Chip Munn - CEO - Signature Wealth Group and Complicated Dude

This is Coffee with Cool People. I'm Chip Munn, and today we're going to do something a little different. You know, for the first, uh, 30 or so episodes, I've had several people threaten to interview me, and tonight or today, I'm gonna take an opportunity to, uh, kind of turn the tables and let my wife Trish— we're here together— um, kind of put me on the hot seat. Trish, what's up, baby?

Hey, you probably picked the wrong person to interview you.

Yeah, I would. Everybody else at least gets an Amateur. And so having an investigative journalist do the digging on my life, probably not my smartest decision.

I'll go easy on you.

Appreciate that.

So we are going to flip the table and turn the table, whatever you want to say, and talk to you today because you're the host of this show. But a lot of people, you know, they want to know who you are since you ask everybody else who they are. So tell me, who is Chip Munn?

Chip Munn's a complicated dude. Um, you know, I am I am a father and a husband. I am a son and a brother. I am, you know, at the end of the day, I'm a creative. I've tried to kind of shy away from that. But one of the things that I did early in my grown-up life was teach elementary school. And as I, the farther I've gotten, so I've been a financial advisor now for 25 years this summer. And one of the One of the things that I've finally kind of gotten comfortable with was how much I enjoyed the teaching and the creativity of being in the classroom. And so I'm a creative. I'm somebody who always is learning new things. I read 100, 150 books a year, read or listen to. I listen to probably 10 or 12 podcast episodes a week. Just really inquisitive. I'm a very curious person. And so, yeah, I've been a financial advisor for 25 years, father of 3, and father figure to 4. And yeah, so I'm a lot of things and nothing all at the same time.

Oh, you're definitely not nothing. That's 2 negatives, but you know what I'm saying. You're very special person, obviously, to me and to a lot of people. I guess the main thing people would ask you would be, how the heck do you go from wanting to be a teacher to wanting to be a financial advisor? Those two, you know, seemingly don't go together. Tell us about what happened when you were a teacher and how you made that transition and why.

Sure. Well, I mean, to be honest, I didn't know what I wanted to do when I decided to quit teaching. I just knew what I didn't want to do, and that was come back another year to be what would have then been a 23-year-old in a room full of 12-year-olds, you know. So when I graduated from Clemson with an elementary ed degree, long story as to how I got there, but, you know, I assumed I would teach for my whole life. But as a, you know, my first teaching job was as a 6th grade teacher. I was 22, the kids were 12, and we were entirely too similar. We listened to the the same music, played the same video games, you know, wanted to complain about our parents. And, um, and to be honest, I was terrible on the discipline side of things. I've never been one to— still not— to be an exceptional manager. I consider myself to be a pretty good leader, but not a good manager. It's made it difficult as a parent. But, uh, you know, and so it's led to It's been a struggle my whole life to some extent, but it was definitely the case when it was, you know, 25 12-year-olds and me in a room. So at Christmas time of my first year of teaching, I was driving to work one morning. I looked over to the right and saw Rose's Department Store, and it's 7 in the morning, it's cold, and, and all I could think of was, there's somebody in that store right now stocking shells working third shift, who is probably happier than I am. And so at that moment, I didn't know what I was going to do. I just knew what I wasn't going to do. And so went back, decided that I was going to go to law school. I was always interested in the law, in particular estate planning. Believe it or not, I even as a 6th grade teacher, I had a book on wills and trusts.

That sounds really boring and Dorky.

It is. You know what, I've been called born in Dorky a time or two, and that's coming from me, so you know, you're right. And, and not something you'd see on every shelf of a 6th grade teacher, but the reason for that was when I was a senior in high school, my granddad, he died on Christmas Day, and his philosophy on dealing with his stuff was, "It's mine until I die, and then you can worry about it." So he didn't involve my dad in his estate planning, uh, because by and large, he really didn't have much of one. And so as a result of that, my dad literally had to sell our family farm to pay the death taxes. And so when I wanted to leave school, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer to be able to help people not have to deal with that. I just didn't think it was fair. And so as it turns out, not, you know, University of South Carolina was the only law school at the time, and they weren't super keen on letting 6th grade teachers become lawyers, especially 6th grade teachers from Clemson. Just wasn't that. And I probably didn't score high enough on the LSAT, if I'm being honest. And so, yeah, it just wasn't going to work. We were going to have to move. My wife at the time was not looking to leave. She had a job at McLeod. And so, yeah, law school just wasn't going to be in the cards. So I started looking and found out kind of through a friend of mine, a guy by the name of Eric Brown, about being a financial advisor. And he was like, man, I think you'd be good at that. He had met somebody. And I As I kind of did some research on it, I found out that I could really do a lot of the same planning. I can't write wills and trusts, but I can certainly now advise people on how they work and how to use them. And so it seemed like a really neat way to still accomplish what it was I wanted to. And so I went out, took what I considered to be at the time kind of a sales job and, uh, and jumped in with both feet. I still have somewhere at our house the book that I bought from Books-A-Million when it was at the old Florence Mall. So this would have been in 1998. I still have the book somewhere at our house, the Fast Forward MBA. I read a book on, on business and went and interviewed for a job, interviewed it, ended up with a job at Wheat First Butcher and Singer. But I also was offered a job at Merrill Lynch, interviewed couple other, or at least tried to drop my resume off a couple other places in town, but ended up starting with Wheat First Butcher and Singer, which became Wheat First Union or First Union Securities, and the rest, as they say, is history.

So when we first got together, you had already built with Scott Mitchell and several other of your team members a very successful practice, but since the time that we've been together, it has grown tremendously. You have offices in different You've always been an entrepreneur, but what made you want to be more than just an advisor in Florence? What made you want to grow this big thing, this big company?

Well, I think a big part of my DNA is always, again, being curious. Just a super curious person. And so I'm always interested in what else there is and, you know, what else is out there, but also what else is possible. And so, you know, I kind of think that one of my unique abilities is seeing bigger futures, both for me and, and for my teams and for other people. And so when Scott and I had been with our previous company for about 15 years and we just wanted to be able to do more, we had a partner that lived down at the beach, Lewis Butler, and wanted to be able to, to expand. And that really wasn't what our previous company was built for. It just wasn't made for that. And so a big goal for me when I was my first year in the business, Carson was born.

Carson's your eldest son.

Is our oldest son. Yep. And he, you know, when— well, I guess technically he's the second oldest. Christian's a little bit older than him. Anyway. Carson was born when I first started in the business, and in my head, it was always, the idea was it'd be nice if he could come and work in our practice, but he didn't have to necessarily move back to Florence. Because for a long time, recruiting young people back to Florence was hard. It's gotten a lot easier. Both of our boys, our oldest boys live in Florence, and with no cajoling by us. And so, it's been, And, but we wanted to grow. I always expected that it would be, the next office would be in Myrtle Beach, but we weren't going to be able to do that at the company that we were at. We decided we wanted to be able to do something that would give us more flexibility. And so in 2016, we left our previous employer and opened our own company, Signature Wealth Strategies, with our team at the time. And you're right, it has, you know, our The thought process was that there were other people who might have an interest in being part of something, a community of folks who wanted to kind of do life together. And so we kind of set out to build that. And it's been neat. We've got 15 offices in North and South Carolina and Kentucky, about $2 billion in client assets under care, somewhere between We also have a separate company that does tax work, tax and accounting work. So all kind of under the Signature umbrella, about 60 families in terms of team members. And so it's, it's really been something that's gratifying, but it, to your point, came very much directly out of my partnership with Scott that started 6 months after I got into financial services.

And when we talk about, you know, what you guys do for a living and financial planning, that kind of thing, people I think have one sort of vision in their head. A lot of people, including me when I first met you, have this 1980s stockbroker, Wall Street, you know, that kind of image. That is not what you guys do. And I think what's important and different about Signature is that you and I even have this philosophy of you should live while you're living, that you shouldn't be waiting until retirement to enjoy your life. And I think that is really what sets you guys apart. Can you tell us a little bit about where that idea came from and how you work with families to implement that?

Sure. Well, for one, you know, it is a— I think it's a philosophy that we share, but it's, it's one that comes from a lot of experience of watching people who saved for an entire lifetime to get to this point where that what they thought they were going to do, what they thought retirement was going to be like, was a vaca— you know, you're going to work all these years and then you're going to one day you're going to go on vacation and never come back. And what I saw an awful lot was that number one, there were plenty of people that during that while I'm working to get to retirement phase were miserable. Miserable. And, and that pained me to see because one of the things, probably next to maybe a medical doctor, you know, folks that we work with share their lives with us, all kinds of things. And, you know, our, our job is to understand and to meet people where they are, but also to try to help them understand what's possible and what that bigger future might look And you know, for a lot of people, going back, you said that 1980s kind of Wolf or Gordon Gekko and Wolf of Wall Street type. The thought of that is that for a long time, I think most people figured that because one of the ways that we get paid is based on the size of the assets that are entrusted to us. Is that a lot of people in our business, for a lot of the first part of my career, like everything was about invest, invest, invest. And I was probably the only person that folks would run into who talked about spend, spend, spend. Now, I don't think that you should spend money you don't have. But I do think that you can leave a lot of life on the table by not understanding. So for me, the idea of a financial plan isn't just about retirement or later. By understanding what you need later and, and what you don't, you can understand what you can do and what you can have now. And quite frankly, Trish, you know this, now is the only moment we get to live in. And so as important as it is, and as much as I spend my time both in our business and, and with the families that I work with planning for the future, The only moment we have is this one. And so what I don't want is to see people put off till tomorrow things they could do today. And I think that's a big part of the financial planning process is that I think what gets lost is the idea that it's for tomorrow. In reality, understanding that And that can give you the peace of mind, the confidence that you have enough so that you can do some of the things today that you want to do.

And if you could go back and give 21-year-old Chip some advice, the biggest piece of advice that you've learned up to this point in your life, the thing that's really changed your life, what would it be?

Wow.

Um.

Yeah, I think that it would center around, and I'd have to think on how best to phrase it, but it would center around authenticity and being yourself and understanding, you know, the company's called Signature because as you and I were talking through, you know, what we would want people to, you know, what do I want people to feel and what's one word, we came up with Signature because it's synonymous with being unique. And I think that for a long time, yet when I look back at 21-year-old Chip, let's say, there were a lot of times that I was who I felt like I needed to be for the situation. And, you know, one of the things that ended up happening to me was I lost myself, you know. So that talking about being creative as a teacher, and now I'm, you know, at 47 coming back to some of that. It's because I buried it. I lost it. And so I would just tell 21-year-old Chip, just be yourself. Yourself is enough. People love you the way that you are, and the ones who don't, that's cool. They're not for you. And so, yeah, again, I could probably find a more eloquent way to phrase it, but it certainly would be be around that, to thine own self be true. Because what I've found is when you're not true to yourself, you can end up in some pretty bad and some pretty dark places trying to, to make up for that, trying to feel better about not being yourself.

How did you uncover your authentic self again? How did you find it again?

A lot of pain, frankly. You know, as you know, we've been together now for about 8 and a half years. About a year before that, I got sober, and one of the things that I was so incredibly worried about when I decided to get sober was what other people would think. It had kept me for a really long time not making a decision to do something different because my clients would see it, or they would know, or what would other people think, or I'd have to talk to my office. Or whatever, and I was so afraid of that, and in fact, I said to people in my life before, you know, I really should probably quit, and they're like, no, it's not that bad, you know, so it's one of those things that I was scared to death, but I reached a point in my life where things needed to be different. If nothing changes, nothing changes, and so I had to change, And so as a part of that, I went to 12-step meetings for a long time. I probably went to 89 or so out of the first 90 days, whether I was in town or not. And one of the things I learned there was really kind of going through a process of letting go of of some things. One of the sayings that I learned is, "What other people think of me is none of my business." And so, as I, you know, for the first probably 60 days or so, I didn't go anywhere. But at some point, I had to begin the process of reentering the world. And, you know, at the time, a lot of my work world was at functions where drinking occurred. And I remember the first time I was at an event and somebody asked me what I'd like to drink, and I just said, "Diet Coke," and they were shocked. And the second time they came around, they just brought me a Diet Coke, and it never came up again. And so I had lived all this time worrying about what people were going to think, and I learned really quickly they weren't even thinking about me that much. And so that began the process. So that's been 9 and a half years. October 21st will be 10 years.

Congratulations, that's a big deal.

Thank you, it is a big deal. It's been a big deal in my life, life of my family, and anybody who comes into contact with me, whether they know know it or not. But, you know, that began the process of I slowly learned there were things that I would do, that I would drink. So for example, if I had to go to a function with a lot of people, somewhere deep down, as extroverted as I appear, there was something that made me uncomfortable. And so I would pre-party to go to the hardball. And it was— and what I learned was I really didn't— some of those things, not speaking specifically about the Heart Ball.

Heart Ball. Heart Ball.

That's right. Heart Ball can be a lot of fun. But those situations apparently made me nervous. And so I was drinking in part to do things that I really didn't want to do, but I felt like I had to do. And so Over the last 10 years, a lot of that has kind of fallen away from my life a little bit at a time. And so I think that's how, you know, it was— Michelangelo talked about when he created the David and somebody said, "How did you find, or how did you take this big piece of stone and turn it into such a beautiful creation?" And I'm by no means comparing myself to the David or calling myself a beautiful creation, but what he said was, "I saw the David and I just chipped away everything that wasn't the David." And I think that for the last 10 years, you know, after going through kind of the initial process of getting sober, a big part of my life has been chipping away, no pun intended, you know, pieces that aren't the David in my life. And so, again, I may have rambled a little bit. I don't know that I answered the question.

I think you did. I mean, anybody who goes through that process knows it's humbling and scary because I also went through it. And you don't know quite who you're going to be on the other end. And so, you know, when you hide who you are for that many years, it can be scary to find out who you are at the end. And, you know, it's like meeting a whole new person sometimes.

Yeah. And it's interesting because it's easy to look at like you were hiding yourself looking backwards with that perspective. I definitely didn't feel that way in the moment. I was just doing what I felt like I needed to do. And I've known people who talk about addiction of any kind isn't a, It is a symptom of trauma. I mean, it is a way of dealing with, via an outside substance, stuff that we don't know how to deal with on the inside. And so, again, trauma can mean different things to different people. We're not psychologists. But again, I— Well, you may not be one, but I trust you. Well, I didn't— It's one of those things. That I certainly didn't think I was hiding myself. I just knew that I felt better. That old country music song, 10 Feet Tall and Bulletproof. Again, anybody who knows me knows that I don't necessarily lack for confidence per se, but it was a different—

It was comfort.

Yeah, it was. And so again, it's one of those things that you just get to the other side. And again, I have a lot of grace with past Chip Munn because I didn't know what I didn't know, and I'm at peace with that, you know, and life's good.

Should I go on to the last big question? Do you have anything else you want to add?

You know, we could talk. I'm like a lot of people, I could talk forever about a lot of the things that I've learned. You know, I think that the one other thing I'll share before you ask me the question that all of my guests tend to hate— fortunately for me, I've had 30 times of asking it to prepare at least a little bit— yeah, but the one thing that I would say that I've learned that I think is incredibly important, and it goes to my work, but it also goes to our life is the power and the importance of gratitude. And waking up every day and being, you know, I tell our boys a lot, the surest way to bring more good things into your life is to be appreciative of the ones that you have. And, you know, for me, most of that's people. Yeah, I have an incredible family. I have an incredible wife.

I know, man.

She's pretty awesome. Yeah, our kids are great. I have a phenomenal team at work, and my family, my brother, my mom, sister-in-law Allison, their kids, you know, everybody's just— I'm just super grateful.

And you do have a really good family. I mean, you know, some people have good family, you have a really good family.

Uh, yeah, no doubt. And, and I've got a really good work family. And so been just incredibly blessed. But I think it's important that it's easy sometimes to get bogged down in, in what what we don't have or what's not happening. And we've all been through, especially during that COVID period. I mean, it was easy to get isolated and alone and miss your people. And, but again, I've just, I've tried to be super optimistic and grateful because I think that the more of that, that we, we do and the more that we have of it, the more of it we'll get.

You're definitely right about that. And now I'll ask you the question. So if you could be a fictional character who you thought best represented Chip Munn, who would it be and why?

Well, I've, again, I've asked this question a whole bunch. It was yours. Uh, you know, I normally blame you. I tell people that my wife's a professional interviewer. It is a revealing question, and, and again, I've had some time to think about it. My initial joke was if Bobby Axelrod and Ted Lasso could have a baby.

Who is Bobby Axelrod?

From Billions. He's the original, uh, the, the guy who was the redheaded dude, um, who, who was in Billions. Um, but, uh, you know, there are times when, professionally speaking, I wish I had that killer instinct of Bobby Axelrod. But in reality, I I don't think he and I are anything alike, um, but I really— well, I was going to say, so I would, I would pick Ted Lasso. Um, I don't know if I am as much like him as I think that I would like to be, but I, I definitely, you know, I can tell you why I think that, you know, some qualities we have that are similar and, um, and why I'm be about choosing him because he's a little bit goofy and I can be a little bit goofy. But he cares a lot about people and he is not afraid to try new things. So for anybody who has never seen, if you're living under a rock, never seen Ted Lasso, he's a soccer coach from, or a football coach from America who goes over to the UK to coach soccer. Doesn't know anything about soccer, but he's all in.

And played by Jason Sudeikis, right?

Correct. Incredibly funny. And but, but he is this just super optimistic guy who doesn't know anything about— and very similar to the way that I got into financial services, didn't know anything about it. Yeah, I was a teacher. He was a football coach now coming to a different country to coach soccer, kind of stranger in a strange land And he focused on people. He focused on getting the players to believe. He's incredibly positive. He wants to be able to get the best out of people. And again, just super optimistic. Always seems to see the bright side of things. And I don't know if I do that all the time, but I sure do want to. And I watched every episode of that show and will probably rewatch it. I learned a tremendous amount, again, of just loving on and caring for people and meeting people where they are. And yeah, I feel like I do a pretty good job of that, but it's also something that I think is probably the most important thing any of us could do. So, um, I also still strive to be me more and more like that.

So another quality too that you guys share, and you know, you and I come from very different worlds, and when I first met you, and still, um, there's this kind of innocence about you where you, you genuinely think that everybody's a good person. And I come from a different background, and obviously I covered crime stories for more than a decade, so I come with a little bit of a different perspective. And I think you and Ted Lasso share not a naivety but an innocence about people. You're untainted, and so you believe in people, and you're not necessarily pessimistic about people like the rest of us can tend to be sometimes. So I think that's another quality that is good for you guys.

Yeah, I think that's fair. And I think ultimately what I believe is anybody can be a great person. And yeah, I've said to, again, the younger boys when they were playing sports and stuff, it's not how you start, it's how how you finish. And I think there's a big, you know, again, I have failed more times than I can count. And so, yeah, I feel like, listen, I'm in a really good place right now. And if it weren't for the ability for people to change, people to improve, people to recover, Yeah, I wouldn't be where I am. So I certainly think it's important to give other people, yeah, the benefit of the doubt, to your point. Sometimes I do it for folks who, you know, probably, I probably shouldn't. But again, I think that if you err on the side of loving people, you're going to come out on the right side more often. Than not.

I think that's a good way to end this. Thank you for talking with us, Chip, and for letting us hear a little bit about the person behind the microphone.

Well, thanks, Trisha. I appreciate you having me. Sure.