Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Yes, welcome to the biz communication Show. I’m your host Bill Lampton the biz communication guy, every week having a conversation with a business communication experts so that you and I can learn tips and strategies that will help us build our business. And today’s guest is one that I have known and respected for a long time. Beau Henderson. Let me tell you a little bit about Beau before I bring him on the screen. Beau Henderson is a Retirement Planning Specialist, a USA Today and Wall Street Journal Best Selling Author and the founder and visionary of rich life advisors. Bow has helped more than 3000 clients to not only improve their relationship with money but to live their unique definition of a fulfilled meaningful and fun retirement with purpose. Hey, that sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Beau has a passion for financial education. He has a degree in psychology from the University of Georgia, where he played defensive end for the Georgia Bulldogs football team. He has a degree in psychology from UGA. Bo has many professional designations, including retirement income Certified Professional, and certification for long term care. Beau’s message of the rich life has been featured and I get this. It has been featured in media outlets, including the Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, CNBC MarketWatch, and as a contributor to Forbes. He is the radio host of the retirement resource and published author of 10 books, and incredibly impressive, incredibly impressive credentials.
Hello, Beau. Dr. Bill Lampton, so good to be here. Jazz, fabulous to have you with us, Beau. And since I mentioned your background, and the fact that you played football at the University of Georgia, some people might think with your excellence in athletics in both high school and college that you probably would have opted for some type of athletic career, for example, coaching are even playing longer, but somehow that was not the direction that you chose. So tell us, what prompted you to become a financial expert and helping other people understand their finances and plan their future?
No, that’s an interesting question, Bill. And when I don’t think I’ve been ever asked that way, I think what happened over the years with, by the time you get through college, you’ve had you’ve been playing it, in my case, playing football since you’re five years old. And by the time I graduated, what I knew is that I already had this this compelling passion that I wanted to help people. And I really thought what I wanted to do was be a psychologist, be a counselor. And I think for me, there was setting now don’t get me wrong, there’s a very mental component to sports and athletics, football. But I think that was such a physical thing. That by that time, I was I was kind of throughout through my college career, I was ready, I wanted to help people kind of on the mental side, right? Or that’s at least what I told myself and the story I told myself, and about the time I was going to go to school to go to graduate school for psychology to kind of pursue that that psychology path. That summer my father passed away and in helping my mom through his business and some real estate we were dealing with, I really immersed in these financial matters. And I learned Okay, here’s a path where I can help people help people in situations where if they don’t have help, they might make mistakes or other people might take advantage of them. And that was kind of once I found that it locked in and 23 years later, I’m still doing doing what I love.
I remember you telling me that story is as you and I had so much fun for a lot of years co hosting a radio shows and I remember you telling me that it was your own family’s financial situation that prompted you to say hey, other families might might be surprised with sudden calamities or losses and how are they going to do financially, how they’re how are they going to get through that? So it was it was an emotional experience is one of life’s strongest emotional experiences that prompted you. And now you get the benefit of helping others in so many ways. And one of the things I mentioned radio, and you are, you’re very active in radio, you have one called the retirement resource, you’re on North Georgia Business Radio x. And we all talk about different ways of marketing our services have, have your exposures and radio brought you introductions to people who become clients?
You know, I think for me, it’s a matter of knowing yourself and the evolution over time of understanding, what are your strengths? And a big clue to that is what gives you energy and what do you get results from. And for me, it’s always been easier for me to teach, to share, to explain in a way that that I’m, I’m selling, because in every business, right, we’re talking about business success, to an extent here, every business, you’re selling something, but if I’m educating and people that need help with what I’m teaching, raise their hand and say, Hey, I learned something from you, I do want help with that. That has always been a path that was very comfortable and very natural to me. I was never comfortable in scenarios, when you come into a job and they want to teach you slick sales techniques and tactics to get somebody to do something. No, I want to I want to be a resource, right, the retirement resource, and educate and help people so what what media does, whether it’s whether it’s writing articles, like we’re talking about, doing a live stream, similar to what we’re doing right now doing a radio show, is it gives a platform to where there’s only so much are so much capacity, with me sitting face to face with somebody now, I love that work getting some so that we’re face to face, and we’re actually working together and have that human element. But when it’s talking about getting a message, or trying to help and have a bigger impact, finding platforms like media has helped me get the story and the message across. And in my 23 years of doing this, I’ve just gotten really good at knowing what are the concerns people are dealing with? How do you help them transition from retirement to work through a divorce? If there was a layoff, what how do you transition through those events in life? When it’s time to claim Social Security turn on your Medicare? You know, how do we transition successfully for all those, and when you see it a couple of 100 times, then you know your message. And that’s really it’s just become dialed in for me. And that media Bill and I have a lot of thanks to you. Because early on, we can tell that story if you want to go that route of of kind of my path.
But you want to tell is your show both so whatever you
want to share, so So I’d be I’ve got to tell the doctor bill story. So So again, Bill and I have been great friends and colleagues. For years, we’ve hosted various radio shows and things but but the relationship started before I knew Bill, I realized I wanted to have this message. And I I enjoyed like I was talking about earlier sharing it one on one or one one on a small group. But I learned I knew that I could have a bigger impact if I could speak it to an audience. So I was at a local restaurant here in Gainesville, Georgia on Lakeland air for those of you not local. And that’s where Bill and I both live. And I was at a local restaurant called Poor Richard’s give give a plug to Poor Richard’s bill and on the board while I was thinking about this wanting to be a better speaker, a presenter there was a business card up on the wall when I was leaving dinner and it said Dr. Bill Lampton you know, communication, right, and that so I called him and said, You know what, I would love to practice a presentation, get you to critique, get feedback, and basically mentor and coach me, because going from never speaking to a group that can be a daunting thing, right? And Bill, you might can speak to him, that’s people’s second or third worst fear, if not their first worst fear. Sometimes it’s public speaking. And the really the catalyst for me to go out and publicly speak and share my message on a broader platform was some early work with Dr. Bill. And the reason I want to tell that story is today I know, I know, the retirement education events I’ve now done over 200 live. So I went from I went from somebody that was terrified and scared to now it’s just it’s the easiest thing in the world for me to do. But some of that was with our, with our, our leader today on the show, Dr. Bill Lampton, just being there showing up sharing his expertise. So there’s a whole story there of finding those mentors along your path to be what you’re capable of being so bill, that was the story of how you helped me with my speaking career.
And I remember so well. Mine was just
two years ago, wasn’t it? Little longer.
I remember so well. My wife Center said there a lot of business cards up there on that bulletin board. Yours isn’t there? Why don’t you put it there, I said, Oh, nobody would see it. But as often happens, the wife knew more than the husband’s. I put that there. And eventually it did lead to your calling me. And we had several sessions together. I love speech coaching, I love to help people get over what you were calling stage fright. And in fact, I’ve written a short book on stage fright, which is available on Amazon 25 ways to control your stage fright. And it’s very compact, but it contains the 25 tips that I shared with Bo and many other clients. And Bo, you have one of the things, of course, that you alluded to, was, of course, that there was a time there for a couple of years, we had no access to live audiences and personal audiences. So you made those adjustments and the ways you contact people just as I did. Now, a couple of more questions that I have boats, you mentioned some of the things that you help people with, and financial planning the financial arena like healthcare, our medicine, our business, our any other area you want to mention, has its own lingo. And many of us who are just lay people look at those terms, and we have no idea of what they’re talking about. So what steps do you take? And our program is about communication? What steps do you take to clarify what’s complex? And put it where people can say, Aha, I’ve got that.
You know, I think it comes down to breaking it down to this as a specifics, let’s use Social Security optimization is example. Where do you start is daunting, there’s over 500 ways to claim your benefit. But if we start breaking it down to Okay, here’s what applies to me in my household. And I learned the basics and the rules around that. And then I know enough to compare what if I do scenario, model, we call it modeling scenario a versus scenario B versus scenario C, then we can start simplifying, and it’s not this daunting thing that we never really addressed, are spending the time to do our due diligence and make a good decision. And I do think I’m biased. But a relationship with an advisor should be collaborative, a co creation, and you as a client should be learning. Alright, and or at least know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Well, while I appreciate trust. I mean, that means everything to me that our clients trust me. I don’t want anybody to ever blindly trust me. For us to move forward. I want to I want to stand to make sure that we’re both going at the same rate that okay, what are we doing? Why are we doing it? Does that make sense to you? And if not, let’s let’s have further conversation. And even beyond that bill, I think sometimes it’s just speaking how people talk, right? I have to be careful because one of the things I believe in and I’m out nationally pounding this drum, a holistic retirement planning, meaning that retirement planning is not just portfolio management, it’s not just your income plan, your growth plan, we also got to make sure that we’re integrating your tax plan, your healthcare plan, your estate, plan, your non financial pieces, and they all have to be working together. Or it could blow up your whole strategy or what you would define as retirement being successful. So when I say I have to be careful is holistic retirement integrated retirement, those sound like nice words, but but I have to break it down. So what does that really mean speak like people talk. That means how do we get more money from Social Security, pay less than tax, make sure we don’t outlive our money. So we take sometimes these catch words and phrases and lingo. And what I’ve learned is if you can, if you can communicate it like people really talk, then you’re going to get there.
Well, you’re having served over 3000 clients, Ellis traits quite well, that you have been able to take that jargon and translate it into something we can understand. Bo, we have time for one more question. And it is a it is a key question related to your profession. And here it is. Many times I’m sure Bo, when you tell people what you do and the services that you offer. One of the one of the barriers that you run into and attempting to help these people is that they lack the sense of urgency. And so many times in life, we say yeah, that’s a good idea, but I’ll get around to that later. How many times have you heard that and what do you what do you do to counter that because many of us as life moves along Our priorities change. And all of a sudden we forget those things we said we would do we would get to, and then we come maybe to the those retirement years we’re talking about and we didn’t do the planning that Bo Henderson, our others suggested recommended that we do. So how do you really get past that? I’ll do it later. But
right speaking the language that everybody can connect with. And what I mean by that, is, if I’m sharing the story, and people know that around me much, or do much due diligence that I’ve done this, I’ve had 1000s of conversations around this. And one of the one of the pieces I make sure that we communicate is that, unfortunately, most people in this country are very reactive, right? They start thinking about addressing things or the urgency comes when when they’re laid off from a job, they lose a spouse, the market crashes, and then they’re trying to address it, that’s very reactive, very passive. And when you start giving examples that people can relate to, because either that’s happened to them, or somebody they know, pretty close, for most of us, it’s happened to us at some point. And when we start talking to them and say, how we prevent that from happening, is we make a decision that we’re going to be proactive. And when those things come at us, if we’re proactive and have a strategy, or retirement strategy in place, you’re going to much better be able to navigate when life inevitably throws us the thing, life’s life tends to throw us because we’re dealing with humans, and life is never gonna work out perfectly like the spreadsheet. So I think when we can, again, share the story in a way that feels like you know why that’s true. You know what I would rather choose to be proactive in a better position than just being in fear that something could happen bad one day.
Well said, and I’m sure you have helped people move past that, do it later barrier. And you’ll continue to do that and and bow 15 to 20 years from now, you’re going to have a no it happens already. But 15 to 20 years from now, I think the families who are going to thank you for helping them have that rich life not just in dollars, but serenity, the security, the contentment, that that brings that that’s what you’re all about, isn’t it?
That’s it, I want you to have, I want you to have both. It’s not an either, or, I want you to be financially secure, with mathematical certainty where we from a strategy building perspective, but I want to make sure we’re utilizing your assets to create that life. That’s fun for you that’s fulfilling. And why I call it your definition of a rich life is because it’s your definition. And sometimes bill just getting clarity on that. What does that look like? Let’s think through it, let’s talk through it, that’ll create some urgency, because a lot of times when we don’t know, or things are vague, we don’t take action. So that’s another area of just Okay, let’s get clear. And then when we get excited about what we’re working towards, that’s a motivator to
both. It’s wonderful to host you as I knew it would be. And I know that those who are watching are those who will listen on podcast have picked up some valuable tips for their financial planning. So people will want to contact you, as a result of our conversation today, please give us your contact information.
Sure, you know, what I’m trying to do is consistently put out content around things people are asking me about. So if you want to learn more about the methodology of what I was calling holistic planning, or just more retirement information, I believe one of the best things we can do is as a, as a whole, raise our retirement IQ in this country, because there’s some issues that we need to address, go to rich life advisors.com You can plug in there, or you can always give us a call at the office 770-249-7424 That 770249 Rich.
Thank you, Bo. And since you have given your contact information, I’m happy to give mine the business communication guys. So logically, my website is biz communication. guy.com I invite you to go there, check my services for corporations and leaders. And give me a call no obligation 678-316-4300 We can talk about your communication challenges and problems and how I can assist you with them. Beau again, terrific to be with you on the biz communication show. Any closing 20 or 32nd Come in.
Now, you know, I think if there’s anything and it could be you know, we’re talking about my retirement planning firm, but to anybody out there, I think there’s no greater call than to get clarity on what is it that makes my life fulfilling and meaningful and make sure you’re moving towards that and I can give you a hint. It usually is gonna Have something to do with creating memorable experiences because memories are one thing that’s priceless. And the other thing is making sure you’re doing things and creating time with the people you care about the most. Those are the two things that I find when people that have lived a life well look back and they’ll say that’s what it was really all about. So why don’t we do it today?
How glad I am you picked my card offered
the friendship was worth more than everything else. That’s all been bonus. So I’ve always appreciated you for that
bill. Oh, okay. Well, we will have you back on as a guest because you’re you are truly a rich resource who can help us with our financial future and our sense of security and enjoyment in life both now and later on. Thank you. And thanks to all of you who have joined us on the biz communication show. Be with us again next week. When again, I host a business communication expert. I’m Bill Lampton the biz communication guy.
