Zachary Larson With IntentGen Financial Partners

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Zachary Larson, and he is the wealth advisor and founding partner of IntentGen Financial Partners. Welcome, Zach.

Zachary Larson: Thank you. I’m excited to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your firm. How you serving folks?

Zachary Larson: Our firm is in some ways very similar to other financial organizations. And yet we think it’s it’s very unique in a way as well, because we’re focused on helping people use their money intentionally. And what we find is a lot of people approach their finances a little bit accidentally. They just kind of deal with stuff as it comes up and then try to figure things out. We try to flip that order and empower people to live intentionally.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? Have you always been involved in this line of work?

Zachary Larson: I have since coming out of college. I felt really a calling towards this work. We we approach it as a ministry in a lot of ways to to just give people confidence to spend and give and live the life they want rather than being paralyzed by by money, which can happen to all of us. And it has happened to me as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, you’ve recently written a book, retire intentionally with it’s with a question mark. Is that is that are you asking the question or are you making a statement that people don’t usually do that?

Zachary Larson: Well, I, I would prefer it with an exclamation point. Honestly, I think that that’s the goal is to equip people to be able to have confidence that they know they can spend money, that they can give money the way that they want, and to encourage people to retire to something. So it’s my experience that I’ve learned from others and lived and journey with them is that when people are just trying to get rid of something in their work life, retirement doesn’t always crack up to be what they want when they’re retiring to something, whether it’s hobbies, volunteering, family things, and new career and new business and they have confidence around money, then it can be an amazing new chapter. That’s what retirement intentionally means to us.

Lee Kantor: Now let’s talk about kind of the process of retiring. How do you what stage do you typically get your clients? Are they beginning to have conversations with you at the at the beginning of their career, or are they towards the end and they are nearing retirement. So then they are kind of curious about that, but it might be too late. Like if they would start it earlier, they’d have a better outcome. Like when did when do you begin relationships typically with your clients?

Zachary Larson: That’s a very interesting question. I think our firm is equipped and we have advisors that can help people across the spectrum from the beginning of their careers and journey towards savings for the future, all the way post retirement, as people are thinking about leaving their legacy and passing money on. But really, our niche is helping people that are plus or minus five years of that retirement transition time. So if you want to put an age around that, maybe it’s someone in their mid to late 50s through their mid to late 60s who are saying, I’m in that red zone. If you want to use a football analogy, we’re trying to to push this across the, the end zone.

Lee Kantor: So but are they have they been just managing their finances themselves or they have maybe they work in a corporation where they have, you know, their 401 K, where it’s just getting kind of every every paycheck. Money’s just getting kind of siphoned into that and they’re not really thinking about it. And then they know that the end is near. So I better, you know, hire a professional to help me.

Zachary Larson: Yeah.

Zachary Larson: Some people are are truly do it yourselfers and they’ve done it. Actually. We meet a lot who’ve done an excellent job doing it on their own. Uh, others have worked with advisors, but most of them have been in the mindset of accumulators. And if you’re an accumulator, you’re focused on what you’re focused on. A number like I need to hit X so I can retire. And there were commercials in, in years past where, uh, people walked around with these little bubbles on their head. And their numbers, of course, were all different, but maybe it was a million bucks or 3 million bucks, or they had to work towards this number as a target. We want to break that mentality and say your value as a person, your retirement that you want is less about a net worth number, and it’s more about the income that you can create, which will free you up to think about your impact, which is essentially what do you want that money to do? What do you want your life to be about now?

Lee Kantor: Do you find that people’s mindset have shifted over the years that maybe, um, years ago people were like, well, I’m going to retire, and then I’m going to, you know, live at the lake and fish all day and play golf. And it’s kind of a life of leisure and that nowadays people like maybe it’s because they’re living longer in this stage that they do want more of a legacy. They do want more of an impact. They do want things that have more meaning than just leisure.

Zachary Larson: I not only think that, but I see it. I feel it from clients. And it’s not always about having a a specific role or a title in this new phase of retirement, but it is about having purpose, and I would encourage anyone to really give that a lot of thought as they’re preparing for a transition towards retirement, to say, what will my purpose be? How be? How do I want to spend my time? Why do I get up? Why do I save money? Why do I spend money? Because lake time, fishing, golf, skiing, cycling those are all things I love. Those are probably what your your listeners love to do. But whatever the hobbies are, um, a life of of leisure doesn’t usually fulfill people the way that they think it might.

Lee Kantor: And when I talk to people at that age, it’s like every day you have to do something like the hours have to be filled. And it’s like, you know, if you like, uh, cake. You can’t eat cake for every meal. It’s you’re gonna get tired of cake no matter how much you like cake.

Zachary Larson: You’re totally right. It reminds me of a story, and this is something I shared in the book. But when my wife and I were younger, we. We have four teenage boys right now. But when we had four younger boys, we said, let’s take them to Disney World. And that was just kind of like people said, you should go to Disney. And we took them and it was filled with candy and fun and all the magic that Disney is and and we loved it, but it was filled with chaos. It was filled with illness. It was filled with unexpected things. It was filled with no routines. And and all of a sudden we’re looking at ourselves on like day five and saying, what did we get ourselves into? And then you compound that with the fact that money was literally like flying out the door. And in some small way, I think that’s what retirement becomes like for some people, is they think of it as this magical, fun time, and then life starts to happen. And if there’s no routine, if there’s no purpose, then you get these days of chaos in a lot of ways, and you just can feel like money is flying out the door. And and so purpose is a big part of part of that, and then having a paycheck continuing to come in is a big part of that. So you have confidence to keep doing the stuff that you want to do.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you help people with the transition? You mentioned it like they spent their whole careers and lives accumulating. So everything was about save, save, save or invest, invest, invest. And I’m putting it away and putting it away. And at some point you have to kind of flip the switch here and say, okay, do I have a machine now that with this nest egg that I can get that paycheck, can I feel like, oh, money’s coming in in a predictable, reliable way that I will be able to sustain me and my family, you know, for the foreseeable future without me necessarily adding to it with new funds, but just kind of, um, maximizing the funds we have and hoping they’re compounding and they’re still growing.

Zachary Larson: Yeah, you’re you’re totally right. So the first thing that we try to break is this mentality of a net worth. And obviously we obviously we help our clients track it. And I think we all like to see our net worth numbers growing. But then the tendency is to say, well, if it hit a new high and it goes lower, then I’m immediately anxious. I’m immediately reserved about using more of it. So we break that mentality by setting up income. And when we look at income, we talk a lot about net income, which just simply means your income. What you can spend and use after taxes are considered. And the biggest source of that for most people is Social Security. And so deciding when to take a social social security payment is a key point. There’s lots of reasons to extend it as long as possible. There’s lots of reasons to start sooner. I’m not going to even try to go into that right now. Um, people can check out the book, they can read things online or talk to their advisor about what’s ideal for them.

Zachary Larson: But the point would be you get that cash flow going and then there’s other layers to put on top of. There could be dividends from investments, could be interest from conservative things. Uh, could be uh, annuity payments coming out. It could be business income, rental real estate, a lot of different ways to do it. Uh, not really right or wrong. It’s just finding pieces of it. And what we try to come up with is a, a paycheck number that says every month I’m used to X coming in so I can pay all my regular expenses, my routine expenses. And the best way to estimate if you’re on track for that is for a person to just look at what their net paycheck is while they’re working. So don’t worry about your total income. Don’t worry about what you save or where you spend it. But if you have $5,000 a month coming in every month, then you better figure out a way to have 5000 a month coming in in retirement, because that’s what you’re used to living on.

Lee Kantor: Now, can we get in the weeds a little bit about, um, some of the things like you mentioned, net worth, and I think sometimes people get confused like, okay, well, my house is worth, you know, $1 million. And, um, you know, should I consider that as part of my net worth? Because if I do, that means I have, you know, more money available to me. But in actuality, I have to live somewhere, and that’s going to cost me money. Like, how do you even go about calculating your net worth? I know you say it’s not a number to aim at, but it is. You know, you are accumulating assets and that is one of your assets.

Zachary Larson: Yeah, it’s.

Zachary Larson: Absolutely an asset and it’s a big part of most people’s net worth. But it’s not a spendable asset. It’s not an investable part of your net worth. And so unless people have big plans to move and downsizing is this concept I hear all the time from people. But, um, there are very few people who I have seen downsize their physical space without upgrading their living conditions. So think about what’s happened in the housing market around the country. Your home value is probably worth more, but you got to live somewhere. And even though you may drop from a four bedroom home to a two bedroom, you may be at a point in your life where you say, I want something nicer. So there’s kind of this fallacy of like, yeah, I’ll downsize my house, I’ll save a bunch of money. We just don’t see it play out for that many people. And so for that reason, we would not even include the net worth of your home in your investable net worth number when we calculate it. What we look at is a tool we use. We call it the tax efficiency checklist. And people can find that on our website at dot com. But it helps people look at their money the way the IRS does which is when does it get taxed. So your money gets taxed as it grows. We call that tax now. It gets taxed later in vehicles like IRAs and 401 plans or annuities, and if used properly, it can never be taxed if it’s in things like Roth IRAs or life insurance. So there’s a lot of different tools, but based on your purpose, if it’s college savings, you can use a 529 plan. If it’s retirement savings, you can use a Roth IRA. We’re going to lay things out across those three columns and help people say, how can they use that money on a regular basis?

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you help people kind of manage, um, the changes that are happening in life, like, you know, you retire and you feel good and everything’s great, but, you know, five years in and all of a sudden some health situation might occur. Um, or the markets could drop dramatically. Um, you know, like things. I think that’s what makes it so hard for people in retirement especially, is there’s so many unknowns that you have to plan for, and it’s hard to plan for things that you can’t even imagine happening, um, today, but might happen regularly, you know, in ten years.

Zachary Larson: Yeah. Very insightful. There was a famous philosopher named Mike Tyson. Okay, not not really a philosopher, right? Right.

Lee Kantor: But no, he has a great saying that everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face. And I think that that’s a good in a lot of that. That philosophy is a pretty on the nose in a lot of different areas and retirement being one of them.

Zachary Larson: You nailed it. And so we talk about that with people. Um, there is a lot that’s unknown about the future and we can model it. There are tools that are called Monte Carlo simulations. It comes out of the physics and mathematicians, uh, sphere, and it looks at probability. So it doesn’t assume you’re going to earn X amount per year and inflation goes up by Y. It randomizes all that. So we can use good statistical tools. But then there’s just things that are out of our control when when we pass away. If there’s health care things, if our kids or grandkids need help and we label that something, we we refer to that as a what if kind of retirement planning. And when people live their life in what if, then there’s really never enough money to prepare. And those who get stuck on that end up leaving a bunch of money behind. So what we want to do is, is plan for the best. Let’s say we use this probability tool and we give you confidence to go spend it, use it, give it, have experiences with the people you care about and then have contingencies in case things happen. This is how I will restructure my life. This is how I will reprioritize things. Otherwise, we can spend our whole life worrying about what if and not do the things that we could have along the way if that remote thing doesn’t happen.

Lee Kantor: Now, how often are you kind of working with your clients to have these conversations? Because, you know, things can change pretty rapidly. All it takes is one doctor’s visit. It could your your lifespan might be adjusted, you know, from living till 80 to living till 65. I mean everyone is that vulnerable.

Zachary Larson: So we look at proactive planning with people and our firm reaches out on a regular basis. Usually we’re meeting with clients a couple times a year, at least proactively, to say these are things that we see on your horizon that we want to keep talking about. And then there’s a lot of reactive things when life changes for them, when their priorities shift, when an opportunity comes up, we meet and go through that. But the biggest thing I would say to that is for people who are doing this on their own, it’s not so much about you having to entrust your assets to somebody else to manage. It’s about having a partner to walk on that path with you and give you confidence to say, you can do these things. I’m going to use a weird, strange word to think about Lee, but if I gave you permission to use your money, your initial thought might be, well, who’s this guy to say that I have permission? So it’s never about me giving you permission, but it’s about empowering you to give yourself permission to use your money. And I think that’s what a good partnership can do for people is to say, yeah, I can do this. I have the confidence to do it because I’ve dealt with the contingencies. I’ve I’ve thought about things that could happen, and now I have a plan to deal with them.

Lee Kantor: So now if I am, say, five, ten years out from retirement and I get this book, are there kind of is it is it kind of a workbook where there’s things for me to be doing and I can be plugging in my own numbers and getting kind of my own sense of, of a plan at the end of the day by going through this book.

Zachary Larson: There absolutely are. There are exercises at the end of each chapter to help people walk through a progression of looking at net worth and then shifting towards a net income mindset of cash flow and tax efficiency. And then a net impact, uh, which ultimately is to say, what do you want that money to do? Who are the experience or who are the people you want to have experiences with? How can you give it away to people in places you care about along the way? And make sure that at the end of your life, it gets to the people and places you care about. And step by step, there’s a progression for people to walk through that if they want to do that on their own. And if they say, I’d love a partner along that journey, then there’s information they can find out how to work with our firm.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re building a team of people like yourself, like who should be part of this team, um, when you’re nearing retirement, obviously kind of a wealth manager, which is somebody like you, but who else should be on the team?

Zachary Larson: Ideally there’s a a family member or a close friend that is a sounding board for you. So one of the things that we’ve walked with with our clients is how hard it is to make a decision when you’ve spent a lifetime as a couple, and then one of the people from that couple is gone. So whether it’s a divorce late in life, whether there’s an early death. Decisions are hard. So you need you need trusted contacts in your corner to help you with that. Might be a kid, might be a relative, a close friend. Um, the other things or other people involved. A proactive accountant. So anybody can do taxes pretty easily. Now on TurboTax. That’s what we call reactive accounting. Um, a proactive accountant says, let’s plan ahead and look at a lifetime of taxes rather than just year by year. That’s another valuable piece. And then someone to help with the legal structure as well, to make sure that the things that you want for your healthcare, for your property, uh, are able to be executed if you’re not able to make those choices.

Lee Kantor: So now if somebody wants to learn more about your firm in the book, what is the website? What is the best way to connect?

Zachary Larson: It’s w-w-w.

Zachary Larson: Dot com. And that’s the two words that come up when we pulled our clients and pulled people about our company. Intentional and generous. That’s how we try to live. That’s how we try to operate as a company and empower others to do that. So intent gen.com. And you can find the book on on Amazon. Retire intentionally.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well Zach, thank you so much for sharing your story today, doing such important work. And we appreciate you.

Zachary Larson: Thank you Lee.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.