Redefining Success: Dave Zoller's Approach to Money and Life

So I think that money is important and it's good. I don't want to make it the main thing, because a lot of people can fall into trouble. And again, learning from others ahead of me and seeing those who've hit that trouble period because they made it the main thing. We like to say that we can control it, but anything can happen and it's really not ours. It's that stewardship mentality of trying to use it and direct it in the best way possible with whether it's investing or spending or giving or the various things you could do with it. Hey, welcome to the second half of our conversation with Dave Zoller. You know, they say never do business with friends because you'll end up down a friend and maybe down a business as well. And I disagree. Dave has been my friend for 16 years. We own a business together. We run it together. And I couldn't be more delighted to have him on the show because he is a source of wisdom like none other. You know, these days, I'll say at the end of the episode, knowledge is cheap, but wisdom is rare. And he is well read. He's also an expert in his craft and in his industry. And his heart is to serve others. So if you don't get something out of this, then you're just not listening. Looking forward to this conversation. This is going to be good. Dave, what do you think it is in our relationship with money that causes us to feel stress and anxiety? As you've been creating content and reading and studying this stuff, what is it with our relationship that causes us stress and anxiety? And what are some of the ways we can free ourselves up from that unhealthy relationship? Yeah, I think part of it, I would just say is human nature. We're wired to not be content for very long for the purpose of continuing to better our lives, which is a cool thing that humans can do. That other things out there, living, whatever animals out there, robots, cyborgs, will do their thing and they do it well and they're made to do a certain thing and they do it. Humans look to the future and then they want to better themselves. So human nature, I think might be a piece of it that causes stress. It's like that we talk about the gap in the game, right? Where it's like, oh, this person who's a little bit ahead of me and I'm here and I'm looking at that gap of, I wish I was where they were. And then you get to the point and you're like, yeah, I got there. And then, oh, there's this other person who's a little bit, it's just a normal part of being. So you have to be, and this is a practice I try and struggle with too, but really be proactive on how your perspective and what you're thinking about. I like to think of it as like the Olympic medalists, gold and silver and bronze, and trying to think about being the bronze person instead of the silver. Because when you think about silver and gold relationship, the silver person in the race lost due to 0.1 seconds. And he's thinking, man, I wish I was just 0.1% faster or whatever. I could have got that gold. Whereas the bronze might be thinking, oh wow, I'm 0.1 or one second faster than the person who received no medals at all. I get the bronze. And that's a better, that's a better way for me personally, to think a different perspective, to think about, and still something I struggle with. It's hard not to, as you are, everything is so social and social media and everyone's best life online. It's hard not to want the things that other people have, but it's like a daily practice or hourly practice. You have to really think about how you're thinking about life. So I don't know if that's a good answer. That's super helpful. And there's even, you're talking about the comparison trap of comparing to others. We're always going to feel like we fall short and we might not even be comparing to someone else's reality, especially with social media. We might be comparing to something that isn't real. Man, I think of my kids and it's like the stuff that you see, a lot of it's not real. Let's live in the real world. But there's also just having goals and ambitions. And a lot of times we set the goal, which is good and normal and a great practice. But if we're constantly measuring how far are we from the goal, it's disheartening versus looking at how far have I come towards the goal? How much progress have I made already? And again, going back to kids, I have four kids and a lot of them are in athletics. And we're always looking at how much progress have you made? Don't worry about that person. And all my kids are swimmers. And so don't worry about the person in the lane next to you. If they're ahead of you, they're actually helping you go faster. There's nothing worse than being the first person in the race and you got to stay ahead of everybody. If there's someone faster than you, they're helping you make more progress in your own journey. So that's actually like a gift to have that person next to you who's a little bit ahead of you, like you talked about with mentorship and wisdom. We're the people ahead of me who can pull me along and help me make faster progress with where I'm going. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Dave, something that you say sometimes is I don't really care about money. Tell me about that. How's your relationship with money? What's that look like right now? How do you get to the point where you don't care? Yeah, I think that's a lie. I lied to you. I care about money. I just don't make it the main thing. I think it's easy to fall into danger when it is the number one thing. So the cool aspect of being a person who tries, isn't the best, but tries to be the servant mindset and the giving first, there is that law of, call it the law of the universe, but that whole idea of giving and receiving, focusing on if you wake up thinking about yourself, I think life is harder than if you wake up thinking about somebody else, or if you're of faith, thinking about God and somebody else. So I think that money is important and it's good. I don't want to make it the main thing because a lot of people can fall into trouble. And again, learning from others ahead of me and seeing those who've hit that trouble period because they made it the main thing, it's just a little bit scary. So I've always been on guard. Again, not perfect. There's still wants and desires and things like that related to money. But I think it's my relationship with money, I'd say is good. And I tried to make it the more of, you say relationship and it's, that makes it interpersonal type, how to describe it. So if it was that, I would say it's, I would want to make it like a helper or a servant or assistant or something like that, where you can direct it and you know what to do with it. And there's a place when you receive it, you know where it's going. Again, the servant thing, there's a human aspect to it. So not that it's think of like a robot servant. Yeah. Yeah. So you can tell it without fear of hurting its feelings. Yeah. In my mind, I was thinking about as opposed to the counterpoint to that is it's your popular friend. Who's always Dave, let's go hit the clubs and let's make some bad decisions. And like you put money in that place in your life and now you're going down a path that you don't want to go down. Yeah. And then to that, that idea of just knowing that it's really, we like to say that we can control it, but anything can happen and it's really not ours. What's that stewardship mentality of trying to use it and direct it in the best way possible with whether it's investing or spending or giving or the various things you could do with it. Yeah. It's, I think I was going to say, it's like that again, back to the gap in the game. Like when you receive money, it's that practice of being grateful and thankful. And then when you're spending it and you're able to spend it, it's being grateful that it's going away as well, because we really don't have control over what's going to happen tomorrow. So that's the type of mindset I try to be in with money. Yeah. So the mindset of gratitude is both in the receiving and the giving part or spending or investing. Man, I'm so thankful I could make that investment. Or I'm so thankful I could make that gift and bless that person. Or I'm so thankful I could bless my family with that experience. Or I'm so thankful I received that money, that income. Or even the really hard part is like when you've got an expense that you don't want to make and would choose not to, you've got to replace the hot water heater. Sump pump. Yeah, sump pump. And can you come from that viewpoint of being thankful or thinking about the second level effects of that going out? That's the guy who's here working on it is receiving income because of it. Maybe some fulfillment because he's doing something he does is totally different. Again, not perfect. Sometimes I just stew and complain. But if I could get out of that, it's a great way to think about money going out. I try to stay away from you on those days. Dave's in a mood, everybody. I'm out of here. Yeah. Just kidding. That doesn't happen very often. Dave, who, as you talk about, you do a great job of learning from others who have gone before you, who are a long ways down the road, or maybe just a little ways down the road. Sometimes that's the most helpful because it's more practical. Who has modeled this servant mindset to you? Where did you learn that? Where do you pick that up along the way? Yep. I would think that the first business relationships I had, I got to work with my dad. I think the first year working together, he ignored me. He's like, he's not going to be here long. He could do the e-filing and the groundwork. But then as he saw, I was getting more interested in this financial world and helping people in that way. Then he started to proactively give advice and think not just the tax knowledge or investment knowledge, but the interpersonal people and the relationships and how to use these conversations to go deeper with people and talk about more than money. The whole thing around, it's probably where I'm getting the servant heart and being others focused. There are actually direct quotes I know from dad, Steve, around seeing it from the other person's perspective and how they're thinking and feeling. That's one. Then you and Toby starting to work on the financial planning and investment and retirement planning. You guys were models of how same thing that Steve was doing. It was all related where that servant feeling of helping others rather than looking for something in return. Those three relationships were key, both the business side and the spiritual side. That's awesome. That's an honor that you would say that about me because I feel the same way about you. But nobody wants to hear us have a moment right now, so let's move on. Come here, man. As you think about you have helped a lot of people through the retirement transition in life with the people that you have seen retiring, you've helped with that transition. You've even seen through a lot of our other advisors who work here. What are some of the aspects of those retirements that caused it to be, quote unquote, successful? What have people done well that you've and use that to create video content or pass along to others? What are some of those nuggets that our audience could get something out of? Yeah. One, and you've heard me already say it, but there's that idea of fulfillment. Again, it's counter cultural and seems like the opposite of what you want to do to have a good life. You don't have to devote your whole life to it, but you want to devote small percentages or 5% or 10% of your time, which is the definition of fulfillment. Fulfillment is finding your unique ability or your skills, the things we were talking about that you do best, that you like, that you're good at, and that are helpful to others. Then using those skills to help others. If anyone's done it, they know what I'm talking about. The hard part in retirement is you do want to, and it's okay to be done. Sometimes if you have a really stressful career or job, you need to take time like that sabbatical where you're doing nothing. Maybe you're journaling or writing or praying or thinking about what could be next, but there is a lot of time next, 30 or 40 years in some cases. Finding those unique skills or strengths. We recommend the Strengths Finder's book if you've never done that before to find what are some of the unique things to you that make you who you are. Then how can you apply those to help others? A lot of people don't want to start a new career or job or business, but they want to use a small part of their time. Maybe it's going to the high school who has a incubator for kids who are interested in business. I'm speaking of Tim here, by the way. They want to use some of the skills they've learned in the last decade and a half to help kids think about business in a different way. Maybe with some of these countercultural ways to think about helping people and serving people. That's a fulfilling thing, most likely. Someone who's 60 can do that too. It's 45 too. You and I are talking to a lot of people who are thinking about maybe it's like a mid-career transition. I was talking to somebody last week. I just want to do something with more purpose. I want to do something that's really like it. The business I work for now, we do things ethically. We do things the right way. How do I create some newness to some of the broken parts of the world through business? There's a ton of businesses out there that are fixing some of the broken things in the world by running a business. They're creating jobs. They're creating jobs for maybe people who wouldn't have a chance at a lot of jobs that are out there. That could be something that this idea of stealing maybe from your future retirement. You could have a bigger pile later on, or you could steal some of that now. Because you're doing something fulfilling with your career, it lasts a whole lot longer. That income stream lasts a whole lot longer than, I'm just going to grind it out for a couple more years, 5, 10, and then I'll just hit the brakes and do nothing. Sometimes that's worth considering. We always talk about the three C's in retirement or before retirement. It's creativity, also could be curiosity. We're creative just by nature as well. We have these ideas. We listen to something and then we have our own thoughts that are applied to our life somehow. Creativity and curiosity is the fountain of youth we hear often. Making sure that doesn't go away. Then connection with others and with God, if you're faith, those being intentional about who you're connecting with. Churros is the third one. Churros is the third one. Then the fourth C is contribution. That's that idea of service and helping others. It doesn't have to be people you don't know. Maybe it's family. Maybe it's we have a lot of happy... We actually have one guy I remember talking to a few years ago. He was a doctor, very busy his entire life until he was done. He sold the practice. His main goal was to move across the country to be with his one-year-old daughter and be the grandpa who's very present in her life because he felt like he wasn't very present in his own girl's lives. That was a focus that came through self-reflection and talking to someone. Find an advisor who is able to talk about this stuff because it's such a key part of your next phase. Yeah, it totally is. Dave, you're futuristic is one of your strengths. The ability to look 10, 15, 20 years ahead and be excited about stuff. Man, I feel like all we've done is talk about looking backwards. What are you excited about in the future? What are you scared about with regards to the future? Yeah, I think excited about we're figuring out, me and the team, Luke, Sean, everybody is figuring out we've got something unique and the people here are unique. What we were talking about with relationship and talking to clients and how we go a little bit deeper than just the numbers. That's important, but we have to be so selective because we've got limited time. I'm excited about figuring out how to help more people. We have something good and we know because all of the people reaching out wanting to work together, unfortunately, what's the worst part about the job is turning people away. Figuring out how to help more people is exciting in a way that keeps what we're currently doing, but just a little bit larger to help more people. That's exciting. I'm excited too about the hot topic is AI, and I don't think it is to be afraid of. I think when we look at the career and financial advising and advice and money advice, I think that's going to allow more of these conversations with people about deeper things because maybe AI will be helpful in doing some of the technical aspect of planning or building a plan or whatever it could do in the Either way, us humans, I believe we're going to always want to connect with each other. I think community and relationship will be even more important if AI is able to do more, so not to get that futuristic about it. You and I talked about that idea of there's a lot of communication out there, social media, YouTube included, where there's a mass audience of people consuming all of this content. There can be a pull to only do that and to forget about connecting with others. There probably needs to be this barbell approach of who are your deep connections? Who are your three people that have your back at all times? Who are your 12 people who you can go to for anything? Who are your small groups that you're deeply connected with so that as you're consuming this content, you have people to process with who are maybe in the same stage of life or a little bit ahead of you? I'm with you. That connection is going to be important. I think one of the things you do very well is all of the clients at Streamline and you've got the skill of connecting. There's two business owners. I actually just did this last week. I can't reveal too many things about the topic, but there's someone else we know who did exactly what this person is doing. Just the simple act of connecting the two is extremely valuable for the person who's about to take this next step. You do that very well, and you do it better than most people because you could see connections in odd ways, not the obvious ways. I think our clients appreciate that too because there's a lot of people like them where they can glean advice from too. That's one thing you and I have talked about doing more in the future is how do we connect people together? How do we create smaller gatherings so people who may not know each other but have a ton in common can come together and we can curate some of those events and gatherings? I'm excited about that. Dave, what about the scary part of AI? Are there advisors out there who may or should be worried about their career or their job because of AI? What kinds of people does it be? I think that the thing to be aware of is if you are a para-planner, the person who's creating plans, and that's all you do and you're not practicing the art of communication and relationship, that's one of the things that could go away if there is or not there yet, but it could be something to just be aware of. Maybe it could go away and there is something that's preparing 80% of a plan done, which is what you used to do. Someone who is only focused on, I've got the best investments, this is the best investment allocation for you, and here's what the changes we're making throughout the year for tax loss harvesting and all the things, the strategy you could implement throughout the year. If you're only doing that, and again, you're not applying deeper relationship, that's another thing that 80% or 90% or 100% could be taken, be done by AI. I don't know. These are guesses. There's people who are, oh yeah, AI will do everything, and there's people who are saying it's going to take a lot longer than that. Those are a few examples. The best advisors, there's this concept called human first advice, which seems obvious, and it is for us, but it's also just a concept of the behavioral side, which isn't a great word, but that money is so emotional and it's also very logical, and there's this intersection. You need to get good at the intersection of the two. If you're not doing that now, I would recommend doing it if you're an advisor. Finding an advisor who can do it, if you're not an advisor. Yeah, that's great advice. That's really good. Dave, what is one thing that you are loving right now? This is how I like to close the show, is just any, it could be a thing, it could be a person, an activity. What is one thing that you're loving right now? I'm loving, it's getting towards what is the end of the summer. It's the end of September, and the days are getting a little bit colder. The nights are getting a little bit colder. It's getting a little bit darker than it was in the summer, but it's still nice enough to be outside. We're in the Chicago area, and me and the kids, and the neighbor kids, and all of the parents are going to the local park half a block away. We're just spending an hour or two or 90 minutes outside, eating dinner, playing kickball, watching the kids run around, play their games. We've got a 10-year-old where they're getting into the tween or whatever they call it, preteen, but they're still playing these little games that are cute and little kid games. It's just a joy. I'm loving that. That's awesome. Now is when you ask me, Tim, what do you like? Tim, I'd like to know what something, this is something I just thought of, what's something you're loving right now? I like to read, and I like to read a lot of nonfiction books, business books, leadership books, spiritual books. My family thinks I'm a really boring reader. When I recommend books, it's all the same, and they don't like them when I recommend them anymore. One, I picked up a fiction book. The author's name is Graham Moore, I believe. He wrote a book called The Wealth of Shadows. It is basically the economic warfare behind World War II. It's fiction. It's probably loosely based on maybe what happened with some of the key figures like John Maynard Keynes and other folks. It's been a great read. If you're an Aaron Sorkin fan or a movie fan like The West Wing, the first couple chapters read a very thoughtful, very dialogue-heavy, very character-driven TV drama almost. That's just been really cool to read. I'm probably two-thirds of the way through it, but I don't read a lot of fiction. When I find one I love, I'm like, oh, this is why people read fiction. It's been really cool. Awesome. Awesome. Dave, thank you for spending time with me. It's not often that we get to do stuff like this together, but we do a lot here in the business. I just thought it would be such a unique opportunity for people listening to hear more about what you're about, to hear your deeper purpose behind making YouTube videos. On the surface, it could be marketing, but for you, it's more about how can I give to as many people as possible? How can I reach as many people as possible with what I've learned and wisdom? While knowledge is easy to come by these days, we have it literally in our pockets. As much knowledge as previous generations could consume in their lifetime, we have it in minutes. You bring wisdom to the financial world. You bring wisdom to the non-financial side of the financial world. That's a gift that thousands, millions of people are receiving. It was really just great to hear the backstory and the heart behind that because not everybody gets to see that. I know I do. I'm excited to share that with others. Thanks for saying that. That means a lot coming from you. I love this. I love talking with you. Hey there. If this episode impacted you, would you share it with a friend right now? That would mean a lot to me and even better if you could leave a review of the show. Maybe mention what part of this conversation stuck with you. On the first Tuesday of each month, we're going to bring you some more stories of great leaders who have learned what it means to be truly wealthy. If you're watching on YouTube, we're going to drop that on the first Thursday of each month, so keep an eye on that. Thanks so much. We'll see you next time.