1820 – Aligning Values with Financial Strategies with Hannah Champman

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2:16With us right now, Hannah Chapman. Hannah, you are the founder and CEO of X Squared Wealth Planning. You are a financial advisor as well. and your website is x2wealthplanning.com. Hannah, thank you so much for joining us. Hi, Josh. So good to be here. Thank you for having me. Yeah, absolutely. Well, listen, right from the get-go, pulling up your website, I love it, but I'm gonna let you explain kind of who you work with and what your approach to wealth planning is. Yeah, it's everyone's met a thousand financial advisors, right? So that's like, all right, cool. What's so different about you? And I also know that entrepreneurs don't have a lot of access to high quality financial advice for most of their journey because we tend to do things differently.

3:07We don't build wealth necessarily exactly the same way that someone would if they are, you know, an executive at Procter & Gamble or, you know, NVIDIA or wherever, right, where you get a salary and a bonus and RSUs or that kind of thing. And so when I work with entrepreneurs, I do so in a very different way and take a different approach because we not only need to understand what's happening with the money side of things in our business and in our personal life and really have a good handle on the logic, the practicality, the implementation side of how do we build businesses and wealth from a place of alignment.

3:48But we actually really need to understand our emotions and our feelings and who we are as a person and what matters to us as an entrepreneur, the business we want to build, the people we want to impact. Because how we feel about our money is actually just as important and actually drives the financial decision making more so than here are the numbers, here's what we should do. And so with entrepreneurs specifically, when we address it from that place, who do you want to help? What impact, what big impact do you want to make in the world? And then let's build your wealth towards that. Suddenly the floodgates open up, the inspiration opens up, and there's energy towards being able to build in that way versus just how can we get more money in the bank?

4:34Yeah, yeah. Well, I love this already. And what you're talking about is not necessarily with if I stroll into my local bank, you know, and they have some guy comes up and glad hands me. He's like, you know, let's talk about your 401k. And, you know, we get to, I'm kind of sharing some narrative or personal experience here. And then, you know, you get to talking with him and I'm like, I don't think he really gets me. No, no. Talk about that dynamic a little bit. Yeah, because I came out of that world, right? So I've been in the financial industry for going on 18 years this year and in financial planning specifically since 2007.

5:11And all of the clients that we worked with, they had a broad spectrum of being teachers or firefighters or executives to business owners. And I noticed from the very beginning that the business owners had a very different both work ethic, but also like money mindset than the people who, again, had a stable job, maybe a pension, right? I'm working, I have to work eight more years and then I can't wait to get out of here. My business owner clients have always been different. And I know being myself, right? Like doing this on my own as well, there's a hunger. We want to create more. And it's not about where's the safest place.

5:53It's about creating pockets of stability and safety within your world so that you can then continue to be bright and bold and take more risk, right? So we are risk takers. We take a lot of risk in our finances just by being business owners and being the tip of the spear in our lives and with supporting everyone else beyond us, all of our employees, our families. And at that same time, we also have to have someone safe to talk to who's there to help us bounce ideas off of, What actually will, again, create that stability for myself, for my family, while also allowing me to take risk? What's the right balance?

6:37And most wealth advisors don't want any of that. Like, how do we get less risk on the table? We just are always trying, you know, in a traditional financial planning sense, how can we create more guarantees? How can we create more safety? How can we create more wealth that we can see right now that's in a mutual fund? versus like, okay, you're building something that's going to be worth multiple tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in the future. Cool. But I can't see it in your, like you said, 401k or your IRA right now. So you're behind. That's not true. We're not behind. We're just creating and building in a different way.

7:16Yeah. Well, how do you then, let's say you have someone who's coming in and I suspect that this is not uncommon. They say, listen, I have nothing in my retirement savings traditionally. But what I do have is a pretty good book of business. You know, we've built up a consultancy over the past number of years. You know, we have great recurring revenue. It's again, it's not gangsta money, but it's, you know, if I were to stop working, there would be some that business is not going to die overnight simply because, you know, I have a team, I've got great systems, I have a great professional reputation.

7:50How do you calculate that? And then And what is that conversation with them, especially if they're coming in, you know, saying the world tells me that this is not an investment. The world just tells me this is just some entrepreneurial thing. And at the same time, I can't help but feel guilty that I don't have, you know, a traditional IRA or 401k. That is actually a lot of who I work with. So people who have built beautiful revenue, maybe, you know, even in the seven figures, But as a CEO, what's happening behind the scenes a lot of times is they're not always paying themselves on a regular sustainable basis or taking enough out of the business to then create, again, create diversification of their own assets.

8:36And so what it looks like, okay, once you've built something, and I would say that's the main part. Once you've got sustainable, reliable income, the next piece is to then say, okay, how do I now make sure that I'm paying myself regularly, that I feel like, okay, I'm stepping back in to look, not stepping back necessarily out of the business, but stepping back to look at how can I pay myself the amount that feels good, that covers all of my needs, that allows me to provide for my family in the way that feels really spacious and abundant, while also then taking into account, all right, how do we taxes, right?

9:18The dreaded conversation every single year, how do we prepare for taxes? How do we make sure that you're always on the front side, you're not on the backside of preparing for your taxes and creating those pieces for future you? Like what happens if you're the CEO and you do, something does happen to you, right? Does your spouse know everything that's happening? Are you going to be able to provide for your kids? Those are some of the questions that we don't necessarily like to think about as entrepreneurs, right? We want to just think that we're always going to be at the helm. And at the same time, we know that, okay, we do need to have some sort of safety nets here and there.

10:00And so what's the right balance? I feel like that's the real challenge that we look at, especially over the first probably year, year and a half that I work with people is, okay, what balance do I want to strike? And how do I create that so that I feel at peace every time I look at my finances, that I'm always feeling optimistic. I'm not feeling dread every time. If you have a CFO, every time the CFO comes to ask a question like, Like, oh, what are they going to say this time, right? Instead, it's always a constructive conversation. And that starts from doing the financial planning piece. And that's, you know, if you don't have assets to manage at this moment, cool.

10:38You know, a lot of financial planners won't work with someone who doesn't have assets because they don't have a mechanism for doing planning and doing the strategy and doing the unearthing in its own separate container. And that's what true unbiased fiduciary financial planning is, is when you can do that and just have the plan itself. And then if there's implementation to be done, that's separate and can also be done, but it's not contingent upon you having assets to manage. Yeah. You know, another issue I'm sure comes up quite a bit for you, Hannah, is business owners who they are, for all intents and purposes, probably rightly, in many cases, we hope, capitalizing their business, meaning they have probably taken on some productive debt.

11:27Now, I have to tell you, as a consumer expert, I've written a syndicated newspaper column you know, on consumer things for, you know, over 15 years now, generally debt is, you know, often portrayed as very bad, right? You know, especially as we're thinking of, you know, kind of this consumptive debt, which, you know, we typically associate with consumer activity, but that's not necessarily the same thing as productive business debt. Can you, can you maybe just kind of tackle the topic of debt, particularly as it pertains to entrepreneurs? Yes. And it's so funny you asked me about that because I had a conversation yesterday with a client who she's building a beautiful business.

12:09She's done such a good job of starting. The revenue is really moving. It's awesome. Like it's going really well. And she took on a line of credit to get it started. And, you know, there's a couple hundred thousand dollars on the line of credit right now. and having the conversation, what we were preparing for was she had to go have a conversation with her banker about extending the line and what are you going to need this year? And so she was feeling really stressed out about that. And through the course of our conversation, it turned more into, Hey, you know what? It takes time. You're less than a year into this business.

12:47It's going like the trajectories are all great. And you know that you're creating new offerings. You're pivoting when you need to pivot already. Like things are going well and debt is normal. And so when we kind of take that, I'm going to throw it out there, that Dave Ramsey advice, right? Of like do everything you can to get out of debt and stay out of debt. And if you have debt, you're a bad person, right? Like that's what it turns out. Yes, right. I know. I know there's a lot of messages. is, you know, I mean, it's really challenging. It's difficult because on one side, you know, you have just this multi-trillion dollar industry of consumer debt.

13:25I don't know what the actual numbers are, you know, so they're working very hard to encourage consumers to do it. And then of course you've got, you know, we all want to be sensible. We always want to be advocates for our families. We want to be wise and smart with our money. So then it's like, oh, well, this debt is bad. And so, but meanwhile, it's like, we have growth goals and I'm like, I'm stagnating unless I can get an infusion of capital so I can make these investments in growth. You know, often it works. You know, if you're talking with a capable, smart business person, generally, they're going to be generally pretty judicious about taking on debt in order to grow the company or there's cash flow issues that come up from time to time.

14:03So it could be, you know, just like a short term thing just to keep the lights on and They get through the hump because, again, most entrepreneurs are fairly industrious. They're going to solve the problem. But again, they look back at that. I wonder how many people look at this, Hannah, and they see that as some sort of a personal liability on their worth or their value as an entrepreneur when I believe, and there's a reframe, right, that the utilization of capital to grow business, I believe, is the mark of a first world country, like where you live and where you're able to do business. The fact that you do have access to capital like that is, you know, that's how economies are run.

14:44When you're in a different kind of environment and there is no business financing available to you, well, the economy really suffers because of that. Yeah. And you can even look at, you know, micro lending, the rise of that over the last couple of decades. Which is exciting, yeah. And it proves the point that you're making that when we have access to capital, even in small amounts, right? Say a woman in another country needs$1 ,000 to start a business that will then provide for her entire family. How much of a blessing is that to be able to have access to that capital? And then like you're saying here in the U.S.

15:24and in other countries that that's a normal part of business. it's so, so common to take on debt. And I, you know, another piece that entrepreneurs tend to do, right? If we have old 401ks, IRAs from previous employers that we worked for, right? Tapping into that money is normal. And for all intents and purposes, like if that's what gets your business off the ground and allows you to then create something that is self-sustaining, that's growing, that's doing all the things that you imagine that it would do, then 100%, that's the path that most people take. But I think a lot of entrepreneurs don't talk about it.

16:05And so that's why it's this piece of, it feels heavy. It feels like this heavy backpack that they're carrying rather than, hey, this is part of the process and folding it in and learning how over the next several years, I'm going to pay it off. Like that's the process. There's nothing bad about it. So when we lift off again, that's the feeling and the emotion that we're attaching to that versus seeing it as a beautiful and necessary and really accelerating it. It helps you accelerate your business when you take on debt responsibly. Yeah. It was kind of funny because I was going to use the metaphor of, you know, a lot of times we feel like debt is our dirty laundry.

16:50And I'm like, well, wait a minute. Yeah, it actually is. If you wear clothes, you're going to dirty them. And then guess what? You don't throw them away. You just wash them. And now you get the joy of wearing your clothes, right? Without dirty. I mean, if you didn't make dirty laundry, that would imply that, you know, it's not a great metaphor, but I like it. I like where you're going. It's the point of, yeah, I mean, we got to refine that a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, you just wash it. It's fine. That's it. That's it. It's simple. And guess what? Everybody makes dirty laundry. So Hannah, talk about when you work with your clients, what that looks like.

17:26When I work with my clients, we start from the comprehensive planning process always. If someone says, hey, I want to roll over my old 401k and that's all I want you to do. Nope, I actually don't do that as a standalone offer. It always starts from what do you actually want to create? I have to get to know you so well, right, that we know what's going on in your business together. We understand what you have going on in your personal finances, how they connect, what you want to see created. And then and only then can we even address, you know, what's the right strategy for your money. I can't do that until I know what you want to do with it and why and what's important to you and how you're feeling about the entire process.

18:12So we always start from the comprehensive plan. And I also bring in another aspect that's different that I do is I love human design and personality profiles in general, right? So anything that helps us get insight into how we operate, how we tick, those aspects make such a big difference when we approach planning from that place as well. If you're a high, you know, talk about a disc profile, If you're a high driver versus a high, you know, I can't remember because I'm such a driver influencer on this. But the other ones that where you're like the engineer brain, right? And you're more focused on details, right?

18:52That's going to shift the way that we talk about what we're doing. And so being really intentional about your personality and who you are and your personality. If, say, you have a business partner or a spouse, who are they and how do they also react, right? We're going to have different money stories that come up between two different people. And so being able to hold space and give a time for understanding between what is this, you know, you as a spouse, what do you want to create an experience? What do you believe retirement is? What do you believe the impact you want to create in the world is?

19:29And then your spouse, what do they want to do? Right. Let's give voice to everyone in the conversation so that when we get to age 50, age 60, age 70, that we're actually still on the same page because we're both being honored in this partnership. instead of getting to a point where it's like, I never wanted this idea of retirement that you had. I don't like that. I want to do something else. And now we're the great divorce situation that happens so often now. We can actually talk about that ahead of time and say, how do we create a life for everyone to get what they want and to have this partnership that actually grows and evolves together?

20:09Part of that is talking about that in the money process. So we do several meetings where we start the whole entire planning process, go through what does it look like. We have the charts and graphs that are so much fun to look at. But really, again, when we're looking at charts and graphs, what am I doing? I'm paying attention to the reactions you're giving me. What's happening? What's happening emotionally? What's coming up as you see what your financial situation looks in 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years? That's what I'm actually gauging, and that's where the process is going to take us next from there.

20:43Hannah, your website, X2 Wealth Planning, which is, again, X squared wealth planning. You just have to type big two rather than a little two to get there. But when somebody goes to your website, you've got some resources here, it looks like, including, I don't mind, I don't know if you wanted to talk about this or not, but I clicked on a link that said business coaching, and that brought me to a webinar there, but maybe you could just kind of share kind of all of the next steps that someone may want to take if they've listened to our conversation here. So there are several ways to work and engage with me.

21:17And I've done that very intentionally because entrepreneurs are at different stages at different times. Some people might be ready. They like hear, oh my gosh, I've never heard a financial advisor talk about things the way you talk about them for entrepreneurs. Yes, let's do that. And if that's the case, cool. X squared is probably where we start. You can book a call to get to know me one-on-one for free right on the website. We'll do a quick 25-minute call to see if we connect well. Super easy. The other way that people can work with me is through coaching through expansive CEO. Because what I found, that emotional side of money can actually be the place where people need to start.

21:58Maybe it's not the comprehensive wealth planning, maybe it's the money mindset and the human design piece where you're like, I want to understand myself better. I want to understand what's going on with my money better and why I'm not where I want to be at this moment. And a lot of times that's actually more in the financial coaching space than the financial advising space, which is the SEC, the IRS, like all the regulations that we have to keep that lane really protected and clean and clear. That's why there's this separation here. So if someone was to say, hey, I actually really want to know how to be more profitable in my business.

22:35I really want to know how much revenue I quote unquote should be making in order to pay everything the way that I want to. A lot of that is through the financial coaching space with Expansive CEO. And if anyone's interested in human design or gene keys or that space, I also offer that as a standalone through Expansive CEO as well. So wherever you're at in the process. Those offerings are there to help you find financial peace and financial stability, no matter where you're at. That's sort of what's been on my heart for the last several years in creating those different offerings is how do I help someone get to financial peace right where they are?

23:13And then if you grow to the place where you want to then invest with me, work with me as a financial planner, that's what that's for. We've given you the first steps to get there. Hannah Chapman, founder, CEO, and financial advisor, X Squared Wealth Planning, your website, x2wealthplanning.com. And we've got another link in the show notes to our friend listening, expansiveceo.com. Hannah Chapman, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Josh. It was a pleasure.

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