FIN-LYT by EWA®

In this episode of EWA's FIN-LYT Podcast, Matt Blocki sits down with Bryce Conway, founder of 10X Travel, for his second appearance on the show. This time, the conversation isn't about travel hacking, it's about the biggest transition of Bryce's career: walking away from the company he spent over a decade building.

Bryce shares how a college side hustle to save money on a spring break trip turned into a business with 16 full-time employees and $17 million in annual revenue. He talks through the moment COVID nearly ended it all, when a signed offer to sell the company fell through and affiliate revenue dropped 92% almost overnight, and how being transparent with his audience is what got the company through it.

The second half of the conversation covers what happens after you build something. Bryce spent 14 months working through the decision to retire, wrestling with questions about identity, purpose, and what life looks like once the thing that used to define you is gone. He and Matt talk openly about the fears that come with stepping back, financially, emotionally, and within a household, and why so many high achievers wait until health or circumstance forces the decision for them.

Whether or not retirement is on your radar, this episode offers a candid look at what it takes to build something meaningful and, just as importantly, to recognize when and how to let it go.

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In this episode of EWA's FIN-LYT Podcast, Jamison Smith sits down with tax strategist Nick Rosen to walk through what actually happens to your tax bill when you sell a business you've spent years building. If a sale is somewhere on your horizon, whether it's next year or a decade out, this conversation lays out the decisions that can make a real difference in what you keep.

Jamison and Nick start with the tension every seller faces: buyers generally prefer an asset sale for the depreciation benefits, while sellers often come out ahead with a stock sale taxed at capital gains rates. They break down how goodwill allocation factors into that negotiation, why entity structure (S corp, C corp, or LLC) changes the math entirely, and how private equity buyers typically require a reorganization before a deal can close.

From there, the discussion moves into strategies that only work with lead time: qualifying for the Section 1202 QSBS exclusion, changing state residency before a sale to reduce state income tax exposure, and using irrevocable trusts to move business value out of a taxable estate years in advance. Nick also explains installment sales, equity rollovers, and when an earnout might make sense.

The episode wraps with what to do in the actual year of sale, including donor advised funds, charitable trusts, family foundations, and tax loss harvesting, plus a candid reminder that the tax planning is only half the equation. Jamison and Nick close with a discussion on preparing for life after the sale itself.

Like and subscribe for more conversations on tax strategy, business planning, and building long term wealth.

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In this episode of EWA's FIN-LYT Podcast, Matt Blocki sits down with Tyler Bidwell and Nick Rosen to break down an often misunderstood part of running a business: the difference between what shows up on your bank statement and what shows up on your tax return.

If you're a business owner in the seven figures of income, the stakes around this topic are high. Your business is likely relying on you as its bank, and a tax surprise can hit your personal cash flow just as hard as it hits your business. Tyler walks through why accurate books and records (not a shoebox of receipts in April) are the foundation for avoiding that surprise, and why keeping business and personal accounts separate makes tax time dramatically simpler.

Matt shares a real example of a single-owner S-corp where the owner paid himself a $300,000 salary and assumed his total taxable income was around $2.3 million based on the company's profit and loss statement. In reality, once non-deductible items like life insurance premiums, half of business meals, country club dues, and vehicle loan payments were factored in, his actual income was closer to $2.8 million, an unexpected half-million dollars that had already been taxed at some of the highest federal and state rates.

Nick then unpacks how this gets even more complicated with multiple owners. In a company with several shareholders, the cash you're distributed and the taxable income allocated to you are often two very different numbers, which can leave a partner covering a much bigger tax bill than the cash they actually received. Tyler and Nick explain how staying in close, ongoing communication with your financial and tax team, rather than treating taxes as a once-a-year event, is the best way to avoid this guessing game.

If you're a business owner and want to make sure you're not caught off guard by your next tax bill, this episode is worth the watch.

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In this episode of EWA's FIN-LYT Podcast, Matt Blocki sits down with tax strategists Tyler Bidwell and Nick Rosen fresh off tax season to break down the most common tax surprises high earners run into, and how to avoid them before they become expensive.

The conversation starts with one of the biggest blind spots for bonus-heavy earners: supplemental income withholding. Bonuses are typically withheld at a flat 22%, but high earners often land in the 32 to 37% tax bracket. That gap can leave a six-figure earner tens of thousands of dollars behind come tax time, plus interest penalties if it's not caught early. Matt, Tyler, and Nick walk through a real example using a surgeon's RVU bonus to show exactly how that math plays out.

From there, the group shifts to equity compensation. RSUs and ISOs come with their own tax quirks, from the timing of an 83(b) election to the alternative minimum tax adjustments that can catch tech employees and executives off guard. Tyler and Nick explain why these forms of compensation, while great for building wealth, can create serious cash flow strain if they aren't planned for in advance.

The episode wraps with practical guidance for dual-income households and Pennsylvania residents specifically, covering why two employers' W-4 forms often don't talk to each other and how that mismatch can quietly cost a couple thousands of dollars a year. Whether you're a physician, executive, or dual-income household, this episode offers a clear framework for staying ahead of tax season instead of being surprised by it.

If you found this episode helpful, give it a like, subscribe for more, and share it with someone who could use it.

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In this episode of EWA's FIN-LYT Podcast, Matt Blocki sits down with the team members of Equilibrium Wealth Advisors for a behind-the-scenes look at who's actually working on your financial plan. Rather than diving into a specific planning topic, this episode pulls back the curtain on the people, roles, and culture that make up EWA, from wealth strategists and tax specialists to operations and investment teams.

You'll hear directly from advisors, tax strategists, and operations leaders about how they think about client relationships, what their day-to-day actually looks like, and which person to reach out to depending on your question or need. The conversation covers how the firm coordinates across tax, investments, and estate planning so nothing falls through the cracks.

Beyond the technical side, this episode is really about culture. Team members share what drives them personally, how they built their careers, and why collaboration across departments, rather than everyone working in a silo, is core to how EWA operates. It's an inside look at the systems and people behind a firm built to grow with its clients.

Whether you're a current client curious about who's behind the scenes on your account or you're exploring what a coordinated planning experience looks like, this episode offers a genuine look at the team making it happen. If you found this helpful, give it a like, subscribe for future episodes, and share it with someone who'd enjoy getting to know the people behind EWA.

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In this episode of EWA's FIN-LYT Podcast, Matt Blocki and Jamison Smith break down a sophisticated tax strategy that EWA is implementing for a select group of high net worth clients: the long short direct indexing strategy. If you have a major liquidity event on the horizon, this episode could change how you think about taxes.

Most investors are familiar with traditional direct indexing, which allows you to own individual stocks, harvest losses along the way, and offset gains over time. The long short strategy takes that concept further by using leverage to go long on additional positions while simultaneously adding short positions. The result is the ability to capture tax losses on both sides of the market, whether stocks go up or down. Matt and Jamison walk through a real-world case study involving a $10 million investment, showing how after just a few years, a client could generate more in tax losses than the original amount invested.

This strategy is not for everyone. Matt and Jamison are direct about who it is designed for: clients with a significant capital gain event ahead of them, whether from selling a business, unwinding a concentrated stock position, or closing a large real estate transaction. They cover the mechanics of a 130/30 versus a 200/100 structure, what fees and leverage costs actually look like, where the strategy can go wrong, and why liquidity planning and exit strategy are just as important as entry.

If you are a high earner or business owner sitting on a concentrated position and looking for a smarter way to manage your tax exposure, this episode gives you the framework to understand whether the long short strategy deserves a place in your financial plan.

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In this episode of EWA's FIN-LYT Podcast, Matt Blocki and Chris Pavcic break down the cybersecurity threats most likely to impact individuals today and what you can do right now to protect yourself. While these steps apply to everyone, they are especially critical if you have significant assets at a custodian like Fidelity or Charles Schwab. With the average data breach costing over $4 million globally and ransomware attacks happening every 11 seconds, this conversation is more relevant than ever.

Matt and Chris walk through the layers of protection every person should have in place, starting with your custodians. They cover what Fidelity and Charles Schwab do behind the scenes to protect client accounts, including 24/7 monitoring, insurance coverage, and the ability to lock down outgoing transactions so money cannot be moved without your direct authorization.

From there, they get practical. The conversation covers SIM swap protection, why app-based two-factor authentication is significantly more secure than a text code, how to use a VPN on public Wi-Fi, the importance of a password manager, freezing your credit with all three bureaus, and tools like LifeLock, DeleteMe, and Incogni to monitor and scrub your personal data from the internet. Matt also shares how he uses a dedicated travel phone with no financial accounts when traveling internationally.

This episode is designed to be the 80/20 guide to cybersecurity. You could have all of these steps in place within one to two hours, and they will protect you from the vast majority of threats individuals face today. If you have any questions or want help setting these up, reach out to the EWA team.

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Welcome to EWA's Q3 2026 Market and Portfolio Commentary.

In this update, Matt Blocki, Nick Stonesifer, and Jordan Fediaczko break down what's driving markets mid-year and how EWA portfolios are being positioned as we head into Q3. The core message: stay constructive, but make the risk work harder.

After a sharp market recovery, the team is trimming broad equity beta, reducing the equity overweight from 3% to 1%, while keeping the highest-conviction exposures in U.S. large cap growth and AI-linked opportunities. This is not a bearish call. It's disciplined portfolio management: harvesting gains where conviction is lower and concentrating risk where the earnings story remains strongest.

This commentary covers:

• Why we trimmed equity overweight from 3% to 1% and why this isn't a bearish signal• Geopolitical risk as a behavioral trap and why discipline beats headlines

• The energy shock asymmetry: how rising oil prices hit Europe and China harder than the U.S.

• Fed policy uncertainty and the debate between Core PCE (3.2%) vs. Trimmed Mean PCE (2.4%)

• Why earnings, not multiple expansion, have been doing the heavy lifting for markets

• AI infrastructure and energy leading EPS revisions, with active managers still underweight

• Active country selection as global dispersion widens dramatically (Korea +73%, Indonesia 26%)

• The stock bond diversification dilemma and why we're adding liquid alternatives as a true shock absorber

Throughout the video, we reaffirm EWA's core philosophy: stay disciplined, stay diversified, and concentrate risk where conviction is highest.

If you're an EWA client and have questions about how these changes impact your portfolio or financial plan, please reach out to your advisor.

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In this episode of EWA's FIN-LYT Podcast, Matt Blocki and Jamison Smith tackle one of the most complex and consequential decisions a small business owner can face: whether to give employees equity, and how to do it without creating a legal or financial nightmare down the road.

They open with a real-world story of a company that grew from a $2 million startup to a $300 million valuation, only to find themselves forced into a private equity deal because they had never planned for how to reward and retain the key people who helped build it. The lesson? Equity planning is not something you do when you need it. It is something you do before you need it.

Matt and Jamison break down the three core reasons business owners turn to equity, which are reward, retention, and recruiting, and then walk through how the structure of your business (C Corp, S Corp, or LLC partnership) determines nearly every option available to you. From RSUs and ISOs in a C Corp, to the rigid single-share-class limitations of an S Corp, to the remarkable flexibility of profit interest in a partnership, each structure carries distinct tax consequences, legal implications, and practical trade-offs.

The conversation goes deeper into phantom equity, stock appreciation rights, ESOP structures, vesting schedule design, and the often-overlooked risk of what happens to a partner's equity stake in a divorce. If you are a business owner thinking about bringing key people into ownership, or an employee trying to understand what equity is actually worth, this episode covers the framework you need to make that decision well.

Like and subscribe for more episodes covering the financial decisions that matter most to business owners and high earners.

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In this episode of EWA's FIN-LYT Podcast, Jamison Smith and Tyler Houston break down what financial planning actually looks like for OpenAI employees navigating one of the most complex wealth creation moments in modern history.

If you work at OpenAI, you are likely sitting on significant equity through the company's PPU structure, a profit interest that triggers capital gains taxes only at the point of sale. The window to make smart decisions is short, and emotional pressure can lead to costly mistakes. Jamison and Tyler walk through how to approach tender windows strategically, why having a "number" in mind before that window opens is essential, and how to structure your holdings into two clear buckets: financial security and upside participation.

They also cover tax mitigation strategies like direct indexing, long/short approaches, and donor advised funds, along with estate planning tools that can help protect appreciation from federal estate tax. IPO lockup periods, 10b5-1 plan frameworks, insider trading risk, and how to choose a financial advisor who actually understands the startup world round out the conversation.

If a tender window is approaching or an IPO is on the horizon, this episode gives you a clear framework to protect what you have built while staying in the game for what comes next.

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View EWA Disclosures and Firm ADV:https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/firm/summary/308977