35,000 Decisions a Day

If you could have a candid conversation with financial advisors who have decades of experience helping professionals, business owners, and families just like yours plan for their financial future, what questions would you ask? I'm Chip Munn, financial advisor, author, host, and CEO of Signature Wealth Group. For decades, my partners and advisory teams have had the opportunity to answer the tough questions for hundreds of our clients. Now we want to do the same for you. On the Signature Life Show, you'll hear answers to your burning and most perplexing finance, investing, and retirement questions from our Chief Investment Officer, Senior Wealth Advisors, Certified Financial Planners, and more. We aren't just financial advisors. We're parents, children, community leaders, and entrepreneurs with a passion for helping empower our clients to live life intentionally, what we call a Signature Life.

John Tate, what's up, man?

Chip Munn, it is Friday. That means I get to hang out with you for a little bit and we get to record our podcast. It's very exciting.

Yeah, as we say around my house, how does it get any better than this?

Yeah, so it doesn't.

I don't know how it could. Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know about you and what you've had to do today prior to now, but I read— because this is what we're talking about— I read that the average American adult makes $35,000 5,000 decisions a day. How many have you made so far today, Tate?

I mean, I'm guessing that's counting the ones like thinking about taking steps to get out of bed and, you know, make the bed and do all those things. I mean, I feel like I'm at least a quarter of the way there.

Well, I didn't read deep enough to figure out exactly the methodology, but it seemed like a right number. There's just a lot of little micro things we have to think about, or maybe we don't think about, but we just decide on. And so today we wanted to talk about kind of the process for making decisions and hopefully, right, making good decisions.

Chip Munn: We all want to make decisions that are going to impact our lives in a positive way and not the opposite. And so coming up with kind of an understanding of why we make the decisions that we make and how that affects not only our lives, but the lives of the people around us, including family members or clients in our case, or things like that. I mean, right now, I feel like with what the market is doing so far in 2022, our clients are looking to us to make decisions for them and in their best interests all the time. Maybe last year they understood that we were making these kinds of decisions, but I think this year— and didn't really pay much attention to it, but I think this year everybody is focused on the decisions that we're making for them. It's always good to be able to talk about that, but I can think back to a point in my life where I was living in New Bern. I still thought I wanted to be a teacher. I was going to get my master's degree at ECU, and there was a decision made there that I was no longer going to do any of those things, that I was going to apply for a job at the Raymond James home office in Tampa. After getting that job, I was going to move to a city where I didn't know anybody and kind of start afresh. That decision, that change of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life led me to where I am today, but it also led me to meeting my wife. It led to us having our son, which is kind of like a little miracle because had Kristin and I never met, we would've had kids, but they wouldn't have been Turner. So at any rate, you go back to those decisions and it's always interesting to try and Sometimes go back and dissect all the things that led up to that actual decision and how important that was at the time, because going forward, you don't really know. I think it's only the benefit of hindsight when you look back and you can say, "This was something I did," but you always want to take and kind of learn the good and the bad about those types of decisions, and hopefully use that same scenario to make more decisions each and every day. I don't know if you feel the same way or not, or— think about that.

Well, I understand— I read something one time a long time ago about a psychological thing called decision fatigue. Are you familiar with that?

I've heard of it. I've probably experienced it as well.

Well, it's the notion that because of all these decisions that we make, that over time— and we'll just use an example for a day— over the course of a day, because of the number of decisions that we make, our ability to make good decisions can easily decrease because we're just tired. We've thought about so many things. In fact, I read recently that President Obama used to wear the same color suit every day because it was one less decision that he made. It's the reason that Zuckerberg kind of wears the same thing. Steve Jobs and the black turtleneck is to reduce decision fatigue. And particularly most recently, at least for me, during COVID when we had so much information coming at us all the time. And because we were so active with clients and making sure that we were all making good decisions, I really went into that same kind of mode where I wore not the same shirt every day, but the same color shirt every— I ordered like 8 black shirts. Yeah, so there just didn't have to think about it. But a big focus for me is doing the next right thing. And I think that especially— and we're in another period of time, certainly not like COVID, but we're in another period of time where there are a ton of inputs coming at us right now, whether that's inflation or war or— I mean, the headline news at times, if you pay a lot of attention to it, can be staggering. And so you really have to be mindful of how much impact some of that kind of stuff can have on your decision-making, because in my opinion, a lot of times listening to other people too much can push you in the wrong direction.

Yeah. And I can tell you exactly when I reached that point of decision fatigue on a daily basis. And it is at the point where Kristen asks me, what do you want to do for dinner? At that point, I mean, of the day, I think we both, and it's not just me, it's her as well, but we'll both sit there. I don't know. I don't know. And it'll take us probably 45 minutes to decide what we want to do for because neither one of us wants to make that decision. And that's really, if you think about it, the last kind of major decision of the day. I mean, you have your routines after dinner's done of getting ready for bed and all that stuff, but that decision always kills me.

Well, John, I think that it's important. Everybody, either by default or by design, has a process that they use for making decisions. When you are sitting down with a client,— or even in your daily life, right? Because in a way, how we do anything is how we do everything. I think that's important. What do you consider? Do you have a process for how you make decisions? And what is that for you?

Like you said, it's probably different for every person. But when I look at a decision with a client, I mean, that decision in and of itself is an act of power. If you are making a decision for someone or for yourself, it's because you have the ability to do so. Certainly, if somebody else is making a decision for you, they're the one with the power, kind of an employer-employee situation or something like that. But in our position, our clients have placed us in that position of power because of not only the trust that they place in us, but the experience that we have in what we do, how long we've done it, our intuition, the ability to make that next right decision, like you said, They also look at our body of work, all the decisions, all the inputs that have gone up to this point in time to make that next good decision. Our clients, in the beginning, if they're trusting us to do something, it's because they believe we are going to act in their best interest. Things around us are changing all the time. We have to adapt our decision-making answers, the choices that we make based on the activities that are going on around us, but it always goes back to If our clients are going to trust us to make that decision for them in that position of power, they need to understand that it's going to be in their best interest. That's how we start. That's how we continue. That's how we finish. My process, starting with where I began at Raymond James in the equity research department, we can count our experience by recessions. So I've had the recession of '01, '02, and '03, the very first tech bubble bursting. I opened up my Leland practice just in time for the financial recession. We had the small, tiny recession of COVID and not that we're going into a recession, but this is certainly a time of difficulty that makes people ask the question. So all of those past experiences during those times of difficult decision-making lead up to us being able to, when faced with a question, when faced with a problem, we still evaluate several options, but intuitively, Based on our prior experiences, we kind of know what the next step is to take. We know what is in the best interest of our clients. So I usually start there. I start with my past experiences and build that kind of sequence of events in order to get something done for our clients. What does your process look like?

Chip Munn: Well, it's interesting because you mentioned recessions. I went back and looked a couple of years ago at how many election cycles I had been through. And at the time it was 5. I looked over the last few days because everybody's talking about bear market, bear market. For me, that's at least 5. But again, I agree with you, a lot of it ends up being leaning on prior experience. But for me, there are a couple of things that I try to do. First is I'm really serious about limiting the number of inputs. That I have, particularly when I am focused on making big decisions for myself or other people, because there's a lot of noise out there. Yeah. Again, I don't watch the news. I get my news slowly and intentionally. So limiting my inputs. The next thing is to focus on the goal. So I mean, everything for me, whether it's a minor decision at home or building out a signature life plan, is what are we actually trying to do? 'Cause what I find is a lot of times it's easy to make a bunch of random decisions that don't take you in the right direction. The third step for me is to break it into pieces because a lot of times we can get overwhelmed. You know, COVID again, as an example, one of the things that I did with clients during that period of time was I encouraged them to focus on the fact that they had been through this before. If they broke it into pieces. So, we had all been worried about illness for ourselves or somebody else. We had all felt some isolation. We had all had some financial concerns and had come through those just fine. Again, lean on your own experience. This isn't just us as advisors. This is a very personal thing. To make good decisions, leaning on your personal experience, sometimes it really helps to break a situation down into components. And again, for COVID, there were 3 major components all wrapped together at one time. But if you broke it into the individual components, we had all experienced those. And so it was easier to say, all right, well, the last time that I was worried about my finances, here are the things that I did and here's what worked and here's what made me feel better. Same with illness and, and that kind of thing. And so I think that that's a big part. And then again, John, for me, it's focusing on doing the next right thing. It doesn't have to be that old Rome wasn't built in a day. You're not going to go from point A to point B in one step. You have to define them both, but then first you have to take that next right step. It doesn't have to be big. It just has to be in the right direction.

You know, I agree with that. And some ways that you can kind of articulate that, maybe write it down on paper, is to simply use a checklist. You can start with these things, put them either in order, they don't have to be in order, they could be out of order, but whatever it takes to make a list and you can kind of check them off as you go. I did this, I did that, I did this before, I know what to do here. And you can break that down, like you said, into smaller steps and then complete them one at a time. And at the end, you've completed the whole situation or at least made yourself feel better about it. But yeah, I mean, breaking it down. And then beyond that, in order to do some of those things, we always talk about communication as the key on this podcast. We've talked about that. We'll talk about it a little bit here because it is, but part of communicating these decisions and communicating our process is to first define purpose and intent. And I use that word intent today because you always talk about intention and making decisions that way, and purpose is part of that. And so the kind of checklist that we go through with our clients to communicate what we're doing to them is you identify the problem. Here's the one problem we're going to isolate. Here's our solution to that problem. Here's why we're going to go with that solution, either because of past experiences or what we're reading from those intentional news sources that you talked about. Here are some anticipated obstacles that might get in the way or change what we're doing. Change part of the problem, change part of our solution, and then simply asking them for feedback. What do you think? Do you understand? That kind of thing. And because at the end of the day, our purpose is to make good decisions for our clients. What we need our clients to articulate to us is, what is your purpose and intention? And make sure those two things are lined up together so we're both working towards a common goal and not both working towards different goals and that kind of thing. But for our listeners, Chip, do you have one or two of your intentional news sources that you receive news from that you want to share, or do you want to keep those a secret?

Mostly my wife. Yeah, I was joking with Trish this morning. I was telling her, I said, John and I are recording today and we're talking about decisions and my decision process. And she said, well, If I understand it correctly, it's, I think about things, I ask Trish, and then I change the decision I was going to make. Uh, and so all jokes aside, I think it's important. Again, for me, do I have trustworthy news sources? I look at a lot of things. I'm one of these people, I'm not a media hater. Again, my wife spent 12 years in the media, but I prefer to get most of my information, John, out of magazines or books. And then to use that to make my own decisions. And the reason for that is most of the time things that have been written a year ago or 5 years ago or 100 years ago aren't mired in all of the conjecture that we deal with reading things on the internet every day. But I think it's important to have a few people that you trust that you can have conversations with. And for me, Tricia is definitely one of those. You're one, and it makes a big difference. But I also think you mentioned purpose. One of the things that I say a lot is that it's important to know your purpose, create a plan, and trust the process. The process that we use for both planning and investments is built on, you know, our years of, in the case of our practice in Florence, 50+ years of experience dating back to Scott's dad, but it doesn't matter. It's hard to make a good decision if you don't know. Yeah, I think it was Yogi Bear that says, if you don't know where you're going, you might end up someplace else. And so I think there's a lot of truth to that. And so really being clear about your priorities is the key first to making good decisions about just about anything, because you're going to be faced with, with roads that take you closer to or farther away every single day. And so, John, I thought it would be helpful for us just to mention a few of the kinds of decisions that recently we've been involved in. And so I'll share a couple, maybe you can, then we'll wrap up. But just yesterday I had a, do I pay off my mortgage or do I continue to invest the money? So that's one decision. That somebody was trying to make. Another one was, do I continue to live in the house that I've inherited that's paid off and free, or do I move to Florida? Again, it was part of a bigger conversation. Where do I decide to live now that I've retired? Am I going to move to Charleston? Am I going to stay here? Am I, you know, and so there are lots of decisions and those few are just from yesterday. What are some of the key decisions that you see people trying to— I mean, obviously we both, because we deal with folks who are at or near retirement, deal with the when do I retire and do I have enough. I mean, these are all questions that need decisions. What are some of the ones that you've worked with clients on recently?

We'll start with kind of the emotional decisions and then we can kind of move into the life-changing decisions. But one of the emotional decisions I think we're both dealing with right now is the feeling that when the market is going down, like it has so far this year, there is that anxiety created by losses on paper that makes you question, "Why am I doing this? Do I need to take my money out of the market? Would it make me feel better to do that? Yes. Is it in my best interest to do so? No." And so taking money out of the market or leaving it where it is, That is a conversation starter, but it is one of the questions that I'm hearing very frequently right now. Another question I dealt with yesterday is, "I was planning on retiring in December. Does what is going on now change that? Do I need to continue to work for a little while longer?" And for this particular couple that I talked to, we went through it and compared and contrasted the goal plan the Signature Life Plan that we had created for them prior to the market, prior to the start of 2022. Then we ran it again as of this week. What had changed was about $200 a month worth of spending less now than at the beginning of the year. So a huge move, a very gut-wrenching move in the market equated to about $200 less of spending per month. If they continued on the same path. So that was the question they had before them. I think what they figured out at the end was, "It's really not enough to make me change my decision. We're still going to go through with the plan and do that." But that may be different for different people, and it may make them feel better to wait a little bit longer until they get some positive movement in the market. But that's a question. Then another question I've gotten recently based on inflation and things getting more expensive, people are looking at different places to live based on annual expenses. And one of the draws to the state where you live in South Carolina is that I believe there is no state income tax. Is that correct? Or is it no sales tax? Which one of those things?

No, we have pretty favorable property tax.

Property tax.

Yeah. But we do have state income tax.

Okay. I had a client contact me on, I believe it was Tuesday, emailed me and said that they were changing their address and moving to Greenville, South Carolina. And I said, as it happens, we have a great advisor and a great office in that town. And while we're happy to continue to meet with you via Zoom and phone, which is what they want to do, I said, if you ever feel like you need the personal touch of seeing somebody in person, have I got the guy for you.

Well, and welcome if you're listening. Welcome to South Carolina. It's a great day in South Carolina, as they tell us every state office if you call. Well, John, as we wrap up, I think one of the things for me, because we do, we make a lot of decisions big and small. One of the things that I think it's important to point out is, number one, a signature life's made up of a lot of decisions. So expect things to change. We build in a lot of contingencies into a lot of the planning that we do because we've seen enough to know that life changes. Life's kind of messy, so be prepared for that. The other thing that I would say, John, kind of in closing, is very few decisions are irreversible.. And I think that sometimes we can have that paralysis by analysis and it's hard to make a decision. I think it was also Yogi Berra. Well, I'm quoting a lot of Yogi philosophy today, but he said, if you come to a fork in the road, take it. And it's important to understand that all decisions eventually are ones that have to be made, but then they're also not unchangeable. I've known plenty of people who decided to retire. I call it failing retirement. They decided to retire and then, oh, I don't really like this, and they went back to work. Or they decided to move to Greenville and then decided they missed you and moved back to Leland. Most decisions aren't completely irreversible, so it's okay to move forward in the direction that you think is the right one. But also, again, a big part of our job, whether it's only the planning side or the investment side, is to revise, monitor, and adjust. And so I think that's a big piece. John, any closing thoughts?

You know, part of communication is not only articulating your position and helping people understand the process, but a big part of that is also listening. And I feel like all of our advisors have been trained to listen very well. And sometimes a successful meeting is where we say fewer words than more words. So that's really my parting thought, is take time to listen to others, And a lot of times you can help figure out their intent and purpose with what they're trying to do just simply by closing your mouth and opening your ears.

Absolutely. And if you need somebody just to bounce things off of, just know John or I, any of our advisors— or Trish— or Trish. Yeah, well, if you talk to me, you're getting Trish's advice whether you know it or not. I mean, it's mixed in there somewhere. If you need somebody to bounce something off of, just know that John and I or any of our advisors more than willing to share 30 minutes of our time. No questions asked, no obligation. Just reach out and let us know. We're happy to be here and to be a resource for you, for your friends and family, colleagues and coworkers. And John, let's do it again next week.

Until then. Thank you for sitting in on this candid conversation with our team. This show aims to inform, inspire, educate, and sometimes entertain you. Our listener. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe, share it with a friend, and help us empower others to plan their future with confidence. If you're interested in evaluating your own financial and retirement plan, go to signaturewealth.com/scorecard to download a copy of our Signature Life Scorecard now. If you'd like to speak with an advisor, go to signaturewealth.com and choose the location nearest you to schedule a meeting at your convenience. Our advisors are always expecting your call.