In this scintillating episode, George Grombacher showcases the power of improving the financial literacy of your team!
Scott Ritzheimer
All right. Hello, everybody. Hello and welcome. Welcome to the secrets of the high demand coach. And we’ve got a special treat today because our guest isn’t necessarily a coach, not maybe in the traditional sense of the word, but you’ll find his every bit of high demand coaches, everyone else that we’ve had here, our friend today and guest on the show is George, and I’m not even gonna try and butcher your last name. So maybe you can help us with that here in a moment. But I met George through his podcast, live blood podcast, and if you have not heard of it, you’re missing out, go find it Apple podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts, lifeblood podcasts. It’s amazing. He’s got some amazing guests on there. I listen to a bunch before I joined the show to make sure that I knew what, what was going on there. And I did not belong. Let’s just put it that way. There were some amazing folks. And just love what you put together there. So go check that out. George is the president of money alignment Academy. And he’s here with us to talk to talk shop to talk about how he got into it, the work that he does, and you’re in for a real treat today. So George, tell us a little bit of your story, how you got into advising and the why behind the what?
George Grombacher
Yeah, I appreciate that. Thanks for having me. My last name was Grumbacher. You just call me George gee, that’s that’s sort of that’s that’s become my stage name, which is kind of weird, Scott. That just is what it is. I’ve been a bit of financial advisor for 20 years is my first job out of college. So like so many other people, I had no idea what I wanted to do. When I grew up, I went to college thinking I was going to be one thing. And my first job out of college was literally selling life insurance with New York Life. So that’s how I got into financial services. And at this point, it’s been literally over 20 years. Honored to be named to Investopedia is list the top 100 financial advisors for four years in a row. How I actually I think, I got the opportunity to listen to somebody speak, probably 1012 years ago, and he said, I’d rather be useful than brilliant. And that was like I got hit by a ton of bricks like yes, that’s it. There are way too many people in the financial world that are brilliant. And they work really hard to seem brilliant. And there’s so much complexity, and it’s confusing. And it doesn’t serve anybody. Yeah. So I saw realized, and maybe it’s a cop out, because I’m not brilliant. But I thought okay, how, what do people really need? How can I do a better job at what I’m doing. So I have been doing 401k plans for about 15 years, and recognize that just regular people, ordinary investors need way more help than they’re getting. We don’t understand what I think a lot of the time you think about as the simplest things. And so I started money alignment Academy, it’s a financial literacy, financial wellness platform, that is just designed to give that fundamental education that so many of us wish that we would have been taught or learned at some point in our schooling, but never were. And so I just I, I want to do a good job, I want to be useful, I want to actually help people get to where they want to go with their money. And so I decided to create a an online platform where people can go and interact with courses, they can get direct access to me in different ways. They can listen to the podcast, they can watch videos, just try to check as many boxes as possible.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love that. So I think it’s a fascinating thing, because you know, someone doesn’t 401k it’s, it’s not like you have to have a 401k. And so that’s why you do it. Like those plans are not easy to set up and not easy to implement. And I’ve found that vast majority of the time it comes out of a genuine desire to help our employees. But then it also comes with the idea that I did all this work to get it set up, you know, I’ve done my part, right. And I think what you’re doing is going to the root of that. So someone’s uh, you know, someone’s founder, CEO of a company that yeah, they’ve got a 401k. Great. What would you say to them about? What’s missing from that environment? Or what the next steps would be to really help their their people?
George Grombacher
Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And I appreciate so much an owner CEO that wants to do right by their people. They want to be able to provide great benefits. They want their company to be successful. And they recognize that if I help my people to be more successful, it’s going to help the company grow and all of that. And we’re doing a million different things all the time. So all right, I went through the exercise of getting bids or quotes or whatever, and then I implemented the thing and now I gotta manage the thing. Isn’t that enough? Why isn’t people why are people using it? Why why people aren’t people still coming to me and struggling. And I think it’s a good thing that financial wellness is now on the tip of everybody’s tongue and finance in the financial world. But kind of like you This G, a lot of it is nonsense. It’s kind of BS, just offering a 401 k is not financial wellness, that is part of what financial wellness is. But fundamentally, I want to help people really implement a financial wellness financial literacy program into what they already have going on. I’m not trying to make things more difficult, I’m trying to figure out okay, what is it that you’re already doing from an employee engagement standpoint? What are the things you’re already training on, or working on, to help improve the culture to help your people to understand their, their, their sort of benefits at large, and all of those things, and then let’s figure out how to incorporate money lemon Academy into what you’re already doing. So it’s not this whole nother thing? It’s not this thing that I’m not going to use, because I don’t get it. It’s not a top priority. It’s sort of below the line. So it like I talked about, I want to be useful. Well, I also want to make sure that people are actually using the thing,
Scott Ritzheimer
right. And so a lot of founders can can be, what’s the bottom line is the, but I don’t find that that’s really what they want, right? It’s just the only way we know how to measure if something works. And so with that being said, like, how do you measure the effectiveness? Like what are the benefits of, of increasing the financial wellness of of your staff, your employees, and even your leaders,
George Grombacher
there’s a lot of research that’s been done on what the cost of absenteeism is to an organization and presenteeism. So that just means that that you’re not at work, because you’re dealing with some other problems. So it could be you’ve got health problems. But then there’s also a ton of financial problems, two thirds of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, like 80%, couldn’t come up with 500 bucks in cash in case of emergency. And the average American has about $6,000 in credit card debt. So that is on their mind. So if they are having to go out and about do something about that, but even when they’re at work, money problems, follow us around. So how you quantify that at your organization, that’s probably going to be tricky. But rest assured, if you have employees, a good percentage, probably half are going to be struggling with money. And so the business case for financial wellness is, well, let’s put something in place that’s going to be working at incremental progress and change if you got 100 employees, if you get five to 10 of those every year, financially secure and stable. So now they’re able to more fully engage at their work. Well, that’s nothing but a good thing. Five years later, you know, then then you’ve actually taken a big swing at that.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love that. And I remember, we didn’t do a 401k While I was there, that was after but the company I was running as it’s growing, we’re like, we’ve got to have benefits, like we just can’t compete without it. So we ended up going the simple IRA route, which functionally was very similar for us. And I remember, like, the first question that everyone asked was like, Well, what do I invest in? And I don’t, I have no idea. So I love what you’re doing from that standpoint, because you know, just because you’re successful in business doesn’t mean you have any idea what to do in in the investment world. And I would say many of the founders have spoken with, you know, their primary investment is the business that they’re working on. And so, you know, they may play around in the markets every once in awhile, but that’s just not the center of their expertise. So I love having someone like you on deck, right? They can come in and help with those questions, right? And who can who can help the employee know what’s best for them, as opposed to try and put that all on someone who that’s not their primary function?
George Grombacher
Yeah, and that’s exactly that’s, that’s exactly why I do the work that I do is for that scenario, right there. I. And I mean, it’s the most annoying thing in the world, when you ask a financial adviser a question like, well, it really depends on I can’t give financial advice about that. Well, isn’t that what you do is not your job is to tell me what I should be investing in. So that’s neither here nor that there’s a lot of different kinds of financial advisors out there. And by the way, there are a ton of really, really, really good ones that not only are their hearts in the right place, but they’re doing great work. So that’s just 5% of the industry. The other 95% is a little bit too worried about that brilliant versus useful deal. So yes, I want to position everyone that I come in contact with for success. That’s really what I am good at is positioning people for success. When somebody is sitting there, if they’ve got their paperwork at the enrollment meeting the 401k and it’s just gobbly gook nonsense, like, What in the world is this? It’s going to cause people to not do anything like you know what, I’ll start that next week. I’ll start that next month. I’ll start that next year and five years goes by. So to actually be helpful to people it’s helped make decisions about thanks or answering questions for them.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love that. I love that. So there’s a question I like to ask. And I like to ask folks on like, well, who needs a coach? Right? But we get something special with you, because you’re our first financial advisor on the show. And I’d love to tweak that a little bit and say, you know, especially in this world, the entrepreneurial world who needs a financial advisor and why.
George Grombacher
Yeah, and I think it’s a really good question. And there’s a whole new discipline. And I don’t know if it’s new or not, but it’s something I’ve gotten into over the past several years. It’s called financial coaching. So it’s pretty similar, except it’s more just talking about beneficial habits and behaviors as it is, as opposed to actually giving real financial advice. But the answer to the question is that not everybody necessarily? Should it really is doing a self assessment and determining, okay, first and foremost, do I understand this stuff? And some of it may be yes, some of it may be No, but do I have the desire to do this stuff? And if the answer is no, then you should hire somebody to do the stuff that you’re not interested in doing. But let me take another step back. Either way, it’s imperative that you become the CEO of your financial life. So you are the person that’s going to be making the decisions and getting clear on where it is that you want to go, and all that good stuff, and then figuring out okay, maybe I love investing, so I’m going to do that, but there’s no way I’m going to do my taxes, there’s no, I’m going to do my accounting, I’m not going to do my estate plan. And that’s one of the challenges and opportunities with you know, personal finances, that it’s a mess. So, but whatever you decide if you do want to work with a financial advisor, I mean, there’s a lot of good questions that you need to be asking. But it really is that it’s like, okay, yep, I’m interested in this, or I’m not interested in this at all, but I need to make sure that I am doing the things that it takes, or that I need to be doing in order to get to where I want to go.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love that. And I think and maybe you can speak to this, I’m sure better than I can. But I think most again, especially founders, because it’s the world that I work in, but they they don’t distinguish between their, their work finances, and their, you know, their their personal finances, except as much as the the tax man makes them. Right. And so this idea of being CEO of your, your own financial world, How’s that different than being CEO of your company? And what kind of some things would keep you into? Maybe you’re, you’re not checking all the boxes on the financial side?
George Grombacher
Yeah, that’s good question. It may not be any different at all, you know, if you are in fact, if you’re the CEO of a company, and you are, you’re doing all of it? Well, you recognize that that’s not probably a recipe for success. And that as you grow and the work that you’re doing, you’re helping people to, to figure out what needs to be added and what needs to be substract, subtracted and delegated and everything else, well, you can take that exact same approach to your personal financial life as well. You know, there’s which I’m sure that you’re familiar with the whole idea of profit first. And you’ve probably heard the rule of thumb about paying yourself first. And I think that that’s just really, really, really true. From my, a financial advisor perspective, when people say, Well, my business is is my retirement, I respect that, I appreciate it. And I really encourage people to be taking something off the table to be peeling some of that money off, and putting it in some kind of other asset class, aside from just your business, you could still bet on yourself, but maybe don’t bet 100% of it, maybe just 90% and take some of that off, and put it in some other non correlated asset class from your business.
Scott Ritzheimer
I just heard, and you may have better language for this, but I’m gonna try not to butcher it. But I heard that you build wealth by focusing, and you protect wealth by diversifying. And one of the things that I heard in that context was that a lot of founders do the build side really well. But then failed to convert that at the right timing, to starting to diversify, to getting it out of just this one asset
George Grombacher
to talk about, talk about a risk, their timing, my goodness, I mean, how many business owners exit exactly the way that they want? Me, right? I mean, when timing is going to be perfect for you might not be the right time in the market or for a potential buyer. And there’s just way too many variables that are at play, which makes it at risk. So yeah, I think that you said it perfectly. Whether or not that’s exactly the right way to say it or not. I think it makes sense to everybody, or at least we intellectually understand that. But then, like so many things in life, do I actually practically apply that can I take that advice, which is very wise and put it to work in my life? Well, that that remains to be seen for all of us.
Scott Ritzheimer
All right. So now this is the moment that I’ve been waiting for I know and our audience as well. But I’d love for you to share with us what the biggest secret is that you would want to share today with founders and leaders that that you’ve learned from really this lifetime in financial advising and financial coaching, what would be that one thing that you’d want to share with the audience?
George Grombacher
Yeah, I think it’s it’s kind of it’s one of my Yogi Berra saying Yogi Berra sayings, that the only way to live how you want is to know how you want to live? So I mean, really, we do. And this is just taking my own medicine. We got one crack at this, right, we got one time we’re on the track, which is life. And how do I know if I’m really doing everything that I want the way that I want? Well, the only way to do that is to really spend some time thinking about it. And that’s now my living, the way that I want to now is that in that and that’s five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, really be thinking about that. And once you start putting pen to paper, and visualizing what you want, well, then that’s going to inform how it is that you’re spending your most valuable resources of time, attention, money and energy today. So that’s what I really encourage people to do is to get super clear on what it is how it is you want to be spending your time where who all of those things.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love that. And I’m gonna pick right up where you’re going with it. And actually, I’m going to have you take your advisor hat off for a second and have you put your CEO hat on, right, stepped down into the arena with us. And because I know that coaches, consultants, advisors, your tax guy, professional service providers are notorious for providing all their best advice and leaving little time, energy and advice for themselves. And so I’d love to hear from you what you’re doing to grow, you know, to grow the academy to grow yourself as a leader.
George Grombacher
Yeah, well in and just kind of along along those lines, I did make the decision a year ago that I wanted to do a lot more writing. And so I started writing and not today I write 1000 words a day. And I do that early in the morning. And that’s on top of everything else that I’m doing. So I do that, just to scratch the personal itch of wanting to do that, I do that too, to grow. Just the business and the websites that I’m affiliated with, and all that good stuff people are very well aware of, of marketing yourself online. And all that. So it really is it was a it was what do I really want to be doing. And I wanted to get back into writing. And that’s really helped to, to grow the business and to I mean, when I sit down with a blank sheet of paper and a pen that helps me to organize my thoughts. It helps me to become a better financial advisor helps me to become a better CEO and all of those things. So in a lot of ways, it’s also very therapeutic for me. That’s awesome. I don’t know if that answer your question or not Scott.
Scott Ritzheimer
It does. It does. Fantastic. It’s fantastic. So I love that now I know that we’ve got some folks, for sure who are listening to this saying I’ve got a 401k. But my mind, people aren’t using it to their fullest extent or, you know, I’m that guy. I’ve got all my eggs in this basket. And I’ve gotta find a way of diversifying it. But I’ve no idea what the next step is? What is a way? Or what’s the best way for them to get in touch with you? How can they connect with you and learn more about what you do and how you help?
George Grombacher
Yeah, I appreciate that. And I’m always excited to connect with with anybody and answer questions, but the website is money alignment academy.com. And so that’s just kind of an overview of everything we’ve got going on. And that’s the easiest way. Find me on social media. Was it a lifeblood, podcast, all of those things, all the things, Scott,
Scott Ritzheimer
all the things, all the things, money alignment. academy.com George Grumbacher, thank you so much for being here. Again, just my short time and getting to know you better. I’ve just been so impressed by you and how you handle yourself and the way you do your business. So those of you out there who are looking for help. It’s a great place to find it. Appreciate you being here. To everyone listening. Thanks so much for being with us today. I know you got a ton out of this. I know I did. And I so look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks so much.
Contact George
A 20 year finance industry veteran, podcaster, writer and speaker, George is working to help people get better at money and life how they want.
He spent 10 years with a Fortune 100 company as an advisor and in leadership positions where he impacted thousands of people and developed training curriculums. He’s the President of Financial Consulting Professionals, the Founder and Chief Community Officer of Money Alignment Academy and the host of the LifeBlood podcast.
George is honored to have been named to Investopedia’s list of the Top 100 Most Influential Financial Advisors many years in a row.
Want to learn more about George and his work? Visit https://moneyalignmentacademy.com/.