Money is a great servant.

It's a horrible master, and it's kind of one or the other, either it's serving

you or you're serving it, but we've even gone beyond that where we are worshiping

and pursuing consumption and comfort as a goal rather than stewardship.

do you take the lessons of financial planning from the rugged terrains

of Alaska and make them universal?

us today is Chad Hufford.

A seasoned financial planner and the founder of Veritas in Anchorage, Alaska.

Chad, who grew up under the tutelage of his father in the financial sector,

brings a unique blend of personal experience and professional expertise.

As a devoted father of six and an avid outdoorsman, Chad integrates his life's

passion with his professional mission, educating and empowering families across

America to achieve financial independence.

Tune in as we explore Chad's journey from learning the ropes In a family

run business to becoming the longest tenured Dave Ramsey, smart Vesta pro

in Alaska, and how he uses his coaching mindset to help clients navigate the

complexities of financial planning.

stay tuned, please, to the very end for a special announcement about

some future episodes that we have.

Chad, welcome to seek, go create.

It's a pleasure to be here and looking forward to encouraging,

uplifting your audience and helping them create a more abundant life.

Yeah, I'm glad you're here too.

You are episode 299.

We've got 300 coming up and I'll talk more about it at the end,

We've been going here for six years.

Sounds like we talked a little bit beforehand.

We've, both had some fun weeks, so I'm glad we're here recording.

the listener needs to be thankful, right?

Absolutely.

And I just was reminding myself, you know, as I was going through some

of this and some of the problems that I'm dealing with are problems

that some people would love to have.

And they're frustrating in the moment, but, it's, it's good to have perspective.

Yeah.

there's no sanctification that happens inside a comfort zone, right?

No, it doesn't.

It doesn't.

We may talk about perspective as we go through here, because I love about

perspective when it comes to money and finances and looking forward

to getting your perspective on just what it's like being in Alaska.

So, uh, question, though, give you a choice here.

Would you rather answer do you do who are you?

Just pick it and go ahead and answer.

What do I do?

I would say professionally, I make sure people don't run out of

money or purpose in retirement.

And I think a lot of people in my field only focus on the first part,

but if you run out of purpose before you run out of money, it's hard to

experience freedom and abundance.

And when I say abundance, I'm talking about so much more than just

money, finances and material things.

in fact, I would say that's what I do more as a person is try to empower people

to pursue a better version of themselves and a life with more meaning and freedom.

It's cool that you brought up purpose because I think I picked up on that,

but I didn't realize you would with it.

My wife and I right now are hanging out, in the warmth of Arizona

in a 55 and older community.

And it is fascinating.

A lot of these people are retired.

A lot of these people have done well financially.

But my wife and I, you know, we're still working.

We've got stuff going on and is interesting to see how many

people at this age, mature age, they really don't have purpose.

And, what do you, I mean, this is diving into the deep end of the pool here, but,

what comes up when you bring up with people that not only do you want them

to handle money, because most people are probably thinking money's the answer.

And then you start talking purpose,

Oh my goodness.

Okay, so we could spend the whole episode just on this right here.

So number one, money is a tool.

When money becomes the goal or the objective, then we're on a dangerous path.

Money is a tool you use to build a life of meaning, purpose, and freedom.

it's what you use to build independence, and not the end goal.

I think here in the United States, we've done ourselves a huge disservice

by treating work as the thing to avoid.

Like I'm going to build up a bunch of money.

I'm going to save a bunch of money so one day I can quit my job.

Well, guys, you can quit your job today.

The government will take care of you.

I'm not suggesting that, but if that's your goal is to quit working, then you

can just turn this podcast off right now.

But the goal is independence to pursue what is even more meaningful.

And I think so many people focus on what they're retiring from.

They don't really have a vision for what they're retiring to.

And Tim, to your point about the community you're in, most

of these people are successful.

They did well.

They're the worst types of people to not have meaningful pursuit.

Because they're probably more goal focused and more your audience as well.

More ambitious, more intentional.

They're the worst type of people to not have a mission.

And when you take that away from somebody, they will often end

up pursuing the wrong things.

They will chase the things that they shouldn't be chasing because they don't

have something meaningful to pursue.

you know, or, or worse, they'll do nothing.

That's what we see.

Some doing nothing.

really here.

We're recording this on a Thursday, just to put a time stamp on it.

In this community, at about 4pm, all these people start bringing their chairs

out to the, some little common areas.

And they have these happy hours.

And they're not all alcohol related, but many of them are.

I'm still doing some work.

I'm sorry.

I can't hang out.

I'd love to chit chat with y'all, but so that that's one thing, but at

least they're being social where we are here, there's 32 pickleball courts

and I, I love a little pickleball.

Okay.

I'm not against pickleball, but there are people that will play five

and six hours of pickleball a day.

And you know what?

That's not a bad thing.

I think it might be better than doing nothing.

But my wife and I will often say, Hmm, you think that's what God created him for to

when they hit 65, 70, 75, some are older than that to play pickleball all day long.

And again, maybe, maybe it is, I'm not judging it, but, but, and this is a little

bit more of an active area than some retirement areas and also, so, I mean,

and again, this is a question to ask Chad, but I'm sure people come to you.

the money piece, how do you start nudging them to think about the purpose piece?

Again, it goes back to, you know, pursuit.

we want people to be focused on what they're retiring to,

not what they're retiring from.

are you fleeing a career?

and even if it's a great job, you love what you did.

we worked with a lot of oil field folks.

We worked with a lot of law enforcement, their careers that are hard on the body.

You might love what you do.

It's just not something you want to do forever.

are you leaving or exiting a career or are you entering a new chapter of your life?

And I think that perspective is so important between those two.

I'll just give you a little metaphor.

as you mentioned in your introduction, I have six kids, so we watch a lot

of nature shows and there's a leopard chasing a warthog and I'm watching this.

I'm thinking both of these animals.

are running as hard as they possibly can.

They're as hard as their legs and lungs will allow them, but only one

of them is having any fun right now.

And the leopard is pursuing something and the warthog is fleeing.

The warthog is running for the life.

I think too many people spend life.

Using finances to flee from something rather than to pursue

something even more important.

I just believe when people hit a period in their life where they no longer have to go

to work, we call it a job optional life.

not even retirement, but when people don't need to produce a paycheck anymore,

I believe that's when they can have the biggest impact, the biggest years of,

of impact than they ever had before.

Cause they don't have to spend the time, the energy going to work, doing

things that might not really align with, with their soul and their passion.

So it's interesting that the fields that you brought up, and I'm sure you

work with people outside of the oil field and also first responders and

things like that, but those are, in my opinion, they seem to be physical

type jobs, especially the oil field.

And I could see that a lot of people would want to have to work as hard physically.

do you see that in that oil field industry or is that just me maybe

reading it wrong because I have no knowledge of that industry?

No, you're absolutely right.

That's a big part of it.

Another big part, at least here in Alaska, is a lot of these men and women,

they're working above the Arctic Circle.

I mean, there's actually a place in Alaska called North Pole, and we

don't see Santa a lot, but It's a long ways past North Pole, Alaska.

I mean, it's out in the middle of nowhere.

And this time of year, they hardly see the sun.

They're working sometimes in 40 below temperatures and they're going weeks

at a time without seeing their family.

And again, some of these folks, they love what they do, not all

the time, but they give up a lot.

There's a lot of sacrifice.

So we, again, we're not in a hurry to get anybody to retire, but we are

trying to do is get them to a place.

Relatively early in life where they no longer have to produce that paycheck.

they have the independence To transition to maybe a new career maybe take a

lower paying job here in town But they don't have to do those things

anymore if they don't choose to and some people do we have a guy We have

several actually, A couple come to mind.

They're in their 70s They really enjoy what they're doing.

They love their community.

Their kids are grown.

and that is like their, their family kind of, but we just want them to make

that choice and not be dictated by their, their job or their finances.

And I think, you know, going back to your question about, you know,

people come to us for money, but it's, again, money is just a tool.

What we're trying to do is get them to think about where.

What do you want your life to look like?

Who do you want to become?

And we start reverse engineering that because again, money is

just a tool to build that it is.

It's an important part of the whole equation, but it

is not the entire equation.

and some of those people might end up down here in Arizona where I'm at

We have a lot of them down there, But, no, we

yeah.

the sunshine.

I love being able to be in shorts, and I love taking a break.

We talked about the importance of stillness.

Like, I'm not saying you should be busy, busy, busy all the time.

I believe we are created with margin.

you know, the, God instituted the Sabbath, if it was important for

God to take a rest, I think as human beings we probably need it too.

So I believe it's important to find rest and relaxation.

It's important to have balance.

But again, I just disagree with the fact that retirement is where you

completely unplug and you have 20 years of weekends, just a two decade vacation.

I've seen that happen and I've seen a lot of emptiness and loneliness that

come with that and the people who are most fulfilled in a job optional life

are the people who are still serving, they're still connected, they're

still stretching themselves, they're growing and they're making some of

the biggest impact of their life.

right, yeah, my wife and I have recently come to terms with, both of

our mothers are still living, my dad passed a few years ago, and we've kind

of come to terms with what's going on in their lives, is they really, don't

have anything that they're living for, nothing that they're pursuing or going

after, they're both in their 80s, and it actually has been a little bit,

not depressing for us, but eye opening might be a better term, I don't know.

that we are purposing not to, not to be that way.

not judging or throwing our moms under the bus or anything like that.

and you know, this kind of brings up something really cool because I noticed

that your father, you commented that your father had similar business and,

and you learned some things from him.

One of the things that has come up, because we've already

recorded, this is episode 299.

We've recorded 301 and 302.

We invited some guests back that were five years ago, some of our first guests.

And both of them, there became a theme of people are reaching a certain age,

how do we turn around and share wisdom as we didn't call it old people, but

as mature, we share some of the things we learned with younger generations?

so I'll pose this in the form of a question.

I picked up on that you, to have learned a good bit from your father and

growing up and we'll talk I want to ask a little bit about your growing up in

just a little while, but a little bit about that role that your father had

Sharing wisdom information with you as he matured

Do you know who Larry Burkett is?

Does that name sound familiar to you, Tim?

Okay, so a lot of people listening to this will be very familiar with Dave Ramsey.

But before Dave was ever on a budget, There was a guy named Larry Burkett and

that's what we listened to growing up.

And I thought it was child abuse at the time.

I'm like, you know, we're sitting around a radio listening to this guy

talk about budgeting and money and stewardship and all these things.

But that was the household I was raised in.

And we live in a culture now, Tim, where money is taboo.

We don't talk about that, which means people repeat the

mistakes of what they've done.

those around them and they don't learn from the victories, the wins.

So it's, we just have the blind leading the blind in a lot of respects.

I didn't realize that that's how people live.

I thought it was just normal to sit around the dinner table and talk about maybe

a charity that you were excited about giving to, or what you were saving up

for or the jobs you were planning to do.

I mean, as kids, My dad would give us opportunities to earn money.

It wasn't an allowance opportunities to earn money based on a goal.

And there were sometimes extra incentives.

I just thought it was normal to talk about money.

And the other thing that was really important though, Tim, not only.

A couple things.

Number one, my parents modeled it.

They didn't tell us one thing and do something else.

And I believe more is caught than taught.

It is really hard if we tell our kids, Hey, you need to be

intentional with your money.

You need to be a good steward.

You need to be generous.

You need to plan for your future.

But just don't do anything as I'm doing.

So I'm spending everything I have.

I don't live on a budget.

We don't give consistently.

We're not, you know, but that's what happens a lot of times, you

know, do what I say, not what I do.

My parents taught us, but they also, they walked their talk.

The other thing that was really cool is my dad.

I grew up with my parents.

Especially my dad teaching Larry Burkett's class.

They called it crown financial and it was kind of the predecessor to what everybody

knows as financial peace university.

Now a lot of the same, I mean the same principles, they go back to Proverbs.

They're not Larry's principles, not Dave's principles, or God's principles.

They've been working for 4, 000 years, roughly, But they taught those

in our churches, in the community.

And what I saw Tim, it was so powerful.

I saw the impact that had not just in people's finances,

but in their life in general.

Because when people started to take control of money and having

discipline and victory in that area, it had a ripple effect into

so many other areas of their life.

And when God's people start using.

money God's way.

It's amazing the impact that that has and how the rest of their life lines up.

but the cool thing about that.

I just went straight to a scripture.

It's in Matthew 6 Somewhere in early in Matthew 6 you can't serve two masters

I'm, and I'm pretty confident many people are attempting to serve too,

but you can't serve too, because that money is such an important thing for it.

the thing that popped into my mind, and this is going to put a little bit of a

timestamp when we're recording this, is that we don't have good examples of fiscal

responsibility in discussing money, and we've got such an example of that right

now in the U. S. government, and in that.

Elon Musk and Donald Trump.

I don't, I'm not going political on this.

This shouldn't be a party issue, they are going through line by line

with what the government is spending some people are excited about it.

Some people are not, and we haven't had fiscal responsibility in our government.

I don't think we've had good models in our culture, Chad.

And so the fact that you had it in your family, I think is really cool.

I'll pause.

Any thoughts on that?

A lot of thoughts.

So number one, again, there's a phrase or a saying that

says fish discover water last.

I did not realize how blessed I was to grow up.

In that culture, in that environment.

Again, I thought it was normal.

the other thing you're absolutely right is we don't have good

examples and the people who are doing it well are doing it quietly.

I had somebody in my office the other day.

this was yesterday, multi millionaires, completely financially independent.

They retired to go do missions work in rural Alaska and they're wearing,

Car hearts and an old beat up jeans like you would never know it and again

I'm not saying you need to be flashy But the people who are doing really

well who are good stewards who do plan for the future Are usually doing it

quietly and I think money has always been worshipped wealth has always been

worshipped But today in our culture Tim, we don't even worship wealth anymore.

We worship consumption It is the exact opposite of wealth.

When you see somebody on Tok or whatever kids are listening to these

days, you know, it's the fancy cars and the awesome vacations in the 4,

000 handbags and the designer jeans.

That's not wealth.

That's actually the consumption, it's the spending of wealth,

it's the exact opposite.

So not only are we, as you said, drawn to, to serving money, and I

believe money is a great servant.

It's a horrible master, and it's kind of one or the other, either it's serving

you or you're serving it, but we've even gone beyond that where we are worshiping

and pursuing consumption and comfort as a goal rather than stewardship.

Yeah, that, that's a, such a big topic that I'm not sure I want us to

dive into because it would be a great conversation, but, I think the thing

I want to dig a little bit on Chad is.

It's very obvious that you grew up in a household they lived within their means.

They spent less than they made.

And I believe that I had an example of that, but one of the things I did growing

up in the eighties, I just decided I was going to make me some money.

It took me a while to learn that you can't spend more than you make.

And, I loved in the book, you talked about some of the things

and you painted a picture.

Y'all, y'all dressed alike, not only dressed alike, but

it was homemade clothing.

And I had this vision of the Von Trapp family and sound of music.

Would that an accurate depiction of your family growing up?

No, because Yvonne Chaps were talented and they could sing

homeschooling looks so different than it did back then.

Like we were homeschooled.

So hard.

We were, we were the most homeschooled and you know, there's

no such thing as snow days.

You know, I'm here in Anchorage, Alaska.

They, we get horrible ice storms, snow storms, they cancel school.

And that just meant for us, we had more time to do school.

Mom's like, we're not going anywhere today.

We're doing extra.

If you got sick, there was no bringing soup and crackers to you in bed.

It was, you know, here's your math book.

I'm sorry you don't feel good, but.

You can, you can do this in your bed.

Please don't get vomit on the math book because your brothers and sisters are

going to have to use this same book too.

my mom was a pioneer of sorts and we baked her own bread, we ground her own wheat.

I mean, it was, we were weird.

We were different.

my mom made us matching clothes.

We look like a traveling where's Waldo convention.

I mean, Looking back on it, it's funny now, but at the time, I'm

like, Oh my goodness, this is awful.

and my therapist says I'm well adjusted now, we grew up very, very differently.

And as I got older, I realized how That was kind of a blessing, even

though it was painful in the moment.

And granted, we probably didn't have to be as different as we, as we were, but it

being different as a superpower now these days, because our culture is, Is we've

made normal, very unhealthy behaviors in our relationships, in our finances.

The thing that you said, just living within your means, that is such a simple

concept, but almost nobody does it.

And it doesn't matter how good your investments are, how

good your financial plan is.

If you don't live within your means, you can't feed your investment.

And that is the number one rule of wealth building

Less than you produce.

And so few people actually do it like, Oh, that's simple.

I know that.

Well then do it.

It's like saying, well, I know I should eat less and move more to

get in better shape, No, That's it.

You got to do the simple things.

Yeah, and it takes discipline and things like that.

I want to talk about some of those in just a moment, but there's one other thing

on the homeschool thing I want to ask.

You mentioned you're okay now you've gone through the therapy

and all that kind of stuff.

But I also know, I think I read that you and Tiffany y'all are

homeschooling y'all's children.

Being homeschooled yourself, and now you and your wife are homeschooling

your children, what are one or two things that you are never going to do

with your children that you had growing up because it was just too, I don't

want to say traumatic, but it's like, okay, we're not doing it that way.

And then what are some things that's like, absolutely, this is, this

is one thing we're doing because you are still homeschooling.

So, what are some scars that you might still have from

your experience growing up?

I would say overall, I'm very grateful.

I was homeschooled.

my parents didn't do it perfectly.

They're.

fallible human beings just as I am.

We're not doing it perfectly, but the benefits, the blessings from that

far outweighed any of the detriments.

the isolation was hard.

I'm an introvert, but there are definitely some very lonely times and

I know that affects who I am today.

so, you know, we're very intentional surrounding our kids

with Good kids from solid homes.

who are like minded and trying to find kids to actually stretch

our kids and challenge them.

we also want to expose them a little bit to some of the craziness

that's out there in the world.

some of our friends, The few we had growing up, some were so isolated

and sheltered that they didn't have the opportunity to build up that

resistance and resilience that you need.

It's almost like having an immune system.

You have to be exposed to some of it to build up that resistance.

they need to know what's in this crazy world.

They just don't need to be inundated and overwhelmed by it.

some of the things that we are trying to do though, is Giving,

giving them the opportunity to also learn just practical lessons.

And, you know, we're not trying to raise good kids.

We're trying to raise good adults, and getting them to interact very

early on with adults, with our peers.

My daughter started working here last year, at Veritas and

interacting with absolute phenomenal people on a regular basis.

kids.

will rise or fall to the standard that you set.

And my parents set a high standard for us and we figured out a way to meet it.

So I'm definitely taking those lessons and the encouragement

that I got from my family.

showing us that all these limitations that people have on themselves

are very much self imposed.

We're not, we're not going to accept the results that everybody else is

getting, which means we have to have some different actions and behaviors.

And so those are the things we're trying to teach our kids as well.

are you dressing them all alike?

Are you making them all dress alike?

No, I wish, man, Tim, I wish we had a picture.

Like people probably think he's exaggerating.

No, I have pictures of our entire family.

There was five of us kids.

So seven of us total wearing these matching clothes, these horrible

like red and blue stripe patterns.

I mean, it was, it was, it was bad news.

now my wife will say our, we will have our kids coordinate, but they don't match.

So for family pictures, Special events, stuff like that.

She's got a great eye for that style.

But no matching clothes over here.

Yeah, that does kind of bring up some of the, not so positive stereotypes

of homeschooling and things like that.

But, you know, here's the thing.

The reason I ask it a lot when I have people like that, we homeschooled

our kids, is that people are flocking into the homeschool arena right now.

And I think people that have done it or you're a second generation homeschool, I

think we need to share some wisdom because a lot of people are learning as they go.

And so I do think, that's a good thing.

one of the things I was trying to think of how many people I've had on the

podcast the 299 episodes that were from Alaska and I couldn't think of anyone.

Hmm.

we haven't had anyone, but what are some things that those of us

in the lower 48 really should know about people that, know, your second

generation, at least Alaska sounds like your wife is to y'all are Alaskans.

are some things that we need to know about Alaska and people from Alaska?

Well, if you need some trivia, Alaska is the, the westernmost

state, which makes sense.

And we, we don't live down by Hawaii.

That's just on your maps.

We're actually up, up north quite a bit, um, but it is also the eastern

most state because the Aleutians, which is the arm that heads out west,

goes so far, and the joke is like, we can see Russia from here, right?

But there's, there's a lot of places in Alaska that are closer to Russia than

they are to Anchorage, where I live.

And it's, it stretches so far, um, that it actually is in the eastern hemisphere.

So, Alaska technically is the western and eastern most state.

It's also such a huge state.

Uh, we like to remind our friends in the smaller state of Texas

that we're over twice their size.

But we have such a vast difference in, in In geography and terrain, like people say,

you know, what is it like living a lot?

Well, where I live is completely different than let's say Fairbanks

or down in Juneau where our capital there's, there's so many different

climates that even within Alaska you can, there's deserts, we have rainforests.

We have, I mean, it's, it is an unbelievable place to live and

I've lived here my entire life, as you said, and I still have

experienced only a fraction of it.

One thing that's tough, we, we visit a lot of national parks.

You know, we've been traveling around for years, but six years in our, in

our motor coach and we planning, we did Oregon like in 2019 and then we were

planning to start mapping out how we could get up to Alaska and then COVID

hit and we were like, Hmm, I don't know if, you know, we can't kind of go

through Canada, it is a long way, you know, should we do something different?

I mean, but one of the things I've looked at.

is some of the national parks there.

I don't want to say there, you almost can't get to them, but if

you really look at some of the land there, it is so remote, so massive.

It, it's almost daunting for someone who says, yeah, I'd like

to pick off a few national parks.

I mean, have you been able to get to some of that?

You're an outdoors guy.

So what all have you been able to quote, unquote, explore in

Alaska that, that you could share?

Well, it's both and I don't, I don't want to, I mean, there

are some very accessible places.

There's some places that are nearly impossible to get to.

So for people planning a trip to Alaska, I don't want to make it

feel more daunting than it is.

I mean, you can have a nice vacation.

This isn't.

You know, this is like going back in time up here.

You know, we have running water, electricity, we

have internet on most days.

Um, but, but there are places where you can only get to by like boat or, or plane.

Um, there's some extremely remote places and some of those places

are so ruggedly beautiful that, I mean, it's awe inspiring.

Like you will look at some of these places and think, I don't know if another

human being has walked over there.

You know, and, but there's places, there's, Gorgeous places to drive to um,

there's places we have a train system that takes you to some of the I'll call

them the kind of hot spots, you know, some of the, the key places like you're

going to only be in Alaska for a week.

You need to see these things.

So it is a mix, but there's definitely for people who are more

adventurous, they want to get out to more, those more remote places.

There's a lot of air taxis and even I talked to a guy yesterday that runs a

helicopter service and you know, they bring to people the parts of Alaska

that most Alaskans have never seen.

One of my favorite places here in Alaska is actually.

Where my wife and I built it overlooks Anchorage and I'm only

about 15 20 minutes away from my office But it overlooks entire city.

have moose and bears and elk that come through our yard and It's

just it's a beautiful perspective.

It is peaceful We had a gorgeous sunset last night.

One of my favorite things to do is The summer is sit

outside with a book and read.

Um, in the winter a little too cold for that, but sitting by the, we

have these, these big windows, uh, facing where the sun sets and just

sitting there and just taking it in.

Um, and it's, uh, I pinch myself sometimes, Tim, like that we live here and

I told, tell my kids like we experience on a regular basis for what a lot of people

is, is a bucket list and like, don't ever let this get old because I mean, just,

it's like God paints a masterpiece every single day that we get to experience.

As my wife and I travel, have traveled, we kind of coined this when we were

in New Zealand for a few months.

There are places, there are beautiful places all over, but

Yes.

how, how great they are And it sounds like you kind of described something

that's, uh, how great they are.

Well, my wife and I are at 49 states and Alaska is the only

state we have not traveled to.

foot on, done anything with.

So it'll definitely be in our plans over the next few years

to figure out how to do that.

We've even discussed, we're not huge cruise fans, but we've considered

doing the cruise just to kind of get that way and explore it that way.

So we'll, we, we shall see.

Well, come on.

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But, uh, thing, Chad, I'm always intrigued by how people, I know you,

your father was in the business roughly.

It sounds like, and then.

And then, and then you kind of moved into the financial business,

but was, was it kind of a done deal that you were going to go into this

industry or how did that come to be?

If it was, uh, if there's a story behind it,

I'll try to give you this short version because it's a longer story,

but no, that was never the intent.

I actually have a degree in biochemistry and medicine was my path.

And I was on my way to becoming what I thought was going to be a hotshot surgeon.

And I met the woman who is now my wife, and she did not grow up like I did, Tim.

She grew up in legitimate poverty.

Um, she remembers having Christmas in a homeless shelter.

I mean, that's the kind of, situation she grew up in.

And what I realized is what she was really longing for was stability.

She wanted a family.

She wanted somebody to raise kids with.

And not that you can't have balance as, as a surgeon or as a physician, but a

couple of my mentors, um, had difficult conversations with me and they, they

told me, I said, we know how you're wired and if you pursue this path.

It might own you and you'll love it.

And that's the most dangerous part is you won't realize what's happening

because you're going to be so engrossed that you won't, you won't see that

you're sacrificing your family for your career, but they will feel it.

And that wasn't a trade I was willing to make.

And I think I ultimately chose this because I saw my dad at every game.

I saw him at every recital, every, uh, Every play, everything that

we did, my parents were there.

Not only there, but they were present.

They were very much involved with what we were doing.

And I wanted that.

And I thought, if my dad can make that happen in this career field,

then maybe I can do that as well.

So it did not start as a passion.

It started as a very practical way for me to provide the family life that I wanted.

I wanted to own a business.

I didn't want a business that owned me.

So I started from scratch and built it that way.

But then my passion for this grew, especially 2008, 2009, as I saw

the destruction that finances can have in somebody's life.

Um, because our, our bodies, our minds cannot compartmentalize stress when

you're stressed about your finances, when you have anxiety and frustrations, they

will bleed into every area of your life.

And we saw that 2008, 2009.

And I thought, this is where I need to be.

This is where I can make the biggest impact.

what'd you learn during that time that you could share with us?

I learned perseverance in a new way.

Um, sometimes there are no answers.

There are, there are only questions.

And, um, Psalm 119, 105 says your word, Lord is light into

my path and lamp into my feet.

And what I was looking for in 2008, 2009 was a floodlight.

Like, it lit up the entire highway.

And what I learned in that time is sometimes God only shows us the next step.

He doesn't show us the whole path.

He show, he lights up just enough so we don't trip and so we don't go off course.

But we don't get to see the whole road ahead, which is good because

if I had seen the whole road ahead, I think I would have quit.

I don't think I'd be here today.

I think I would have, um, not to say that medicine would

have been, uh, I don't know.

Uh, a horrible contingency, but I, I think that's where I would have gone.

It was a much clearer pathway and I would have enjoyed it.

And I think I still would have had, uh, been enjoying a wonderful life, but it

wouldn't be the same as what I have.

And I learned to persevere in the midst of extreme ambiguity.

Yeah.

Did you, uh, did you have financial clients at that time?

Yeah, I started in 2007 it was just before.

So it started with a baby on the way with a biochemistry degree.

Oh, it was awesome.

Like I said, I would never want to go through it again.

And if I could have seen, if I could have seen where the road

was leading, I don't think I would have taken it, but God showed me

just enough to take the next step.

And I think that's one of the things that really hold people

back is we want certainty and too often we will trade away.

Security and impact for certainty in the moment.

And somebody's ability to tolerate ambiguity is a huge,

huge indicator of the quality of life that they're going to live.

The more ambiguity that you can stomach that you can handle, I think the more

potential and in meaning your life is going to have, I mean, obviously

it's a broad statement, but, but.

certainty gets a lot of us in trouble and I learned to give up my need

for certainty during that time.

One thing that's cool.

It came to me is I, I actually think you have more credibility you were

in the industry during that time.

Because one of the things I'm noticing in interacting with people here in

2025 is that there are many people that have totally forgotten that

they know nothing about history.

some people that have forgotten what went on in 2021 22

Sure.

And, you know, I still have scars from 08, 09, 10.

And I think it, it brings perspective.

I love the word perseverance you brought up.

I think in the book you talk about the importance of just consistent and steady.

Those, those two aren't the same word, but they're really related,

especially when it comes to financial planning for, for the individual.

Talk, talk about the importance of just consistency.

Well, I think perseverance, you could even define it as consistency under

pressure or consistency amidst trials.

So it's consistently doing the thing when you are faced with challenges and

consistency is hard even on the best days.

You know, you already mentioned your recording, um, early in 2025 and,

you know, the gyms are already empty.

Yeah.

Everybody was gung ho about, you know, 2025 new, new me, new year, you know,

gonna, gonna get my body back on these things and they, they go out and there

is people haven't worked out in 20 years and they're downloading like Navy

SEAL workouts, trying to do what the special forces do and they burn out.

it's not what you do one day.

It's what you do every day that matters.

And the people that who are successful in relationships and business and

money in finance, I mean, they're not, they're not necessarily doing things

completely different from everybody else.

But what makes them different is they do consistently what most

people do only sporadically.

So it is consistency under fire that is absolutely necessary to build,

meaningful and sustainable wealth.

And I think to build even a meaningful life.

Yeah, I was gonna when you jumped on here, I was going to comment on your pecs

because you used the story in your book about some guy at a conference coming.

But but we're really from the waist up here.

And I thought I said that that could get awkward just like that.

We'll let people read the book and get the rest of that story.

We won't go there,

Well, the gist of it, just real quick, is somebody was trying to figure out,

you know, what is, what's the secret to, to developing their upper body?

And um, you know, it was asking about all these different exercises and

this technique and that technique.

I said, they'll all work, but you have to do them and, and

just don't miss your workout.

And um, You know, that's, that's the most important.

So there's a lot of ways to build wealth.

There's a lot of ways to love your spouse and to show appreciation for

your kids and to make them feel loved.

There's a lot of avenues, but we have to consistently execute those things.

And I don't mean this to be crass, but at Warren Buffett, uh, he has a quote,

I believe it's Warren Buffett that says, If you want a baby in a month,

you can't go get nine women pregnant.

Like you, you can't, you can't go start all these different things

and expect to speed up the process.

It takes patience and consistent.

You have to wait for time to develop.

And I think too often people are looking for that shortcut.

They're looking for the quick fix.

We tell people all the time, this isn't about getting rich quick.

It's about building wealth slowly and meaningfully.

And When we look for shortcuts, we miss the paths that do work.

It's kind of going back to the old tortoise and the hare.

Um, the tortoise wasn't sexy, wasn't flashy.

He was slow and methodical, but he was persistent.

He persevered and he consistently took one step in front of the other.

And that is exactly how, how your financial, your

financial practice should work.

I noticed, I noticed with me, one of the flaws that I, I'm hopeful the

work that the Lord and I have done have removed is from my personality

is we for the longest had real estate companies leading up to oh eight.

I'm not going to tell you the rest of the story that you can probably guess.

And one thing I recognized about real estate, the way we were building

it and we were very aggressive.

We were buying three to five single family homes or other properties per month.

Is that my mindset was always that the next deal was going to position

us, which is not the right mindset.

I'm looking back on it.

I know that was wrong, but, but what I realized was that that was the

emotional state that was driving me.

And, and I realize I, when I was reading through your book, I was thinking

through the lessons you have there.

They're steady, they're calm.

I realized that emotions at time, the, next deal

Mhm.

was, was driving a lot of my financial decisions and things like that.

Talk about how emotion plays into this.

You, it's all throughout the book, but I never saw you really call

out emotions, but talk about the pros and cons of emotions when

we're dealing with our finances.

Well, it is an emotional journey and we cannot disconnect our emotions from it.

I think it's one of the reasons why so much of the Bible talks about money.

It's very emotionally charged and it can get us off track if we're not careful.

Um, we are emotional beings, so I think emotions can get us in

trouble when they start driving us.

But, and this is one of the reasons we talk about life.

First, when people are coming to us for the first time, we talk, what

do they want their life to look?

We're trying to get positive emotions wrapped around what they're building

longterm, get it beyond their money.

But we also see the flip side of this.

You mentioned 2008, 2009 where, where scarcity and fear

emotions were driving people.

And it's good to have some fear, but fear can't dictate our decisions.

When our emotions start making our decisions for us,

that's when we get in trouble.

And I like what you said about focusing on the next deal, like,

I think that's very common.

It's, it's the next investment or what is this, you know, I

found this new mutual fund.

If we're looking external.

For some new tool.

We're missing the biggest part that we have stewardship over and that's ourselves

and Here in our culture We we try to fix poor money management with more money.

We try to out earn Poor financial decisions a lot of those financial

decisions are emotional Maybe we feel insecure and we we try to you know,

we're trying to You buy things we don't need with money we don't have

to impress people we don't even like, or, or we buy what we think other

people will appreciate or admire.

Um, and what ends up happening is you can never, you, you can never out

earn bad, funny, bad money management.

Um, it'd be like somebody who, who, Can't drive giving them a faster car.

We talked before we started recording.

My daughter's been in two accidents in the last month.

She's okay The cars are not but like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna buy her

a Ferrari because She banged up the Honda CRV like, okay, we'll just

give you more horsepower that should fix it if you're just going faster.

But that's what we do with money.

People don't manage, they don't, they don't operate their finances

well and they try to solve it by just adding more money into the equation.

And it actually intensifies those maybe, I don't know what we'll call

them bad emotions, but the control those emotions have over that.

They don't get that part.

Uh, control that if their mindset doesn't get right, you add money

that it's just fueled the fire.

Uh, Dave Ramsey says money makes you more of who you already are.

It magnifies your, your strengths and your weaknesses

and one of the things I recognize with me and I think this is fairly common is I had

a, and I'm not proud of admitting this.

I had a get rich quick mindset.

I had a, I had a short term, get rich quick, do a couple of deals.

That's going to set you up and then you can, I don't know, retire,

right off into the sunset or something.

Yeah.

right off in the sunset, you know, golfing to it.

And, you know, I. I've even gotten in the mode and I think a lot of people

need to do this of not really checking a lot of the financial news daily I

think most of the financial news are training people to think short term.

You know, the Fed makes a speech and the market goes up or down by 350

points and they're acting as if that is.

Significant, I mean, it's not insignificant, but I mean, we're

being fed this short term mindset.

And And we're sensationalizing it and we're teaching people

that that's what matters.

And we already kind of talked about this journey, right?

The, the tortoise and the hare, the, the tortoise was steadily plodding along.

If we take that step further, it's like a marathon.

It's like a marathon up a mountain, but we're not going to be able

to stay on the right path.

If we're always looking at something right in front of our face, it'd be

like trying to read a book while hiking.

You're going to probably fall off a cliff if you're hiking in Alaska.

We need to keep our eyes on where we're traveling and making sure

we're aligned with the path.

That's one of the biggest things that we do professionally is actually

create a path from where somebody is today, where they want to be in the

future, something guiding their saving and investing decisions, and then

hold them accountable to that path.

But if we're always focusing on the news and the economic weather reports

and, you know, We're, we're focused on something so close to our face

that will actually get us to veer off.

And you're right.

It's almost impossible to have a longterm mindset with, with so

much emphasis on the short term.

Here's the other thing that is I think equally important is my

industry, the financial industry and the news media focuses on

everything that you can't control.

And we tell people, and I'll say me personally, my industry, we

tell people how important it is.

You said, what is, what does the fed say?

What, what's, what are interest rates going to do?

What was the last jobs report?

What are the inflation numbers?

What's going on in Ukraine in the middle East?

All those things.

Do they, do they have an impact?

Yes.

But can you control any of them?

No.

So so often people spend all their time and energy, uh, Focusing on what

they can't control that they actually miss the opportunities to influence the

things that they can control and they give up their agency and they end up in

a state of victimhood or helplessness.

it's interesting, as you were saying that, I've attempted to, my phone is

actually my camera, so I can't pull it up here as an example, but, you know,

we've got access to all of this data now.

More, I think more than we need, but we won't get into that conversation.

And one of the things I am constantly attending, attempting to discipline

myself on is what do I look at every day?

And for me, I don't look at the market.

I don't look at stocks.

I even don't really look at a lot of financial news.

But I'm about to tell you, you're going to learn something about me here.

There are two apps that I go to.

I go to a cryptocurrency app that gives me the price, current price of

Bitcoin and some other cryptocurrencies.

And I go to my gold app that tells me the current price of gold that

probably also tells you a little bit about some things about where I stand

politically and things like that.

I really am wanting to get to where I don't even look at those because

I can't do anything about them.

Like you said, there's nothing that I can do.

And so when, when you have clients and they're wanting to know things and they're

saying, do I really need to look at?

Are you watching this for me daily or do I need to watch it daily?

kind of advice do you give people?

What do we really need to know in the world we're in today?

I think it's, it's a balance between focusing on what we're

actually trying to build.

financially, like where we're trying to go, where do we want our life to be?

And what are our actions and behaviors today?

How well are they aligned with that future?

So it's, it's ignoring most of what's going on in the world.

So a lot of what you talk about, uh, when in your, in your leadership

coaching is about the difference between being proactive and reactive.

And we're reactive human beings.

We will always be reactive to some degree, but the more proactive

you are, Towards a long term goal.

The more you are acting on a plan, the less likely you are to react

to the crazy world around us.

And you said we're, we're an information overload where we, we

take in a lot of data and information, but we don't execute very well.

And I think we need to be really careful about, are we

getting intellectually obese?

Are we taking in so much information, but then we just sit around

and don't do anything with it.

And just one thing I'll say is, uh, Just kind of close up this thought

is not all data is information.

Not all information is knowledge and not all knowledge is wisdom.

And I think we lack a lot of wisdom in our culture.

a lot of data, have a lot of information, but what are you doing?

How are you stewarding, stewarding that?

Are you actually implementing that into your daily life?

That's the question we need to ask ourselves.

And that's how we circle back to our clients is.

Where are you in relation to where do you want to be in the future?

And what are the changes or what are the steps you need to take to be in

alignment with that regardless of what the world is doing around you?

Because Tim, what happens in your house is always going to be a bigger impact to

your future than what happens in the white house or on any other political platform.

Mm

I love that you brought this up.

Proactive for me is controlling those things you can control.

Being reactive is allowing all those things that you probably don't

really even have control over to can at times beat you to a pulp.

I mean, I see it with leaders that I work with and I'm sure you see it with

people in the, in the financial arena.

Also, there's one more word I want to bring up to you that I want you

to discuss before we talk about someone can connect with you and

what the process looks like, Chad.

And if we want to say anything about the book, forging financial freedom, I'll

Seven wealth building lessons extracted.

I like that's a good word there from the Alaskan oil field.

I'm sure that was intentional with that word extracted from the old field.

But, um, the word risk, as I was reading through the book, the word risk

kept being the word that jumped up.

You talked about it a number of times, but I, I believe because we haven't talked

about money, we don't, we don't look at it as a tool or maybe there's other

reasons, I think a lot of, and fear.

I think you brought up fear earlier.

I think a lot of people have a misconstrued, know if I use

that word right, a screwed up way of looking at risk,

hmm.

way of saying it.

I also think that if we go back to even things like COVID, I, I was watching

all that transpire and I'm going, I don't think people know math and I'm

going to get controversial here, but I don't, I don't think they understand

the risk factors that are going on here.

Are we as a culture.

Or have we gotten to where we really can't evaluate risk well and how

does that feed into your business?

I believe absolutely 100%.

We have misidentified risk and, and sometimes we try to eliminate

all risk, which is impossible.

And we saw this in COVID.

Um, I was just talking to somebody in the mental health space a couple of

days ago and He works in the school systems, works with the youth a lot.

Uh, actually an ex NFL player and just has a passion for youth, especially sports,

like sports probably saved his life.

Um, he was in a gang growing up and legitimate gang.

Like they were, he was in some bad stuff and there was a coach that kind of pulled

him aside and introduced him to Jesus.

And, but it was, it was that community around him that, that

there was a part of, of him being.

becoming a Christian and being converted.

And, um, anyways, point being it was this community that he was surrounded

with, like being part of a team.

It was so important.

And we were so concerned about our kids getting sick as if that was the

biggest risk that we isolated them.

And now we have kids with severe mental health and emotional issues.

I mean, look at the suicide numbers coming out of COVID.

And I, I believe a lot of times we fight the wrong dragon.

Uh, somebody the other day was, uh, this is at our Superbowl party.

They were asking about some diet stuff and they're like, well, you

know, if this diet, if I do this, you know, here's some of the.

the risks associated with that.

And you know, what do you think about this?

Like this seems extreme over here as this person is talking to me, she's

shoving Oreos and Reese's in her face.

And I'm thinking you're worried about the wrong risks.

Maybe, yeah, maybe this diet doesn't have enough vegetables and maybe

this diet doesn't have enough protein, but any of those are better

than what you're doing right now.

So we, we do not.

I believe you're a hundred percent right as a culture.

We do not assess risk.

Well, it's relationships.

It's in our health and it's certainly in our investments.

So if I walk in your door and i'm i'm obviously misguided or

i'm talking about risk mean, how you how do you massage that?

How do you work somebody through that who is either fearful or or whatever?

And it's you know, we're coming up against our time here.

That might be a longer question, but how do you deal with it when somebody comes

through your doors and and their risk?

Tolerance or whatever.

It's like way out of whack.

Number one, it's getting them to identify what they think risk is

because a lot of people misconstrue risk and volatility is the same thing.

And they're, they're not now volatility can be a part of risk, but volatility

goes back to that idea of it's ambiguity.

It's if I put a hundred thousand dollars in this investment.

It might visit 80, 000 on the way to half a million.

That's volatile, but is it necessarily risky?

And I'm just going to use, uh, you know, Alaskan analogy, climbing a mountain.

Um Not every step is up.

You sometimes have to cross valleys to continue climbing.

I think life is that way, investing is that way, but a lot of us

come into investing and life.

We want a staircase.

Better yet, we want an escalator.

We just want to stay in there and this thing gradually takes us up.

With a mountain, there is some uncertainty, but in order to keep

moving towards your goal, you have to actually take some steps down.

It doesn't seem like you're going the right direction.

That's where a lot of people get messed up.

And I think one of the biggest risks facing investors today.

It's not the temporary principle fluctuations, the, the price volatility

of your investment, but it's the long-term consistent and permanent eroding of

purchasing power due to inflation.

So even going back to when I was born, uh, prices on most things now are

four to five times higher than they were when I was born, which means it

takes $5 to buy what a dollar did, uh, four and a half decades ago.

And that is a huge risk.

But going back to your question, Tim about watching the news and the focus on the

now in the moment and being distracted by short term, we get so myopic.

We think that the Dow moving however many points in a certain day, that that's

the risk when really it's our dollars being slowly chewed up by inflation.

That's it's very subtle.

It's usually quiet, maybe not in the last couple of years,

but that's just one example of where we fight the wrong dragon.

We try to stabilize principle at the cost of hamstringing

our long term purchasing power.

And that's getting a lot of people in trouble today.

And, and it, and it goes back to people aren't looking at longterm

thinking they're short term, they're still looking at that daily.

And that's, I think that's a big thing that we're dealing with.

Chad, tell me a little bit about the book or tell them, tell the listener

about the book, forging financial freedom where they can get it.

And then I've got one or two more questions here before we wrap up.

I enjoyed it by the way.

It was for a financial book, a nice, uh, not a negative, a nice,

quick, easy read with some good principles and I appreciate it.

tell us why you wrote it and where people can find it.

Well, just real quick, and then I'll, I'll answer that.

going back to this idea of risk, I think one takeaway that people can,

can hear is A fixed income in a rising cost world is anything but safe.

And I think we have confused stability with safety and, and

that's, that's a big issue.

Um, And, and the other thing that I want to remind people of is financial

independence is an income issue.

It's, we have to be worrying about our income, uh, long term

and we cannot solve long term problems with short term thinking.

So that's the end of that.

Um, why did I write the book?

I wrote the book because a lot of people aren't thinking correctly and this is,

the book is a little philosophical.

Um, but it's about mindsets because we can't act right for 20 to 30 years.

If we have the right mindset, we might be able to fake it for a little bit.

We might be able to, to white knuckle it, but to truly engage with a path.

That serves our long term future rather than steals from it.

We have to think differently.

So I wanted to change people's perspectives on how they view money,

how they view investing, even how they view retirement to get their thinking

more aligned with an abundant future.

I guess Amazon, all the places, that's where

Yep.

it.

I think visit on Amazon, um, forging financial freedom.

Um, and Yeah, there's a Kindle version.

There's a, there's a hardback version and we're coming out

with an audio one here soon.

good, good.

Are you going to read it with that awesome voice you've got?

Thank you.

That is the plan.

This was taking it so long to happen cause I just wanted to outsource it.

And uh, my team's like, no, you need to read it because these are your stories.

There's stories from your clients.

You need to read it.

that's hard.

Doing an audio book reading.

It's hard thing.

I wrote a novel a few years ago and I was going to do that.

And I've, you know, got the equipment and stuff.

I, I, I struggle with it.

So I actually got my son to do it for me.

So, uh, anyway, Hey Chad, if someone, someone's been listening to you and

they just love the mindset, you work with people all over the U S correct.

Are

That's correct.

to do that?

Tell somebody.

How they would connect with you and maybe what, I think you gave

some glimpses along the way of the first few steps, but just what that

first interaction would look like.

remove some fear of what that first interaction might look

like if they reached out to you.

Well, the way to get ahold of us, they can visit our website at Veritas, alaska.

com.

And like you said, Tim, we work with people all over the U S but

we were founded here in Alaska and I think it's kind of catchy.

There's some cache to having Alaska in there, but, um,

that's where they can find us.

We're also on Instagram, Veritas dot Alaska, and you can find me on

LinkedIn pretty active on there.

But where this starts is identifying where people want to go.

And, uh, very few people have a consistent or at least an accurate target of

what they'll need to retire and remain comfortably retired for a very long time.

And it's really hard to hit a target you can't see.

So that's where we start is getting clear about where do you need to end

up to have the life that you want?

And I'll, I'll admit it.

I'll call out the elephant in the room that can be uncomfortable.

You know, we're asking.

Some challenging questions, but they're questions to get people

framing their perspective correctly.

Get them out of the today focused on their future self, because I can't

tell you what's meaningful to you, Tim.

I can't tell you what a meaningful retirement, a job optional life would look

like, but if we can figure out together what that looks like, that can give you

some very clear pathways to get you there.

excellent.

Thanks for that.

We'll include links for the book and also how people can connect with you.

Chad, we're Seek, Go Create.

Those three words, I'm going to allow you to choose one of

those just as a last question.

It just resonates more with you, means more.

So seek, go or create, which one do you choose and why?

I'm going to choose create and the reason is I never thought

of myself as a creative person.

I Can't draw I can barely write my own name But creative means a lot of

different things and and I've expanded my view of what create means I believe I

was created by Created by God to create I believe God puts elements of himself

inside of each one of this and I think I think creation is a part of that

and we all create in different ways.

So with that desire, with that innate ability to create, I also believe I've

been given specific gifts and talents used or designed to create a better life for

those around me and to serve those people.

And finance is one of the tools I've used to do that.

Other people have, have other ways, but I love the word create and that is my goal.

My desire is to be a creator.

a creator of, of opportunity, a creator of purpose, uh, and a creator of direction

and encouragement as long as I'm on this earth and have breath in my lungs.

Love that.

Yes.

I also believe we're created to create.

Some people have that artistic ability.

My wife does.

I do not, but we are creators.

Chad Hufford.

Thank you.

I appreciate this conversation.

Make sure.

You get a copy of Forging Financial Freedom, seven wealth building lessons

extracted from the Alaskan oil field.

And if you feel so compelled, just reach out to Chad.

I'm sure he'd love to have a conversation with you about of

these topics we've talked about.

The next few weeks are packed with some of the most insightful and thought

provoking episodes we've ever done.

Make sure you're following and subscribed on your favorite podcast platform or on

YouTube so you don't miss a single one.

next episode, 300, this was 299, is a milestone and we're celebrating in a

way we've never done before, extremely unique for the first time ever.

be sitting down for a long form interview with AI using ChatGPT,

asking questions just like I did with Chad today of AI and ChatGPT.

We'll see how it goes, we still have to record that, it's going to be fun.

We're going to go deep into leadership, faith, business, and the future of

technology and will AI have the answers?

I don't know.

We'll see.

Could raise even more questions.

Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss this groundbreaking episode.

We will see you next week for episode 300.