Conquering Your Financial Fears with Cindy Lundberg

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This is the no Closer show where you get the latest developments in distressed note investing and learn the secrets of how you can control millions of dollars worth of property For Panties on the dollar. Get educated and entertained by someone who has closed thousands of deals and lives to support you in achieving the same. Now here's your host CEO of We Close Nodes, Scott Carson Hey Real estate investors, this is Scott Carson. I'm known across the country as the Note Guy and I've been an active note investor focused primarily on the niche of non performing notes, distressed mortgage notes on residential commercial properties for almost 20 years now. My company is we close notes.com and I know there's a lot of different things when it comes to the note world. Are you buying performing notes? Are you buying owner finance notes? Are you buying institutional debt? Like I would focus on Are you buying first seconds contract for each There's a lot of questions and it can be very confusing about what you can or cannot do. So one of the great things that we've hosted for the last couple of years that we do on just about a regular monthly basis is we host our one day class called Note Weekend. If you go to noteweekend.com you can register for our free three and a half hour class. We'll talk to you and share with you how you find fun and flip non performing notes. And yes, you can buy non performing notes from banks, hedge funds and a variety of different hard money lenders out there for your own portfolio. No, you don't have to have millions of dollars to dive into the non performing note game. We've got students that have bought plenty of deals with 2530 grand getting their ball rolling using their self directed IRA who are tired of dealing with toilets, tennis trash desks, tired of battling contractors and GCs to get properties rehabbed. We all know the market is changing and while it may not be like 2008, 9 and 10 again, it we do see a lot of distressed debt out there on both the residential and the commercial side. So if you're thinking about diving into the note game, becoming a note investor, a lean lord as you'd like to say, versus the landlord. Or you just want to figure out what it is about the sexy side of real estate in the note space. Well, check it out. Noteweekend.com doesn't cost you anything. We host it live usually the first or second Saturday of each month. You can go today. Register at the website noteweeking.com Register for the next live class we host. You'll get sent A replay to the previous class so you can start learning about the note business today. No questions asked, no credit card needed. This is a great way for you to dip your toes in the water and see if it's warm because I guarantee going through art three one day class, you want to dive into the deep end and become a note investor. So check it out noteweekend.com you can also go to our website. We close notes.com check out our podcast, check out our YouTube number one YouTube channel. We are here to help support you. Whether you're experienced investor or you're brand new investing, Note weekend is a great place for you to get the ball rolling. People often say we cover more in our three hour class than most people cover in their three day class. So check it out. Love to have you be part of our note family but get signed up today@noteweekend.com thanks and have a great day. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening everybody. Hey. Welcome to this episode of the Note Closure show. As always, Scott Clarkson. Excited to be here with you today. And today's episode is all about the ladies. I know that so many of you out there listen to the show. We really have a split audience, men and women. And you know, we call our ladies Laura because we have several Lauras that are our biggest fans. So Laura and everybody else out there, this episode is kind of tailored towards you. Now men, don't hang up, don't stop listening. Because if you've got a mother, a sister, a wife that you care about, I guarantee you're going to want to listen to this episode because there's going to be some nuggets and some knowledge bombs dropped by our special guest who is a phenomenal financial advisor. She's got a wealth of knowledge, a wealth of experience and we met recently at fincon, got a chance to visit, attend a couple sessions, did a little social sleep. I was like, ah, I got to have this lady on because she knows her stuff and we've got a little common background going back to the the Chase mothership. So who am I talking about? I am talking about the rockstar Cindy Lundberg joining us here from Verde Capital Management out of Michigan. What is going on? Cindy, how you doing today?

Hey Scott, Doing great. How are you?

I am doing wonderful. Excited to have you on here. Did you have a good time at fincon? I know it was your first time.

It was my first, first, very first fincon and it was awesome. I'll definitely be back. It was inspiring. It was cool to see other creators like yourself. So, yes, thank you for having me on.

Yeah, no problem. No problem. Now let's talk a little bit about kind of your expertise and what you like to focus on, and then we'll do a deeper dive to give our audience a little bit of fit for what lies ahead here in the next 30 minutes or so.

Awesome. Great. So I am, like, Scott had mentioned from Verde capital Management. I'm financial advisor and actually the marketing director here too. And years ago, when our company started 16 years ago, our mission was to help thousandaires become millionaires. Now, we understand that thousandaires isn't a word, right. But you get the idea.

If you use it three times, it becomes a word and insane. So, yes, it's official. Thousandaires.

Perfect. Thousandaires. So we helped thousandaires become millionaires. But over time, we were finding that a lot of our clients are already there. And we joke that, like, okay, it's due to inflation that we have to change our. Our mission statement. So now we, you know, put our thinking caps on. We said, what do we really help our clients do? What is one thing that they have in common? And really the one thing they have in common is they need help turning their money into life fulfillment. So we are a life fulfillment fulfillment enterprise.

I love that. Life fulfillment definitely is. Is very important out there to keep that in mind. Because things are changing, Right. On a. On a day in, day out basis. Sometimes they are.

Yeah.

What are the. What are the biggest things when you. When you're sitting down with a new client, especially you've gone from the thousand to the millionaires and stuff like that? What are probably three of the biggest fears or worries when you're sitting down with a new client that you see on a regular basis? That is maybe a falsehood or myth.

Yeah. So they have a fear that, number one, they're going to run out of money at some point. You know, everyone feels like, gosh, I haven't saved enough or I didn't start saving early enough. You know, they have all these regrets that just kind of are fruitless to worry about. And, you know, we just have to move forward. So we help our clients out of that. A lot of what we do is behavioral finance modification. So, you know, what is the root of how you feel about money? And, you know, that has led to different ways that you treat your money, that you spend, that you save. And so we try to really understand where you're coming from from that perspective and then, you know, help you with your goals moving forward. Gosh, Another, another one would be that, you know, some geopolitical event is just going to wipe out all of their savings, all of their investments. They're going to have to move to Portugal or, you know, Ecuador. And it's just. And so, you know, how we handle that is, you know, we can only make decisions based on the information that we have. So we can't speculate, we can't think, oh gosh, this is going to happen or this is going to happen because the government is big, right? It takes a lot to put things into place. And so we just have to help navigate around that. And what we found too is that there's tons and tons of studies out there that show that the market is really agnostic. They like certainty, so they like to know what's coming ahead. That's why we see, you know, during election years there's a lot of market fluctuations which we saw this year. You know, in August there was a big dip, September there was a big dip, October really leading up to the election. But now once the election is over, we're kind of knock on woods, smooth sailing, you know, But I think we have that certainty in place. And then the third thing that people might be fearful about is that they just don't know what to do, which is why we have jobs. So, you know, it's that they don't know how to tie their money to the goals that they have. You know, they might not know everything that's out there. You know, all sorts of rules, laws, regulations that are constantly changing. So our job is to stay on top of it so that our clients are following all the rules. For example, required minimum distributions. Well, no one knows what that number is right now because it's changed, I don't know, 17 times over the past few years. So we just want to make sure that our clients are following the rules and that they're doing the best that they can financially.

Totally makes sense now with. We didn't mention this but I think the finance, especially financial advisors is such an. A male dominated niche, I guess you could say out there being a woman, especially as tenured as you are. What, what I think you've got a se secret power too that I think that is probably helps you connect with people a bit different because I think it. You really see a movement of more women taking control of the financial reigns in their lives, right?

It is, yes, it's true. So I attended a conference a few years ago, not fincon, but they had described the room as pale male and stained male. And I I couldn't help but laugh out loud because I was obviously not pale or male and you know, I was younger at the time, so I thought, oh my gosh, what a funny way to describe our industry. But it's totally true. But what we're finding is that women control about a third of US household financial assets. That's a lot. This is such an underserved market. I mean historically, like you said, Scott, this has been a male dominated industry. Maybe they haven't paid attention to the women conglomerate which has led them to women being completely underserved, under planned and underinvested. And that's not a good place to be because that compounds over time. So, you know, just like compounding positively with compounding interest, that could compound negatively. And so with the women having a lot more control over financial assets now and it's only going to grow, you know, over the next 10 years and beyond, we are trying to get in front of women and say, hey, like, we understand your needs, we understand where you're coming from. We're not going to talk over you. We want you to have as much empowerment and control over your finances as, you know, maybe your male counterpart or more.

Because you could speak the language in a little bit and there's a negative language, but I think there's definitely, I think we look at just trends. Like right now we see, I think more women are buying houses than male men are buying houses, especially homes as primary investments. We see increased female investors in our niche in the education space. It is male, pale and stale sometimes. And I always like to, hey, we need to have more women talking because they have a fresh perspective than the same old same old. In a lot of cases that we've been going on status quo for years. What are, what would you say maybe some of the differences that women are facing or things that you focus on with women that maybe men overlook or don't think about?

Well, a couple of things. Number one, again, talking about kind of that wall of regret that investors typically have that is just magnified in women. Women don't see themselves as intermediate or even experts, expert investors. You know, they see themselves as, as novice investors, which is not necessarily true anymore because if you see even generationally, Gen Z is actually leading the charge by being invested. 70, 71% of Gen Zers are invested in the stock market and most of them are investing outside of their retirement plans. So you know, we all start a 401k and we, you know, put money into it. But to invest outside of that and to you know, have the wherewithal to open a brokerage account, buy some ETFs, do something. You are an investor at that point and I think women fail to recognize that. So, you know, they again regret not starting early enough, not having enough saved and not reaching their potential when it comes to income. So maybe they didn't make a job change because they were starting a family. Maybe they didn't ask for that raise because they've had to take time off to, you know, take kids to doctor's appointments. There's all this internal struggle that we create in our minds that isn't necessarily true. That narrative is completely made up by us and we just need to get over that mental hump and say, hey, you know what? We deserve that raise as much as the other when we're moving to a new job. Negotiate up because your pay increases are going to be based on that initial amount moving forward. So ask for more, know your worth, know your value and, and just ask for it and be unapologetically you.

Amen to that. I love that. Don't be afraid to ask because you never are going to get anything you don't ask for. Right?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Just ask. What are they going to do, fire you?

Yeah. What's the worst case? They say no.

Exactly.

And I've always taken meaning no is not now.

Exactly. Maybe not the right time. You know, it's. But you just have to like work on it. You have to say, all right, like, you know, if not no, then like what do I need to do to get to that? Yes.

Yeah. What are some things that you would suggest to women who may, may not. That may be listeners may not know exactly what's going on with the family finances if, if hubby has been management and all. And the reason I bring this up is I've got two, two different things going on right now of friends or family going on. My mom is a two time widow and as well her husband's. My dad, her, my stepfather, both. She was involved in the picking. Actually. My mom was out buying stock. Tell me. She bought a stock that went from $4 to $50 that she bought a couple thousand shares. I'm like, I had a high five my mom on Saturday, I was like, that's oh, mom. Way to go mom. And she's very, you know, she's like, I'm not rich, but I have enough. I'm retired, I got plenty to do, what I want to do. I'm like, that's, that's the most important aspect of it. And then I've got a friend who's basically retired in age 72. His wife is a little bit younger, she's a realtor. But he's. He's kind of out of the loop now because he's just had a brain surgery, had found a brain cancer, and his wife is reaching out to me because he has a business in the notes space. Like, I don't know what I'm looking at, what am I doing? And I'm trying to help assist them. I don't know where any of our money's at. I don't know what type of deals we're in. It's a very scary situation of one person knowing where all the eggs are at and the other one not knowing what. What counsel would you give to the ladies in maybe in that. The worst situation of how to kind of approach that situation or take control of their financial reigns?

Yeah, that's a good question. I would say make it fun. I mean, I have fun talking about finances because I'm in the business, right. But a lot of people get anxiety around this topic. But make it fun with your spouse, your significant other, you know, sit down once a month and go through the things that you have. You know, hey, if. If something were to happen to you, who do I call to, you know, do whatever and go through that list and. And ask those hard questions, you know, maybe pour yourself a glass of wine or something, or go out for a nice dinner and. And, you know, make it a fun conversation. Secondly, I would align yourself with an advisor that will speak to both of you. You know, we. We always emphasize the importance of, you know, usually there's one person in the relationship that kind of knows where everything is, has the handle on the budget, and has been investing for so long, and then another person, you know, another spouse who is just completely disengaged, either because there's, you know, they don't want to understand or they just haven't understood and so they feel uncomfortable. And so having meetings together with a professional where you can go through and say, okay, this is what we have. This is what it's for. What if there's a life insurance policy out there and something happens, you have no clue over it. So make sure that you're in the know and even if it's uncomfortable, take the steps that you need to do to get in front of it and at least have some knowledge over it.

Totally, totally makes sense. Now, I know that you recently spoke at the Chamber of Commerce for International Women's Day, and we Also have a lot of women on here who are entrepreneurs or they're, they're, you know, business owners are diving into. What are some things that they probably need to be looking down? Maybe not right now, but things down the path that they need to start looking in place to start considering when it comes to their future financial health.

Yeah. Awesome. Hi, ladies. I would say, number one, make sure you have some sort of emergency fund in order. So we usually recommend like three to six months of living expenses in cash. Cash that's easily accessible, not in your checking account. My checking account runs incredibly scarily low, but it's because I want to get the most worth out of my cash. I don't want it to necessarily be sitting idly, even though I need it on hand. So get a high yield savings account and, and just put three to six months worth of living expenses there. That's going to do a couple of things. Number one, it's going to alleviate probably 90% of any financial stressors that you have. Because when something comes up, you're not scrambling and saying like, oh gosh, where do we pull money from? Oh, I think I can get a heloc or you know, I think I could do this, or you know, I have some extra room on this credit card. No, you have cash available. You have three to six months worth of living expenses. That's usually sufficient to cover anything that may come up all of a sudden.

Right.

Number two, I would say again, know your worth. Know what? Either if you're an entrepreneur, know what value you're presenting to your, your clients and look at maybe increasing your prices on whatever service or product that you're providing. That will do a couple of things. Number one, it's going to give you more credibility of like, oh, wow, these prices are a little bit high, but it's probably because it's really good. It's a really good service, it's a really good product. You're setting yourself apart from being, to being a premium brand at that point. And number two, it's going to help with your cash flow so you're going to be getting more of what you're worth. And again, really think about it. I know we have kind of a brain block over it, but really think about your worth. And then number three, I would say a really good thing, which may be controversial, but outsource what you don't want to do. So create more time for yourself. That is one thing that we have little to no control over, is the time that passes by. So be more intent with the time that you have. So, for example, if you, you know, if we're calculating, okay, how much is my time worth? Take what you earn in a year, divide it by 40 hours a week, 50 hours a year, or 50 weeks a year, and determine what your hourly rate is or maybe what you would like it to be. And then look at the things that take up a lot of your time that you don't necessarily want to do. For example, like cleaning your house. It takes me like all day to clean my house. And that's usually because I get started in one room and then I think, oh gosh, I should really organize my sock drawer. And. And then I spend like an hour organizing my sock drawer while the rest of the house is like, still filthy. And then like all this time has passed and I think, gosh, I've gotten nothing done versus hiring a cleaner and maybe that was $200 worth of my time, you know, versus hiring a cleaner who's going to clean your entire house for two hours at what, 150, 160 bucks, you know, for, for that time. So use your time wisely. Outsource what you can. And yeah, then you can spend your time doing other things like either spending time with your family, working on your business, whatever.

I couldn't agree more. With the delegation. You know, it takes. Washing clothes is one of the biggest things that I learned to delegate, especially while traveling. Like we talked about. It takes me four minutes to do laundry, two minutes to drop it off, and two minutes to pick it up.

That's perfect. Scott dots. Yes. That's how you do it.

Exactly. It's all folded, it's in the right laundry detergents, color coded, even on hangers for me, makes it so much simple. It's the best, best feeling to go pick that up versus having to sit it in the washer dryer. Forget about it. Got to rewash it. All that stuff that goes along with it, but it builds time. Because I think so many, especially some, some of our clients, they feel guilty that they have to take time away from their kids and their family to focus on making money or traveling to an event or trying to figure out that balancing act between their full time job and their passion as a side hustle or investing. And they feel guilty. I'm like, you don't have to feel guilty. Just don't feel like you have to do it all and delegate. Like you just said the little things at least.

Exactly, exactly. That's working smarter, not harder.

Yeah. Or the inner perfectionist that a lot of People have too. It's got to be perfect before I get it. No, no, no. 70% will get it done. And getting out there. Exactly. Do you ever deal with any of that, Cindy? Perfectionism?

Oh my gosh. Okay. You're saying that in chest because you must know that everything needs to be just so. But we get there. You know, you learn to just embrace the chaos and, and you get there.

Where do you see the biggest impact for people's finances is that maybe they're not taking advantage of, is it not starting a self directed IRA and investing in that or like a SEP or maxing out or 401 contributions or if they've got a high deductible, you know, using a, like a self directed hsa. Where are some of those hidden pockets of money or investments that people can to maximize their income or their finances?

Yeah, that is a great question. And I will caveat this by saying this is not blanket financial advice. Right, right. But.

Right.

Just as, as you know, if most of your listeners are entrepreneurs, having a solo 401k or an individual 401k is massive because you can sock away so much money into that free tax savings, lower your taxable income and you can, you know, obviously that would be invested and, and grow along the way. So I'd say a solo 401k, if you're an entrepreneur, contributing to your regular 401k, if you're an employee, contribute not only up to the max that you would get if you are, if you receive a match from your, your company, but the actual maximum that you can put in, which I think this year is 23,000 for those of us under 50. Yep. Make sure you're contributing the max. And HSA is a great place to contribute. So make sure. And right now it is. It should be about open enrollment time.

Yeah, open enrollment, definitely.

Yeah, yeah. So make sure you're looking at your plan to see, okay, can I afford to be in a high deductible plan? Because if you're in a high deductible plan, you can take advantage of an hsa, contribute that. And yeah, I think you're about to say at 3850 or something like that.

It'S somewhere between three and four depend. I haven't looked. The numbers have changed a little bit, so. But still, that's a decent chunk of money to help out.

Absolutely. And it's the only account of its type. So you contribute to that tax deferred, it grows tax free. And qualified withdrawals are tax free. The only account that has that triple tax benefit. So take advantage of that, you know, and do the max there. But aside from that, I would say, you know, make sure you're saving where you need to save. But for those of us who want to maybe retire early, make sure you're saving in non retirement accounts. Because again, there's all sorts of rules when it comes to retirement accounts. You can't touch it before 59 and a half. You, you know, and then, you know, once you turn a certain age, you have to withdraw from it, put your money in a individual or a joint or a trust brokerage account and save into that as well, systematically. So it's out of sight, out of mind. You know, $1000, 1500amonth, whatever gets put put into this account and gets automatically invested. And if you need any help with any of that, obviously look up your favorite financial advisors. We may be in Michigan, so reach out to us. But we can certainly help with not only choosing your investments and having that professionally managed for you, but we also do things like tax location, you know, where what type of account is best to put certain investments in or you know, things like text line, loss harvesting. We do all sorts of things like that with regards to tax strategy. But as business owners or as someone who wants to retire early, that is really, really important.

Speaking of retirement ages, health is a lot of things that affect men and women a little bit differently in a lot of cases because we both have different life expectancy. You know, women seem to live a little bit longer in some cases than a stressed out guys. You know what I mean? What are some things that they need that people need to look at in consideration of health and wellness as they get older?

Yeah, so that's a really good question. And we do something a little unique here because our clients do want to retire a little bit early. And so they say, well, I, you know, I just need to keep working till 65 so I can get on Medicare. Do you really want to work till 65 or do you want to retire now? Right, so we have solutions here that are a little non conventional. So yes, you can go out to Marketplace, you can see what health insurances you have available to you. That's not a group benefit plan and pay 1400, $1500 a month for that. Or we have unique benefits. This is something that I've done over the past five years. It's called medical cost sharing, which is not quite like medical insurance. But what you do is you pay, you know, a monthly contribution into a pot of money that you know, everyone else contributes to. And once you have a need, you go to this pot of money and you say, hey, I, I have a need. Maybe I needed to get stitches the other day. It was an emergency situation. You have an initial unshared amount, which is similar to a deductible, but it is not a deductible. It's an initial unshared amount. And. And then the community covers the rest of it. And so there's unique strategies like that that we can help you put in place and say, hey, does something like medical cost sharing make sense? Pair that with a direct primary care physician, someone who actually knows you. Direct primary care physicians don't take insurance. You just pay them a monthly, basically like a subscription, and you have full access to them. Maybe you have to pay for labs here and there, but for the most part, I mean, there's been nights where my kid has a weird rash and I'm FaceTiming my direct primary care physician on a Sunday night and I'm like, what is this? What is this? Holding the camera up to him because it's going to save me a trip to urgent care while they're in their pajamas in bed and this rash comes up and he can tell me right away, hey, it's this. Just give him some Benadryl and let me know how it is in the morning. Oh my gosh, five minute conversation versus loading out the kids in the car at 8 o' clock on a Sunday night. Driving to an urgent care. Having a direct primary care physician is incredible. So again, we have unique solutions like that. There are things to consider. There are things out there that can help you with medical insurance or medical care needs without it necessarily being insurance.

That's so true out there. Such a viable thing. And I think it's one unique thing from doing a little research on it. You guys do at Verde, such a unique job of kind of blending a lot of these needs and financial questions and financial wants and needs that we maybe not think about, but bringing it together totally for your clients. Is that correct?

Yeah, absolutely. We think outside of the box. You know, we, yes, we manage money. We manage money really well, if I might say so. But we also want to be those solution providers. You know, clients come to us like, hey, what do I do about this? Well, we're not going to give you the same old answer. We're going to really find out and dig deep and say, okay, what makes the most sense for you?

I love that. I love it. Now, you did say y' all are Michigan but you work with people all across the United States, correct?

Right, yes, all over. We are really good with technology. We're a tech forward company, so we should be. Right.

Well, that's. So you have to. These days, if you're not, you're falling behind the. But you get, get on the train or get run over by in a lot of cases. Right?

Exactly, exactly. But yes, we have clients all over the country. We have clients internationally. So really we can, we can help anyone in, in any time zone, anywhere.

Have you also do some estate planning as well?

We do, yes. So that is one of the six key areas of financial planning that we cover. Our estate estate planning solution is unique. It will work for 80 to 90% of our clients. 80 to 90% of people. But what we found is, you know, as we were going through financial planning with our clients, that was one area that we were always deficient in. And we're like, what is happening? Like, we tell our clients, hey, you, you need an estate plan. Like, why aren't you getting this done? I gave you a list of, you know, two or three attorneys to reach out to. Why aren't you doing this? Well, a couple of things. Number one, people don't like talking about their death. Turns out. So that makes it really hard for them to, you know, they think, oh, if I have to reach out to this attorney only to talk about me dying, like maybe I can just put that off. I'm not going to die right now. Right? We don't know that. But yes, I get that. Number two, attorneys are really expensive. I love all my attorney friends. They're wonderful. Great. They provide such a great service. But that's a lot of money for some people. So spending a few thousand dollars or $10,000 on an estate plan can be quite costly for some people. And then there's time. So it's that, you know, again, proactively reaching out to an attorney, setting up a meeting with them, talking about your demise, and then, you know, having them draft a document only to have to come back for another meeting and, you know, go through the whole signature process and everything. So we thought, how do we make this easier? We actually were at another conference Risk, which is now Nitrogen. They have this fearless investor summit. And we found a solution. So we found a partner. Their names are Trust and Will. They're great. They're wonderful. But they have, they do complete estate planning for our clients. So how that works is, you know, they ask you questions. It's a beautiful interface. It's easy, easy to answer the Questions that they have, you know, who, who do you want to be as beneficiaries? Who do you need as your children's minor, children's guardians? Is there anyone you want to exclude? You know, it takes into account that how do you want to divide your assets? Do you want your kids to be a certain age? But, you know, for getting these. And it lists out everything. There's a lot of cool modifications that you can do. And it's so easy, we can literally do it within a one hour meeting.

Wow.

So do the full estate plan, print it out, sign it, notarize witnesses, everything. We make copies, we put it into their electronic vault here. They take the hard copy home and it's done within an hour meeting. So, yes, estate planning is definitely something that we deliver on. If you have something a little bit more complex, we have partners for that.

Too, so I love it. You mentioned it was one of the six pillars. What are the other five pillars? I know we've talked about a couple already, but what are the other five pillars of what Verdi stands for when it comes to your vising clients?

So the first one is cash management. This is kind of like the lifeblood of your finances. Money coming in, money going out, how much you're saving, how much you're spending. You don't want to necessarily sacrifice today for a future you may not get to, but you also need to plan ahead for that future. So cash management is key. We also cover risk management, so protection planning, things like what would happen if something bad happens, if there's a premature death, if you're disabled, you can't work any longer, if there's a long term care need, how do you handle that? So protection planning, and that also goes too to, you know, property and casualty insurances. We've seen a huge increase in home and auto insurance premiums like crazy. So we take it upon ourselves to shop around for our clients because the more our clients are saving on home and auto, the more they can either spend for their, you know, for their lifestyle or save. So we want to make sure that they have the right coverage at the right prices. We also do investment planning. So all of the advisors here in our office sit on an investment committee. This is something that we do in house because we want to keep costs low for clients. We don't outsource investment management and charge you a fee on it. We do everything in house. So we put together all of our portfolios. They're proprietary, but we have the, the gamut when it comes to, you know, what are we investing in. So we always want to make sure we're in the best investments for each asset class and the most cost effective ones. So that's investment management. We also do tax planning like we had talked about, goal planning. So goal planning might include retirement education planning, sending kids to, you know, college, or making a big purchase like a home or anything like that. And then aside from goal planning, there is also estate planning, which we covered, and tax tax planning. So tax planning again would be, you know, tax location, tax, loss harvesting opportunities and all, all things like that.

I love it. Now what I have to ask this. When you got started, what made you go into this field? Is there a significant moment when you're a young girl that said, I want to go into this finance field? Or what's kind of your, what was your big why, why you got into this field?

That's a good question. I looked at my 22 year old self and said, I would trust millions with that woman. No. Was hard starting as a college graduate, but I was so obsessed with having a good career right out of college that I'm like, I didn't know any better. I just went with it. But it came about because I was, interestingly enough, a social science senior at Michigan State University. My degree is in psychology, which bodes very well when it comes to helping people with finances. But it was my, I think it was my junior year and I thought, oh my gosh, I don't want to go to school for another five to seven years to get my doctorate in psychology. And then, you know, I don't know that I want to be a clinical psychologist. So, you know, what do I do? So I took a course that was something fluff. It was like job search strategies for social science seniors. Very broad. But during this class it was really neat because, you know, we put together our resumes, we talked about interview strategies, things like that. But we also took this assessment that addressed our interests, abilities and values. And all three of those kind of intersected into a beautiful Venn diagram that in the middle was financial advisor. And I thought, well, that's funny because I've never considered that. So I started going down that path. I took a personal finance course, I took an econ course, and I reached out to a Michigan State alum who was a financial advisor. You know, most schools have these directories that's like, hey, you know, this, this alum is, is willing to, to talk to you about career, whatever. And he had really convinced me that like, if you want to do well, if you want to help people. And if you want to make a lot of money, financial advising is, is the place for you. And I was like, all of those sound amazing. Yes, I want to do that. And so I interviewed, I think I was studying for like my life accident health insurance exams while I was taking my finals at Michigan State because again, wanted to hit the ground running and yeah, that's how it all came about.

Very nice, very nice. What does the Future hold in 5, 10 years for Cindy Lundberg?

Oh, gosh, that is a loaded question, Scott. I don't know because we always say if we're doing the same thing, like, you know, we got to be doing, you know, our industry is ever changing. Did I think that I would be the marketing director for, you know, a small company five years ago? Absolutely not. But the need arose so I filled that need. So I don't know. I love what I do. I really, I love our clients. I love finding solutions for them and providing them with the best advice. It is so rewarding, like going through if you look at our Google reviews, I mean people have the nicest things to say about us. And I'm, I like Tinkerbell. I live for the applause. Right. So, so I'm just going to keep doing this until, you know, until somebody buys me out of this place.

There you go. Well, there's nothing wrong with, in loving what you do. That's better than hating what you do. Makes life a whole lot easier. Much more fulfilling to wake up every morning and get a little bounce in your stuff. A lot of cases, right?

Absolutely.

One of the things I always like to ask folks is you've, you've. It's definitely a different route. As a junior, sophomore and junior in college, I'm going go completely 180 angle change for you. Do you have a mentor that's really played an important part into it or maybe somebody you've learned from directly or somebody indirectly, maybe an author that's helped kind of guide your, guide your path that you really look for.

Yeah. So I'm a perpetual student. I love learning. I love that kind of growth mindset. So I, I don't have any one in particular, but I am constantly on the search for new ideas, new ways of looking at things, read a lot, listen to a lot of professionals in, in their own right, in their own field. And you know, one thing that, I guess one thing that, that did stick out when I was deciding to go from, you know, JP Morgan Chase motherboard to you know, small startup RIA firm, you know, you're going from a broker dealer to an raa. And in our world, that is like a massive change. You know, I had my series 7, I had my series 24 as a supervisory manager, and I was terrified to let those lapse because as an RAA, you only need the 66 or 65 or, you know, whatever I have. And so I thought, oh, my gosh, do I really want to make this move when I know that these licenses that I worked so hard for are going to lapse and there's no way around that? And, you know, I spoke with a colleague of mine, and she had kind of moved on from. From JP Morgan as well, and she said, I will never let my licenses define my career. And that stuck with me because I'm like, oh, my gosh, yes, that's something that I did. You know, I studied for exam, I took it, and now I have a license. But I'm not going to let that define my career. I'm making my own path. Right. So, yeah, that's. That's one piece of advice that stuck with me. If you're kind of like in a. Again, like this brain block of like, gosh, what do I do from here? Because I have all this experience, all this knowledge, these licenses, these things, it doesn't matter. Go do what you want to do, you know, go do what you're good at and what you have passion behind.

I think it's so important. I totally agree with that. Because when you study so hard for the licensing parts, it's not. They're not easy tests by any matter of imagination. 7, 24, 6, 63. Not. Not easy at all to. To pass those things. Sometimes you got to take them two or three times to get through.

Yeah, yeah. My. The Instructor for the 24, I remember him saying I was in a virtual class of 15 students. I was the only one who hadn't taken the exam yet. Everyone had taken it and failed. And he said, do this right the first time. Like, don't put yourself through this again. Just study right the first time. And I thought, oh, my gosh, those are serious words.

So, yeah, definitely, definitely. Very daunting to hear that for sure. But I think I love what you said out there because I think so many people, male or female, they allow things to tie us down that stop us to that safety, like holding on to that railing before we make that jump into something that's be much more rewarding emotionally, physically, or monetarily. And we let a lot of our doubts hold us back in a lot of Cases. So kudos for you for making that jump and not being afraid to go out and live your life and make those changes based on that versus licenses.

Thanks, Scott. Yeah, I appreciate that.

Biggest nugget you took away from fincon.

Oh, gosh. Meet everyone. I got to meet you, which was awesome. You know, you had. You've done business in Michigan before, so we kind of had that in common and Midwest roots. That was really cool to see in a room full of, you know, how many people were there? 1500 people or so?

Yeah, about 1500, 2000. Spread out through the whole hotel. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Representing 48 states, I think. I think she said so. There is so much knowledge, experience in that room. Meet everyone. Yeah, as many people as you can have those conversations. Don't. I. I went into fincon thinking, oh, gosh, I don't really know what to expect because marketing is so out of my realm. You know, I'm a financial advisor. What am I doing here at a marketing conference? Well, we're all marketers, right? Even as parents. Your marketers. Right. Like, eat this broccoli. It's like a little tree. You just gotta spin it the right way, you know?

That's right. So true. But that's. That's important to say. Yeah. People, all our markers. I always say it all the time. We're all in the marketing media space. Whether you're selling tiddlywinks, Twinkies, or tubas, you got to be in the marketing space.

Yes, exactly. So I. I got to connect with and meet so many neat people from all. All walks of life who do so many vastly different things, from podcasts to writing books to YouTube. And it's just. I mean, it's really. It was humbling because I thought, oh, gosh, I'm like, what am I doing? I'm not doing enough, you know? But then you realize you can't do everything.

No, it's. It's a proverbial onion. You peel back one layer at a time, you tackle one thing at a time, and you grow. And that's the great thing about attending every year, is you've grown as an individual and a marketer and as a content creator in a lot of cases. And you're. You're sort of being so overwhelmed, you're sometimes sharing your nuggets. You learn throughout the years, which is really great. So exactly what is the best way for our listeners or watchers or viewers out there? Audience. To connect with you, to follow up with you, to schedule a conversation, talk, to see if you're a right fit for them.

Yeah, that's a great question. So you can go to our website, verdace cm.com the CM is for capital management. Follow us on socials. Verde CapitalMGT on Instagram, Verde Capital Management on LinkedIn and Facebook. We also have a YouTube channel. So look at Verde Capital Management there. That is in its infancy. So this past year we did one video a month and now we're just going to, you know, go a little wild and go one video a week. So there's going to be a lot of good content out there. We are always open to feedback. You know, we find that some of the topics that we discuss are flops. And then some of the topics that we discuss are like, oh my gosh, I didn't know that was going to hit that hard. Like buying versus leasing a car. That is like our most watched video. And so, you know, check that out if you have those questions. But we're again, open to feedback, content, ideas, things like that. Because like I said, it's just us and our small team here and you know, we can, we can hammer out some videos.

There you go. Share the knowledge and edutainment, as we like to call it in a lot of cases out there for you. Yes, good stuff. Well, Cindy, thank you so much for coming on here and sharing your knowledge. And some nuggets on here today, the Nutcliffe Show. I guarantee you'll probably get some phone calls from some folks out there today.

Thanks, Scott. I really appreciate you having me on.

Yeah, great stuff. We'll see you again, hopefully in Portland this next year.

Sounds great.

Good stuff. All right, everybody, you heard Cindy talk about those six pillars. Things to focus on, things to start having conversations about. And not only for you ladies out there, but for the guys out there too. Make it a conversation. Make it a fun thing. If you're talking about those financial numbers and things that may be a little stressed about, hey, make it fun. Have a glass of wine or two. But put a plan in place so that you achieve your goals, whatever that may be. Retirement, job, job change, taking on entrepreneurship position full time. Go out, take some action, everybody, and we'll see you at the top. Sam.