Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Welcome to Battle Writing. I'm Ricky Chavez. Today we're talking about what it means to lead when pressure is real, when people are count on your decisions, your discipline and your ability to stay focused when circumstances are just great difficult. My guest is William Kahn, founder of CS Business Consulting and an entrepreneur, strategist, a leadership expert with whose background includes high level law enforcement leadership, crisis response and SWAT team leadership. William, welcome to Battle Ready.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Hey, thank you for having me here, Ricky. It's a pleasure.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: You know, we were having some pretty good conversations. I'm really looking forward today, you know, at my age, a lot of self, self, self discoveries going on, you know what I mean, Trying to figure out what I need to do to retire, you know, and, and live my best life. I think I always thought I was living my best life, but I'm hopefully that our interaction today will help me get some more guidance on it. So when we look back to your transition from law enforcement leadership into entrepreneurship, what principles carried you immediately?
[00:01:14] Speaker B: You know, that is a great question. That is something that before I made that transition, I was really going to struggle with. I was struggling with. I had gone to basically 183 different opposite fields. I went from SWAT team leader, firearms instructor, active shooter instructor, riot control commander, all of the really cool, intense stuff, and then I pivoted to taxes right where the real action is. And the transition from the two of those was incredibly similar because it did come down to a series of foundational principles. You know, the, the leadership, the discipline, the operational workflow. You just have to have these systems in place.
You have to treat people in a certain way, treat people the way you want to be treated. That's an easy one to remember. But then you put into little effort of care. You do the, the discipline, the diligence to make sure that your team is healthy, that the entire office is healthy. And it really came out. Leadership is leadership, right? It doesn't matter if you're running a SWAT team, coaching a softball league in your spare time, or if you're running a multi million dollar empire.
Leadership is leadership and boils down to a handful of principles that are things like, you know, care for your people, be willing to do the work, lead by example, you know, make sure you're setting boundaries and expectations, make sure you're teaching people how to become better, teaching people how to find their own answers, teaching people how to cooperate as a team. You got to be willing to roll up your own sleeves too and dig in there and do the work. When you know the proverbial feces hits the fan, right? And, and get in there and, and do what's necessary. And there's, I have these seven principles or these seven pillars of influential leadership, but they all stand on one foundation and that is servant leadership. And that is going out there and serving and making your people, your clients, your network better.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: You know, it's interesting you said that to servant leadership. So I have a small team that I work with right now in the real estate world.
And, and one of the things is I always tell them, you know, don't chase money, take care of people. Right. That goes back to serving people. Right. I think the one thing that's really a, I don't know if it's a challenge, it's just much different for us older guys. And I say that, not that you're older, but I definitely am, is just today's workforce and how you present to them, how you motivate them. And that's starting to be a challenge.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: It is. And one of the things that we have found is that, you know, people are motivated in all kinds of different ways. It's always been that way, but they've had kind of maybe a couple of default settings. You go back to the greatest generation, to the, the boomers, the Gen Xers, all through those major generations, you kind of had a default setting. People are motivated to try to increase their life, you know, make more secure financial situation for their family.
And they want to be loyal and they want to achieve things for, for the company to have that purpose, saying I contribute something that stabilized my life. You get into the millennial area, the Gen Z area and now all of these new generations that are popping up and it's definitely changed. So a lot of ways to do that is you just look at, take some time, there's plenty of YouTube videos, make sure you get an incredible one. There's all kinds of free courses out there and of course there's, there's paid courses you can take that talk about the generational differences.
And one of the things that we've done in, in a couple of our team building activities and things that we have purposely taken people, generations and we put them on a, on a mild to medium sized task together, one that's going to be easy to be accomplished, but does require some critical thinking and some effort and make them work together. And what they realize if they get quality time together and work for a clearly defined mission, guess what? They build camaraderie. They say, hey, this guy's not so bad after all. Hey, this guy's not just an old grump, hey, this gal's not just a little, you know, flower child that only cares about herself.
And they develop those things. And that works across the board with people, is giving them something to achieve together. And so, you know, we call that being mission driven and vision focused. And you could expand a lot on that one. But if you will cross the generational gap by giving everyone a mission, everyone that gets a mission understands the mission with clarity and then understands their role in that mission almost by default, will be intrinsically motivated to accomplish that mission, help the team and be successful.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: So in today's world, where everybody has a degree in Google and a background degree in ChatGPT, you know, the knowledge out there is just amazing, good and bad. And, you know, motivating those guys is to find the mission or agree with the mission. Isn't that a challenge also?
[00:06:09] Speaker B: Sometimes it is. And so when one of the things we do is I wrote a book called, or ebook called the First Four Hours, right? And it's building your culture from literally the interviewer before. And what you do is you have your core values, you have your mission. The mission is this simple. It is. What are we showing up every single day to accomplish? Okay, then you can have your little side quest missions inside your teams, inside your divisions. And that gets into things, you know, like, you know, tracking your KPIs and your metrics and a lot more industry jargon. But if you hire people that says, here is the mission, it is hanging on our wall in the lobby, it's posted on our website, it is what we live and breathe every day. And then on the other side, here's our vision, and this is what we want to be when we grow up, clearly defined, with action steps on how to get there in one, three, five years or whatever it may be.
Then you recruit people, not based on their resume and their pedigree and their credentials. You recruit people saying, how do you line up? What, how do you respond to and feel about this mission? What do you think about that vision? Is that something that you would like to obtain with us? And then lastly, here's our core values. Do you share these core values? Is our interview question about these core values. And then you're going to find alignment before you ever make that job offer. In fact, if that is how you advertise the job position, people are going to steer away if they don't align with your mission vision and values. And they're going to recruit themselves to you if they do so in the first Four hours. Instead of slow, slowly over the honeymoon period, slowly over the first and second year, letting them figure out the culture. You have a system in place that says, this is our culture, this is our work product, this is what we do. And of course, you got to sign them up with, you know, the SOPs and the policies. You got to sign them up with the health insurance and things like that. But in that first four hours, they should distinctly be aware of what this workforce culture is. And then that culture is the first impression and it's set in stone for the rest of their career.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: So what does that, what does being battle ready mean to you in business and in everyday life?
[00:08:10] Speaker B: Yeah, Battle ready means everyone is aware of their mission. They know their role. You know, so I, I take things back to like, swat, my Marine Corps. I've got, you know, family, you know, think about a fire team, right? A fire team usually has four or five people, okay? Everybody knows which sector vector they're watching. Everybody knows what equipment they're responsible for. If you move into a tactical situation where my fire team is responsible for these buildings or these rooms or whatever it may be, everyone knows where they're working. And let's say in the Marine Corps, you got the O351, he's ready to breach, okay, guess what? He's got to change roles real quick, get his gear out and the other O3 11's got to step up and make sure he's covered in every capacity. And they know instinctively how those transition happens, how they're going to get to the next objective. They're going to clear it, they're going to control it, and then they're going to build the stages for their next objective, Take that down into the business world, right? We've got our projects and our tasks lined up, okay? Everybody knows their role. Somebody's got to run the numbers, somebody's got to do the analysis, somebody's got to talk to the vendor, somebody's got to answer the quick questions from the client. Somebody's got to stitch the clothing together, you know, to make the final piece that we present out on the floor for retail sale, whatever it is.
Everyone knows their roles, they operate together. And in your culture, you say, my job is to prep my task, my project with a ribbon wrapped around it, so when it goes to the next stage inside of our organization, that person is prepped for success because of my efforts. And if you do all of that with the mission mission and the future vision in mind, it is almost impossible to fail.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: So we, we're coming up in like in a few minutes. But I want to, I want to ask this question here that's burning in my mind is in the difference between the military and the leadership, as well as the team structure versus out here in the military, we do a great job of teaching everybody to cross train. Everybody needs to know everybody else's job, Everybody needs to know everybody else's mission. Everybody needs to be able to ready and ready to step in and they do it without a problem. And out here in corporate America, that is not as prevalent. What do you think about that?
[00:10:20] Speaker B: I think that is a huge gap in corporate America. So when I hired on and I came in as a partner, I went from law enforcement to a partner in accounting firm.
And what I did is I said, I'm here to learn. So the first tax season, I took everybody's papers. I did the scanning, right. I did the packaging, the mailing, the paper. I did all of the grunt work and I did every stage of the process all the way to the top. Wow. Learning all of the highest level maneuvers and advisory and processes at the same time. So I learned, I sandwiched my learning, learning the grunt work all the way to the top tier C suite work at the same time so I could appreciate every role along that chain. And that helped us really transform our company from there on out in the next couple years.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: And that something you did. But how well do the actual corporate leaderships in today's world do that and push it down so that the people that they hire do the, you know, do the same or are afforded the opportunity to do the same?
[00:11:18] Speaker B: Yep. So they, they, first of all, overall, they're doing it poorly. Some of your major organizations are doing it well. I had mentioned just a moment before about making sure everyone understands their role in the giant machine.
So that helps answer the why, why am I doing this task? Why doing this work? But organizations can do that. Have you ever seen one of those, gone to a repair shop and seen one of those exploded diagrams of like an engine in the, you know, in the military, you see the, the exploded diagrams where you see every bolt and screw and, and nut and washer. You actually need to do that with your organization's workflow. Right. Blow it up and say, when this piece of information comes in, who does it go to? Where does it go? How does it get processed? Who does it get handed off to? And if you can create one of those exploded diagrams, you can start identifying funnels, identifying everyone's role. And I recommend and walk people through that Process saying, hey, we need to explode your diagram, examine your workflow so there's a comprehensive understanding. Everybody can look at this map on the wall and understand what comes next.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: Perfect. When we come back, we'll be looking at our leadership built teams and how that we can perform under pressure, not through fear, but through trust, structure and accountability. We'll be right back.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: Foreign.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Welcome back to Battle Ready. Stay connected to this show and every NOW Media TV favorite live or on demand, anytime you like. You can download on the free app on Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS and unlock non stop bilingual programming in English and Spanish. If you're on the move, catch the podcast version of www.you know, from business to now, to lifestyle or cultural leadership and beyond. Now Media TV is streaming around the clock. Ready whenever you are. So before the break, we talked about leadership mindset and some of the things that make sense during integration into new businesses.
William, welcome back.
[00:13:18] Speaker B: Thank you, man. I'm glad to be back.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: So, you know, the show is kind of about journey strategies, where you've been and, and yours is, you know, taking kind of a, a journey Marine Corps swat. You went into taxes for a while and now you're kind of in the finance realm, right?
[00:13:35] Speaker B: That's correct. Yes. I've, I've pivoted. I picked up a whole set of new skills through tax advisory, find a, found a niche area or two and I decided to pivot straight into that niche area is the primary thing that I do now.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: So, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna pivot a little bit from the leadership that we usually talk about on the show. But you know, as we were talking about the break, you know, I'm doing a deep dive into my world, trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. But I'm, I'm on a, I call it a 36 month stop. So I'm in month 35. And, and last month I, I spent a lot of time kind of regrouping. My wife and I got together and we said, okay, so what do we need to do and what do we need to do in our life to change what, how we look at retirement? Not only that, during this journey, these 36 months, how do we live our life to our fullest? And we came about this book, it's called Die with Zero. I know we talked about a little bit and then the premise of this book is, is not saving, saving to give your family something when you die, it's giving it to them now. And, and Living a good life. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:14:46] Speaker B: I think the thoughts, the premise of this book, the idea of, I've been familiarized with it and you know, there's other principles like this and there's principles I put in my life that, that resonate with this book. I think it's very important. The common misconception, I talked in the first second about kind of generations and how they think differently. And the standard generation is I want to leave a nice inheritance to my kids and my grandkids. You know, in the average, you know, lifespan, you're getting older every year, 77, 78 years old. You can now do like genetic testing. Nobody can knows when you, when you're going to die, but you can say if you keep this path, you're going to go into your 80s, your 90s, whatever it is, you know, so people are living longer and that means their inheritance passes later. So now instead of passing an inheritance to your 45 year old kids who are raising their teenagers and getting ready for college, you're passing that off to 55, 60, 65 year old children.
And they've probably hopefully built a bit of a nest egg. And you're missing out on an entire lifetime of, instead of building up this giant storage of potential wealth, of using that money to connect more with your children, to connect more with your grandchildren, if you're lucky enough, great grandchildren. And so I'm big about building meaningful life experiences, you know, as I'm building wealth in my life. Yes, I've bought a couple of material things, but what I've primarily spent my money on is the experiences with my family. You know, anytime I've gone through, whether it's swat, whether it's through, you know, playing college football or anything like that, it wasn't like the big gain that I remember, it was messing around in the locker room or that crazy, funny thing that happened at practice or that SWAT competition we put ourselves through when everybody just had an incredible day. You know, the memories we took, I took the family to Hawaii and paid a couple of bucks to make the trip happen. We did helicopter rides and whale watching and nobody cared about the hotel we stayed at. Nobody cared about any of the nice meals we ate. They cared about the experiences. So I really want to challenge people to read this book and understand what it is to use your money not to maximize the amount you pass off when you're in your grave, but to maximize the lived experiences you have while you're healthy, while your family's still around you and connected.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: You Know, it's. They say your life is the sum of your experiences, right? The places you've traveled, you know, people you spend time with, the adventures you took. And like you said a minute ago, it's. It's not about the big game. It's about everything else, the experience with it. I mean, even with me in the Army, I spent 20 years in the military. And, and some of the funniest things where we all got together when we're either in. In Europe or wherever we were stationed, and we got together and did these trips, and that was much more memorable than the everyday grind. Right?
So let's. Let's talk a little bit about don't save forever experience for retirement.
So what are your thoughts on that? You know, many people, you know, spend decades, you know, saving every bit of money and say, I'm gonna. I'm gonna spend all my money, and when I retire, I'm gonna do all the traveling I want and, and forget about travel now, you know.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: What would be a better plan?
[00:18:01] Speaker B: Well, I think a better plan is a balance. I think there's definitely a balance because, you know, money, if you're doing it even remotely right, compounds upon itself, and your money can earn you money.
But the, the thing is, Let me ask this question. Are you more likely to go to Colorado and go skiing and hike a mountain when you're in your 30s and 40s, or when you're in your 60s and 70s, right? When you've traveled to Europe and you finally do the circuit of, you know, France and Italy and Spain and you want to go do these things, Are you more likely to be hopping on and off those trains and going through those small towns and walking for hours of day, hours a day, to all of these sites and memorials and monuments in your 30s and 40s, or you're more likely to do it in your 60s and 70s? So you're literally cutting out your access, your time, what your health and your vigor is, and then ready, you can carry that memory. Let's just say, let's draw a line. At 40 years old, right? You do all these things around 40 years old. You get to have those memories, those shared experiences, those stories you tell, and that how you inspire other people for 35 to 40 years before you finally die, or do you want to enjoy that memory for five years before you die? And let's just be honest, you know, brain health declines just like body health does. Those memories aren't going to impact you the same. So make those memories. Do not sacrifice true financial stability do not go into debt to make all of these things happen.
But when the money's there, save time it out, do it well, and enjoy it in your youth with your family. And it will be twice, three times the experience as it will trying to do it when you're 75 and fit it all in on the bucket list.
[00:19:44] Speaker A: Well, I'll tell you this, you know, from. From personal experience, over the last five years, my wife and I have been doing just a lot of travel. We do four majors, four minors.
We do one big trip a quarter, and then we do a bunch of minor trips here and there. But I'll tell you this, in my 60s, I was in Hawaii about four months ago, and oh, my God, we were averaging anywhere from 12 to 15,000 steps a day. And every single night, my body felt it. Oh, Lord. And then probably six, seven weeks ago, we decided to. I say we. I'm trying to be nice here, but actually my wife told me, we're going to Disney World. We're taking the kids and the grandkids, and we spent a week down there going from ride to ride. And it was not only all the steps, we were averaging 14, 15, 16,000 steps, but we were step. We were spending hours standing in lines. And as you get older, your body just.
It doesn't agree with that. So you are 100, right. You know, if. If you were talking to somebody in their 30s and 40s, young professionals who are just so focused on the job, and there's no reason not to be focused on the job, but you definitely need to invest in memory dividends, right?
[00:21:00] Speaker B: Absolutely. And you have to, you have to do both. You have to grind when you're young. That's how you set yourself up for success. But you can't grind forever, right? So, like, you have to build in those balances and you have to prioritize that rich life, not just a rich bank account or retirement account.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: You know, life consists of three, you know, actual resources, right? Money, time, and health. You know, unfortunately, they. There's. Sometimes you don't have them all three at once, right? And so it's really important to meet with somebody like yourself so that you can sit down and actually put the plan together.
Because it's the. One of the premise of the show is you don't know what you don't know. Right, right, right. So how do you ask the questions or develop the. The plans for a better life? Not that you don't have a good life, but a better life. So meeting with somebody like, like yourself would be A big deal. So tell us, how can we, you know, continue a conversation with you or somebody get, reach out and meet you?
[00:22:02] Speaker B: Right? And that, that follows one of my principles is teaching people where to find the answers and so finding somebody that is going to your finances, but also keep a life of balance. So you can go to William Khan at LinkedIn or you can go to my website, which is the five talent strategic finance. But the website is the number five. It's the word talents, plural, and then SF. So five talents, sf.com you can go on there, find some frequently asked information. You can sign up, contact us, ask a question, or just book a 30 to 45 minute Zoom call with me to explore what you have going on. Some of the niche areas that we help people in.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: You know, the other thing I want to talk about is give while you're alive. So, you know, this has been one of the biggest.
I don't say arguments, but I'm going to say arguments, but my wife and I have, I'm like, what are you doing? Why, why are you, why are you taking the kids here? Or why are you giving the kids that or this, that and the other. And I mean, and I was always, you know, the way I was brought up, my mother was German, my dad's Mexican. You know, we didn't have a whole lot. My mom was a saver. So my whole mindset growing up is, you know, put money away for a rainy day. And my wife's like, yolo, you only live once. Go, let's do this, let's do that. And she says, I want to see my kids experience the fun things that we never had a chance to when we were younger. So that was our fight, which in the premise of this book is, you know, give to them now while you're alive so that, you know, you can experience their fun with them.
[00:23:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And I think I'll expand the giving just a little bit. Giving to your family is the priority. You have, you know, both spiritual and legal obligations to provide for your family. But the giving to everyone is super beneficial as well.
But I am so glad you and your wife found each other because you have that harmony. If you were both yolo type people, you'd probably be living paycheck to paycheck, right? And if you're both, you know, I'll just say tight wads that save the entire time, you probably wouldn't have too many fun life experiences. But for you two to sit here and nudge each other and say, Now's the time to spend, now's the time to save. Probably created a real harmony in your life. But to the bottom line is yes, have those experiences with your kids. You will have, it is documented over and over. You have better relationships with your children if you go on adventures together, whether adventure is a Disney trip or whether that adventure is saying, hey, we're just going to spend a couple of bucks, go up to the national park and walk around and look at the buffalo blow herd, right? You can do those things, spend it while your time, health and money is available and, and do those things so that you have the real impact. And then you're just wrinkling their little brains and they're going to be so much higher quality people all, all around because of what you did for them in spending while they were young, while they were alive and healthy.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: But we'll be right back talking about leadership and you know, finances and how to help your family grow in a better way. We'll talk to you in a minute.
Welcome back to Battle Red. And you know, in the last segment we talked a little bit. We kind of, we pivoted from leadership, executive knowledge and, and team strategies to kind of finances where William is at now. And we talked a little bit about a book called Die with Zero. William, welcome back.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: Thanks. Glad to be here.
[00:25:40] Speaker A: So you know, I, I think and if you were meeting somebody and talk to somebody, you know, on, on with initial meeting about the strategies of finance, you know, we're talking what would be some of the pillars that, that you would sit down and get out or the information you get out from them up front to kind of tailor make a program for them.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: Great question. So I defaulted. This is another carryover from law enforcement as I was in detective for four and a half years and detectives was about many things, but a lot of it just came down to asking the right questions. Right. A lot of us try to make assumptions, maybe we get some type of path of confirmation buy ins. But what we do is we sit down and we tell the client this is exactly who we are. This is what we actually do that is different than other accountants or other consultants. And so I start asking questions about what are your goals? What exactly are you looking to accomplish? You know, what are your priorities? And then we start looking at the operational, okay, now what's your income? What's your growth potential? What are your major pain points? And we ask all of these questions and then not until like the bottom of the first hour do we even have a, a thought of okay, let's start building something out for you. Right. It's, it's. I want to say it's customized. You know, realistically, there's probably, if I were going to write it down on paper, there's probably 14 to 17 major tax and financial pain points that somebody could be having. And any client is going to walk in here with their 4 or 5 or maybe their 6 or 7. And so I'm going to mix and match from those menus and say, this is your custom plan. And then of course, your numbers, your figures, your, Your culture at your place all come into play as well. So we, we look at that and we ask a lot of questions. We discover their pain points and their goals first, and then a plan can
[00:27:30] Speaker A: follow after that, you know, and, and the book, Bill Perkins, he talks about don't work for money you'll never spend. He says, are you trading years of your life for money you'll never use? What are your thoughts on that?
[00:27:47] Speaker B: Yeah, that's, that's a big one. I, I would say out of the three things that we talk about, you know, you're looking at money, time, and health. I would put money as the lowest in that priority.
I would say probably health and time are almost equal. You know, you could have all the time in the world, but if you're not healthy, then you have a miserable existence, right?
And then if you're super healthy, but you, you spend all of your time on the wrong things, you're missing out there as well. But I'm, I'm very in alignment with that statement about, you know, don't be busting yourself this entire time for money you're never going to spend.
I do believe in creating an inheritance for your kids, and there should be something to pass along, whether it's assets like a primary residence or, you know, a restored, you know, muscle car or beach house or whatever it may be, you should pass something along to your kids, but you should also live with your family and your people. So spend the money while you're alive. It is a tool. If you look at money like it's a tool, like you are playing a live action game of Monopoly. Money takes on a different, different essence in your life. And you can almost. I don't want to be too tongue in cheek here, but you should be treating money almost like a game, like, how do I get more money so that I can buy that next, you know, advantage in my life? How do I get more money so that I can take my kids here? Not how do I get Money for the sake of money. Right. I don't want to just increase the zeros in my bank account. I don't want to just increase the. The property value up front. So I'm the guy with the big house in the neighborhood. That's. That's not what you want. You want those experiences. You want to spend the money with purpose. And that purpose can only be defined by you, what your goals are, and what's truly important for the enrichment of your life. And the ones that are around you, you surround yourself with, and, of course, depend on you.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: You know what? I'm gonna quote Yoda, right? You have to unlearn what you have learned. Right. I don't know if you've ever seen that. That.
That big thing here, right? But instead of buying more possessions, it's probably a better thing to buy more time, you know, more free time. So a lot of people are, you know, buying all these boats and cars and, you know, trading cars in every year, moving houses, doing all these things, and. And they're missing out on experiences because of. What is it? What's those adage, you know, keeping up with the Joneses.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: That's right. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: So what would be a better project?
[00:30:14] Speaker B: Yeah. So. And this is what I tell people. I said, you know, it's okay to have some material things as long as you don't become, you know, you don't greed and hoard and. And do that, you know. You know, I bought a nice car, but what I did is I made sure that everyone in my family, we went to car shows together, we became interested in cars together. So instead of me just having this pretty thing in my garage that I would drive two Saturdays a year, we would go to car shows, we would have family experiences, we would learn about it. And guess what? Even if this car is, quote, unquote, my baby, I still gave the opportunity for my family to drive it for other people to do it. If you're going to upgrade to a bigger house and keep up with the Joneses, are you upgrading to that house so that you can now have your family over for Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's? Are you having that upgraded house so that you can bring friends and.
And people over to your house to enjoy your family, to enjoy the property? Or again, do you just want more square footage so that everybody says you're the person with the big house? So those material things, if you're going to purchase them for the true benefit of getting your family wrapped around them for better quality time, I'm not opposed to that. I just don't think that's most people's mindse.
And I think buying back your time with. Once you make some money in your businesses or your endeavor, you can buy. Guess what? You can go out there and say, hey, my wife and I and my kids, we're spending a bunch of time mowing the lawn, landscaping, doing all that kind of stuff, and it's eating up our Saturdays, right? Well, guess what? If you now have enough money to hire a landscaping or a mowing crew, and you just freed up all of these hours and you're getting three or four hours back every Saturday or every weekend for your family, that's a great investment. Spend your money on the people that can take you, the burden off of you, the distraction, the attention, the required hours. Do that inside your business, do that in your personal life, and spend that stuff in the right way.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: So we're gonna. We have a few minutes left. I want to talk about this. Calculate your enough money. What's your enough number? You know, most people. Most people never answer that question. You know, how much money is actually enough stuff. What's a simple way to do that?
[00:32:19] Speaker B: So that is. That is a great way to do that. So again, I'm going to default back. And I can't remember. I don't think it was Carnegie. I'm pretty sure it was. A Rothschild said, how much money is enough? And he just said, one more dollar, right? Just one more dollar.
You know, that's. That's a poisonous mindset if you ask me. But your enough money is. People don't want to do it, okay? But you got to take at least one time in your life. I recommend doing it once every year. You got to get all those bank statements, all those credit cards, everything out there. And even if it's an Excel spreadsheet sheet, you put down exactly what you're spending your money on once you can see it all in one place and probably be pretty shocked, like, we eat out that much. Holy cow, right?
Put everything in one place, set your vision, set your goal with your spouse and your family and say, what do we want to be? What do we want to achieve? Okay, we want to be able to take, like, you're doing the four and four on vacations. I would say most families do like a two or three, you know, and so I would. Our family, we were always like, we want to do two big vacations a year, and we want to be able to do three or four, you know, long weekend trips and stuff like that. So how much money do I need to go like on a big spring break and a big summer vacation? How much money do I need to be able to randomly go out of town four or so times with my family for a long weekend? You know, it's like a Nashville or Branson, Missouri or whatever. Okay, you calculate all that, what it is to be stable with your utilities, your grocery bill, your car payments, your insurance, yada yada, yada, yada. Okay? You draw that line in the sand and say, this is our enough, right? If we are so blessed as to earn beyond this enough line, then we're going to spend it on these two or three things. And you write that down and hopefully you have contributions and charity built into that. You have other enrichment activities like we're going to go serve or do things, you know, so you can, you can draw that line. You can literally calculate a number. But guess what? Somebody that's working a starter job, they're, they're the, the, the low rung on the ladder and they're making 30, 40, $50,000 a year and they're fresh out of college and their wife is still studying to get a further degree. Well, they're enough is going to be lower than people that are in their 40s, 50s and 60s. And they've both had accomplished careers and done a lot of things, you know, but you can take real numbers.
Write it down, okay? Write it down. Everyone sees it. And then you draw alignment from those numbers on what you want to do.
[00:34:42] Speaker A: You know this. We only have a few minutes left before the break. But there's some things that I think that are very, very important is like avoid over saving. You need, you know, financial independence, retirement needs and emergency reserves are kind of the focus along with the philanthropy like you talked about.
But I think meeting with somebody like yourself that would help somebody, you know, somebody else's eyes on your stuff. Because I'll tell you, I, I did my, my taxes last year and man, Amazon, my gosh, I think that's my wife's favorite place.
And I think I'm not the only one. You know, you are not such an eye opener.
Well, we'll be right back talking again with William Kahne and we'll talk a little bit more about his finances and his leadership strategies. Be right back.
Welcome back to Battle Ready. Stay connected to this show and every NOW Media TV favorite live or on demand anytime you like. You can Download the free Now Media TV app on ROK or iOS and unlock non stop bilingual program both in English and Spanish and if you're on the move, you can catch the podcast version on www.nowmedia.tv. from business and new lifestyle to culture, leadership and beyond, now Media TV is streaming around the clock anywhere for you to listen to. We're back with William Kahn. William, welcome back.
[00:36:19] Speaker B: Glad to be finishing the show out with you, sir.
[00:36:22] Speaker A: You know, it's, it's interesting. I know we do run sheets like getting ready for the show and I took you for a turn today with this book, you know, of, of die with zero. It's, and it's, it's to me, you know, I really appreciate your being flexible with this. Let's go back to the talk a little bit about what we were talking about at, in the, in the last section about avoid over saving and calculate your enough money.
So you know, I have a real estate team now and you know people go into real estate and, and they struggle at the beginning. You know, I think nars put out for 2025. There's 1.3 million licensed realtors over the United States and 72% didn't sell one house.
Then another 14 sold less than five.
And, and one of the things I tell my new agents is, you know, you need to know your need, your want and oh my God. And they look at me with these like glossed over eyes like what do you mean what do you need to make so that to pay the bills and just, you know, concentrate on what you're doing.
What you want to make is always. Everybody wants to, they made a hundred thousand dollars as a manager in a former career. Now they want to automatically duplicate that, right? And, and the stress is shown when they're talking to people and oh my God, is anything after that because the potential and, and everything with sales is, is just astronomical. I think that's kind of the same philosophy with the calculate enough money. What do you need to make, what do you want to make and what's enough? So tell me what your philosophy on that is that.
[00:38:04] Speaker B: That is basically my philosophy. The, we always do the, the emergency, right? We say what keeps you from losing your house, getting your cars repoed, you know, going homeless? What keeps food on the table for your kids? What keeps. This is your base. And I'm not talking about being able to go on lululemon trips and, and swap out the whole wardrobe for your kids, right? I'm talking about what allows you your base level of living where you do not have to take a step backwards. Okay? And this is it. This is no fun. This is no real vast life experiences this is no, you know, huge adventures. This is, we hold status quo, life doesn't improve or get worse, right? And then here is what is your achievable goal. You could grind a little extra, you could knock this out in a year. You know, do you want to try to get 10% more, 20% more on your paycheck check? And I actually did this non strategically back when I was in law enforcement as an early cop is I just kind of did the numbers a little bit. And of course we, my wife stayed home, we had single income law enforcement income, homeschooling our kids. And I said, well, hey, if I want to step up and if I want to us plan together and get this house, we want to move into that house, in that neighborhood. We're in an apartment, we want to be a neighborhood for the kids, right?
I calculated out or we got paid every other week, you know, bi weekly. And I said if I just work eight hours of overtime, right, that's four hours this week and four hours next week. Eight hours overtime per paycheck for six months, guess what?
We can afford the down payment on the house, we can move into the neighborhood. And so I did that. And most the time I was Mr. You know, better safe than sorry. I'd work 10 or 12 hours overtime and stuff like that. But we did that, we accomplished our goal. So I non strategically it was strategic, but it wasn't part of financial planning, right. I just said this is what we need. And so that was that middle goal, right? Now if I said something like, I want to get out of law enforcement and I want to have this huge nest egg so that I can pivot careers, I'd been working 10, 20, 30 hours overtime to build up this huge nest egg for that multi month transition. And, or if I said, hey, I wanted to buy a new car or remodel and expand our house, you know, you gotta, you gotta do those calculations. And so people are just, they're really willing to have the dream but not write down an action plan and take steps. So I always tell people, if you have a dream without an action plan and written goals, it's really not a dream, it's just a fantasy, right?
[00:40:32] Speaker A: Sure. No 100, right. You know, I think one of the things that, and, and reading that book, Die with Zero, that has been hard for me to accept that. I'm trying to accept it. Well, I mean, I know it's true. You know, knowing something's true and accepting is totally different. Right.
So you know, the kind of the premises Accepting the fact that you can't take it with you, Right?
[00:40:56] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:40:57] Speaker A: So I, you know, all my life I was, you know, put money in savings, put money in savings, do this, do that. I didn't even really think about investing. I just want to see my savings grow.
And then I thought about, well, what am I missing out on? And I mean by missing out on, I mean more like my, my wife's got this in my head, and I've been married 30 years and, and you know, I'm, I'm pretty scared of her. I mean, I kind of do what she wants me to do, brutally honest. But. But the fact is she is, she, she's pretty amazing. She. All she does is think about the family and, and the experiences.
And I think the first 22 years I worked, all the time I was in the military, I was always gone. Corporate America. I was always traveling. And probably over the last nine or ten years, as I, you know, transformed into the real estate world, I finally understood what, you know, money was about because I really, I just worked and then I came home and really didn't do anything else. But now what is, what is, what is enough? How do I figure that out?
[00:42:03] Speaker B: That is great. And I think what you did was really smart. You know, the younger you are, the more you should be putting away in savings, because you can, you can get to that. This is enough, right? When we watch our savings accounts, our retirement accounts grow, we get this perpetual feeling of, oh, I'm safe, I'm safer, I'm safest, right? But there has to be a line in the sand that says, okay. When I get.
People draw different lines, right? You know, you have. Dave Ramsey is a good one to reference. He's really big into building, you know, your emergency fund and stuff like that. And he says, once you establish your emergency fund. I like the six month emergency fund, right? If somebody turned off your income like a light switch today, could you pay your bills, put.
Put fuel in the car, eat groceries, and last literally for six months? Six months should be more than enough time for anybody to get back on their feet, generate a new income. Even if you got to go be, you know, the greet at Walmart, you can get back on your feet and somehow stabilize. So for me, a lot of the, the what if is okay. Do you have six months? Could you survive on six months? What's your house payment? What's the utilities? What's the grocery bill? Okay, if you have six months saved up and it's fairly liquid, right? It's fairly liquid.
Then you're safe, that's enough. Now start spending on experiences. Start spending on ways to increase your revenue, your income, invest in yourself, invest in your family and do those things. So that would probably be my default number one thing is like if you've got, got six months plus, you know, I'm a little bit more of a, of a, you know, prepper. I like the nine month mark. But you got six months saved up, right?
Start living, start spending, throw some money at your savings along the way. But go live life and do what your wife likes to do with that
[00:43:47] Speaker A: yellow attitude, you know, and in this book, when I first had the book recommended to me, you know, die with Zero, I was kind of literal. I'm like, you know, really? And the book doesn't, it doesn't really literally mean reaching exactly zero. What it kind of means is don't leave behind millions because you were afraid to enjoy life. You know, spend intentionally while maintaining an appropriate financial cushion. Right? And that's where meeting with individuals like yourself would help a person kind of re, you know, they don't know what they don't know. So now they can say like, but what if this, what if that? And, and with your financial background and your experiences, you can help coach them through that, right?
[00:44:32] Speaker B: Absolutely. So one of the things I do is I have my five M's, right? And M number one is mindset. And what you just described through the book, Die with Zero is mindset. And that mindset is going to adapt over time. Like, for example, when you are younger and healthier, you should do the more adventurous things in life, right? Then when you slightly age a little bit, you should probably do the most more luxurious things in life a little bit. Combined adventures, maybe a river cruise instead of a surfing lesson, right?
And then as you get even older, you're putting your phase, you're putting your spending and your life experiences in phases, right? Like you want to climb mountains in your 20s and 30s, maybe 40s if you keep your health real high. But when you get in your 60s and 70s, your phase is probably more spending money on your grandkids. You're going to get more joy out of seeing their little smiles. Going to Disney World, where when you were 20, you climb the mountain at sunrise and you see the sun come over, you know, the Rockies. I mean, that's, that's impactful at both ages. But you're probably not getting to the top of the mountain at 75, right? And so put that experiences and put that spending in phases or different buckets in your Life instead of one master bucket list, put it in life phase bucket lists and do those things. And yes, we help you strategically plan for that. We hope you have those difficult conversations.
And yeah, it's. It's a great way to really change the mindset of how you see life and money.
[00:45:57] Speaker A: You know, I think the other thing that people lose track of that,
[00:46:03] Speaker B: you
[00:46:03] Speaker A: know, health becomes a limiting factor, not money.
So your health is more important than your wealth.
Right.
So I think, you know, you need to combine, you know, a healthy life and a good, healthy financial understanding to live a more fulfilled life. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:46:24] Speaker B: I. I agree. I agree completely. Yeah. The. You know, my definition of wealth is only partly connected to money, to the zeros at the end of my, My, my bank balances, right. My wealth is my relationships. Do I have good relationships with my kids? Well, then I'm. I'm checking off some of those wealthy boxes, right? Do I have life experiences? I'm checking off wealthy boxes. Do I have the health to get up out of bed and basically go do what I want to do today without, you know, debilitating disease or crippling body conditions? That is a major component of wealth. Then, of course, do I have the money to actually pursue my dreams to travel? You know, if I've got children in college, can I go visit them at leisure and buy the plane ticket and buy the hotel and come back? Or am I living paycheck to paycheck where I don't get to travel and see my kids when they're. When they're in their away years? So that is the, the spherical. The 360 spherical version of true wealth. And health is a major component of that.
[00:47:27] Speaker A: You know, I'm not really a quote person, but one of the things that I. And I'm gonna. My paraphrase. I'm not even say it right. You know, that that is. Is really highlighted in this book.
Die with zero is money has no value except what you exchange it for.
[00:47:42] Speaker B: Amen. Amen completely. That is that it is a tool and a token. Right? So get a little bit of more of that game mindset, that Monopoly mindset that says I want to exchange it for something that is valuable. And I don't want to just go build houses and hotels everywhere. I want to use money. I want to get more money and so that I can use it for the things that benefit my life, my circle, my people. And we all have enriched lives together through experience and relationships.
[00:48:11] Speaker A: William, once again, how did somebody get a hold of you? We only got a few minutes left.
[00:48:14] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll say William Khan at LinkedIn or 5Talent Strategic Finances website. That's the number 5Talents, plural, then SF. So 5TalentsSF.com and you can send us a message on there. You can book a meeting. You can read all about us. But that's where we start, by helping people and you can get in contact with us.
[00:48:35] Speaker A: You know, William, thanks a lot for joining us today. You know, your story is amazing. And, you know, I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to pivot. You know, this, this today's leadership conversation about, you know, dying with zero, figuring out how meeting with somebody like yourself, getting a good financial, a healthy financial goal in place and getting ready to live your best battle ready life. Life.
Thanks a lot.
We'll see you guys soon.
