🔥 The Wealth Playbook: How to Retire Rich & Happy! [Tom Hegna’s Proven Strategy]

Summary

Stay Paid Podcast: Episode Summary Title: 🔥 The Wealth Playbook: How to Retire Rich & Happy! [Tom Hegna’s Proven Strategy]
Host/Author: ReminderMedia
Release Date: March 17, 2025

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The Stay Paid Podcast, hosted by Luke Acree and Joshua Steich, delves into critical business and financial strategies to help agents and entrepreneurs achieve growth and financial freedom. In the episode titled "🔥 The Wealth Playbook: How to Retire Rich & Happy! [Tom Hegna’s Proven Strategy]", released on March 17, 2025, the hosts invite renowned financial expert Tom Hegna to discuss his acclaimed retirement strategies. Joined by Cody Smith and Stephen Acree from the Acree Brothers Realty Team, the conversation offers invaluable insights into preparing for a financially secure and fulfilling retirement.

Guest Introduction and Background

The episode kicks off with hosts Luke Acree and Joshua Steich introducing their guests. Tom Hegna, a distinguished economist, author, and retirement specialist, is highlighted for his extensive work in retirement income strategies. With a background as a former first vice president at New York Life and a retired lieutenant colonel, Tom has authored six books and delivered over 5,000 seminars, focusing on his signature "Paychecks to Playchecks" retirement approach.

The Shift from Accumulation to Income-Focused Retirement

Tom Hegna emphasizes the industry's shift from accumulation to income-focused retirement planning. He shares his experience at New York Life, noting, "New York Life was probably about 10 years ahead of the industry on focusing on retirement income." ([00:24]). Tom discusses the transition from promoting variable annuities to advocating for more stable income products like SPIRAs and DIAs, underscoring the importance of guaranteed income streams in retirement.

Optimal Retirement Planning for Young Professionals

Addressing younger listeners, Tom introduces his latest book, "Tom Hagness, who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", aimed at individuals in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. He advises, "Put the majority of your money into appreciating assets… You want the majority of your money going into appreciating assets." ([04:45]). Tom warns against the allure of depreciating assets such as cars and luxury items, which lose value over time and hinder wealth accumulation.

The Power of Compounding and Discipline in Investments

Cody Smith and Stephen Acree echo Tom's sentiments, highlighting the importance of disciplined saving and investment. Cody mentions, "We are literally, he's segmenting out taxes... but it just amazes me that this industry is filled with everyone doing that." ([04:46]). Tom introduces the Rule of 72 to illustrate how compound interest can exponentially grow investments over time. He states, "If you're getting 12%, it only takes six years to double your money." ([03:51]).

Investment Strategies Beyond Real Estate

While recognizing the benefits of real estate, Tom advises against putting all investments into property. He advocates for a diversified stock portfolio and cautiously explores alternative investments like Bitcoin. Tom shares his transformative experience with Bitcoin, initially skeptical but eventually reaping significant gains from a modest investment, "I put in 1% of my portfolio about four or five years ago and that's now worth like $1.6 million." ([09:19]).

The Importance of Financial Advisors and Risk Management

Tom stresses the necessity of professional financial advice, asserting, "Retirement's not about having a number, it's about having increasing income for the rest of your life and managing risk." ([11:45]). He cautions against DIY retirement planning, highlighting the complexities and risks involved, such as long-term care and market volatility. Tom recommends utilizing financial advisors who adeptly incorporate AI to enhance retirement strategies without replacing the essential human expertise.

Strategies for a Happy Retirement

Transitioning to the emotional aspects of retirement, Tom references studies from the Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine, identifying guaranteed income and strong social connections as key factors for retirement happiness. He shares his personal experience of balancing travel and leisure with limited speaking engagements, embodying the principles he advocates. "The happiest people in retirement are people who are surrounded by their friends, surrounded by their families who have guaranteed paychecks coming in every month." ([17:21]).

Upcoming Webinar and Key Takeaways

Tom announces an upcoming free webinar, detailing its comprehensive agenda aimed at both baby boomers and younger professionals. Topics include:

• Seven Simple Steps Based on Math and Science for a happy retirement.
• Maximizing Social Security Benefits.
• Hybrid Retirement Models.
• Risk Management Strategies, including long-term care and inflation protection.
• Wealth Building Techniques to become a millionaire through disciplined investment in appreciating assets.
  Tom emphasizes, "It's about having increasing income for the rest of your life and managing risk." ([22:55]).

Final Thoughts and Action Items

Luke Acree concludes the episode by encouraging listeners to evaluate their investments, especially advising against spending on depreciating assets to keep up with societal pressures. He challenges listeners to assess their financial discipline and prioritize wealth-building actions. "The difference between top producers and mediocre producers is top producers take action." ([23:47]).

Key Action Items for Listeners:

1. Evaluate Asset Allocation: Assess how much is invested in appreciating vs. depreciating assets.
2. Attend Tom Hegna's Webinar: Gain deeper insights into retirement planning and wealth-building strategies.
3. Consult Financial Professionals: Seek expert advice to navigate complex retirement planning needs.
4. Prioritize Discipline Over Instant Gratification: Focus on long-term wealth accumulation over short-term status symbols.

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Notable Quotes:

• Tom Hegna ([03:51]):
  "If you're getting 12%, it only takes six years to double your money."

• Tom Hegna ([04:45]):
  "You want the majority of your money going into appreciating assets."

• Tom Hegna ([09:19]):
  "I put in 1% of my portfolio about four or five years ago and that's now worth like $1.6 million."

• Tom Hegna ([11:45]):
  "Retirement's not about having a number, it's about having increasing income for the rest of your life and managing risk."

• Tom Hegna ([17:21]):
  "The happiest people in retirement are people who are surrounded by their friends, surrounded by their families who have guaranteed paychecks coming in every month."

• Luke Acree ([23:47]):
  "The difference between top producers and mediocre producers is top producers take action."

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Connect with the Guests:

• Tom Hegna: tomhegna.com | Phone: 855-Tom Hegna | Follow on Social Media
• Cody Smith: Phone: [phone]
• Acree Brothers Realty Team: staypaidpodcast.com

Support the Stay Paid Podcast:

• Subscribe: Available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
• Rate & Review: Leave a five-star review to support the show
• Share: Spread the episode to friends and colleagues

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This episode serves as a comprehensive guide for professionals aiming to secure a prosperous and joyful retirement. By blending expert advice with actionable strategies, Luke Acree, Joshua Steich, and Tom Hegna provide listeners with the tools needed to transition smoothly from earning paychecks to enjoying playchecks.

Transcript

[Luke Acree]

Welcome to the Stay Paid podcast where we help agents and entrepreneurs master the latest business trends to unlock growth and create a life of freedom. Brought to you by Reminder Media.

[Joshua Steich]

Welcome to Stay Paid. I'm Joshua Steich.

[Luke Acree]

And I'm Luke Acree.

[Joshua Steich]

And we have joining us today as always, Cody Smith and Stephen Acree of the Acree Brothers realty team, the number one real estate team in Lynchburg, Virginia. Welcome, gentlemen.

[Cody Smith]

What's up, guys?

[Tom Hegna]

Glad to be here.

[Joshua Steich]

And returning to the podcast, we have a legend in the financial industry, Tom Hegman. Tom is an economist, author and retirement expert and is a popular industry speaker for many years and considered to be by many to be the retirement income expert. As a former first vice president and New York life and retired lieutenant colonel and author of six books, Tom has delivered over 5,000 seminars on his signature paychecks to playchecks retirement approach, helping baby boomers and seniors retire the optimal way. Tom, welcome back.

[Tom Hegna]

Great to be back with you, Tom.

[Luke Acree]

Man, it is awesome to have you on the show. Don't you have a TV show on cnbc? Am I mistaken there? Don't you have a show?

[Tom Hegna]

Well, I, last year I filmed a bunch of segments for Fox Business. They aired on Fox.

[Luke Acree]

Okay. Fox Business.

[Tom Hegna]

Okay. This year I am gonna, I'm filming a bunch of segments for cnbc.

[Luke Acree]

Okay, that's.

[Tom Hegna]

Those are available. If people want to, want to do that, they can reach out to our office and we do have a couple slots still available.

[Luke Acree]

Yeah, it's awesome. I watched your episode with Cody Askin. So big fan of Cody over here with everything he's doing in insurance. And I thought it was an awesome episode. So, you know, well done. I mean, you're, you know, a stud when it comes to speaking, when it comes to tv, when it comes to obviously writing books. I'm curious because I want to dive right into the topic on retirement. People don't talk about it a ton. In fact, you know, I think about the real estate industry, Stephen, you guys don't ever retire. Like, real estate agents are notoriously terrible for for setting themselves up for retire. But I'm curious, like, why is retirement and helping people prepare to go from paychecks to playchecks been a passion of yours? Why have you gone down that road? And then let's talk about retirement and how you can prepare for it.

[Tom Hegna]

Well, you know, when I was, when I was at New York Life, New York Life was probably about 10 years ahead of the industry on focusing on retirement income, you know, because in the 80s and 90s, I always focused on accumulation. And then New York Life started focusing real heavy on income in the early 2000s. And, you know, I had to take a field force that was used to writing variable annuities, which are very sexy when the markets are going up 20% a year, and then show them why they should write spias and dias, which are pretty boring products to give clients income. And that's where I had to really dig in to the research. Of all the PhDs who study retirement, I learned about the miracle of mortality credits, because that is really a retirement miracle that people don't understand where you get paid extra money from the risk pool. And so I found a lot of things that nobody really knew about except, you know, these academics that write white papers that nobody reads. Well, I read them, and then I tried to just put it into English. And that's really what the book Paychecks and Playchecks was all about, was taking the math and science, because there is an optimal way to retire based in math and science, not based on a. Opinions. And that. That's what I write about and speak about.

[Luke Acree]

So can you. Can you go a little deeper in that? On, like, you're talking about there's an optimal way. What in a. I know we don't have hours here on the show, but what would you tell us as we're preparing for retirement? Especially, like, I'm a millennial. I'm 36. Cody and Steven, what are you guys, early 30s? Josh, we won't mention your age. What are you, 41 now?

[Joshua Steich]

43.

[Luke Acree]

Yeah, 43. Okay. There you go. I kind of, you know, put. What advice would you give us as we're thinking about retirement and this whole idea of optimal.

[Tom Hegna]

Well, you know, it's interesting is my latest book is Tom Hagness, who Wants to Be a Millionaire? And that's for people your age. This is for people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. There you go. How simple it is to build wealth and to become a millionaire. And people aren't teaching young people good money skills and good saving and investing skills. And probably the biggest tip I could give young people is you want to put the majority of your money into appreciating assets. Think about where most of your friends are putting their money. Cars, boats, RVs, jet skis, you know, stereo systems, computers. Those are all depreciating assets. They go down in value every day. And worse, many of these people are financing. They're taking car loans, and they're paying interest on things that are going down. So they're Paying more on things that are worth less. You'll never become wealthy if the majority of your money is going into depreciating assets. You want the majority of your money going into appreciating assets.

[Luke Acree]

Yeah, yeah.

[Cody Smith]

It's a big focus on our team right now because we noticed that as well, is that you have so many agents making so much money. And when we started to dive into it, like, we're actually looking at one of our agents bank accounts right now. Like, we are literally going, he's segmenting out taxes. Right. He's second me out that just the income he can make to pay for the bills and then so on and so forth. But it just amazes me that this industry is filled with everyone doing that. They just, they make so much money and they have no money to account for at the end of the day. And you can't keep up this industry, like, grinding the way we grind and not have any money to speak for. Like, you'll be out so fast. That's a huge focus of ours.

[Stephen Acree]

And so many top producers that we meet with don't know their P and L. Yeah. Like, they don't know the breakdown of their business and where. And obviously, you can't plan for retirement if you don't know the money that's coming in.

[Tom Hegna]

Yeah, it's easy when you get a.

[Cody Smith]

W2, because my wife just pulled up her W2 and she's like, you know, I sent this much off for taxes and so on and so forth.

[Luke Acree]

But no, that's. It has nothing to do with W2. It's just your wife's disciplined. You're not. Hey, I'm disciplined. I send my money to assets and I can't spend it. All right, so then I'm curious, Tom, like, when you. Look, you know, we're not obviously giving financial advice here, but I'm curious to pick your brain on the. Okay, I want to invest in appreciating assets. Like, where traditionally would you tell, you know, people like us to look towards to get the optimal. And what's like, you know, I don't want to, you know, work 40 years for somebody, 40 hours a week, if not more. To spend the latter years of my life, 10 years, 15 years playing, you know, finally retiring. Yeah, I want to play now. So how do you balance that? Like, what is your advice to us?

[Tom Hegna]

And that's a problem. I, I, and I, I put some new slides in my presentation, and I'm going to be giving that presentation here. You know, we're going to announce a webinar that I'm given. But one of the slides I had is, is turning your car payment into a million dollars. And I show a 250 car payment, if that was invested at 7%, would be worth over a million dollars at some point. And then I show a 500 car payment and a thousand dollar a month car payment would be worth 5.4 million. And so there's these couples driving they dollar a month car payments. That's 10.8 million dollar retirement that they're blowing by trying to look wealthy instead of becoming wealthy. I tell people stop trying to look wealthy and focus on becoming wealthy. The other thing I would tell you is that young people are too impatient. I'm telling you all, you're too impatient. You know, people get frustrated if they're in their 30s and 40s and they're not rich, you're not going to be rich. And what I do is I use the rule of 72 to show this, okay? And the rule of 72 is how fast money doubles. So you take whatever your return is and you divide into 72. So if you're getting 1% of the bank, it takes 72 years for your money to double. If you're getting 12%, it only takes six years to double your money. But what I would use with young people, I would use 7.2%. Why? Because it's a fair rate of return. And money doubles every decade, every 10 years. So if I'm working with, let's say I was working with somebody in their 30s, they're frustrated, they're not rich. But between the two of them, they got 150,000, their 401k, but they just feel like we're not making it. I said, well, you are going to make it. But here's how it works. That 150,000 in your 30s is going to be worth 300,000 in your 40s, it's going to be worth 600,000 in your 50s, 1.2 million in your 60s, 2.4 million in your 70s, 4.8 million your 80s, 9.6 million in your 90s. That's just that 150,000 you're going to be saving and investing. You should have many, many millions. All of you should have tens of millions of dollars in your 80s and 90s. But you all want to be rich in your 30s and 40s. You're not going to be. I'm just telling you, you're not going to be. So just understand that. Don't give up. It's the money that you save and invest in your 20s, 30s and 40s. That's going to allow you to be a millionaire in your 60s, 70s and 80s. Have patience. It takes a little time.

[Luke Acree]

Yeah, yeah, so well said. It's the instant gratification that people lose. Sorry Steve, you were going to say something?

[Cody Smith]

Yeah, I was just looking at it because obviously we invest in real estate. So we've got a portfolio of like 150 properties. But that is what the compounding effect of cash flow.

[Tom Hegna]

Yeah.

[Cody Smith]

Is a beautiful thing. It goes back to what you're talking about because you just take the cash flow, you reinvest in another asset that's compounding with the tenants paying down the principal of the property. But what would be one thing that you would invest in like just practically that isn't real estate? Like what would be the number one thing you'd go for?

[Tom Hegna]

Real estate is good, but if you want to come back to it, I'll tell you why people shouldn't put all their money in real estate. I've seen some problems but, but diversified stocks portfolio is good. I've even I, you know, people thought I was hacked. I came out with a positive thing on, on bitcoin about four years ago and, and just so you know, I was the biggest, I was the biggest bitcoin non believer there ever was. Because it's, you know, what is it? It's nothing. It's a greater fool theory. You know, you're going to find somebody stupider than you to pay more than what you did. That's what I thought it was. Well then I watched Michael Saylor, I think on CNBC lay out a believable case to a non believer like me that bitcoin could hit a million dollars and more per bitcoin. And he said all we're recommending our wealthy clients do is take a 1% position, take 1% of your portfolio, put that into bitcoin. If it goes to zero, it won't kill you. And if it goes to a million, you're going to be happy you did it. Well, that resonated with me. So I put in 1% of my portfolio about four or five years ago and that's now worth like $1.6 million because it's been by far the best investment I've ever made in my life and I only put 1% of my portfolio. So it's amazing to me. I think that makes sense. Just be diversified but put your money into things that go up and not everything that's guaranteed to go down like Cars and boats and RVs and jet skis and all this other stuff that people are buying.

[Cody Smith]

So you know the person, the real estate agent, let's just say that's on our team who is grinding and is working 60 hours a week and doesn't have any time or feels like they don't have any time to invest. Maybe we convince them to store their money away, you know, save it until they can invest in that asset. Like, what would be, what's the easiest platform to go to?

[Stephen Acree]

Like first thing you'd invest in?

[Tom Hegna]

I mean, just go to Schwab or E Trader and just open up an account. I can buy my Bitcoin ETF there. I can be, I can have exposure to gold and silver and stocks and bonds and, and convertible bonds and, and, and real estate investment trusts. I mean, just open up account. It doesn't take time. I mean, geez, I can do it on my phone in just a few minutes.

[Luke Acree]

Well, I think it speaks to even the point you were making earlier is the problem with people is they don't have the discipline. So they want their get rich quick. They want it to be so easy that they don't have to do any research or do any work. And it's like nothing in life is that way. So even when you open up the account, the E Trade account or whatever, you're going to have to do a little bit of due diligence or go find a financial planner, financial advisor.

[Tom Hegna]

And I think it's important to work with a financial professional. I don't think retirement is a do it yourself project. I know this stuff inside and out. I work with two financial advisors because, you know, I don't know which product from which company would be the right one to get because there's 87 different companies, they all have different products. They change them every two weeks. I'm not going to go sort through all that. I need somebody who can do that. You know, I know what, I know basically what I need. But as far as the specific thing to get, no, I need help on that. And I think anybody trying to do it themselves is foolish. I know this inside now and I know I can't do it by myself. Okay? So I don't know why somebody who's, you know, Joe Schmedlap the plumber, thinks he can run his own retirement plan. No, he can't. You're going to mess up because there's so many risks in retirement. Retirement's not about, you know, having a number, a million, 2 million, 5. No, it's about having increasing income for the rest of your life and managing risk. That's what retirement's about. Risk management and increasing income. That's all it's all about. It's not about how much money. It's not.

[Luke Acree]

It's. It's so funny. It's like when it comes to things like choosing an advisor and stuff like that, for a while I ignored having an advisor. Oh, I can do it. All this stuff and it's a huge lie that you're gonna take the time to do it because, you know, it's almost like ego because, oh, I can do it. I can figure it out. I can, you know, study the companies, I can study the stocks. And maybe that's true if I went to school and I did my, you know, series test and I spent all the time, but I'm not gonna do that. And so. But I think people get paralysis and don't do things. Whether it's investing or even things in business, like hiring a marketing company or hiring the administrator, it's like, oh, I can do that. I don't need to pay somebody to that. It's like, no, no. What you're really missing is that you're not going to take the time because you don't have it. And that's really what you're paying for. You're paying to get your time back, and you're paying for the time that they spent to learn what they've done. And it's like, you're not going to compete with me from a marketing standpoint. Not because you're not smart enough. You easily could probably figure it out and do it. But I've been doing it for well over a decade, 80 hours a week. Your chances of catching up to my expertise in marketing, it's like, that's what you're paying me for. And it's the same. That translates to a financial professor. The only caveat here, and I'm interested, Tom, to hear your take on this, is AI all of a sudden now with AI on the scene. Now you got somebody smarter than Luke with marketing. What are you seeing with AI?

[Tom Hegna]

Have you talked to financial professionals? You want a financial advisor who uses AI. AI is not going to replace the financial advisor, I don't believe. But the advisors who know how to use it properly, that's who you want to work with. That's what I would say. And the other thing is, you know, people can say, oh, I can watch Kramer and I can pick stocks and I can do this. Okay, you can do that. But what happens if you need long term care? What happens if you die and you don't have adequate life insurance? See, the average person isn't thinking about long term care. They're not thinking about early death, they're not thinking about disability, they're not thinking about, oh, inflation keeps going. What's going to happen? Or if the market crashes and stays down for 20 years or 30 years like it did in Japan, that would wreck a lot of people's retirement, won't wreck mine. So you've got to, you've got to put strategies in place to mitigate. What if you live to be 120 and you run out of money when you're 90? You're not going to be happy. You know, you've got to put things in place that mitigate the risks. And that's what, that's the blind spots that the do it yourselfers have. Oh, they can pick stocks. Oh, I bought bitcoin. I can do this, I can do that. Yeah, but you don't have no risk. You have no risk protection. You're screwed if something bad happens. And bad things happen all the time.

[Luke Acree]

So why did you say, going back to one of your comments, why did you say real estate is not the place you should look?

[Tom Hegna]

I own real estate, okay? I'm not against real estate.

[Luke Acree]

All right, so don't knock it.

[Tom Hegna]

No, all I'm, here's all I'm saying. Real estate looks great in your 30s and 40s and you're accumulating all these properties and all. If something breaks, I'm good, I can fix it myself. So Everybody in their 40s and 50 buys all this real estate. Well, then they get to be 80. All the tax savings are gone. All right, so now these are tax bombs here. Tax. Now they need a new roof on number 14, they need a new air conditioner number 12. And they, they say, well, I don't have to do that anymore. I hire somebody and I say, yeah, who, who takes advantage? Who do you think? Who do you think they take advantage of? They take advantage of 80 year olds that own 15 properties but can't remember what they had for breakfast in the morning. So all I'm saying is long term, having a ton of properties may not be as, as may, may not make you as happy in retirement as some other things. So have real estate exposure. I do, I have, I have multiple properties, but I don't put everything there.

[Luke Acree]

Yeah, it's so, it's so true. Because who do we, you know, target guys in terms of trying to buy real estate. We go, we. Not in a bad way, not in a predatory way, but we're reaching out to this. You know, 70 year olds, the 80 year olds who have portfolios going, you don't want this anywhere anymore. And that's where we get are literally.

[Cody Smith]

It is in that age group. It's kind of crazy. It's all the baby boomers that we're getting properties from.

[Luke Acree]

Those are so. So that makes a ton of sense. So. Okay, so I'm curious because, you know, I know we have a lot of time, but I know you've recently kind of, you know, taken more of a retirement in your own career. Even though you're traveling like you were just on the road for two weeks. I mean, you're an incredible speaker. If you guys get the chance to hear Tom speak, you will be blown away. I remember the first time I heard you speak. I believe it was in Phoenix, Arizona. I think it was at a True Choice event is where I heard you speak. I was just. You're a master owning the stage and delivering concepts. But can you talk about how to be happy in retirement? Because one, you're experiencing it a little bit yourself right now. What do you think that looks like of being happy in retirement?

[Tom Hegna]

Well, the Wall Street Journal plainly said the secret to a happier retirement is friends, neighbors and a fixed annuity. And what they found is that the happiest people in retirement are people who are surrounded by their friends, surrounded by their families who have guaranteed paychecks coming in every month. So policemen, firefighters, teachers, people with pensions. And by the way, pensions are lifetime income annuities. Social Security, by the way, is a lifetime income annuity. So people who have this guaranteed income tend to be happier. Time magazine found the same thing. Lifetime income stream Key to retirement happiness was the title of the Time magazine headline in Great Britain. And they found that, you know, even in land of Grumps, people with guaranteed lifetime income can find true happiness. The American college says when you, when you have enough income coming in every month, you know what kind of housing and activities you can afford, allowing you to choose a lifestyle that makes you the happiest. And that really relates to me because, you know, for 30 years I was on the road 200 days a year. I'm a golfer. I could not justify a country club membership. You know, there's a buy in, there's dues, there's minimum food and beverage. I there, it's ridiculous. I couldn't, I couldn't justify a country club membership. Well, now I have Two. So I play golf here in the Phoenix area in the winter, and then in the summer, we go up to Flagstaff where it's 35 degrees cooler, and I play golf up there all summer. And we've been traveling. You know, we've. We've. We've set up a lifestyle that makes us the happiest. You know, we. We did a Panama Canal cruise. That was on my bucket list. We did a Mediterranean Cruise for our 40th anniversary, we did a Caribbean cruise. In a couple of weeks, I'm going back down to Central America. Then in April, we're going to Australia and Singapore and in Thailand. And then.

[Luke Acree]

Are you speaking any of those times, or is it all just.

[Tom Hegna]

No, no, these are all just. Just with my wife. And then we're doing the grand European tour on Viking this in September. So, like. Like, I am 70% retired. I play golf four, four to five days a week. But, yeah, I was on the road for two weeks, so that. That kind of threw a kink in it. But so I do some speaking. But I'm. I'm trying to live, you know, the. The happy lifestyle that I write. And I'm not just talking the talk. I'm walking the walk.

[Luke Acree]

I love that. Did you play Seven Canyons in Sedona? Yeah, funny story, man. I was on a business trip for ypo, which is like the young president's organization. And I'm out there in Sedona. We're doing a mastermind thing. I've never played golf before. My first round of golf was Seven Canyons, Sedona, which was amazing because it's the most gorgeous course. I mean, the mountains, the views, just unbelievable. I've never played, though, so it was a disaster. And I remember hitting one of the. Off the tee and landing on one of the other holes, greens, and I go over to get my ball, and the person there who's a member of, I guess the club, there he goes, hey, you know, if you do that, you have to pay for everybody's round on the course, right? I'm like, oh, God. I pick up my ball and start running. This is the last time I ran on a golf course, but it was. It was amazing.

[Tom Hegna]

That's a pretty course. It's gone bankrupt a couple times because it's kind of out in the middle of nowhere. And it's really hard for people to just, you know, make that thing work. But, boy, it's beautiful course.

[Luke Acree]

Oh, it is such a. It's an amazing course. If you guys. Stephen and Cody, I saw you guys post on your Instagram. You were playing golf the other day. If you get to play there, you'll be blown away. The, the course. It's a beautiful head. Next. Okay, so talk to us a little bit about the webinar that we have coming up, what you're going to be going over. Because I want people to register for this because I think people are avoid thinking about retirement because they're putting it as a future problem for future self. And it's like you, you're. It's going to be a problem and it doesn't have to be. If you can start thinking about it now, can you talk a little bit about what you're going to do?

[Tom Hegna]

This webinar is, is going to be good for all ages because I'm going to do both. Okay, so first I'm going to cover. Don't worry. Retire happy. This is seven simple steps based in math and science. This was my PBS TV special that played in over 80 million homes in the US and Canada. This will show baby boomers exactly step by step what they should be doing. And then I'm going to show the younger people. I got like 10, 12 minutes at the end where I'm going to go through my. How simple it is to become a millionaire and how to be disciplined and how to put your money into operation assets and how to turn your car payment into a million dollars. Just, just very simple tips on how to build wealth in America. So that's what we're going to do. And the website there is tomhegna.com paid P A I D tomagnet.com forward/paid. And that webinar. I will go over all of this. I'll answer questions. I mean, it's going to be a, it's going to be a fun time and it will do it all in less than an hour. So it's going to be very efficient too. And I move, I move quickly, but I cover a lot of information and I promise anybody attending it'll be very valuable. Be a very valuable hour.

[Luke Acree]

Yeah, definitely attend that. We're going to promote it to all of our clients. There's no, we don't have any revenue share or anything like that. We're not selling any product or anything like that on Tom's webinar. I just want people to go because I've seen your stuff. You know, you've been a thought leader in the space for so long. We subscribe to your stuff. We've had you speak before and I want to get that in Front of especially our client base and our listeners, all of you who are listening to this, you know, chances are you're probably not thinking about your retirement like you should be. Just because I know this industry and the industries we serve. And you need to attend this and then think about this, what you're going to learn, you can also then go and connect it for your clients. All the clients that you serve, you can buy them Tom's books, you can get point them to Tom's resources because they need it. Just like you need it as a small business owner. Your clients that you serve need it. So please go check that webinar out.

[Joshua Steich]

Love it.

[Tom Hegna]

How much is Tom say what?

[Stephen Acree]

How much is the webinar?

[Tom Hegna]

No, that's completely free, baby. And, and just kind of some sub bullets. I'm going to talk about the importance of having a plan and working with a financial professional. We're going to show you how to maximize your Social Security benefits to get the most of those. I'm going to talk to you about the importance of a hybrid retirement. What I'm doing kind of working a little while you're retiring. The importance of having increasing income because of inflation, the importance of having guaranteed income. I'm going to show you the research of the leading PhDs in the world who are unanimous in saying you need to have some guaranteed income into your portfolio. We're going to talk about long term care. It's a huge risk. It's the one risk most people forget about that can wipe out their entire life's work. Using your home equity wisely is going to be one of the topics. And then how to pass money to children, grandchildren and charities in the most tax efficient manner possible. And then I'll talk about how to build wealth and become a millionaire.

[Luke Acree]

Wow.

[Cody Smith]

Yeah.

[Luke Acree]

That's what I'm interested in is like how to. I have a call with an estate planning attorney coming up here of just like all the tax strategies around trust and like how to buy properties like this is really for all of our people listening to this. You're involved in properties, insurance, finance, stuff like that. It's like if you're not looking at the tax code and the trust stuff that is out there that you can take advantage of for your business. You know you're missing out because I'm already learning a ton of this for what we're doing here with Reminder Media. I know we have a lot of our properties, Stephen, in a trust and a business trust and what we're doing, but I'm very interested to hear what you say on that and get some more resources on that. So thank you, Tom for coming on. This is awesome.

[Joshua Steich]

Yeah, absolutely. Make sure to sign up for that [e-mail] pay Tom, how else can people connect with you?

[Tom Hegna]

Pretty easy to find. Tomhagna.com Our phone number is 855-Tom Hegna. So we're pretty easy. I'm on all the social media. I encourage people to follow me. I post a lot of fun stuff and a lot of good research.

[Joshua Steich]

Awesome. Steve and Cody, thank you for joining as always. How can people connect with you?

[Cody Smith]

Yeah, first off, Tom, we're definitely showing up for that webinar and I'm definitely getting those books. I'm going to get one for each one of our agents. I think that's really cool. But if anyone wants to reach out to us, I love real estate investing and I also would love to show you guys how to compound that.

[Joshua Steich]

So.

[Cody Smith]

So feel free to reach out. Any questions? Numbers 434-216-5306 awesome.

[Joshua Steich]

Thank you everybody. And we're going to include all of those links in the show notes of this episode as well as the description. You can get those show [e-mail] if you like this episode and want to share your support, head on over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Drop us a five star review along with a comment. We'll read it here on the show. And the best way to support the show is to simply share this episode with somebody that you know. If you want to get hold of me or Luke, you can email [e-mail] and of course you can always message us and follow along on Instagram. We are at Stay Paid podcast for this episode of Stay Paid. I'm Joshua Stike.

[Luke Acree]

And I'm Luke Acrey. Tom, thank you again man. Always appreciate your wisdom and your time being willing to share. Please attend that webinar. Here's my action item for everybody listening to this. You heard it kick off, right? You want to be a millionaire, you got to put your money in appreciating assets, not depreciating assets. And I would challenge you as the action item is to go look at your bank account, go look at your balance sheet and ask yourself how much are you investing every month in a depreciating asset? And why are you trying to keep up with the Joneses? Are you trying to impress people that you don't really care because you don't really want their life? And that's where we fall into this trap is we're trying to impress people that we don't even want their life. So why are we spending any time trying to impress them? Remember, the difference between top producers and mediocre producers is top producers take action. So take action on that. Sign up for the webinar. We'll see you there. Appreciate you guys listening.