Wit, Wisdom, & What Matters Most

Wit, Wisdom, & What Matters Most podcast Episode 8 featuring Travis Freeman Kyle: This episode includes a book recommendation, which is intended to be helpful or interesting to the listener/reader of this podcast. The book is not intended to be a source of financial or legal advice, please consult a qualified professional before making any financial or legal decision. This is not an endorsement or confirmation of any of the content, opinions, or recommendations within the book, or from the author. The author, Travis Freeman, earns compensation from sales of the book. As he is a Partner with Moneta, this can be a conflict of interest when the book is recommended to clients of Moneta. Please contact Travis if you have any questions about this relationship. Any trademarks and copyrights of materials presented herein are the property of their respective owners. Kyle: Welcome to another edition of Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most. It's a podcast with Moneta's Gast Freeman Troyer Racen Team. What Matters Most is different for everyone, and of course, you need to make wise decisions to be sure you and your family are financially secure, but that's only one aspect of your well-being. My name is Kyle Luetters, joined by Danton Troyer. And Danton, a guest on today's show that is actually very close to us physically, he's in the office next door. His name is Travis Freeman and he's one of the partners here on the team. We sat down with Travis because he has now written another book. Again, spoiler alert, it's about finance, but it goes much deeper than that. Kind of give us a little bit of a preview of what we ended up talking to Travis about. Danton: Yeah, it's a fun interview. I've known Travis since college. Just talking to him and understanding he's written one book, now he's writing a different book, still finance-related, but completely different, which we'll talk about in this podcast. But also just understanding his process, and how it was different from one book to the next, and the motivation was completely different as well. Really just understanding, why would you write another book? I had the, I don't know if privilege is the right word, but I saw him in the time he was writing the first book, and it certainly didn't create less stress in your life. It's a big commitment to write a book. Why would you do it again? There's obviously a good reason for that. Also, you see on TV, writer's block. I guess it's a real thing, apparently. Understanding how he was able to get through that quickly enough to keep the book on track without really just losing the entire book. Kyle: Exactly. The momentum thing, that was very interesting. He also gets into some of the nuances there of what's included in this book that's not included in your typical financial book, which I thought was really interesting. With that all being said in that primer, here's our conversation with Travis Freeman. At this time, we'd like to welcome a partner on the team, Travis Freeman to Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most. Travis is here today to talk about a new book that he has written, the second book that you have written in your career. Travis, number one, welcome, and then two, tell us a little bit about the new book, the title, what's the general gist of this new work? Travis: I appreciate you bringing up both books, but I will tell everybody don't go out and buy my first one. My wife told me it's boring and it was only about 92 pages long, but this one took me about four years, the new one, The Fortune of Youth. I've been told I cannot write a third one until the kids are grown because it took me four years of banging away at the computer for this one. Kyle: That's what your agent and your business manager said, correct? Travis: Yeah, yeah, there you go. Something like that. Kyle: Got it. Travis: Yeah. But this was, it was really written to help tell the story of what people have done, right? Because in this industry, we are blessed to talk to a lot of people and many people have found significant success, financial success. So, the book was about what have people done to reach the fortunes that they sought out to have? Not everybody wants to be a billionaire. Some people are really happy when they get to the enough threshold, right? And what could you do early in life to position yourself to get to that point? And if somebody is in their twenties, thirties, early forties that reads it and uses even half of what's in there, I think they'll do just fine. Kyle: Perfect. And so you mentioned that first book and you referenced it a little bit. How is this book - beyond just looking at it here on table, you're well beyond 90 pages - what's the major difference between the two books? Travis: So, the first book was more of a niche. You know, years ago, Danton and I were doing a lot of corporate presentations and trainings, right? And it got to the point where literally I could not travel and do more. So, I wrote a book on how folks could have their own training at a place of employment. So it was more for managers, HR folks, maybe a small business owner to have, right? This is completely different focus. Danton: Yeah, true. So, you know, maybe what was the difference? I mean, obviously between the two books, but you know, when you go into this, what was maybe a different mindset? Because, you know, you had your first book and you're like, I'm going to do this again. Why would you want to do this again? And what made it different? Travis: So, the first one I wrote in a year, this is BK, right? Before kids. Nice delineation there. Yeah, it was me at the computer pretty much every night after work. And I saw the first one as telling the story, but also just more of as a business card, frankly, to show that I have expertise in this area, to say I wrote the book on that. This one, I kept telling myself, okay, put together something that people are going to love and can practically use right away. And there were points where I had written an entire chapter and I'd go back over it and I'm like, this is silly. It's very technical, but I need to be able to have someone not fall asleep, right? I've got to have more stories in here and figure out how to take this technical thing and make it real simple to where they can just start using it, right? So, there were multiple times over the last four years where I would actually go back and just erase a ton of material. And it was hard, but that didn't answer your question, right? What was I thinking? I kept thinking, I have to make something that people are really going to appreciate and tell their friends about. And the hard part was having to hit backspace so many times and delete stuff, but it took some time and I think I got there. Kyle: I want to jump in here. So, four years of writing the book and you mentioned having to basically go back to maybe not a full blank page, but was there ever a point in that four-year period of time that you almost gave up on this pursuit? And maybe your wife had other words we can review later, but was there ever a time, did it mess with you mentally a little bit when you're going through that many revisions as to wanting to get the whole thing done? Travis: There was a point where I had, there was a lot going on in life and I hadn't touched the book in something like six or eight weeks. And then I went back down to the computer and had maybe an hour and I was just lost on where I stopped and had to go reread things. And I lost so much momentum that I ended up not even going back to it. I went back upstairs, got busy with the kids. I don't think I touched the thing for four or five months. Kyle: Wow. Travis: And the hardest part of writing a book is the momentum part. The first one was great because I just had a pattern. I did it in one year. The pattern, if I broke that, I just lost my momentum, had to go backtrack and read about what I wrote. And once I got back into the pattern, then I was able to go through that. So that's the one thing I'd recommend if anybody ever tries this is just carve out time and make sure you're always doing that. I probably deviated a little bit from your question there, Kyle, but that's something I learned a lot with the second one. Kyle: Yeah. Part of the reason why we ask the questions is we get the stories behind it once we get you talking. Danton: So yeah. I feel like you answered about six of my questions with that answer. But with the book, there were obviously different motivations for writing each of the books. What do you hope to get out of writing this book as compared to maybe the first one? But I mean, this is a completely different animal. Travis: What I hope to get out of this one is one of two things: One, let's say a younger person, right? Let's say someone just got out of college or high school. They read it. What would make me so happy is if I hear from them years or even a decade or so later and they go, hey, I read this book and I implemented these things and I can't believe I just hit a million dollar net worth or just bought my second home. Whatever their goal is, right? That milestone. Kyle: Yeah, some milestone. Travis: That would be so neat. And I really hope that happens. Or, someone reads this book and says, hey, and this has actually started to happen, I bought four of these, one for each of my kids and my niece and nephew because they absolutely need this, right? So that's started to happen. But I think the most fulfilling part will be when it comes full circle and people say, I did it; I followed it and it was life changing. Kyle: Yeah. There's something about like, here's the plan, follow the plan instead of trying to deviate too much. But if you actually work the plan, the result was what you were looking for. And that's got to be gratifying because you are kind of the person that's laying out the plan

In this episode, a woman who retired several years ago reveals the two words that were the sign it was time to retire, and her path for transitioning out of full-time employment. She also discusses the ways her career skills have led her shift into an active, adventurous retirement. Episode 2 Kyle: Welcome to episode number two of Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most, a podcast with Moneta's Gast, Freeman, Troyer, Racen Team. What matters most is different for everyone, and of course, you need to make wise decisions to be sure that you and your family are financially secure, but that's only one aspect of your well-being. My name is Kyle Lutters, advisor on the team, and I'm joined by Danton Troyer, one of the partners here on the team. And Danton, very excited for the guest in this edition because we get the chance to meet a lot of folks, and today's guest is probably one of the most full-of-energy people I think I've had the pleasure of coming across – it's Judy Lampe today. Danton: Yeah, I've known Judy for, gosh, almost probably 15 years now, and it's been interesting. I met her when she was actually working at Scottrade and doing some of their build-outs for their new buildings, or new offices, I should say, and so it was interesting to see her journey and help plan her and her husband's retirement throughout the years. And now they've been retired for several years, so it's been interesting, especially as she was really approaching that retirement deadline. Unique for her was her company was getting bought out, so Scottrade was getting purchased through TD Ameritrade, so it was interesting to see how that affected her, personally, and her retirement decisions as she was making those very important decisions. Kyle: Yeah, very much so, and we'll get into a number of different topics in this interview, but we talk about TD Ameritrade, we talk about what it was like and what kind of precipitated her retirement, what she's doing, and also, too, what skills that she had that transferred from her working lifetime to her retirement. So, with that all being said, here's our conversation with Judy Lampe. Kyle: And now we're sitting down here on Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most with Judy Lampe. Judy, welcome, and thanks for being here today. Judy: My pleasure. Kyle: Awesome, awesome. So, Danton and you have known one another for a long time? Judy: Yes. Kyle: And so, I kind of wanted to extrapolate a little bit and start kind of at base one, but when did you know that it was time to retire? Judy: Well, my boss told me two words, and with those two words, I knew it was time to retire. Many people said, you'll get a sign, and for several years, I thought, boy, that's interesting. I wonder if I'll recognize the sign. I had a very demanding job, and my boss, who I had trained and used to do the same job as I did, she was now my boss, and she asked me if I would fill in for someone for a week. They had a very time-consuming job, as did I, so I thought that would be almost impossible for me to do both jobs, but I had a solution. So, I said, well, Susie Q just started working for us, and she was a temp, and she's already done that job, and she doesn't have any full responsibilities yet, because she's new. Could we just have her fill in? And these are the two words she told me, absolutely not. And I just knew at that point, that's the sign. I mean, to me, that was a big sign. So, I was very calm. I was 68 at the time, so I didn't really have to keep working, and I made an appointment to see the vice president, who I used to job-share with; she knew what I did. I said, "Well, I could do my job from 7 a.m. to 5 pm, and I could do the other job from 5 pm to 11 pm, but I said, I just really don't want to do that, and as a matter of fact, I'd like to go part-time." And she said, "Well, I understand." So, she asked the COO, and she said right away, "Well, Judy can't go part-time; she's too busy." And they said we'd have to hire another person and that's not in the budget. So, I was very at ease with all of this, because I was at the stage where I didn't really have to work. I thought, it's winter, I'm not going to resign at this time, I'll wait until spring. And I'd written my letter, I didn't tell anyone, except my husband, what I was going to do. And right before I was getting ready to turn in the two weeks resignation, my boss brought me into the conference room and said, "We decided to let you go part-time." And I said, "Oh," I said, "Well, that's good. "And you can start Monday." And I said, "Well, I'm going to have to check with HR to see about my insurance coverage." So, it worked out, I went part-time at 68. And I asked one of the other bosses, I said, you know, I'm kind of surprised everyone changed their mind. What made them do so? He said, "Well, we decided if you would have left, it wouldn't have been good." So, my best advice is, you know, don't get rid of the workhorse. And that's the second time in my 40 years working that I asked to go part-time. And both times I was told no. And both times they came back and said, okay. Danton: How did, or I guess, how long did you end up working part-time then for them and continue to do that work for them? Judy: Well, there came a little wrinkle because our company, Scottrade, got bought out by TD Ameritrade. So then I was told, you can't leave until we tell you we don't need you anymore. Now, I could have walked, but I'd have to give up a year's severance pay. So, I worked till I was 70 and a half. And I'm glad it was part-time instead; I worked three days a week. Danton: Do you regret extending your career through that part-time or do you think it was the right choice? Judy: No, I don't. And by going part-time in my job, I would do like 30 buildouts at a time throughout the United States. So I had a lot going on, but once we were going to be sold, we stopped doing buildouts. So, there were a lot of jobs I could do because I had worked there 18 years. So they could tap me on the shoulder and ask me to do different projects or whatever. And that was fine; I was happy with that. Kyle: You mentioned buildouts. Help us understand a little bit about what you were doing. You're talking about like building out different branch offices? Judy: That is correct. We had 506 offices. And when we started early on, I would actually do a schematic on graph paper. I would call people, does your door open in, does it open out? Can you measure this for me? Because I wasn't there. I really didn't have any expertise in this; it was on the job training. The president of the company just decided from what I was doing, he said, I think you can do this job. I go, okay, I'll try. And that's the type of person he was. He was an excellent believer in people. And so that is what I did. So, saying that I had 30 projects meant they were all throughout the United States at different stages. The year that we were told, the two of us, that we were going to build 100 offices, I thought, boy, that is just mind boggling. That is the year we hired an architectural group, which was fabulous. And then we also, once in a while, I'd go out and do site searches and then we'd hire a realtor. That was good, too. So I wore a lot of hats, but that was fine. And with the help of the architects, who would then give me big construction documents, and they would do the schematics professionally, it was good. But it was still fast-paced, though, because now we're going to do 100 buildouts. And we probably brought on another person at that time, but it was a lot of responsibility. And I didn't shy away from it, but I certainly embraced the help of the architectural firm and also, it was Sansone Group in the end, and they were very good. Kyle: Okay, so you mentioned something earlier that I wanted to circle back to. You mentioned that this was the second time in your career that you asked to go part-time. Can you tell us a little bit about the first time that you asked, and how your career genesis went from the first part-time back to then full-time? Judy: I first worked at Monsanto for five years, and this gentleman that I knew socially from St. Louis County government kept asking me to work for him in the Bureau of Finance, and that was Highways and Traffic. And I said, well, no, I really don't want to do that. "Oh, I'll pay you more money." Well, you know, I was single, living in an apartment. He said, but you have to pass a test. You have to be one of the top three passing this test. So, I thought, oh, all right, I'll just take the test. I thought, I'll never be one of the top three. There were probably four people there that day, I don't remember. But I passed the test, and I went to work for him. It really was a mistake, I feel, because Monsanto was a much better company to work for. But I worked for him five years. Then I got pregnant, I was a stay-at-home mom, but he kept calling me up. Oh, could you work? So-and-so needs surgery, and can you come in for five weeks? And this, he asked me five different times to come back in, and that would be five days a week. Finally, I said, "You know, I'm really trying to be a stay-at-home mom, but I will work part-time until I have my next child, if that's okay." And he goes, oh, no, the director, he would never say that's okay. I said, "Well, you know, I'm sorry, but that's my decision." But he called the next day, and he said, "Now the director said you could." So it just kind of happened organically. But part-time is a good gig, if you can get it. Danton: You stuck to your guns, and you got what you wanted in your career. Kyle: So you would be someone that we would not want to play poker with. Judy: Bridge, probably, bridge. Danton: As you've now transitioned, and you've been, how long have you been retired for now? Judy: I was 70 and a half, and I'll be 77 in June, so that many years. Danton: Well,...

In this episode, a recent retiree discusses how he knew it was time to retire and the shift in self-identity that transition causes. We also discuss what gets him out of bed in the morning and how he stays active, socially engaged, and mentally stimulated in retirement. Balancing his retirement while his wife is still working creates a somewhat unique situation for them as a couple.

Kyle: Welcome to episode number one of Wit, Wisdom, and What Matters Most - a podcast with Moneta's Gast Freeman Troyer Racen Team. My name is Kyle Luetters, I'm an advisor on the team, and I am joined on this podcast by Danton Troyer, a partner on the team.

Danton, this is our debut episode…the mics still smell new; everything still works. But this has really been an idea that we have had for a while - to get together with folks and tell stories. At the end of the day, the big crux of what we're trying to do here is tell some of these stories and there are some quite interesting ones.

Danton: Yes, we do financial planning on a day-to-day basis. It's looking at numbers. But the reality Is, that's not why we do this. So, the point of this podcast is to go a little bit deeper in these conversations and really talk about what actually matters most. And that's different for everyone. So obviously everyone needs to make wise decisions with their finances and be sure you're financially secure. But that's not the full equation. If you don't have a plan going into retirement, it could be a bumpy ride and not everybody thinks about it in the same way.

Kyle: Well, it's funny you mentioned retirement because the first three episodes of our podcast are going to be devoted to that very topic. And we want to highlight retirement without recliners or rocking chairs, because I think there's a cultural stigma that we experience that I'm going to retire and I'm just going to kind of sit around. I might play golf all day every day. I'm going to sit around and read or this or that. But you and I are going to find out in a lot of these conversations, there's a number of folks that kind of wonder how they had time to work because now they're so busy in retirement.

Danton: I've heard everything from as simple as doing puzzles, to playing the piano, to traveling the world. So, the answer isn't the same for everybody, but having that conversation and at least thought process, I think is very valuable for everyone.

Kyle: Well, one of the folks that we're going to talk to - the very first guest we're going to have on here - is Charles Crossiant. Charles is someone that you have known for a while and just recently retired in the summer of 2023.

Danton: Yeah, Charles recently retired in July from Saint Louis University, and we've been having conversations and he's been a client for well over 10 years. So, it's interesting to know someone for that long and work with them and now it's happened. He's actually retired. It's great on the financial side of things, but it's just great to hear the stories and his success while being able to achieve his goal of retirement.

Kyle: Well, we'll go on and get out of the way because now here's our conversation with Charles Croissant.

Kyle: Well, Charles, welcome to the podcast. It's good to have you with us here today. Thanks for coming by.

Charles: You're welcome. It's good to be here.

Kyle: So, you know, kind of tell us a little bit about how did you know it was the right time for you to retire?

Charles: I had planned, well, let's see, I got into my long-term professional career. I got into

that, you know, somewhat later in life and knew that I wanted to get as much earning time in as possible before I retired. So, I had always planned on working at least until 70. When I actually started at the place where I ended my career - St. Louis University – I started there in 2000. I would have been not quite 50 at that point, 48, I guess I was. I sort of knew going into that that I was going to want to work until I was 70. I had very good fortune at St. Louis University. I met my wife, Jackie, in 2002 and that was a terrific development because one thing that I do find is going into retirement as part of a couple, I think…well, I would not want to do it as a single person. I would much rather be part of a partnership. So that caused me to feel a good deal more stability about going into my later years and I think I would have felt different if I'd stayed single.

But even so, I knew that I wanted to work past 65, and I'd sort of envisioned 70 as my target age. I turned 70 in 2022, and so at that point I was thinking, you know, this is time to make an exit and it turned out to be a good time in a number of ways. Things that had nothing to do with me personally, but there was a change in leadership at the library where I was employed and the new director who came in and took charge. I began to feel early on that she and I weren't really on the same page. She was a younger woman and didn't have much of a sense, I don't think, of the kind of work that I did which on a high level, we call cataloging where you put records that go into the online catalog for the books in the collection. And I was dealing with mostly foreign language books, a lot of European imprints from Germany, France, Spain, and Italy and subject areas like church history, philosophy, and theology and that was, I think, rather foreign to her background and when we talked it was literally foreign to her. I didn't feel like there was a great deal of appreciation for what I was doing. So that really settled for me that yes, sometime that year would be the time to retire.

So, in the fall of 2022, right after I turned 70, I formally declared that I was going to retire on June 30th of 2023, and that's what I did. So, it was knowing that basically I had spent as much time as I should in the place that I was and that it was time to step away from that. And also a feeling that things were changing and I see looking around me and other people of my age, you get the feeling that there's a younger crowd moving in and beginning to take charge, and at least for me and I think also for my wife Jackie, there's this feeling that that younger crowd doesn't necessarily place a high value on the institutional knowledge that you have; they'd rather be left alone I think to do it their own way. So, it felt like it was a good time to leave and I was also affected in that whole process insofar as the colleague that I was closest to at the library was a man about my age I think he's a year older than I am and similar academic background to mine, similar interests. He worked with the same subject areas that I did and he had let me know sometime before that he was going to be retiring in June of 2023, so we went out together. It felt good for both of us to be leaving at the same time and we had a joint party together to celebrate our going away and so it worked out really quite well.

But mainly for me, it was that financial consideration that I wanted to work at least until 70. I was interested in being able to put off applying for Social Security until I was 70 in hopes of getting the maximum benefit, which I did. So those were the things that guided me. I just wanted to make sure that I had earned enough basically to have a hope of a good retirement. And then I will say that,

you know, the last 10 years or so that we've worked with Danton and Mike, it's been very comforting for both of us that the positive reports they give us so you know, yes, you have the funds that you need to retire, so that made it easy to do.

Danton: I think as far as the time we've been working together, I think that has been your goal is age 70. So, as you approached that age of 70, you didn't retire obviously on your birthday, but you did push it back a couple months. What was the thought process as you were just really in that final month?

Charles: Well, actually when it came down to it, I turned 70 in August 2022, and I enjoyed doing what I was doing and it's an intellectual activity, so I was physically able to do it and all that kind of thing. I had some thought of continuing on some kind of a reduced time basis or something like that and that's where I came to realize that the new head of the library was not interested in that, so I just went ahead and said well, in that case, I'll just name the date of June 30th and leave then.

Kyle: You've done and mentioned a ton of things that we definitely need to unpack a little bit. There's been moves, there's been this and that, but I want to hone back in on your wife Jackie. Tell us about her story right now because I understand, is she still working right now?

Charles: She is still working. We married in 2008 and it was the first marriage for both of us and later in life for both of us. And she's also a librarian; we met at the library at St. Louis University and then after we had been colleagues for a couple of years she took a different position with the American Association of Orthodontists and became the librarian at their headquarters which is here in St. Louis. For most of the time, that's been a really good position for her, and then recently not so much, so she's now looking forward to retiring, but she's not quite there yet. She is a number of years younger than I am and at this point she's 62, so she wants to sort of make it to

65 before she actually leaves and that's fine. As far as that goes, I think we would both prefer to both be retired, but she has projects that she wants to wrap up and then, of course, the main consideration for her, and I think for a lot of people, is making it to 65 so that she can get Medicare.

Right if you don't do that then you're on the hook for all the money that needs to be spent on health insurance and she is not, you know neither one of us are, willing to pay what you'd have to pay if she retires early. so that's the goal there it's for her to work until she's 65.

Danton: So,...