah, I was able to navigate that and over the years, mainly through like a broker-dealer change, I was able to use that as an opportunity to release some client relationships. I brought in some associates to work with some other clients of mine, but I would ultimately say that like a lot of what I’m preaching in this book, Let’s Retire Retirement, even though I hope financial advisors read it and I hope financial advisors will change the conversations they’re having with their clients as a result, I also feel like financial advisors more so than maybe any other industry, like, have just this incredible amount of flexibility with the way that they can design their life going forward. Like, no one’s really answering. We’re not really answering to anybody.
If you want to have 25 clients and you want to be unavailable during the summer times, like you could have one person sitting in for you. If you never want to work on Fridays, if you want to be done every day at two o’clock, there’s so many different types of ways that you could set up your life and your business in a way that works for you. I just think that being a financial advisor gives you the ultimate flexibility for how you want to design your life going forward.
Brad Johnson: Yeah, I love that. And it’s back to like, Do Business, Do Life, it’s like, don’t design a business that destroys your life on the other side. Like, it’s not worth it. That I remember, I actually shared this story with our team, it was like a week ago. And one of the things we talk about at Triad a lot is like our kind of litmus test, our filter is let’s bring people into this community that’s not just premium based. To your point, it’s not just like, hey, here’s the revenue number. Got to hit it, sacrifice everything else, because trust me, that’s like 99.9% of finance. You and I both live that world. We’re like, let’s work with check your ego, sort of people at the door. Like, we want growth-minded humans that are open to learning and being challenged. And I haven’t arrived nor do I plan to anytime soon. So, why would I want to surround myself with people that think they have. And then let’s do business with people that we want to do life with, that I’d invite them over to the family dinner table whether or not we were doing business or not.
And when you change the lens that you filter your clients through, it completely changes the game to where you’re like, I actually really love when I tried member calls. I actually really love when we go to an experience in Hawaii in a month, and I’m going to be surrounded by 72 Triad members that I love hanging out with, with them and their families. And so, it is possible, but it takes intention and it also takes saying no to money. Like, we have turned so much revenue away because they didn’t check those criteria. And I think that’s the trap you fall into. It’s like, yeah, I really want to love my business. Oh, but I’ll just take the money that’s kind of knocking at the door. So, do you have any advice on how to– because it’s tough. It’s tough to like say, not worth it, even though I know that’s revenue that I’m kind of stiff arming a bit.
Derek Coburn: I’m going to sort of take a roundabout approach to answer this question and I’m going to share something else that I mentioned in my book in the last chapter. And that is my wife and I have been in couples therapy for over 18 years and we have spent over $250,000 on couples’ therapy. And so, that would be worth a couple million dollars if I would’ve not done the therapy and I just don’t want to calculate what it would be worth in another 20 years if I would’ve invested it. But I think that even though I have less money, if I’m playing the how much money can I have at a certain point in time game, the same game, a lot of other people are playing right now, I’ve set myself back a little bit, okay?
But now, this book, the way that I’m showing up in the world every day with just a really wonderful relationship with my wife, a really great relationship with my kids. I feel really good in my body, in my mind. I’m sleeping well. I’m working out a lot. Maybe my counterparts that didn’t invest in therapy or invest time into their relationship are now dealing with divorce or they’re dealing with being in a relationship with somebody that they’re having a hard time clicking with and enjoying their time with. So, maybe that game is not over yet.
And I guess what I want to say is that I think that for all of us, the best person that we can get advice from is the most optimized version of us. And so, if we’re spending all of our time working in the business and we’re not sleeping well, we’re not working out, we’re stressed out, we’re tired, we have brain fog, we might need that extra time working in the business. We might need to work more hours to make a certain amount of money.
But I also think it would be interesting for people to consider, what if I took a step back from the business to prioritize these things a little bit more? What would the version of me who is well rested, who’s well energized, who’s got really wonderful relationships with his spouse or her spouse and his kids who’s having more fun, whose cup feels really full, when that person’s showing up into the office, what are they capable of? And I think that they’re probably capable of making at least as much as you’re making now, if not more, even though the actual time you’re spending in the office is less than what you’re doing right now.
Brad Johnson: Thanks for sharing that, man. My wife and I have been in couples therapy for this whole, just over four years now. And it took– it was one of those deals I had mentors in my life that are like, hey, therapy is good for you, man. It’s like everybody needs coaching for this, right? And it’s funny, I think especially guys resist it more so than females typically, but man, my only regret is we didn’t start year one of marriage. Like, looking back, how much– you think about how we embrace coaching in every other area of our business, golf trainers, like all the different things we’ve talked about, and then we resist it in the relationship that matters the most, it’s just kind of silly. But a lot of guys do. And so, I’m a huge advocate. I love that you brought it up. I’m going to ask you a real direct, honest question. I kind of know my answer. So, you’re 18 years in, do you think you’d still be married today without therapy?
Derek Coburn: Probably not. I might not even be married. We started going to therapy when we were engaged. We started going to therapy initially, it was more of a need than it was a luxury. We had another bout when I had my midlife crisis here a couple years ago and I shook up the snow globe where things got rocky and that ultimately led to us being even stronger than we were before that. But a lot of it is, we still go even when things are good. We have each of our kids going to a therapist once a month. And our kids are, for the most part, in a really great place, like mentally, physically, spiritually. But we want to normalize it. We want them to feel comfortable having someone else that they can talk to about stuff that they’re feeling if they don’t feel comfortable talking to us about it. And to your point, they’re both boys, and I think men and boys have more of an aversion to this than women. And I want my kids to know that it’s okay and it’s normal and it’s encouraged that you show up and have somebody that you can talk about how you’re feeling with on a regular basis.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. I love that, man. And I maybe knew that somewhere along the way, but I’m glad you brought it back up. Honestly, if I asked myself that question, would I still be married today? I don’t know. And that’s a scary question to ponder because I love my wife more than anything. But the stresses of being a business owner are real. And that can bleed over into the life side and just like the stresses on the life side can bleed over to the business side. So, I just feel like it’s this almost like symbiotic relationship of balance. Like, if you’re going to do business and do life, let’s integrate it. So, it’s a beautiful dance and not some like, oh, sacrificing life to go do business over here. Oh, never mind, I’m going to unplug and ignore all my problems over here to go do life. And I just see the people that do that dance, it never ends well. So…
Derek Coburn: Yea. Look, I’m actually just shocked at the business owners I know, the financial advisors I know, the entrepreneurs that I know, the extremely high bar they have for excellence in their work and how it does not translate over into the relationship they have with their spouses and their kids. They accept mediocrity, they accept above average, they accept pretty good in a way that they would never accept mediocre above average and pretty good in their practice or in their business.
Brad Johnson: Truth. Well said. And it’s sad. It’s actually one of the reasons Triad exists. I saw that too. I mean, I don’t know how many divorces, how many health issues from just over-indexing on business and the stresses. And it’s like, it doesn’t have to be that way, but you have to run a different path, that’s for sure.
Well, Derek, this kind of queues up the last question I got for you, man, we’re all over the topic. So, Do Business, Do Life, that is this show, that is one of the missions Triad is on with our members and obviously, for us, personally, selfishly a bit. So, I would love to hear your definition of what does Do Business, Do Life look like for Derek?
Derek Coburn: Yeah, look, I would say that I started writing this book in 2017, as I mentioned earlier. And then I got approached by the private equity company, and then COVID hit. And then my father, I was dealing with his disease, dementia, and ultimate passing. And I just put it away for a while. And I think the reason that I never went back to it was, just because I was living a lot of what I’m preaching, I was really leaning into just enjoying my time with my kids, enjoying my time with them, one of the big things I start my book off talking about how the way I viewed my father’s life changed since I started writing the book. Like, when he got dementia and ultimately, passed away, I thought that he passed– he got dementia at 62 and passed away at 71. I thought that he missed out.
And as I was flipping through a lot of the photos at his house with my family after he passed away, I realized that that wasn’t accurate, that he did a lot of traveling with my wife. He did turn down the partnership at the big CPA firm when we grow up, so that he could work from home and be at all of our practices and be there for us. And so, he really was this much bigger example and influence on me than I had previously thought. And so, I just think that our kids, our family, our friends, everything we’ve talked about, I’m such a big believer and such a huge fan of your message, of this idea, of everything that you’re doing with your agency. And hopefully, our conversation today and people that feel inclined, that want to pick up my book, will lean into it and recognize that this is not all about work. There’s way more to life than work.
And work that we like doing and enjoy doing can unlock a lot more of this for us. So, don’t do what you hate doing. Find work that hopefully is enjoyable. Plan on doing it longer and allow that to create just an enormous amount of flexibility for you to spend more of your time and money on the people and things that are really important to you right now.
Brad Johnson: Love that, man. And honestly, that’s why I’m so excited to support this work. Obviously, we’ve been friends for a while, but the book, by the way, Let’s Retire Retirement drops June 3rd. I’m going to buy the first box that you’ll allow and give some away to some of the listeners and viewers. So, I appreciate you coming on, man. I always enjoy our conversations. They always go somewhere fun and usually somewhere deep. And those are the sort of people I enjoy surrounding myself with. So, good to catch up, Derek, and look forward to when we get to do it again in person.
Derek Coburn: Yeah, Brad. Love our chats as always. And thank you so much for the opportunity to be here with your incredible audience and just always love jamming with you, brother.
Brad Johnson: All right, my man. Be well. Till next time.
Derek Coburn: Take care. Thanks, you too.
Brad Johnson: See ya.
