HVAC Success Secrets: Revealed
Welcome to HVAC Success Secrets: Revealed, a podcast dedicated to revealing the success secrets to create and unleash the ultimate HVAC business.
HVAC Success Secrets: Revealed
EP: 241 Chad Hufford w/ Veritas Wealth Management - Empowering Financial Success
In the latest episode of HVAC Revealed, we were joined by Chad Hufford, author and financial planner at Veritas Alaska, to dive deep into sustainable wealth-building and financial planning. If you didn't catch it yet, here are some golden nuggets from our enlightening conversation:
Key Takeaways:
- Sustainable Financial Habits: Chad emphasized the importance of building sustainable financial habits over seeking quick riches. Long-term success comes from consistent, disciplined action rather than chasing immediate gratification.
- Market Timing vs. Time in Market: One of the standout points was the power of "time in the market." By staying invested through all market fluctuations, you harness the benefits of compound interest and avoid the pitfalls of trying to time the market.
- Purposeful Retirement: Planning for retirement isn't just about ensuring financial security but also having a meaningful pursuit to avoid complacency and dissatisfaction. Reflect on what you would do if money were not a concern and pursue a fulfilling life.
For a deeper dive into Chad’s financial wisdom, check out his book "Forging Financial Freedom" available at forgingfinancialfreedom.com and visit veritasalaska.com for more insights.
Let's start building a future marked by financial literacy, purposeful planning, and long-lasting success! 💼🏡💰
#FinancialPlanning #WealthBuilding #HVACRevealed #ChadHufford #RetirementPlanning #Investment #FinancialFreedom #SustainableHabits
Find Chad:
On The Web: www.forgingfinancialfreedom.com
Via Email: ask@veritasalaska.com
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When people have clarity, when they have confidence in their finances, that confidence has a ripple effect into other areas of their life, into their marriage, their relationships, into their business. People make better business decisions when their personal financial life is stronger.
Thaddeus Tondu:Hey, welcome back to another episode of HVAC Success Secrets with Thaddeus and Evan. I'm Thaddeus. He's Evan. Today we have on Chad Hufford from Veritas, Alaska and super excited to dive into the conversation. I, when I had the conversation with him earlier, one of the big things that lit him up is, financial literacy and talking about that, but really having been, born and raised in Alaska, growing up in the financial industry, there's also, a strong background from him in terms of the athletics, nutrition, performance, psychology. So it's almost like this coaching mindset and the heart of a teacher to financial planning and investing. Now, by the way, it's not just for, Hey, you and your business and how do you do that? That's a big part of it, but it's also as an individual and how do you make sure that your financial plan is set up the right way? So you don't necessarily have to rely on a business exit or be able to fund your retirement. So super excited to dive into some of the topics in and around finances.
Evan Hoffman:And that's huge, right? So often as entrepreneurs, we rely on our business to be like that nest egg for us. And the reality is we need more outside of that because we don't know what will happen. And, we're so confident in ourselves of what we're willing to bet on ourselves, but shit hits the fan all the time. And you've got to be prepared for when that happens. And as Chad alluded to having more legs on your stool. To make sure that you're constantly financially supportive.
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Thaddeus Tondu:Welcome, Chad.
Chad Hufford:Thanks, guys. Pleasure to be here.
Thaddeus Tondu:Welcome. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got your journey into into Veritas, Alaska and doing what you do.
Chad Hufford:I was born into it, Thaddeus. I, as we talked, the other day, a little bit, it was never my intention. I never grew up thinking that this was going to be my life's calling, but being in the industry and seeing my dad teaching classes and really focusing on empowering people wherever they were financially saw how critical it was for people to have a plan and a purpose financially. And what I realized is when people. Have clarity when they have confidence in their finances, that confidence has a ripple effect into other areas of their life, into their marriage, their relationships, into their business. People make better business decisions when their personal financial life is stronger, but the opposite is also true. And when I started Veritas in 2008 technically 2007 is when I got all my licenses done, but we were at the beginning of the global financial meltdown. And what I saw was the flip side of that is people's finances were in disarray and it was causing tremendous anxiety and stress in every area of their life. So I've seen both sides of it and it's just, it's a pleasure to be able to empower people and give them the support and guidance they need to create financial independence.
Thaddeus Tondu:If you're to look obviously doing this for as long as you have been there's patterns and I think there's certain patterns that always repeat themselves, both on the good side and on the bad side when it comes to the personal side of the finances. And I believe you are right. When people have their business and their marriage and their personal is all tied together into one, if one's, inefficient tends to bring the other one down. If they're all efficient now it rocks and rolls, generally speaking. Obviously there's some exceptions to that, but when you look at commonalities, what are some of the things that you're seeing on the personal side that you find are getting people into trouble?
Chad Hufford:Number one, I think very few people have a plan. We ask people or we mentioned to people, you probably don't have a plan for running out of money in retirement, but do you have a plan not to? And There's a world of difference between somebody who is strategically building towards a desired future and somebody who's merely collecting investments. And here in Anchorage, Alaska, there's plenty of homes that look like they were built without a blueprint. It's just random stuff scrapped together. But we would never want our future to be built without a blueprint, but so many people are, it's just random investments and ideas scrapped together. They hear something from somebody at work, one of their coworkers, this and that. Evan, you mentioned the intro, they're hoping their business gets sold for X amount and there's a lot of hope, but not a lot of planning and we also want people to not have to sell their business in order to create more independence where it isn't this black or white man, if I want to step away a little bit, have more time with my family, travel, do hobbies, then I've got to make a complete exit. We want to be able to give people more of a slow off ramp to that, where they can gradually transition, rely on other income sources outside their business. But none of that happens without purposeful intentionality. And that's what a lot of people lack. It's again, especially for business owners. It's so easy to caught up in the day to day that we miss the future and so easy to focus so much on the business. That's our baby, but then we miss the personal side of that too. So just being able to pull people out of that day to day and let them look at the future is critically important.
Thaddeus Tondu:Purposeful intentionality. I think that's the thing that I like the best from that, because now when you have that actual purpose and you have been like, I also, building towards something or random ideas collected together and I'm like, I was like at our household, I'm like are we building or something? Yeah. And we also have some random things, put together, but we also talk openly in our household about the finances for a lot of the times I guess when it comes to the purposeful intentionality, mean, you don't know what you don't know. How, I guess in terms of the financial literacy side of things, and we can start there perhaps and diving into that, what are some of the bigger pain points or the bigger problems that you're seeing with people's, Inattention to the details and lack of understanding. okay and walk this back to say, okay I don't even have any investments. I don't even have a plan. I don't even have a fucking budget. And maybe people have this. You're running a business, you should have a budget too. And obviously, Budget, personal budget, business budget, but walking that back in the financial literacy side of things.
Chad Hufford:So you mentioned budget that is, and that's important. You've got to have a plan of telling your money where to go or else you're just going to end up wondering where it went and it's really hard to build a 30 year plan if you don't have a 30 day plan. But even people that have a budget we find is a lot of people don't follow it. So there's this balance of education and execution. We can't just have the financial literacy. We also have to have an implementation plan and we talked to a lot of people get referred to us like, yeah, we have a budget. We just haven't followed it in six months. You don't really have a budget then it's if you've got a diet plan sitting underneath a box of Krispy Kreme donuts in your pantry, probably not a true diet plan. It's great on paper, but it's only as good as it's being implemented. People not having a good handle on their day to day finances is a huge piece. People can be so consumed with finding the best investment, which doesn't exist. Investments are just tools. How you use them, how you operate them, that's one of the most important things. Any tool if you took me and you want me to set up somebody's like air conditioning system, you can be best tools in the world. You're not gonna like how it turns out. I don't know how to use them. It's going to be a mess. So we need to, it isn't just education on the tools themselves, but on the individual behavior, making sure people utilize what's in front of them, execute that. But I think also to an education standpoint, one of the things That you mentioned is our involvement in the trades. We've seen this underlying, even if it's a little bit unconscious or subconscious, this underlying standpoint that I'm not educated the right way. Like I'm educated in this specific skill set, but I don't have this financial pedigree. Therefore being a good investor. Is off the table for me and that's really not true because there's a basic amount of financial education that is important. But beyond that, a lot of it is temperament, it's character, it's things like grit, perseverance, and discipline, things that your audience already has. So a little bit of financial education goes a long way. And yeah, you've got to have a handle on your 30 days before you can start building the 30 year. And I, just to sum this up, This sounds so elementary, but one of the biggest things people miss is simply living within their means. And if you don't live within your means, it doesn't matter how much money you make or how good your investment strategy is. You're not going to be able to feed it enough to grow. And there's something that, that really plagues entrepreneurs and business owners is something called lifestyle creep, where their budget, their spending habits gradually grow along with their income. So we've got to, we've got to work to keep that constrained.
Thaddeus Tondu:And it's funny because you said, you mentioned the budget creep. It's Oh shit, I think I already know where I want to go next. And that's that concept, right? And so a lot of times, and you look at HVAC specifically and even young people getting into the trade where they can earn a serious amount of money in a short amount of time when they're out of here and they go from earning minimum wage jobs, some cases to their lifestyle changes. And of course, if that gets knocked back, oh shit, same thing with business owners. And so I guess if you're looking at that, lifestyle creep, that, that income creep, what are some of the markers that somebody can pay attention to, to not let that happen to them?
Chad Hufford:Morgan Housel. says that we need to keep our ego below our income. And that really is a big piece of it. And I think asking ourselves, am I serving my future self or am I trying to impress the people around me? And we look around us and I think today, It's harder than ever. I think there's a pressure on human beings to always so to speak, keep up with the Joneses, right? We hear that cliche, but now as you guys even were talking about in, the intro, this actually before we started recording this you have like your Instagram version of you, then you have the real version of you and we prop ourselves up to look better and you can compare yourself to millions of people. Instantaneously online now that are only showing you the best version. So they're showing you their new hot car their fancy vacation, their new big house. What you don't see is that they're burdened by debt, that they're not sleeping at night because they've overspent and that car gets repossessed in two weeks. Nobody shows you that. So we only see the best side of somebody else's life and then we compare it to our worst days. And that's so detrimental. It's so detrimental. And this goes back to the importance of having a plan is we don't want to align our decisions with what our neighbors are doing. We want to align our decisions with what we want to accomplish in the long term, who we want to become, where we want to be, what do we want to be doing in 20, 30 years? And are my decisions today in alignment with that? Who cares what my neighbors are doing? And that should be the standard again, asking ourselves that question. Am I serving or stealing from the future version of me?
Evan Hoffman:And that's, that is always the hardest part is being able to, to future proof yourself. I think the, have you seen the marshmallow test with kids? Yes, to be able to satisfy that immediate gratification. We live in a microwave society where everything needs to happen now. And that instant bullet and the magic fix for everything. And. To move someone away from that and to get them focused on something different. You talked about following a plan, that comes down to habits. when we look at how people even set a new year's resolution, I think it's January 18th or 17th is on average, the day where most people have given up on their new year's resolution. They don't even make it three weeks with following a plan. That they set out for themselves and it just goes into a drawer and it gets forgotten about. So how do you bring someone back to those moment to moment decisions and get them focused on all the right things?
Chad Hufford:So that is a huge piece of what we do, even though we do holistic financial planning. Yes, we do investment management, the accountability. That's what you said is how do you bring people back to the path that they said they wanted to be on to accomplish the goals that they said were important to them. That is one of the biggest things that we offer. And it's, I think it's the biggest part of our job. Again, it doesn't matter how good your plan is, you're executing it. And you're right, Microwave Society, right? We, five minute rice, six minute abs, buy one click, get it now. No payments for six months. Like we want all the benefits and none of the costs. And I think whether people realize it or not, a lot of times they're asking for what is the quickest, least effort way. to build wealth. And this is the wrong question and I think what you alluded to is sustainability. How do we make this sustainable? And I make the joke all the time about, Jim's workout facilities on January 2nd. You don't want to go in January 1st because everybody's hungover. It's not fair. But they're packed on January 2nd. By Valentine's Day, they're empty because people get this idea of, yeah, this is going to be the year of me, new year new you, that kind of idea. And they haven't worked out in 20 years and they're going in there and doing like green beret, special forces workouts. And they wonder why they can't make it sustainable. And after three or four days, they're miserable, they're tired, they're sick, they're injured, whatever. And in three weeks they're completely done. So we need to do is not just have accountability, but realize We need to build for sustainability and not optimize until we have a sustainable habit form or habit process being formed. And it's okay to take small steps. This is a marathon and being able to reverse engineer that longterm plan so people can see here's the steps I need to take. It might take me a little while to get to where I need to be, but here's the pathway for that. That way that goal, That long term goal gets brought into the moment and they're able to chip away at it slowly and not try to sprint into it and then burn themselves out in three weeks.
Evan Hoffman:Alright, it goes back to, have you read The One Thing? Gary Keller? Yes. Gary Keller. Yep. The purpose of a goal is not the achievement of the goal. The purpose of the goal is to be appropriate in the moment. And it's bringing that to your daily micro decisions. How to eat an elephant one bite at a time. There's so many different sayings and phrases that you can use for that. How often are you reviewing this with a client or how often would you suggest that someone review their plan, come back to it? Check on their finances, make sure that they're staying on pace, off pace. What's the formula there?
Chad Hufford:We ask our folks to do a full overhaul once a year, look at everything, look at budgets, look at savings, look at investments. And we often have smaller, shorter check ins along the way. But even if you think nothing has changed, it just like you would want to go to the doctor and get a checkup of your physical health on a relatively regular basis. You want to do the same thing with your financial health. Even if you think everything is great, tax laws change all the time. You've got constant changes in the marketplace with interest rates, things like there's always something. And even if nothing else, just to build that relationship capital with your financial planner, because again, going back to what you said about accountability, Evan, that's super important. And there will be a point where you don't want to execute the plan anymore. And building that relationship capital with your coach, with your advisor is important during the good times because during the bad times when you know, we're in the middle of a recession or maybe the business is not doing as well and you're like, man I know I need to be saving at this rate. I'm not sure. I got to make some big sacrifices to do that. That's when you've got to cash in on that relationship capital and meeting when, Things are going great and it seems awesome. It just allows you to plan for those times when life has thrown you curve balls. So at least once a year. And I, but I think with, spouse, your partner, having a monthly check in is also really important. And along those same lines, we encourage people to build a community around them. We work with a lot of oil field folks. And one of the reasons that's been so strong is because those guys live and worked, guys and gals live and work together for two weeks at a time, almost 24 hours, they're living together basically. But it allows them to encourage each other and to hold each other accountable too. So I think building some horizontal accountability with like minded people who care about you enough to tell you the hard truth, they might not give you what you want to hear, but they're going to tell you what you need to know. And there's love behind it is super important and yeah, I said love on, a show. You guys probably don't talk about that too much, but it's important. Like you have to have people in your life. They're going to call you out on things because most of the world is going in the wrong direction. And we're asking people, you guys are asking people within the HVAC community. To take the narrow road and to do things differently than everybody else around them, to differentiate themselves, but to also get a different outcome. And we're asking people to do the same thing with their financial lives, to go against the grain, swim upstream, and to be different. Because if we do things the way everybody else does them, we're going to end up with the same results. And those results are not good.
Thaddeus Tondu:No, especially when you factor in what's the percentage of people in North America that are two weeks away from not being able to pay their bills. It's 60%. Yeah, so yeah, it's wild. It blows my mind. That stat every single time I hear it still blows my mind.
Chad Hufford:Over half of the people in North America could not cover a 500 emergency.
Thaddeus Tondu:Yeah.
Chad Hufford:And I've got six kids. 500 emergencies happen all the time. Somebody's always breaking something, whether it's a bone or, we just paid like 2, 000 to fix our refrigerator. I'm not sure if it's worth that much and The guy's met four times and it keeps on having problems and it's just got one car in the shot. It was just things, life happens and people live with such slim margins.
Thaddeus Tondu:You are right. Like people do live with slim margins. Like regardless of whether it's my stat or your stat, like they're both fucking mind blowing. Don't be that, that, that problem. Reach out. I think part of it too is actually the ego, right? People don't want to say, Hey, I need help with my finances. I need help with my money. I need to this. I'm guilty. Yeah. Raise my hand. I'm like, I don't need help with my money. I got money. Is it a 30 day plan or a 30 year plan? And are you building towards something, right? And having that that ego put aside is probably the biggest thing that a lot of people need to do.
Chad Hufford:And we've normalized such bad behavior not just in money, but in general, like in our personal health and relationships, there's so much bad behavior that's been normalized in our culture. And you're right. It does take courage to stand up and say, you know what, I'm not okay with this anymore. Like this is not working for me and there's so many people who live, they've been burdened by debt their entire adult life. They've never lived with a plan, with a budget. All those things seem so foreign. And they just, they get used to having financial shackles on them constantly and it's been so long. They don't know what it feels like to be free anymore and that's, we're trying to buck that system and remind people they don't need to be like financial geniuses. They just have to have the character qualities. And back to your question about financial literacy, there are things people need to know. People need to overcome the misleading media and really learn what is important a lot of those things are things that you as an individual can control. It's not the presidential cycle. It's not interest rates. It's not the economy or even markets. It's not all the things you can't control. It's the very few things in your life that you can control that make the biggest difference. But we've been sold a bill of goods that is not correct and people just need to realize that they are the biggest determining factor in their own success. And I don't care what your background is. You might not even know the difference between a stock and a bond right now. That's okay. You can still be a fantastic investor. You have to eventually learn the difference, but you don't need a PhD in this. It's really a character thing. That's a mindset thing.
Thaddeus Tondu:Sure. So you mentioned, there's a few things that people can focus on that they can control. Obviously the ones you mentioned, things that we can't, what are, two to five things? And I hit you a big runway there. The two to five things that a person can control.
Chad Hufford:How
Thaddeus Tondu:much time do we
Chad Hufford:have? No. No, I guys, I love talking about this stuff. So you got my, you guys have not have cut me off, but we already talked about living within our living, within our means, you've got to spend less than you make. Cause none, nothing else matters. If you have no margin to pay your future self. I think another one that's really important is savings rate. Over return rate. So again, people focus so much on the investment that they ignore their own behavior and we already talked about the new year's resolution, like obesity in North America is not a problem because treadmills don't go fast enough. It's a problem because people don't use them enough,
Thaddeus Tondu:but
Chad Hufford:they don't put the
Thaddeus Tondu:fucking spoon down. There's another one.
Chad Hufford:Yeah. They're doing too many forklifts and not enough deadlifts. Forklifts being the but again, it's, but you're right. Those are personal behavior issues, but the focus is often on some new gimmicky exercise, piece of equipment or pill or something like that. In finances, we focus on the investment. What's the investment return rate and things like that. And those things are important, but if you don't have a healthy savings rate, if you're not utilizing that tool, Then it might be just like the treadmill becomes a glorified coat hanger in somebody's bedroom, your investments, no matter how good it is, you're not using it enough. You're not going to get the benefits. I think another thing that people can control is whether they're going to own companies or loan to companies. And what I mean by that is we've been taught here in North America that if you The safe investments are stable investments in a rising cost world. That could be no further from the truth in a rising cost world. You need growth oriented investments, which means they're going to be volatile in the short term. There's going to be a lot of uncertainty and that's what drives people away. And that's where I love working with entrepreneurs because entrepreneurs are typically willing to undergo a little bit more temporarily temporary uncertainty. Temporary ambiguity for more long term success, for more long term security. But it's not an easy choice to make. But when we own companies through mutual funds and other sources, like you can literally own some of the best companies across the globe and you don't have to be wealthy to do it. You can start 50, a hundred bucks, 200 bucks a month, and you can own. Some of the same companies that Warren Buffett and these other guys own rather than lending to companies and in the form of bonds where you're basically buying a company or a government's debt, which doesn't even sound like a great idea, but it's comfortable in the short term because the values don't bounce around a lot and that short term comfort is very tempting, especially in an uncertain and volatile world. So choosing to own companies, rather than lending to them is a huge fork in the road for a lot of investors. And all those things are something the individual can completely control.
Evan Hoffman:Love it. Are we doing random questions today? Sure. Why not? All right. Sick. So random question generator brought to you by On Purpose Media has nothing to do with anything that we were just talking about. Or anything we will talk about moving forward, but who knows? You never know where it ends up going. Brought to you by On Purpose Media, onpurposemedia.ca. Go ahead and get yourself a second opinion on your marketing. See how you're doing. See how you're showing up online. Go ahead and hit onpurposemedia.ca/second to go ahead and register for that. So we've got three questions here pulled up for you. Do you have them pulled up by chance?
Thaddeus Tondu:I do. Yes, I do. Yes.
Evan Hoffman:All right. So you have three questions to choose from, Chad. Question one, two, or three, you don't get to know what they are beforehand. So which one would you prefer? I'll go question three.
Thaddeus Tondu:All right. And I, full disclosure, haven't read them this time. So no, uh, if you could have one superpower, what would it be?
Chad Hufford:One superpower? What would it be? As a kid, it would have been. That's what I wanted. I wanted it to be like this ninja Whatever. And apparently that didn't completely wear off because I actually trained with MMA fighters in my early adult days and actually trained some professional fighters. So I think that has always been there, but as I've gotten older the reason I wanted that is, is to be able to protect others. It was very much, uh, wanting to be there for somebody who was vulnerable. So I think if we took that and evolve that into a more mature thing, it would be a superpower to be able to protect those who are in need and vulnerable.
Evan Hoffman:And
Chad Hufford:you
Evan Hoffman:already do that. So there you go.
Thaddeus Tondu:There you go. Evan, what would yours be? I'm curious. This is one of the questions I want I already just in general, I already know what mine would be, but.
Evan Hoffman:Oh gosh as a kid, all I wanted to be was a quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. Yeah, unbelievable arm strength, I guess.
Chad Hufford:This year you don't even need, you don't need any superpowers to be quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys this year. So sorry, man.
Evan Hoffman:Just be average at best. Oh, man.
Thaddeus Tondu:That's
Evan Hoffman:funny.
Thaddeus Tondu:So I want to pivot the conversation from someone who is a novice investor or someone who hasn't even started or built out any kind of a plan and focus on the guys that they have more of that hodgepodge scenario that they put together. Because let's face it, there's been a lot of money that's been made in the trades over the last three years. I don't mean a lot of money even before that, but the last three years specifically, and guys have wanted to put money into the markets and they have, and they've pieced it together. Others that I've talked to recently are holding on to a lump sum of cash because they're waiting for it to crash. And I wanted to give you the opportunity to talk about timing the market versus time in the market. And why having a real plan is more often than not the best way to go.
Chad Hufford:So there's a lot there to unpack. Let me try to quickly move through that but pull me back to a particular question or particular point. If you want Evan, but you already said it, time in the market is one of the most important variables. There's a saying that says one of the most one of the most vital parts of compound, Interest is to not interrupt it unnecessarily. And too many people do that and they try to pull their money when they think there's going to be a downturn coming and that's human nature, right? We see clouds on the horizon oh, there might be a storm coming. It's okay to feel the fear. It's not okay to react to it and we encourage people to stay in their investments. If you have the right tools to build what you are trying to build financially, don't worry about what the weather is that week. It might be uncomfortable to build in the rain. And I drove by some guys in our neighborhood doing exactly that right now. They have the right tools. They have a plan. It sucks right now because it's 40 degrees and raining. That's not fun to build. It's a necessary part of it. If we only build when the sun is shining in Alaska, nothing would ever get built. And when it comes to financial markets, if you only invested when the proverbial sun is shining and everything looks good, number one. Those times are very few and far between. Number two, you're going to only be buying at the highest prices and when you're investing during times of uncertainty, that's when you get the best deals. Like literally when the economy crashes, you have the opportunity to buy the best businesses on the planet at a discount. And we love sales. Except when it's on companies. So embrace the uncertainty and right now, as we're recording, everybody's talking about this crazy election, the United States that we're getting ready for. Here's the interesting stat. I'll try to make this quick and concise, but the average person retiring today in the U S is was born about 1961. And so 63 years ago, if you put 10, 000 and invested it into large us companies, we'll just use the S and P 500 as an example, S and P 500, years ago, you only invested that while Republicans were in office, it would return about a hundred thousand dollars. Would it be worth today? Tenfold return. If you only invested while Democrats were in office, It'd be about 500, 000, half a million, 50 fold return. But this is not Republicans versus Democrats. Here's the real kicker. If you never remove that money, if you just stayed invested for 63 years, that 10, 000 would be worth 5 million today. 500 fold return, way more than timing the market. It's time in the market and the darker the storm clouds are, the better the discounts and deals are going to be.
Thaddeus Tondu:Just, I'm curious to know over the last 63 years how much percentage of that was Republican versus Democrat, just out of curiosity. If you happen to know that, that's what I'm like. It's so now it flips the script. If if you're like, okay, equal.
Chad Hufford:It's so part of the reason there's so much difference is. Democrats were in office a larger percentage of the time. There was more time in the market. So yeah it doesn't, we remind people all the time what happens in your house is more important than what happens in the white house. And my industry causes people to focus on all those things that they can't control. It's, what are interest rates? What are inflation? what are the, Talking heads on TV saying the economy is going to do what's going on the presidential race like all those things Do they have an impact sure, but can we control them? No and they're never going to be as important as our own individual decisions and our choice to continue to execute our plan regardless of the political or Economic weather at the time,
Evan Hoffman:Right? I know that I can't remember what the percentage is Some of the biggest days in the market typically follow the worst days in terms of returns. And more often than not, people pull out when they see that big loss and then they miss out on the big return the next day. And I think it was the 10 if you missed out on the 10 best trading days of the year last year, I believe on if you were on the s and p, I think it was not, was it 9% last year? 12%.
Chad Hufford:I'm not even sure offhand. Yeah.
Evan Hoffman:Okay. But if you missed out on average, it's 9 percent a year for the S& P or 8 percent a year. If you missed out on those top 10 days in the year, you went from 8 percent to two, you barely beat inflation on an average year. In the last three years, you didn't even beat inflation. And that's just 10 days of the year. It's a remarkable difference that those 10 best days make. And if you're trying to time the market and you're pulling out when it's going down. You're missing out on the best days that follow.
Chad Hufford:Just a slight correction there. Please. That stat changes from year to year, but it's usually the 10 best days of the decade. More than cut your return in half. So you lose about half your return, essentially missing one day a year. And if you, there are very few years, and I don't even know how many, but if you look at the last, 50, 60 years if you remove top 10 best days of that year, almost every single year is negative, even though over the last 60 years, the S& P 500 has actually been averaging closer to 11%. a year, which doubles your money about every six and a half years. And again, we talk about 10, 000 growing to 5 million over the course of 63 years. But if you remove Even the 10 best days during each of those years, you actually have a negative return. So again it's not sexy and exciting to say, stay the course, continue to invest, stay in, it doesn't matter what people are saying, but it's slow and steady that wins the race. It's the tortoises that keep plodding along, not the hares that jump off and chase you. Pardon the pun. Rabbit trails. But it's the people that just stick with it all the time. Those are the ones that find success. And that's why you don't have to be an expert. You have to know some things. But a lot of it is knowing what is important to you. Knowing your budget. Knowing your personal numbers. Not knowing what's going on around you. And then having the accountability and the encouragement to stay on that path. it's like staying on the treadmill when everything starts to hurt and it will, there are, there will be times it'll be difficult. You're trying to run your business, trying to run your family and trying to stay invested. That's a lot of pressure. It won't always be easy and that's why most people aren't wealthy.
Thaddeus Tondu:Stick to it of this.
Chad Hufford:Yeah. On steroids.
Thaddeus Tondu:Chad, thank you for taking some time. Obviously I want to give you a moment. Obviously veritasalaska. com is how you find and get in touch with them. You also have a book forgingfinancialfreedom. com is where you'll be able to find that. Talk us a little bit about the book and what people can expect from it.
Chad Hufford:The book focuses a lot on mindset, not on the 10 quick steps to get rich quick. It's about building the mindset to build wealth sustainably and we actually interviewed several hundred blue collar millionaires in order to write this book and we condense their stories down into seven wealth building lessons that anybody can apply and it's written to be engaging with somebody who doesn't have a huge background in finance and who maybe has ignored this part of their life. And I just, I think finances are like health. It can be intimidating, it can be frustrating, but if you ignore it, it'll only deteriorate. And you may not be interested in finances, but finances are a part of your life. You owe it to yourself and to your future. To take an interest and to take control of your own financial future. And this book helps develop the mindset to do that, but also the questions that people need to be asking themselves in order to frame a good financial future.
Thaddeus Tondu:Perfect. So that URL forgingfinancialfreedom.com check out the book. Talk to us a little bit about Veritas Alaska and what you can do for people.
Chad Hufford:The simplest way to explain it is we help make sure people don't run out of money or purpose in retirement. It's holistic financial planning. A lot of that is people come to us basically asking, am I on track for retirement? And if they're already retired, will I outlive my money? Will I run out of money in retirement? Those are the two biggest questions we get asked and that's oftentimes what starts the conversation is making sure that people can build a retirement income stream outside of their business, That they don't have to worry about outliving. And we also help people figure out what they're retiring to. And that's a huge thing for people that own a business because it isn't just your livelihood your nest egg wrapped up in that. A lot of it is your identity too and giving people a sense of purpose to retire into not just retire from is also vitally important. So that's something that in the last five or 10 years I've seen a lot of very wealthy people. They were in the trades. They were welders. They were plumbers. They were pipe fitters. They were electricians retiring very wealthy, but they didn't have something to retire to and their retirement was not as engaging or fulfilling as we would have hoped and so I'm really pressing people to embrace this idea of a job optional lifestyle beyond retirement, because it isn't that you quit and do nothing because the types of folks that I work with and the types of folks that listen to your podcast are the worst types of people to just do nothing, to have 20 years of Saturdays. So it's giving people a framework of something to retire to both financially and personally.
Thaddeus Tondu:I like that. And when you think about like, when people retire, they don't, they lose the purpose. You know what? I don't know the, I'm not going to go down the stat hole on this one, but I know that people like when they retire, that a lot of people. They die fairly shortly after because they don't actually have a purpose. They don't actually do anything. They don't actually live for anything. They don't do something like actually thinking about my in laws. They're still alive, but they actually do a lot. Like they are busy, active people in retirement because they have that purpose, they have that drive. They have this bigger thing. In fact, they're going to be coming over pretty soon. To get my woken up child that is on the monitor because, day home's closed. And so like those sorts of things are big because now it actually gives fulfillment to somebody.
Chad Hufford:You're absolutely right and you have to have something that still challenges you that we call it meaningful pursuit. And the problem is for ambitious people, for goal oriented, driven, hard working people, the folks that listen to the HVAC success podcast, they are the worst types of people to not have a challenge and the sad thing is if we don't have something important that challenges us, we're going to find the wrong things to chase and we end up getting in a comfort zone and pretty soon comfort leads to complacency and then complacency leads to compromise. And I think having a meaningful pursuit. Throughout the rest of your life is so important. And it's a lot of people do miss that. And again, it's vacations are great Hawaii beaches, all that stuff. That's awesome but you got to have something in your day to day that wakes you up and stretches you.
Thaddeus Tondu:Love that. Thank you, Chad, for dropping all that information. I think the last little part was also some really golden nuggets of the show. But we might expose one more here with one final question. Chad, what is one question that you wish people would ask you more, but don't, and it can't be something that we've already talked about today? Because I knew you're probably going to go down that road. So let's make that, let's make it interesting.
Chad Hufford:One question that I wish people would ask me that they don't. I think if it's asking something of themselves, It would be asking for help finding out what they would do if money was no object. If they could not have a career, what would they want their lives to look like? And to the help unpacking that and I think that started by sometimes people asking me that same question what would you do if you weren't doing financial planning? but I think asking some form of that question, what would I be doing If I never needed a paycheck ever again.
Thaddeus Tondu:What would you be doing if you never needed a paycheck again?
Chad Hufford:I'd be right here talking to you guys.
Thaddeus Tondu:Spend value.
Chad Hufford:No I I am in a career that has become a calling and I couldn't think of anything more fulfilling. And not everybody has that. I realized that what I have is very unique and I do give a lot of this away. I do podcasts, I do speaking at churches and things like that. But I think for people asking themselves, yeah, it's so much of identity gets wrapped up in a job. That job isn't going to be there forever. What would I be doing if I never needed a paycheck ever again?
Thaddeus Tondu:Love that. Love that answer. Thank you again for coming on the show. Again, those links in case somebody wants it, forgingfinancialfreedom.com, veritasalaska.com to get in touch with him and our patented ending line. Until next time.
Evan Hoffman:Cheers.
Thaddeus Tondu:Well, That's a wrap on another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Revealed. Before you go, two quick things. First off, join our Facebook group, facebook.com/groups/hvacrevealed. The other thing, Facebook. If you took one tiny bit of information out of this show, no matter how big, no matter how small, all we ask is for you to introduce this to one person in your contacts list. That's it. That's all one person. So they too can unleash the ultimate HVAC business. Until next time. Cheers.