315: Unlocking Financial Wellness with Daniel Clarke

Most Superabound podcast episodes are geared to helping you grow your business. This week we focus on how to manage the outcomes of that growth, so you can create financial wellness. 

The fact is, many people, ourselves included, often find our mental wellbeing wrapped up in our financial situation. Have you ever noticed how concerns about money can turn into bigger concerns about your business as a whole, even leaking into other areas of your life? That's why mastering the inner game of money, or financial wellness, is so important. It will help you stay on track even during difficult times.

Join us and special guest Daniel Clarke of Farber Wealth as we explore how this important topic. Whether you're an entrepreneur looking to build sustainable wealth or just seeking a healthier relationship with money, this episode offers valuable insights for everyone.

You will discover:

• The importance of addressing emotional blockages to make good financial decisions
• How personal values and individual circumstances should shape your financial strategy, rather than what anyone else says about it
• The significance of making financial decisions you can live with, regardless of market outcomes
• Why looking at the long-term view is crucial for financial wellness, rather than focusing solely on immediate concerns

Listen in as Daniel shares how to create financial strategies that align with your values and goals. 

This topic is just one of the modules we'll be guiding participants through in the Lucrative Lifestyle Business mastermind, starting in January. Seats are limited, so apply today!

Learn more and apply for the mastermind here

Full transcript:

Steve Haase  0:00  
Hi. My name is Steve Haase. This is Erin Aquin, and we are here with our friend and a financial advisor expert in the field, Daniel Clarke from Farber wealth. We are going to talk about unlocking financial wellness. Welcome Daniel.

Daniel Clarke  0:21  
Thank you. Thank you both for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm excited to be on the Superabound podcast.

Steve Haase  0:28  
Absolutely. We're excited to have you, and we're going to talk about all things finances, all things kind of the inner game of wealth and wealth building. I also, however, want to talk, and I didn't mention this to either. I know you're gonna love it. Steve, about relationship based selling? Yeah, because we are clients of Daniels, he did a fantastic sales job with us, and it didn't even feel like that. It felt more like building a real relationship him being there to help us when we had a bunch of questions. And so we want to dive into that topic as well, because if you're a business owner and you're selling well, you will be better off financially overall. So the kind of the foundational piece to financial wellness is making sure that you've got finances, but once the money's there, there's a whole other world on how you actually thrive in relation to your money. And, yeah, have it be part of your Superabound life? Yeah,

Daniel Clarke  1:35  
it's actually a really great way, I think, to start the conversation. I think it starts with framing. You know, framing on from my end of things, right? And I don't look at it as me trying to sell people things. I approach it as me really trying to understand what it is you need and what it is that is important to you and the family and your values. And I'm always thinking about, how do I ask better questions? To really do deep dive into what it is you're trying to achieve, right? And then from there, the journey that we go on is really trying to address all those things and the end result or the outcome, and where I can actually feel like I can make recommendations, is just really trying to find solutions to the challenges that you have, right? Most people aren't in exactly the place they want to be financially. So we're taking you from a journey from where you are today to where you want to be at some point in the future. And really the product is they're just tools to problem solve, right? And so that's how I see it. And I see it more of the clients and the people we work with as buying things or tools that will solve their problems, as opposed to me trying to sell something. So I don't come at it from a strategy first, trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It's understand you, your family, your needs, and how do we find the right tools to solve those problems or challenges

Erin Aquin  3:06  
so good i i really appreciated that in our sales process, and I talk about this a lot, especially when we are teaching sales, because financial services are not things people traditionally get really excited about when they feel, especially when they feel like someone is just trying to sell them a product, and your whole approach. I'm not even sure I've ever shared this with you, but both of my parents were bankers, and my mom was a financial advisor, and we would be like, out at the mall or out at a grocery store, and people would just like, come up to her and hug her. I'm not sure if that's like a common with bank employees. And she would always say, like, I can't tell you who that person is, but I met so many of her clients who told me who they were in relationship to her. So I've always had this understanding that when you really care in your business, whatever your business is about, helping people, you're always going to have better relationships. You're always going to have clients coming in the door, and I think that is probably the first moment where I really clicked with you. Daniel was noticing how you I have all the presentations I kind of saw you give, and the places that we interacted. You never got up there and said, This is what you entrepreneurs have to do, and this is how you have to approach finances and wealth. And I had heard so many people do it that way. I'd so I had so many people making a really scary declarations about the state of the world and like, just so negative. And I really connected with you, because you. Who told me things about being a business owner that I didn't know, and helped me figure out the things our business needed, so and our and what our family needed exactly what you said, taking the time to get to know us and not just applying the product you have in your in your in your toolkit to us. So we really appreciate that, and we talk about that a lot in relationship based sales. So just a thank you for for that and for being a an exemplary teacher of of creating real relationships with people before you ever sell them anything.

Daniel Clarke  5:49  
Yeah, wow. Thank you. It sounds like your mom was really valued by those people.

Erin Aquin  5:53  
She was her retirement party was a big deal. People still send her holiday cards, like her old clients from I guess she's been retired for 10 years or so now well,

Steve Haase  6:05  
and it speaks to how sensitive an area money is for people. When you have someone that you feel is in your corner in relation to your finances, you can kind of imprint upon them. This is my person. They're there to help me. They're there to save me. They're there to guide me. Because people really get twisted up around money, whether it's they don't know a lot about it, or they don't trust themselves with it, or it's such an emotional topic, that's really why I wanted to open this up with you. Is, you know, you and I had a fascinating conversation around how emotional it is and how much of a burden it can be on people, whether they have a lot or don't have a lot, many people find it to be a burden so

Unknown Speaker  6:54  
or what they think is not a lot.

Unknown Speaker  6:57  
Yeah, the mindset

Speaker 1  6:59  
around it is always challenging to navigate. I think exactly and

Steve Haase  7:04  
so I think we don't have as many answers on this, on this episode, as we do things to consider, or kind of questions for for each of us to roll around when it comes to how we want to handle our finances, how we want to think about and be with our wealth, whatever that might be.

Daniel Clarke  7:27  
And the emotional side of things is really important and needs to be addressed. You know, throughout the the journey the relationship right? Because we often find that people have certain blockages or things that they really need to address before they can actually move forward with, you know, acting on the financial side of things, you know, yeah, things like putting a will together or or updating their will, or, you know, the, maybe the accounting and tax side. So there's all those. There's often other professionals that are part of the, you know, part of the team as well that we need to work with, because there are other blockages that are sort of preventing, you know, people from moving forward with what they need to do financially, right? So we, you know, we the more we can integrate and collaborate with those other professionals and take care of some of those other things that are really weighing on people's minds and holding them back potentially, is a really key thing to do as well, you know, and you can't put a time frame on these things right? You just you need to go through that. And sometimes an engagement with clients is three months, and sometimes it's a year, but you just need to work through the steps, to educate and to understand, to be able to make recommendations. And it's the other thing I wanted to just say, is is never black and white, you know? And it's kind of Erin's point, right? It's like there's never one size fits all for you as an entrepreneur, or you as a parent or you as a family. It's different, and we operate in shades of gray. And life is like that too, right? So for me to say to anyone, you need to do this, because that's what all business owners need to do it. It just doesn't work. It doesn't it doesn't fit everyone, right? So without understanding and a deep understanding, you really can't get into those nuances and then provide sort of a range of options, because it's never just a black and a white, right? There's always extreme ends of the spectrum, and we need to find areas to move forward within that range of that spectrum. I'm

Erin Aquin  9:35  
so glad you said that, too, because I think what often happens, and I'm going to speak for the pocket of entrepreneurs that we often work with. The finances are often so important to the lifeblood of the business, and yet it's the last thing anybody wants to work on. Every entrepreneur is like the last person. In their accountants office to get their taxes in like and it's so easy, I think, to latch on to the financial people who tell you that there is a rule, and there is this, you this is the thing you have to do. So I love that your approach is so holistic, because I'm with I'm with you on that. I don't think that. I don't trust the people who are telling me how, how it is and how it's going to be and how, based on, you know what happened 10 years ago, how this is going to be the the future of the industry. We as entrepreneurs, I don't think tend to trust that, because we know how often things fluctuate and how so many moving parts in the world that aren't even far outside of our own industries can affect our business. So I think that the open approach is what builds so much trust. And I would just really for any business owners out there who tend to latch on to a confident sounding person who's never met you and knows nothing about your business. If that is your financial person, you may want to expand your horizons a little bit, because it may not actually be what you need. It might sound good, and it might feel like, oh, I can just delegate this one. I think, I think when it comes to finances and financial wellness, specifically, it's not something we can delegate out, because we are the people who know our businesses well. We are the people who know what our families want and need, and, and you had some really great questions for us to really, I felt, I feel like you really coached us through that process of figuring out what that was and and coming to a place of of understanding,

Steve Haase  11:55  
yeah,

Daniel Clarke  11:55  
you know, good if I could just jump in quickly. Steve, a good example, you know, is people's feelings and emotions around debt, right? And that's probably something we'll talk a little bit about, considering financial wellness. But you know, sometimes the mathematical answer isn't the best one, or is the right one for you, right? Because, like, yeah, you can crunch the numbers and one route or one option could be better off for you from $1 perspective, which you know logically would say, I should do it like this. But some people just have a real challenge with debt, and they just don't like being in debt and owing anyone anything in a bank, right? And so you need to make that actually a priority. And you might do that even if it means a sacrifice somewhere else, because you just have to take care of that stress and reduce it, right? So, yeah, sometimes mathematically or logically, there is a correct way to do things, but that's not always the right way for the individual or for that family, right?

Steve Haase  12:57  
Which brings us to what I think is the central, like foundation of this topic, which is what will have you sleep well at night. The whole topic is so emotional. There is no one right answer, because no one can possibly know not only what's right for you, but what's going to happen in the markets next, whatever decision you make. I've been thinking about this a lot in preparation for our conversation, but I've been thinking about this for years like this has been a big topic ever since I started in tech and had any money to speak of. The decision you make has to be one that you can back up, even when things don't go well after that decision. If you choose to sell your position in a startup stock that you had, and the thing goes to the moon, you're going to look back and part of you is going to want to say that was a terrible decision. But if you were intentional in why you sold it and you knew your reasons. Then being, being,

Speaker 1  14:06  
yeah, not beating yourself up about it, bringing

Steve Haase  14:09  
that to the fore, and being conscious and saying, This is why I sold it. Yes, it might have gone to the movement. It also might have gone into the garbage. I sold it because I didn't want to take the ride into the garbage. And I was okay, you know, letting it go to the moon and not being as as heavily concentrated. Each of these questions, these moments where you're like, Oh God, I'm out of the market. Oh, I'm in the market. I'm I'm in fixed income. When you know interest with any of these things that you look back and want to beat yourself up over, be kind like your ability to sleep at night is worth way more than the gains you might have had this month or next month and and end of lecture.

Daniel Clarke  14:56  
And I think where a lot of people get get stuck. Like is they're very focused on the here and the now, right and next week, when the next paycheck comes in, the next mortgage payment, I think if you can, what we try to do is get people to lift the gaze right and look upwards. And, you know, using the Superabound kind of philosophy of setting some lanterns and some guide markers on that journey up the mountain. Right is you don't have to have it exactly figured out to a specific dollar value, dollar value or date in time, or whatever it is that you're reaching for. But if you can have some guide posts and some markers to help you make decisions that are with a long term view in mind, versus what's just the right thing to do right now, because they're very different, right? And so I think when you can give yourself that perspective and step back, and that's where we help people do that is now I'm making decisions based on a different future that I'm looking or striving towards, as opposed to, how do I just get through this week? Yes, right. And so now the decision making, which is what it is, it's framing to help you make decisions around your finances. Where are my priorities and values, and how is each dollar that I'm generating for myself and my family being put to good use and with a future in mind? Yeah,

Erin Aquin  16:22  
one of the things that we sometimes have clients do with their decisions. Were you going to say this to you? Are you having you're having a psychic moment where, like, not me, it's my turn. One of the things we often talk about is keeping a decision log, because you can be very intentional in the moment. You can have that like we looked up and into the future that we want to create. But so often people's money mindset, their old patterns, just kick right in, and they will go to that place where they're beating themselves up. So I usually suggest, when people are starting to really focus on their financial wellness, that they actually keep a log, or some kind of a tracking system, of the decisions that they made and why they made them. It's so much better to be able to look at something, you know, we we made an investment once that turned out to be really bad and there were red flags along the way that we really missed. If I had been intentional and sat down and written out the reasons that I made the decision, I might have caught the red flags. I might have made the decision anyway, knowing us, we probably would have just done it, because that's how we roll. But having a really clear in front of me written from my past self intentional statement about why we decided to do what we did, it just cuts away so much of the noise. And to your point about like, can you sleep at night? I probably would have slept a little better at night knowing that I had reasons at the time, knowing what I knew, that is why I made that particular financial decision,

Steve Haase  18:09  
yeah, so that we're not revisionist historians on our own life,

Unknown Speaker  18:13  
which is what a lot of folks do. I was

Steve Haase  18:15  
such an idiot. You're like, No, you were perfectly, you know, fine, given the set of information that you had, I

Daniel Clarke  18:23  
have that conversation often, and that's exactly what I you know, people get to a certain point in their life and and they think, why did I make that financial decision? Why did I invest in in that product or that thing? And I said, Look, you know, but if you take yourself back to that period in your life, you made the decision that was the right thing to do at the at that time, and now you're in a completely different set of circumstances, and it's okay, right? What you did wasn't wrong back then.

Steve Haase  18:51  
You know, one of my so I just finished the psychology of money by Morgan Housel and Daniel, and I geeked out very much so on, on how great, how great it isn't Erin, Erin that introduced it to me in the first place, and the the thing that blew my mind, that he shared was the whole idea of having to deal with money in the way that we do today, like make sure you have enough when you're 7080, 90 and 100 is like 20 years old. I mean, okay, maybe 40 years old, but it is not in our evolutionary DNA. There is no part of us as human beings that has ever had to deal with how do I care for my financial well being 50 years from now? And so it makes sense that we're going to do things emotionally and on a rash kind of like we always joke that the stock market is just constantly a giant freak out. You know, everyone's just freaking out in the markets, just emotions. It makes sense that it's just this giant emotional freak out, because we're only, like, 100 years into this. This idea so we can be gentle with ourselves. Yeah,

Erin Aquin  20:05  
and not only, not only, you know a lot of mean, we're all coming into some people are aren't making the exact same amount of money as their parents made. They're doing money in the same way their family has done it for generations. That is not usually the case. Like I had no money growing up, money was a constant topic. And as lovely as my my parents are, they had some, you know, beliefs about money that were not totally helpful to me when I actually started to make serious money, and sometimes my old patterns of wondering if I was going to make the rent come up and I have to look at my bank account. And remember, there was a time in my 20s where I would have looked at this number in my bank account and thought I am so rich, and now I'm like, it's all ending. It's all falling apart like that is just it is it is so much more emotional than mathematical and the well, I love that we're talking about it as financial wellness, because it really does. You have to acknowledge that you're going to I'm going to have a different pattern than my partner when it comes to spending and saving. And if we don't know that about each other, we're not talking about it, whether it's in business or in your personal relationships, there's going to be tension, because I'm going to think Steve just doing it wrong, he's going to think I'm doing it wrong. If we can't talk about that, we are in trouble. And that is, unfortunately the case for a lot of folks out there.

Daniel Clarke  21:53  
Yeah, you know, and I think, you know, I didn't grow up in a wealthy situation, either, you know, very you know, there was challenges, there was struggles financially. And, you know, I think when you think about the word wealth and creating wealth, that has, often, for a lot of people, a lot of negative connotations, right, especially if you grew up without and the thing that I find interesting is that wealth is a relative term. If you think about it, like your version of wealth, and mine and Steve's and many other they're all going to be different, right? So the idea is, we really want to try to figure out what's your version of wealth, and how do we get our clients and individuals to achieve that version of wealth. And when you start getting into comparisons with neighbors and colleagues, and you're going down a very dangerous path, and Morgan household talks about that a lot, is like, that's not a game you want to be playing. You're playing your own game. We talked about that. Steve Right, is the comparison game. And the Keeping Up with the Joneses idea is, is, you know, you're heading down a really negative path, right? So we really want, you know, the individual to see what's their wealth journey, right? And how do we set them on a path to achieve that? And, yeah, retirement for 20 or 30 years of our life is a really new phenomena. And so, you know, we have to be really conscious of that. And I think a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking they need to start with a lot to create even more. But that's really not the case. They really need, ideally, is just creating really good habits around how their money flows into their life and how they're putting it to, you know, putting it to use in a way that's meaningful to them, right? And so putting a little bit aside every month over a really long period of time is really the way that money works its magic, right through through compound growth. So it's really about good habit creation, yeah, and

Steve Haase  23:57  
tying it into the idea of financial wellness. It's absolutely the same as your physical wellness, your emotional wellness, your relational wellness. You can't fix it with one you can't go out and run a marathon. To fix poor health.

Speaker 1  24:17  
That would make it really bad. That would land. You know,

Steve Haase  24:22  
it's like when people who are impoverished win the lottery, like that, money is there for a couple of years, and then it's gone. The wellness needs to be in those habits that you create. You can't have a great relationship by, you know, going to Hawaii with your partner, you're like, hey, we, you know, we went to this beautiful place. Now everything's great. I mean, it doesn't hurt. It wouldn't hurt, just like ringing the lottery wouldn't hurt your finances. But if that foundation that is landing on is non existent, there's nothing's going to happen. And so it is those I love how you frame it as you. The habits that you have, those daily actions you take, those you know our kids, they don't want to brush their teeth, like stop not brushing your teeth. You just do it every single day. Just stop not doing it. You just do it every day. And so same with financial wellness. What are those habits that you just do every month. You just put some aside, you invest it in whatever's going to have you sleeping well, I love it,

Erin Aquin  25:30  
and you use it when you want to use it like that's another piece of it, which I also really appreciated about our our work with you, Daniel, it's not just about saving, not just about saving and death and all the and all the things, but also, like, what do we actually want to have liquid in our lives, so that we can do fun things, like go to Hawaii for a month, so that we can take vacations? Because, yeah, as we've talked about, like life is unpredictable, and may we all get to a place where we get to be healthy and wealthy and in our 80s and 90s. But unfortunately, that isn't the path for all of us. And I'm definitely, I'm not this is, this is my pattern. Is I am not a spend a save forever person. I like to do fun things and go places. I like we've spent so much, we've invested so much in our home being a really amazing place, not just for us, but for the people that come and have retreats here that feels like financial wellness that's totally alive and well in our life, as we do all of the good habits, yeah, you still get to enjoy what you have and and I think that's something I really appreciated about working with you in kind of a customizable way, is that was allowed to be important by some like, not, not down on every financial person, but a lot of financial people really have a, you know, save only kind of mentality,

Daniel Clarke  27:13  
yeah, think you need to create meaning and purpose around the money that you create for yourselves right through the work that you do, right? So that, I think, when you know, trying to, I think, you know, sacrificing and taking things away is not really setting people up for success, right? Because you might be able to do it for a period of time, but then, you know, willpower eventually kind of grinds down, and then we're back to those old habits, right? So creating meaning and purpose around what our money is doing for us, because if you think about it, really, what money provides you with is time and freedom of choice. Yes, right? And so you know, again, creating your own version of wealth and putting that money toward the things that you value the most, and so using your time to do the things you want to do, and giving you options, right? And so that's all you know. That's something we often talk about as well as, yeah, I mean, we all work so hard to create for our families, you need to be getting satisfaction out of that and yeah, really money is a tool to use your time and spend your time how you want, and gives you a lot of options, right? So, yeah, that's kind of the approach or the mentality that try to encourage people to think along those lines,

Steve Haase  28:34  
yeah, that's beautiful,

Speaker 1  28:35  
especially as entrepreneurs. Yeah, I

Steve Haase  28:39  
want to share one of my favorite things to do, to appreciate the money that I have, and it is writing down all the things that I want. Because, you know, I kind of thinking about the future, what I want to create, you know, what, what I could do with, you know, certain amounts of wealth, or what I'd like to have in my life, or experiences I'd like to do. But while I'm doing that practice, also pointing my mind towards the things that I currently have. So I'm like, I want a beautiful house. Like, guess what? I have a beautiful house. You know, I want really nice car. Guess what?

Erin Aquin  29:23  
I have a really nice car. Thanks to me. I was like, I'm like, this car that we have is not comfortable. I drive too much. We need a nicer car than this.

Steve Haase  29:33  
And so it's fun to be deliberate and kind of let yourself dream about what I'd like to have in my life, but also spending time wanting and like feeling that kind of pleasurable desire for for creation and and and the embrace of the world, the embrace of life, for those things that are currently in my life, that have worked so hard to create. Yeah,

Erin Aquin  30:00  
yeah. And that, I mean, we've been talking a lot lately about how so many people, like, diminish the idea of, like, a lifestyle business. They're like, Oh, aren't you cute with your lifestyle business where you work four days a week and you take weekends off, ha, ha, you're clearly not a serious business owner. And I just think I have a life where I like, we can walk our kids to and from school every day. We don't have to work evenings. We don't have to work weekends. We still get to enjoy the lovely things we've created, and we get to do the things like, when you time is my big that is where my heart, like, I don't really care about stuff. I'm like, I just want time and experiences with with with people. But having a business that we've created, like the one we have money and financial wellness, fits in with that. Because none of this time would exist if that, if we were just kind of willy nilly with with cash flow, you know, if we hadn't kind of gone on this journey. And I just think, like, Yeah, like that, to me, is true wealth is it is like getting to do the things you really want with your time, with your energy, when I walk into my business to sell something I'm never selling from desperation, I can always take time and like you do, like Daniel, you do this so beautifully. I can take the time to build a deep relationship with someone, and then only if it's right and I have something that is great for them, do we go on that adventure? But I'm never looking at my clients like dollar signs. There's no urgency or scarcity around it, and I think that at least for the kinds of kind of coaching work we do, that makes it more attractive for our clients to have us as their coaches, because we're not like, please hire us because we need to feed our children. There's none of that. So, yeah, I just, I really appreciate that that financial wellness also has such an incredible ripple result in your business, because you can be at ease, and you can connect, and you can take the time. And people who are trying to pay the pay the mortgage, I mean, don't always have that luxury. So it's very important, anybody who's been ignoring their finances, please stop because you need it. It's not going away. That's not going away. Tax Time is coming. It's always coming.

Steve Haase  32:50  
So Daniel, any words of wisdom to leave people with as we wrap up the conversation?

Daniel Clarke  32:59  
I mean, just kind of a summary, I guess, on how I think about financial wellness. You know, I always come back to just starting with a plan Ryan, and trying to raise the gaze and look beyond onward and upward. And, you know, plant some markets, some lanterns, if you will. And then it's really just about taking those first steps, right? And it's, don't have to do everything all at once, but it's the first step that where you start to make some change and really just setting some intention about the things that you want to achieve, what you would like to be different, about your financial situation, and I think thinking about the people in your life that you value the most, and how your money and your finances affect those people, or how you want it to impact those people, right? And so how do we create a set of values or a plan around that?

Steve Haase  33:53  
So, good, brilliant. Where can people go to learn more about you and connect? Yeah,

Daniel Clarke  34:00  
I'm on LinkedIn, so they can check out my LinkedIn page, which I would imagine is available to those people that are on LinkedIn live.

Steve Haase  34:08  
We'll link to it in the show notes as well. We'll have it on the web page, and

Daniel Clarke  34:13  
then, yeah, email is always a good place to connect as well. And I think that would be probably linked in the show notes as well. So those are the best ways to reach me, through LinkedIn and email. Brilliant,

Steve Haase  34:25  
Daniel, thank you for your time. I This is such a fun conversation to always have. It's the kind of thing that I feel like it's always new for me. I always need a good reminder on how to be financially well, because it's often so abstract and kind of outside the day to day, that pausing to really consider it, and like you said, plan for that next step is always valuable. So thank you, and

Erin Aquin  34:55  
thank you for being such a generous example of amazing relationship based. Sales, yeah, thank you for always being our and we point to you so often about that. And I just think it's, it's a, it's a beautiful and generous thing that that you share with folks. So we appreciate you.

Daniel Clarke  35:19  
Thank you. Thank you for the kind words and for having me on the podcast. Means a lot.