This week we enjoyed meeting Todd Rhine, financial advisor, and multi-generational coach. Todd shares with us the joys of coaching families to realize the most important skills each member brings to the family. He explains that reframing expectations and taking on a different role than what they are accustomed to can be challenging but beneficial to everyone. It's about deciding what your family stands for or is all about, whether it is a cause you all care about or creating a new tradition.
Guest Co-host: Bill Hughes: w.hughes@verizon.net
Podcast Guest: Todd Rhine: todd@toddrhine.com
Todd's Website: https://toddrhine.com/
Transcription:
Kris Parsons00:02
Welcome to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life and how you can figure out how to do it too. Join us with your lively host Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.
Ray Loewe00:17
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to changing the rules, a podcast designed to showcase some of the luckiest people in the world. You know uh one of the things that we try to do in this podcast is to showcase people that we think always seem to be lucky, their lives are always together for some reason. And that doesn't happen by accident uh the luckiest people in the world are those people who actually take the time to design their own lives. And then they make sure that they live them under their own terms. And rules come into play here a lot. You know, all through our lives. We're saddled with rules. So they start with your parents. And then they go to the schools and then they go to your job, and then they go to the church, and then they go to who knows else. But what happens is, overtime rules become obsolete. And there are two things about rules. They are meant to either be obeyed, or they're meant to be run away from and the luckiest people in the world seem to take these rules, and they use them to their benefit, and it helps them live the lives that they want to be. So uh today we have a guest host. His name is Bill Hughes. Bill was here the last couple of weeks with us, and he's here again. Okay. Say Hi, Bill. Hi, Bill. Okay. And Bill's gonna introduce our guest today, who happens to be a good friend, Tom Rhine. And they'll introduce Todd and then we'll show why Todd is one of the luckiest people in the world and talk about some of the reasons why he should be a role model for the rest of us.
Bill Hughes02:00
Well, he certainly is lucky but I can tell you he's got more credentials than most people have initials so. uh Todd attended Davidson College and Georgia Institute of Technology earning degrees in finance and management. He holds a professional designations as a certified financial planner, a registered financial consultant and a chartered under life underwriter, chartered financial consultant, and registered investment advisor with the Heritage Institute, which is this little something we're going to talk about in a bit. He currently enjoys working with several families and multiple advisors who understand the importance of collaboration in a client-first focus. Ah, even though he maintains a financial planning practice, he understands that true wealth means much more than having strong funding and having a strong financial statement. This is why he's built a practice centered on helping others identify and achieve what truly matters most in their lives. Additionally, Todd is a staff member instructor at the Heritage Institute and the country's foremost authority on developing multi-generational leadership transfer. Todd currently lives in Hilton Head, South Carolina with his wife Amy and sons, Andrew and Matthew he is committed to building a strong community, a strong community supporting the Cub Scouts, Community Board, School Improvement Council, low County Alliance for Healthy Youth in Hilton Head baseball Association, having coached youth sports for more than 30 years to enjoy coaching the children of his former players. I gotta tell you, he is one busy dude.
Todd Rhine03:36
do you recognize yourself Todd with all of that? Better than I am? Well, you know, lucky people are busy people, and they get things done and they're involved in a whole lot of things. And, and by the way, I've always found since I've been doing this, that the luckiest people in the world are also the most interesting people in the world. So welcome to changing the rules. And I guess um let's start with who you are. And uh, you've had a financial planning practice for how long? I started on the insurance side of things. So the financial planning practice, evolved, developed out of that, I would say as a focus approximately 20-21 years really wasn't until I actually relocated to Hilton Head from Atlanta that I had more time focused on more of the planning aspect versus the advisor. Solution aspect if you will, at the planning. Okay, and part of that is running a family business too, isn't it? Over the last I actually I took over the family flooring store three years ago As a matter of choice in some respects to matter of need, and others, I'm able to read and understand financial statements. And that's an important aspect of running a business. But it was one that, let's put it this way. If I hadn't, I don't think our Thanksgivings would have been as enjoyable as the group getting together. Okay, now there's a poignant statement to uh so so let's get into a couple of things. I know we did a pre-interview with you. And we talked about one of the things that you really have to be any more is a generalist. Because there are so many details, you can't keep up with all the details and all the disciplines that you do. So when you get together, whether you're running the family business, whether you're running your family practice, whether you're running your own family. Okay, what are some of the key things that you think are important that you do that make you successful? I'd say one of the important elements is really just understanding what role you can serve. And that gets back to understanding what's the outcome you want? Yeah, needless to say, there's the old adage, you can't do it all. And the successful individuals, the one that figures out what they can delegate to other people to be done as well, or hopefully, even better than they can do on their own. You know, being independent for so long, being the situation where I haven't had to answer to superiors or others on how to do things, but try to learn from those other experts and try to improve. And heritage is a big part of that learning curve for understanding my own specialty skills, understanding that I'm a spatial analytic, which essentially means that I enjoy, get excitement, I love the fact that I'm able to solve problems, maybe not always say traditional format, but use different tools. And much like a puzzle solver, figure out how to put the puzzle together, not always the exact way. But that goes with the planning aspects of working with different families. But the reality is, knowing that there's only so much time in the week. What'd we have 186 hours per week that we actually have a you know, capable of working with. So it's a matter of finding what you can focus on, and what's the more important thing to focus on. So during a lot of my training, there was very little television watching going on. That's, you know, that was an aspect of your continuing learning and focusing on the reading and the different things that we had to do for our specialty. But for the most part, leaning on people like Bill and other experts to help, you know, see it from a different perspective to guide you to listen to what you're saying and dig down into. Okay, here's what may really be happening that you're not seeing.
Ray Loewe06:09
You know, Bill, get into this discussion here, because you met Todd through this Heritage Institute thing I think you may
Bill Hughes08:09
Actually, that's how I met him. And so we've known each other, going back to about 2006, 2004, 2006.
Todd Rhine08:19
2006 Yes.
Bill Hughes08:21
That's a long time. But I think the thing that that I noticed was that, that you as talented as you are, you don't rely on your own resources. I mean, you leverage quite a bit. I mean, you're probably one of the best-coached individuals I know. But then again, that's kind of what you do. I mean, not only do you financially coach, you also coach individuals too. And you broaden that perspective out quite a bit. Particularly with our studies in the Institute where we were learning how to transfer multigenerational value from one generation to the next. It like most things, this is really a team sport. I mean, it's not something you can do by yourself.
Ray Loewe09:06
If I related to sports in general, you know, one of the things that happened about the same time, I was asked to coach the all-star team. So if anybody that's coached all-stars, in the sports, you're talking anywhere from the 10-12-13-year-old kids, you know, they're usually the mom and dad's pride example of you know, this, this is in their vision. This is the future Hall of Fame baseball player gonna be playing while being future years. But coaching a team and granted I didn't have such a great team. And I think everybody else bailed but I found it to be an honor to be asked to coach the all-star team and we had high expectations and we've had you know, national championship teams and IRA for a small little island. We've had a lot of, you know, great influence. So it was a very, you know, what I found to be encouraging situation but One of the things I learned from Doug Carter, who Bill knows as well is just setting the stage, if you will, of expectations, which is something that we try to do with families and in different roles, but it also applies to the professionals. And this is how I'm trying to relate that two everybody on that all-star team, you have nine players going out. But you're filled now with the All-Stars from every team, which means you have eight pitchers, seven shortstops, four of them are catchers or first baseman, well, nobody played outfield, no, very few played second base and third base, they were always the studs on the team, if you will, they were always in those key positions. So when you're filling now nine spots, you know, the kid that was one of the best players on his team now on the all-star team is playing right field. That's a hard pill to swallow, not necessary for the kid, but for the parent. So the best thing I learned from the work that I did with heritage and Bill and Doug, essentially is how to go back and reframe that expectation and get the parents to say what they had a right to expect. And that was a game-changer, because that eliminated so many headaches, because if you're familiar with youth sports, having that mom or dad, and it could be either one. So I'm not gonna be you're trying to be sexist on it, but having them sit on that fence, and berate the umpire. And then deal with that, well, you got a game going on, and high stakes, you know, two losses, you're out of the tournament type situation 12 innings pitching for a tournament, you really have to deal with a lot of stress. And these are 12-year-olds, and I had a parent do it the best way and you know, one parent, berating her child, she came back and said, Look, she you know, tapped on the shoulder like, Sarah, he's 10 years old. Yeah, this isn't life. Okay. So, but that applies to professionals. I mean, the reality is, when we're dealing with some families that have done well, and they're professionals, we have the same situation, they're top of their field. And we have repet repetition of services and overlap discussions, we have to remember, it's like, okay, we're dealing with all stars now. And then all-star may have to take a different role than he's used to and they may not be comfortable.
Todd Rhine12:12
Okay, so, so, so one of the things everybody thinks successful people are successful because they make money. And I guess to some extent, that's part of it. But you're in this business now, where you're coaching people on their finances. But I think what sets you apart from everybody else, is what you just talked about in the baseball, realm. And let's talk a little bit about what makes a family successful. Because what you do, if I understand it correctly, is you spend a lot of time coaching successful families. And some of it has to do with the transfer of wealth. But most of it has to do with the transfer of values. So and Bill get in on this because you do similar kinds of things. And you know, Todd, and let's, let's, let's get some controversy going here.
Bill Hughes13:09
I guess the thing that makes Todd an expert in this area, is the fact that I the main thing to taking somebody through that, that exercise isn't you're almost reparenting. And you every kid grows up in a different family. So consequentially everybody's got different impression of mom and dad. And very few of them know the story of how they got where they were. And in some cases, they see it completely different from one child to the next. So part of the process is getting everybody on the same team. And like Todd says, helping to not only tell the story and help them recapture that, that value but also how to apply going forward as the parents aren't going to be around forever. And probably the single most worrying thing for a parent is what happens when I'm gone. And that's why we get down the road of putting together incentive trusts and all this other craziness that we do in more material forming or planning part of the legacy process. But the big the important piece is to get everybody on the same page. And how do you do that Todd?
Ray Loewe14:29
Yeah, well, one is we have to one start with a framing of what is a successful family. And the reality is they do view it their own way. And each of us has professional visors may have our own definition, but the reality is the working families, it's their definition that matters. And then we have to look at it from a standpoint of Yeah, can we do it and is it worth it? It doesn't matter if we can do it. If it's not worth it to the family and if it is worth it to the family, we can figure out how to do it or find the other experts to make it a reality. And as you mentioned earlier, no, it isn't about the money, money makes it easier for families to do things together to help support and do a lot of great things together. But the reality is, I'd rather work with the family that has very little assets that have care and compassion, a desire to work together to see success within the family, then one that's going to be fighting in every turn, to get something for themselves. Nobody really enjoys working with a financially focused individual moreso than an individual that makes the people around them feel good. I have the benefit of working with some families and the type of people that you enjoy talking to. And that's always a good sign for an advisor if you don't like to take the call from a client if you really want to avoid that. Maybe it's not the person you really want to be working with. And conversely, if they don't like taking your call, maybe you're not really bringing the value you should. So
Bill Hughes16:03
yeah, definitely, it definitely digs in deeper than just, you know, building a big pile of money. It's how to put it to use. And there are many different I should say each family has their own definition of what success means. Some mean, it's just knowing your kids are going to be okay. And some, it's what impact Am I having on the community? How does what we do? How does? How does what we do impact that? Where do we where do we start?
Ray Loewe16:30
Reality is and we start in different spots. I mean, if it's important to Mom and Dad, if we want to refer to it as generation one, if we will, that oldest generation in the family, if they're looking at it like you know, I really am worried about my grandchildren or great-grandchildren. It can't start with them taking the time to really figure out what the values are, what how they learned it the life lessons, Bill and I and several other people within the heritage community and multiple people I should say, have been trained on learning what we call Guided Discovery, which really is guiding people to self discover what matters to them for life experiences. So it's a discussion. It's a dialogue, it's getting a little bit deeper about the stories, it may be as simple as you know, what was life growing up, like around the family table? What was it like a family dinner? What did you guys do? How did go it may be a situation of thinking back to the people in your life that stand out? Kind of like if we look back over time as a radar scope, with blips that pop out, you know, thinking about who those blips were in your early years, your formation years, your teens or early 20s. And most likely, and obviously, we're not psychologist, but most likely those people that stand out, stand out for a reason. It could be their work ethic, it could be the way they treated people. But the reality is they stand out because that's the value you typically hold true or find important. So if you can relate those two. And, you know, we always want to, I should say we all but many people want to make sure that their future generations learn from their experiences that are having a better life that have you know, things done better than they did now.
Bill Hughes18:16
So we take them through that. We take him through that exercise, they we memorialize it in a statement, and we get them all together and have them tell their story, and then what? And then how do we get them engaged?
Todd Rhine18:32
Well, in most situations, and you know, sometimes we start with the story, sometimes we start with a family, family event family meeting, which we do intentional exercises. And I really enjoy some of these exercises. And it's Stratton to pick on Dennis Stratton's test, which I find to be enjoyable because it's an eye-opener for people to discover what type of person they're hardwired. And we each have different software, but a lot of us have a way of dealing with something just based on the way our brain is structured. And we're a little bit different. But there are some commonalities there. I'm an analyzer, I have a tendency to try to understand the problem inside and out before making decisions. And the polar opposite, opposite maybe a persuader, somebody that takes it very personal on their ideas, but comes up very quickly. It might be your engineer versus your salesperson if you look at it from a job role. But within families, we have often differences. And you think of it as a team, if you have a team of different professionals or within a family, you really want to balance different ways of thinking to make good decisions. So
Bill Hughes19:40
One thing that comes out as a consequence of that is sometimes what's revealed to each family member is the importance of every other family member and the kind of value that they bring to the table. Maybe it's a child's great at art, maybe one is tremendous and fixing cars. All of a sudden these talents come to the forefront. And then we're starting to put together a family team. Basically, we're, we've got a team of specialists within the family. And that really constitutes something that a family can lean on.
Todd Rhine20:15
Okay, so this is something that anybody could do. You don't have to be rich, you don't have to have a lot of money. And I think everybody today is concerned with this concept of the Dyslexic family or the dysfunctional family, I guess is the better word. And and how do we get our families together? How do we develop this cohesiveness and we're getting near the end of our time already, unfortunately, so. So let's get a list of a couple of things that families can do to create a better family. Whatever that is, so what would they be? Well, you know, one thing families can do, which we see happening more and more frequently, as they may have a family event, and you could do it as a Thanksgiving event, but they have a chance to share individually. What they find a value what's good about the family, what, what do they appreciate about the family? What do they appreciate about each individual within the family, you're sharing the positives, basically, as a family, they also need to decide as a family. If we were to achieve anything specifically, what does our family stand for? If they could take the time and often is the case it does require a professional to help guide so you don't go too far off a tangent as I often do. But to simply look at it and understand as a family. Hey, what what do we stand for? And even before that, it really is a matter of, is it worth it to us? Is it worth it to us as a family to keep getting together on holidays that, you know, what do we want to see? Do we want to see our kids and their kids getting along having family events? Obviously, as families grow, it's not as easy, but you still can have intentional time. And even our own conversation here video conference, that's made it a lot easier for families to get together and don't necessarily have to do it when somebody is dying, as our family often did is we're on video talking about what's going on, but intentionally getting together with the purpose of one activity. And it may be Hey, what does our family stand for? What do we want to see our family represent? And then sharing, you know, intentionally okay, what is right about our family? What is our right about each individual and getting those positives out? There's always going to be negatives, there's always going to be Blips. But it's much like bad grass, one of the best ways of getting rid of the bad grasses growing more good grass. Yeah. So much like in families, one of the best ways of moving forward is focusing on what you can do positively. Yeah, and you're talking about the grass in the backyard, not the other kind of grass. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Unfortunately, we're down to the last couple of minutes. So let's, let's go to Bill Hughes. Do you have any final comments, and then we'll show up with Todd over here?
Bill Hughes23:07
Well, I guess the thing that I can't impress upon anybody more is the fact that anybody really can do this, you can do this around a backyard barbecue, and a fire pit and just telling stories. And ultimately, those conversations as they're done sequentially, and continually and persistently, over time, interests are going to emerge. And those interests are going to be part of what the family is about. And that's what's going to be revealed, and maybe you take on a little project, that could be something as simple as building a cabin in the woods, or it could be is, it could be as extensive as doing something for a local nonprofit that you that you're all passionate about.
Todd Rhine23:48
I can't agree more with what Bill is saying regarding just telling stories? Yeah, it's often a lost art nowadays in our world of 32 characters or less. Yeah, stories are what people remember. And if we can share stories, not as a lesson, but as what happened, people can relate to it. And that's one of the key things in sharing the stories is you'll share everything the good and the bad about the story. But not as you know, tell a story. It's like, well, I learned to work hard. That's what you needed to do work hard. No, you just let them get their own value out of that story. Because we do remember stories more so than we do statements or life lessons that were told.
Ray Loewe24:31
Okay, I would like to reconvene this at another time and start with this concept of stories. Okay, because I really think you're onto something here that's important. And I think that that people try and communicate sometimes by dictating something to a family. And usually starts with parents because somebody has to drive this conversation somewhere along the way. But I think the idea would be to explore a little bit about how to conduct some sort of a family event with the idea of starting a tradition or starting something that is going to bring families together into whatever we decide is the successful definition that we want to have. Alright, so Todd, thank you so much for being with us. Todd Rhine, and again, Todd, do you have a website where people can reach you?
Todd Rhine25:30
I tried to make it as simple as possible. It's ToddRhine.com. So
Ray Loewe25:34
okay, and it's Rhine. Right as in the river.
Todd Rhine25:38
Yeah. As in the English spelling of the river.
Ray Loewe25:41
Okay, the English spelling and Bill Hughes, Bill's gonna be with us again next week with another guest. And thanks, the two of you very much. And I think we started a way of implanting some ideas on how to make other families feel lucky and luckier and luckier. So, thanks for being with us. And we'll see you again next week.
Kris Parsons26:04
Thank you for listening to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life, and how you can figure out how to do that too. Join us with your lively host Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.