David:

[0:00] Today, I'm super excited to have with me today, Edward Robinson from Thrivent. Edward is a financial advisor who has been helping people with their finances for over eight years. Previously a pastor, Edward has now taken to helping people with their financials, planning full time. So welcome to Redeeming Business Today podcast, Edward. I'm glad to have you on the show.

Edward:

[0:23] Absolutely. I'm glad to be here to hang with you, David.

David:

[0:26] Yep. Hey, so for our listeners, describe a little bit about what you do and how you got started.

Edward:

[0:33] Yeah, so I'm a financial advisor with a company called Thrivent Financial. Thrivent is a Christian company. It's been around for over 100 years, and I've been doing this for a little while. So, we do a lot of different things. The main thing is we try to help people figure out what they want to do in terms of long-term financial planning. So that would include retirement, leaving a legacy in terms of generosity and finance and so on and so forth. And so, we help with that. We also help if you're younger, it depends on kind of what age and stage of life you're in, where we decide really where to focus, right? So, if you're younger, if you're sort of under 40, then we're really going to focus heavily on what we call protection and assets. And if you're in that 40 to 50 zone, you're sort of inching toward pre-retirement. So, we want to make sure that you have a plan for how to have enough income in retirement. And then if you're in that retiree phase, obviously we want to make sure you have enough income, but also, we want to make sure that you have a plan put together for how you're going to leave a legacy of generosity. And so, every stage and phase has sort of a different plan set aside.

Edward:

[1:37] But we want to focus on where you are and then really making sure that you can make the most of what you have. And I think specifically for believers, the idea really is to how do we get you to a place where you're rich toward God?

Edward:

[1:50] Most financial planners are going to focus on you being rich, which is good, right? You need enough money to sustain yourself. But then how are we going to make sure that you actually, as a believer, are being rich toward God specifically, if we're talking about those who own businesses, who are employed, and who want to leave a legacy in God's name. So that's a little bit about what we do.

David:

[2:10] Okay. Very good. So, I didn't know Thrivent has been around that long. That's neat. So how did you get started? What drew you into wanting to help people with their finances?

Edward:

[2:23] That's an age-old journey. So, it goes back to, for me, going back about 10 years, really. And I was a part of a church, part of a church plant. A new church that got started. And so, I was a part of that church. We were in Camden, New Jersey at the time. And really, I was getting a little glimpse of what it looks like to be behind the scenes in church planting. And what I realized and discovered was there's never enough money in the church plant, especially ones that were dedicated towards serving the urban community like we were. And so, we never had enough money. And so, I just kind of there was always an issue. So, I'm like, man, let's let me go figure out how to what is where's the merge between mission and money? Like, where does the money come into mission? And so, I just read every book I possibly could on money and mission and Bible and finance. And I ended up on my own personal journey in terms of finances. So, me and my wife ended up paying off over $115,000 in debt. And so that kind of really edged on a passion, if you will, towards finance, in addition to some of the missional challenges that we were facing in our church. And so that kind of, like I said, I read every book that I possibly could on the subject and ended up becoming a financial advisor many years later after somebody had told me, hey, man they pay people to do this kind of stuff. Because I had been helping families and friends and couples with their budgets. And so, because I just had a passion for it. So that's kind of led me to where I am today.

David:

[3:42] All right. That's neat. And so how do you think being a Christian has affected the way you look at financial planning? You kind of touched on that already, but how does that affect you?

Edward:

[3:53] Yeah, completely and totally, right? Because I am somebody who developed a passion for finance really out of the scriptures. So, reading Proverbs, obviously, is one of those books that people refer to a lot. And so, it's the same thing for me. Reading Proverbs, understanding that God has a desire for how we are to worship with our money is really what sets the tone. Because at the end of the day, I tell people that money makes a great servant, but a terrible master. And what that That really means is that we already have a master. We already have a king. We already have a Lord. And so, what it means is that we are trying to get to a space and place where we are trying to emphasize Christ as Lord, even in the area of our money. What would you discover is that how people spend their time and how people spend their money are major areas of worship. And so, that's really how it defines me. We want to be Christ centered, even in how we think through how to spend money. And so, if you're not careful though, money will master you. and we have the choice to master it and creating financial plans so that money is mastered as a servant and a worship tool for our God and King is really what it's all about for me.

David:

[4:58] Okay, that's cool. Very good. So, you work a lot with business owners and try to help them plan for the future. And I know you had your three different stages of ages. Are the business owners you met, are they doing pretty good planning for their future? that the ones that you've met?

Edward:

[5:18] It really just depends on the business, right? And it depends on the income and the business. But here's some things that I've seen in commonality amongst business owners. Business owners are often hyper-focused on taking care of the business.

Edward:

[5:30] Which oftentimes means they're not focused on taking care of themselves. And so, as a financial planner, what I come to do alongside a business owner, say, hey, as you're looking out for the business, let me look out for you. Because one of the things that happens specifically for business owners, right? If they've gone through any transition between employee to entrepreneur, then there's a lot of things that they had as an employee that they don't automatically get as an entrepreneur. For example, small things like, hey, life insurance, right? At a job, oftentimes some of the corporate positions allow for you to have one, two, three times your salary and life insurance. In a group policy. But as a business owner, you've got to make sure you take care of that on your own disability insurance. A lot of times you get that through the job if you were an employee. But as an entrepreneur, you've got to take care of that on your own. And so, there's small there's small things as well as just financial planning and saving for retirement. And so, what I what I find with business owners is the day-to-day operation of the business oftentimes consumes their mind, their heart and their time. And so, I have to come alongside them really to help them assist with thinking through their long-term plan outside of just operating the business.

David:

[6:39] OK, no, that makes sense, because, yeah, you are busy working the business, growing the business, and that's where your focus is at. Yeah. So, amongst business owners, what have you have you noticed any common mistakes that are prevalent among people?

Edward:

[6:55] Yeah, absolutely. Number one, as I mentioned before, just not saving enough for retirement.

Edward:

[6:59] Right. And not putting aside something for a rainy day, so on and so forth. Right. So, you're thinking about, like I said, just the day to day. The day in, the day out. My sister said something to me, David, a long time ago. She said, you've got to get out of survival mode long enough to dream. And you have to get out of survival mode long enough to plan for your future. And so, I've kind of really took that to heart. And so, with business owners, the necessity of being in survival mode just to kind of keep that business afloat oftentimes keeps them away from not saving enough. So that's one thing. The other thing I find with business owners is, as I said, being under protected, right, in terms of like insurance policies and so on and so forth. So that's another side of it. And then the other thing is just not enough cash flow becomes the real key issue in any business. It's not having enough cash flow. And so that hinders you from being able to do just about anything else that you want to do in terms of business. And so oftentimes, specifically, I'll talk to specifically Christian business owners. A lot of times we're too humble. We're too humble, which calculates and leads to this idea. We don't market ourselves enough. We don't market our business up. We don't market our service enough. And so, we got to get to the place where we are. We know what we have is marketable. We have confidence in that. And just tell people about it and not be so humble that we actually hinder our own cash flow in business.

David:

[8:22] Sure. I've seen a few business owners who are Christians and who, you know, the Bible talks about being contentment. Godliness with contentment is great gain. And I feel like they're like, oh, I have enough, so I don't need to do any more. I probably could work and get more money, but I have enough. But then I don't see that they're really saving for retirement or anything else that way. Have you noticed that as well?

Edward:

[8:48] Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's what business owners, that's what entrepreneurs, that's what employees. it comes down to this. At the end of the day, we have to be able to take care of ourselves in retirement, right? So, one of the main uses for your income is that you can put some away for later. And I feel like, David, I don't know about you, but just in talking with people across the spectrum, everybody feels tapped out. It seems like there's just this sense where everybody's overwhelmed, everybody's overly busy, everybody's anxious. And I mean, I mean that loosely, not necessarily every single person, but a lot of people. And so, what happens is, is that extra work that you want them to do in order to take care of those extra things, they just, they're losing capacity to be able to do it. And so that's what you kind of have to assist and encourage towards so that they're able to take care of some of those extra things beyond just the month-to-month bills.

David:

[9:39] Okay, yes. Good. So, there's a lot of financial advisors and planners out there. What sets you apart from the rest of the crowd and why would they want to do business with you?

Edward:

[9:51] Yeah, it's really an issue of values. I told you Thrivent is a Christian company. So, we've been working with churches for decades and decades. And so, it's really an issue of whether or not you want to be a part of a company that's going to share your value, especially if you're a Christian business owner. What that means is, so some of the same tools we use that other companies will use, but are you going to be arguing with your financial advisor when you want to give a little bit of action to the church? You know what I mean? When you want to do a little bit of things that doesn't require your advisor, doesn't incentivize your advisor financially, right? And so, what we share over here at Thrivent and what I share personally is just a system of values. It's a short value bridge to walk across, especially when we're speaking towards believers. And so, it's going to say to you, Hey, are you actually giving, are you tithing? Hey, have you considered tithing even in your will? Have you considered giving something extra to the church? What do you want to do in terms of charitable organizations?

Edward:

[10:45] How do you want to give toward mission? So on and so forth. And then, um, so there's that. And then there's like, how are we going to take care of the kids? Because I believe, and I know for a fact that in the Bible, the term household doesn't just include wife. And then the three children, it also includes, includes your children, your adult children, and it includes your parents, right? So, in terms of wanting to be a holistic blesser and a benefactor towards your household, when Paul was talking about household in 1 Timothy 5, he said, those that don't take care of their household are worse than an unbeliever. He was talking about people who refuse to take care of their grandma,

Edward:

[11:18] Because the context was about widows, right? And so, he was saying that if this widow has grandchildren, then let her see to it that they take care of her. And so, this idea that when we talk about values, Christian values, we're talking about household, we're talking about church, we're talking about our neighbor. And how do you decide, how do you create a financial plan where you can actually be a blessing to yourself, to your immediate family, to your household, right? That intergenerational inner workings of a family and then to your church and to your neighbors. And that sounds like a whole lot. I just listed out for you a whole lifetime full of work that we do over here.

David:

[11:56] I know it's interesting. My dad read a long time ago that a good man leaves an inheritance unto his children's children. And so that's what he did is he has seven kids, and he left like so much to them and then a portion of it to his grandkids, it was nice. I think I’m going to do something a little bit different because he has 36 grandchildren and when it came time for the lawyer and that to write the checks it just took a long time to get anything done because it was like there's 42 checks here to write 42 letters and all this stuff. So, my brother had to actually help him with, with all this paperwork because it just, it wasn't a huge estate. I mean, it was a blessing, but I feel like for me personally, if I'm going to have more than 20 grandkids, maybe handing them money before I die versus trying to leave that in the will.

Edward:

[12:52] Yeah. And that's up to you, right? That's why you, that's why you write your will. That's why you create an estate plan and have an and a trust, right? Some people say that a trust is really called a distrust because you're not trusting everybody else to figure it out, right? And so, yeah, that's a part of the work we do is making sure that you create the plan that you want, right, and an estate plan specifically because a will is good.

Edward:

[13:15] It's better than having nothing. You'd be surprised how many people die with no documentation. A will is good, but an estate plan is better. And in that estate plan, you get to dictate and determine how you want to leave that money behind and when.

David:

[13:28] Sure. You know, in a formal conversation, we talked about the difference between a financial planner and a portfolio planner. Could you explain it to my audience, please?

Edward:

[13:37] Yeah, some people, oftentimes what happens is some people will hire a financial advisor and that financial advisor will end up primarily focusing on their portfolio, right? Which is true for all of us. There should be some focus on your portfolio. And so, what happens is they think they hired a financial planner to help them plan through all of the ups and downs of their financial life. But what they hired was a portfolio manager. What is the difference between the two? A portfolio manager is there simply to look at your investments and make sure that you're getting a good return on your investments. That does not mean that they're talking to you about being properly insured. That does not mean that they're talking to you about the strategy around taxes. That does not mean they're going to help you through an estate plan. That does not mean they're going to help you to actually come up with the right number you need out of your investments when it comes to retirement.

Edward:

[14:25] They're just there to help you grow your portfolio. So, there's a difference between a portfolio manager and a financial planner. And on our side, we happen to be both.

David:

[14:35] Okay. So, you help people day by day. Did you help people establish a budget as well?

Edward:

[14:40] I can. Yep. And at Thrivent we have a thing called Money Canvas. It's an entire program and a process where somebody can actually sign up for 3 one-hour sessions for free just to go over budgeting. So, we'll sit down with you. We'll help you. We'll talk through budget because the reason why budget is so important, because we need to figure out how much cash flow you have per month in order to start dumping it into other vehicles, whether that's on the insurance side or whether that would also be in your investments. And so, we want to make sure that you have enough to invest based on your monthly budget.

David:

[15:15] Sure. And I know time plays an important role in all this stuff because if you start earlier, you don't have to put as much in. And so, what do you do if you're in your 50s and you haven't saved as much? What do you do then? What's the next first steps you do then if they come to you? It's like, oh, find out that I'm not where I probably should be or want to be. What do you do?

Edward:

[15:41] I had somebody recently come to me. This was actually just last week. And they were in a situation where they're older. And they said to me, I just need you to sit down with us and tell us how far behind we are.

Edward:

[15:53] And I said, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to sit with you and talk to you about how to make the most of what you have right now. It does no good for your soul to look back and think, what should I should have done? And everybody says it to me, by the way, I hear it every week, especially from clients who are older and in that 50 to 60 phase. And they say, I wish I had. However, it is what it is. It happened how it happened. Right now, we have to take action.

Edward:

[16:21] So let's turn that negative into a positive, if you will. And the positive is we have time. We should have some time, and we have opportunities. So, let's make the most of what we have got now that because of your previous decisions and choices, that may mean we have to make some adjustments now. You might have to work a little bit longer. It just depends. You might have to wait on Social Security. Right. Let's get full retirement at 67 or whatever we decide to do. So, there's a there's a lot of mitigating circumstances, but we adjust with a positive and not regret all the negative because that changes the mind a little bit and helps the soul. And so, what that means is we've got to make the most of what we have. So, for some people, we've got to work a little longer. For some people, it's hey, we need to catch it. We need to do some catching up in terms of putting more money away. And there are actual IRS codes that allow us to do some things and IRAs or Roth IRAs and so on and so forth. So now that you're sitting with me, let's make the most of where we are and make the most of what we got.

David:

[17:18] Edward, that's a very good outlook to take because I don't know what the percentage is of people who are prepared and the people who are not prepared or partially prepared. Have you ever researched that? Do you know what the percentage is?

Edward:

[17:34] They're not great.

David:

[17:37] Business owners. Are they 50% good or 60% good?

Edward:

[17:44] I'm not going to lie to you. I don't know the numbers off the top of my head. Okay. The last I looked, yeah, I don't even want to say, because I don't really remember. I just know based on the work that I'm doing, I would say 70-80, based on my sample size, the people that I know, 78% or 80% of the people are underfunded in terms of retirement, right? They haven't saved enough. And so, every now and again, I'll get some people and I'll be like, kudos to you. You know, you've saved enough, but nevertheless, we just go back to that same We got to make the most of what we have now. And so most people are not because here's the reality. Most of us, it goes back to what my sister said to me, most of us are in survival mode.

Edward:

[18:23] We're thinking day to day, right? That's the reason why people oftentimes pull money out of 401k. And I'd be like, if you can withstand not doing that, don't do it, right? Because the penalty is so high. Things like that. So, it's just that mentality of the day to day. And I understand it completely is what's keeping us from thinking about planning for a little bit longer. But we know based on Proverbs that there is there are goods, specifically wine and oil. If you read Proverbs that are in the house of the wise. And so, if you could breathe for a second, think a little bit longer. Just because the Bible tells us not to be worried about tomorrow doesn't mean the Bible is telling us not to plan for tomorrow.

David:

[19:02] That's good.

Edward:

[19:03] That's a key distinction. That's a key distinction. And so, yeah, so there is wine and oil in the house of the wise for a reason. You know, it's because they're looking down at the pike a little bit. You know, we learn wisdom from the ant who stores up in the summer trying to get ready for winter because they're thinking ahead. Even the ants plan ahead.

David:

[19:22] Oh, yeah.

Edward:

[19:23] You know what I mean?

David:

[19:23] Planning is good.

Edward:

[19:24] Yeah. Planning is good. Planning is good. Worry is not. But planning is good.

David:

[19:29] Yeah. Very good. Good. Let's say if somebody wants to contact you or get more information or work with you, what would be the best way to get a hold of you or find out more about you?

Edward:

[19:40] I'm Edward Robinson at Thrivent.com, feel free to email me. And also, I'm at 434. Somebody wants to shoot me a text. I'm at 434-448-3330.

David:

[20:01] Okay. Very good. Well, thank you, Edward, for being on the show with us today. It's been a pleasure having you and looking more at finances. And yeah, we need to do a better job sometimes. Thank you.

Edward:

[20:12] Absolutely, man. Looking forward to working with you, talking with you a little bit more.

David:

[20:15] All right. Bye. Well, there you have it, our conversation with Edward Robinson from Thrivent. One of the things I've taken away from this interview is the importance of not just saving for retirement but saving to be a blessing to others and being rich toward God. I appreciate the mindset and proactive nature Edward displays in coming alongside owners to help them in this area while they focus on their business. You know, I never gave retirement much thought until I started seeing my dad decline with dementia. Then I realized that even if I don't retire, I need to plan for my slowdown of pace and ability that's eventually going to come. So how about you? Are you investing right now for your future? Will it be enough? Today is a great day to start. And I exhort you to redeem your future by starting to invest today. And I just happen to know a guy who would love to help. That's all for now. And remember, time has limits. You can't do everything. Choose wisely.