In this insightful episode, Tiffany Grant welcomes Justin Chastain, a seasoned Certified Financial Planner (CFP) and Accredited Financial Counselor (AFC). With a blend of personal anecdotes and professional expertise, Justin shares his journey into the world of financial planning, punctuated by the emotional experiences that shaped his career path—most notably, the impactful lessons from his late mother.

Check out the full show notes: https://moneytalkwitht.com/podcast-show-notes/financial-planning-with-empathy/

Key Topics Discussed

Justin's Journey

• Justin's personal story and why he chose to become a financial planner.
• The emotional drive behind his mission to help others manage their finances.

Living with Purpose

• The importance of aligning financial habits with personal values.
• The philosophy of “Don’t buy green bananas” and its meaning in financial planning.

Mental and Physical Health

• The interconnectedness of mental, physical, and financial health.
• How life events can influence financial habits and the importance of balanced living.

Choosing a Financial Planner

• Key questions to ask potential financial planners.
• Understanding fiduciary duty and transparency in financial advisory services.

Insights for Financial Well-being

• Balancing debt freedom with living a fulfilling life.
• Strategies for ensuring your financial choices align with your life goals.

Episode Highlights

• Justin emphasizes the importance of giving your dollar a purpose and empowering it to work for you.
• His expertise on making financial planning enjoyable and less daunting for clients.
• How to identify a trustworthy financial advisor and ensure their interests align with yours.
• Tiffany and Justin discuss the significance of being authentic both in life and in financial planning.

Justin Chastain, CFP, AFC

• Email: justin@parallelfinancial.com
• LinkedIn: Justin Chastain
• Company: Parallel Financial

Tiffany Grant

• Website: Money Talk With Tiff
• Social Media: @moneytalkwitht

Additional Resources

• Learn more about financial planning at Parallel Financial
• Subscribe to the podcast for more financial insights and advice.

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the Money Talk With Tiff podcast. Share this episode with friends and family who might benefit from Justin's valuable financial planning insights.

You know what it is. That's right. It's time to talk money with your money

nerd and financial coach. Now tighten those purse strings

and open those ears. It's the money talk with TIfF

podcast.

Hey, everyone. I am so excited because I have Justin Chastain on

the line, and Justin's here to talk to us about a little bit

about being a certified financial planner. And

AFC, he has so much ABC suit behind his name,

it's crazy. He's here to talk to us about why he

got started doing it and just some lessons he's learned along the way. So, hey,

Justin, how are you? I am doing well, Tiffany. And yes, all of

that soup behind my name, I like to say more degrees than

a thermometer. So you probably saved

your listeners at least 30 minutes of airtime. Yes, yes. Well,

I'll make sure it's in the show notes if you're really curious, but

let's just hop right in. So why did you start

on this journey of being a financial planner?

Well, it was very personal to me, and I've always been

a certified nerd. I'm not ashamed to admit that

around all things finances, I think so many people think that our industry

is dry, but it's not because there's a lot of

emotional and emotions behind it. And for me, this

was very personal. When I was in college,

my mom got sick, and then there was some medical

misdiagnosis after that. And to save the

listeners, a long story, one diagnosed,

turned into ultimately creating serious health

complications, and she passed away at a very early age, in my

opinion, of 62. And she would always

enforce this saying, with my brother and I

have a younger brother, and she would always say, don't buy green

bananas. And it really just forced us to

understand the concept of not waiting

until your golden years to do what you love to do. And

she would always say, hey, the only thing golden in your golden years

is your urine. And that always just triggered something

with me. But the biggest thing was, as we were dealing with

grief, there's a silver lining in that, that you

don't ultimately just

get over something. You learn to move forward with it. And in that moment,

I said, you know, there's so many families out here struggling, and

they don't have plans with their finances. They don't know who to turn to.

And I said, I could not imagine needing

to be in this moment for the people that you care about and

vice versa, them for you. And you have to worry

about something as dumb as money. And I

don't you and I know that money is very important, and that's our industry,

but money is just the tool. Right? And from that period

on, I said, I want to be able to help people learn that

you can give your dollar a purpose. You can empower your dollar. We

can make finances fun, because we can ultimately

have the power. If clients listen to what we say

when life events happen, they can turn to us and say, hey, thank you.

Because I didn't have to worry about money. I could just focus on

my family. So started out my journey

getting the accredited financial counselor, and I loved helping

coach people, doing kind of the foundational

steps for cash flow management.

And then I worked my way up with several other credentials all the way up

to the CFP. And I've loved it ever since because I

don't view my clients as just a number or investment

advisory services. I really get to truly make an impact in

people's lives in a positive way. Yes. And I love what you said

about the realization that or the

wisdom that your mom gave you before she passed

where she's like, look, you need to live life. You

know, life. I don't like to say life is short, but life is

finite. Like, at some point, we're all gonna have to go.

And I was in a situation, like, when

I first started this journey where I was just like, debt freedom.

You know, I was heavy into Dave Ramsey, and I was like, you know, rice

and beans, beans and rice. I just want to get out of debt. And then

it wasn't until, like, a few years ago

where I was like, you know what, Tiffany? At the end of the day,

when it's time for me to go, I want to make sure that I

lived a life worth living. And so I was like,

yeah, I want to be debt free. And, yeah, you know, I want to, you

know, do all these things, but at the same time, I have to have some

balance here. So I completely agree with what

you're saying. And, you know, what I've realized over these years

is that it's possible. Right? Like, it's possible to

have both. Like, you can do, and it doesn't have to be. Or.

So let's talk about that a little more. So

when your mom passed away and you decided to get into

financial counseling and then eventually financial

planning, was that one of the main goals

was to help people realize that they can have and instead of

or. Absolutely. And, Tiffany, I have to give you a shout

out, because even the things that you talk about, you're so

authentic. And even when you've shared things that

maybe, hey, when you go to the doctor, right, and you've had

this, what I say, life awakening moment,

you can either take that one or two ways. You can view it as, oh,

my gosh, I just need to be on medication and live in this bubble because

every little thing is going to affect my blood pressure or this or that, or

you can choose to start living. And one of the things that I

always stress to my clients, and I think the misconception in our

field is, well, if I went to a financial advisor or planner,

they're just going to tell me a bunch of the stuff that I can't do.

No, we're going to take a look at your values, and

we're going to try to maximize the things that you want to do.

And then ultimately, yes, there might be some things we're going to tell

or, you know, but that's going to be the things that you've told

us. Hey, I don't really value this stuff over here. I had a mentor,

and this even comes from me, because when my mom was going through

her worst moments, and I think we just have to be vulnerable with

our clients as well and be authentic. I was not in a very good

place mentally. I let my health go. I gained a bunch of

weight and had a very come to Jesus

moment with my medical doctor. And

what my mentor told me, I was not in the best

place financially. And we're seeing that in the data that when your mental and

physical health goes, your financial habits start to go with it. They're all

interconnected. And I remember

I had reduced what I was putting into my Roth IrA, and I

was spending money on things that I didn't value. And when my mentor looked at

me, he said, do you value Verizon wireless

more than yourself? And I said, no. Why would you think that? He said, because

on paper, that's exactly what you're saying. He said, if you

want to travel, if you want better jobs, why aren't you putting your

time, money and resources into the things that you say, that you're

valuing? And really what a good financial planner or

counselor will do is take a look at those values and just

make sure that you're putting your resources into the things that

you value so that you can have these and

situations. Because what we're seeing right now in the industry

and what's scary to me, there was a research

done by a PhD in our industry,

and they conducted this

survey and put this analysis together, and it said

the most unhappy most people are in their working life here in the United

States is from their late forties to their late

fifties. And that's because they're typically chasing a bunch of

money to try to take an early retirement. But what I

always tell people is, in order for you to get more money, what

are you willing to sacrifice? If you've told me that you want to spend more

time with your family or you want better health, if that job is not

conducive to that, we need to take a step back. Because

objectively, you've told me that you value these things over here,

but yet you're chasing something that doesn't align with that just

right off the bat. And we're seeing a declination in life

expectancy from the greatest generation into the baby

boomers. And there's a lot of different reasons for that, but stress

being the number one. One reason. So if you have a good

planner or advisor, their biggest concern should be what are

you valuing and then giving you ultimately those

metrics for to have those and statements

so that you can live your best life, it shouldn't be taking

away from your best life. So if it doesn't align with your

short, medium or long term goals, then what are we spending on it

for, you know? So let's switch gears

a little bit. I want to talk about, like, if somebody's listening

and they're like, okay, I hear you, Justin. I need a plan.

I need a financial planner, not so much a financial coach. What

are some things that they need to ask a potential financial

planner in order to make sure that they align and they're making a

good decision? Great question, and I'm glad that you asked

that because I talk a lot about this with

prospects that might be interviewing multiple financial planners,

or maybe they just need to see if they're

ready for that next step. Right? So I would say the

three biggest questions to ask and to keep it

simple would be, number one,

how do you get paid, you know, because not

every advisor has to disclose that. There are ways around

that. I don't like that. I like full transparency. You know, if I, if I

told you, you know, Tiffany, hey, I'm a financial planner and you asked me,

well, Justin, how, where does most of your income come from? And I

say, oh, repairing bicycles.

You know what I mean? It's like, okay, well, that's counterintuitive, right?

So I'm just saying I think a financial planner needs to make the majority of

their money off planning. And yes, they all, they can offer investment

advisory services, but they just need to be transparent in that they don't need to

hide behind that. The second thing is, who do

you work for? You know the word, there's an

f word, Tiffany, that gets thrown around in our society that nobody's offended

by, and it's called a fiduciary. But you can be a

fiduciary and just handle investments and still work

for a particular company. Most independent advisors will

give you an engagement letter. And what that means is, is, hey, I

may use Charles Schwab as our

broker dealer, but I work for you.

You know, my advice is, in the best situation for

you. You need to be looking for something like that. And then thirdly, I

would just say, you know, what is your investment

strategy? They're not going to know that, Tiffany, until

they understand that client. So if they want to talk all these big, glamorous

strategies in the initial meeting, I wouldn't

be comfortable with that. I'm not saying that it's bad, but, you know, you

mentioned earlier, you know, in our industry, we can have

imposter syndrome, where you're just chasing certain

credentials for the sake of it because it's not

necessarily adding value to you. Now, if somebody

has credentials, that's good, you can ask for those, but

they really need to be in tune with where the client is and ultimately

where you are now in order to be the best advisor for our

clients. Yes. I think you need to be

involved in continuing ed, in teaching. I teach for Dalton.

That certifies financial planners. Why? Because that is my

capacity to give back as a leader. I do

it only to help others. And I think, as we all have built

businesses, if anybody ever tells you, hey, it's just

because I've done everything, absolutely nothing,

you've got to give back. And you had other help, and you had a little

bit of luck. But me giving back and having a servant

leader mindset is so important to me. So a lot of the credentials

that I even have just come from the education that

I teach and I provide. But if I'm going to

be the best advisor for my clients, I've got to be the best version of

myself. So if you can walk away from those three

questions, of course there's more that you can ask,

and you could add a fourth in there. What are your credentials? But at the

end of the day, that doesn't mean a lot to the client as

much as the first three that we ask. So if you can walk away feeling

that they're in your behalf and they truly have your best interest, in

mind that those are the questions that

differentiate, I would say, the others

from the true fiduciaries that are working on a

client's behalf. Yes, I completely agree with that.

Cause I feel like in our industry, financial advisor gets

thrown around pretty loosely. So a lot of

people. Go ahead. No, I was just gonna say and say. And way

too often. Right, exactly. And so

sometimes they say that they're a financial advisor. Really, they're a

salesperson, you know? So I think the questions

that you gave our audience are really good starting points to get an

idea of who this person is, where they get their money, who they

work for, to see if they'll be working in your best interests or not. So

I think that is a gem right there. So thank you so much, Justin, for

coming on the show today. Now, if people are interested in learning more about

you or becoming a client, where could they find you?

Yeah, so they can reach out to

me@justinarallelfinancial.com. i

work for an independent called parallel financial out of Greenville, South Carolina.

I'm on the website, so I am official. And then again, I

do have a LinkedIn, justinchastain at parallel

financial.com. and I am on Facebook,

and I think something called Instagram and

MySpace. Now, I don't have as many followers on

MySpace, and even Tom has left me, but that goes to show you how much

of an introvert that I can be at times, Tiffany. But I don't know

why nobody's responding anymore. On MySpace, I heard all the young

kids are still using that. I will say I am not well

versed in social media at all. But as I've built my

business out, I have started utilizing more of the functions. As you know,

I'm going to start a podcast starting at the beginning of the year.

So if you put something on Facebook or reach out to me, I'm

a little slower to respond to that and in full transparency, just to show people

that, hey, I'm not afraid to show people that I'm human. I created a

Facebook literally two weeks ago, and I was trying to

upload my headshots and other stuff to Facebook,

and then by accident, I uploaded a receipt that I

was submitting for expense report and have no idea how I did

that. So if my social is

kind of the first way you're going to reach out to me, you know, again,

it might take me just a little bit longer. So email is typically

the best form of contact. Gotcha. That is so funny. Yeah.

Let's keep you off of social. Uploaded

receipts, but I'll make sure that I have all of those

links in the show notes for our audience. So again, thank you so much, Justin,

for coming on the show, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of the

day. You too. And Tiffany, again, I just want to shout you out. You keep

up the great work that you're doing, because, number one, I love your authenticity

that you provide to our industry. Your personality shines

through, and what you're ultimately doing for people in this space

is creating a tremendous amount of goodwill. So continue

to be yourself and do what you're doing because it's making a

tremendous impact. I appreciate your show. I listen to it all the time.

And thank you for having me on. Aw, thank you so much, Justin. Don't make

me cry for the people. But thank you

so much and bye bye. Thank you

for listening, joining and being a part of the Money Talk with TIFF podcast this

week. You can check tiff out every Thursday for new Money Talk

podcast. But if you just can't wait until next week, you can listen to

previous podcast

episodes@moneytalkwitht.com or

follow TIFF on all social media platforms at

moneytalkwitht. Until next time, spend wise

by spending less than you make. A word to the money wise is

always sufficient.