You know what it is. That's right. It's time to talk money with your money nerd and financial coach. Now tighten those purse strings and open those ears. It's the money talk with TIfF podcast. Hey, everyone. I am so excited because I have Justin Chastain on the line, and Justin's here to talk to us about a little bit about being a certified financial planner. And AFC, he has so much ABC suit behind his name, it's crazy. He's here to talk to us about why he
got started doing it and just some lessons he's learned along the way. So, hey, Justin, how are you? I am doing well, Tiffany. And yes, all of that soup behind my name, I like to say more degrees than a thermometer. So you probably saved your listeners at least 30 minutes of airtime. Yes, yes. Well, I'll make sure it's in the show notes if you're really curious, but let's just hop right in. So why did you start on this journey of being a financial planner?
Well, it was very personal to me, and I've always been a certified nerd. I'm not ashamed to admit that around all things finances, I think so many people think that our industry is dry, but it's not because there's a lot of emotional and emotions behind it. And for me, this was very personal. When I was in college, my mom got sick, and then there was some medical
misdiagnosis after that. And to save the listeners, a long story, one diagnosed, turned into ultimately creating serious health complications, and she passed away at a very early age, in my opinion, of 62. And she would always enforce this saying, with my brother and I have a younger brother, and she would always say, don't buy green bananas. And it really just forced us to understand the concept of not waiting
until your golden years to do what you love to do. And she would always say, hey, the only thing golden in your golden years is your urine. And that always just triggered something with me. But the biggest thing was, as we were dealing with grief, there's a silver lining in that, that you don't ultimately just get over something. You learn to move forward with it. And in that moment, I said, you know, there's so many families out here struggling, and
they don't have plans with their finances. They don't know who to turn to. And I said, I could not imagine needing to be in this moment for the people that you care about and vice versa, them for you. And you have to worry about something as dumb as money. And I don't you and I know that money is very important, and that's our industry, but money is just the tool. Right? And from that period on, I said, I want to be able to help people learn that
you can give your dollar a purpose. You can empower your dollar. We can make finances fun, because we can ultimately have the power. If clients listen to what we say when life events happen, they can turn to us and say, hey, thank you. Because I didn't have to worry about money. I could just focus on my family. So started out my journey getting the accredited financial counselor, and I loved helping coach people, doing kind of the foundational steps for cash flow management.
And then I worked my way up with several other credentials all the way up to the CFP. And I've loved it ever since because I don't view my clients as just a number or investment advisory services. I really get to truly make an impact in people's lives in a positive way. Yes. And I love what you said about the realization that or the wisdom that your mom gave you before she passed where she's like, look, you need to live life. You know, life. I don't like to say life is short, but life is
finite. Like, at some point, we're all gonna have to go. And I was in a situation, like, when I first started this journey where I was just like, debt freedom. You know, I was heavy into Dave Ramsey, and I was like, you know, rice and beans, beans and rice. I just want to get out of debt. And then it wasn't until, like, a few years ago where I was like, you know what, Tiffany? At the end of the day, when it's time for me to go, I want to make sure that I
lived a life worth living. And so I was like, yeah, I want to be debt free. And, yeah, you know, I want to, you know, do all these things, but at the same time, I have to have some balance here. So I completely agree with what you're saying. And, you know, what I've realized over these years is that it's possible. Right? Like, it's possible to have both. Like, you can do, and it doesn't have to be. Or.
So let's talk about that a little more. So when your mom passed away and you decided to get into financial counseling and then eventually financial planning, was that one of the main goals was to help people realize that they can have and instead of or. Absolutely. And, Tiffany, I have to give you a shout out, because even the things that you talk about, you're so
authentic. And even when you've shared things that maybe, hey, when you go to the doctor, right, and you've had this, what I say, life awakening moment, you can either take that one or two ways. You can view it as, oh, my gosh, I just need to be on medication and live in this bubble because every little thing is going to affect my blood pressure or this or that, or
you can choose to start living. And one of the things that I always stress to my clients, and I think the misconception in our field is, well, if I went to a financial advisor or planner, they're just going to tell me a bunch of the stuff that I can't do. No, we're going to take a look at your values, and we're going to try to maximize the things that you want to do.
And then ultimately, yes, there might be some things we're going to tell or, you know, but that's going to be the things that you've told us. Hey, I don't really value this stuff over here. I had a mentor, and this even comes from me, because when my mom was going through her worst moments, and I think we just have to be vulnerable with our clients as well and be authentic. I was not in a very good place mentally. I let my health go. I gained a bunch of weight and had a very come to Jesus
moment with my medical doctor. And what my mentor told me, I was not in the best place financially. And we're seeing that in the data that when your mental and physical health goes, your financial habits start to go with it. They're all interconnected. And I remember I had reduced what I was putting into my Roth IrA, and I was spending money on things that I didn't value. And when my mentor looked at me, he said, do you value Verizon wireless
more than yourself? And I said, no. Why would you think that? He said, because on paper, that's exactly what you're saying. He said, if you want to travel, if you want better jobs, why aren't you putting your time, money and resources into the things that you say, that you're valuing? And really what a good financial planner or counselor will do is take a look at those values and just make sure that you're putting your resources into the things that you value so that you can have these and
situations. Because what we're seeing right now in the industry and what's scary to me, there was a research done by a PhD in our industry, and they conducted this survey and put this analysis together, and it said the most unhappy most people are in their working life here in the United States is from their late forties to their late fifties. And that's because they're typically chasing a bunch of
money to try to take an early retirement. But what I always tell people is, in order for you to get more money, what are you willing to sacrifice? If you've told me that you want to spend more time with your family or you want better health, if that job is not conducive to that, we need to take a step back. Because objectively, you've told me that you value these things over here, but yet you're chasing something that doesn't align with that just
right off the bat. And we're seeing a declination in life expectancy from the greatest generation into the baby boomers. And there's a lot of different reasons for that, but stress being the number one. One reason. So if you have a good planner or advisor, their biggest concern should be what are you valuing and then giving you ultimately those metrics for to have those and statements so that you can live your best life, it shouldn't be taking
away from your best life. So if it doesn't align with your short, medium or long term goals, then what are we spending on it for, you know? So let's switch gears a little bit. I want to talk about, like, if somebody's listening and they're like, okay, I hear you, Justin. I need a plan. I need a financial planner, not so much a financial coach. What are some things that they need to ask a potential financial planner in order to make sure that they align and they're making a
good decision? Great question, and I'm glad that you asked that because I talk a lot about this with prospects that might be interviewing multiple financial planners, or maybe they just need to see if they're ready for that next step. Right? So I would say the three biggest questions to ask and to keep it simple would be, number one, how do you get paid, you know, because not every advisor has to disclose that. There are ways around
that. I don't like that. I like full transparency. You know, if I, if I told you, you know, Tiffany, hey, I'm a financial planner and you asked me, well, Justin, how, where does most of your income come from? And I say, oh, repairing bicycles. You know what I mean? It's like, okay, well, that's counterintuitive, right? So I'm just saying I think a financial planner needs to make the majority of
their money off planning. And yes, they all, they can offer investment advisory services, but they just need to be transparent in that they don't need to hide behind that. The second thing is, who do you work for? You know the word, there's an f word, Tiffany, that gets thrown around in our society that nobody's offended by, and it's called a fiduciary. But you can be a fiduciary and just handle investments and still work for a particular company. Most independent advisors will
give you an engagement letter. And what that means is, is, hey, I may use Charles Schwab as our broker dealer, but I work for you. You know, my advice is, in the best situation for you. You need to be looking for something like that. And then thirdly, I would just say, you know, what is your investment strategy? They're not going to know that, Tiffany, until they understand that client. So if they want to talk all these big, glamorous strategies in the initial meeting, I wouldn't
be comfortable with that. I'm not saying that it's bad, but, you know, you mentioned earlier, you know, in our industry, we can have imposter syndrome, where you're just chasing certain credentials for the sake of it because it's not necessarily adding value to you. Now, if somebody has credentials, that's good, you can ask for those, but they really need to be in tune with where the client is and ultimately where you are now in order to be the best advisor for our
clients. Yes. I think you need to be involved in continuing ed, in teaching. I teach for Dalton. That certifies financial planners. Why? Because that is my capacity to give back as a leader. I do it only to help others. And I think, as we all have built businesses, if anybody ever tells you, hey, it's just because I've done everything, absolutely nothing, you've got to give back. And you had other help, and you had a little bit of luck. But me giving back and having a servant
leader mindset is so important to me. So a lot of the credentials that I even have just come from the education that I teach and I provide. But if I'm going to be the best advisor for my clients, I've got to be the best version of myself. So if you can walk away from those three questions, of course there's more that you can ask, and you could add a fourth in there. What are your credentials? But at the end of the day, that doesn't mean a lot to the client as
much as the first three that we ask. So if you can walk away feeling that they're in your behalf and they truly have your best interest, in mind that those are the questions that differentiate, I would say, the others from the true fiduciaries that are working on a client's behalf. Yes, I completely agree with that. Cause I feel like in our industry, financial advisor gets thrown around pretty loosely. So a lot of people. Go ahead. No, I was just gonna say and say. And way
too often. Right, exactly. And so sometimes they say that they're a financial advisor. Really, they're a salesperson, you know? So I think the questions that you gave our audience are really good starting points to get an idea of who this person is, where they get their money, who they work for, to see if they'll be working in your best interests or not. So I think that is a gem right there. So thank you so much, Justin, for
coming on the show today. Now, if people are interested in learning more about you or becoming a client, where could they find you? Yeah, so they can reach out to [email protected]. i work for an independent called parallel financial out of Greenville, South Carolina. I'm on the website, so I am official. And then again, I do have a LinkedIn, justinchastain at parallel financial.com. and I am on Facebook, and I think something called Instagram and
MySpace. Now, I don't have as many followers on MySpace, and even Tom has left me, but that goes to show you how much of an introvert that I can be at times, Tiffany. But I don't know why nobody's responding anymore. On MySpace, I heard all the young kids are still using that. I will say I am not well versed in social media at all. But as I've built my business out, I have started utilizing more of the functions. As you know, I'm going to start a podcast starting at the beginning of the year.
So if you put something on Facebook or reach out to me, I'm a little slower to respond to that and in full transparency, just to show people that, hey, I'm not afraid to show people that I'm human. I created a Facebook literally two weeks ago, and I was trying to upload my headshots and other stuff to Facebook, and then by accident, I uploaded a receipt that I was submitting for expense report and have no idea how I did
that. So if my social is kind of the first way you're going to reach out to me, you know, again, it might take me just a little bit longer. So email is typically the best form of contact. Gotcha. That is so funny. Yeah. Let's keep you off of social. Uploaded receipts, but I'll make sure that I have all of those links in the show notes for our audience. So again, thank you so much, Justin, for coming on the show, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of the
day. You too. And Tiffany, again, I just want to shout you out. You keep up the great work that you're doing, because, number one, I love your authenticity that you provide to our industry. Your personality shines through, and what you're ultimately doing for people in this space is creating a tremendous amount of goodwill. So continue to be yourself and do what you're doing because it's making a tremendous impact. I appreciate your show. I listen to it all the time.
And thank you for having me on. Aw, thank you so much, Justin. Don't make me cry for the people. But thank you so much and bye bye. Thank you for listening, joining and being a part of the Money Talk with TIFF podcast this week. You can check tiff out every Thursday for new Money Talk podcast. But if you just can't wait until next week, you can listen to previous podcast [email protected] or follow TIFF on all social media platforms at moneytalkwitht. Until next time, spend wise
by spending less than you make. A word to the money wise is always sufficient.