This episode is sponsored by Facet. Facet Wealth is an SEC registered investment advisor. This is not an offer to buy or sell securities, nor is it an investment, legal, or tax advice. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance yeah, fam, welcome to the show. Today we are going to talk all about finances. If you're an entrepreneur like me, chances are that you're ignoring your personal finances. You're worried about growing your business. Selling, marketing, and focusing on all the things you're good at. And maybe finances are not one of those things.

So today we're going to talk about everything you need to know when it comes to enhancing your personal finance journey. Joining us today is Shruti Joshi. She is the president and COO of Facet, and she knows so much about this topic. I'm so excited for this conversation. Without further ado, here's my conversation with Shruti Joshi. 

[00:02:11] Hala Taha: Shruti, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Likewise, I'm really excited for this conversation. So I was looking into your background and I know that you've worked in corporate in the past. You've worked at really big companies like Verizon, in the consumer tech space.

And you were really focused on client success and acquisition. So curious to understand what your career journey was like and why you're so passionate about customer experiences. 

[00:02:38] Shruti Joshi: Sure. So for starters, I've always followed a combination or found the intersection of what my interests are and what I'm good at.

And so that's really led my career from the start. And I've always prized myself in my wanting to really build a skill set around mastery and just having the grit and determination to carry me through different phases of career. So that's just philosophically what has always carried me. I started my career at Verizon and I was in a development program early in my career.

I wanted to be a CMO. I thought, well, I'd love to be a chief marketing officer of a big brand. And so started in a marketing development program where they move you around to different parts of the business. movie around the country. It was incredible training. And out of that, I moved into an advertising role at Verizon.

And then a few years in, I just had this entrepreneurial itch. And so again, following that interest, I ended up leaving and doing product innovation design at a small boutique consultancy. Ended up from that moving back to Verizon. Actually, they called and they said, Hey, we're building a fiber network.

Are you interested in being a part of that marketing team? So I said, well, yeah, that sounds interesting. And Went and did that. So I kind of moved around these different stages, ended up leaving Verizon because after running the consumer acquisition program there, I was very curious about using advanced analytics to help make better investment decisions.

So I went to a consulting firm and ended up building a practice area and that was a very entrepreneurial experience. again, intersection of learning a craft, really being interested in it. And after that sold my equity, ended up trying a startup after that ended up here at facet. So it's just been kind of a wild ride.

I've just done different things in direct to consumer B2B, small companies, medium companies, large companies, and just had this incredible experience of learning from all of them. 

[00:04:29] Hala Taha: I love your story because a lot of people think that to be an entrepreneur, you need to drop out of college and just like become an entrepreneur, but a lot of people take the corporate route.

They kind of learn on somebody else's dime. You can have really entrepreneurial experiences while working in corporate. So I love that you shared that with us because a lot of entrepreneurs are taking that route nowadays, but something else probably inspired you and that's your immigrant parents who were entrepreneurs.

And back when they were entrepreneurs, it was pretty unusual for people to be entrepreneurs 20, 30 years ago. So can you talk to us about your experience watching your parents own their own businesses and how that really shaped your personality? 

[00:05:07] Shruti Joshi: Yeah, absolutely. So my parents were YOLO before YOLO was a thing.

Like, they were very much you only live once people. I think they just had this incredibly renegade spirit. They were not really rule followers. So for example, I'm Indian origin. My parents met in India and they got married and they were not in a range marriage and their parents didn't really support the marriage, but they said, you know, love above all else.

And so they broke a lot of rules of which one was they decided to leave the country. And so they ended up actually in Brussels first. I was three months old and they were interested in, I think at that time they were getting a PhD. But then just part of that spirit, they ended up coming to this country with 800 and it was all about new experiences and finding a better life really for me and for themselves.

And so from that, when they came here, they ended up, I think I moved seven times before I was 14 and they just kept going for better experiences, moving up in their career. And that meant they moved to different states. They were back in Europe for a bit. They were here, so we were in Switzerland, we were in Brussels, we were here in New York, we were in Philadelphia, California.

And they just had this spirit of do it all, see it all, learn, kind of advance. Through that experience, I just got exposed to just so many different ways that people live, cultures, and it gave me a very different perspective that I'm so grateful for today. Obviously, it was miserable going through it really hard as a kid.

[00:06:33] Hala Taha: Well, I'm sure that it just helped you learn to adapt, not be afraid of change, not be afraid of taking risks, which is probably why you're such a successful brown woman. And I feel so proud that you've accomplished so much. And you're actually the president and COO of Facet, which is one of the fastest growing fintech companies in America.

That's so awesome. And I found out that you actually started as an investor. So I'd love to understand that journey because it's not so often you hear about investor joining the C suite of a team. So I'd love to hear all about that. 

[00:07:05] Shruti Joshi: My parents exposure to all of these different cultures and ways of living.

Has always made me fascinated by just people candidly, just the socioeconomic differences, right? Because when you come to this country with 800 and you end up in a very different situation where my parents ended up building companies and selling them, you just get this exposure to how different people live.

And money is like a very central theme across these various socioeconomic classes. So that was always in the back of my head is just a fascination. And in 2016, Anders and Patrick, they're both founders of facet. They gave me a call and they said, Hey, you know, we're starting up this business. It's all about disrupting the model in financial planning and democratizing a service that most people haven't had access to.

Would you be interested in advising us and investing in the business? And upon hearing the story, I was so fascinated by the mission. I was really moved by it. I thought, wow, what an incredible mission to bring financial planning, which is typically reserved for the wealthy and democratize it to millions of Americans that can really benefit from the service.

And so that was really the thing that brought me in. So I had this personal fascination with the topic. It felt like such an incredible mission. And so I ended up investing. After I made that investment, I was advising over the years and then coming in full time really happened because it's just like a lot of things in life, right?

It was this perfect moment where my career was at a point where I was open to doing something. The business really needed somebody with my experience. And then of course I was so passionate about the mission that the timing worked out. And just to be clear, it's kind of a funny story because I started, I founded a company.

It was a tech business and I raised money for it. It was a travel peer to peer recommendation company and I failed. I launched it a couple of months before the pandemic. So a travel business near the pandemic isn't really going to go very far and we tried everything. It was such an incredible learning experience.

I actually think it set me up to do this job in a lot of ways. Just some of the skill sets transferred. And so when called and said, I know you're not that busy at the end of 2020 and I kind of laughed and I was like, yeah, I was licking my wounds a little bit. I just thought, yeah, you know, maybe, maybe there is something to this.

And so I ended up coming in in 2021 actually as a consultant at first to help the business prepare for scale. And that turned into me really connecting with the team and feeling even more connected to what we were building and the potential. And so I ended up coming in full time in 2021 of July. So that's.

The whole journey and it's been incredible and ever since then, I'm so all in on the company. 

[00:09:47] Hala Taha: Yeah, I'm really happy that you shared that you did start your own company and it didn't work out during COVID, but you ended up learning skills that you could then transfer to FACET and it really helped you set yourself up for success.

I love that because same thing with me and all of my journeys, I've had so many failures. But then it set me up to be the perfect CEO of Yap Media. 

[00:10:06] Shruti Joshi: It's amazing. 

[00:10:07] Hala Taha: So I hear you on that. So you mentioned democratizing financial planning, being the big mission of Facet and what you're really passionate about.

Can you help me understand why that's so important and why that's so needed right now? 

[00:10:19] Shruti Joshi: Well, I guess first, before I talk about why this is so needed, it probably makes sense to talk a little bit about the industry and why Facet was created. The industry has been around since the late 60s. It has a lot of limitations.

For one, financial planning has really been something that's quite expensive and it's quite exclusive. It's been reserved for people that typically have over a million dollars in assets. That's tough because it excludes 40 to 75 million Americans that could really benefit from the help. Number two, it's full of conflicts, whether it's financial advisors selling products and making commissions or the actual business model not necessarily being in the best interest of the consumer.

It's filled with conflicts. Number three is that it's not very good. In a way, financial planning historically started with the roots of being all about your assets, right? Let me invest the money that you have and let me then charge you on those assets. And so the focus has been retirement planning and really just about accumulating wealth.

And so that's, it was founded to really change. The way that the industry works to disrupt the industry and to bring a new model to more Americans. So for starters, we charge a subscription fee. What that instantly does is it allows more people to participate. You don't have to have assets to get access to financial planning.

That's massive in democratization. Number two is it's very objective. So because of that subscription model, we are not selling products. In fact, our sales team is a separate team from our planning team. So our CFPs don't make commissions on selling products. And the advice we provide because we're a subscription can be, for example, about using your money to pay down debt instead of just investing it.

Because for us, it's irrelevant, right? We just want to charge you the subscription to give you the best advice. And third, we're redefining it in that we are thinking about financial planning as completely holistic. Any money question you have across the span of your life, we also think about it as ongoing and dynamic.

And then it's all about taking action on the advice because the life change we provide happens when people don't just get the advice, but they do something with it. And so this is what facet has really developed. And so for us, we believe this is so important because money is a tool to live the life you want.

And we like to say there's no wellness without financial wellness. And so for us, it's very much about spreading. this capability, this tool, right? The service to people so that they can all benefit from making better choices throughout their life with their money. 

 I love what you said that there's no wellness without financial wellness.

[00:13:06] Hala Taha: And for me personally, I do all my personal finances right now on my own. It's DIY, probably not the best thing because I'm running a company. I've got so many other things that I'm working on. Finances are really not something that I'm interested in or I have strengths in necessarily. And so I do a lot of making money and I'm saving money and I'm investing in stocks and here and there, but I could be doing so much more.

And I feel like there's a lot of entrepreneurs in my position because I think a lot of entrepreneurs have my personality where they love sales. They love marketing. They love creating innovation, but they don't really want to be like in the books, you know, Financial planning. Essentially, we don't want to do that.

[00:13:48] Shruti Joshi: Yeah. 

[00:13:48] Hala Taha: So talk to us about what could go wrong for everybody out there that's 

[00:13:51] Shruti Joshi: Oh my goodness. 

[00:13:51] Hala Taha: DIY with their financial planning. 

[00:13:54] Shruti Joshi: So first of all, this was me as well. So I think this is millions of Americans. I mean, 80 percent of our members have never worked with a planner. And they have enough resources and enough complexity in their lives to really warrant it like your story.

I'll use myself. Okay. I have made so many costly mistakes that I didn't even realize were mistakes because for one, I didn't know that help was available. I actually didn't even realize that somebody could advise me in this way. And then two, Things around equity comp, for example, right? A lot of executives, they step into a situation where they actually are given shares, right?

Some equity in the company, or if you're an entrepreneur, you have usually some sort of an equity construct and that's very complex stuff. And I know there are certain things around exercising shares I didn't do. There's certain investments that I made that were really not the best investments because I heard a tip from somebody or I read something on the internet.

So I think it's, it's very common, first of all, for those reasons. What I would say is that if you were in a legal situation, you wouldn't represent yourself in a court of law. If you broke an arm, you wouldn't go on WebMD and figure out how to splint it. You'd go to an MD. and actually get professional help.

Your finances are no different. So having a CFP guide you, they're going to have a different level of depth on a very wide array of financial matters that it would be almost impossible for the average person to just be able to, or even the above average person that's a stellar entrepreneur. To be able to have the time and capacity to learn all of these things.

And then state legislation is changing and federal laws are changing. How do you keep up with that? For us, it's obviously, we think it's so important to work with a fiduciary to get the type 

of help that people need. 

[00:15:39] Hala Taha: Yeah. So let's stick on this fiduciary because one of the reasons why I have never seeked out help is that it's really hard for me to trust people.

I keep thinking. All right, I'm going to hire this guy from some bank and then I think, well, they have their own incentives and how can I trust somebody with my money? How can I trust that they're actually doing the right thing, that they're smart, they know what they're doing? So can you talk to us about, first of all, what a CFP is and why you guys have CFPs at FACET and then fiduciary, what is the responsibility of somebody who has fiduciary duty?

[00:16:12] Shruti Joshi: Yes, so a CFP is a Certified Financial Planner. That is exclusively what our members work with at facet. In addition to, of course, our technology. And that is the highest certification possible in the topic of financial planning. You know, there is a great deal of education that goes into being a CFP.

There's an exam, and then there's an apprenticeship after where you really have to collect a certain number of hours. So it's a program that people are trained for. What a fiduciary really means. And, you know, I remember when I came into the industry, I was like, I don't know what that means, right? That's like a very. industry jargony term, but it's an important one because what it means is that a fiduciary has a legal obligation to provide advice in your best interest. And that feels like, well, of course, right? Shouldn't that just be the way it is? And it's not because in the industry, as I mentioned earlier, one of the challenges is that there are many people that operate in this space that are not fiduciaries and they may be selling products.

and services that people don't need. And so finding a fiduciary is so important so you know that you're getting that advice that's really best for you and not a product sale that's really best for the commission that that individual might get. So these terms are important to understand and know because they ensure that you're getting something that you can trust.

[00:17:29] Hala Taha: So like I mentioned before, Facet is a fintech company. Can you talk to us about how you're incorporating technology with all of this and how it's a human plus tech approach? 

[00:17:38] Shruti Joshi: Yes. 

You know, of course, technology is everywhere these days, right? I mean, I think every business is a tech business. What we've done is typically in the industry, a certified financial planner was what you were buying effectively, right?

If you were taking on a financial planner, it was meeting with the CFP, maybe they're buying you a round of golf, or they're taking you to a steak dinner. These are a little bit of the stereotypes around a financial planner. And in our world, we think about this very differently. So we really wanted to take the best of what a human or CFP could do.

And there are some things that humans are uniquely positioned to do. You know, we kind of joke that our CFPs are like therapists with calculators. The therapy piece is really important, right? It's identifying your values. It's building connection and trust, and it's guiding you to change behaviors. Money is a deeply psychological subject that goes all the way back to your childhood, and a human, our CFPs are trained and uniquely positioned to help connect with our members in a way where they can help them with these things.

Our technology, on the other hand, makes our planners efficient and it creates a convenience factor for all the things that can be automated. And so, for example, it's much easier to log into an account to see how your investments are performing or to see how you're doing against some of your goals or to understand something that you maybe were provided advice on last time that you need to take an action on.

These are wonderful things for technology to do so you're not spending time in meetings And most of the members at Facet are 40 somethings, their hair's on fire, you know, they're older millennials, they're Gen Xers, they have families, they have businesses, they're executives, they're racing around. And so what we've thought about a lot is how do we design a member journey where the technology can really orchestrate the journey and do the things that technology is great at, but our CFPs can do the things that really only CFPs are uniquely positioned to do.

So we've built a solution that brings the best of both of these things together to create a more impactful experience. 

[00:19:39] Hala Taha: So I have to say, when I found out that you're coming on the show, I got really curious about FACET. And I went online and I took your financial wellness quiz. Because I need help with my finances.

I've been investing so much in my company, All of my commercials that you guys hear, all the money that I make off my commercials, I've been reinvesting that into my company and I haven't been taking a payout. And I'm about to get a huge payout at the end of the year. It's amazing.

Which is great. It's like all my hard work paying off and the company's doing great and we're super profitable and all is good. But now suddenly I'm like, Oh man, I'm about to have way more cash than I'm used to. I have no idea what to do with this. I need to get somebody to help me because it's not my strong suit.

Like I said, so I took this quiz. 

[00:20:24] Shruti Joshi: Yes. 

[00:20:24] Hala Taha: And as I was taking it, you know, when you're taking a test and like, you already know you're failing. I knew that I was like, I am definitely failing right now because they were asking me tax questions and retirement questions and insurance questions. And I was like, I'm not doing any of this.

Like I'm doing stocks and just basic stuff. And I knew I was failing. So I got a below average score and I ended up booking a call with your team. And I had my first call and it went awesome. And I'm about to start this journey. And I love the fact that no commission it's subscription, super affordable.

Like I thought it was going to be such an expensive endeavor. It's totally affordable. Makes so much sense to do this, but can you help me understand? What is this process going to be like? How much time do I have to, like, what do I have to do to get started? What is it like? Do I meet with people? I'd love to understand what that journey is going to be.

[00:21:17] Shruti Joshi: Yeah, sure. So first of all, there's no failing in financial wellness. I think this is the point, right? Is that just the entire industry has conditioned us to believe that retirement planning is what it's about. It's about investing. And the reality is that the financial wellness quiz exposes you to all of these topics that play a role in your life.

And in your financial life that you really should get help with. And so I think the idea is to create an exposure and an education around this. So you're not alone. I think lots of people have taken this quiz and said, Oh my goodness, there's so much more to this. So as part of that, in our journey, we've been thoughtful about how do we take this holistic approach.

So the way the journey typically works is you'll speak with a membership manager who's going to help you understand why is this the service that can really help you and answer questions that you might have around the model, around the pricing, anything that might be holding you up from making a decision.

So that's kind of step one. Once a member chooses to work with us, they then move into what we call a digital onboarding. And that digital onboarding is about 30 to 40 minutes of answering questions around your financial life. You can do it on your own time. A lot of our busy executives and entrepreneurs like yourself do it at 9 30 p. m. And it's bringing in, you know, some of your statements, answering questions about your demographics. And this is all so that our financial planners get a full understanding of your full financial life, which is really important. And so once you finish the digital onboarding experience, you're then going to book a time to have your first conversation.

with your CFP or with a CFP, depending on the package that you take. And so that first meeting is really about understanding you as a person. We've heard from some of our members that it's shocking because there's no discussion around money. Sometimes, sometimes the conversation is purely around your values, your goals.

What are you trying to accomplish? Often there's a reason that people have a trigger moment that they're coming to facet. We talk about that. So in your case, it's this incredible success you've had. and what you're actually about to do this year with taking in significant income for the first time.

So that's something that will be discussed. And all of that is to extract what are the things that are important to you, what are your financial goals, so that the planner can create a few scenarios. And scenarios are important because for all of us, you know, in this space, there's trade offs we have to make.

Do we want to work for five more years? and pay for private school for our Children. Do we want to buy a second house and take on a side hustle? There's all of these trade offs that were continuously discussing. So the CFP is trying to reveal those trade offs in that conversation and connect and build trust.

Then what happens is the CFP is going to build your scenarios. We use scenarios. It's a plan, but there are a couple of scenarios that you're going to receive digitally in messages. And you're going to have a chance to look at everything you've shared and a couple of places to start your financial journey.

And so upon reviewing those and understanding, okay, this plan is going to allow me to do X number of things. These goals that I have, this version of the scenario is going to let me do X, Y, and Z. So it's contrasting different ways you can approach how you handle your money in your life planning. Once you select a scenario, then you have the ability to go ahead and start taking action on those.

So we're going to ask you, Hey, You need an emergency fund. Do you have X months of salary based on what we talked about? If you don't, or you do, you might be able to tap a button and go ahead or you're able to tap a button and open a high yield account. Perhaps one of your goals is to save for retirement.

You can tap a button and fun. So the technology makes it very easy for people to take action on the advice that they're provided. Then after that, there might be a conversation if you're deciding which scenario or maybe you've selected a scenario, but you have questions about funding some of your goals.

You can then speak with your certified financial planner. After that, your plan is in motion at around month four, you're going to get a full risk assessment. So what is the right insurance for you? Do you have an estate plan? These are all things that everybody needs regardless of their situation. So that's a personalized plan that's built for you and sent to you digitally.

And then your planner is always there on messages and our members love that, that they can just send a message when a question comes up to ask for whatever they need. Around the end of the first year, there's another conversation with the planner to make sure that you're on track, that there aren't any questions.

And we prepare for year two, which is all about aspirational planning and getting in a little bit deeper into the psychology. Of your financial planning and what drives you and motivates you. So it's a pretty robust journey. There is definitely the need to engage with the journey, but we really work to make it simple, jargon free and guide everybody through whether it's our technology or CFP.

Being able to message a CFP at any time is something that we hear from our members is incredibly valuable. 

[00:26:14] Hala Taha: Yeah. Oh my gosh. I didn't know that you guys did all these scenarios. And for me, that's the most thing that I want with my financial planning, because I feel like I have so many ideas and I just want to know, like, if I do it this way, how will it play out?

[00:26:27] Shruti Joshi: Yeah. 

[00:26:27] Hala Taha: And to your point, Aligning things to your values and goals is so important because it's not one size fits all. Some people want to pass money down to their kids. Some people want to die with zero. I just interviewed Bill Perkins about that. They want to die with nothing in the bank, right? So everybody's different in terms of how they want to spend their money, how much money they want to make.

So I've got a lot of different people that listen to the show, primarily entrepreneurs, small business owners. And then I also have a lot of corporate professionals who maybe want to start a side hustle or be an entrepreneur one day who listen to the show. So help me understand what an entrepreneur can benefit from from using Facet versus like a corporate professional and some of the things that corporate professionals use Facet for.

[00:27:11] Shruti Joshi: Sure. 

So what I'll say is there are so many of our members that are entrepreneurs and corporate executives or corporate professionals. It's a very common audience that we're catering to because you know, you're in your late thirties, your mid thirties, your early thirties, your forties, like this is really our sweet spot.

And there are so many questions and there's so much complexity around your financial life. We like to say that every decision is a financial decision. So who you partner with, for example, whether you should buy a house, whether you should live in a specific area, whether you should take that job, whether you're picking the right benefits.

Whether your 401k is optimized at your company, these are all decisions that people are constantly having to make on a day to day basis. So we help entrepreneurs and corporate professionals on all of those. There are 44 life milestones that a person goes through in their life. And then there's a significant number of external factors like the market's up, the market's down.

Oh, unemployment's up. How do these things affect some of the decision making that you have? So the work that we do is typically not for the business. Our work really focuses on the individual. It's really all about you. You mentioned, for example, that you don't have a lot of time. You're so busy. running your company, are you thinking about an alignment between what's right for you and what's happening with your business?

These are more of the areas that we focus on. If you're an entrepreneur, are you protected? Do you have the right disability insurance? I was going to say. Right? Do you have the right insurance? Do you have an estate plan? If you have, actually, everybody should have an estate plan, but do you have these things in order?

So it's really about taking care of the individual or their family. If you have a partner, it's That's really where the focus of our work is. And I think it's an incredibly beneficial service for people that are entrepreneurs and executives because you don't have time. You know, I like to joke with my hair is on fire.

I mean, I don't have time to do anything and having a CFP, right. I work with a CFP at facet, of course, and having a CFP and having the facet technology guide me, that's. an incredible value. I don't have to then worry about this incredibly important 

thing, right, which is my financial life. 

[00:29:16] Hala Taha: Yeah. And I'm even thinking from my own experience, my company, Yap Media, our finances are super buttoned up.

We are buttoned up. Amazing. One day we might get sold and we need to be buttoned up. Yeah. So that's all fine. And I have a CFO and that's all working. But there's nobody in my corner telling me as the majority owner, what should I be doing? What's in my best interest? Should I take money out? Should I not take money out?

Should I keep, you know, whatever it is, I don't really have anybody in my corner. And I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs are in that situation. So I'm excited to finally get some guidance and somebody I can trust. that has my fiduciary duty in mind. And it sounds like facet is going to be so awesome for that.

So very excited about my journey. Let's dig into more financial wellness. What do you think the goal of investing should be for any individual? 

[00:30:08] Shruti Joshi: Wow. So first of all, we don't think about it that way. I'm going to flip that a little bit. 

[00:30:13] Hala Taha: Okay. 

[00:30:13] Shruti Joshi: So I think first question is, What are your life goals? So what do you want to accomplish with your money?

I think that's the first place we want to start, right? Is it about time? Some people, like you had shared the story about I want to die with nothing. For some people, money is just a way to do other things. For some people, having more money is security. Everybody has a different psychology around money.

And so for us, what we want to first understand are what are your goals? The money in and of itself is a little bit irrelevant because money is a tool to live the life you want. So the first question is, what are your goals? What do you want to do in this very short time we have on this planet? And then how can the investments support those goals?

It's an interesting thing, right? Because the industry will say, well, the goal is investing more, more, more, more. And for some people that's just not right. It's not about more, it's about time. And so the investments are all about providing that person time to do the things they want to do or starting a business or spending more time with their families or traveling the world.

So I think it's very much around the goals first and then the investments support those goals. That's our philosophy. I remember talking to a member who was about to retire and she was so excited about it and all she wanted to do. was by a burrow. She was like, I want a little donkey. Like, that was her.

And it was the cutest, like, story because she was just, she wanted a country house and she wanted to have these farm animals. And it was something that was so important to her. That's our philosophy. There's no judgment. If you want to drink the latte, drink the latte. It's about the life you want and having your investments support those individual goals.

And they're personalized. Everybody is different. Yeah, you can have two people with the exact same financial profile, but the advice that we would provide would be completely different. The investments would be different based on what they want to do with their money. 

[00:32:17] Hala Taha: me of two conversations that I've had in the past.

One is with Ramit Sethi. And he basically talked to us about money dials where he was basically saying that you have many different money dials. Some people like to turn it up on travel. Some people like to turn their spending up on luxury items. Some people like to save their money and they're very frugal and maybe they spend it on experiences and that's what the food or something like that, their foodies.

So everybody has different preferences about how to spend their money, and there's no right or wrong. There's no judgment. Bill Perkins, he's the guy that wrote Die With Zero, he really opened my mind in terms of how to think about money, because he says that you should think about your financial planning in buckets.

Buckets of your life. The amount of money you need in your 20s is different than your 40s and 50s. Right? In your 20s, you might want money to travel, and go to Europe, and party with your friends. But when you're 30 and 40, doing that doesn't make any sense. So you need to plan for the times in your life and make sure you don't miss out on the time where you could be traveling, or the time where you should be spending money on your kids and so on.

But a lot of people just think about saving and financial planning as when I'm 70 or 80. And they don't think about the in between and getting married, to your point, all these different milestones, buying a house, at what point do you want to do all these things? And I feel like just stepping back and thinking about when do I want to buy a house?

When do I want to get married? When do I want to? Travel the world. It really can help you figure out a, what to do with your career and like how much money you need to make and the way that you need to set up your life. And then B, how much you need to be putting away versus spending. So is that something at facets that you could work through?

[00:34:05] Shruti Joshi: 100%. I'm like, my gosh, are you on our members? I mean, like you're, you're, you're speaking our language. Yes. So much of what we believe is that planning should be dynamic and ongoing. It's not about just this future thing, right? Life is so precious and so short. It's about understanding what choices you have.

Now and a year from now and six months from now and two years from now and three years. It's a journey. We think about this ongoing dynamic planning as helping you to make those trade offs by knowing what you value because so many people just go through life and then they're spending out of habits or they're spending out of the way that maybe their parents did it.

And unless you pause and stop and say, how do I want to do this? And how do I want to use money as a tool? It's very easy to just go down a path. And so the intentionality around stopping and thinking, figuring out what's right at different stages, whether it's buckets or whether it's what dials are most important to you.

This is a huge central part of the way we think about planning. And I would say that we think about it one step deeper even, which is that money is a way to explore and express your identity, right? It's how do you show up in this world back in the seventies and eighties, your financial situation.

dictated your lifestyle and your choices, your financial choices. That isn't true anymore. Today. It's really all about understanding what you value and expressing it. And so money becomes this tool to really figure out how do I want to express who I am. So you, for example, we'll see a billionaire driving a Prius, right?

They're trying to signal to you. the environment is important to me.  a lot of how people think about money is really changing. And so having that guidance through every phase of your life is incredibly valuable so that you know you're making the right choices for yourself.

[00:35:59] Hala Taha: I love that. I love the fact that you guys take it from such a personal perspective, individual. It's so individualized, which I think is so awesome. So let's talk about some of the things that are financial that we don't think about as financial back to those milestones that we were talking about. You said there's 40 milestones in everyone's life.

Talk to us about that. What are some of the milestones? Might not be so obvious or actually financial issues. 

[00:36:26] Shruti Joshi: We talked about it earlier, which is like who you partner up with. And I know you've had Scott Galloway on the show talks a lot about this. Like one of the most important financial decisions is who you partner up with.

And it's true. Right. And we talked to a lot of members who are about to embark on a journey together. And Gosh, since money is this deeply psychological topic, they come to the relationship with such different views around money. And how do you navigate that? Are you going to combine your finances? Are you going to separate them?

Do you have similar values around money? And if not, how do you actually figure out how to do this thing? So I think there's. Things like getting married. There's having a baby. There's a lot of things around having a child. Do I stay home for a while? Do I want to actually continue to work? How do I want to raise this child?

What are my values around money? So I think there's just tons of decisions in these milestones. You know, there's even, should I start a business? Obviously there's a huge financial component of that. But there's also a big life component around that around when's the right time. So we talked to a lot of members that have this desire to start something, but they obviously need to cover expenses and don't feel that they have the ability to start the company.

Sometimes we work with them to help them understand, no, no, no, you actually can do this. And here's how you can do this. We think every decision is a financial decision in some capacity, not just these huge milestones that I'm talking about, but even smaller decisions. Corporate folks have to do this all the time.

You have to pick your benefits. I don't know about you, but I don't know if you've ever experienced this. 

[00:38:00] Hala Taha: Yeah. 

[00:38:00] Shruti Joshi: You have benefits, right? 

[00:38:01] Hala Taha: Yeah, we have benefits. 

[00:38:02] Shruti Joshi: I always look at the plans and I'm like, oh gosh, like, I don't know which plan. 

[00:38:05] Hala Taha: Yeah, I kind of just like, Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, like, you know, close my eyes and pick one.

[00:38:10] Shruti Joshi: Yeah. Or you have to, you know, figure out a 401k. These are all financial decisions as well. We obviously help our members with this. There's just a lot of things. Should I move? A lot of people during the pandemic left larger cities and went to smaller secondary cities. And so there's just a lot of life questions that come up that have a financial implication.

But really, when you dig under the surface, it's not just about your finances. It's about what do you value and what do you want? And so I think these are all the types of things that come every single day for our CFPs. 

[00:38:43] Hala Taha: Yeah. Something I'm curious about as an entrepreneur. I remember when I worked in corporate, it was really easy to like pick a life insurance and I have some insurance stuff at my company now, but a lot of entrepreneurs, they don't even have benefits yet.

What should they be thinking about in terms of insurance or what are some of the things that facet works with people related to insurance? 

[00:39:03] Shruti Joshi: We do a digital insurance overview and we partner with certain firms that help them actually take action. So it's very much in certain cases about making them aware that there's something that needs to be done here.

Like you need an estate plan. And then in our case, we've created these valuable partnerships so that it's very easy to take action. And so then we can refer that person to a particular provider. So for example, for estate planning, we're partnering with wealth. com and we help a person just get all of the papers that they need on their estate plan done pretty easily.

And I think that's It's all about making it easier. So your first step is making people aware and yes, we will create an awareness around what are the things you need or what are the things you need to be considering. And then, you know, very frequently providing either a partner that they can go to to get it done or a referral of how to think about getting it done.

[00:39:53] Hala Taha: So you mentioned you're working with wealth. com. What other perks and partnerships do you guys have at Fossett? 

[00:40:00] Shruti Joshi: So we obviously think about all of the action on the advice we provide. So we have various partnerships with companies to make it easier to take action. And those come at a, you know, a great value because we've negotiated great deals for our members.

And then we also have a variety of brand partnerships. So we're constantly working with different brands. and allowing our members to have special discounts to those brands, whether it's, I think right now our partnership lead and social media lead, Victoria, she organized some deals with berries, for example, bootcamp, so different health and wellness partners.

I think she's got a deal with five iron right now. So these are continuously changing, but it also provides, again, we think about your life as a whole. And it's providing these benefits so that not only can you take action on advice, but you can also just live a better life with partners that feel very brand aligned to us.

[00:40:49] Hala Taha: I love that. I love all of that. So let's step back a little bit and talk about technology and FinTech in general. So yesterday I have a mastermind and there was like 50 people on the call. And I was like, what's the one thing that is changing your business this year that helped you grow your business this year?

And about half the people said it was some sort of AI tool that they're using, an AI chat bot or whatever it is. Curious to understand how you see AI playing out in the financial space. 

[00:41:21] Shruti Joshi: We think that A. I. Is obviously it's here. It's happening. It's a big part of our product road map as well. The way we thought about it is less around providing an A.

I. Financial solution against. We have very strong perspectives on the importance of that human in the loop. But for us, A. I. Is tremendous when it comes to creating efficiencies, for example, for our planners. So rather than, um, I can give you a use case here that we have in market is when our planners speak to our members, we want them really focused on the member.

We want them to connect, build trust and really hear what our members are saying so that they can provide a great plan. Well, it's very difficult when part of your job is to take notes, to really focus and make a person feel heard. So we've used AI to look at note summaries. So all of our engagements are virtual.

So we have this incredible ability to take transcripts and actually use AI to create a full summary of the conversation that our CFPs can refer back to. So there's lots of different use cases that are internal to the way our CFPs do their work that again, are very rooted in what provides a great experience for our member.

We also have a very unique approach on financial planning. And so having AI come in to actually Become very intelligent around our philosophy on financial planning is another use case that we've been working on. There's so many different use cases, but for us, it's less about the whole service being artificial intelligence.

It's more about taking specific areas and improving the overall experience in generating that end user value. But yeah, AI is, it's here to stay. It's going to change everything. It's what everybody says. I think we're just being very thoughtful about it. And for us, we're regulated. So the SEC regulates what we do.

And that means that when it comes to AI, we have to be very careful, right, about advice and about how we actually approach this. We're talking about people's financial lives. And so human in the loop is a pretty important aspect of the development of this over time. 

[00:43:20] Hala Taha: Yeah. And at the stage that AI is in now, you don't want AI running your finances.

You want a human. But maybe in the future, that might change. 

[00:43:29] Shruti Joshi: Absolutely. 

[00:43:29] Hala Taha: And speaking of the future, you say, we'd like to change the way Americans live. Yes. And I know you guys are all about democratizing financial planning. So fast forward 10, 20 years from now, how do you envision America and people's financial planning and the difference of what it's going to be like in the future?

[00:43:48] Shruti Joshi: We see a world where facets in every home that everyone is benefiting from financial planning in their lives. Again, this is a service that only the wealthy have had access to for so many years. We want to bring it to everybody and have a very material shift in how people experience life and how they feel.

We see a world where stress is significantly reduced since money is the number one cause of stress and the number two cause of divorce. We want to move those metrics. We want to see that people are feeling calmer about their financial lives, making better decisions and living the lives that they really want.

[00:44:23] Hala Taha: Well, this has been such an awesome conversation. Young Improfiters, if you want to be like me and check out Facet and take the financial wellness quiz, go to facet. com slash profiting, take the quiz. It will open your eyes in terms of what things you need to work on right away. So at the very least, you'll know what you need to work on.

But then if you want to take that journey, I highly recommend it. So far, I've been really enjoying exploring Facet. So Shruti, I end my show with two questions I ask all of my guests. The first one is what is one actionable thing our young and profiters can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? 

[00:44:59] Shruti Joshi: Um, am I allowed to say sign up for facet?

[00:45:01] Hala Taha: What else? 

[00:45:02] Shruti Joshi: Well, I, I think they should take the financial wellness quiz. I think it's an incredible place to start. It's just getting exposure and education to what financial planning is really about, which so few people actually know. So I would say. start reading content. We have great learn articles on our website.

We have a financial wellness quiz. Start talking about these issues. I know that money is a shame filled topic and it's something that people really don't want to talk about. It's something that we really need to be speaking about, thinking about and not avoiding. And so I would say just lean in, you know, like read some things, get some help, even if it's not fast.

It find a fiduciary, a certified financial planner that can help you make these decisions that you can benefit from them. 

[00:45:47] Hala Taha: Something that we didn't get to touch on is how much stress this would remove from somebody's life. 

[00:45:52] Shruti Joshi: Yes.

[00:45:52] Hala Taha: Like I think about, of all the things that bother me and stress me out, most of it is What am I doing with my finances?

You know, because it's something I'm not paying attention to. So the amount of stress that will be relieved once you just tackle this problem will probably unlock so much productivity and mindfulness and happiness. So it's way more than just your finances. It's setting up your life. 

[00:46:15] Shruti Joshi: Life. A hundred percent.

It's really about, I'll say it again, money is a tool to live the life you want. Lean into it. Get the information, get educated about it, and take it on, even when you're busy. And if you're busy, then get professional help. And, you know, even if you're not busy, get professional help, because it really can save you from making some really costly mistakes.

[00:46:34] Hala Taha: Yeah. 

So the last question is, what is your secret to profiting in life? 

[00:46:39] Shruti Joshi: Ooh, um, my secret to profiting in life would be just going for it. So it's just experiencing whatever interests me. Yeah. Cool. again, starting from the beginning of what my parents raised me with. Yes, it's, you know, if you're interested in something, just chase it down and do it now.

[00:46:58] Hala Taha: Don't wait. Well, this was such an insightful conversation. I really enjoyed learning about financial planning and financial wellness. And I think my listeners will really, really appreciate this conversation. Thank you for your time. 

[00:47:09] Shruti Joshi: Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed learning more about you and having a chance to share our story and excited for all the success you're having.

[00:47:16] Hala Taha: Thank you. 

This episode is sponsored by Facet. Facet Wealth is an SEC registered investment advisor. This is not an offer to buy or sell securities, nor is it an investment, legal, or tax advice. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance yeah, fam, welcome to the show. Today we are going to talk all about finances. If you're an entrepreneur like me, chances are that you're ignoring your personal finances. You're worried about growing your business. Selling, marketing, and focusing on all the things you're good at. And maybe finances are not one of those things.