The NEXT BIG THING with Keith D. Terry

Financial Future: The Ultimate Guide to Subscription-Based Wealth Building

• Keith D. Terry • Season 1 • Episode 25

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In this episode, we welcome James Brewer, the founder of Envision Wealth Planning, named one of the Best Financial Advisors in Chicago. James is transforming the financial industry with his groundbreaking subscription-based model, designed to serve high-income professionals without requiring substantial assets. But his expertise doesn't stop at finances—James is passionate about integrating personal values into his strategies, with a special focus on gender empowerment and racial equity. Join us as we dive into how James combines life coaching with financial planning to create personalized, value-driven portfolios that inspire clients to live and invest with purpose. 

Don't miss this insightful conversation!

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Keith Terry:

Welcome to the podcast. The next big thing, I'm your host. Keith de Terry, a consultant, a coach and a serial entrepreneur. The mission here is to teach, inspire and to sharing this with your friends. After all, greatness is meant to be shared. So fasten your seat belts, dear listeners, because the next big thing is about to take on a thrilling ride through the prepared to follow our conversation, and so we're going to be talking a little bit about financial markets. And so I just wanted to bring up a couple of points that people may not know about the because in my research, I wanted to know what kind of changes have happened in the last 50 years. I'm old enough to remember some significant changes, and they seem to happen every year. But there's mean by automation is everything from payroll to compliance reporting have been automated to reduce human error and improve efficiency. The next area is regulatory changes. You know, what's globalization. Of course, cross border finance companies have to operate very differently. You know, they have to worry about different scales, diversification of investments. Globalization has allowed to reduce the risk associated with their portfolio. Fifth is just two more innovation in the financial markets. Of course, we've seen a whole host in the last five years, financial companies sustainability and corporate responsibility, and as I like to call it, ESG, and maybe that's what they call it. In the industry, there is an increased focus on environmental, social and governance with financial goals. He is dedicated to ethical investing, and is an advocate, advocate for racial diversity in the financial markets and his using his unique voice in the industry. James, welcome to

Unknown:

I am doing great today. You know, I have checked out a few podcasts and have wondered if I could ever make it, and I finally have today, May 1, yeah.

Keith Terry:

Well, welcome to the Welcome to the show. So how you doing? So tell the listeners who is, who is James Brewer, where'd you come from? You just don't pop up, right? Tell us a little bit

Unknown:

Well, I, I was raised in Gary, Indiana, with parents from Tennessee who experienced Jim Crow, Tennessee. So that's kind of interesting, and realizing now that actually my mother was born decided to start my own company to try to help car dealers do a better job of marketing. Eventually, worked for Mercedes Benz USA, went to MIT for to get my master's degree. And then who knew that I

Keith Terry:

get into that, I got a I got a follow up question. So, so, so you were born and raised in Indiana, or did you okay? Okay, I was born in Gary and myself, so I have to give a shout out to

Unknown:

Okay, well, that's a small world that we didn't know so, but

Keith Terry:

I left when I left when I was eight years old, of course. And so, you know, leaving, you know, continue with the conversation. So when you went to undergrad, was your was your degree in

Unknown:

Well, I thought for a hot moment that I wanted to be a mechanical engineer. Decided that that wasn't going to be my what I really wanted to do. So they had a degree called industrial

Keith Terry:

so you were numbers guy, you live with numbers. Okay, so tell us a little bit about the journey from the early years to when you started envision wealth planning.

Unknown:

Well, I'll kind of start post my MIT time, which when I went there, you know, at one point I thought that I wanted to get into the Wall Street kind of finance, but then just felt that the invest in companies who wouldn't hire me, so kind of post my MIT time I in. Viewed with a lot of jobs, and it seems as though that the common denominator was that I this was, you know, pre wouldn't hire me. I didn't say other people. I said me. And you are calling that charity. I'm like, wow, that's really deep. So So

Keith Terry:

let me make sure I understand. So someone gave you some some money and said, create your own portfolio. Is that what I'm hearing? Well,

Unknown:

we, we have the ability to invest her her money inside of their retirement plan, and he was trying to do some other things and and we just said that's what we wanted to do. So So you know, that I really appreciated what he was doing, and then decided that I would try to do this myself and actually ideally access a wider tool kit of investments that I could put people in who potentially

Keith Terry:

Okay, and so the So, it sounds like the journey was an interesting one. So, so envision health. I mean, envision wealth. And planning has been around how long now I

Unknown:

actually founded it in 2018 I got in the industry in 2006 so Okay, so I decided the best way for me to provide all of the things that I wanted to do was to become what's called a registered

Keith Terry:

talk a little bit about some you know, the title of this podcast is Smart Money moves. So you know, what are some of the effective strategies that that people can use to to you know,

Unknown:

Well, I'm just gonna give a little quick plug and say that I write for Forbes. I'm a personal finance contributor. So if you go to forbes.com and Google my name, you can find out, yeah, quote, unquote financial advisor. And I went on a website, and it's called, let's make a plan.org Okay? And discovered that he was never a Certified Financial Planner. Okay? He just said that he

Keith Terry:

I said, that's some good advice.

Unknown:

Thanks. And then once you do that, right, you'll have narrowed it down. Now interview those candidates that make the cut. If people email me later, we actually created a form to actually help

Keith Terry:

exist. You're right, because I wonder what percentage of people vet, as you would say, their financial planner. I think you know, for me, going to some of the big institutions makes

Unknown:

in fact, just because they're big doesn't mean that the individual advisor hasn't done something. There's a story of a guy that had quote, unquote, over a billion dollars in management. but he goes to this other firm, and I think it was about four to six weeks later that the regulators decided that we they were going to terminate his registration, so he no longer could be in the don't assume because they work for XYZ company.

Keith Terry:

Okay, that's good information. Anything else? What else should they do? Anything else?

Unknown:

Well, then I think then after you start working with advisor, just begin to to, you know, talk about what you really want. So I think a lot of times people show up and they're like, how I or take a lower role. So it's that kind of thing to actually start the conversation, and then as you're having that back and forth conversation with the advisor, you get a sense of how they think,

Keith Terry:

let me, let me ask this because I thought that most people's financial goals would be the same, to make as much money as quickly as you possibly can. Now it might change, because you of

Unknown:

Well, some people say that, but many don't say that. So I'm going to give you my perspective, to shorten it, because we could, I could go down each one of those roads. So if you say save, then what rate of return would you need? So a lot of people sometimes come up with a more conservative tolerance, and I tolerance is a. Word, I think. But they go like, I don't want to take let's just use 100,000 you just told me you want to live on $100,000 after taxes in retirement. That's your real goal.

Keith Terry:

I see your goal

Unknown:

isn't, I don't want to see it to go up and down, you know, like, Yes, I wish I could give you, or anybody, that the thing that is no risk that gets you a 20% return. And it's, it's a Because, well, there's an argument that you didn't like a dip, and that dip said, get me out, as opposed to but if you had stuck with it, like I have a port portfolio, that I'll just kind of recall

Keith Terry:

So let's talk about the impact technology. I mean, I get what you're saying. You're in essence saying people should hire you, work with you work with a financial planner, because a

Unknown:

I like computer aided planning.

Keith Terry:

Please do tell me what that means. Okay,

Unknown:

so, so I actually have about four different technology platforms that I use in my in my work, so one of them is to help figure out all of these factors. So let's say that you want to do life, a guy was like, Hey, I bought this Porsche, but I went to a race track. The guy was, like, 80 some years old, and he tossed the keys to the professional driver who was going to get in the car different factors and things that that I even have to know outside of what the software, because there's no perfect software that exists today that can do all of the things. And then one of the big do it. They changed their mind. Nine months later, they finally decided they were going to do it. They said, thank you most there's no computer program that I know of that would have convinced them

Keith Terry:

That's a great story. You know, I wasn't suggesting that technology is removing you out of the picture, or others like you, because I have some very dear friends that are financial what are some of the smart money moves you'd make for the young entrepreneur, the retiree and a a corporate person who he or she, the couple's making a decent amount of money. Are there, are there

Unknown:

Okay? Well, I would start with the entrepreneur. And I thought of someone that might be around their 30s, for whatever reason, that's the young entrepreneur. That's fine, okay? And just likely you want to get some kind of disability income protection policy. So if something happens to you, that there will still be money flowing into you, because ideally, now that's a smart money move You know, a lot of people think more about life insurance than they think about, you know, what happens if, if I can't work, who's going to keep the who's going to keep the the business going? to lead on, in case you don't get the big liquidity event? Okay, I'm thinking about the people in 2008 Keith, that suddenly the market is down and they're not able to get the dollar value of selling another avenue for I can retire sooner and still live the lifestyle that I wanted to so small amounts saved early grow larger than larger amounts later because of the time value of money. So

Keith Terry:

let's move to the second group retiree, the folks that are retired, do you handle their portfolio? Suggest Smart Money moves for them differently. Okay, so

Unknown:

the I'm going to say people between 60 and 70. So if you have not made your decision on claiming Social Security, great, we can have an even better conversation and see if we can't that the decision. So one thing that I want to tell like the world, glad you're giving me this opportunity, is today's retirement is not your grandparents retirement. If you're around 60,

Keith Terry:

no doubt.

Unknown:

Okay, my mom's 95 my dad made it to 83 most of his people died in their 50s, and my but my mom had a brother and sister who both made it to over 90 the over under in my mom's family is nuts.

Keith Terry:

So when you say conservative, let's break that down, because do you mean bonds? So let's, I want to get to the to the third group too. But, but explain conservative. You know, are you

Unknown:

Yes, I will, I will say, and then there's percentages of each along the way. So, like the middle is half and half, right? So, so, so

Keith Terry:

60 year old, 70 year old people, of course, they're not their parents. Things have changed. So are you recommending less, a more riskier portfolio than our parents would have. What

Unknown:

The the fast answer is yes, because you if, if you're living on the money, and you need it to grow over time, because inflation's gotta keep going. Okay, inflation's got to keep going. And so Oh yeah, right. Okay. So if the price doubles from 60 to 90 and you're still around like my mom is 95 I just try to put real people in it, right? So, and she did. They did renew her driver's license at 90. Okay, so I'm upon how much capital you have, is you could put in a number of years in cash, then you don't have to worry about the market going up and down. And then, at least on the other end of your capital,

Keith Terry:

And so the the couple that's making 656 figures, you know, they have no plans of retirement, but they're making the whole. A lot of money, any smart money moves they should make

Unknown:

at any point along your lifespan. You gotta think at some point, this journey won't keep going on, right?

Keith Terry:

So I'm just saying people aren't thinking like that now, well,

Unknown:

if they're listening to the right, right podcast that they're going to today. So okay, so, so, because I work with people along a continuum, so you got a lot of people, I spent a lot of time thinking easy numbers. Well, I'm gonna live on 50 grand a year, or whatever the number is, plus my Social Security, I'll be fine. Well, how do you get the 50 grand a year?

Keith Terry:

You bring up a really good point on that. And so, you know, I just want to, you know, keep this conversation going. At what point do you recommend that that people revisit their their

Unknown:

okay, my my clients work with us, usually on an ongoing basis. Some just want investments, but others take the full Monty and we give them financial planning. But my but envisions, let's call

Keith Terry:

Do say more about that

Unknown:

they don't fully understand their health care, their 401 K and life and short term disability, Long Term Disability and Health Savings Accounts. I've had some people reject a health that potentially 1000s of dollars because they didn't understand that decision. So in another one, we talk to people about tax planning, we take their tax return, put it in our software, and it comes ideally, we help people take the least amount of risk that helps them get to their goal. And that's simply, well, what's your risk tolerance? And let's apply that to whatever your capital is. Okay,

Keith Terry:

good. And so what approach should people take towards their retirement? You know, I, I, I think people should focus on their on retirement. But, you know, of course, 20s, 30s, 40s, they're

Unknown:

Well, we just naturally include retirement as an expectation, right, that eventually you're going to want to work. But I'm finding an increasing amount of people just want to retire sooner. So

Keith Terry:

Okay, which is shocking, probably for a lot of people, it, it

Unknown:

is but, but, you know, we so we try to take, like, the dream down to an actual actionable goal. So which one are you willing to do? If we can get lucky, maybe we can get you some more return thought. Because the gift of forgiveness that the IRS likes is that that 200 loan that it started out is now 400,000 and then they add it to your income in the year in which it's considered a gift,

Keith Terry:

you know, this is a very interesting conversation here, because, you know, people make a lot of money. Well, I won't make that assumption. I just know that as you get older, everything financial environment. I don't want to necessarily talk about politics, but let's face it, politics makes it it makes its way into the financial markets. Right now, interest rate is at the highest

Unknown:

okay, I like to simplify that certain things that I can and the process is more complicated, but let's say the simplified. Alright, so the biggest bill that we often don't talk now you're down to it 600,000 Okay, I'll get that. Okay, all right. So now let me give you a different scenario. Let's say you took all the money, you put it in your bank, and you still had a million. You probably like that. Well, that would mean, in today's environment, got to pay the taxes, because that's just the nature of. Beast right now, but if you could set it up from today that you know, I'm not going to be concerned about tax policy in the future, because it's that more people should have their eye on the prize of as long as we have the Roth IRA and Roth features. It's called Roth features inside of a 401, K that you want to start to slide your money in

Keith Terry:

the Roth IRA is not going away.

Unknown:

It's not scheduled to I'm just saying, okay, so when my mom again, my mom was born, we didn't have 401, KS, we didn't have Roth IRAs. So who knows what new things we may have, and who retirement is an increasing health care bill and potentially increasing tax rates, depending upon how much money you have to pull out of those accounts to go

Keith Terry:

just a couple more questions, given that you know the baby boomer population is quickly approaching retirement age and certainly leaving corporate America. Would you, based on what you're

Unknown:

There's a problem that we're not really talking about. So for some years, I've listened to people talk about, you know, I feel healthy. I don't need to retire. That. It sounds so good. Look If we said today, right, I would echo that. Yeah, okay, so, so, so, so now they're at the point. So I'd still say, no matter what your age is, even if you're 60, you're like, Man, I'm only 60, so it's it's done for me. Well, look, if you saved over the next 10 possible, either or you know what they're headed into, or that they can potentially make adjustments in and save more money. Or say, Alright, I guess I'm just going to have to live. You know, okay? Or

Keith Terry:

or my, my, we're almost at the end. So I have two, two final questions for you. Give me what is the basic number that the average American should have to retire? Or should they have an

Unknown:

Okay, so average is a hard, okay, average is hard.

Keith Terry:

You can have it. Alright,

Unknown:

come on. So, alright. So if, if you make, if you're a $50,000 a year earner, you're going to have a large percentage that comes back to you regarding social security, when you are six figure

Keith Terry:

you being a little coy here, isn't there a basic number that people should be striving for? Oh, you saying, Why the difference there?

Unknown:

Okay, well, I'm going to add, I'm gonna give you a million dollars. Now the recent research, it started to suggest that on a Million Dollar Portfolio, a ton of assumptions in the target towards how you want to live, so if you want to continue to live on the pre retirement income, that's just a your a specific calculation to you.

Keith Terry:

Well, I'm smiling over here because I, I, I, I have asked a couple of my friends that that question, and, you know, I I'll say this A Million Dollar Portfolio is great to have. It

Unknown:

plus Social Security, plus Social Security. So I'm just saying it's a plus. So, so I'm not saying it's not I'm just giving

Keith Terry:

you numbers, which is why I think, you know, I Well, we have to end it there. So you know, James, how do people reach you? Thank you for being on the show. But how do people reach you.

Unknown:

I thought we're going to talk about my new ESG advisor the year through investment news, and then you were just having me leave anyway,

Keith Terry:

let's talk about that for us a couple seconds. Okay, well,

Unknown:

I just, I'm just happy to say that in the category of ESG, which stands for environmental, social and governance, there's an organization called investment news, and I happen to be a finalist and if they want to email me directly, it's my initials, JB at Envision wealth.us. They can read some of my things on forbes.com which you know, where I'm a personal finance contributor. I've

Keith Terry:

you for having me today. Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in. There you have it. We have Mr. James Brewer, who is the founder and CEO of Envision wealth planning. Thanks