Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Bob Chitrathorn Co-Founder of Simplified Wealth Management

Episode Date: July 14, 2023

Suthipong Robert Chitrathorn (or Bob for short) came from humble beginnings. Born to parents Puttachart and Sakul Chitrathorn, Bob was raised in a mobile home park in Colton, CA. His parents migrated to Michigan from Bangkok, Thailand in 1974, before settling in Southern California. As a child, Bob didn’t realize how good others had it until he ventured out of the ghetto and went over to friends’ birthday parties. There he’d witness the luxuries of living the American dream and of the possibilities that lay ahead.To the Chitrathorns, life in America was a gift and they were proud owners of property in America. They worked hard to put food on the table and to put Bob and his younger sister, Crystal, through school. Bob ate sandwiches with nothing but cheese on them, but he was blessed nonetheless. He learned that perspective made all the difference in life.In his mother’s words, “Education is money in the bank.” She teaches nurses still to this day, but she and Sakul, a factory worker, sacrificed to make a better life for Bob and Crystal. They paid for both kids to go through private high school and then helped pay for college.Their dedication and sacrifice didn’t go to waste. Bob received a full-ride scholarship for his first year at La Sierra University, before transferring to Cal State San Bernardino. He received his B.S. in Finance, as well as a B.S. in Real Estate while minoring in business administration. Despite the rigorous course load, Bob graduated magna cum laude and was named part of the Golden Key Honor Society.In 2004, Bob became a financial advisor, which was an opportunity to make a good living, while helping others make the best decisions for their own financial lives. He had a short stint at H&R Block and also considered real estate, but he found his passion in personal finance. While Bob was attending CSUSB, his parents were working with an agent at New York Life. Bob always sat in on their meetings. He found that by listening to his parents’ goals and conveying the pros and cons of their decisions, they would listen to him more often than their own advisors.When Bob became an advisor, it was a no-brainer that Puttachart and Sakul would work with their son, who always listened to their needs. With over 12 years of industry experience, he now has hundreds of clients beyond his parents to guide and influence. Bob recently joined newly established Simplified Wealth Management to help grow a new brand and to help shape the next generation of financial advisors.In 2016, Bob contributed a chapter to best-selling author and esteemed motivational speaker, Brian Tracy’s book. The book, “Success Manifesto: The World’s Leading Entrepreneurs & Professionals Reveal Their Secrets to Mastering Health, Wealth & Lifestyle,” was an opportunity for Bob to share his love for planning and for his clients.He holds the Series 6, Series 7, and Series 63 registrations with LPL Financial, and Series 65 registration with Strategic Wealth Advisors Group, LLC, and life, health, and long-term care insurance licenses. Bob has been married to the love of his life, Brittany, for five years. They live in their Riverside, CA home with their rescue dog, Mazy, a pool, putting green, and a Pittsburgh Steelers-themed bar that’s perfect for Sunday Night Football.If you’re looking for Bob at 6:30 or 7 pm on a weeknight, more often than not, he’s prepping for a case or making phone calls still. His parents’ work habits weren’t lost on him and he’s usually the one at the end of the night setting the alarm and turning off the lights.Complimentary Power of AttorneyHelp with business valuationComplimentary Second Opinion, investment review/analytics.https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-bob-chitrathorn-co-founder-of-simplified-wealth-management-3

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of influential entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have back with us, Bob Chitra Thorne, who's the co-founder of simplified wealth management. Bob, welcome back to the program. Hey, Mike, thanks for having me again. You are welcome and I want to continue building on what we talked about before because it's just so neat to hear kind of like your origin story.

You're, you know, where you are today versus where you started off. So kind of give us a little bit of a fresh insight on how your upbringing helped frame your formative years into what you grew from today. Well, yeah, Mike, you know, as we spoke last time, you know, we talked more of the younger years. and diversity and obstacles that, you know, not just myself, the individual's face. And so now, you know, talking a little bit fast forward to say, you know, high school and college, you know, back in high school, I guess, you know, I was a little bit different in a sense that, you know, some of the people I hung out with, you know, you might consider hoodlens, right? They're not by any means.

They're some of my best friends still to this day and we do great. But, you know, when you're in high school, if you have to classify, classify, classify different clicks or cliche, you'd be like, hey, you know, there's kind of the sports guys, there's some kind of the nerds, there's the skaters and the bad boys and, you know, whatnot and what have you. And I guess, you know, the click I originally ran with at first, people might look sideways at, right? And I understood this and I noticed that. But internally, it made me feel like that doesn't seem fair. Like you don't even know me. You don't know who Bob is, right? I mean, I'm still trying to.

trying to figure out who Bob is when I'm in high school, right? So how are you able to say, hey, I'm going to throw you in this cliche. So I had to make an internal shift. And, you know, that kind of led to my, literally my entrepreneurial journey because it taught me a lot. You know, it's interesting that you said internal shift and you said note that you noticed. I feel like a lot of people, no matter what click, you know, whether it's the bad boys or the jocks or the whatever, whatever, because we all are in something. We all kind of birds of a feather flocked together. We all are in that.

But I found it interesting that you noticed it and you had kind of like an internal dissonance. You're just like, I don't know that I like this or I think I might want to shift out of that. So when you decided, you know what, maybe I want to be seen as or identify with a different group, what were some of the steps that you took? Because number one, some of your, some people that are in that situation never even notice that they just keep their head down and go, I am what I am. you noticed you wanted a little bit of a change, not that one is worse than the other or better than the other, but you wanted a little bit of a change. What was that for you?

Yeah, for me, like the internal shift, it was, Mike, it was like, why do I have to be one or the other, right? Because I looked at myself, you know, I studied hard. I got great grades. So literally, if I had dressed a certain way or acted a certain way, I would have been labeled, you know, in the nerd group, right? Yeah. I also play sports. You know, I played football. I played volleyball.

You know, I was on the varsity team for those things. I played tennis. So then I could also be classified as a jock if you only looked at me in one certain way. Or, you know, I like skateboarding, snowboarding, you know, I had a mohawk, spiky hair, you know, earrings, chain wallets. You know, then you can classify me as a skater if you wanted to or a punk rocker, right? and I was thinking to myself like this doesn't make any sense. That's just going to limit the people I meet myself, right? So I decided that, hey, I know that I'm not just one of these.

I am all of them. And I'm going to figure out what I am all about as much as I can as you could in high school. And so I made an effort. I purposely made an effort. I was already hanging out with all my friends who were pretty much in skater crowd, right? I didn't have to do much effort there because that was appearance. And again, we all know appearance is kind of the first thing that kind of clicks people together, especially in high school. Okay.

So I have to go out and say, hey, you know what? How am I going to make friends with these smart people that would be classified as nerds? So I just decided to start talking to them and start asking them questions about what we were studying. Yeah. And then they realized that I knew what I was talking about. So I naturally just became part of that group somehow. And then, you know, I didn't try it out for sports and became friends with them. So I was in all these different cliques, if you will, and it's really awkward at first because I felt myself acting the click while I was with the click.

You know what I mean? And I was like, this is weird. I mean, it's not, it's part of me, but it's not fully me. So I decided, you know, I had all these different friends and different clicks and they were all really cool, great people. So I decided to just kind of start kind of weird. I started throwing parties. I was actually pretty known for throwing a lot of parties in high school, actually, even from other schools. But I would just start inviting all my friends from the different cliques.

And it was cool that over time, we all started realizing that we all were similar people once we got to know each other. And so that friendship, it was kind of cool because you started seeing like, some jocks, if you will. And again, every term I use is just a cliche, it's a judgmental from back in the day, right? But you started seeing jocks and nerds and geeks and skaters hanging out or showing up for the same party together. The lines were starting to blur because of Bob.

I guess. I don't know about the good thing or a bad thing, but I love it because I was like, hey, now I can be myself. You know, when I go on, a varsity football trip, right? I can take my, you know, my jerseys and all that I good stuff that you have to take,

but then I can dress the way I want to, which was kind of skaterish, right? And no one would care. I wouldn't feel judged anymore because everything was kind of like, okay, none of that matters as much. And, you know, and it wasn't just the kids and my colleagues, but, I mean, I saw that with teachers too. I mean, imagine someone in high school with a Mohawk,

you know, piercing and Shane Wall, you're just naturally going to look at that person. If you don't know anything different, not to mention I went to a private school. And you'll make assumptions. You're going to make assumptions, right? And I get that.

And so having so many assumptions made of me growing up was probably one of the best things that could have ever happened to me because it broke my assumptions that I would normally make on other people. It made me take a deeper look, right? And, you know, when these teachers,

started realizing, hey, you know, Bob's getting 4.0s. You know, we can't really, we can't really judge him too much on his clothes. Yeah. Because we want what works for him. Yeah, the whole education system is for people to learn, get good grades, so they can pursue better things in life and make the world a better place. So I think at that point, you know, teachers were just like, well, I guess we're forced to accept Bob for the way he is because he's getting 4.0s, right? Yeah.

And I thought that was pretty cool because once they were quote unquote forced to you, which is a bad word. But, you know, they weren't forced to you. But like what else could they do? Right. I'm doing my point. It came to their realization. Yes. Yes.

And once they were able to realize that, I think it just, I hope it helped them relax for any other future, you know, type of stereotypes coming through the doors years to come. Right? Because it happens all the time. Yes. That's a huge. It's such a huge point. It reminds me of the old cliche story that we hear about the old blind guys that are touching an elephant. And, you know, so this is a wall because that guy was touching the side of the elephant.

And the other guy's like, no, it's a big hose because they're touching the trunk. And no, it's a and everyone was right. But in reality, if you step back and look at it, it's like, oh, no, they're all, you know, wrong because they are, you know, touching an elephant. So that's exactly what you described. I think it's a really neat thing to realize that ripple effect that, that when you started making some of those decisions and steps forward, it started impacting others in a positive way. That's the ultimate positive mental attitude, taking a step forward, being the change you wanted to see made. And then you saw people rallying around that.

I think that's amazing. Yeah, I mean, I love the elephant analogy there, Mike, because, you know, it's when you're up close, you have tunnel vision, right? And we can only see so much. So we can only perceive so much, and we can only see so much. But as you step back, right? And you start looking, I mean, obviously, if you can see, right? You're like, hey, I see a full elephant.

Or you step back, hey, we're not just at an elephant place. We're at a zoo because now you see lines of tigers, right? So it's being able to take a step back and look at the big picture and understanding and realizing that if you are looking so focused and so narrow, you're going to have tunnel vision. That plain and simple, right? I mean, physically, I mean, you walk through the window and all of a sudden, all you see is a window, and if you don't move for 10 hours,

you're going to think you're just right in front of a window for getting your inside a room, right, that has a door, right? You got to take that step back. You got to see the big picture so that you can get more perspective. And somehow I learned that really young and early on in life. I have no idea how it may have been how I grew up from, you know, elementary school or part of college, but I got lucky. And it is a ripple effect because in my journey, as an entrepreneur, if you will, I think those lessons that I learned also come into

my entrepreneurial life because it's again, Bob, sometimes take a step back. What are you trying to get accomplished? What is the main thing you want to do? Someone can say, hey, Bob, you want to help people be better at finances. You want to make sure people don't argue about money. and, you know, things like that. But the big picture is, and I know this sounds generic, cliche, whatever it is. But the big picture to me, Mike, is I believe in that ripple effect. I believe that we all inherently are humans and are the same, right? As long as we share the same values and kind of want the same things, you know,

many other things don't matter. Appearances don't matter. You know, what you drive doesn't matter. Things of that nature just don't matter anymore when you take that big picture, big perspective. And what I really wanted you, and I've done wanted this for a long time. And you can ask my friends in high school. And they'll say the same thing.

What's the one thing Bob always talked about? And it was changing the world. I've always wanted to change the world. I've always wanted to make it better. By paying it forward and being the change that you want to see done. Yeah. Yes. I mean, I, yeah.

And, you know, one of the things I love doing, and I couldn't do this when I was younger. I did in smaller, what's what's what I'm looking for? And, you know, a smaller scale, obviously in high school and college. But, you know, one of the things I love doing now is I love sometimes walking through the mall. Let me rephrase that. I hate going to the mall. I hate walking through the mall. When I find myself in the mall, what I do try to do is take that bigger picture, that perspective.

Okay, I hate walking through the mall. What can I do to make this fun? and what can I do to change someone's life? I take that perspective in, and then I start looking, you know, I'll walk through NACES or whatever, you know, whatever store it is. I always purposely look. And then if I see someone who I notice is buying clothes that it's not for themselves, right? You know, it could be a parent, it could be an aunt, it could be an uncle, whatever it is.

I always like to go up to them. I like to cut in line, right? And I may have mentioned this to you before, but I like to cut in line, A for whatever they have. Granted, I have to make sure I really look at what they're buying because I don't want to, you know, hoping they're not spending like a thousand bucks, right?

Yeah, you don't want to see Gucci tags. Exactly, exactly. But just, you know, just modest things. And so I'll cut in line, I'll pay for it. And then as I leave, one of the things I always say is, my name is Bob. Let's make our community stronger, make the world a better place,

and it can all start with one action. that's kind of my go-to quote every time I do that. Because I strongly believe it because I've been doing that for years, right? Not just, you know, one year, two years. We're talking high school and college just on a different scale, right? You might have bought some of the Big Mac. Yep, yep, a Big Mac, you know, a bean burrito from, you know, baker's the cost a dollar, whatever it is. But it's, I've always noticed two things when I've done that is the matter of their,

good mood or a bad mood, they always seem appreciative. And there's a smile that comes from that. And that taught me that one action can change it. You know, they could have been having a bad day. They could go be all mad all day long and probably affect other people, make other people mad. Or maybe I just changed them one thing, one action made them happy. And now they're going to be nice for the rest of the day and do some great thing later on that day that has a ripple effect that changes the whole world for the better. And, you know, after you walked away from doing that, um, did you have a great thing? have a pit in your stomach, did you trip? Did you have a horrible day? Did you have a frown? Was there a cloud over your head? Of course not. So the ripple effect goes both ways. You help change that person's day. You put a spring in your step because you see that and feel that. So I think that's a huge

aha and a great tactical thing that people can implement in their own lives. Yeah, yeah. And you know what? Another thing I learned by doing things like that, right? Because I remember I mentioned there was two things. One was, you know, they'll be happy. But the number two is it makes me happy. And I realized that that sounds extremely selfish. Did I do it because I'm selfish? Did I do it because I wanted to make me happy?

Well, the true answer is no, but it's one of those things that if you really think and try to learn about yourself, you have to question yourself. Right. So I spend a lot of time questioning like, okay, I want to do this. to see them smile. I want to help them. But the fact that it makes me feel so good as well, like, is there some sort of inner unconscious thing of why I'm doing it? And my answer today is, I think we are all naturally selfish. I think that's just a part of nature. And so I've decided that, hey, if I believe that we are all naturally selfish, what can I do selfishly that make the world a better place and other people happy? And so,

I'm still working on that. I'm 44 years old now. Don't know if I've ever had the answer to this. But again, if I'm going to do something that makes me happy, how much better is it that it also makes someone else happy? 100%. You know, you mentioned something that made me think of another analogy. We hear in business, oh, B to B to C, you know, business to business to consumer.

And I feel like it should be H to H, which is human to human. because we're we're treating people as humans. It doesn't matter are the consumer or business or all of these things. But what you just laid out there is, man, if I can brighten someone's day, help them with something maybe monetarily, or maybe it's, let me help you, you know, carry this thing or open the door for somebody. It could be just something that you're noticing. And you know what that entails?

It entails someone like us, you, to get your nose out of your phone, to notice things and be aware of opportunities that are always around us. Exactly, exactly. And, you know, I love the fact that you mentioned H-to-H, human to human, okay? One of the things that I know you have heard before, and I'm sure anybody listening to this has heard many of times, right? I don't know if anyone's really thought about it, but it burns my inner core.

It really, it just really burns me. is it's only business. It's business. What does that mean? To me, when you can say that, most people use it's like, oh,

it's only business. Usually it's in a situation where something didn't happen that helped both sides. Yeah. Right? I mean, it was almost a zero-sum game.

Someone won, someone lost, and that's why they said, it's only business, right? To me, I think the best type of business is like you mentioned,

H-T-H. It's always business. It's always personal. It's always you. Because why should my personal ethics be one way? And then all of a sudden in the business world, it's only business. Don't worry. You know, in my personal life, I wouldn't have done that to you.

But since it's the business world, it's only business. That does not make sense to me at all. So, I mean, I definitely do not like that saying it's only business because business is personal, personal is business. You are who you are. You shouldn't change who you are in the sense of, hey, your ethics or your values change because now you're at work as opposed to at home, right? And like if you're going to be true to yourself, it really should carry forward more so into the

business world because I think most people would agree and say that, hey, if you had to say that you had two type of ethics, you had personal ethics and business ethics. Most people, not that I agree with this, but I think most people would say, hey, you know, my personal ethics and values are, you know, better than my business ethics and values. because a lot of times when it comes to business, people are thinking about one thing and one thing only, and that's improving business, improving money. I think that needs to change.

I think your personal values and your personal ethics should be the same as your business values and your business ethics. And you should not be trying to improve income and money and business when you're in your business. You should be trying to improve human values. You should be trying to improve those around you. But that this way we can truly make the world a better place,

we just have to care a little bit. 100%. You know, Bob, hearing kind of your story in which you noticed and how you, you know, transferred some of your attentions to different groups and things, I wonder if you can talk a little bit about key attributes that you feel that people need to notice and manage so that they can make some of these changes in their life currently, personally, as well as professionally. Yeah, I mean, key attributes, we all have great attributes. We just got to find them. Right? Some people have a hard time finding what, you know, one of the key attributes is. And it's, again, going back to the ripple effect, you find one key attribute, you're going to find another, then you're going to find another. So, you know, I've had to give advice to people, hey, you know, some of the key things that pay attention to you to try to, you know, improve yourself personally and, you know, professionally is, who are you?

Literally, who are you? I mean, it's a hard to. saying the answer, but try to. And I don't know if you'll ever be able to answer it because when I ask myself that all the time, sometimes the same things come up, sometimes new things come up that I haven't, you know, wrote down before. So I always say, hey, you know what, if you really want to start paying attention and, you know, trying to find these attributes that could improve yourself, professionally, personally, and improve the world, again, I'm still learning myself. So, you know, take everything with a grain of salt. But I always say,

Who am I? And think about that. What do I want to do and what do I want to change? Those are the three things I always think about. And then I try to make sure that they all somehow overlap, right? Because if you want to do one thing and how you're going to do it and who you are, they all should be intertwined somehow, right? Because again, that goes back to you.

I don't want to be that person who says ever, oh, I'm sorry, it's just business. That whole thing disgust me. Yeah. Well, what you just described there is the classic gap, GAP gap. You want to see where you're at. You want to determine where you want to be. And then what's the gap and how am I going to get from point A to point B? And I think all of that requires us to be aware, take notice, have that desire like Napoleon Hill teaches, have that burning desire to make that change to be better in whatever area, personal or professional. So if you see where you are, you notice where you want to be. And then. And you see, okay, now I've got this drive to make this change. It's not overnight because wherever you are, it didn't get there overnight. And wherever you want to be, it's not going to be overnight to get there. So I think it's really important for people to realize what you just said there. That's amazing.

Yeah, and I'll add to that. And, you know, this gets a little personal. I mentioned it, you know, last time a little bit. But you also have to really understand or try to find. flaws or someone points out of flaw, you know, don't get defensive and just kind of write it down and think about it. And one of my flaws that I've had for years, didn't realize it's still probably two years ago, maybe a year and a half ago. Or actually, let me take that back. I probably realized it about five years ago, six years ago, didn't do anything about it until a year and a half ago,

okay? And one of those flaws can also be conceived as, you know, a key attribute. And that's the fact that I have a type A personality, I'm always on the go, and I have high amounts of anxiety. I like to get things done. When things are on my calendar, I do not want to procrastinate. I want to get them done. I want to get them all done. On the flip side, something that could be a good attribute of yourself could also be something that's holding you back. It could be something that's slowing you down more than you know.

And what I'm talking about here is that anxiety that I had to get things done. I also had the anxiety of, oh, my goodness, Mike, I got 45 things on my calendar. I know I can only get 22 things done. What am I going to do? Oh, my goodness. I got three extra phone calls. I came in that I didn't expect. Oh, man, what am I going to do?

Okay, I'm looking at the screen. This is stressing me out. Bob, just takes something and just do it. You know, that anxiety, right? It was just really high anxiety. And it ended up wasting a lot of my time. And then I would worry about worrying. You know, I was stressed about stress.

We all know that is idiotic, but that's what I was doing. And I knew that was idiotic. But I didn't want to do anything about it. I was afraid to do something about it because I didn't know what to do about it. Right. And it was, you know, a friend of mine said, hey, Bob, you might want to talk to somebody because you're really great at what you do. you're smart, you're intelligent, you get things done.

But this is affecting your lifestyle, not just at work, but just at home because you're stressing about work at home because of the next day of all the things you have to do. And so I started talking to somebody and it was kind of weird. One of my friends said, hey, you know, because I told my friend about a year ago and she said, hey, you know, that's something you might want to tell people because, you know, there's always been a stigma against, you know, mental health, right? Yeah. And we're hearing more and more about it nowadays. But I will tell you, I got prescribed phloxateen, which is a generic version of Prozac, um, just about a year and a year and a year and a half ago or so, right? And I told the doctor,

oh my goodness, I do not want to take that. Bob, why not? Because I pride myself on being a go-getter. I pride myself on getting things done. I pride myself on not being late. lazy, right? Those are things I pride myself on. And I feel like this medication is going to make me not care and I'm going to be lazy and not even notice it. The doctor says, Bob, I understand how you feel. Let me tell you that it's not the case. And, you know, we'll get you on a small dose to start. What do you think about that? I said, well, you know, if it's going to help me, I mean, stressing about stress was just one of the hardest things to do. It was, anybody who doesn't understand it, your heart starts beating fast, your mind goes 27th way sideways. And, you know, the analogy the doctor gave me was, you know, it's not that you can't ever not take plots, you know, Prozac, but it's kind of like your car.

If your car has, you know, a condition where, you know, you need to consistently wash it so it's not dirty. what do you do? You keep washing it so it's not dirty, right? Yeah, just little maintenance. Yeah, if you have diabetes, you do things so that you can keep living, right? And so she said anxiety is nothing different. You just have to understand that that's what you have. So you have to do things so that you can live the best way you can live.

Or you don't have to take the medication, Bob. and you can still function the way you are, but don't, but realize you're going to have all that stress and that all the good stuff you're going to have still, but then you're going to have all that crazy stress and anxiety that you're talking to me about Bob that just drives you nothing. You don't understand why you do it. You don't get it.

You know it's wrong, but yet you do it anyway and you worry about it. So what was the result? The result was I got on flaxisine. I've been taking it. And honestly, the craziest thing is, I'll see my list have 50 things on it, I'm more focused now. You're like, okay, let's knock out one at a time.

Yeah. Yep, knock it out, done, done, done. And it's the same list as you had before. It's just now your perspective has changed and you can handle the list. You go on step at a time. Whereas before it, you just needed that little bit of a smoothing out. Exactly. It's like trying to get stuff done and you can't breathe, right?

But you take a step back and you breathe and you can focus. That's what it is. And, you know, am I embarrassed talking about it? I am. But the one reason I do want to talk about it is because of the fact that one of my friends told me, she said, hey, you know what, these are the things that people need to hear more about, you know, the good and the bad, right? And how this has helped, you know, like my attribute that was really good also had a downfall,

which was anxiety. But, you know, people just need to get their mental health straight. And again, it's embarrassing to talk about. but since I've been on a flocks team, my life has completely changed in the sense that, you know, I don't have this, what my wife used to call the heart attack feeling every day. Like I just like I would just got to have a heart attack because at the end of the day, they're just too much. I don't have that anymore. I work and if I want to work till 530, I work to 530, 630, 6.30. When I'm done, I just move everything and that's it.

I deal with it tomorrow. And then I'll get to the point where like, hey, you know what? I'm tired of seeing the same thing. Now I need to move things two weeks ahead, you know, a week ahead just so that I can keep it at the 30 task day list, whatever it is, you know, then it's fine. It makes a big difference. And out of everything that I talk about, that's probably one of the biggest messages I want to get out there is, hey, if there's something that's not working, there are things that we can do. Yeah. Yeah.

Awesome. So now let's wrap up here, Bob, and shift into all of these lessons you've learned and all of these wonderful attributes that we've talked about. How is that impacting your work with your clients currently in your business professionally? Let me just start out by saying, I love what I do. I love it so much that like it's not work to me, right? Again, where people say it's just business, to me, my business is my life. My life is my business. It's all intertwined.

It's all part of the vacations. It's all part of the hard work. It's all part about helping my clients, you know, really. really caring about my clients and go on that extra mile because they are my friends, my family, and I want them to be successful. I want them to learn things that they don't know that can make a huge difference in their lives because, again, it all goes back to that ripple effect. And so many people I talk to that aren't even clients of mine, I will help them get a durable power of attorney for you because I believe everybody needs one. Do I have any

compensation on that? No, does it take a little of my time? Yes. But at the end of the day, it's what they need, it's what's good for them if nothing else, and it does make the world a better place. So I believe in those things. And so because of the things I've learned and that I apply those beliefs into my practice and my business, I feel, yes, I spend a lot more time than most people on things that don't compensate. But I feel like that all comes back because people see that I'm literally, you know, this is who I am. There's not, you know, it's not a fake, hey, let me do this so I can eventually do this for you. Hey, take this for free.

If you need more help, come to me. I love helping people. And so I think all my attributes and lessons have kind of led to, you know, me being transparent and upfront in financial planning and helping my clients and go on the extra mile and, you know, literally doing things that most advisors won't do because it takes more time. And it does take more time. I work 50 to 60 hours a week.

But I don't complain about it because I love it. It's more of the paying it forward, giving value, serving, being that servant leader, giving results in advance, and then, oh, yeah, I can help you with your retirement or your financial questions. So I think that that is such a flipping the script that people are not used to because normally they're used to people pressuring them into doing something and you're teaching, educating, coming alongside them being their friend and treating them like a human. Exactly, exactly. And my practice, my business, and my hobby, helping people, they're all intertwines the one. That's why I don't mind spending so many hours doing it because I can't say, hey, the 60 hours I spent working, right? Anyone would classify as work, was it really 50 hours of work and 10 hours just helping people because I like it? Yeah. I don't know. I don't keep track that detailed. But again, to me, it's all kind of blends together.

and that's why I, you know, I feel like I have a deeper passion the most and why that is. I don't know, but that's just how I feel. Well, Bob, it's just been such a pleasure talking with you here again and learning more of your methodologies and way that you approach business and your personal relationship. So thank you so much. What's the best way people can reach out and connect with you? Well, yeah, the best way you can always find me. I mean, I have, you can search Bob Chitra Thorne.

You'll find my Facebook or my LinkedIn. in, but easiest way is my website, plan with bob.com. Again, that's plan, P-L-A-N with W-H-B-H-B-O-B-O-B-O-B-com and all my information's there. And again, you know, if someone just has a financial question and, you know, not looking for financial advisors, that's okay. Reach out to me. Anything that has to deal with a dollar sign, I probably have some sort of resource or value I can share with you.

I have applications I like to share for free that I've already paid for, that have financial modules. It will give you a grade report on how you compare to your peers based on your age range and what you're doing and things of that nature. I got lots of free resources,

so don't hesitate. Reach out of me. Bob, well, thank you so much for coming back on. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. Thanks, Mike. Have a good day. You've been listening to influential entrepreneurs

with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit W. www. Influential EntrepreneursRadio.com.