Speaker 1: 0:31

My name is Jason Howell and I'm the founder of Jason Howell Company, a family wealth management firm.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Beautiful. Now give me a backstory about yourself and how you got into your industry and why you decided to take the route that you did.

Speaker 1: 0:45

Gosh. Well, a little bit by accident, I've always been entrepreneurial and so that started from way back, being a little kid mowing lawns, waiting until I could have the work permit at 14 years old in eight months, which is what Fairfax County requires, so I could go work at Toys R Us. But still entrepreneurial, and over time I started dabbling and looking at small business, looking at how that could be a catalyst for my own growth and the opportunities for me. But still I didn't really start into business for a while. My first real job after Toys R Us we'll call that one sub-real Rest in peace, by the way.

Speaker 1: 1:20

Yeah, rest in peace. First real job was at a bank, and that was just because my sister worked at a bank while she was in college, and so I worked at a bank when I was in college, very, very normal. I worked full-time, and so that was a bit of a challenge, but one that my dad thought should be no problem. And so, good old dad, 12 hour days on Monday, wednesday, friday, and then the the final four hours on Saturday, and so I was a student on Tuesday and Thursday, and on Monday, wednesday, friday and Saturday I wore suits at an 18, 19 and 20 20-year-old. So that's how I cut my teeth on finance. That's back in the 90s, back when checking accounts had 1%, savings accounts gave you 3%, cds gave you something similar. I learned about cashier's checks and money orders and, just at the time, traveler's checks. So this was sort of the accidental like wow, I'm learning about personal finance and it's how I really got started.

Speaker 2: 2:19

That's an incredible journey. Was anybody in your household like in the finance world?

Speaker 1: 2:24

Not intentionally. As I mentioned, my sister got this part-time job and then full-time job while she was in school, and so it just it was better, I suppose, than working at a restaurant, or so At least that's what my dad thought. He taught business, and so perhaps anything in business kind of made sense to him. So I followed her footsteps and went right into banking, and that was the closest was really my dad being in business as a professor.

Speaker 2: 2:48

Yeah, I was wondering where you and your sister got the itch to just delve into that world. So I guess your dad having that entrepreneurial spirit as well and like kind of telling you guys like hey, get that permanent 14. Let's get you going right, like he was like hit the ground running.

Speaker 1: 3:02

Well, I mean, I think he was encouraging of us to do this kind of stuff, but it was certainly me having the catalyst of I would like some money.

Speaker 2: 3:11

And so how do I get some money? That's a big motivator.

Speaker 1: 3:13

right there we had a big family, so money wasn't just being passed around like a deck of cards, and so I figured the only way for me to really get it was to work. And so I did start with mowing lawns even without a lawnmower, Because I figured everyone else had a lawnmower. Oh, Garth, would you be getting scissors or something? Well, everyone who owned a home typically had a lawnmower. I just said I'll mow lawns. Knock, knock, knock, Can I mow your lawn? And they would look around and say where's your lawnmower?

Speaker 2: 3:36

I'm going to borrow yours.

Speaker 1: 3:43

Pretty sure you have one and I was right. I was 100% right. So talk about like services. I knew very early on that I was going to be a service guy and that's exactly what I was. So cleaning up backyards and then mowing lawns, eventually getting the job and then transitioning into wearing a shirt and tie actually a suit and tie at the young age of 18, driving on 66 and fighting traffic.

Speaker 2: 4:01

Oh my gosh, you look good. Excuse me, Wait. No, you're not 66. You're saying the road 66. Yeah, no, not quite 66, yet I need to know, like your healthcare routine, your wellness route Not quite that good.

Speaker 1: 4:12

Okay, okay no route 66 for the microphone Route 66. Okay, thank you so yeah, doing that from a very early age kind of gave me this head start in thinking you know, do I want to live this life or do I really want to be entrepreneurial? And it wasn't until much later. I majored in accounting at George Mason University and still very involved as an alumnus with George Mason University, very happy with what they're doing at the College of Business now the Costello College of Business.

Speaker 1: 4:42

I'll let people know that and so, as an accounting major, I knew that this was giving me some level of superpower for understanding the business world, and I knew that would be a launch for me, and it was.

Speaker 2: 4:54

Yeah, absolutely. You've had quite a diverse background here. I want to ask you and then you also teach financial planning at GMU how have these varied experiences shaped your perspective on wealth management?

Speaker 1: 5:08

Well, it's given me a really good idea of how this is often not received by the public. In fact, I wonder how many in the public actually get it. And when I say it, I mean finance. And when I say finance I mean the economy. So much of the economy has been driven by finance. This generation really going a couple generations back, and not as many people have been able to grasp that reality. As I said, I was kind of lucky, accidentally working in banking while I was in college, majoring in accounting, because there were lots of jobs in the paper for accounting, so why not? And then when I took my first class, it said it was by Meigs and Meigs I still remember the author and the title was Accounting the Basis for Business Decisions.

Speaker 1: 5:54

Oh my, I thought this is perfect, and the first chapter, the first page, said most entrepreneurs have an accounting background, and I thought this is exactly what I thought I was going to be doing, and so this sort of serendipitous pathway towards doing what I do now encouraged me to also follow those footsteps of now my dad, who taught business. By the way, he taught everything except accounting and finance. And so here I was now, finally, teaching it.

Speaker 1: 6:23

You know, I taught for him a couple of times. So he had classes that he had to teach and he would get to the accounting chapter and he said, jason, would you like to come and teach that accounting chapter? And I thought, sure, how sweet. It was really cool. So, in front of the class, teaching the accounting chapter to all these students, and who was sitting in the back? My dad, how did you feel? I felt really good until I saw him nodding off and I realized that maybe I should bring a little more energy to this class. And so I did.

Speaker 1: 6:56

But it wasn't out of all the things in business, accounting and finance, those numbers weren't exactly his thing, and so maybe that was part of my encouragement. Another part of my encouragement most people who major in accounting end up switching majors, and accounting was also hard. For me it wasn't easy when I got to the 300 level the first couple of courses they're really easy and you have to take them, no matter what kind of business major you are. But then, when you get to the 300 level, it starts to test how much were you really locked in and paying attention, and I was challenged by it too.

Speaker 1: 7:24

So I'm sitting in the weed out class at George Mason and slowly but surely all the good looking people leave and they go major in marketing and then all the other people go major in, like MIS, which was the IT of the time, and it was like just six of us left in this boring, dank class fighting our way through intermediate accounting. But I fought and fought and I stayed, and part of wanting to stay was really just being defiant and saying I don't want to switch majors because a lot of people end up doing that in accounting. I do believe Meigs, and Meigs was right. It is a great basis for business decisions and so it has helped me throughout my career, even though I switched from it after about eight years. I didn't do it for a year or two, I did it for eight years and eventually I got into personal finance.

Speaker 2: 8:14

That's incredible, and did your dad inspire you to start teaching like moving that path forward to GMU? Was that like your first introduction to teaching or was there something else before that?

Speaker 1: 8:24

Well, he always thought that I could be a good teacher, so it was very encouraging. He always, like any good parent, thought that I could do anything, so that's kind of nice. Okay, my dad passed away in 2010.

Speaker 2: 8:38

And so I'm so sorry 2009,.

Speaker 1: 8:40

Actually, 2009. And so it was before I ever started teaching, and I had gotten a really lucky opportunity to teach after being a part of a forum in Arlington, and one of the people who was there happened to work at American University, and she suggested that maybe I could take my personal finance acumen and just go and teach this fraternity that was having a seminar on personal finance, pizza, the whole deal, and just be there. And so there I was. I stood in front of this group I knew from years before not to be boring and gave my bullet points of personal finance to this group, and I think they enjoyed it. And then again, that back of the room is always important Someone came up from the back of the room and it turned out it was the head of the finance department and he said you know, we've been looking for some new adjuncts.

Speaker 1: 9:31

Would you be interested? And so I said yes, and so in 2015, I started as an adjunct of personal finance for the Kogod School over at American University, and I've been doing that all the way up through last year as an adjunct professor. But in 2020, george Mason University finally decided to start a curriculum that would qualify students to take the Certified Financial Planner Professional Exam.

Speaker 2: 9:58

That's a mouthful.

Speaker 1: 9:59

It is. It is a lot, but that program is similar to other programs. For example, there's one in Virginia Tech where, if you go through their program as part of your major, when you graduate you can take that CFP exam and now qualify to be a professional in finance. So we adopted such a program in 2020. And I think, in part because of my involvement with the school and in part because of my experience, they asked me to teach the introductory course. So I've been teaching that introductory course since 2020. And it's been quite an experience to be able to sit with students and now not only tell them about personal finance in general, but also tell them about this amazing career.

Speaker 2: 10:39

And what are their reactions like? Since it is an introductory class, Are some of them like shocked or something like I'm just going to take this class to fill a seat, or like get it out of the way? Do you see, like maybe that perspective change or shift? Or maybe some people are like they're already excited, but you like brought in their horizon that they're like I had no idea.

Speaker 1: 10:54

The Like they're already excited, but you like brought in their horizon that they're like I had no idea. The greatest benefit of this course is how practical it can be, and I make it practical, and it just is everything that you're probably thinking about, no matter what age you are. How do I make good money? How do I show others ie my friends, my family how to make money, whether it be in the markets, whether it just be to save and, by the way, there's a whole profession for this? Wow, it sounds interesting. So this is a 300-level course, and you'll have people who are just starting their major, and they could be considering, in fact, the majority are thinking about straight finance, corporate finance. Others are thinking about accounting I understand them and they're just thinking about doing that. They get to my course, though, and there is time for them to switch their concentration. George Mason University has concentrations now, and I've been very fortunate to say that a few of them have switched because they've realized what this profession is.

Speaker 1: 11:52

It used to be, and this was back when I was in school, and I had the opportunity to join this profession very early on, and I turned it down Because, at the time, if you wanted to be in personal finance, it was really about being in a commissioned sales position. That was all it was. And here I was with an accounting degree. I sat through actually six interviews at one of the well-known firms in the area, and the last interview was just them handing me a letter saying you've got the job. And so what's the job? Well, the job was to, basically, for eight hours a day, cold call and have conversations with people and see what happened.

Speaker 1: 12:30

And I would do that for two weeks, five bucks an hour, and if I succeeded in that, yes, I could also pay for the exams, the securities licenses. I had to pay that out of pocket, and if I succeeded, then they would send me to Minnesota where they do a one-week training and I thought, okay, well then, after the one-week training would I have a salary? No, no, no, then you'd still go back to the phones and you'd be cold calling again. Oh, my goodness, I thought this is odd.

Speaker 2: 12:57

Very odd.

Speaker 1: 12:57

I have a real degree, so I'm going to go ahead and start in accounting and I'll maybe come back to this. And I almost did. Two years later I almost came back to it and had an opportunity to have a conversation with someone. They said, yeah, you know, come in, it's commissioned, but you'll be fine. And I said, okay, all right. And so this is 1998 or so. This is my first cell phone. I call that dad of mine and I say I'm going to quit my job in accounting and join this firm. And he says no, you're not, you're an accountant and so you're going to keep your job. And I said, okay, but I was going to quit, so I'm not going to quit anymore. And I didn't. But many years later, about 15 years later, I finally did join this profession and it has been now what I hoped it would be.

Speaker 1: 13:47

Now we work with clients on a comprehensive basis. We're not just selling them an insurance policy or a fund. In fact our firm, jason Howell Company, doesn't make any commissions on anything like that. We are paid for our advice. We're paid to walk through all areas of financial planning and we see seven areas of financial planning, the same seven areas of financial planning that are in my book, joy of Financial Planning. We walk our clients through so that they start to really understand these areas for themselves Because, remember, I'm an educator at heart, just like my dad was, and I want them to understand the joy of harmony in having good family dynamics and conversations around money.

Speaker 1: 14:29

I want them to understand the joy of having enough, earning enough and spending enough to feel good about what you're doing. The joy of balance, making sure the banks aren't making more money than you are. So identifying yeah, the largest banks in the country are paying you less than 1% on your savings. Remember, I was looking at savings accounts back when I was 18 years old, and so after 2022, when the Federal Reserve raised the rates so that it's really hard for everyone to get a mortgage, they also raised rates with banks that actually pay a return, and so there are about five or six banks, some of them you'd actually recognize not weirdo banks that are online that would pay you a pretty good interest rate three, three and a half percent and so letting people know about these things so that they weren't just paying interest and not earning any interest.

Speaker 1: 15:18

That's balance In my book and in the book that we have as a firm. We talk to them about these areas so that they feel really comfortable and also the joy of safety. They feel safe and so insurance doesn't have to be this thing where someone is just selling it to you. I stepped out of that business and been able to say let me show you the kinds of policies that work for you and if these make sense, I'll refer you to someone who will probably make a commission.

Speaker 1: 15:44

That's not part of our revenue model. Our model is how can we make sure that you, and particularly your family, are going to be doing really well? My belief is and it's part of the reason why I wrote a book is that everyone does need to get a handle on this finance world to understand the economics world, and I love telling my students how important they are because they've chosen finance, accounting or personal finance, how important they are to their families, how important they are to their friends and, as a voter, how important they are to the community. They have such an opportunity now to be able to go to their circle and explain this stuff, and that's what gets me excited too.

Speaker 2: 16:26

Wow, You're so passionate I freaking love that. Me saying freaking, I can't say the other word but, it's incredible. I love that, and you definitely have like a very, not a sales-based mindset, but it's more education. Like you want to educate the people. You want to make sure that they're making the best decision that's going to work for them. Speaking about your book, let's talk about it. Show us the cover.

Speaker 1: 16:46

Sure Joy of financial planning.

Speaker 2: 16:48

Hey, that's you.

Speaker 1: 16:49

That's me I recommend. If you're going to do a book, put your face on it. That's a little bit of advice. That's free of charge. If you're going to do a book, what do you do?

Speaker 2: 16:58

Put your face on the cover.

Speaker 1: 16:59

Put your face on the cover, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 17:01

Tell us about the book. What inspired you to write this, what do you hope people get out of it, and just anything else that we should know about it.

Speaker 1: 17:08

Well, the inspiration to write this was multifaceted. When I finally said yes to this profession, it was after something pretty interesting that I tried to do again for the economy and for the country. I ran for office in 2012. I ran to be a congressman in the 8th Congressional District of Virginia.

Speaker 2: 17:28

How many lives have you lived Just?

Speaker 1: 17:30

a few.

Speaker 2: 17:30

Just a few, okay, just checking.

Speaker 1: 17:32

So I lost and I had to then decide what am I going to do? And if you're running for the right reasons, it's really hard to go say, okay, now I'll be a government contractor or now I'll go work in XYZ. I thought about it, I really reasoned about it, and I spoke to someone who took me to breakfast just weeks after the campaign and he said what are you going to do? And I said I don't know. And he said what are you going to do? And I said I don't know. I plan to win. So you tell me. Well, he was a third generation New York life insurance agent and I told him you know, I actually turned down that job about 15 years ago, Full circle kind of Full circle and he said well, just go have a conversation.

Speaker 1: 18:10

And I said I'll do that. I'm not bringing a resume, Okay, I'll just go have a conversation. And that conversation took over an hour and I realized that I can't write the financial laws for your family, but I could help you navigate those financial laws as a financial advisor. And so I accepted the opportunity. I learned a lot about insurance. That firm was really good to me. They treated me well, they respected the fact that I just ran for office. The training was really solid but it was really focused. It was just on that insurance model and remember that insurance model is commission-based and it's a different kind of mindset. And I really wanted to extend past that so I could be a fiduciary for our clients, which is to mean hold their interests above my own.

Speaker 1: 18:55

And so I looked at different opportunities. I learned a lot. I found different types of firms. I didn't really know about the different types of firms when I got there, but I spent the next couple of years figuring out what kind of advisor that I wanted to be by taking interviews, conversations with other folks and not accepting I'm not accepting jobs, I'm just having conversations to learn. And I learned a lot and eventually decided that the kind of firm I wanted to start was a fee-only fiduciary firm, which is to say we don't make money from anyone except our clients directly, so they know exactly what they're paying us and anything else that we recommend or refer. We're not getting any cuts or kickbacks or anything like that, so you can feel comfortable sitting on the other side of the table feeling like we are there with you.

Speaker 2: 19:43

Yes.

Speaker 1: 19:44

And that's been special, and at the time I didn't have any letters after my name, I didn't have a book, and so I figured this is going to be what I'm going to sell. I'm going to sell this kind of reality. Eventually I got the letters after my name, very thankfully. Eventually I got a business partner who's been amazing.

Speaker 2: 20:06

He does all the things that really are easier for him and harder for me, and I try to do all the things that are harder for him and easier for me Having a duo like that. Like you know, you do this, I do that. When did you guys meet?

Speaker 1: 20:13

We met in 2017. So I started the firm in 2015 and he was referred to me in 2017 by a mutual friend my campaign manager actually and we started having a conversation. I thought at first he wanted to be a client. When he said I want to work with you and then he said no, I want to work with you.

Speaker 2: 20:30

I want to like hand by hand.

Speaker 1: 20:32

All right, we need to meet in person, let's have a conversation. And all the conversations were great. I tried to tell him you know, there are a lot of great firms out there. If you want to do this, go talk with other firms first. And he did, and he had those conversations, but he still came back.

Speaker 1: 20:46

If you love someone set them free and let them come back. So he came back. We continued to have conversations. I met his wife and we figured, yeah, this could be an opportunity for us to really do some good things together for the public. And after about a year working together, we decided, yeah, let's be partners. And so he bought in. I paid off credit card debt. I should have bought Tesla stock or something and Zoom, because the markets went Zooming up by then. But I did the good financial advisor thing and paid off everything that I needed to Good thing and paid off everything that I needed to, and the firm has been growing about 40, 50% every year since we started working together, which has been really exciting.

Speaker 1: 21:25

And what we do now is not only work as fiduciaries, we also do this thing, and I'm not sure if you've heard it before, but some people call it a virtual family office. I have not. So a family office kind of goes way back. Julius Caesar had a family office and the idea was you have a set of employees that work just for your family, because you've got so much in assets, you've got so much going on, that's so much complexity that you need these professionals just working for you locked in. How amazing is that? Very so. Let's go a little closer to history and you think of this country and when it was more like the new world in the 18th or 19th century and you had JP Morgan and here are the names that make more sense about. They started the first family office on this continent and again, it was a single family office.

Speaker 1: 22:15

Work for me. Well, over time. That works really well if you're a $100 million person, but what if you're $40 or $50 million? I mean not really useful for hiring a staff, maybe not as efficient as a firm. We might work with 10, 20, 30 families and we make it work for them so that they're getting this close-end service. They're making sure that every category of their needs in the finance world are taken care of. They can come to us. They know someone to call. It's a relationship, it's tight. So a multifamily office was born and that works really well for people in that sort of eight-ish figure level.

Speaker 1: 22:59

But what about people who are budding up to that? So, anywhere from the $5 to $20 to $30 million, is there an opportunity for them? And there is, and a lot of times it's, in this version, called a virtual family office. So those people probably already have an estate planner, they might even have a tax accountant, but they don't have a financial advisor. They don't have a banking relationship. Really, maybe they just sold their business and they went from being a six-figure person to an eight-figure person. Who do I talk to? Goldman Sachs Seems a little intimidating, yes, and so who can they reach out to? That is independent, that isn't a bank and so doesn't have those restrictions and also those requirements for sales and the like Sounds like they need to hit up Jason.

Speaker 1: 23:47

I think they need to work with the Jason Howell Company. Yeah, because we are that beautiful hybrid of being independent but, at the same time, having the resources and the relationships with the resources to be able to say you're going to get everything you need. And so if you went to our website, jasonhowellcom, and you went to the About section, the little tab on the bottom would say Partners, and on there, over 12 people that are going to be people like wow, an estate planner, three estate planners. There's a mortgage person. There are people who specialize in different investments. There's a mortgage person. There are people who specialize in different investments. There's a healthcare person.

Speaker 1: 24:21

If you sell your business and you no longer have a business, guess what? You need Health insurance. Where do you get that? On the exchange, I guess. How do I navigate that? Which one's right for me? An expert might help. And so we have resources and access to experts like these. We call them strategic partners. Some of them we've worked with for over 10 years and we can ensure that you're getting all the people you need. You're still working with an independent firm. It's going to pick up the phone and answer your call and help you navigate that. And, by the way. A family like that needs a little bit of education.

Speaker 2: 24:56

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 24:56

So we work with them on that education piece. And a family like that needs some navigation around the family dynamics, and so we work with them on that. The first section of my book is family governance, and family governance isn't a common phrase that people hear about, but family governance is what the ultra-wealthy essentially kind of kick-started this idea that if we have $100 million, pretty sure we're not going to spend it, so our kids are going to get it. How do we not ruin our kids? How do we educate them today and show them not only how money works, but how do we also tell them about our values and how hard it was to get here and why this is important, why this is a result of everything that we worked for and stressed for and why it meant something to us and why we want you to be a good steward. What are we donating to? What are you wanting to donate to? This is an opportunity. It doesn't just have to be a burden. That's what family governance is.

Speaker 1: 25:57

As a firm, we're one of the only firms really in the area and at our size in the country that offers family governance. It's something I offered even when we had the smallest clients. I just figured. This is where I'm headed, this is where I'd like to be, and so I'm going to offer this to clients. It doesn't make us more efficient to offer an extra service, but it made sense to me then, it made sense to my business partner now, and we continue to do it, and now that we're working with the clients who can really utilize it, we're seeing some great returns, not only in markets, but also with the family.

Speaker 2: 26:28

Wow. This is incredible your passion for this, literally from being 14 years old. Having that, I feel like you have this work ethic, but also this need to help other people. You want to see them grow. You want them to better themselves, not just for your own gain, but you want them to have that knowledge. You wrote a book on this. You want future generations to understand the power of what it is to be able to save money where you want to spend that money. What is the meaning behind of why you're doing the things that you're doing and who you want to donate to, like you said, I like the way you said that it's not a burden, because some people are just like oh, I guess I better donate because it's like the right thing to do. It's not that mindset, it's kind of like.

Speaker 1: 27:12

Yeah, it's tough, and more so people who have those resources also feel guilt and shame. You know there are people that are vilified. It's part of a cultural movement to vilify some people who've had some success and so many people feel they need to hide it or just sort of set it aside. And yet we need people who have the resources to work with the community to make the communities better. We can give them opportunity and give them a chance to say well, here's what I would like to do, and some people do that, many people do that and the opportunity that I think through our firm and through the teaching that I do. And the rest is to say to every single person you have time. Then you have an opportunity to get much further than you would have expected, perhaps, as your parents would have dreamed, further than they have gone. That has always been the American dream. That American dream has been challenged over the past 10, 20 years. And so what's the path? What do you do? You asked me why I wrote the book. One of the reasons I wrote the book is to give people that foundation. You asked me why I wrote the book. One of the reasons I wrote the book is to give people that foundation. Many people are lacking the foundation for fear, for concern that they're not good at math, and the math is incredibly simple. That's the easiest part. The concepts sometimes get more and more complex. How do you buy a house? How do I know when rates are going to be up or down? That's a little complex. What's my mortgage payment going to be? Why is that my mortgage payment? That's a little complex. But you could get a conversation with a loan officer or a realtor for free. That would give you a first-time homebuyers class, or you could sit in my class and I give you the same thing. But the reality is that information is out there now and so I compiled it in this book so that people could have an idea. But the subtitle hopefully speaks to what the real meaning of this book is and, as you mentioned, why I wrote the book Seven Strategies for Transforming your Finances and Reclaiming your American Dream.

Speaker 1: 29:16

I wrote this book in part because I had run for office and whenever I asked to have coffee with someone right when I got into personal finance, they'd say yes, yes, yes, I saw this is a lot easier than people thought, and then all they wanted to talk about was running for office, and so I realized, okay, okay, okay, I need to somehow merge these two areas of my life, this idea I had to run for office which, by the way, the catalyst was because we were worried about the ratings of our currency and our bonds for this country, which we're also discussing today in politics and in economics, there was a concern about the dollar being the reserve currency of the world. There's a concern about the rating agencies downgrading US debt because of how much we have and our lack of having a passion for paying it down, and so these are the reasons that I ran for in 2011, because we got our first downgrade in 2011. So I ran in 2012. So that reason sticks. So I wanted to explain that to people, so they can see that connective tissue between the run for office and the run to start this firm and to be a resource for people. And, as I explain in the book, as I explain in class, as I explain to clients, this is knowable and it's required knowledge, knowledge.

Speaker 1: 30:35

Since the 1950s, since the 1970s, in 1978, there was a revenue act signed by President Jimmy Carter that essentially included that little piece that said IRS Rule 401, paren K allowed you to set aside money tax-free until you took it out, the 401k. That's when it was effectively birthed, and by 1981, more than half of the Fortune 500 companies switched from a pension to a 401k. So that wasn't that long ago. I mean, it was a little while ago, but it was less than 50 years ago. And so people are thinking about this world of investments and thinking everyone's been doing it, everyone knows how to do it and people just got into it. And so to be able to explain that history of where it came from and to be able to also explain how we got so financialized as an economy, so more and more has happened over the course of the past 50 years.

Speaker 1: 31:37

To make number one America, have the number one capital markets in the world that's exciting, that's great. We have a great banking system and we have great capital markets that's wonderful. But our number one industry is that we export financial services over $100 billion a year to the rest of the world. That's great. We have the six largest banks that's great. But for anyone who is not involved in finance, you're missing a piece of not only your career there's many careers. You should have different careers, but if you're not ingrained in it all of a sudden, you're falling behind. Your parents didn't have to be a part of that. It wasn't the kind of economy we had two generations ago, but now there is a requirement to get your arms around it and understand it. So, whether it's finance or whether it's AI, get yourselves involved in these two areas and, if you can, you will start to accelerate and make progress in this economy. That's what I want for our clients, that's what I want for my students and that's what I want for my friends and family.

Speaker 2: 32:40

This is incredible. I feel like this opens an opportunity, like if you don't know about it, it's never too late for you to start, like just by reading this book or taking your class. That leads me to my question about do you feel like this should be taught earlier in schools, as opposed to waiting to go to a university?

Speaker 1: 32:55

Of course, of course, and you can ask anyone that and they would say the same thing. Whether it's a plumber, whether it's your high school teacher, everyone says the same thing. The challenge and I've looked into this somewhat is the school day. What class are you going to take out to replace with personal finance? Because I've gotten that close. I've had the opportunity to speak to a couple've gotten that close. I've had the opportunity to speak to a couple of politicians about it. I've had the opportunity to speak to a couple educators about it, and that's the retort and that's where we're stuck.

Speaker 1: 33:28

The opportunity to unstick that is to do effectively what I think we all realize in the back of our minds we should do. But I think we all realize in the back of our minds we should do. Finance is a language and one of the languages that we start from very early on is English in this country, and we go from kindergarten all the way through college with English. So let's incorporate personal finance in that same way. There are many terms in personal finance that could be vocab words in our English courses and we all know there is arithmetic in it. So let's use arithmetic for our word problems and let's talk about scenarios.

Speaker 2: 34:09

Any way to implement them.

Speaker 1: 34:11

Absolutely, you've got it exactly. So now we're not replacing any courses, we're just incorporating, we're including, we're ingraining finance into. We're just incorporating, we're including, we're ingraining finance into our curriculum. So we've mentioned English vocab words, we've mentioned math scenarios on how to work with credit cards and how to buy a home and that kind of stuff. And what about history? We get history class all the way through high school. I just mentioned the Revenue Act of 1978.

Speaker 2: 34:38

The 401k. I didn't even know that it was only 50 years. I thought it was like, oh, we go back with this.

Speaker 1: 34:42

Way back. Right, that's not that far. When's the first credit cards, the first credit cards in the 50s and 60s? Oh my God, you wonder why your grandparents didn't use credit, didn't feel good about credit, because they didn't live that life. That makes sense, yeah. So, oh my gosh, if we got that history in first grade, second grade, third grade, it would make sense. Credit card yeah, I know. Credit cards, I mean, you don't have to have, you don't have to use it, it doesn't have to be a part of your situation, because this thing just came up in the middle of the 20th century, absolutely. And so history has a great opportunity to teach, and the older you get, the more you can start to understand, maybe some of the more advanced things. You know what happened in 2008 when the economy crashed, right, what was the catalyst for that? People buying homes. Were they buying homes or were they borrowing money to buy homes?

Speaker 1: 35:34

Were they borrowing at what rate and when did the rate change? No-transcript. Go attend a first-time homebuyers class when you're 22. If you haven't, even though you don't think you have the capacity learn what it takes for a down payment. Learn what closing costs are yeah and then make your decisions about how much you're going to pay in rent for the next five years.

Speaker 2: 36:22

I know You'd be better off. Anyway, thank you so much for sharing. I literally I don't even want to talk anymore, Like I just want you to just keep going and just tell me more, because I know that this is not my strongest suit. So this is an interesting conversation for me and I'm learning a couple of things here. I'm glad yeah.

Speaker 1: 36:38

I'm glad you are.

Speaker 2: 36:40

I want to ask you is there anything that I have not touched on that perhaps you would like to get out there, whether it's in regards to yourself or your book, or teaching, or anything about the students that you teach, you have the floor. Thank you One that you teach.

Speaker 1: 36:52

you have the floor, thank you. One of the challenges I think the public has the community that I deal with and helping them decipher whether they want to hire our firm or another firm is how do you know which firm to pick? Many times I'll have a call with a prospective client and I'll ask them a series of questions about you know why are they looking for a financial advisor? Now, what's the catalyst? Because there's usually a catalyst. And I'll ask them a series of questions about you know why are they looking for a financial advisor? Now what's the catalyst? Because there's usually a catalyst. And I'll start asking them about their situation, not hard numbers, just what's your situation. And then I'll say is it all right if I tell you a little bit about my firm? And they say yes. And then I say, before I do that, would it be helpful if I told you about the different types of firms?

Speaker 2: 37:33

And they say yeah, that's a thing, please.

Speaker 1: 37:37

Because you'll see all the named firms that are out there, and I don't know about you, but for me as an advisor they seem like they're saying the same thing on television, but they're very different. Whether it is New York Life, where I worked, where is Merrill Lynch, where I used to have an advisor, a friend of mine and he's still there, they all seem to say the same thing. Northwestern Mutual, mass Mutual Prudential, they all are talking that same language about getting you to retirement. But what's their history and what's their focus and what do they do really well and what do they do sort of on the side? And so what I want to share with people on this podcast is the two different kinds of firms that there are, and then sort of that third little, I guess, almost offshoot of that. And so, number one you have insurance-based firms. These are the firms that were kind of the first financial firms, personal finance firms.

Speaker 1: 38:34

Back in the 19th century or so, if you were married and your spouse passed away, you often especially if you were the female of the couple you didn't have options, you couldn't take a job and so you'd go knock on the door and see if your neighbors could help you. Today we have GoFundMe, but that was the situation back then. So what came out of that was the insurance business and you would have $10,000 policies. But these $10,000 policies were so easy to sell that you would have lots of people selling them. You're a barber, you're a salon person, they're all selling these $10,000. There's not much to talk about. Your husband dies, you get a 10,000 bucks what's there to talk about? And so it became this kind of salesy kind of thing. But over time the insurance companies and we're talking over a hundred years, the firms that you know have been around for over a hundred years. Over time they've got more and more sophisticated. There's different kinds of insurance policies depending on different situations.

Speaker 1: 39:34

And then, in the 90s especially, they started doing brokerage accounts. And these brokerage accounts were where you could have your investment accounts right, so your IRA and your regular brokerage that's not tax advantage and you could put your investments in there. They started offering those. So now, if I have investment accounts and I have insurance policies, I guess I'm everything right. But where's the focus? The focus is still on those insurance-based products and that's where those firms make most of their money. So if you're going to someone who works for one of those firms, note that their initial focus is going to be there, and that's just helpful and likely. Their expertise is going to be there, and that's just helpful for you to know. So what's the other type? Those are the insurance firms and now the insurance-based brokerages. The other types are the brokerage firms, the firms that you also know about the Merrill Lynch's, the Morgan Stanley's, the Goldman Sachs's.

Speaker 1: 40:27

What's their history? The history of these firms has actually been quite amazing, quite important for the growth of the economy. If you have a business and you start and you want to go public, you need to work with one of these investment banking firms at the time they were so that they would take your company public, to the public markets. They'd work with the SEC and you'd take your company to the public markets. They would help you sell that initial tranche of securities so that everyone would be able to say I want those stocks, I don't right. That'd be fine. That was their business. But over time they said well, instead of just facilitating this for businesses, why don't we also have clients who would buy those securities? And so we already have the model We'll have a brokerages for them and then, if they need insurance. We'll either use our banking system or we'll outsource it, whatever.

Speaker 1: 41:16

So their focus ends up being on that investment side. Also, though, really they have both hats, they're also on that business side, and so when they have two licenses and they do, all those advisors have two licenses it's kind of hard to know like, are you working on the business side right now or are you working on the personal side? You have to evaluate that with your gut a little bit, and so you've got the brokerage side and you've got the insurance side. Those are your two sides. The offshoot of that are firms like mine, registered investment advisory firms. In the 1980s, schwab Schwab was the first firm to do this. They allowed for, essentially, individuals who are qualified to work with their platform as a custodian to manage money. So now, independently, I can use their platform. So you know where the money is. It's not in my bank account. I could use their platform, but I could run this business the way I think my clients would like me to run it.

Speaker 2: 42:12

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 42:13

So that started in the early 80s. There have been other platforms that did it TD Ameritrade did that, but they got purchased by Schwab recently. And there have been a couple other firms that allowed for that, and there are still some that you wouldn't know the names of them, but that's all. Their business is to work with independent financial advisors, give them a custodial platform, so now they can offer those brokerage services, but they can also do all the comprehensive, beautiful fiduciary management that they didn't feel comfortable doing at the old insurance firms or at the old brokerage firms but they could do independently. So that's what I learned when I was researching this in 2016, or actually before that, in 2013, 14, 15, like not so ahead.

Speaker 1: 42:53

Right, it was in the eighties, right. So there are plenty of independent firms. There's hundreds of them. They're the smallest part of the industry but they're the fastest growing part of the industry, especially in the past 15 years. So actually I hit the stride in starting my firm like, right, when all of the other opportunities to partner started becoming a thing it used to be, you couldn't get the best trading platforms started becoming a thing it used to be. You couldn't get the best trading platforms, the best access to investments, the best access to insurances. You couldn't get that unless you were at the best firms, at the largest, oldest firms. But over the past 15, 20 years there's been a cottage industry supporting the independents. So I'm one of those independents. Our firm is one of the independents and we get to perform for our clients in the way that is important for them, meanwhile giving them all the resources that's important to help them succeed. That's incredible.

Speaker 2: 43:43

Thank you so much for sharing like the different types because, honestly, I'm sure a lot of people get lost and they may go to somewhere that they thought was going to be for them and it's like I don't know if this is really for me you know Well.

Speaker 1: 43:54

More importantly I mean, there's always good people at all firms and tough people at other firms. But just knowing that if I'm going to go sit with someone at an insurance-based firm, understand that their expertise is going to be there and you may have that advisor for that expertise and that works. But you may need another advisor for a different piece of expertise, and so making sure that you understand where they're coming from, that's the most important thing. As opposed to what tends to happen, this person looks like a financial advisor. Great, I got it taken care of. All I did was buy an insurance policy.

Speaker 1: 44:27

I guess I have it taken care of and you don't know that you could get help with identifying whether the right credit services are for you or your family, the right banking services, family governance. There's no chance you're going to find that in any of these places. You don't know all that's available with the advisor that you could find, and that's what the public needs to know that they can get exactly what they're looking for. And if they don't find it through us, I'd be happy to help them find it.

Speaker 2: 44:51

All right, Before we wrap this up, tell us where people can find you, your website where they can buy your book and all that good stuff.

Speaker 1: 45:01

Well, my name is Jason Howell, the company is Jason Howell Company. Our website is very simple jasonhowellcom. You can buy the book, enjoy a financial planning, on Amazon or Barnes and Noble as well, so it's available where you typically shop for books.

Speaker 2: 45:16

Wonderful. Thank you so much for being a guest and for sharing so much knowledge and wisdom and, honestly, for helping me learn a couple of things that, embarrassingly, I did not know.

Speaker 1: 45:25

You're like most everyone.

Speaker 2: 45:26

Okay, thank you for making me feel a little bit better, because I'm just like what, wait, what? Anyway, thank you so much for being a guest. I really appreciate your time and you being here and sharing all about your book and your experience.

Speaker 1: 45:42

Thank you for having me and just so you know, I tell my students I'm your professor, but I'm also a student of this stuff. If you want to learn about what's happening, the past five years and ongoing have been a seminar on everything economic. We've seen so many changes since the pandemic. So much is being talked about in the regular news that was never talked about before. If you want to start getting into this, just start watching the news, following the news, and you will learn more than you ever expected about how the economy works, and that will help your personal economy as well.

Speaker 2: 46:13

Thank you for that tip. Really appreciate it you bet.