0:15 good afternoon and welcome to people making money one of the way to wow shows I'm your host Kevin bemel and we are here every Wednesday 12 30 p.m Pacific Time 3 30 p.m uh eastern time and then an hour in for the two uh enter time zones and uh I am wearing one of my red white and blue shirts because my guest today is a veteran buddy of mine Brett Henderson and before I introduce Brett I just want to take a minute um to for those of you who are there you go those red white and blue too there's
0:51 red wine blue too there you go we could have it like on a on a rolling thing it just changes and and annoys people until the very yeah hopefully not annoying people if you know what people you should leave the country you should not be here so uh before I get started with Brett I just want to um mention mention a couple of things and that is um if we we typically talk about career in business and related issues here and also uh finances and wealth buildings so we're here for an hour every Wednesday and and the point of this show is is to
1:27 help you with your professional development and also with building Building Wealth really that's the bottom line right I mean it would be nice I suppose if we could live without you know money but that's not the reality of the world reality I like to just you know confront it straight on and let's let's figure out um if you're transitioning maybe you're you're in the military transitioning civilian life you're recently graduated from college and all of a sudden you're figuring out what what am I gonna do I I had that happen to me a lot long time
2:02 ago because I'm an old guy or maybe you're a mid-career professional and and with all the upheaval from covid and all that you're trying to figure out hey what what is it I really want to do you know now that I've grown up right and uh this is this is a great time to be doing it um the the job market is is still very strong um and and there's lots and lots of opportunity out there and so uh that's what we're here to talk about uh each week so my guest Brett Henderson as you can see he is the founder and owner of Strategic
2:38 Wealth Endeavor Inc uh it's a veteran-owned business and uh and and and that is and and also um uh Brett does a a podcast which we'll we'll talk about as well that all all of what Brett does I think pretty much fits together um is is is mutually supportive which is how things work in the military but first of all Brett welcome to people making money thanks for coming on thanks Kevin thanks for having me here I definitely appreciate what you're doing appreciate your willingness to create something out of nothing to give back to other veterans in business so kudos to
3:13 you so many of us have ideas that we don't ever act on so the fact you invited me to this podcast and you're live and you're doing it versus thinking about it I appreciate what you're doing there's value right there one thing I do have to throw out to everyone while we're listening because I am a licensed professional I have compliance so everything we chat about today I'm I must say now for the record this is not legal advice this is not tax advice this is not in investment advice everything we're chatting about is purely meant to be educational in nature and for entertainment purposes only so this is
3:49 all Broad in nature no specific Investments are being mentioned or being recommended again so everything this is not legal advice not tax advice and if we do talk about anything nothing's guaranteed so I just have to get the disclosures out there to keep your clients happy so I keep my licenses absolutely and and you know uh same same with me um when I talk about these kind of issues I have licenses myself and and it you know the reality is that each person needs to look at their situation and have it looked at individually and so there's no Forum like this where they
4:25 should be taking advice I I I hesitate to make blanket statements in general but there's lots of podcasts around there's lots of shows around and people talk about you know finances and debt and all these kind of things and and anything like this that's not a one-on-one with you and the advisor is meant to be educational only don't take what they're saying as as necessarily applying to your specific situation um that that that has to it has to be done in a one-on-one Forum so that's just a good rule of thumb I think for all of us to follow 100 agree yeah so so
5:02 Brett what I like to do with my guests is start that as far back in their professional Journey as they're willing to go some people will go all the way back to well I graduated from high school and and you know kind of my first job and and I I you know I'll leave it to you just how far back you want to start but would would you know like to start at least with you know why did you join the military and all of that because uh you know these days such a small percentage of Americans um join the military um veterans anyone who's ever been in
5:37 the military only makes up I think what roughly seven percent of the US population six is what I heard yeah yeah six or seven percent right so I think it's just just a good place to start just for people to understand a little bit more about that world because I I know a lot of my friends who have never served are very curious about it and and also some of their children are coming to them and saying you know Mom Dad um you know I want to join the Army I want to join the Marine Corps whatever it is and and I I can tell you I've had more than one frantic call from you know someone I know saying you know my child wants to join the military what do I do
6:13 because they're so kind of freaked out by what it's all about and so I I think it's just like a good thing to let's start there if you don't mind or if you if you know before your military on a professional level we can start there no I happen to chat the short long answer though is on my own podcast which we'll talk about later episode one is all of that episode two is the business and episode three is kind of what we're three and four is why we're doing what we do now so that's already there but for your audience who doesn't know me at all so I'm I'm I'll share I'm 47 years old I've been in the
6:50 financial service industry for almost 20 years so 2004 I started 2023 so 19 years almost 20. I was a Marine Corps in 1998 through 2002 I am not a combat veteran I had a negative stigma in my mind because I was not a combat veteran for many many years we could talk about that too you have different levels that you rank yourself as a veteran if you're a peacetime veteran versus combat veteran versus wounded combat veteran and and you have a car a Combat Action ribbon versus not and you know combat V on some of your uh your ribbons or medals things we can talk about there which impact your mental mindset your stigma but Kind
7:27 of a Funny Story how I ended up in the military well not a funny story but part of it's funny so I grew up in Pennsylvania a farm kid and my grandfather was a chemist at BF Goodrich she actually helped develop the modern compound for car tires vulcanization made rubber last longer so tires like can last 20 30 40 000 miles and so during World War II my grandfather helped the war effort and then he left started his own business in Quakertown Pennsylvania called Associated rubber on which my father took over and when I was growing up my father and I were oil and
8:02 water we did not get along we were headstrong and we would fight and argue and because of that you know I didn't even make it through High School my father threw me into the house when I was halfway through my junior year of high school and actually moved to Rhode Island and finished high school with my mom because my father and I were were like this uh part of that though my sister was three years older or is still three years older that doesn't change and when she was going through school part of the divorce agreement was my father was supposed to pay for her college and unfortunately my father's kind of individual that used money as power money as control I hope none of
8:39 you have to go through this but if you do it's not a fun situation at all and every semester I remember hearing my sister would have to go in front of investment or a financial review board because my father would intentionally pay her tuition late just to be the puppet master and say I got control over you and so literally I said I don't want to go through that and so I looked at the military in an ROTC scholarship to escape Financial control of my father so I got a financial Independence on my own that's that was actually my motivation and then the funny part of the story the funny part was we went to a college fair in high school with my mom and she's
9:14 like oh look at the Navy they have cute uniforms look at those guys they're a bunch of guys in their whites and so we went to talk to the Navy because my mom thought they were hot and that's a true story and um and so that's a whole nother thing there actually I'll do a digression there too so I applied originally for an ROTC scholarship I had okay grades I was very independent I was Gen X so my parents were not standing over me saying study study study I could do what I wanted right it was until I had very poor grades my freshman year because I could do whatever I wanted when I realized I saw some of my classmates in high school pumping gas for a living at the local gas station
9:50 Pennsylvania because in Pennsylvania you don't pump your gas to station attendance come out pump your gas I said I don't want that career I should probably focus on my grades so I can get out of this town and have a have a career where I'm not pumping gas so at a very early age I had the self-awareness to realize I wanted something more and I had the realization that knowledge is power and education helps with knowledge so I wanted to then improve my grade so long story short my grades were okay not the best and so I originally applied for an ROTC scholarship and if you're listening you're a veteran at ROTC Reserve officer training Corps
10:25 pretty much if you get accepted you go into an ROTC unit in a local or a university they have them and they teach you about military science and Leadership and education and becoming a military officer the Army has some Marine Corps under the department of the Navy the Air Force has theirs I'm not sure if there's Coast Guard has ROTC I don't know about that okay so so Navy Air Force Army uh the Marine Corps are the big ones so I originally was a Navy option because my mom loved the Navy but actually I'll tell another good story I originally applied for scholarship was rejected I
11:00 didn't have good enough grades so I was what's called college program so my freshman year at I went to Tulane University I had to work my butt off to earn a scholarship because I didn't have the Acumen the grades the first the first time and I'll tell you another story my grades well this is this is a true story I actually have the lowest SAT scores of anyone I ever met at Tulane University my entire career of being there that was my honor of being the dumbest kid at Tulane and how did that happen because when I applied to Tulane I was also rejected and so I didn't get a Navy scholarship I didn't get a military scholar or I
11:36 didn't accept it Tulane I was accepting a bunch of other state schools and things but Tulane's the one I wanted to go to and they said no and one day I remember coming home from school and I was just kind of sat and I walked the door my mom's like hey what's up I just just getting ready to figure out what my next phase in life is and I know she's like I know you want to go Tulane is that what you want to do well it doesn't matter they said no say well do you want to go there I'm like it doesn't matter they said no he's like well no you can if you want because you're in like what do you mean I'm in she's like well I called the dean I'm
12:11 like what mom's like call the Dean and said hi I'm Susan Henderson Brett Henderson's son my son really wanted to go to Tulane he was rejected if you wouldn't mind could you pull up his file and look his application and see see what he could have done better so we'll give me a second and he apparently pulled up my file pulled up open it up he's like you know Mrs Henderson parents call up all the time screaming yelling demanding their child be admitted to Tulane University because of who they are he's like you've been very nice he's in
12:49 my mom got me into college because she was nice now that's not a lesson in karma and just being a good human being you get much more with uh what is a little bit of honey than you do a pound of vinegar whatever the saying is so true story my mom got me into college because she was nice and then once I got there I had to work my butt off because I'm not cognitively as uh intelligent as a lot of my peers so I've always had a harder work ethic I in any professional situation any competition there are people are smarter than me all the time I'm used to that
13:24 and I welcome that I I thrive in having people are smarter better around me and if you were listening to this podcast I would recommend the same thing for you but my work ethic I Crush people and work I just outwork people and I make up for my I wouldn't say lack of intelligence just where I am I am where I am and there's smarter people out there I can be at their level because I outwork them and because a lot of smart people don't have to work that hard because it's easy for them but I outwork people and that's that's proved be very successful me in life so long story how to get the Marine Corps mom got me into college worked my butt off to get a scholarship and then why the Marine
14:00 Corps versus the Navy this is a 100 true story before you go there I just want to I want to um make an observation here because the the story that you told about your mother calling the university it occurs to me that there may be another object lesson there the way you described it is she called up the you know admissions director or whatever whatever whoever he was and she said you know what can my son do better right so I think Not only was she being nice but she was demonstrating to him
14:37 the ethic with which she brought you up which is rather than being mad that you didn't get what you got or demanding something she she had taught you to say wow I didn't get what I want okay what do I do how do I be resourceful right in in my next step and to me that's a huge um key to having a successful life um and I I would say my parents taught me pretty something very similar in in that regard because I like you I've
15:12 always been pretty much you know just if you keep going and and and and and then you know if you don't get going this way then maybe try going this way or maybe try going this way but but there's you look at what you did that's not working and then figure out a different path 100 so what you're what you are sharing right now for anyone who's listening it's just grit and understanding that failure is natural failure is part of the game for improvement the more you fail at something the more you learn so when you
15:47 finally succeed you succeed that much more I think and I've seen it I've seen it with some younger staff that I've worked with that they're so afraid to fail they give up because they don't want to fail but then they don't learn they don't grow they don't improve and they're stuck in purgatory professional purgatory and they're not advancing they wonder why they're not getting raises because they're not improving because they haven't failed because they don't have the grit and so humbly me being Gen X and having to figure everything out on my own and failing and not giving up and having determination and me being a quote-unquote marine with who's Scotch
16:24 Irish with an edge whose father is a jerk which I inherited some of that by default it's in my blood some of my relationships have been tough and it's my own fault right I'm not always the easiest person to work with but that's me but guess what I'm aware of that and so for anyone who's listening I would say as you are trying to figure out who you are or where you are whatever you want to go no matter what what your goal is your mission your purpose understand there's always two sides of you at any one time and this is a lesson I'll get full credit to if you allow me to pontificate of course to Sandler and Sandler
17:00 training there's a sales course out course out there and if you're looking for a book a sales book if you want to get in sales and build confidence just build your I'm looking at my library it's how to teach you can't teach a kid to ride a bike at a seminar by Sandler you can't teach a kid ride a bike at a seminar long story short each one of us has two people at any one time your identity and your role and at any given time scale zero is bad Ten's perfect what's your identity who you are as a human being all of us our answer is always a 10. our identity we are self-awareness who we are
17:35 self-impression you must be attempt you must be a 10 we are at 10 we're all tensed then there's your role you're playing at any given time so I was a new dad five years ago when I had my son my role as a father my sister were one I had no idea what to do I was scared to death and I was not the best dad and you learned you fumble through you fail and you learn to change diapers and feed and all that good stuff so your role could be a zero but as you gain lessons as you gain experience through failure you improve and your role your same thing can be with sales if you
18:11 don't know how to sell something your role would be a zero but your identity still a ten you're still a good human being you're just not good at something well you either go bury yourself in that skill and and get books and coaches and mentors to increase your your um your expertise in that skill set or you go find someone else who's good at it and partner with them right so play to your strength so to speak and if you have a weakness either you improve that weakness or focus on your strength and partner with someone else that has a strength that complements yours so you have the two strengths working together uh it's always easier to to to perform
18:47 at a higher level with your current strength than it is to try and take a weakness of yours and bring that up that's a whole nother concept we can talk about too so long story short I went them I went the Marine Corps to escape the financial control for my father and that always led me and my my family's entrepreneurs so I have the entrepreneurial mindset and I work for big firms for many years I worked for Merrill Lynch for five years never fit in being a veteran being opinionated having a conscience having a uh opinion a professional opinion maybe why are we doing it this way it doesn't always make sense stay in your box
19:22 Corporate America generally wants people to stay in their boxes right and for many that's fine because our mind works that way and you want a job and that's a job you work for a big company you have a job you have a career and you're fine with that my mind doesn't work that way and my Minds always think of new ways good bad or ugly to do things and I'm always constantly why is I'm questioning and is this the best box and why is the box a box why is it not a circle wasn't a sphere is it a rhombus depends how you look at it and so having that mindset I learned and having
19:58 mentors in Corporate America you don't fit you don't fit you don't fit you don't belong here eventually I knew I was going to own my own shop and in 2018 five years ago that moment came after you know five years one firm and almost a decade another 15 years Corporate America it was time for me to start my own and I did and I failed miserably my first hire was a horrible one my relationship my first firm was not a good one I had to set up everything out of nothing and I thought I could do it and fail fail fail fail fail however learn learn learn improve improve improve Rebrand change the name have your focus
20:35 have your mission have your why have your Niche drill down have a service model that maybe has some holes in it now is dialed in as tight have your Sops every time a pilot gets ready to take off doesn't matter the first time or 500th time that the checklist one two three four five they do the same thing every time why because it works right and so you can build that checklist for your business and we're doing that right now so if I'm not there I'd be gone for a week someone could step in and run the ship without me being there that's a business not a practice a practice you have to be there because you are the practicing person but if you build a business that can succeed when
21:10 you're not there it actually has more Enterprise values when you sell you can make more you also you don't have to be there and sell the chip Revenue coming in it's almost turns into mailbox money in a way like a rental property it's nice to have rental income coming in when you have to be there right so I'll stop there I mean that was a bit of a yeah yeah that's where I'm going that's where I come from that kind of sets the broad view so so let's let's I'm going to take you back so you joined the Marine Corps to get out of a bad family situation and by the way a very common reason for for young people joining the military and and I I
21:45 I remember when I first got when I got to my first Duty station in Okinawa Japan I had a young Marine come in to talk to me and and you know and she's like you know here's my situation chaplain and and and basically you know she had I mean horrible horrible family situation and she she she had the presence of of mind to say I can't keep doing this this is a road to Oblivion I've got to do something else and she felt like the military would help her develop the discipline she needed Etc and and and so that's one of the reasons
22:20 it's it's so people is is a lot of them have a much greater degree of of self-understanding than other other than other peers than their peers who are not military and and you certainly demonstrate that so you went into a I assume it's an nrotc program Navy Reserve officer right correct so at some point you had to either go Navy or go Marine Corps right you had to take that option that's that's how it works in our like my dad went through it he went Navy
22:55 um I actually was given an nrotc scholarship and then because it conflicted with studying architecture I didn't take it one of the frankly I think big mistakes I made in my life um so why did you opt to go for the Marine Corps rather than the Navy oh this this is where everyone's to hear the you know my grandfather and did this and stormed this beach and and here I'm gonna give you the brutal reality so my freshman year the Navy at that time wanted and they still want nuclear engineers and they want Engineers the Navy wants to be an
23:30 engineer in college okay freshman year I had calc one I think I had physics one and then during the summer like okay I got an A in calc one although okay I'm pretty smart I can figure this out and I tried to do some well I went home to Rhode Island to work at a construction job to make a little bit of money my freshman year and I said I'll sign up I need Spanish two I need calc 2 and I can't remember there's another course or not where I'll take over summer school and the morning a little more construction jobs like painting houses and just afternoon or vice versa and so I figured I could Wing cow 2 without doing
24:07 homework and anyone's listening you may think you're smart you cannot win count two and not do your homework you've got to sit there and figure out the chain Rule and do your formulas so long story short I failed count two in summer school again and calc one and I failed calc 2. because look at my sophomore year I'm like do it again I was trying to get ahead like but the Marine Corps doesn't need calcium and like they do fun stuff they blow stuff up and those guys are kind of tough I I'm okay with that let's try that so the real Catalyst for me to go to the Marine Corps was because I failed calc 2 My Summer year of uh of college
24:44 that's the honest to God truth however it was a better better fit for me anyway my mindset's there and just kind of who I am if you can't tell already like the Marine Corps was definitely a better place for me and there was nothing wrong in the Navy but I just fit more with the Marines and had a good time there so everything happens for a reason right and and that's the truth so that's how I ended up the Marine Corps because I failed cow two truth so as you're talking about you know not not being an in the Box thinker or in the severe thing so um on Tuesdays I do a show called business lessons from the military and right now I'm showing how Marine Corps
25:19 War fighting docking virtually transfer one to one and and one of the things I was talking about yesterday under uh command philosophy was this idea of you want to um um push command down to the lowest level possible right because the person on the scene is the one who's going to be best placed right that's a Marine Corps part of the Marine Corps ethos and that that absolutely requires you know from the time you're a non-commissioned officer or a Corporal
25:54 or a sergeant up through the commissioned officer ranks it requires you to be looking outside of the box because you can't achieve your objective otherwise right so that so I'm as I'm as you're saying that I'm thinking see here's a living example of what I was talking about yesterday so now you're in the you're you're done with college you're now commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps right so how did that Marine Corps experience shape you and prepare you for the next stage of your life
26:30 so many things there I will share everyone thinks I am the way I am because of the Marine Corps I will say I think you're born the way you are and and you learn in your nature versus nurture I think Nature's nature so I'll share my I was a peacetime marine and so as a lieutenant I was an armor officers tank someone Abrams Marine Corps had tanks back in the day they don't know that's a whole other conversation and I still remember you know my mission as a young Lieutenant was to make sure your platoon is ready to go to combat and just share a couple stories as a
27:06 peacetime Marine one of the things is tactics so if I'm shot in the head can my platoon carry out the mission without me there right just like today do you have an sop if the if the manager is not in charge owner's not there can the team run the mission the same thing same exact concept but I remember I would say okay I'd have my ncos my corporals meet me out at a bar and I'll bring some little tanks and we get a pitcher of beer and I'd say let's get tanks and we'll do tactics on the pool table and we drive little cars around and do tactics you know they liked it I'd mind it but then a peace time my EXO Ben Henderson you can't keep your Marines after hours you can't do that or you're
27:42 taking away from family time they're not going to stay in they're not going to re-enlist you're taking their family like my XO if you go to Camp combat and make sure these guys can perform that's my job oh you're you're you're you're going to make them not enlist my Excel and I'm like we were like this right and and so I should I oh I should have said okay okay thank you and then just what would you like me to do it's not how I roll it's not hollyroll it's not who I am never has been never will be and so him and I fought right I didn't agree with his style and you agree with my style so
28:17 it was a lesson I need a Gunnery Range uh Gunnery exercise you take tanks to the very range once twice a year and I still remember this one night we had that we're running machine guns and no no main gun just machine guns and I let my Gunner take my position the tank commander see I'll let I was firing he was giving the fire commands as though I was dead we were practicing I was like hey if I'm not here you got it right and you know I remember that night after the range got off and EXO's like man you Gibbons didn't hit tonight Henderson Gibbons was my Gunner and I'm like no it
28:53 was me it was me I wasn't anything he was like what do you mean like I took God he was commanding oh you're not following protocol you're broken you're breaking safety violation like I always control the weapon system I'm the officer it's fine no you didn't like you're not in the Box you're not in the Box you're not in the box so the military still has boxes right now in combat that all gets thrown out and it's take the hill and Lead but in peace time peacetime you're not playing the game you're not a good lieutenant I'll give one more example of that uh what shape me asking my experience I'm giving to you things that stuck this over 20 years ago we had I think two three days to
29:28 plan our own mission for our platoons things we wanted to do and I said okay this is cool something different and so there's a local Civil War battlefield Manassas and I said oh let's do a battlefield tour go check that out and like we could learn the taxes they're using in the Civil War and then also we had the com unit or the communications unit hey let's do some field expedient radio antennas and go on different split up of tune go different sides of the base and see if we can throw some uh calm wire over tree branches and see if we can talk to each other get some radios and and do some other training that was a little different and I had my plan I put it in and submit it and
30:04 actually you're the dog again I'm taking the dog why am I digging the dog you could take your tanks out in the field instead of you taking your tanks out in the field you're gonna go play Cowboys and Indians in the Civil War battlefields and and like yeah I am I'm gonna do something different explosion reads of something else we do we're tankers run tanks all the time let them see something that's out there so long story short how this comes back to business there's always red tape there's always bureaucracy they're always games and either you play that game and your job if you're in Corporate America and
30:39 okay and sure what should I do and then your job is just to help whoever's above you get promoted and if you help whoever's above you get promoted they'll bring you along with them if you're fine with that there's nothing wrong with that in management you wonder what your job is your job's at your boss promoted if you're faced with a decision I should do a b or c which one's gonna make your boss look better and not her new clients and not sacrifice your ethics morals that's the answer whatever makes your boss look better is the right answer in Corporate America if you're in that hierarchy structure and so I didn't do well that game I did not do
31:16 well and so you moved to Corporate America same thing don't fit the box I just run my own game I think my own way and Brett you're not a team player you're this you're that you're this some some executive got up and said something and that doesn't make sense and I just raised my head hold up hold on the inside right you can't you can't say that that's so and so the head so and so I'm like that dude's not paying my bills that dude's not giving me clients I am right and so if that person's paying my bills that's different but he's not helping me find clients I'm finding my own clients I'm driving my own Revenue I
31:51 have my own business here so he should thank me and I've given the feedback to improve the organization so rather than say no maybe have a different mindset and say yes so long story short all those excuse just experiences I learned from them which led me to saying I don't fit in that mold right I need to be in my own box and I built my own box and that's my own firm Strategic Wealth Endeavor so here I welcome different ideas I welcome people to challenge my mindset because I know my mind works one way but there are many different other perspectives and rather say mine's right yours is wrong I
32:28 think it's prudent for anyone to succeed to say oh your your vision's different your idea is different let me understand how you think I don't have to agree with it I'd say you're the right mind's wrong but let me understand as long as you're learning understanding you're growing if you're growing you're improving and you're working towards better outcomes because you have a broader perspective I will say in business if you're not growing you're dying so there's nothing wrong with learning another another perspective and seeing how other people think because then trying to take what's good from their ideas improve your own and whatever's bad like your parents we all have parents growing up and I'll throw back at you it will give me give me two
33:03 things you love that your parents did um so my parents gave me a lot of Independence or they encouraged me to be independent that's number one and and number two um my dad absolutely demanded that in essence my word be my bond ethical Behavior was there was nothing lower than than a man who who you know broke his word who lied okay you remember that and then you live by that today you absorb that in your ethos right give me two bad things that you remember your parents doing which
33:38 like I'll never do uh well hope Tope never do right because you know right where the Apple doesn't fall too far from the tree so um my parents fought like cats and dogs um and I mean and I mean like screaming fights um so and and to this day I have a huge aversion to any kind of conflict um so that's number one and and number two um you have to think about this um so after my parents got divorced
34:15 um my mother exhibited shall we say somewhat less than mature Behavior um and and for a you know early teenage son to witness that behavior on his mother's part all also had a very deep impact on me um and and it's it's frankly probably made me a little more stodgy than was necessarily useful in my life right um but you know again we get these stronger versions to certain things as young people and and I don't think we ever get rid of them we figure them out and and
34:52 at best probably learn to compensate for them 100 I appreciate you sharing that and where I'm going with this is that we all should take away good points and try and emulate them and observe bad points and try not to replicate them you know mine I'll just go with the bad points because bad and my family was worse so there was three things that were bad like my father was violent he your parents argued my father beat the out of me he hit me and my sister and my mom he's violent so I'll never hit anyone well I will hit someone if you come after me but I'm not gonna start a fight and and the other thing my father drank King George Scotch so I I
35:27 can never drink Scotch we had Muppets glasses from the um McDonald's Happy Meals my father would drink Scotch in the in the Muppets classes I still remember the smell of scotch even after coming out of the dishwasher several times and I just today's day if I smell Scotch I think my father beating me so I don't drink Scotch and then my mom she smoked cigarettes and she and just and she's in a nursing home now she's 79 and she's still with us thank God somehow but she smoked for 60 years and she her lungs are shutting down the reason she's in a nursing homes because her lungs are fried from smoking for 60 years and so I'll Never Smoke because of that so I
36:02 take it for you as anyone who's listening take the good learn it model it emulate it take the bad try not to replicate it as best you can so sore a bit of pontificating but we all have those lessons and they stick and they definitely stick right so and it's it's interesting you bring that up about parents the good and the bad because I think a lot of us get mired in this well you know this is the way I was raised or I'm this way because you know my parents or whatever and at a fairly early age I want to say I was probably in my early maybe mid-20s
36:37 it it suddenly occurred to me that look my parents they did the best job that they could do based on who they were I I don't think my either one of my parents purposely set out to mess up my life I mean and by the way I think there are some parents who do that that that's a different thing but but I think the vast majority of parents look they do the best job they can given the hand they've been dealt and then and then we start our journey to adulthood at the point where we say okay I got the raw material now it's my
37:14 responsibility to make whatever I'm going to make of myself out of the raw material that my parents sort of bequeathed me right and and that's where our our real journey of of maturation starts because that's the point at which we take responsibility for who we're going to be you know as a person and and it's it's it's both incredibly liberating and down your soul frightening I think when when we make that decision 100 and I think I think where things
37:50 have changed based on Generations you know I'm Gen X I I assume you're Gen X or you're on the Boomer custard I'm a baby boomer your Boomer cuss yeah have a good compliment Gen X yeah come on chaplain I'm giving you compliment and so Generations change it used to be when you were growing up does it well you think you're special and then now Millennials hey you're special right Mr Rod you're special right and so things have changed and there's that impacts who you are that impacts your confidence impacts your psyche I in high school could do whatever the heck I wanted I had no curfew I could
38:25 stay out whenever um I think it was a driving curfew When You're 15 or so or 16 you got your license when I got my license it would be out past a certain time and whatnot but I can go out and do whatever I wanted I realized well I want to have good grades I have to study right and my father would leave me alone for a week and I had to feed the animals grow in a farm and if I'm for the animals animals died and I've done with the animals to die when the dogs do well so I I was responsible and you you have to be and so I just learned at a very young age of being self-reliant where I saw so I got to college yeah I went to college in New Orleans drinking age was still 18. I had to get a scholarship I was Greek I was
39:01 working I was working out uh I had a full load and I could drink at 18. you could get a beer on meal plan so I could get wasted and not go to class or I have a drink here and there learn and then say I got stuff to do right right and so I buckled down out of the desire to be successful where I saw a lot of my friends who maybe had more parental control now didn't have that and we're like let's party and went nuts and half of that I saw I think my ROTC Class half of us we had a 50 graduation rate
39:38 yeah 50 for my freshman year to senior year and so I think the sooner you can acknowledge your own independence and that your life is nothing but a culmination of your decisions you are at the end just a result of every decision you've ever made since you were little you I'm response from my life if if I'm not a bigger house it's because I didn't do something if I in a relationship it's because of my actions and the sooner you I we take responsibility for actions what we've done or haven't done the
40:14 sooner we can control that in our next decision and learn learn grow fail fail learn grow fail fail fail learn grow and improve improve improve improve and I think it you somehow shift mindset I went to a presentation a couple months ago in San Diego and there was a generationologist and he talked about in your in your 20s your 30s you're in the conquer face you have to go out and try and do and you fail and but you do eventually conquer if you keep trying to learn from your failures but then you get your in your 40s and you transition because you've had so many failures and learned so much
40:49 you start to have wisdom wisdom right chaplain people come to you for your wisdom for your experience for your knowledge for your mentorship and I don't I saw that happen to myself last several years and even as a business owner we just hit our five year anniversary Mark I now have wisdom and so just like you you're giving back you're helping others trying to get to A to B without having to go through the same trials tribulations and failures that you and I went through our podcast the veteran entrepreneur Master Class I'm not allowed to talk about it yeah
41:25 absolutely okay I'm just doing this is yours baby but we're complimentary our podcast the veteran entrepreneur Master Class podcast is just about that if I can take my lessons my failures and share them with you and you have the wherewithal to take those lessons and learn from them which is really really really hard to do read a book think you've got the lesson don't turn touch the stove the stove's hot don't touch this dose okay I shouldn't touch the stove but is it really hot you got it oh yeah oh it is really hot it's just who we are right so it's it's so funny when
42:00 not funny which it's life life is funny I have all these other veterans on that share their trials tribulations and then sometimes also if someone come in who I know is listening they've been part of the whole process there and they just did it they had an experience where they completely went against everything we talked about in the podcast like what is it why did you do that oh because I wanted to do it on my own and so as much as we try and help and share wisdom when we're in the wisdom phase those in the conquer phase cannot because they're just mentally not there yet and there's nothing wrong with it it's how we grow it's how we develop it
42:35 it's just time and experience in life the conquer phase has to fail to learn they can't read you can't read your way through life you can't just be a complete academic and just say then go from Academia forever with no life experience and then be a Jedi master in whatever field or trade you want you must get out there and do so much of we're trying to give back and help reality is okay I've heard about that I think what what does happen when you and I share our knowledge and someone hears it and maybe they go through a situation and they fail like Ah that's what they were talking about that's what Kevin was
43:10 talking about now I get it so it's the kind of the reinforcement of your own experiences in life and failing with the mentorship or something above you say ah does that make sense so I think what you're doing is amazing and how you're sharing this information it's good entrepreneurs or would-be entrepreneurs you're going to have an idea in your mind go through something yeah try it fail it's okay to fail that's how you get your role from a zero to a ten fail fail fail learn learn whenever that role as you're working on get those failures keep growing keep pushing yourself don't quit the biggest thing is having the grit not to quit and that I have seen
43:46 and there is an issue there's a challenge something I've seen professionally it's some and not a not meant to be a broad stereotypical statement saying the entire generation but there is something with younger generation who has been babied is afraid to fail I have a couple professionals I know they work very hard to get to certain place in their life you need a next level of education and there are certain boards or exams they have to take and pass to get to the next level and they failed and they fail twice well I'm not gonna do this anymore and they quit you cannot climb Everest 90 and just say I
44:21 quit you must go that extra 10 to finish if you want to grow if you want to succeed you cannot ah okay I'll try uh no no no not for me and you can't grow you cannot grow if you don't learn from failure and keep driving through so grit I think grit if we're passing anything any knowledge here have the courage to fail fail fast learn acknowledge excellent so I wanna I wanna now pick up your professional threads so you've been in the Marine Corps and you get out of the Marine Corps why did you decide to go into uh Financial Services what what led you to make that decision
44:59 so when I was in the Marine Corps peacetime Marine again on the weekends I could either go out and try and hook up with a list of men's wives or I could get my Master's Degree from Boston University uh so I chose to get my Master's Degree from Boston University so in Camp Lejeune in North Carolina bu would fly professors from Boston down to the campus on the weekends and I'd sit there every other weekend Saturday and Sunday eight to four and just absorb knowledge and learn business classes and so I got some business Acumen going while I was on the Marine Corps and then there was actually I had no idea what
45:35 Financial Services were or what they what it was but there was a Navy Captain Joseph A Bear I remember him uh there was a alumni directory that students were allowed to look at and I found this one gentleman Joseph A bear and he was a recruiter for Merrill Lynch a Navy captain reservist and he called me up we started talking Henderson I put to the mat pin your ass you're nothing to me a little marine and like oh okay sir well I like this guy who's spunky he was spunky and so this is before Merrill Lynch failed and Bank America bought them right they took myself and several my peers and flew us
46:11 I flew it to be driver flew whatever they did they got through Jersey put us a big corporate campus it was like this church it was like this Gothic place like wow it's Mecca of Merrill Lynch and winded dinedus and showed us a program what it could be and then this was 2002. and if you remember 2002 what did we just come out of the.com era so we had 1990 our yeah no 99 wasn't up here 2000 was a down your stock market one was a down year 2002 so we had three down years in a row which we haven't had since so over 20 years ago no one can imagine like why would you put a dollar
46:47 in the stock market if three years in a row that is less less like it doesn't sound like a prudent investment and people forgot the stock market went up so they offered me a job and I said no I said no I said no and because I was doing the now stock market like this is not a successful thing because your job if you work at a big firm is to be a shepherd and go and gather assets and want you to bring in money and I said this is not the time to do that and there was another company called Cintas and Cintas is a uniform people out of Cincinnati Ohio and they love veterans and so every big you go to get your Starbucks uniforms
47:22 towels mops uh you go into any gas station they're wearing shirts say Gaga or Bob's Plumbing whatever anywhere in your uniform Centos kind of does that work and there's a location they have some challenges in Van Nuys California said hey you're a marine and they had two army officers like let's get these military guys they'll fix it and they threw us in this world and said go fix this mess and that's where I humbly learned that leadership in Corporate America is harder than it is in the military a lot military Adventure no no no no no because in the military when you have a
47:57 task to do something you go until the task is complete there's no eight hour day there's no overtime there's no HR there's no I don't like the way you're talking to me Marine Corps military there's a mission you get it done when it's done then you're done covert America okay we have a problem let's get this done oh yeah get it done but only eight hours oh and make sure they stop have their lunch break oh and make sure that they stop and have a pee break every 15 minutes before so that it has to be documented and you gotta have your rest and it has to oh and if you do it one minute over here the time and a half so can't mess this up
48:33 whoa whoa leadership Management in Corporate America with rules designed to protect employees which are a good thing make it much much harder to lead in Corporate America especially in California than I think in the military and sorry I'm pontificating I don't know if I'm answering your question anymore no you are um so I think the transition when I came out in corporate American leadership was like whoa this is tough you know I tell guys like can you please shave before you come to work and can you please not sell things off your truck for cash can you please not steal
49:09 you know can you please yeah all the stuff like I didn't want to do that and so then the stock market turned around in 03 and 04 Joseph called me hey Henderson you coming over luck at that point in time though I had a I had a job and a master's degree I didn't have to leave so we want you we want you and then pay me I will give you this nope we'll give you this nope we'll give you this nope fine okay okay so they gave me a very high base salary to come be a trainee and at those days if you work for a big firm really was 80 20 rule they'll hire
49:44 10 guys or gals and maybe two out of those ten would stick and I had a I had an angel's name with top Kleinfeld throw it out there he made sure that because what happens when you go in the financial service industry if anyone's listening what is the financial services industry your job if you work for big firms to just to bring in assets talk to people talk to CPAs State planning attorneys where they say hey here's here's my money manage my money because I don't know how to do it I'd like some help right and so you're a Shepherd you have to get your licenses your seven year 66 is your Crook and then you have a flock or you have your your shepherd with a crook and
50:19 no flock and they're like okay we paid you for this so your flock has to have this many sheep in it in three months or you're fired in six months you're fired or nine months you're fired and totally like ah you're trying trying trying and it was designed so that you failed unless you had an angel not an angel my angel made sure I met my goals I transferred Revenue to them and long story short I built relationships because I had a master's in business I could read financial statements there's two payroll companies ADP and paychecks that both had a corporate relationship with Merrill Lynch and I got to know those reps so my I built my career getting to
50:57 know other people and their goals and they liked me and so when they went out they met with a CPA would refer a new business owner a payroll client to paychecks or ADP then paychecks ready P would then bring their 401K person in after the payroll person was there and the 401K person said ah Brett's going to be your 41k guy so I was given 250 clients my first four years because I built strong relationships with people that could help me six friends which is a great way to build a business however in 0809 Maryland failed and UBS said hey come over here we don't
51:32 have a 401k specialist I didn't want to be a 41k specialist I just turned into a foreign case specialist and I said okay and they gave me a bunch of money to I had 250 actually I had 200 230 customers and maybe 20 clients and the difference if you're listening you're not sure between a customer to client is a relationship when you have a client you have a relationship and the relationship built upon trust likability and performance and when I left because I had so many accounts given to me I just signed them up sign up sign them up but I didn't go back to build that relationship so when
52:08 I left it because I left didn't mean they had to leave didn't have to follow me but the ones I have a relationship with did so like oh that's a huge lesson for anyone here is make sure if you're in business and if you're generating generating revenue and you can have a client over a customer any day build that relationship and to build that relationship you must have three things well you say two I say there's three they must like you they must trust you and I add for a long-term relationship they must respect you if someone likes trust or respects you they will work with you you
52:43 can make a mistake here and there if you own it they'll still respect you for that and they'll like you and they'll trust you because you own your mistakes but if you break any of those you'll lose their trust if you lose trust and long term if you're a jerk you do anything good though and they don't like you they're not going to stay with you so if you're in business you're trying to build a relationship-based business with clients you must find a way to have your clients or build your clientele by making sure they like trust and respect you and so that's how I kind of gotten going again after failing to not build relationships having to start my clientele build my book of business
53:18 again in 20 uh 2010 through 2019 and I sold our 18. and a nine-year commitment with UBS so if I left it would have sued me for the first nine years because you have a bunch of money they give you money to move over Merrill Lynch and you have to wait nine years that ended and over those nine years at UBS I was learning many many times to see what the firm offers what you need versus seed and run your practice and at a big Fermi of a practice not a business it's a practice right I learned okay I don't need the house for this this and this I can do all this and so finally once my contract was done
53:55 I set up my own shop uh at first it was actually Henderson wealth management and I learned that's about what me lions right my clients knew my name just because it was on their statements but a year ago we went through a complete Rebrand and we changed the name you could see above this side sorry which way the background a father or her if I can call you that and everyone is on their own wealth Endeavor you've got yours I'm on mine everyone listening isn't their own wealth Endeavor if I can bring a little strategy to it I hope you give them a to B faster that's adding massive value so our goal
54:31 is to add massive value for a client's own wealth Endeavor so that's the name of our firm so it's no longer about me it's what we do for our clients and they're ideally the outcomes they attain if we do our job with them not for them but with them because it's their money I will just say on one thing if you got money I learned this so I learned this lesson a hard hard way I can't care more about your money than you do something's not right and that happened happened several times so many times that you want to do them to learn is you can't care more about your client there so that's how I got there that's how I got there Brothers hopefully I kept everyone awake there's not too much drool and we got three minutes left
55:08 right