Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Carlos Lopez, Sr. Advisor with MAH Financial Services Discussing Serving the Underserved

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

Carlos Lopez believes that financial clarity is a right, not a privilege. Before entering the financial world, Carlos spent eight years as a university professor, a chapter of his life that defined his approach to wealth management: education first.His transition into financial planning was born from a deeply personal mission. After witnessing his own parents lose their security to a predatory advisor, Carlos realized his true calling. He traded the lecture hall for the planning table, dedicating his career to ensuring no other family would have to experience that same sense of vulnerability.Today, Carlos and his senior partner, Marc Hernandez, lead a firm dedicated to serving the underserved. Carlos uses his background in teaching to break down complex financial concepts into clear, empowering strategies, ensuring every client truly understands where their money is going.For Carlos, “service” is more than a buzzword—it is a proactive commitment. He works tirelessly to keep his clients’ goals on track, providing the constant guidance and honest protection necessary to help them reach true financial independence.Learn more: https://www.mahfinancial.biz/Investment advisory and financial planning services are offered through Simplicity Wealth, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. SEC registration does not constitute an endorsement of the firm nor does it indicate that the adviser has attained a particular level of skill or ability. Insurance, Consulting and Education services offered through MAH Financial. MAH Financial is an unaffiliated entity from Simplicity Wealth. Clicking the “Like” button does not constitute a testimonial for or endorsement of our investment advisory firm, any associated person, or our services. Clicking the “Like” button is merely a mechanism to circulate our page. “Like” is not meant in the traditional sense. In addition, postings to our page must refrain from recommending us or providing testimonials for our investment advisory firm. Because the SEC and state securities regulators generally prohibit testimonials, any such postings are subject to swift removal. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any financial product. All examples are hypothetical and intended to illustrate potential outcomes under specific assumptions. Actual results will vary. Indexed universal life insurance policies are subject to fees, caps, and charges. Loans and withdrawals may reduce the death benefit and could result in a taxable event. Please consult a licensed financial advisor and tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed. Roth conversions may not be appropriate for everyone and should be evaluated based on your specific tax situation.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-carlos-lopez-sr-advisor-with-mah-financial-services-discussing-serving-the-underserved

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 with us Carlos Lopez, who's a senior advisor with MAHH Financial Services, and we'll be talking about innovative wealth management. Carlos, welcome to the program.

Thanks, Mike. So glad to be here. So I kind of wanted to just, you know, start off saying that I'm very grateful to be on the show with you today. Yeah, I'm looking forward to talking with you because I'm kind of like a word smith. I love how people phrase words and how, you know, products and services are worded. And I love the word innovation. So when you are going to talk about an innovative wealth management, management strategy. That sounds powerful to me because it sounds like it's fresh and new. But before we

dive into that, give us a little bit of your story and your background and how did you get into the financial services industry? Actually, it was by accident. Mike, I was a professor at the University of Texas here in Edinburgh, Texas. I actually taught English. I taught composition, rhetoric, and I taught an intro to literature class in Salamanca, Spain abroad in Europe every summer. and it was a very fun experience, a very profound experience getting to travel and experience the world like that. But coming into my 7th or 8th year, I had a fender bender, so I went to go talk to my relatives that are agents with Allstate. And while I was there, I ended up knowing several of the people that were working on their, or having their services, they were there to see my cousins who actually owned the business,

and I knew all three of them. So when they left, my cousins, like, hey, Carlos, you ever thought about doing insurance? And I said, no, not really. About the same time, it happened that my parents, my mother and father, my mom's 88 now and my dad's 80, both veterans, my mom working in the education, my dad working for the government and USDA.

They had a predatory financial advisor that kind of took advantage of them. So it was kind of a call. to me, you know, to say, you know, maybe there's a change here that I can make or I can help bring my education background and my experience to financials or financial services. So out of the, you know, the grace of God, I got an opportunity to work with my, with my, my associate, Mark Hernandez, at AMH financials. And I was, you know, was a great mentor to me. I pivoted from education at the university, I skipped the all-state experience, and I went with Mark, who's been an advisor for 40-plus years.

You know, isn't it interesting that, and I love that story that so many times it's like, you know, it's all for family. You know, I'm taking care of my family. But isn't it interesting that your family members that were in the business, they were in the business for many years. You knew that they were what they did, but the timing wasn't right. You know, you had to get that teaching and you had to get that. you know, experience. And then when some circumstances happen, and then when your family came

alongside, and then they had to ask and they saw something in you. So I think that is just so powerful when you can speak into and educate and teach people, especially these days, young people, because we can see their future. Exactly. And, you know, coming into the university as a professor, I didn't know how my pension worked with TRS. I didn't know that I could supplement it with a 403B, a 403B or 47 plan. I didn't know that I could, you know, invest that into a Roth into, with different accounts and be aggressive because I was 28, I believe I was 28 when I first started teaching there. So I let years of compound interest and opportunity, you know, I let it go.

I didn't know any better. There wasn't anybody I could go to. Nobody came to the university and said, look, you just started your job. You just signed up your contract, you know, and now you could probably, you know, you have options. You can actually start something. And I was single. So I had a lot of time, I had a lot of time to myself, I had a lot of time to learn. I had a lot of time to the time horizon, right?

Compound interest, putting money in, letting it work for me. Now I'm a married man. I have a son and I have a, you know, it's a different scenario now. But I could have started something for about eight to ten years and built something. So where I'm going with this, Mike, is that we started something innovative. You talked about innovation at the beginning of this interview and whatnot. And we started, Mark and I at MH Financial Services, coming from an education background, we had a conversation. And the conversation was, how can we educate?

How can we serve the underserved? Yeah. How can we serve the underserved? Well, who is the underserved, right? That's basically every American out there that's starting off in the workforce, or even if they've been in the workforce for 5, 10, 15, 20 years. Now, do you feel like the underserved air quotes is because, they don't have two nickels to rub together and traditional financial advising firms only want people that have a nice chunk of change. And then also if they sign it for that 401K, a typical financial

advisor, they don't get paid, giving advice on how to structure 401K. So they actually just ignore those people. So is that where the underserved comes from? Yes. Any American in the workforce just starting off the first day, whether they have a 401k, they have education back like myself, They're working for the state. They have options to do a 457 or 403B, government officials with the Thrift Savings Plan. Anybody in the workforce, we like to have a conversation with them. And we built a holistic wealth management planning service for them. That's very affordable, very, very affordable.

It's per household. So if a household has a husband and a wife or spouses, you know, things like that, then both of them are covered under this plan. And this plan helps every individual. from day one when they start working to build their wealth to keep all their financial goals on track. So it's pretty awesome. So we're trying to build millionaires. Nice.

And it sounds to me like you are kind of giving that value added approach, educational approach, because you're not looking for people with $8 trillion. Let me show you where to put that money. You're looking at people going, look, down the road, we want you to become successful and that millionaire. You're starting today with very little, but let me teach you. Let me guide you. And then that creates powerful relationships. Exactly.

And, you know, think about a timeline in your mind's eye, a person is 20 or think about yourself, Mike. When did you start working when you, when you started the workforce? How old were you? Well, I mean, I got my first job at 16 working at McDonald's in the summertime. But, you know, then you graduate college and you get your first job. And, you know, that's like what, 21, 22? Yeah, yeah. And at that point, did you have any financial?

Were you financially savvy? Did you know what you were doing? Oh, of course not. Yeah, I know. And see, I think that's the problem. And I'm from the outside listening in to you say this and you're seeing this in the industry going, this is a fresh approach because I can tell you from my personal experience, one of my daughters, graduated college, got a job teaching as a professor at a university.

And she calls me up one day and goes, hey, I'm, I'm, you know, filling out all these papers and HR and 401K and what should I do? And I said, well, listen, as you know, I've interviewed hundreds of financial advisors. And let's just go ahead and not do with the 401K. Let's take the same amount of money that you were going to put into that and put that into a nice Roth because at 22 years old, you've got many, many years to have that grow tax free. And I think that that's really important for people to realize another word you mentioned

a second ago, options. So why is it important, and not stock options, but like different variety. of options, but why is it important for people at the first day of work to have a good financial plan or someone guiding them? Well, because the power of compound interest, the younger, they start, the better off. And we're allowed to make more mistakes when we're younger, right? If you make mistakes financially when you're 21, 22, 23, or whatever, it's fine. But once you have a family, once you're 40, 50, you know, it's too late. You know, those little mistakes can cost us immensely. Yeah, you got less runway before the time you need to use the money for retirement. So,

yeah, that time, that compounding, I think that's huge. Talk about a few of the strategies that some young people can use to get on that right track and stay on the right track. Well, something they can do is basically just, you know, they have a paycheck. They can put a part of it, they can automate a part of it to put into a financial instrument or something like that that's going to build them. You know, if you make $100 put $20 into the savings or some kind of financial instrument that's earning you interest and the rest of it, you could spend it any way you want. But do that consistently. It all comes down to being consistent. And from our standpoint, you know, as financial advisors, we see everybody. So we have a, you know, we do our due diligence.

we provide a questionnaire, fact finder to finder what their story is. And as time changes with this holistic wealth management planning service, we're there to make changes or to help them update their plan. Let me give an example. We had talked to a 28-year-old nurse, and she already had changed job three or four times moving or job hopping from here, from one clinic to a hospital and things like that. So she had, I think, four or five 401Ks from previous employers. And they were just kind of out there.

And she was in the grind of work. She was focusing on her craft, working very long hours. And so what we did for her is, hey, you've moved jobs several times. Let's consolidate those 401Ks. Let's assess your risk tolerance. See where you're at right now. And consolidate them. Put them together in an IRA.

That way you have them all together. You know where you stand. We'll put it to work for you in the, you know, based on your criteria, but risk tolerance and things like that. And it took a little bit of work, but we got everything together, and now she's organized. Now she's part, now she has a plan. Now, I didn't talk about this, too, but part of our planning service, besides, you know, that we're getting them early, we also have a tracking software, an algorithm, a mathematical

algorithm that based on the risk tolerance, we're able to attach that algorithm to any, any, any 401k out there in America, whether it's in power, Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab, it can also attach to the Ther Savings Plan or a 403B or 457. Based on their risk tolerance, it tells them how to make changes when the markets are working, when the markets are up, the markets are down. Basically, it sends the notifications and sends the financial advisors us notifications when the markets maybe be below or above their risk tolerance. We're there to make changes to keep their financial goals on track. So it limits reliability. The markets get bad and it helps them not leave any money on the table, so to speak. When the markets are up, they can

participate in those gains when the markets are bullish. So what happens in a span of time, they optimize the returns within their plans. So it's pretty cool. It keeps them on track because they have clarity of where, you know, because it's kind of like, you know, where do you want to be in life down the road? And it's like, I don't know. or where you're at right now. Let's clarify where you are now. Let's clarify where you want to be. Well, in what you described there, let's talk financially. Where are you at financially? And in the example you gave, I've got multiple 401Ks and a buck here and a buck there. Let's get all that down on paper so we know what we got. Where do you want to be down the road,

10, 20, 30, 40 years? And then let's put a plan into action. And I love another word you mentioned, which is automatic. And it reminded me of a book. I read, I don't know, 20 years ago by David Bach called the automatic millionaire. And that's one of the things I remember him talking about is, look, set it and forget it. You want to get your job contributing to something wise so that you don't have the temptation to spend the money for fun, frivolous things. So it brings me to a question that I was thinking about as you were describing that. It's kind of like as people, you know, get a little bit of a promotion or do better at work as their

income rises, so does their lifestyle. So the temptation is go, oh, I got to raise of $400 a month. And now all of a sudden they went and bought a new car. How do you help someone avoid that lifestyle creep and make sure that they stay on track? Well, yeah, we basically, you know, we kind of come up with a financial plan that, you know, you have to write on the one side of a, you get a legal pad, right? And on one side you write all the, all the things that you have to pay for. And now dispensable, you know, income, all the different things that you have. But the ones, if you don't pay them, they turn them off or take it away, then you have to, you have some problems there.

So it basically comes down just to getting a plan, getting organized, getting a fact finder for them, finding out what their story is, and making adjustments as time goes. You can't really force anybody to do those things. But I think when you put the pen of the paper and they see where they can be in the future, if they stick to a plan and be consistent, then it's pretty magical. And one little exercise that I do, it's free. You can go on to any website that has a Roth calculator on it. You can put in, you know, how much money they want to start off with, how much you're going to contribute monthly, what, you know, what amount of interest is usually 6 or 7 percent. And then you start at age 22, 25, 30, whatever, and then at age 60 or age 65, and they'll tell them how much money they'll have, how much compound interest they'll earn. And once they see that, they start, oh, let me, let me try, let me try.

Let me say, give me, they want to have control. They want to say, what happens if I put more money? What happens if I retire earlier than 65? What if I want to retire when I'm 57? What if I want to travel? Okay, well, it's going to take some more discipline and more consistency. So we're going to look at those things. We're going to try to keep our financial goals on track.

Just like if you're working out at a gym and you have a trainer, if you have certain goals, you have to meet those. You have to be consistent with your diet. And working out, you might. be allowed to have one cheat day every once in a while. Sure. You want to take a trip out. Right.

So you might be able to be frivolous and blow a buck or two here and there to feel like you are living. You don't want to eat beans and rice your whole life just so that one day down the road you'll have some money because who knows what will come, but you need to know what that looks like. I think that's a great point. Yeah, yeah. You don't want to eat ramen noodles and rice and beans all the time.

You want a nice steak and some nice wine or something. But yeah. If you're consistent, most of the food. you're going to see results. And it's awesome as an educator to see once you show them the numbers, once you talk to them, once you explain to them, you know, how their 401k works, the match that the employer offers and then, you know, putting on that tracking software, once they see that's working and they see their monies going up at compounding,

it's so gratifying as an educator to see them. Yeah. The lights kind of go off in their eyes. Yes. And then it's pretty awesome because what happens? next. Oh, talk to my coworker, talk to my family members. They don't have that help. They never, they, everybody says the same thing. Even I do, probably even you do like, what if I would have had help when I was 21 or when I started in the workforce, you know? Well, it's like the old analogy,

like, oh, it's a hot day. I wish you had a tree to give me shade. The best time to have planted that tree was 20 years ago. 20 years ago. But the next best time today. You brought up something interesting, Carlos. I want to dive in on a little deeper on 401K. You said match. So I gave my my example of what advice I gave to my daughter, hey, do the Roth from day one, don't do the regular, because her employer did not have an attractive match. So do you advise your clients to say yes or no to a 401k based on the match? So like if they could have 5% or 6% of their income matched, if you don't do the 401k at all, you do leave some money on the table. What is your advice in that direction? If they get a match of 4%, 5%, 6%, whatever that is, contribute a least out of you set

that percentage. It's the only free lunch you'll ever get in the financial world. That's it. Anything after that? Pass that. Yeah, yeah, good. That's what I was thinking, but it's like some employers don't match at all or it's paltry. Like, oh, we're going to match one percent. Don't bother. But four, five, six, that is free money, but don't contribute 15 or 20 percent of your salary to the 401K because they're only matching that certain percent. So then you kick the whatever extra you want to do into your off. That's a good. distinction. And yeah, and, you know, it's important, you know, watch the news right now, or we kind of know, you can, you can use, you know, chat GPT or Gemini or Google, anything like that. You can find out that

in our country, we're in a big heap of debt right now. So I think the government will mitigate those taxes by, I mean, those are dead by raising taxes in the future. So how do we work with our clients to say, you know, you might want to, you might want to look into more after tax. like a Roth. You want to look into putting more money into that or all of your money into that as much as you can, you know, within the parameters. That way when you get to that retirement age, you know, you're going to have some income stream that's not subject to RMD. You have, you have tax-free money. If taxes go up, you're already covered.

We have the tracking software to optimize the amount that you make in there. So that's a very good thing as opposed to just getting a, a target fund and just letting it ride for the duration, you know, leaving money on the table and not making that compound interest. So we basically have all the, it's holistic. We have all the angles covered for our clients that want to get ahead. And we are happy to serve the underserved with all our capacity. I actually been reading the, you know, it's holy week this week. And I read Proverbs 1522.

It says plans failed for lack of counsel, but with many advisors, they succeed. So I think it could counsel, finding a good financial advisor that cares about their clients, you know, and takes care of them from day one at work, I think it could turn out to be a very beautiful thing. And guess what? Those multitude of counselors do not include chat GPT and Google. Talk to people that have experience.

And I'm saying that funny, but people think that. They just go, oh, I'm going to use AI or I'm going to use, And that's not always the best. It might bring up some good questions to bring to your advisor to say, how would this fit for me? But let's transition to a thing that I think people these days are familiar with FOMO. You know, when you're talking about people starting off their career, they're looking forward 20, 30, 40 years and they don't want to miss out on some big swing

opportunities like they hear in crypto or AI or whatever investment. How do you put together a financial plan that helps people? have a good balanced approach without having that fear of missing out on some of those big swings that could actually be big risk. Well, first and foremost, I just tell them, you know, I still see some of my former students that are now in their 20s, late 20s and early 30s. And I taught probably over 2,500 students in the time that I was at the university. And a lot of times they come at me and they're like, hey, you know, they ask questions

and they're very excited about what's new out there in crypto. And I think because they watch a lot of social media, they think that they can hit home runs. They could say, I'm going to invest a certain amount of money and I'm going to become a millionaire. I tell them, you know, that may happen. The likelihood of that happening may not be as high as you might think. Otherwise, everybody would be doing that. So let's focus. Let's get grounded.

Let's build a foundation like a home. You want to make sure you have a good base and build something very substantial and very strong. And that's going to come down to what you. you have at your work, your 401k, your 457, your pension, all these TSP. Let's focus and let's build that. Anything left over after that, we can look at alternatives to, to, you know, but you can't, you cannot, you have to focus on those things for your, for your, for your future, because that is your future. That's what you're working for. That's what you went to school for, is your craft, your work. And, uh, let's get a plan and set, set that up. Anything extra that you have, you know,

we can look into some alternatives. And if it's crypto, it's crypto. If it's an IPO that might come out, I think people are talking about SpaceX right now. There might be an IPO coming out sometime. I mean, I don't know. You know, let's just focus on the harder money. But anything that, you know, seems to be trendy.

And I'm going to jump on that. It takes a little bit of level-headed guidance. So talk a little bit about what role that financial advisor can play in guiding that to kind of temper some of that, but yet still let you participate in some of the exciting things. You just need someone that has been there, done that, and can guide you, right? Pretty much, yeah. I mean, we're watching the markets every single day. We have a lot of, we have a lot of different financial advisors. We're in the, you know, we have a lot of other friends of ours that are in the industry, and we talk about these certain things, but we don't

want our clients to miss out on anything that they could potentially get that's going to benefit them. You know, we want to keep it simple. We want to make sure that they're going to be, we do our due diligence that that first and foremost comes up or it comes to a plan. The plan to keep their financial goals on track in any way that it can be, it might be life insurance or tax favorable life insurance like an IUL if they have kids or for themselves. DEMity insurance that are over 40 because, you know, you look at your family history and see if you have something going on, you know, with hypertension, diabetes, cancer. We actually live in an area where there's a lot of diabetes and hypertension and things like that. So, yeah, I want to have all those things covered before you look into anything that's kind of shiny. In other words, yeah, get your base set first.

You don't want to be wealthy, but then, or ultra wealthy. And then, you know, I have a situation where you don't have any coverage for, you know, long-term care in the future, things like that that can obliterate your retirement or nest egg. So just, yeah, just getting a good understanding of. what's most important first and then anything after that. It's like, you know, and I'm saying this because I'm thinking about one thing, one phrase that I was told one time when I first started in the business is that people spend more time, they spend more time focusing or planning for a vacation than they do with their finances.

Yeah, I've heard that. Yeah, you plan all of that stuff and then you get there, then it's gone. But then, yeah, your finances, it's like, oh, yeah, I signed some papers at work. But that can be. But, you know, I think that it kind of gets back down to having that guide that helps you educate your, you on what to expect and kind of go, hey, you know what? You got plenty of time. So we don't want to jump on all of those trends. But let's have a little percentage where we can participate in that just so you can see what that's like. We don't want to, you know, have you just in, you know, one specific category. But when someone can sit down with you and articulate and clarify your goals and give you that plan to be there, give you. you that accountability, give you that software from that holistic approach like what you guys provide, it's just powerful. So Carlos, this has been really helpful to learn how you're serving your underserved, the people out there that have been ignored and that's powerful process. If someone is listening to that going, hey, what can you do for me? What do you see in my financial picture?

What's the best way that someone can learn more and then also reach out and connect with you? Sure. They can visit our website at mh, www.m.m.com. M-A-H-F Financial.Biz. And on that, they could schedule an appointment. We have many podcasts over different variety of topics. You know, it's pretty interesting and it's fun. We've had a lot of good feedback from our clients saying that they enjoyed them. They can also call us, Mike, at 956, 994-0-0-07.

Perfect. Well, Carlos, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you. Likewise, Mike. 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 www. www.

influential entrepreneursradio.com.