"There was a time not that long ago in this country's history where blacks legally weren't allowed to basically have a normal kind of wealth transfer in generational situation." -- Tunde Ogunlana

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ROB RICHARDSON
Welcome to Disruption Now. I’m your host and moderator, Rob Richardson. Again, it's great to have Tunde Ogunlana back as well as Michael Dean. And they have now joined forces with the Axial Family Advisors. It's just an honor to have them on. I think their combination makes a really pretty large combination there for assets. -- Tunde, what are we looking at for assets under management?

TUNDE OGUNLANA
It depends what the market did today. No, I’m just kidding. I’d say probably in the realm... between 325-350 million, depending on the range of valuation because that includes, obviously, assets in our management, the traditional advisory style.

I’d say we probably have eight figures with an annuity and a life insurance cash value type of stuff. And then we have clients that have real estate portfolios and businesses that we also help them with their management. So I’d say all in, you're looking at a number in that range.

ROB
Yep, so pretty big. -- So you're going to get some good advice from some very knowledgeable brothers that I have as my advisors so I hope you guys enjoy what we're about to bring in the content. I promise it won't bore you. It will inspire you to get more into a long-term strategic growth mindset when it comes to your finances. -- Thank you, gentlemen, for coming on.

MICHAEL DEAN
Thank you for having us. We appreciate it.

ROB
You guys have both been on independently in your roles before. You were both a merger and a thing together, so congratulations on that. Just walk me through how this ended up happening. How did you guys end up figuring out that it made sense to have this merger in order to be more impactful and just more efficient? Let me start with Tunde and then go to Michael.

TUNDE
Okay. Thanks. A great question. I think that like many things for many people, that this year has been unique. With the advent of COVID in March and the shutdowns, it forced, I think, both of us, Michael and I, to look at our individual businesses at the time we weren't yet merged together and made the decision to bring forces together.

And as you mentioned, we have already been on the show because at that time… It was when Michael was a client of ours. We had done the show about Michael's entrepreneur journey, so on and so forth. I’ll let Mike speak, obviously, to what brought him at that point. But I’ll speak for me in my journey.

I’ve been an entrepreneur now for five years. I formed a business in 2015. Like a lot of people, I love the idea of being an entrepreneur and being on my own.

I looked at myself in the mirror after the first couple of years of having partners and things that... And they didn't work out. And it's not to point a finger because as a leader of the organization, I always hold the mirror up and say, "What could have I done better?"

ROB
I do want to get into that. Don't go too far into that because I want to have a more detailed conversation about what went wrong in the past.

TUNDE
Okay. Perfect. So what happens is, in the process of the business organically growing... because in the last few years, we brought in two new kind of junior advisors. I have an administrative assistant. My wife's in the business. So the team started to grow.

And then starting last year in 2019, I began discussions with another firm to actually buy them out -- a firm down here in Miami. And that's gone pretty well and successful. So that transition this year, what I found was I was starting to kind of run a business again. And I realized a lot about myself. What I’m seeing about introspecting and learning who I was as a business person is--

It's funny to say this. I founded the company but I don't like running a business. And I had to be honest with myself about that and embrace the fact that I really am a technician. I love working with clients. I love getting in the weeds with clients, helping them solve their problems, protecting them, that whole thing.

It wasn't that difficult of a journey for me to come to that conclusion. I just had to look in the mirror. But I think a lot of us, as entrepreneurs, realize it's very difficult when you start a business and it's yours and it's your baby, to kind of give it up and to say, you know--

ROB
Yeah, particularly most African-Americans. Most people, in general, start this way but it's certainly over-represented in African-Americans. They're solopreneurs. It's been them. It's been their baby and really figured out how to really move and move from just where you have to do.

What I hear you saying, Tunde, is that you were growing. The business got to a point but it became where... It sounded like it became harder to scale because you had to spend so much time running the business. You couldn't actually do the parts that you not only enjoy the most, that you're the best at and kind of knowing yourself.

So Michael, what kind of brought you there when you think about what attracted you to Tunde? I think what's so important for people to understand is you need to build a team. Sometimes, you need to get a co-founder. Even though Tunde found it, you guys operate essentially now as co-founders. What do you think is most important for people to consider when it comes to determining who your co-founder is going to be?

I generally see it fit into one of these several categories. One, this person maybe fills a specific niche that you don't. Two, I heard people say "cultural fit." Three, just the ability to be able to bring in business.

Between those -- or you might have something different -- what do you think is most essential? At least, what was most essential for you when determining what would work best for you when joining forces with Tunde?

MICHAEL
Well I think the first thing was actually timing.

ROB
Okay. Interesting.

MICHAEL
Tunde and I met back in 2010. We had initial conversations about where we are now. But it was all about the right timing. And what I mean by that is that him and I both felt as though for us to be successful long term, there were some benchmarks and some personal achievement and accomplishments that we had to make but then also to get to know each other. That took a 10-year time period. Like Tunde mentioned, my family and I became a client of Axial. We got to know each other on that end -- from a client perspective.

And then over that 10-year time period of being friends, we really started to see how we complemented each other from a temperament perspective. We had emotional buoyancy as well. But then from a skill set perspective, we really started to see how we can play off of each other.

We come from a similar background -- from a finance perspective -- so we have that as the basis and the foundational piece but then also... It's kind of like a basketball team as Tunde and I always mention. You look at the Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, they had an amazing legacy together.
ROB
So who's Scottie Pippen? You don’t have to answer that. Go ahead. [Laughter]

MICHAEL
So you get into that Kobe and Shaq conversation. Honestly, when we look at each other's skill sets, we just match each other very well. Like Tunde mentioned, he's the technician. He's the guy that can go out and really not only build the business but able to scale the business as well with understanding that you also have to manage the day-to-day operational piece of the business as it's being built.

And that's where my skill set comes into play quite easily because I feel very comfortable in building and scaling and managing a business, making sure that all the different silos are running at its highest capacity, making sure that everything is turnkey, making sure that we have the appropriate processes and procedures so that we can run analytics to see where the business is going, not only for the short term but also for the macro as well.

As Tunde and I just offer general conversations of getting to know each other, we were very clairvoyant in our conversations as well. We were always honest with each other. We lost together even though we were in separate industries but we also won together.

So when we started to revisit this conversation earlier this year, it was just, honestly, a continuation of what we've discussed in that conversations back in 2010 to that point. It was just now, the timing made sense. And we both felt as though we were ready to merge and be successful for the foreseeable future.

ROB
So let's go ahead and [zoom - 09:00] the timing. What else is the most important? What I gathered from you and what I hear from many founders who go on to get co-founders and build teams -- even if it's not a co-founder, it's building your team -- it's cultural fit.

MICHAEL
Absolutely.

ROB
You guys fit. There's a cultural fit. It fits into the organization and you complemented each other right. You said you've gained his friendship over the years. You got to see him from a distance. You worked with him as a client. But it is different...
Sometimes, friends don't work out when you work together.

Tunde, I want to go to you. You've had experience with this because when you started a while back, you partnered with some friends -- they were friends, I think -- but things didn't turn out as you had hoped. I don't know if you're still friends with those friends. Sometimes, it's kind of like marriage. You go into it with ideals and then you end up breaking up. Nobody talks anymore. It's probably similar with running a business.
Tell us from your experience with that and how that's informed you to make a better decision and a better fit for you now.

TUNDE
All right. It's a great question. I’m smiling because I’m really happy to say that it was an amicable divorce when we broke up the first time, meaning, that the original partners and I... And I actually say that with a seriousness because I had had business relationships that failed earlier, like in my early 30s and all that, and those are people I don't talk to anymore at all. You know, after time and all that, you just realize, hey, no one won. It's sad. The relationship broke and it's probably never going to be--

ROB
I guess I want you to talk through the painful ones because it's the pain where we learn the most, I think.

TUNDE
Well that's what I’m saying. This is non-Axial business. This was not my original partners in Axial. I’m just talking about other business experiences in my life that I would say--

My way of explaining it is I ripped the Band-Aid off and it wasn't pretty and we don't talk anymore. When I saw that it was going south with my original partners at Axial... I was also very conscious about not ripping that Band-Aid off and wanting to try and maintain the relationships. That's why I was smiling when you were asking that because I have. All of them are pretty much our clients today and our friends today and I’m very thankful for that. And I thank them and myself. I think it was all of us together, the collective temperament, to get through it now.

ROB
Well let me back up because I want to break that down a little bit in two different ways. One, I want to get to, I guess, the non-Axial thing and really ask you a question like this: If you could advise your younger self in that situation -- you can go back -- what advice would you give yourself and then what might you ignore knowing the thing that you know now? So I want you to think about that. And I'm talking about the--

TUNDE
That's a good question. It’s a great question because I don't think I’d ignore anything... Looking back, the only thing I could say I would change now is a much more mature guy in my 40s. I probably would have tamed my emotional temperament.

But I would say I had great mentors at that time. I remember one of my mentors who I’m still close with today, he told me something that... He's an Israeli gentleman. He just said, "Tunde, don't go to him real upset." You know, "Damn it..." I’m throwing and going nuts, like I said emotional, and he would kind of stop my noise and he would say, "Tunde, just keep focused, that everything you're doing today, ask yourself how is it going to affect you five years from now?"

And I’ll never forget that because what it did is it kind of stopped all my BS in my own head and my own... You know, looking at me and why I was wronged and all this stuff and just... Kind of was like, "He's right. Forget about that stuff right now. How are my actions going to play out five years from now?”

Maybe to help answer the question about that original thing is when I thought about the guys that I was currently with at that time, that's what kind of helped me focus, that this wasn't the right group for me. Five years from now, I got to be free. So it helped me like really go forward.

ROB
That's such a great point.

TUNDE
And that's why I say, when it came to the Axial partners at the beginning, I don't fault them. I fault myself. Some of this really is a lesson in humility if you really want to be honest -- you know, falling on your sword, not trying to be the guy pointing the fingers and looking at every situation that maybe went wrong and saying, "Okay, what did I do in this situation that could have made this better?" Now if you're honest and there's nothing else you could have done and it was the other person then maybe that's life. I’ll give you an example--

ROB
On that point really quick, even if that person did xyz, it still was your decision to enter into a relationship with that person.

TUNDE
Correct.

ROB
So there is still lessons for you to learn. That's one.

TUNDE
Yeah.

ROB
Two... and I'll let you get back. I think you made a really key point that I want to emphasize -- Making yourself see the long term and not to get emotionally tied to what went wrong at that moment. I ask this question often: "Rewind and think about what you were really upset and angry about a year ago." You probably don't remember.

TUNDE
Yep. And you know there’s another interesting gem that I heard from just a wise old man once. I was probably in my 20s when I heard this. He was like, "Tunde--"

ROB
Now you're the wise old man.

TUNDE
Yeah, exactly. He says, "Tunde, ask yourself when's the last time you made a really good decision when you're in a heated emotional state." And again, I thought about it and I was like, "Wow, that makes sense." Of course, none of us really ever make great decisions when we're all flustered and out of whack emotionally. You're right, Rob, those little gems help us.

And the one thing… I don't want to hog up too much time here but to share the one lesson I learned why I don't fault the original partners of Axial and I fault myself. And my joke -- and Michael laughed at me at this. That's why he runs the company now -- is I’m the genius that somehow left corporate America and brought my wife into this. So now I’m the guy that's like taking all the risks.

And I only own 33% of my own company. I was naïve. I thought that if I gave away this equity to other people that they would then perform to fill that equity space and it would just be that with this big team, we would all go and make all this money together. And I just kind of learned through being naive and doing it and then seeing it not work that that's not how you do it.

ROB
Tell us that. I guess if you found the right people and the right mindset, the right timing… Maybe it did work but you just didn't know--

TUNDE
Well no. Here's the way I would say it more so -- because I don't know if that exists. What I would say is I would have been better off telling everybody at that time maybe saying, "Look, I’m going to have 90%--"

And the other thing too which I failed to mention is 100% of all those other people either had their own thriving business or their spouse had income or something. I mean I’m the one taking all the risk with my own wife, that we're in this together with nothing else and I’m the one now with 33%. But that's my fault. That's what I’m saying. I’m not blaming them. I’m the one that offered that.

You know what? Maybe it would have been better if I said, "Look, me and my wife take 90%, each of you get 2% but you have a chance to earn up to 10 or 15 and squeeze me down. But here's the performance metrics. You got six to 12 months, that way if it didn't work out, it didn't work out and if it worked out, it worked out." It was a little bit painful with a couple of them when I was exiting out because how do you offer somebody something and then kind of try and take it back?

ROB
Yeah.

TUNDE
That's why I say it's--

ROB
So the lesson is to be careful of offering equity and be sure you know, whatever you're offering, that you have some measurables to the value of that and know what you're bringing to the situation and what others are going to bring.

Michael, what is your overall vision for Axial Family Advisors? What's your “Why” for doing this, and if you can really pull any lessons that you might have gone through that are helping you navigate this space right now.

MICHAEL
Absolutely. Our overall vision for Axial Family Advisors is to be the one-stop shop for families; to be able to tap into a pool of resources to help and enhance their everyday needs -- those resources being either traditional financial planning services, wealth protection or building generational wealth, estate planning, any lifestyle or luxury lifestyle needs that they may have on a day-to-day basis, any tax or short-term accounting needs, any philanthropic needs that they may have. They can tap into our wealth of providers and staff and resources to be able to get that done in a very consistent but trusting capacity.

As you can see, with the pandemic causing a lot of paradigm shifts in a lot of different industries, it's making families have to reach out to a plethora of different service providers to try to get things done.

And they're not interconnected. So you may have a financial advisor doing some long-term initiatives for that family but they're not connected to the tax attorney. And the tax attorney may not be connected to the real estate attorney. Or they may have had a death in the family and as such, that may have triggered some different silos to be able to start to unravel.

With Axial Family Advisors, we have built a team that is able to handle all of those different needs but also have that family be the key conduit to make all the decisions. But understand that we're bringing the best of the best to their table to enhance and insist in all of those different needs that may come together.

That's always been my “Why,” honestly, Rob -- from my journey of being a professional athlete to being a certified financial planner to then transition into entrepreneur or now back into the finance world -- is to be able to be someone that is a trusted entity.

My friends have always been able to trust me with not only advice but also being able to come to me personally and know that I can assist them in any type of issues that they may have had in a lot of different areas.

It’s kind of weird when I was growing up and going through my personal journey. I didn't really know that I was that person until a bunch of people started to actually come to me in that capacity.

I kind of had my "aha" moment, like "Wow. Okay. I must be doing something right because people who I look up to or people that's in my trusted circle is consistently coming to me for advice or coming to me to say, "Hey, do you have a trusted real estate person" or "Do you have a trusted financial advisor outside of yourself” when you weren’t in the business.

Anyone in a plethora of different industries, people would come to me for my little black book and that kind of extrapolated out to the reasoning why I created with my co-founder, Ellis Hobbs, Privé Society, which then was always the plan to where we are now -- to plug that into a financial entity so that when families have lifestyle services needs, that they can get those done in a very seamless capacity as well.

ROB
That's a great point. Moving on because I want to talk about having the perspective of wealth planning and having a strategy for it because that's what you kind of got to. You guys are my advisors and I’ve become more and more understanding of why it's so important to have a strategy.

And it's hard to do everything yourself. You can't be good at everything. It's kind of what we just talked about. You need to have a strategy particularly if you're building any type of wealth which a lot of people are. You have to think about the short term. "Well what's the best way to take advantage of your taxes in this moment?" Then you got to think about the long term. "What's the best way to plan for my family if something should happen to me?"

And God rest his soul, Chadwick Boseman, someone who was a hero, he was awesome. I love the stuff he did. He was noble in his pursuits. He knew his “Why.” And he also knew he was dying for quite some time. He's left a widow and a kid because she was pregnant but did not leave an actual will, didn't leave a trust. And I think it's an opportunity for a lesson that... It would have behooved him because it’s… It's unlikely he had a financial advisor because the financial advisor would have been hounding him for the last four years to get that done.

I think we have to think about long-term -- "How do we protect what we built" -- because the goal is... It doesn't mean anything if we can't empower the people that come after us.

So how do we begin to change the narrative really as a culture around the concept of money, generational wealth? What is your approach -- specifically talking to the black community. Go either one of you guys. Tunde, go.

TUNDE
Okay. I was going to give it to Mike because I won't shut up.

ROB
Okay, give it to Mike.

TUNDE
Yeah. I won't shut up so let's Mike go first.

MICHAEL
It’s funny that you mentioned Chadwick, Rob, because he was just the latest example. When you think back to the '60s and on, a lot of our greats and legends passed without having an estate plan in place.

ROB
I’m not sure if Prince had one. Did he have one?

MICHAEL
Prince, Aretha Franklin, John Singleton, the list goes on and on of our many greats that unfortunately pass without having that infrastructure in place primarily because we've been on that hamster wheel throughout our whole life trying to just become wealthy, right?

You look at the generational gap between our race and others. We're not programmed as such to plan after death because we're so programmed to try to take care of our family while we're here.

And I think with that being said, and where we are now in 2020 and having achieved financial stability in a lot of different households, it's time to really take the next step as a race to have that be a pertinent part of the conversation as you're accumulating wealth to make sure that that wealth that has been accumulated is protected and is able to be transferred to your kids and your grandkids and so on and so forth.

And I think that that starts with your financial advisor or your financial team -- being able to have that conversation with you early on even in your 20s because as you build wealth in your 30s and 40s, that infrastructure will already be established and then you just... You will actually begin to change it as you get older.

So you look at someone like John Singleton or Michael Jackson per se or Kobe, Kobe, through his particular career when he was 18, had a will drafted. But then as he got kids, him and Vanessa, the wills were always been able to be revised and as such and so--

You have to start early in planning for those different transfers of wealth. And estate planning is the key essential one because if you, unfortunately, pass prior to getting everything in order then you put it in the hands of the courts -- probate courts and so on and so forth -- and it just becomes a much more messier situation on top of already--

ROB
And expensive.

MICHAEL
And expensive situation on top of the emotional distress that your family--

ROB
The money goes to lawyers.

MICHAEL
All the lawyers, right? So for us, that's one of the key things before we really get into the advisory piece from a financial standpoint. We make sure that all of our clients have had that conversation and that piece is in order.

ROB
Yeah. And then beyond that, Tunde, obviously, thinking about death and making sure that you are planning for that, having those conversations on a regular basis and getting I think past this kind of cultural legacy where we don't really talk about that. Like that's not something we should talk about. It is. That's very important as Michael said and we discussed.

But I think it's also having a strategy for a growth mindset for your next 20 or 30 years and not just going into life like, "Okay, I made money. I’m going to continue to make this much money” -- like really having a growth mindset and a strategy around that and not having to discover that on your own. I think that's what you guys provide. Talk about how you try to develop the right approach and mindset for your clients.

TUNDE
Great question. It reminds me, as you're saying, the old quote that if you plan to fail--

ROB
"If people don't plan to fail, they fail to plan."

TUNDE
There you go.

ROB
That's all right.

TUNDE
[Laughter] And that's it, right? I think part of it is just an individual’s psychology or they're the type that thinks long term or they think in day-to-day.

A lot of things that you guys brought up are pretty much spot on. One is it makes me think, Rob, that... You're right. We promote especially families of a certain net worth. I would say anyone probably worth over $2.5 million or so should probably have an annual family meeting depending on how the assets are -- liquid versus illiquid, so on and so forth.

I agree with you guys that part of it, especially when you're talking about African-American wealth, is there's a lot of cultural legacy because I... And this is what I explain to people sometimes is that the Civil Rights Act was enacted in 1965, so you've got 55 years of legal integration in the United States for black Americans. But from a cultural standpoint, I think the last hill that we need to take is the hill of wealth transfer and of estate planning and kind of multi-generational wealth transfer -- let me say that.

A lot of people don't know this history, meaning, all Americans -- white or black. We know about things like redlining and how the FHA, the Federal Housing Authority, excluded blacks from many suburban communities.

But a lot of people don't know that up until about 1970, most blacks weren't able to buy more than $10,000 of life insurance. What I’m getting at is there was a time, not that long ago in this country's history, where blacks, legally, weren't allowed to basically have a normal kind of wealth transfer in generational situation. And that explains a lot of where... kind of the cultural side of our country is today and not--

ROB
The whole discomfort behind it.

TUNDE
Yeah. Let's not get into all that but just the idea that... What I tell a lot of people that I talk to that are black with some wealth is that most black people that are wealthy and that are under, let's say 60, are most likely the first people ever in their family line to have any means and have any wealth.

So what has happened in other communities and other cultures in terms of generations of sitting around the dinner table and talking about trust and talking about what it is to invest in stocks and be an equity owner, that didn't happen for a long time because blacks were excluded from that and didn't have that knowledge and that ability to participate. It’s only about a generation or two, at most, where this has been readily available to most of the community.
And I joke with people, too, asking, “Have you heard of the Du Ponts? Have you heard of the Vanderbilts? Have you heard of the Rockefellers, the Bushes, the Kennedys” and people say, "Yeah.” And I say, "Well the only reason why we know of them is because somebody, a hundred years ago, decided to implement a lot of these things and their generational wealth stayed intact."

And part of that journey, like you said, is about changing the mindset because we, I think, as a culture, based on the history of our country, still have a mindset of scarcity, like we're not really participating in the system. And I think that's on us. That's not on whites or anyone else in this country. We've got to start--

ROB
[Inaudible - 29:29] to reject that tape and throw it out but yes.

TUNDE
Correct. We are part of this country. We are Americans. We're in this system and we got to get with the program here and--

ROB
I don't know where you're going but you could finish after this. I definitely want you to address, too, not just people that have made the wealth, one or two million, but there are people that are like myself who aren't poor, aren't rich but are at this stage where they should be thinking about strategizing. And you guys definitely advise those type of clients, too. You guys can both talk about this. And then I want to move on to talk about the opportunities in this moment.

Talk about that profile of a person who is, let's say middle class, maybe upper middle class, is starting to get to a point where they don't have a ton of wealth. But if they do what they need to for the next 15 or 20 years, they'll be in good position. Talk about that person and what you guys do for them and what you just advise as a general kind of approach. You don't need to give detailed advice but a general approach to somebody that's in that kind of frame that I just described.

TUNDE
Obviously, giving advice like that would be specific to the person and their goals. We go through a whole system of... really, what I almost joke, and say it's financial therapy.

A lot of times, I’ll be very intense in getting to know someone's psychological and emotional state even before I ask about their money because I’ve learned that... I’ve been self-taught. I’m a self-taught psychologist kind of guy. I don't have a PhD. But through all the reading and things I’ve done… I’ve really taken it serious to learn about people's childhood.

It's funny. I’m helping someone who is a good acquaintance of mine. He approached me recently. He's going through a divorce. He's in his early 50s and they've been together a long time. He's got some assets and he's also got some family wealth. The family owns 200 acres in Texas, Oklahoma on a ranch so he's getting money from a trust. I mean it's one of those complex things.

And I said, "I need to learn about your wife's kind of background because then that'll really help me understand how we can help her have peace of mind.” And not in a sinister way but I just need to understand where she comes from. And he told me that she's so worried about lack of control. And what I drew out of him was that her dad was a gambler and... I don't know of anything else. But basically, he squandered all of her college money when she was a young kid and she had to work like a dog, 60 hours a week and all that through college to pay for it.

ROB
[Crosstalk - 32:04].

TUNDE
The reason I bring up just that example -- that just happened this week. That conversation is fresh in my head -- is because... That's when I was like, "Okay. That's the most important thing I got to learn right now because all the numbers don't matter. I got to learn how to help her come to the table and also help him in this journey."

And that's when I joke with him and said, "Okay, I got to get my therapist hat on first. We'll talk about money on the next call." I think that's a big part of it is learning who you're working with.

And then to answer the rest of the question about the middle class type of person, I’ve seen magic and wonders work with people that just stay disciplined. I’m talking about just maxing out your 401K, getting the match and the profit sharing. I mean you'd be amazed.

Right now, I think -- what are we -- at $18,500 or $19,000 for an under 50-year old contribution. Then you have the $6000 catch up so it's 25 for someone that's over 50 or 26 -- Maybe it's $7000.

But in any case, in 10 years, that would be $180,000 or $250, depending what age you're in. And then if you assume a little bit of market growth and the average of 6 to 8% and a balanced portfolio type of thing, historically, I mean somebody... And profit sharing and match on top of it… I mean it’s not unrealistic that someone under 50, doing that for 10 years, could have four or $500,000 in a well-performing market.

And that's also for people that might be in their late 30s, early 40s and they feel like they haven't done a good job saving because they had other stuff going on in their life. Maybe they had some kids. Maybe something happened in their life where they couldn't save. You know, it's never too late.

Often, those type of people that we work with, I’ll first start with, "What do you have at your employer or in your disposal? You've got group life insurance. You've got your 401K. Let's see what these tools that are already out there for you that can help protect your interest."

And the other thing is I’m a big believer in life insurance especially if you have a family because it's one of the few ways... especially anyone under, let's say, 45 with some term insurance. It's one way you can change your family's life.

I got my first 20-year term policy. I was 32, great health at that time and I got it for $47 a month -- a million dollars. I don't see how any responsible father with wife and kids would not.... especially at a young age like that would not look and say, "Let me make sure for $40-something a month, if I just checked out early by accident, my family is taken care of. The mortgage is paid."

And sometimes, I hear these jokes, too, where guys will say, "I don't want my wife... Some other guy is going to spend that money" and all that and I joke and I say that the statistical thing in the United States is that most widows, the number one reason why they get remarried is money.

So taking care of your wife and making sure she's flushed when you're not here, probably, it actually won't have her running out looking for somebody to help her with this journey, with these children and these debts. She'll be able to calm down and not have to be looking for another party.

ROB
Hopefully, have a little more faith in your wife. I don't know.

TUNDE
Yeah, exactly.

ROB
And let your wife move on, too. We're going to die someday. If that happens early, I’m sure... My reverse question would be, "So are you going to go single for the next 40 years?"

TUNDE
Yeah. That's why I feel like--

ROB
I know you go through that but I was… I want to get to Michael on a question, too. I want to get to this kind of current moment.

Michael, Tunde really points out the fact that you have to know the people you're working with and seek to learn and understand their mental state as kind of like a mental psychologist. I look at that as... when you're talking to people then it sounds like for them is to know their self-awareness, to be able to get better financial habits for yourself day-to-day. What do you advice clients, in general, to have better financial habits so you can create wealth -- not necessarily about the strategy. But what habits can we get into to make sure that we are more financially-secured for the long term?

MICHAEL
There's a couple of different ones, Rob. I think the first one is really getting a clear understanding of your financial P&L -- your personal P&L -- not only short term but long term.

ROB
Also a loss statement. I think people [indiscernible - 36:27].

MICHAEL
Yep. So sitting down and be able to understand exactly what your burn rate is, your spend rate monthly.

ROB
To view yourself as a business is what you're saying.

MICHAEL
Yeah, absolutely, from the beginning. No matter if you're making minimum wage to you're making hundreds of thousand dollars a week, you have to view yourself as a business. You have to sit down and you have to understand your personal P&L -- what's going out, what's coming in. And then appropriate a substantial game plan, meaning, to be able to save at least 30% of your net paycheck to be able to begin to start to plan for the future.

Tunde mentioned maxing out your 401Ks. It's another component because it's tax-deferred and tax-free per se. But then after you're able to put together a short-term P&L then begin to wrap around your long-term plan, meaning, start to invest in stocks. Start to invest into real estate. Start to connect to your “Why.” That's a big thing for individuals in your 20s. Everyone is creative in some way.

You and I had extensive conversation about your “Why” and how you've been able to tap into a lot of those different things as you progress through your entrepreneurial journey. So save about 10% and put that away to connect to your “Why” from a creative standpoint so you can have financial independence.

ROB
So a couple things on that. I want to make sure we emphasize some points here. Make it automatic to set aside to... I’m not at the 10% yet but I’m about there. But set aside something. Do not touch it. I think this is so key -- Make it automatic before anything else because if you don't then it becomes... You see that money there as spendable and then you end up spending it instead of investing. Don't even allow yourself the option. Set aside whatever you can. Some people can't do 10%. If you can do 5%, do 5%.

MICHAEL
Yeah, whatever it is.

ROB
If you can do 3%, do 3%. Work your way up. But set aside something as an automatic. That's one. Two, when you talk about seeing yourself as a business, I thought... I have a business now and I also have a main source of employment but I’m starting to get more and more in my side business. More and more, it's becoming a source of employment income all by itself which is great, starting to match the main hustle.

I would tell people that what I’ve learned through this process, if I can go back, I realized how important it is to price things out and to know what you should be charging, how much time it's going to take for you to do that, how much resources as... In terms of looking at yourself as a business, even if you don't have a business, what that has taught me is before you make that investment, how much time did you have to take to spend that?

MICHAEL
Absolutely.

ROB
There's all types of technology you can put as something…Truebill, that allows you to look at all your bills and then they'll tell you, “Well you spend a lot compared to other people.” That's an app. It's free. You can put in there. There are resources you can do. Those are things that I needed to do because I’m a person that... I’ll just be trying to do stuff so I need to put systems in place...

MICHAEL
Absolutely.

ROB
...automatically to make myself look at this. There's so much availability of knowledge and technology that you can use to automate some of this process for you. But you certainly want to have a financial advisor as you go through the strategy of this. But I just tell people, it's so important to put systems in place because most people are not disciplined to do what they're supposed to do after the fact. You got to do it before.

MICHAEL
And people have a policy of thinking that, "When I get money then I’ll go back and do it."

TUNDE
Yeah, exactly.

MICHAEL
The habits have already been created, right?

ROB
You'll never get money with that mentality.

MICHAEL
Yeah. Right? Everyone thinks, "Oh don't worry about it, man. When I get real money, I’ll go back and do it." You've already created a habit. You've already created how your method of thinking is going to be in regards to money. So whatever habits has been created prior to you, you're just going to roll those over and it's just going to be more expensive habits.

So that's one of the key things that we tell our clients when they initially come on board is that we're going to create a game plan. So as we start to grow your portfolio... Not only from a short-term perspective because we also introduce our clients to a lot of different ways of diversity and diversification with funds.

But as we're bringing in pockets of wealth, you already have these buckets that's already been substantiated and you understand why they're there. Therefore, when you get to the point where you want to retire, you already know that the game plan has not only been implemented but it's been worked on for years and years and so you feel comfortable. And then also educating your family about those buckets as well so that your kids could understand all the different silos--

ROB
That's so key.

MICHAEL
Your family's corporation, right?

ROB
Yeah.

MICHAEL
So it's not just getting them from a structural perspective but it's allowing your kids and your wife to grow up within that infrastructure and having those conversations so that they understand why they're there and how to leverage them, God forbid, if anything had to happen to you.

ROB
Yeah because that could happen... I mean you got to say it's going to happen. Somebody's going to die at some point. You don't know when. We live life as if we could die tomorrow and you just maximize your opportunities. And you think about what you need to do if you weren't there for your family. That's the mindset we got--

We actually live more if we can get to the mindset that this is something that is not only not guaranteed you're going to die. Today, you're closer to death than you were yesterday. It's a fact of life. It shouldn't make you sad. It should just make you have a clarity of focus that you need to make sure you're doing everything you can to maximize this moment and protect your family for the long run.

TUNDE
Can I jump in real quick? [Crosstalk]--

ROB
Go ahead. Then I want to get into the moment in terms of where we're going and this opportunity with post the election, the COVID moment, where you think, generally, there may be opportunities for folks. But go. Let's finish that point then we'll go to that and wrap up.

TUNDE
Okay, real quick. I was going to joke with a smile and say, as much as I do this for a living, it's funny when you talk about apps. I recommend... I mean I don't want to say you’re endorsing somebody. We're not doing a commercial. We use the app Acorns.

It's funny, as much as I think I’m disciplined, that little thing helped me. I was so amazed. My wife did it where we round up, I guess… Whenever you got some change, it rounds it up to the next dollar and just moves it to Acorns and in like six months, we had like 1500 bucks. It just felt good. It's like, this is free money. Like that came out of nowhere. And I just realized, wow--

It also reminded me how much money is probably wasted when you're looking at that... That's just cents. In that period of time, you already got that kind of money. I’m just thinking, "Wow, that's interesting." So I recommend, like you said, as much as people can automate their lives probably helps.

The other thing I was going to mention, to finish up here and you guys can talk, is I think some of the things I’ve encountered from clients or prospects, unfortunately, is lack of trust. And I can appreciate not everybody in our business does it right, knows what they're doing or has the best intention of the client or people that just had--

Like the person I told you who's going through divorce, what happened with his wife's childhood, they might have a bad experience from their past as relates to trusting people with conversations about money.

I’d say the most detrimental thing I’ve seen in my practice is the people that call everybody and ask questions. They'll call me because they saw something on TV or read in a book and then they're calling the next advisor. But they don't really stop and work with one person because they don't trust anybody. I’ve seen 100% of the time… Inevitably, those guys, women, people that do that, they don't get anywhere because they spend all this time trying to vet all these ideas and then never saw--

The one thing I would commend anyone watching this, who's taking anything from what we're saying, is find one source or group of people that you really trust and... Make them earn your trust. Trust shouldn't be free. But once you've figured out that that's the group to trust, start listening and taking the advice because it is a partnership.

ROB
Yeah, it is.

TUNDE
Like you said, Rob, we don't know everything. Just like me and my accountant, as much as I do this for a living, when my accountant starts telling me certain things, I shut up. I was like, "Okay, man." And I might say, "Hey but I heard this on... but I read this the other day" and I’ll let him explain to me why either it's a right move for me or not a right move. But I still trust that he's the one that's the expert in this area. Even though taxes and financial planning are pretty close together, I still defer to his expertise.

ROB
Right.

TUNDE
And the other thing I was going to say is--

ROB
All of us are smarter than any one of us.

TUNDE
Correct.

MICHAEL
Yeah, absolutely.

TUNDE
And there's resources like finra.org… F-I-N-R-A.org. FINRA is the national regulatory body with anyone that has a securities license. So again, to the audience, if someone's telling you they’re a financial advisor, if you can't find them on finra.org, you got to ask them what kind of financial advisor they are because they don't have securities laws and they're not licensed to give a certain type of advice, at least. It doesn't mean that they're crook. It just means you need an explanation and it should be something you're comfortable with.
And also because on FINRA, you can see any formal complaints. They have to be logged. You can see things like financial compromises. So if someone's had to file a bankruptcy, they've been sued, they've been fined by the industry, all that is transparent. That's the beautiful thing about our regulations that we have is they are built to protect the consumer. I welcome anyone to look at mine because I’m not afraid to share it.

Anybody that's telling you they’re a financial advisor and thinking of working them, do that due diligence because this is your money and you want to make sure that... even people we've thought to bring into the firm, and I’ve checked on their FINRA and I see stuff this long going back to the '90s, I’m like, "Whoa. Okay."

ROB
Yeah. Trust but not playing with this fire.

TUNDE
So that was it. I just wanted to throw that two cents.

ROB
I think that's key. It's a great point. I’m glad you brought it up because it's a question I meant to get out. “How do you know the right advisor to pick?” You went through that.

The only thing I would add is the cultural fit. They can be qualified... That's the bottom line. They got to be qualified. There, obviously, shouldn't have a bunch of complaints about them.

Is that person, is that entity a cultural fit for you? Do they have empathy for what you're trying to do or do they just try to talk big words over you and just try to say, "You need to do that and listen to me" because it is a partnership and so it has to be a good cultural fit because this person, this entity, is a part of your personal business long-term career -- the most important business you have which is building the financial assets for the generations after you and for your current family and for yourself.

TUNDE
The crowd that we hear the most from is the professional athletes.

ROB
Which part?

TUNDE
Meaning, like when you really talk to... Especially some of the guys that we work with that have retired and they tell you about when they were in the leagues, whatever it was -- NFL or NBA – that’s somebody open... They open up to me, sometimes. They'll say, "Tunde, the thing I appreciate is that you're listening to me and you explain things" because they either say like the old advisor always wanted to talk about the game and then you didn't really look at them serious for money or they would talk a thousand miles an hour. I remember one of--

ROB
Talking a thousand miles an hour with jargon that they don't understand, [feeling smart - 47:55] about themselves.

TUNDE
It was funny because one of the retired NFL players that Michael actually brought into the firm recently had told me... It was cute because he goes, "Tunde, the guy I had worked with in the past, he sounded like that last five seconds of the pharmaceutical commercial, trying to rattle everything out real fast.” “Like, “This is going to kill you and this is going to cause you to have diarrhea” and blah-blah-blah. And he goes, "That's the way you talk about my portfolio." And I’d be like, "Yeah, I can slow down."

ROB
Yeah. I see it on the tech end, too. There's this like lack of empathy.

TUNDE
Yeah, or they want to show you how smart they are.

ROB
Exactly. Their goal is just--

TUNDE
They’re seeing about a cultural fit.

ROB
Exactly because... Listen, I look at it this way. I don't need to be an expert at it but if you can't explain the basics to me, one or two things are going on. Either you're not being transparent or you don't know it as well as you say you do because if you can't explain it to me, you don't know it. That's how I feel about anybody in any field. You either don't know how to communicate which means you don't fully know it in a way or you're just trying to not be transparent. And I guess there's a third. You can just be a jerk and just want to just believe how smart you are. So I guess we can put that in there, too.

TUNDE
That's the narcissism one. You just want to talk about yourself.

ROB
[Laughter] All right. As we kind of wrap up here, this is a really volatile time. I guess we feel like we always say that. I’ve said that several times on this show in 2020. You just don't know what the hell is going to happen. We have an election that just got done. The market has done pretty well... generally well. It's going back and forth.

What are you advising people in this? What do you see as the opportunities?

Again, I know we're not giving full blank advice. But I’m just saying if you're just advising people about how to go about 2021 and planning, what do you see as the opportunities for this moment given the really just uncertainty of what we're going through? I mean I think I can say that pretty comfortably. Things seem pretty uncertain in terms of what's going to happen. I believe the market is still going to continue to grow over time but I think in the short term, we just don't know.

TUNDE
Yeah. I mean I’ll reserve, obviously, stock picking or saying my thoughts about the stock market or things like that for this interview. And I’ll defer to Mike here.

I think there's a lot of opportunities just like we found opportunity together. I hate to say it this way because it sounds sinister but through chaos, there's opportunity. And I don't mean that in a sinister way. I just mean that when things are in flux a bit, sometimes, there's some arbitrage. You can just catch something. And I feel like... through no intent of this, and Mike, I’m smiling, that that was--

What happened is through the chaos of this year, we got fortunate as a business and had the opportunity to bring a highly-qualified leader on board like Michael. We talked about, at the beginning of this, it's both of us.

I also, as the owner and founder of the company, had to have the humility and say, "You know what? This is the moment. Things are in flux. We're growing." And here's somebody that right now is telling me he's open. In a year, he's not going to be open because he's a talented person that will have something else going on if I don't capture it quickly.

That's our example. I’m sure there's other examples in the small business community. There's examples in the stock market of companies that still haven't rebounded the way that... let's say, the Netflix, Apple and Tesla's and all that have, that are still high-quality companies that will probably be around for the long term. I think that that's the way I would say it, is that there's... in a positive way, opportunity and chaos. This is an opportunity for a lot of us to reinvent ourselves.

MICHAEL
And one of the things that I’ll add, Rob, is that when we sit down with our clients, especially during this time period -- and we've been extremely successful even though, obviously, the financial sectors have been in influx throughout the year -- our clients have been able to really diversify. So the stock market has been what it is consistently throughout the year. We've really been able to sit down with our clients.

And for those who wanted to get into real estate, obviously, we've been able to get trusted advisors and allow them to start to invest with the interest rates being as low, historically, as it has been. And not only in the residential properties but also in being able to get into some other investment opportunities such as REITs and so on and so forth.

Entrepreneurship has been a key conversation within our client base due to the fact that it's been... It's a lot of disruption in different industries. It's allowed our clients to have a seat at the table in a more tangible perspective. But also because of Zoom and so on and so forth, these busy colleagues or what have you has now been able to sit down and teach a little bit more to our clients and be able to become much more intrinsic in that relationship.

So our clients have not only been able to invest in some favorable investments but also learn in a way that probably wasn't available to them if it wasn't a pandemic going on and everyone's out there in their homes for 18 to 24 hours a day.

And then lastly, being able to diversify from a stock market perspective to where we have a lot of our clients that is taking on day trading and learning options trading and so on and so forth to actually enhance their long-term acumens of stocks.

So overall, our clients' portfolio has actually grown through this time period, not only from a short-term perspective but also from a long-term perspective because we've presented them with opportunities for them to connect to their “Why” but also diversify as well.

ROB
Yeah. That's great. Well Tunde Ogunlana and Michael Dean, we look forward to have you on a regular basis to really talk to folks about how they can have a growth mindset and to explore opportunities. And they can obviously learn more about Axial Family Advisors. We'll put all the links in the podcast. Thank you, gentlemen, for coming on. I appreciate it.

TUNDE
Definitely. Thank you.

MICHAEL
Always a pleasure. Thank you again, Rob. I really appreciate it.

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