Summary In this conversation, Jeff Hybiak shares his personal journey from being an introverted accountant to becoming a co-owner of an investment advisory firm. He discusses the importance of being true to oneself and finding a career that aligns with one's interests and strengths. Jeff also talks about the founding of Cornerstone Portfolios, a biblically responsible investment strategy that screens out companies involved in activities such as abortion, pornography, gambling, tobacco, and alcohol. He emphasizes the need for Christians to not only avoid profiting from objectionable activities but also support companies that demonstrate Christian values and contribute positively to their communities. Jeff discusses the importance of aligning investments with personal values and integrating faith into the financial planning industry. He emphasizes the need for Christians to openly talk about their faith and use their platform to spread love and share their beliefs. Jeff also highlights the significance of focusing on core values, relationships, and making a positive impact on others. He expresses his passion for educating young people about financial literacy and hopes to see a network of Christian financial advisors who can guide and support individuals in their financial journey.

Takeaways

• Being true to oneself and pursuing a career that aligns with one's interests and strengths is important for personal fulfillment.
• Cornerstone Portfolios is a biblically responsible investment strategy that screens out companies involved in objectionable activities.
• It is important for Christians to not only avoid profiting from objectionable activities but also support companies that demonstrate Christian values and contribute positively to their communities.
• Investors should be aware of the companies they own, even in index funds, as they may still be profiting from activities that go against their values.
• Investments should align with personal values and beliefs.
• Christians should openly talk about their faith and use their platform to spread love and share their beliefs.
• Focus on core values, relationships, and making a positive impact on others.
• Educate young people about financial literacy and guide them in their financial journey.

Jeff's TikTok Channel: The Finance Nerd

You're listening to the Investing with Integrity podcast. My name is Jeff Talarico I am your host. I am honored today to have Jeff Hybiak with us. He is the chief investment officer at SEM Wealth Management, which has offices in Tucson, Arizona and New Kent, Virginia. He's been in the industry for over 25 years and leads his firm's unique investment approach. Jeff graduated from the University of Northern Colorado. Go Bears, right, Jeff? He's also a CFA charter holder. More importantly,

That's right. Good job.

Jeff became a Christian in 2001, and he's a member of his church's worship team where he plays bass and keyboard. Jeff is the father of six kids and the proud papa of three grandchildren so far. Jeff also guests lectures at Liberty University, and in the little free time he has, he enjoys coaching his twins travel soccer team. So Jeff, welcome to the show, glad to have you.

Yeah, my pleasure. Glad we could work this out.

Awesome. So I'm going to start off with you the same way I start off with all my guests. Tell us something interesting about yourself that most people don't know.

My I had to ask my wife this question because you know, I said I told her I said nothing's interesting about me and she said that's actually sort of what's interesting about you is that I am the biggest introvert you'll probably ever meet and I Prefer to be at home with a book just all by myself But yet for the last 25 years, I've literally been the face and the spokesperson for SEM You mentioned I'm lecturing at Liberty like

Every time I go out in public, it takes so much to get out there. And so when I tell people that they're like, oh, no way, you seem so comfortable. I'm like, it is a hundred percent in that.

So you act quite well, because I just had the pleasure of meeting you last month at the Kingdom Advisors Conference and we hit it off great. You spoke very well. I would have never guessed that you're an actual introvert.

Yeah. So kudos to my wife who's known me, you know, basically half my life to figure out who I am. And, um, yeah, it just drains me. I come home from a conference and I just need to be locked kind of in this room. I was telling you before we went on air, this is my little sanctuary now where I can just have peace and quiet.

Well, you've got a lot more guts than I do. My wife and I have been together for 42 years and I doubt I will ever ask her to tell me something about myself. She'll let me know, believe me. So tell us about your history. How did you get started in the financial services field?

Oh I bet she will

Yeah, it's kind of an interesting thing. You mentioned Northern Colorado, where I grew up. Basically, I always tell people, you know, the corner that's almost Nebraska, that's where I grew up, a town of 12 ,000 people. My grandfather owned a small business where they worked on farm machinery and all of us worked in the business. They always wanted me to work in the shop with my dad and grandpa and uncles, but I kept migrating into the office to help my mom out. And.

She, I helped her do the books and invoices and everything. And I just really loved that to the point when I got to high school, the only business class they offered was accounting. And I thought, well, I'm just naturally good with numbers and I like doing this. So that's what I majored in, not knowing what I was getting into. And then I got an accounting internship my freshman year, actually helping farmers do their taxes and things like that. and then that turned into a more full -time position, but two years in, I was just.

bored to tears and going, is this going to be what I'm going to do the rest of my life? And so, and I always tell people, you know, I wasn't even a Christian yet then, but you can kind of see God steering me. I happened to have a conversation with somebody in the career services office who had kind of gone through the same thing. And they said, well, tell me what you like and don't like about your job. And basically we figured out that the part of accounting that I liked was actually finance. The part that I hated was accounting. And so the way they described it to me was accountings, taking all the data.

and saying, well, that's what actually happened. Finance is taking all the data and saying, now let's try to figure out what's going to happen in the future. And to me, that's mentally stimulating. And so I stumbled into that, thought I wanted to do more work on a corporate banking type thing, actually got a job in banking, and then was bored to tears three months in again. And just happened again through the grace of God, I saw a little one ad.

That's a great story, but you know, the accounting background goes hand in hand with being an introvert.

Yes, yes, 100 % it does.

Well, good deal. And we're glad you made that move because you have done some amazing things with SEM Wealth Management. Why don't you tell a little bit about this unique method that you guys use when you are investing money?

Yeah, absolutely. We first off, my partner is an engineer. He doesn't even have a finance or business background. He started as an engineer. So he's all numbers based also goes along with he's introverts, introverts and things like that. And we're all rules based, all numbers based, because if you look at the markets, you know, I mentioned how accounting is taking the data and trying to project it forward. Well, there's a lot of human.

biases that we'll have that our brains will play tricks on us when it comes to making a hard decision. So what we try to do is say, well, what are the numbers say is currently happening and based on history, what is likely to happen next? So it's just kind of a probabilities game. And so everything we've done has always been quantitatively based. And so every decision around that is on that. So we don't have to say, well, I think this company's earnings are going to be better. Therefore we should invest. It's more.

This is where the money is flowing and this is what history says based on those numbers should continue to happen or not.

And that's fared very well for you guys, has it not?

Yeah, I mean, it's we don't like to talk about performance or anything on here, but especially on the fixed income space, I challenge anybody to come up with a track record like ours. There's probably only six firms in the entire country that have been around as long as we have. To one, that just says how hard it is. And the fact that there's only six of us out of tens of thousands of financial firms out there that do what we do for this long says enough. And it's...

It's just because our brains are amazing computers, but when it comes to making a hard decision, they typically lead us in the wrong direction.

That's awesome. So, you know, a lot of what you do has been secular based for a long time, and you've just recently moved into this biblically responsible space. You want to talk a little bit about that and how that transition's worked for you?

Yeah, absolutely. And it's, again, being engineers and numbers based, we started hearing people asking about biblically responsible and they might've called it something different, you know, back in the early 2000s when it was kind of in its infancy. And we always took the engineer's approach that said, well, if you look at the data and you exclude things from your investment set, your numbers are not going to be as good and your performance is going to suffer. And so we never really dug deeper into it.

And then again, like my entire life, God pushing us towards these things. I met a gentleman, I was literally filling in meetings between a due diligence trip up there to visit some of the investment managers that we use. And I said, you mind if I stop by? They were using us somewhat in our portfolios. And he set me down to lunch and the first thing he did was he prayed.

before lunch, which I, you know, I'd been in the industry by then 20 years and nobody had ever prayed at a business dinner. And it was kind of convicting to me. I'm like, well, why am I not praying? But then we got to talking and he was using this program set that we called Amerigard and it was basically designed for people who were transitioning out of American funds, but they still wanted some American funds. But we also had to add some Vanguard and iShares and things like that. And he says, I love what you're doing with Amerigard.

you

but have you ever considered doing a biblically responsible portfolio with the same mandate? I said, you know, Roy, you're going to give up your investments that the numbers won't be as good as we would like. And he said, I'd encourage you to look a little bit deeper because you might be surprised. And so I was going back to our Tucson office the following week. And so Cody and I sat down and we got into Morningstar and to our surprise, you could build out a really well -rounded biblically responsible portfolio.

That's a great story, Jeff. Backtrack a little bit. You're relatively a new believer, 2001, correct? So why don't you tell us a little bit about your testimony?

Yeah, it's, you know, and it's funny to think about it as a parent of six kids, as I mentioned, three grandkids, you know, we kind of struggled with and we've learned a lot of things from my parents and my parents insisted we go to church. They were Lutheran, no matter what we were going to church on Sundays. But then, you know, and I won't spill any tea on, you know, my family stuff and stuff that went on, but.

Let me just say the things that happened after that hour and a half at church were not things that I would say today reflect Christian, a Christian heart. And from that, I just was turned off by religion, didn't want anything to do with God, never had really read the Bible because as I always joke, Lutherans and Catholics don't read the Bible, they read the bulletin. No offense to those out there, but we wouldn't even open a Bible. They'd just say, well, here's your readings for today. And so I made a lot of mistakes.

You know, our oldest child is turning 30 and I'm turning 50. So do the math there. Really, my life was kind of a wreck. I'd had some things where God was steering me now with hindsight, I know, but I just got to the point where I was at a breaking point, both in my career and just really wanting to live anymore. And I was on my knees praying and just saying, God, if you're out there, show me something.

Like you, I don't want to be here anymore. I need to know that you want me here and show me something. And little did I know until a month later, literally that same night, my now wife was across the hall in our apartment building, praying a similar prayer of God, I'm at a breaking point.

And I need, I need something. And the next day, um, this, this wonderful six year old who, um, is now turning 30 this year, I'm taking out the trash and she said, today's my mommy's birthday. And I said, well, happy birthday, mommy. And, you mommy happens to be as big of an introvert as I am. And, um, so there's no way we would have ever talked to each other at this, this little girl brought us together and we both, we.

We spent hours and literally 18 hours one night just talking about what we wanted. And both of us said, you know, hey, I was praying this. I feel like we should be going to church. And we did. And we thankfully found a really good Bible believing church. And, you know, the way we talked about it, we dated for a month, we got engaged. And three months later I was baptized.

I then baptized her and then we got married right there in the hot tub. And 23 years later, here we are.

Wow, that is an amazing story. And I can hear the emotion in your voice. And that is, Jeff, when God does that, when he brings people together that are meant to be, it's an incredible story. Like I mentioned earlier, my wife and I have been together for 42 years and we just turned 60. And we, I mean, so do the math on that. We met our freshman year in college at 18. And so we've grown up together and it has been a beautiful thing watching how God does that. And...

So, yeah.

Yeah. Wow.

And if it wasn't for her, I don't know that I'd be doing what I do either. She actually is the one that led me to Christ. And it was just a, it's a great story and we'll share that some other time. But that, thank you for sharing your testimony with that because that is, we're real people, Jeff. And that's what I want listeners to understand. We're no different. We're just like them. We put our pants on one leg at a time. You know, I've never tried to jump into mine, but some people say they do. I just can't. You know me, I'm not going to be able to jump very high. But the whole, the whole,

Yeah, I'd love to hear that. Yeah, thanks.

Yeah.

premises is that we are human. We have emotions, we have feelings, and then we have God in our life and it's so much better and so different. So.

Yeah, it's, yeah, like, is it, and it, anytime, anything, you know, you get down and, you know, for us, and I encourage any Christian, just go back and look at your life before you were a Christian. And then, like I mentioned already, the ways God was kind of, you know, even though you didn't believe in Him, or you hadn't trusted your life to Him, He was still pushing you. We got free will, but He was still saying, this is where I think you need to be. And, you know,

Our difficulties always come because we're stubborn and we fight where God's pushing us. And that's, you know, then going back to what I was saying as parents, you know, we've really come down to, you know, do they have, do our kids have a relationship with God? And then of course, as a financial advisor, do they have a good relationship with money? And beyond that, what career they want to pick? What?

I'll agree with that.

you know what they want to do. And then we of course always encourage them be best friends. Know your spouse before you even date. You know, because as you know, especially you know, 46 years, if you're not friends with the person you're married to, there's gonna be some rough spots where it's gonna be hard to keep going. And to us, it's we always look at it was like, literally, we're having a sleepover every night with our best friend. And so far, our older kids who are married, they married their best friends. And it's, you know, so that's

That's kind of our big things based on our history of we never wanted to force them to go to church. We wanted them to understand who God was and choose to go to church.

Yeah, I think that that, you know, what you shared earlier about you were forced to go to church and you went to church, but then you went on your own path. That happens a lot, especially if you don't see the fruits of what you're being taught. And I can resonate well with that because I did spend the first 18 years of my life in, like you said, Lutheran Catholic. I spent it in the Catholic Church. And again, I'm not knocking that. I had a good foundation.

but it's not the Jesus that I serve today. And that's what was different and missing in my life. I knew that there was more. And I just, when I found Caryn and I found it and that's been the blessing in my life. So.

Yeah. And like I said, you know, had our parents not at least gotten us there, at least we knew to pray, you know, for both my spouse and I, you know, that we knew at least, you know, they had, we knew enough that, Hey, you should pray to God when things are tough. And, you know, here we are.

Yeah.

it's, it's again, it's a beautiful thing that we're able to do things like that. So, so are any of your kids following in your footsteps?

So Cody, who I mentioned is, and actually pretty close to my footsteps, he majored in accounting as well. He calls himself, so the way we describe, you have a sports car personality or you have a minivan personality, and he has a minivan personality, which is why he went into accounting. But he was on the fence of, do I like finance or do I like accounting? And I told him it's way easier to get an accounting degree in

for somebody to teach you finance than to get a finance degree and have to teach you accounting. Cause accounting gets way into the weeds. And so he did that and he ended up trying accounting, didn't like it, but he really liked helping people. And so he's what we call a client portfolio manager where he, he helps advisors and clients structure their portfolios and do financial planning and things like that. One of our twins thought he is, this is funny. So fifth grade promotion ceremony.

Um, he literally, as, as they like to joke, they built our company when we relocated to Virginia, they built desks and literally helped us start from scratch in fifth grade. He wanted to be a financial advisor. And so, you know, on the screens, they put up with all the kids want to do when they grow up. And most kids want to be YouTube stars, professional athletes, actors. And then his comes up and it says financial advisor that people behind over like financial advisor, but he, um, he's found the love of cars. So he actually wants to be a mechanic.

So one of my kids is doing it, which is plenty. They all have a heart to help people and I think they'll do that in their.

you know, that's part of it. It's that service aspect. I don't care what it is. I have been in the sales field or related field since I was basically 18 years old. And I don't know that I couldn't help a client. I mean, that's what I do. And the cool thing about being a financial advisor in a small town, I mean, we've got like 25 ,000 in the city and another 25 in the county, but I'm like the go -to guy. So when someone new comes to town and they interview us and they end up being our client,

we get the phone calls. Well, where do I go to get my haircut? Who's the mechanics we can trust? What are some of the good restaurants. I mean, that's who you become. And that's all service to clients. I spent about 16 years in the car business where I was, you know, anything from sales to management and helping clients, it's the key. And that's where you get that satisfaction. And you get to do it in a different way because you work with advisors like myself and help them with their portfolios and management of...

of certain investments. So tell us a little bit about, I know your story about BRI and how that affected you, but when you go to screen a portfolio, what type of things do you actually look for? Cause there are positive screens and then there are the negative screens. And I think there's a happy medium for a good rounded portfolio.

Yeah, I think that was really the thing that was most eye -opening to us as we started asking advisors and then the end clients of what they were looking for in the portfolio is just be, and Rick and I, my partner Rick knew this from the beginning of just because somebody says they're a mid cap fund doesn't mean they're necessarily a mid cap fund. Same way, just because somebody says they're a biblically responsible fund doesn't necessarily mean.

So we kind of came down and through talking to other Christian advisors that we work with is let's find the one, I hate always being the negative person, but first off, biblically responsible, how do we avoid profiting from things that God would object to? So that's our screen number one. And then the question there is, well, how do you define those objections? And that obviously will take some reading of the Bible and talking to the council and figuring out the gray areas.

of what it defines. And what we decided is, well, we want to be the least common denominator in that. Some and this goes away with Christianity in general. Some Christians might say this and this and this is OK. But I'm against this. We wanted to get to the bottom of what would generally all Christians say they are against. And so from us, when we're screening, that comes down to abortion, pornography, gambling.

alcohol, tobacco, things that can basically harm you or the body or living people. But then from there, you start asking, well, how do you define that? And what we found is some biblically responsible funds say, well, as long as that's not their primary target, line of business, we're okay having that. Whereas others say, well, we don't want a company that we're invested in donating money to Planned Parenthood because that's supporting abortion. And so the screening, like I said, just,

And again, this is the blessing of COVID. And we always try to find the bright side of I had plenty of time to make calls and dig into it and figure out what companies own and how do we screen that out? And so we look at it as if companies are openly supporting those things I talked about, you know, abortion, pornography, gambling, tobacco, and alcohol, then most Christians would say we probably shouldn't be also profiting from those types of companies. So that's kind of the avoid the no side of things.

Right, he tells us to love.

But as a Christian, you just mentioned a giving heart. You want to give in your community, Jeff. You know, want to be that. So we want to find companies who are also doing the same thing. They may not be proclaimed Christian companies. In fact, I don't know a publicly traded Christian company out there because they have a board of directors and they can't say we're Christians, but they can have Christian values and how they treat people. How do you treat your suppliers? How do you treat your employees? How do you treat your community? You know, do you have a good name out there?

something that a Christian should be proud to be a part of. And so that's the other screen is, what are the positive things that a company is doing?

That's awesome. And in doing so, you've built some really nice portfolios and I'm praying that they continue on with your success in this because we need choice. Clients need choice. Advisors need choice. And having more that are doing what we're looking for on our side of the house, it's just a benefit for all of us. We can get the word out. I think it was Mark Mannella with, he's with Faith Investor Services now.

He's starting this new rescue one T. Did you hear about that at Kingdom Advisors at all? Okay, he's starting this initiative where if we can just rescue $1 trillion from the marketplace, from the secular marketplace and put it into biblically responsible, that's a huge leap, but there's trillions still out there. One trillion, it's a great place to start. And that's, this is this initiative. I think you'll hear a little bit more about it over the next, you know, six, 12 months. There are...

Oh, I haven't heard about that.

they're really going to try to rule that out. And they need the help of other faith based firms that are doing what we do. So you'll probably hear something on that.

No, I like that. In fact, I was just updating our due diligence files for all the faith -based funds out there. And by my sum, there's only about $39 billion invested in these fund families. And you mentioned a trillion dollars is nothing. I think the Bitcoin ETF may have more than that by now. And what really gets me, and I'll have to, we like what Faith Investor Services is doing. They got

some really neat funds they're doing. But that concept of rescuing a trillion dollars is the education on a one -on -one level. And that's why I like your podcast and some of the things that our other partners are doing is you just don't really think about what you own. Everybody's buying index funds, but they're not understanding that when you own an index funds, you're still profiting from what the companies inside that index are doing. And if you have the data and the choice to

Yeah, and that's, I still believe it's an untapped market and I'm not, you know, doing this and focusing on the Christian marketplace or the Christian client. It's my passion with this. You know, I've shared this on the show several times already, but I came back from a Kingdom Advisors Conference six, seven, eight years ago and God convicted me there because I wasn't doing it. I was like everybody else going, oh yeah, it sounds nice, but it's going to mess up.

performance until he slapped me upside the head. And I came back and I blew up my book and it's been it's been really a blessing for me. And now now we're actually actively looking for these new clients that that don't know what they own. And it's it all starts with a conversation, Jeff, just like you and I are having now. And and that they don't even know to ask those questions. That's the thing. And and of course, the world's telling him, well, we got to get profit, profit, profit, profit, profit. That's all there is. And I'm like,

Mm -hmm.

Isaiah was a prophet and he was a pretty good one. But you know, it's those things that we need to be able to do. Just get the message out that you have a choice. Like you said about free will, we have a choice. We can choose God, we can not choose God. We can choose to do right, we can choose to do wrong. Same thing with investing. They just don't know it yet.

That's a good.

Yeah, and I think it's more, and this is kind of what I talked about with our kids of, you know, are they right with God? Do they have a good relationship with money? And did we teach them to marry your best friend? You know, those are core things. And the reason we focus more on not caring about what career they pick is, you know, wealth is temporary. This life is temporary. What matters most is, you know, what you do while you're here.

you

You want to hear, well done my good and faithful servant when you get there. And to me, the conviction at Kingdom Advisors as well was, here you're a Christian, you're giving into your church, yet you have this platform of advisors across the country and nobody could really tell you're a Christian. Yeah, I don't cuss, I don't drink, but are they really going to know that's because I'm not a Christian or because I am? You know, the...

I wasn't openly talking about my faith. And, you know, and I feel like, regardless of who you are, I mentioned, I'm an introvert. I am so uncomfortable. I'm not going to go out in the mission field, but I will openly talk about why I believe that Christians should be invested in Christian focused funds because, you know, I don't like talking politics and this is not a political show. All I will say is,

So, I get that.

I don't think God is up there trembling about which candidate wins or which political party is in control. What God cares about is one more person going to get saved. And the way people get saved is from the ground up, not from some person at the top dictating that, hey, we're a Christian company, so we're going to do Christian things. It needs to be that one -on -one relationship that you have with a friend, a coworker, a neighbor. And money is such an important part of our lives.

And so if we could align our investments with our personal values, then why wouldn't we? Because there's another conversation starter we can have with people. Oh, how about that market? Oh my gosh, you should see these things that Eventide is doing. Like, you know, in bio, like you could literally turn any conversation about money into something about God. And I love that.

you

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, you brought up a good point because the Bible is pretty clear from my understanding of it. It's God tells us that we are to, or Jesus told us, we're to love Him, love God, and love people, because God loves people. He doesn't care what political party you are. He doesn't care what nationality you are. He doesn't care the color of your skin. God loves people. And the Bible says if we are to love God,

Yeah.

Yeah.

we have to love people too, because if we don't love people, we really don't love God. And if more, if more Christians understood that, but we allow the world to divide us. And that is, that's one of the biggest downfalls I think we have and one of the biggest challenges we have. So let's get back on track here on stewardship. We talked a little bit about giving to the church. That's great.

Yeah.

Yep.

But when it comes to stewardship, we're called to do that. We are called to share our resources. Is there any programs or things that you guys are doing at SEM that you want people to know about?

You know, for us, it's more of, you know, you mentioned resources. To me, especially, you know, with six kids and three grandkids, my most precious resource is time. And, you know, where do you give your time? And, you know, you mentioned the worship band. That takes so much work. Yes, I get something out of it. I get to play some fun music with my friends and do that. But it is a lot of work. So that's one way I get my time. But at SCM as a firm,

Something that I've always believed in is, most people understand you're paid based on the assets you manage. Most of us are fee -based. So if you're paid a percentage, the higher account value somebody has, the more money they're paying you, which means a lot of little people with small account balances are left behind. And so something we've always done as a firm is we will do a free consultation and what we call a financial roadmap for anybody. That's our ministry is, and I...

Should have said this, some of the people don't know. I have a TikTok channel as well. And we call it finance nerd. And our whole thing is let's educate people starting as young as possible about their relationship with money and things they can do. So if somebody wants to come to us and they need a financial roadmap, we'll help them out and we'll give them that free of charge. If they want to start investing, we tell them commit to $50 a month and we will open an investment account for you. We will not make a dime on that account probably ever.

just because every time somebody at our firm touches it, it's a cost, but that's fine. God's given us this resource and plenty of time and plenty of clients that we can do this for free. So to us, it's stewardship of our time and our values to people. I love opening a $50 a month Roth account for an 18 year old. Like that, that is more exciting than us opening a million dollar account for somebody who's retiring. Like I am so,

Right.

for that 18 year old, put that money away, $50 a month, you're gonna be a multimillionaire probably if you keep this up. And, yep.

Absolutely. Time and the value of money. People, you know, I truly wish someone had started that with me when I was 18. We didn't think about those things. And that's where I love the education. If you don't mind, I'm going to put your TikTok channel in the show notes so people can try to find that and check you out. I will.

Yeah.

Yeah, please do. It's a financial literacy month is coming up in April. So it's a big month for us.

Good deal. So you have the opportunity to live out your faith at work with your coworkers, with people that you deal with in the general public. How is that for you? Do you relish in that? Is that good for you?

I think what it does is it takes away almost the guilt that I used to have of, you know, like I wasn't doing things I shouldn't have been doing anyways. But I'd go home sometimes and just be like, I didn't talk about God at all today. I just kind of felt a separation. And to me, what I think is important is every day, now I'm not having to say, okay, well, I go to church on Sundays and maybe Wednesdays if we have Wednesday night church.

But then the rest of the time, I'm just a normal American business person. So it's taken off that friction, I think. And to me, I am a workaholic, but to me, I just enjoy it. I like what I do and I'm passionate about numbers and I plan on working until I can't. But to me, it makes me feel better if I'm working on a Saturday, if I'm looking at other faith -based funds or trying to figure out ways that we can reach more people.

I think that's great. I

I just feel like it's made me more focused in my work. And from talking to our employees, and not all of our employees are Christian, but we let them know right up front, look, we're gonna pray at work, we're gonna do meetings, this is who we are, we're gonna talk a lot about God, and we're fine if you don't wanna be part of that, that's your choice. But even the non -Christians, I think, appreciate that. And you've probably seen this too, even non -Christians, if they have somebody sick or really have a thing.

They know they're going to come to you and say, Hey, can you please pray for me or for my family member? And you know that that's the start of something. So again, like I said, it becomes our mission field. I don't have the personality to go to Mexico and build houses for people, but I do have the personality to say, Hey, we're going to pray before this meeting, or we're going to talk about our relationship with God today with these clients.

That's amazing. You know, just so you know, I heard a pastor say a long time ago that even though we say we don't want to go to Africa, we don't want to go to Mexico and build houses, if God called us there, he would give us the passion to do that. And that's the cool thing about the God that we serve is that when we get to do things and we're passionate,

Yeah, you're right. Yep.

know that's him. He's the one that's providing that passion and that wisdom for us to do those kind of things. So that's pretty cool. And it's the same on our side. I again, blowing up my book and doing only biblically responsible investing, I have clients that are non -believers, but they understand my passion for doing what I do and they trust it. And that's the same ones that will call you and say, hey, can you pray? They know that our faith,

Mm -hmm.

Nice.

Yeah.

They think that they can have our faith through our prayers for them, and God can work that way, but it also shows them the love of Christ, which is what we're called to do. So,

Absolutely. And that's kind of what I, again, not a political statement of if more Christians would just show love to their neighbor, because we're as Christians, and we don't need to make this a study on Christian discipline, but we're only told to speak negatively or judge other Christians. And then there's a pattern to that of pulling them aside privately. If they don't change their behavior, then bring in another witness or two.

in the church.

We're not supposed to go on Facebook and say, all you unbelievers out there, you're going to hell. No.

Or worse than that, they attack other believers. And that's, it blows my mind. You know, there are, you know, some mega church pastors, they get blasted all the time for what they do or the wealth that man thinks that they've accumulated. And I'm like, really? If they do their job and save somebody, if someone comes to Christ off of their message, they've got to be doing something real because,

Yeah, public.

scripture is clear that Beelzebub is not going to bring somebody to the Lord. And they just don't see it. Anyway, yeah, you're right.

Yeah.

Yeah, so that's where it becomes important is we can spread love and that's really what our world needs is if every Christian just decided I'm going to publicly love my neighbor and I'm going to keep my negative thoughts to myself in public. If I see something wrong privately, I will bring it up with that person. I just, you know, we're one step from revival. We're one generation away of being back to a Christian nation and it starts at the bottom, not at the top.

Absolutely.

Right. So if you had to pull out your crystal ball, where do you see the industry heading in the next five, 10 years?

You know, that's the really, that's a tough one. I think you've, you've talked about it with other people and, and it's financial advisors have been so bad at retirement planning for themselves, um, that there's going to be a pretty big turnover in our industry. And the negative side, the fear that I have is, is all the biggest firms are going to gobble up these assets of advisors who are retiring. But I also, we're, we're big.

participants in the Financial Planning Association. I was really, you know, you had Dr. Kurt Cornfield on here a while ago and the things he's doing at Liberty on the financial planning side. My hope is that God's going to use that to, as these advisors who didn't plan have to retire, unfortunately pass away, that we're going to have this new energy of younger advisors.

you

who are not doing it the old commission -based way, but they're doing it from a planning basis. And so I think, unfortunately, the next five to 10 years is gonna be that tug of war of, are the big firms gonna gobble it all up, or are there gonna be enough independents like ourselves who can just come in and start building up their businesses by helping people out, you know, what I call the new way, which is, let's get to know the person and figure out what's the best thing for you.

And that's awesome. Kurt is, he's an amazing individual. And I've, I'm really honored that he agreed to be on the show. And in fact, his, his show, his segment was the number one listened to or downloaded podcast of the first season of the show, which it was a short season. It was only six, but it was still the number one show. So that, that's a, that's a credit to him.

Yeah, anytime you can get him even for 10 minutes, you take it.

Yeah, yeah, he definitely devoted the time to be here. And he's again, seeing him at KA.

Yeah. What an amazing story. And that's, you know, what it's funny, the way God has weaved through with me is, you know, I mentioned I'm guest lecturing now at Liberty University from 1998 when, when I was graduating from Northern Colorado and I had executive professors is what they called it. People with real world experience teaching classes. I'm like, that's what I want to do as retirement. And then to, you know, to meet Kurt and hear what he did and what he did at Liberty is it's just.

you

All right, God, I've said for 25 years I want to do this and so that's you know if it means driving two and a half hours to Liberty every couple weeks I'm gonna do it because it's the energy at that campus is So unreal and it all's like every person I talked to Seems like they're in wanting to go into finance because they met Dr. Cornfiled

Alright

I had lunch with one of his students who he wanted to be a minister and go into this. He wanted to be a financial advisor and a pastor, which I'm both. So Kurt hooked us up and we had had lunch together and he was an accounting major until he met Kurt and then says, no, I need to be in finance because I think I can hit the kingdom a lot better that way. And his influence is going to be around for a long, long time. So, all right, we're getting down towards.

Mm -hmm.

Yep.

Yeah, so I'm hoping that that's my prayer is the next five to 10 years that just, you know, mushrooms into just having this whole network of Christian financial advisors ready to help people.

It would be a beautiful thing, Jeff. It really would. So we're getting down to the final couple of questions. And the one that I always ask is if there were three people dead or alive that you could have a conversation with, who would they be? And you can't say Jesus.

I thought that's what most people would say and that's just because we should be talking to Jesus constantly. But and I'll just so I don't get emotional again. I'll start with industry one would be Art Cashin. Unfortunately, he's not on video much anymore on CNBC, but I worked in a room smaller than this one when I started with my partner Rick and he taught me early on. Who do you take off of mute on CNBC?

And Art was always one because he told it like it was, he wasn't some sales person and they still, when he's on CNBC, he's coming off mute and I'm listening to him. So I'd love to just sit down with him and say, give me your knowledge. He started in the fifties on wall street and he's still working. Um, so, you know, he'd be one, how do you survive, you know, in our industry? Um, the next one, I think. Apostle Peter always, because I tend to be somebody who speaks first and then.

I can, I'm sorry to hear that, but that's, that's very commendable, Jeff. I think that's cool. Uh, as far as Peter goes, I think it has something to do with our name. I feel the exact same way. Here's this, this ragamuffin guy who would, who, who would fight first, you know, and it's like,

That's.

Yeah, I can see a lot of that. I can see a lot of that.

Yeah, I mean, what an amazing story he has. Paul gets a lot of credit as he should, but to me, Peter would just be somebody, I'd just say, lead me. Tell me how to be more like you, more than I already am. Because I have those reservations and he seemed to never look back.

other than when he realized he was walking on water and went, oh crud. All right, so last question. What is it that you want people to know that I have not asked you?

Other than, yeah.

So I kind of touched on it and I think that, you know, the teaching that I'm doing is I think people are misguided on the youth of America. And I think we need to pour ourselves into them because they're going to do some amazing things. And I want to keep seeing SEM grow, but my mission is pour myself as much as I can into the youth and...

you

you

just give them the tools that they need so that they can, you know, do whatever it is God wants them to do because it's every, you know, and it's, it's probably been this way all of our lives, but it just seems like everybody points out the negative of the next generation and they fail to see there's some unreal people that are doing things way better than I could ever have done at their ages. And, and so I think we're gonna, we're gonna see a lot of cool things coming out of not only Liberty University, but a lot of universities around the country. If we can,

copy these programs around and take the energy and expertise that people under the age of 25 have right now. We just need to tap into it and give them what they need.

and not be afraid to let them run with it. I mean, I just turned 60 a couple of weeks ago and I can't say I'm out of gas because I'm not, I've got plenty in the tank. But there are certain things that you go, boy, you go. I'll back you, I'll be there for you, I'll pray for you, but you've got more energy than I do, so you take it on.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah. And having that humility, um, to just know, you know, one, we, we don't know what we don't know. And, and two, God gives everybody different tools. And, you know, I think the more I, the more I can tell people tap into the youth because for, and that's, this is why I always say for every group project. There's ha has to be a leader of that group project. And so you want to, you want to find those leaders and say, what do you need to do to succeed? What are your ideas? And then just give them a really long rope and let them run.

Awesome. Well, Jeff, thank you so much for being on the show. We greatly appreciate it. We wish well for SEM and everything that you guys are doing. Anything we can do to help you, you know we're going to do that for you. Again, appreciate you being on the show and maybe have you or someone else in your organization on some other time. All right. Thanks for being here.

Yeah, good.

Yeah, I appreciate that. Anytime.