[00:00] Dave Pulcini: I would be very anxious if I did not know what I was doing when I was doing it. What that allows me to do is, at the end of the day, we’ve got like three kids sporting events tonight. As of right now, I have an 11 year old and a 6 year old. And it’s crazy, and you guys know this, how many sports things are happening this month.

[00:19] Dave Pulcini: And it’s, I can go there and be fully present because I know I took care of the other stuff. If I didn’t have that in a calendar, I think I’d lose my mind.

[00:28] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Welcome to another episode of success for the athletic minded man. Real talk on harnessing your athletic drive for clarity, consistency, and focus in business and life.

[00:39] Jim Harshaw Jr.: This is your host, Jim Harsha Jr. And today. I’m bringing you Dave Pulcini. Dave is a longtime client of mine. Longtime Pathfinder as we call them, clients of the Reveal Your Path program. And he’s just an absolute amazing success story. He has so many things. Things that he brought to this program in terms of the community and sort of the way he thinks about things and his frameworks for thinking, uh, he was a successful athlete, both high school and college, very successful in his business now.

[01:11] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And you wonder like, why does a guy like him who’s already successful hire a coach? Well, he answers that. It’s actually the very first question that we dive into that you’re about to listen to right now, but you’re going to hear some really, really good questions. Great ideas. So Dave is a financial advisor.

[01:26] Jim Harshaw Jr.: He’s in fact, the managing partner at six point financial advisors. And so he brings actually some advice and ideas here around financial insights as well, and financial frameworks. So you’re going to hear from a guy, a real guy who is executing at the highest level and he’s winning and you can win too with these frameworks that he shares.

[01:49] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So here we go. My interview with Pathfinder. Dave Pulcini, Jim,

[01:55] Dave Pulcini: thank you so much for having me, man. I’m a huge fan. I think I’ve listened to at least, uh, what do we have? 500 episodes now

[02:02] Jim Harshaw Jr.: for 50 something as of recording this by time this publishes, it’ll be for, 60 something. I bet you I’ve listened to most of them.

[02:10] Jim Harshaw Jr.: It’s not all and here I am. So I created an AI version of me, and I guess I didn’t even need to, cause I’ve trained the AI version of Jim on all of the podcast episodes. And I didn’t even need to, I could have just hired you full time to be like my AI. That’s

[02:27] Dave Pulcini: right. Yeah. I am fully available all the time to be a chat bot for Jim.

[02:30] Dave Pulcini: Absolutely.

[02:31] Jim Harshaw Jr.: That’s great. Sign you up. So Dave, when you and I first connected, you know, I was speaking at an event online, virtual event, and you heard me speak, you signed up for the coaching call with me, you were already successful. I mean, you were already a successful guy when you found Reveal Your Path.

[02:49] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Why hire a

[02:49] Dave Pulcini: coach? Wow. A good question. So I think with anything, there’s, there’s another gear and if you’re successful and you want some accountability, which I thought I needed at the time, and I think most people do. Hiring a coach was a. Natural progression and the natural next step for me, we met during COVID and that’s why it was a virtual event.

[03:09] Dave Pulcini: And I think like a lot of people, I, I moved into my basement. I was. Working on stuff. I felt isolated. I, I saw you on the call. You went through the steps that you take and it resonated with me. And you’re a wrestling guy. I said, Oh yeah, I like the wrestling guys kind of one myself. And I think it’s a lot like working out and everybody knows this.

[03:31] Dave Pulcini: Like if you have a trainer and you have to be there at 6 AM, you’re going to be there. And it’s some extra accountability and it’s the same thing for coaching. And I don’t want to steal your material, Jim, but all of the areas that we’ve worked on. Could all use improvement all the time. And then somebody making sure I’m getting it done.

[03:49] Dave Pulcini: And I found that to be what I found with you guys.

[03:52] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Well, you have an athletic background, which, you know, a lot of our clients do. And a lot of our listeners do as well. There’s a certain framework or infrastructure there. That’s in place that pushes you, challenges you. You know, a lot of people may look back in their outside of career and say, well, I didn’t achieve all of my goals.

[04:09] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Maybe you’re more older now, more mature now, whatever it is, but there was an infrastructure. You can see that there were, there were coaches or people that were teammates or was an environment. There was a plan. You had very clear goals. So I think that resonated with you. Like it does a lot of the pathfinders, which for the listener, reveal your path is the name of our coaching program.

[04:27] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And we call our clients pathfinders and I’m a pathfinder and Dave’s a pathfinder. So tell us about your athletic background. And what that infrastructure was like there for you.

[04:38] Dave Pulcini: So I grew up in a small town in upstate New York and eight eighties kid, right? Early nineties ish. There was, uh, not much to do except for play sports.

[04:47] Dave Pulcini: So we played sports year round and I played soccer all through high school and eventually in college. I wrestled and I played baseball and the listeners know this. If, by the way, if you’ve ever achieved your athletic goals, good for you. I think if, when you set the goals back then, it was like, Stuff that, yeah, I want to be the gold medalist Olympian and something, or win the world cup in my start in the major league baseball as a pitcher.

[05:11] Dave Pulcini: So I think the goals do change as we mature and get older, but I played three sports all through high school. And then in college, I actually played college soccer, men’s soccer. I don’t even know if you knew that Jim, did you?

[05:23] Jim Harshaw Jr.: I didn’t know that. How did I not know that?

[05:25] Dave Pulcini: I don’t know. I don’t know, but there we are.

[05:28] Dave Pulcini: Yeah. So, but I mean, you mentioned the structure, right? So the structure, uh, Of the athletics is something that, I mean, I still strive for. I’m a routine habits, systems processes guy, and I had success in my athletic career, I think because it was built in for me and going back to your first question, when you get out into the real world and I I’m a, uh, I’m.

[05:53] Dave Pulcini: Running a financial planning firm and I’m meeting with clients and I have a family and my wife and kids and we’re playing sports and now we’re involved in their sports and we have animals and all the things, right? It’s not the routine and structure is difficult to build and it’s not somebody there telling you exactly what to do.

[06:11] Dave Pulcini: So again, that might answer your first question, but a little bit about my athletic background too.

[06:16] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yeah. So what has been most helpful now, now that you, once again, just like when you’re an athlete, now you have a coach in your life and, and a community and teammates, if you will, what has been most helpful for you in moving you towards achieving your goals?

[06:33] Dave Pulcini: I think the most helpful thing is the process itself. And it’s two things. I don’t know how much you want to dive into this, but we, we set micro goals, right? So part of my routine has been. Every Wednesday morning, I strive to do this. I don’t always, I’m not always successful at it, but then I have to answer to a coach, by the way, if I’m not, but I set the micro goals and those goals are, it’s all about the self health, wealth, and relationships.

[06:59] Dave Pulcini: And an example would be every Wednesday morning, maybe I, my, my job this week is to find a babysitter, so I have a date night with my wife on Friday or Saturday, and maybe it’s setting up a dad day with the kids. Maybe a quarterly dad day, they pick where we go, no electronics, none of that stuff. And I just need to make that happen on my micro goal chart that we’ve developed according to my priorities.

[07:24] Dave Pulcini: So first step was we created my priorities, my core values and that type of thing. The second part is actually executing on it. And that’s the hard part. And it’s, it’s the simple, but not easy. Everybody knows we should eat healthy. Everybody knows we should be working out. Everybody knows we should be studying, getting better, reading, listening.

[07:44] Dave Pulcini: How many of us do it? Not many, but the micro goal part and the process itself has been extremely helpful. A close second of that is the community within, and I don’t mean to make this an advertisement for you, Jim, maybe you like that. I don’t know, but it just is. That’s what we’re talking about. So it is a community that’s been created and I found a great network of other guys.

[08:06] Dave Pulcini: That have similar values, similar issues, similar concerns. And we’ve professionally and personally shared a lot. And even within your program, I don’t, I don’t even know if you know this. A lot of guys are doing business with each other.

[08:19] Jim Harshaw Jr.: I love that when that happens. Yeah,

[08:21] Dave Pulcini: I know. And it’s, it’s just natural because you know what, when we talk about date nights and kid days and sporting events, and we’re coaching, like we’re really getting to know each other through the process.

[08:30] Dave Pulcini: And then we say, okay, well, by the way, what are you doing for work? I already know that I like you and want to work with you and trust you. What do you do? And then it turns into business stuff as well. So that has been helpful.

[08:43] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Quick interruption. Hey, if you like what you’re hearing, be sure to get the notes, quotes and links in the action plan from this episode.

[08:50] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Just go to Jim Herschel, jr. com slash action. That’s Jim Herschel, jr. com slash action to get your free copy of the action plan. Now back to the show. You know, a lot of people say, well, Jim, like, I know what I have to do. I just got to get myself to do it. And they don’t sign up for a coach. They don’t work with the coach.

[09:11] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Like, you know, it’s just, it’s not that I need a coach. It’s just like, I just got to get myself to do the thing. Like, what would you say to that guy? I would

[09:18] Dave Pulcini: say, how’s it going? You know, uh, we all know that one of my biggest things that I have found, if it’s attributed to any, any amount of success that I may or may not have had is the routine and the calendar.

[09:33] Dave Pulcini: And I will tell you guys five years ago. If I’m looking at my calendar, I knew exactly what I wanted to do, Jim, on Monday morning at nine, Monday at 10, Monday at 11, Monday at two, Monday at four, Tuesday. And I time blocked. I did all the things I was supposed to do. Did I execute on it? I would say at about 30%.

[09:52] Dave Pulcini: If you want to execute on those things and you want to execute on the routine that you develop for yourself and nobody’s holding you accountable. Again, how is that going? Probably not as good as it could be.

[10:03] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yeah. You know, the example I always use is like when I was wrestling at the university of Virginia, I did my own workouts.

[10:10] Jim Harshaw Jr.: I had, you know, going into extra workouts, me and a buddy, I mean, a teammate or something like that. And it’s like, well, Why do I even need a coach? I can, I can do my own workouts. I can go and I can go lift weights in the gym. I can go do, you know, put myself through a wrestling practice, but it’s like, you’re never getting as much out of those as you are when there’s a coach present.

[10:30] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Right. You’re just not max. You know, if I didn’t have a coach, I would have never won any ACC championships, never got onto the podium at the national championships. It just, it just doesn’t work that way. And now out here in the real world, the stakes are higher, right? We’re trying to make, you know, let’s just.

[10:47] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Call it what it is. We’re trying to make a lot of money. It’s an awesome thing to make a lot of money. I mean, I’m not saying that that should be the, and it’s not the focus of your life, but like, you know, we want to make a lot of money so that we can support our families, set our kids up well, you know, experience the world and take the vacations that we want to take, you know, reduce those burdens.

[11:06] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So it’s like, You’re making a certain amount of money now, can you make more for even more abundance? And maybe it’s just to give more of it to your church or to give more of it away. You know, are you healthy now and fit, but you know, like there’d be just like, there’s another level, another gear. Like for me, this community, like part of this community is like, and I’m, listen, I’m, I’m the guy who started it.

[11:26] Jim Harshaw Jr.: It’s almost like I started it because I needed it. You know, like, like, I mean, to be honest, the framework. Came because I needed it. I was at a low point in my life and I’m like, man, there was something in my life that unlocked me back when I was competing that I need back in my life now, but, but now that now I have this community of, you know, and you’re one of the guys in there, there’s a challenge there.

[11:44] Jim Harshaw Jr.: I posted my Murph. I did a Murph this morning and I posted in there and John, a long time client in there, and he commented on it. And it’s like, there’s just a level of a standard that gets raised by being interacting with these other individuals. I did a Spartan race with Brandon, who, you know, one of our, one of our pathfinders, uh, John also, who I just mentioned, like me and John and Brandon did a Murph, or I’m sorry, we did a Spartan race together a couple of years ago.

[12:11] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And it’s just like, these are other people who are living, you know, willing to push themselves and want to live at a higher level than they would otherwise live. And now these guys. What I’ll be living at a high level in years yourself the same, but it’s like, there’s an, there’s an even higher level, right?

[12:30] Jim Harshaw Jr.: There’s even more like when I die, I want to know like, I, I maximize everything in my life, right? Priority relation, God and relationships and then my health and well being and in money and impact in the world. Like I want to do it all, man. I want it all. And like, that’s what this, that’s what this framework and.

[12:47] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Team, you know, community has, has brought me. Wow, Jim,

[12:50] Dave Pulcini: that people could unpack that for two weeks itself. You had a lot there. You’re best equipped to help who you once were, which is how you developed the system and the framework, because it helps the way that you once were to execute on these things.

[13:03] Dave Pulcini: Second part of the rocking chair tests, if you’re sitting there and you’re 90 years old and you’re rocking chair, do we have any regrets? There is nothing more painful than regret. I had a wrestling t shirt that said that Jim in seventh grade, nothing’s more painful than regret on the, the no fear shirts.

[13:16] Dave Pulcini: Remember those

[13:17] Jim Harshaw Jr.: of course,

[13:17] Dave Pulcini: big, ugly,

[13:18] Jim Harshaw Jr.: like wrestling t shirts, especially back there were just big and ugly and gaudy and like horrible guys climbing

[13:24] Dave Pulcini: on each other. Yeah.

[13:25] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yeah. I had all the huge, like the, the graphics are like huge and messy. And

[13:30] Dave Pulcini: yeah, they were asking for us to be made fun of, but the third thing there, let me give you a real example.

[13:36] Dave Pulcini: A real example of the accountability that you mentioned at the beginning of that was I did, and the guys listening will appreciate this. I did a back and shoulder workout right on Tuesday. And this Tuesday I brought somebody with me and I track it on my watch and I look at the stats afterward. And I’m going right now, I have a goal of calories and some heavy, whatever.

[13:59] Dave Pulcini: With the person there, I burned 1, 250 something calories. The same back and shoulder workout the Tuesday before by myself at around 550. I said, yeah, that’s good. Good enough

[14:13] Jim Harshaw Jr.: accountability. And that 550 is more than most people will do. Right. So we’re saying, okay, Dave’s at a high level, right? Um, Hey, I did my workout, but like,

[14:22] Dave Pulcini: there’s

[14:22] Jim Harshaw Jr.: more.

[14:22] Dave Pulcini: Yes. And that’s how I justify it. And the second part of that, that I was going to say is through reveal your path. Again, I have accountability partners. And I share my workouts with them. And I’ll tell you guys, if they see 550 on Dave’s watch and I share it with them and show the picture that it’s not a congratulations, Dave, it’s.

[14:42] Dave Pulcini: Hey man, what happened?

[14:43] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Did you

[14:43] Dave Pulcini: get hurt? I know. And it’s like, well, I did more than most people just having a little bit of accountability. And then the partner, it’s the same thing across all, all the areas.

[14:52] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Let’s talk about your habits. You know, maybe it’s stuff that, that you’ve. Develop through reveal your path, or maybe it’s just stuff that you’ve learned elsewhere.

[15:02] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And, and by the way, it’s so great that you guys are sharing ideas and sharing concepts and reading books and listening to podcasts and coming back and going, Hey guys, this is what’s working for me. And there’s like all this sort of growth happening because it’s not just me. It’s me and whatever else other people are bringing.

[15:16] Jim Harshaw Jr.: But what does your day look like? What routines? Do you do that when you’re doing them? And like you said, you know, you’re not doing your micro goals every Wednesday, but when you are, and I’m the same way, none of us are perfect. You know, I miss my habits and routines at times as well. And it’s just. Part of it, right?

[15:32] Jim Harshaw Jr.: We’re trying to get better at that. Always. What are the ones that work for you? What are the habits and routines that work for you now? This could be in your business. Cause you’ve grown your business significantly since you started working with us, you know, health relationships, what are some habits and routines that work well for you?

[15:47] Dave Pulcini: So I’m totally a fan of the. What do we call it? The ideal calendar, ideal week, ideal month, whatever it might be. And I’ve done pretty much any iteration of that, that I could imagine. And a big change was when you have kids, right? So you have to rebuild everything when you, when you have. And then there’s bus and other things and lunches to pack and helping the wife in the morning, all that stuff.

[16:11] Dave Pulcini: So it’s changed a lot, but I am very, very regimented, Jim, to the point where it probably, it drives my wife crazy. And I know that, but she kind of laughs it off now, but I have in my calendar, if I showed you the week, I could show you. As of right now, May 17th of 2034. I know what I’m doing on that Friday.

[16:33] Dave Pulcini: It will change probably seven times before that. Right. But at least I have that in my head and I’m an early person. So typically five to 6 AM I’ll, I’ll wake up. I think I’m eating the right stuff. I’m drinking lots of water right away. I’m doing the supplement thing. Then the kids wake up and we’re waking up with the kids and we’re getting them ready, get them off to school, literally get them on the bus at like 8 13.

[16:55] Dave Pulcini: And I, what I’ve been doing recently is going right to work out and I’ve put in the time in the morning. There’s about an hour in there to respond to some emails and text messages, which is against every morning routine you’ve ever heard about. But for me, it knocks it off the list and I feel good that there’s no fire to put out and I don’t need to notify my team at the office.

[17:12] Dave Pulcini: Right? So water supplements, get kids ready. Respond to some fires. If there are any bus workout, and it’s to the point where if you click on the workout, it’s there’s already an Excel sheet populated in my calendar and I just follow the thing, so I don’t even have to think about it. And I know we talk about creating routines and making it easy for ourselves.

[17:35] Dave Pulcini: My stuff’s packed the night before, Jim, I believe you sleep in your workout clothes, which I think is weird, but it’s awesome shoes and everything. Shoes like stuff. It’s

[17:42] Jim Harshaw Jr.: winter. My hats on gloves are on. Yeah.

[17:46] Dave Pulcini: So mine’s in a gym bag. I got the clean towel. I put it in there. I set it right by the door. I put the stuff in there that I’m going to eat or drink right after the workout to make it super easy.

[17:56] Dave Pulcini: I’m tracking it. I’m usually do the office by nine 30 or 10. And remember, I’ve already done some work before. It’s not like I’m showing up at nine 30 or 10, and then I’ve got the routine of the work stuff, which I’ll spare the listener, but I have. Absolute blocks between it. One thing that I want to point out that has really worked for me is if you’re taking your life in a certain direction, and mine is headed to the role of the CEO, as we’ve talked about a lot and going from starting in my, in my case, as a financial advisor into becoming the CEO, I’ve been doing this for 20 years is.

[18:29] Dave Pulcini: Scheduling the schedule that you want. And then the stuff happens, which is weird. So like my Mondays, and I can tell you this, my Mondays are now a CEO day where I meet with the head of this team, the head of this team, our advisors, our operations people, and then I do business numbers at the end of the day.

[18:49] Dave Pulcini: I could not have done that before. I had to force myself. To put that in my calendar because I knew that’s who I wanted to become. It’s not what I was doing, but unless I did the thing, I would have never be been able to become that role. So I would recommend if anybody’s a fan of their calendar, they’re looking for advice on that.

[19:08] Dave Pulcini: My one thing that I’ve done and that I’ve been successful with is scheduling it the way that you want it to look like for you. And I don’t know what that is for everybody, but man, I wish I knew that 20 years ago, it’s been a game changer.

[19:21] Jim Harshaw Jr.: That’s a great tactic. You know, it’s, it aligns a little bit with the act as if, you know, like, what does it look like when things are going well?

[19:30] Jim Harshaw Jr.: What does it look like in my ideal day? Ideal life, ideal routine. None of this happens. None of this happens without doing the productive pause, right? That short period of focus reflection around specific questions to get clarity of action and peace of mind, like clarity of action, peace of mind. That’s what we are all looking for.

[19:51] Jim Harshaw Jr.: That’s what people are looking for. And, and it doesn’t happen by just being busy, right? And everybody’s busy. Like you’re busy. I’m busy. Everybody’s busy. But if you’re not doing the productive pause, you’re spinning your wheels. You, you kind of get to the end of the day. Like, man, I went a hundred miles an hour all day long.

[20:05] Jim Harshaw Jr.: I got a hundred things done. I just don’t feel like a, I don’t, I’ve no idea what I did though. I don’t even know if I moved the needle. And it’s like, if you are doing the productive pause, you have a plan, you have intention, you have habits and routines built in, listen, this is coming from two framework guys.

[20:19] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Like you love frameworks and systems and processes as, as do I. And I understand that that is a, an inherent characteristic of me. My wife and you and I’ve talked about this, your wife, they’re wired differently, right? Have different sort of characteristics, not better or worse. It’s just, this is how my brain thinks and how your brain thinks.

[20:36] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And we operate better with that, right? There’s again, going back to the infrastructure of a world class athlete, or just when you and I were competing in our sports, like there’s a framework, there’s an infrastructure there. And when you have that in place, You just are more intentional. You’re getting the things done that you wanted to get done as opposed to all of the other things that can fill your day, fill your life, the minutiae nowadays, the social media, all of that, you know, it’s just, um, it all gets in the way.

[21:07] Dave Pulcini: I can’t imagine not having that. Like you want to talk about anxiety, some people, it makes them anxious to have that discipline and the old discipline equals freedom for me. Right. And for a lot of folks, but I would be very anxious. If I did not know what I was doing when I was doing it, what that allows me to do is at the end of the day, we’ve got like three kids sporting events tonight, right?

[21:28] Dave Pulcini: As of right now, I have 11 year old and six year old, and it’s crazy. And you guys know this, how many sports things are happening this month. And it’s, I can go there and be fully present because I know I took care of the other stuff. If I didn’t have that in a calendar, I think I’d lose my mind. One thing for spouses that don’t think in the terms of framework, Negotiating a morning.

[21:49] Dave Pulcini: Right. So, and, and Jim, we’ve talked about this, like Wednesday mornings, it’s like, I’m out of here at five in the morning. Like I’m leaving, it’s two hours of quiet time. I go sit at a coffee shop or maybe the office, and I can do so much that morning. But I’ve picked a morning a week. I’ve worked that out at my house.

[22:05] Dave Pulcini: And it’s like, that is a great, I would say an action item for the folks that aren’t, aren’t taking care of that is picking some time. One of the thing I wanted to point out there, Jim was, and I work with a lot of successful people myself, obviously on only one of the areas that you talk about. But one thing that I noticed is the people that I think have it together, And they are wealthy.

[22:26] Dave Pulcini: They schedule days for themselves. So like I’ve adopted that. So once a month I have a CEO day where I just go wherever I want and I have a framework and a system around that, but it is a built in productive pause. And it’s, that is where these ideas come from. And it’s, it’s exciting. It gives me energy. I love my CEO day more, probably more than any other day, but it’s basically like, if you’re stuck in the nine to five right now and you have vacation days you can take, and you’re not using it with your family, I’m telling you guys.

[22:58] Dave Pulcini: Take some days and just go do something for yourself. It will re energize you completely. And then maybe think about your side hustle, right? I know we talk a lot about that. If you’re looking to get out of the nine to five, because of a side hustle, those are the days where you can go build it and it will give you energy to go back and do the things you have to do, take care of those things, and then work your way into the dream, right?

[23:18] Dave Pulcini: Into the side hustle that becomes the full time job.

[23:21] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And for the listener who says, well, Dave does that because he does the CEO day because he’s successful. It’s like, no, Dave is successful because he thinks that way, because he does these types of things like the CEO day and investing in coaching and all of that.

[23:36] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Like this is, you know, like I said, Dave was successful before he came to us. We, we, you know, we’ve, we’ve, I think had a hand in that since then, but it’s like, there’s certain things that he does in ways he operates. That makes him successful. And so, uh, you know, I encourage the listener to opt to adopt these and, and start thinking about, okay, how can I apply this to my life?

[23:54] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And so Dave, you mentioned to, you know, you alluded to it just a couple of minutes ago, a minute ago here that, you know, you work with people in, in one of the areas, you’re a financial advisor. What are the frameworks that you think about when you think about my listeners? Men in their forties and fifties, maybe thirties to sixties, if you extend it a little bit, but you know, primarily men in their forties and fifties, successful professionals, families, busy life is busy.

[24:20] Jim Harshaw Jr.: What are their blind spots? What are the issues you see people overlooking when it comes to their wealth and finances?

[24:29] Dave Pulcini: Yeah. So even, even the name of our firm, Jim, as a framework. So when somebody asked me a question like that, I start thinking about. The six points of financial planning, investment planning, retirement, income, risk management, estate planning, tax planning, and then custom goals.

[24:44] Dave Pulcini: And the custom goals is kind of a catch all, but that’s where the six points came from. What I see missing the most, especially from busy people is a lot of this has nothing to do with me, Jim. This is like. Maybe the, I’m the quarterback of their financial situation and I’m sending them to other professionals to take care of stuff.

[25:02] Dave Pulcini: So in no way is this self serving guys, because I think a lot of time when someone hears, Oh, a financial advisor is talking today, I’m going to like try to sell them life insurance over a podcast or something. This actually is the opposite of that, because I know that I can give you two that have nothing to do with a financial advisor.

[25:17] Dave Pulcini: Number one is the estate plan. And when I say estate plan, most people think that I have to have millions and millions of dollars. When they hear the word estate, they associate that with being very wealthy. That is just not true. If you’re the nine to five person and you have a couple of kids and you’re married, if you don’t have a will, healthcare proxy, power of attorney and trust set up for those kids, please go do that immediately.

[25:42] Dave Pulcini: Huge blind spot. That’s number one. Number two with the, with the healthcare proxy, power of attorney, will and trust is not updating it. So Jim, I can give you a story. I can give you guys tons of stories on I’ve delivered checks to X spouses when somebody has passed away for millions of dollars because they didn’t update their beneficiary.

[26:01] Dave Pulcini: So imagine being divorced for 20 years, you’re married to somebody else, you pass away, your ex wife gets a check for a million bucks because you didn’t update your beneficiaries. Crazy. Uh, and I, I have so many of those updating stuff. So get it done, update it. And then third on that part of it is what I see a lot, just as far as the will.

[26:21] Dave Pulcini: And let me ask you this, Jim, I don’t know if you know this, I’ll put you on the spot. If you have a will and you have an IRA and your beneficiary on the will is your wife. And you put, let’s say your kids on your IRA application, which one wins the will or the IRA? You win. Dave wins. Is that where it goes?

[26:40] Dave Pulcini: It goes to Dave, doesn’t

[26:41] Jim Harshaw Jr.: it? No, I, I, I

[26:43] Dave Pulcini: have no idea. No, no idea. The answer is the IRA wins. So a lot of people, when they go get their will done, do not update their beneficiaries on their investment accounts. So it needs to be coordinated with the attorney. So when you go do your will, that does not update everything.

[26:57] Dave Pulcini: You need to update the investment accounts as well to make sure it’s coordinated with the beneficiaries, which by the way, your kids should not be the beneficiaries on your IRA, but that’s for a different day. And that was an example, but I’ve seen all of that stuff before where something happens. And I’ll tell you what, man, the people that you think are organized.

[27:14] Dave Pulcini: And you think they’re all set. I’ve had so many people that are like, wow, I thought dad had it together. And their last memory of dad is that he was insanely unorganized. That’s not good. Get the stuff done, guys, please. That has nothing to do with the financial advisor. That is go see an estate planning attorney immediately.

[27:31] Dave Pulcini: If you haven’t done that. I’ve had too many stories over the last 20 years of seeing crazy stuff happen with not updating and getting their documents taken care of. Okay.

[27:40] Jim Harshaw Jr.: This all makes a ton of sense to me and for the listener who’s sitting there going, Oh, I got to do this. I got to do this. I could do this.

[27:47] Jim Harshaw Jr.: A couple of thoughts. Number one is I just finished reading a book called who not how. And it’s like, no, you don’t have to do it. Like you have to take the first steps, but who do you have on your team? Like it goes back to the reveal your path framework is like, who’s on your team. Part of our coaching is the environment of excellence.

[28:03] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Like, who do you need on your team? This is your doctor, your coach, maybe your therapist or counselor, financial advisor. You need to have these people on your team so that. You can live life the way you want to live life, right? So that you don’t get to the end of your life and go, gosh, I really let that slide or slip there.

[28:23] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Or didn’t you want to minimize it? You may have, we’re probably all going to have some kind of regrets, but like, yeah, you want to have this stuff dialed in. You don’t have to do it on your own who’s on your team, but go ahead, Dave, you got more for us. I know.

[28:34] Dave Pulcini: No, well, that’s man who’s on your team is important.

[28:39] Dave Pulcini: And listen, the first step to that is send an email to an attorney. They’ll get back to you. That will schedule the time. Once you get it in the calendar, you will do the thing. That doesn’t take long.

[28:48] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Like the whole, like a state dealing with like, yeah, you like, Oh man, it’s going to take so long. It’s like, no, no, no.

[28:53] Jim Harshaw Jr.: It’s one thing. It’s, it’s literally one email. Like you send one email, then the things start to happen and it’s no balls. And it gets easy from there because your job is to just tip the first domino. That’s easy.

[29:05] Dave Pulcini: Man, and listen, it’s one of those nagging doubts that most people have, right? You have this nag, once in a while when you think about it, it’s like, yeah, I gotta go get that done.

[29:14] Dave Pulcini: End the nagging doubt guys, send the email. So let me give you the second one, Jim. Tax planning is missing in most states. Folks that are listening to this. And what do I mean by tax planning? Do you know what tax bracket you’re actually in? If you don’t know that stuff as a beginning, and if you don’t have an advisor or a CPA that is doing planning, tax planning is very different than tax preparing.

[29:37] Dave Pulcini: Most of us take our stuff to the CPA’s office or we email it to them now or mail it, or they, they, we drop it off. Then they get back to you and say, this is what you owe. Or this is what you might get in a refund. That’s you guys being a historian that already happened, right? That is in the past. You’re turning in your documents from last year.

[29:55] Dave Pulcini: What I am talking about is in this, I’m trying not to get too technical, but there’s, there are tax forms called 10 forties. That is the summary of your taxes for the year. Your accountant or your advisor should be running those 10 forties. We have AI tools now, Jim, it looks like we’re doing all sorts of work.

[30:12] Dave Pulcini: It doesn’t take long. We take 10 forties and this is not an advertisement for us. I’ll say all good advisors are doing this now. And it’s a thing, 10 forties scanned into a system and it helps you make adjustments if needed. And what you may have missed. I can tell someone in five minutes. On a really nice clean report.

[30:31] Dave Pulcini: Hey, you missed this deduction. You should have done this. Let’s do this for next year. This is how much room you have between the bracket you’re in and the next bracket. Let’s do Roth conversions. By the way, this year, this is the, what happened on our taxes. This is what we should contribute to going forward.

[30:47] Dave Pulcini: Maybe you’re putting all your money into your 401k and it might make sense to put it in an after tax account because we are in a historically low tax rate environment right now. I’m trying not to go off too much on that, but tax planning versus tax prep. Is missing. And again, that doesn’t take much time.

[31:04] Dave Pulcini: It’s one of those things like, yeah, that sounds good, but it should be a nagging doubt again. Like, are you guys getting the most from your tax planning? And that really doesn’t have much to do with a financial advisor. So it’s your CPA and maybe your advisor for sure.

[31:18] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Dave, do you have. Anything you can share in terms of documents or resources that we can tap into that we can learn more this certainly you have your podcast and I do want to give you an opportunity.

[31:29] Jim Harshaw Jr.: I want you to share that podcast because there’s a ton of a wealth of resources there. But how else can people find this

[31:35] Dave Pulcini: information from you? I’ll send you some links and some samples to put in the show notes for sure. I’ve recently been doing a lot of videos, Jim, on like the steps of financial planning, just to get it out there.

[31:47] Dave Pulcini: And it’s not, again, it’s not an advertisement for new clients, but it’s like, if you’re trying to do this yourself, because this, this is the hard part. And we have a lot of do it yourselfers, right, Jim? It’s like do it yourself coaching. Again, how’s that going? But in our world, a lot of people don’t even know what they, what they don’t know.

[32:02] Dave Pulcini: And an advisor can eliminate the fear of missing out. Going back to the estate planning, is all of your stuff on one page? If something happened to you right now, what would they find? I love that question. Would, would your wife know where to go? Would your kids know where to go? You want a one page document?

[32:16] Dave Pulcini: I mean, it’s super easy. We could draw stick figures. You, Jim, Jim’s wife, Jim’s stuff on the left, her stuff on the right, joint stuff below them, insurance is above it. Who’s the attorney? Who’s the CPA? Who are their kids? Do you have that document? If you don’t have, like, I can share something, a link to getting that thing done, I can show you what a tax plan looks like, just, and again, this has nothing to do with us.

[32:39] Dave Pulcini: This is like, guys, please just do this for your own sake to, especially if you’re in the grind, you want to talk about making small steps to get out of the grind. This is it.

[32:48] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So for the listener, we will have those links in the action plan. Just go to jim harshaw, jr. com slash action. We’ll have those links.

[32:54] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And if you’ve gone there before that website, you’re getting the emails every Monday morning. We just send this stuff. This lands in your inbox for the listener. Like just lands there. You don’t have to do anything. You’re getting the best stuff from all these podcasts, episodes delivered right to you. So Dave, how can the listener find you follow you learn more about you, et cetera.

[33:13] Dave Pulcini: So I have a podcast. It’s called dear Rochester retire. Well, I I’m, I’m in Rochester, New York. You can find me now, Jim, on all social media stuff. I was harassed enough. Oh man, YouTube

[33:25] Jim Harshaw Jr.: channel. It’s

[33:27] Dave Pulcini: really

[33:28] Jim Harshaw Jr.: good too, by the way. There’s some great videos on there.

[33:32] Dave Pulcini: We’re getting better too. I have had a lot of folks recently saying, what are you guys doing?

[33:36] Dave Pulcini: Like how are, Financial advisors don’t, you know, I thought you weren’t allowed to do this stuff and I love pushing the boundaries too, Jim, don’t tell my compliance department, but I’ve got YouTube link. I’m all over LinkedIn. I’ve been on that for years. I, I, we have a Facebook page going, we have Instagram to find those under my own name.

[33:52] Dave Pulcini: You can find me all over the place on there and guys, here’s the deal. Ask me anything. If you’re listening to Jim’s podcast, you are somebody who, again, is probably already successful, or you are looking for answers to things and you’re looking for resources. That’s why you’re listening to this right now.

[34:06] Dave Pulcini: You can ask me anything. And I really mean this. I’m not going to try to sell you anything. I’m here to help. I’m here to bring value to Jim’s audience because they’ve provided so much value to me. And I really mean that you’re not going to get spammed by me constantly. Like if you have a question, Let me know.

[34:21] Dave Pulcini: I’m more than happy to help.

[34:23] Jim Harshaw Jr.: There you have it folks. Take advantage of it. This is an opportunity for you, Dave. So thank you so much for making time to come on the show.

[34:29] Dave Pulcini: Jim. I appreciate it. So happy to be here. I wish we could go for two more hours because we only did two things for the guys and uh, I could have done 20, but

[34:37] Jim Harshaw Jr.: hopefully they were valuable.

[34:38] Jim Harshaw Jr.: We’ll stop the record button and you and I would just talk for the next two hours. How’s that? It’s a deal, Jim. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Thank you. See

[34:45] ya.

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