Ep. 27 (Green) Electric Guitar - Anne Bollin Johnston

hi I'm anvin Johnston with created wealth advisory and my unexpected hobby is electric guitar welcome to unexpected Hobbies of financial advisors the podcast where we interview fellow financial advisers about their Pursuits and pastimes beyond their professional Persona some of which may be surprising to their colleagues and clients we're interested in what makes them tick and how their unexpected Hobbies might or might not relate to their everyday lies here's our discussion with this week's guest welcome to the unexpected Hobbies of financial advisers podcast I'm Brian Wright with fiduciary CFO alongside my co-host and fellow financial adviser

J Walker that's a bit much for somebody as humble as I am the humblest of all but it's good to be here today well we're glad you're here and we're glad Ann's here because guitar um I sort of have a thing for this hob be so we're surrounded Brian there's on every side there's guitars we are surrounded and and there's no better things to be surrounded by than guitars so Ann thanks for coming on we'd love to talk to you about this unexpected hobby of yours thank you both so much for having me I was

delighted when you ask especially when I found out that both of you are musicians we are guilty as chars of A Sort yes I I only have five guitars not nearly as many as as Brian has here how long have you been doing this and how extensively has your collection grown you know I have um I started playing in 2019 and um I have three guitars that are all the exacts they're all green and so the the only real important thing to me about the guitar at the beginning was the color which is usually very

high on the which is high on the list of your first guitar like totally yeah I mean I B the my first guitar is actually right here I just so I just I got this we can get into the whole thing behind it but the most important thing to me was this exact color and why is that why was that so high on the selection criteria um so let's see at the time in my life when I decided to start playing the guitar I have no musical background really other than playing like the recorder and

like you know school or whatever the devil's flute yes recorder I just remember like three blind mice hot PR bun same song I was like okay cool got that um but um I was working in a big firm a a big wealth management firm I've been there for a long time and I felt like um the main focus was on the technical side of finance and I was sitting in meetings where I felt like you know clients for checking out because they're being presented with so much technical information I wanted to find creative ways to

engage people but it was difficult to do in that environment and so I had all this hint up creativity inside of me and I was working long hours I felt like I was playing just a big game of whack and wall I needed to do something to help you know with this exhaustion that I was feeling and so being from Georgia being around um Big Trees always made me feel like um coming home and and so in California the Big Trees um that came to mind for me were in the Redwoods so I got in

the car feeling exhausted and just drove North to the Redwoods and I felt like lifted out of this sense of exhaustion that I was feeling and the sense of Freedom that I hadn't felt in a long time and so when I left I made a promise to myself and I was like okay I need to do like one say that's just for me that's like just for my own enjoyment and the craziest thing that I could that I could think of was like a bright green electric guitar that felt like freedom to me you know

and so I was like that's what I'm going to do I'm going to get a guitar and then that was my mission I was like I have to find it in that exact color and the color was important because that shade of green reminds me of fresh growth in nature something that's like fresh that comes out of the ground and it just made me feel like that sense of freshness that I longed for in my life and when you went hunting for this particular shade did you go was it local stores or was it eBay

Amazon thrift shops fender.com where where where did you start your search well I didn't I didn't really know where to get a guitar at that point I and so I I think I went online to Guitar Center and um and this is you know and I went on and I was just like green green guitar and I remember you know before I bought the green guitar I had like a moment of like well should I actually do this you know and I called my best girlfriend and I um and I was like Hey like I

want to get an electric guitar but I feel like I should get like a brown acoustic guitar you know and she was like dude you got to get the great one and I was like f cook and that was all I needed and so I and then I went on and the only one in the perfect shade was this like Mitchell which I'm pretty sure is a Guitar Center store brand used electric guitar and I still play I love this guitar it's awesome and so I got it and it was it's been it's been awesome

and it's something about picking it up and playing that colored they just like really do you feel that way do you have a guitar that makes you feel that that way yeah my Les Paul's not down here but I have a Gibson Les Paul and I have a that's a 94 40th anniversary Fender Strat there and I would say like nothing looks or sounds better than Les PA my back doesn't like it the next day after I've played it but man nothing Clays better than a Fender Strat so it's like kind like what do you

want but I feel great with the 700 lb guitar my last Paul cuz it's it's awesome so you've got this green guitar you found the one you wanted they probably send you home with an amplifier too I'm hoping and then was it straight into Hot Cross Buns how did you start becoming musical oh yes so um I'm from Georgia and my favorite song is Freebird by Leonard skinnard okay obviously the first song I want to f starts easier than it ends yeah so and so you know I was like this is going to be great

you know and it's like uh I was talking to one of my good friends um Eric who's also a financial adviser in Nashville and I was like Hey like I I like have this guitar I really want to learn how to play the guitar and he was like I also have always wanted to play the guitar but have not done it but like I'm like of a full practice and like lots of stuff to do and like how do we find the time right and so I was like what if we played a game where

like let's trade videos of each other trying to learn how to play fre word so so we were like let's do it and so we would like send these videos back and forth and after a while we're like What if we invited more people to do this and so um you know for me like the guitar was kind of like a uh a hobby that I picked up to try to overcome the sense of like I guess perfectionism is the way that I would say it like the rigorous standard that I put across all parts

of my life and so um learning to play something and knowing we were not going to be great at it was essentially the game we're like we're gonna so we're like okay what if we invited all the people we know um who have also always wanted to have a creative do creative thing but have never done it to trade videos doing whatever creative thing they always wanted to do online so we started this Facebook group um called the free bird challenge in 2019 and I got on uh Facebook live which was like to me at

that time the most horrifying thing I could possibly imagine because it's like goes to everyone that you know the people from elementary school are popping like oh my God and I played imagine wh you know on the green guitar and I was like who wants to be the Freer Challenge and um and it was um and it was like incredibly meaningful for several years um we traded videos where starting to do our own creative hobbies and so that's how that's how it's startling and did did the pandemic serve to make that accelerate faster than it

might have since people were trying all sorts of new things during that time period we were all at home yeah yeah okay well you talk about doing something you knowing that you're not going to be great at it but time plus practice plus hard work you leads to skill development so I'm guess we we've seen your videos you're not as terrible as you used to be I'm guessing so is the the Free Bird challenge still going now that you're approaching competency yeah I mean I think I hope it goes on forever and I am always

inviting people into it um but now it's not a a Facebook group it's just an invitation to anyone who wants to pick up a creative Hobby in if they you know if they want to throw a hashtag Freebird Challenge on it it's just an open invitation to say you do you have a creative thing you always wanted to do but you've never done do you want to play a game where you can put up a totally imperfect version of you playing it doing it just for yourself is is enough but there is something really cool

that happens when you're able to do it and and share with others and at any stage whether it's just for you or whether you want to share with others um I just think it's really uh to me it's been like a big part of reclaiming a sense of like Vitality in my life that I really needed doing something just for its own sake because I think the first thing that happened when I picked up the guitar is um like I applied the professional standard that I put to my professional life on the creative thing it

killed it a new Avenue for perfectionism totally I was like okay I'm gonna overcome my perfectionism with this thing and then and then immediately I was like and this is my first goal and and then this and then I'm Milestone and then I'm going to learn this and by this date I'll have these three songs and then I would just come immediately not allow to do it it would just and and so I just the process of learning guitar for me has been like this really like difficult but important conversation with myself and also listening

to selft talk along the way learning to play the guitar that's probably been the most valuable mirror for me because it's just like I want to meet the school but D and professionally I would I want to make sure I put things out they're at this quality standard but over here how do I learn how like how do I learn how to appreciate every part of the creative process how do I learn how to see every step of this as like like perfect and beautiful exactly how it is and just a snapshot at that moment

of the learning you know and it's like not always easy and there's like lots of it's not a light switch it's not like okay and I'm like good now it's like always happening do you guys for do you guys know H some some yeah I'm thinking like if and then maybe this is a wildly inappropriate question but is impostor syndrome something that lives inside you because it seems like this could be a very effective antidote to if you apply perfectionism in one area of your life intentionally going out of your way to I am putting

this out there knowing that there's a standard that I'm not meeting that was how I was hearing it but maybe that's not how you meant it I don't know I don't know if I like for some reason I don't know the way I look at it um imposter syndrome makes me think that let's see that like there's something I'm trying I don't feel like I'm able to be or something and so I'm I guess I just relate to it as like I've always dealt with things in my life with like a high level of riger

you know yeah and like I want to be proud of the things I put out in the world and the the challenges I always had I like I at the time that I started playing guitar I was feeling really tired and I felt like it's and I was working relentlessly and I felt that I didn't have time to be creative and also that you know it I'm like okay this is something I'm probably not going to be good at and and I that was the limiting belief that got in the way and so being able

to do something and remove that needing to be good at something allowed me to access a sense of Vitality that I wouldn't have been able to access if I had kept the exact same standard across all parts of my life and so that taught me something um it you know yeah um yeah I I think it's interesting kind of hearing you hearing you say that for for me so I'm a lifelong musician I I I started taking piano lessons when I was six I picked up guitar when I was in high school kind of self-taught

guitar and as I mentioned before we started recording like I'm like I can't read really a lick of music any sixth grade a six-year-old that's taking piano lessons can can outread music but I've got a great ear and I understand chords and you know and that's kind of how I play on piano but it's weird because with music first it's it's always something that I wanted that was fun it's fun for me and like I don't I got to a point and now look looking back it's it's in a weird spot because it's like I'm

kind of I I've got to a point where I'm embracing like good enough is good enough like I I'm not much of a soloist at all from a guitar so I hear like this you know some soloist on the you know on you know just shredd you know slash or something just you know just shredding away on a solo like oh that'd be so cool it'd be so cool to be able to do but like for me to put in that extra work to to hone those skills of of in my is my music like

I don't know it's just like kind of where I am I'm real comfortable where I am and um so I I'm con I constantly have that battle with myself as a musician It's like because I'm no longer pushing myself for music standpoint I guess I've as I've as I've grown up and you know business owner and doing the things I guess I'm I'm itching that scratch just with my business of pushing it and and being better and trying to improve on those sorts of things and I I've really got I use music as just like

a well I'll go and play the power cords that I've always played and I'll play to a click track or I'll play to whatever and just because it's more of an unwinding it to me to even just like sit down like you know I'm going to go learn the no rains or the uh November Rain solo it's like oh nope I'm not going no I'm not going to do that I'm I'm gonna go play some Blink 182 like like because I know you know um so so so that's interesting so and then I think that's

the beauty of of being a musician is like there's so many different ways that it can intersect in your personality and kind of how you use the Hobby and where it supports you I people ask me all the time and is this is your interview not mine but like if I I always joke that like still playing a band play in a band in college lead singer and all that and and it's like no I'm both I'm both too young to be in a band and too old to be a band so like you know

because we have kids and you know high school and like but I'm like f just turned 4 I'm like tell people like I'm about 5 years away from in like my second act of like being being in a band because it'll be empty nesters and you go to a bar the band you know the band's either in their 20s or in their 50s or older so it's like all right I'm getting ready for that second that second phase but music's great it's great way to it can plug in literally to wherever you are in life

and and feed different purposes it totally like you may you made me think of something when you just said that it's like so after the uh free bird challenge for a number of years I got to a place where like learning guitar on YouTube by myself I kind of like hit a like a a place where I wanted to start and it was I think it was after Co I wanted to play with people in real life and I thought that would be really fun but I also my skill level was like still you know

um no where it was and so um the School of Rock has an adult performance program nice where they like put together bands of adults they're working professionals and so I like signed up for this and I like go and there's these other guys they're all like total like you know full-time professionals one's like a you know CFO of a hedge fund or something guy I'm just like like and they're like let's Dam they like love this and so what I learned from first of all but that was cool because it was a it was

at that way it kind of became both it was like let's play these songs that we love because we're all having fun and the point of this is fun but then it was it was different because playing in a band I no longer my like you know kind of being off kind of being way off on the guitar solo when I showed up to practice and I was not like prepared infected other people and so that was when like it became a both thing yes it still needs for to be for its own sake and

for fun but it's like it also like brought you know a level of like really paying closer attention to what I was doing because like I want it you know it's working with a team you want to be a a member of the team that is like moving everyone forward that's ready and so that was like totally a new experience for me and was really cool um to to be a part of you did you have any hint that you had latent musical ability some people grow up non- musical because they're simply not there's nothing

there other people discover later in life oh I'm wonderful did you were your parents musical because you could have picked something you might have had no ear your fingers might not have been able to do it it could have been a non-starter of an idea but it's worked for you I really not not really I think that the reason that I chose it is because it seemed so outrageous to me it seemed very left fielded it seemed completely like I was looking for something that felt like that sense of wildness and freedom and that was

the most outrageous thing I could think of because I had never really um played an instrument and when you were first getting going how did you find the time you talked about being as busy as you were and the job that was in many ways draining there's limits to much you how many hours you can push your fingertips on those strings so how did you make it work totally well I um I just you know I was in this game of the Freebird Challenge and and it was a game the social aspect yeah it was

like showing up for other people to play and you know these videos and if you go on my Facebook page you can go back and see from the very beginning we playing I post you on my Facebook wow it's like you can go back well now that you said it we we surely will no just you know um and um yeah so I would and I would think of a song that I would want to learn because maybe there was something in my life you know that I would want to like you know I was

thinking about and I would it be enjoyable for me to play or there were songs from my childhood love all the other songs I wanted to learn how to play it really meant something to me and it was just yeah it was showing up for myself showing up for the game and so my challenge to myself was to see what I could see if I could learn a song on like YouTube or or practice a song and then just put a video of wherever I was practicing it that week in the group or online would

you say wherever you were skill-wise or like I was skill wasse so it's not you're going out on the patio or no totally like I tried to learn this like the slide once because I wanted to you know a free bir and I and I like I got like so but it was just you know but it was like hello here's where we are today and that's what kept me going and so I don't think I was I wasn't spending I was not SP I wasn't spending a lot of time doing a lot of technical

practice I still aspire to be to learn more about the fretboard and the elements of playing guitar really it's always and and I and I do work on it but it's for me it's always been about like what what like would be like really joyful for me to focus on today and I'll like play that and do that and that's what kept me going forward how did you move on to the second and third guitar in the same color scheme I need to think about that how did I yeah because your first was electric right

the very first one was electric guitar they're all electric oh they're all electric okay they're all electric and you did get good advice from your friend because having known you several minutes now I do not see you with a brown acoustic guitar well it's also it's like you know there's something about being I don't know yeah there's something about I think I you know I grew up in the South I felt like you know sometimes there can be messages for women like you know be modest you know just kind of keep things um buttoned up

to a certain extent and I wanted to and the green electric was just again that sense of expression and freedom for me that I really needed and that's why you know I acoustic is beautiful um but it it didn't give me that essence of Freedom that I was looking for so um so that's why I chose the the first green electric guitar and then the second one I'm trying to remember I think there I can't remember exactly why I got the second one at this very moment but oh my I want to say it was

an issue when I was playing a show with the cover band but anyway the second one that I got is the exact same color um it's just an evbh and it's got this really pretty red button on it um and so it's just it's just a beautiful guitar and like I appreciate appreci about it um is it simple it's grain um you know it's like that's what I appreciate about the Les Paul it's like I love that shape it's so beautiful I love those buttons you know if there's not a lot of stuff on it

I just I love I love the way that looks and I feel the same way about the green guitar it's all green the only thing on it is the butt I just love it you know when we talked to Brooklyn about board games I expected to be talking a lot about board games but she's talked a lot about the design and the color and what made it beautiful and and fun to look at as well as the the whole visual aspect of playing the game or or playing the instrument though that's interesting yeah and how

it makes me feel when I hold it you know what did your co-workers make of the Freebird Challenge and hey Ann's trying this wildly new and different thing or did that not come to their attention somehow let's see my co-workers I think you know when I was at the time was still when I started the Free Bird challenge I was still at the big firm the big firm yeah and I don't remember really people commenting on it at all but what was interesting is like you know that I started it with another financial advisor and

what was cool is that actually a lot of the people in the group were Finance people we had a lot of financial advisors that joined the group a lot of you know some Finance thought leaders and we were all just like playing and having a good time and so I think it was really fun because it started this whole conversation among I know we could call it people in finance people who are in RI fields of of rigor you know where we are really um you know we are we are Dil oriented and I it

is valuable to have an outlet and so it was really fun because not only did other people that in my field join it um but we have you know we started having the really fun conversations about like the time when when they played something or what they always wanted to play and those my favorite things to talk about and fortunately in our work we also get to talk to people about their dreams and that's like incredibly rewarding and Soulful and beautiful at the very top you mentioned how the the way that we convey information to

the clients can be very dry and that you are wanting to express creativity have you been able to you started the guitar thing being intentionally diversionary but have you been able to to melt the two together to use your creativity to communicate Concepts and data data um I have I have um started a new experiment and um so for 15 years I've been in a creative writing community and um I was and every year I go on a writing r tree um and um I usually sit down and I've written like essays and short stories

and um and other things and I try to get clear on whatever it is I'm trying to convey and um around the same time we were doing a um I I go on this writing Retreat and I'm also we're also playing a show with our cover band that's coming up we're playing like inter Sandman we're playing like some songs that like I really needed like I really need to I think we're playing November Rain like we're playing some songs like I I needed to practice and so I brought my guitar with me to the writing

ortreat because I was like I need to figure out how the inter sand man and I also need to write something you know I was like so two things on well which is like so fun they were so fun to play so fun to play so um so I'm sitting down to write like an essay you know on like you know finance and um and how it's can be scary to engage with finance and I started writing this essay and I started feeling like tired I was like and I was like you know it would

be like fun it would be fun to see if I could write like a little song about this you know and so I kind of like giggling to myself I was like oh my gosh like what I could write a little song about like a financial ostrich you know how we're ostriches and you know I'm like laughing and I just was I just was I just had a great time doing it and I thought it was fun and I thought it could be useful I don't know what the I just and I just played it

to my class and so um your class of the other people at the retreat who are notar Financial types at all no no they're all you know right all types but creative you know creative people were all there writing their stories and and so I wrote one the first day and then I was like you know it would be cool it's like an 8-day writing retreat and I was like I'm going to see if I can write one song a day you know so I wrote one the first day and then I did the next

day and then I wrote a song every day and that was the first time I'd ever written music um and then I was like this is this is fun and I called my guitar teacher and I told I was telling her about it and she was like you should do a show and I was like oh my God like like so anyway I did end up doing a show in um in August of that year which is the first time I ever put band it was the whole thing it's always everything has been something that

seems outrageous to do and then um the next year I went back and I played the same game with myself um this last year and I said okay what if I could write a song a day and I did the same thing and so then I had more songs and I was like oh this is Fern so yeah so I got started on this little experiment to see how can we yeah H H how can we make this more engaging yeah all right all right have there been lessons that you've been able to draw and

apply from your pursuit of the the learning of the music and the electric guitar that have been applicable to the the day job work with the clients totally I mean I think for a long time I felt like um the answer to dealing with the rigor of you know I I I kind of looked at things like okay there's the rigor of work and then there's carving out time over here in order to do a creative thing and that's extra time separate and separate and how do I find it there is no time right and

sometimes like if I have free time you know it's like free free time it's like what am I suppos what do I even do with myself to chill out you know what I mean it's like so so it's like where do I find it's like carving out but I guess what I really didn't see at the beginning was that actually having this time like unlocks and infuses everything with more vitality and gives me more energy and so that's what I noticed and so sometimes like when we're working with clients and we're talking to them about

their goals and sometimes our clients like working hard they're doing a lot and they have goals they want to accomplish and sometimes when I sense and we're talking about planning and goals and there's that same sense of you know um heaviness sometimes what we do is we look for that creative goal um we look for that goal that seems to be over here that has that sense of wildness in it because sometimes focusing on that as well confuse everything with that sense of Vitality so that's what I'm yeah yeah that makes sense I I've noticed

just as being a musician that there are times I found that if I'm like struggling over a decision like a multi-day struggle over like a big decision I need to make or whatever and and I'm just not feeling right or whatever something just if I'm just feeling not myself usually if I think like when's the last time I like when's the last time I played like when's the last time I went downstairs and just like played and usually it's oh it's been a while and and just kind of I'm It's like because it's such a

creative Pursuit and it activates that right part of your brain just getting down getting down here and and just even just 20 minutes just something to just focus on that's purely creative yeah almost like gets me in a better spot to make it's like there that like part of your battery like you have like multicells in your battery it's like that part of your battery is like drained and you have to like charge that piece up and it just helps the rest of the rest of my mind and body and where I'm making decisions elsewhere

just operate a little more efficiently yeah you're no longer at the big firm you've started your own place right so I'm guessing that would have gone very differently if you didn't have your creative Outlets to help fuel that transition totally I mean that time when I went to you know when I drove North um that was the other Insight that I had is you know I wanted to infuse my life with a sense of freedom and so part of that of course was the green guitar and part of that was was you know founding my

Boutique wealth advisory that you know and I wanted to keep that sense of Freedom at the center of what I was doing and so they're all you know bundled they're all yeah it's all it's all one really yeah yeah you've been doing this coming up on five years are there any special memories that you've already established that you're going to treasure for the rest of your days that you look back on or there too many to count so I recently did a 10x talk and the topic was how to make Finance beautiful and so when

I was invited to do this I had a short timeline to think about what I wanted to say and I was thinking one way I could do this would be to bring the financial rock songs into it and of course this is like the first time I played like I played with the School of Rock Band now our cover band in like open mics okay and we like play you know sometimes we're great sometimes I'm just I'm G I just have to go back to a detail here that I feel like is important to mention

the name of our cover band is the 17 pound Goose okay and the reason for that is because you know it's like it's it's kind of an idea of the the Free Bird idea it's like will the we don't know it's like the goose could fly the goose could not playo it's like we don't know it's going to happen but it's but the fun part is trying so we always play with that sense of just like being out there to have a good time so fast forward to the tedex stage I'm in essentially like a

stadium and there's like a britne Spears microphone on me and there's like my orange amp and my green guitar and they're like okay go out here dance monkey dance we are and I you know and it was I felt like it was in including you know Financial Rock then rock into that I My Hope was to you know convey that sense of playfulness and that we can make Finance more engaging using creative tools and and walking out on stage and playing for an audience that big with no band just me clean praying I came over

the core words like that really like that really that was that was memorable yeah yeah and and you mentioned green guitar orange amp which I'm assuming you had to hunt that down as well I can't help but notice that behind you that's the same color palette that we're seeing on your wall I that's it's true you know I I always use an orange amp can you guess why yeah fun I'm guessing fun and and it's beautiful well I can go I can go to the history of orange amps and well no what what I just

like I really like the color of those amps you know I think the color orange it's beautiful and it and you know what it looks really beautiful with the exact color green green yeah and and so so that's what I mean it's like I always I generally play with that because I just I just like it it just makes me happy orange is not just the color it is the brand name of the amp yes same way you have a marshall amp or a Fender amp or a Mesa Boogie amp orang alleviated okay thank you

for clearing that up but it is I was clueless on that it is a warrant and it's also a Brant yes okay so I am a musician but I haven't purchased an instruments or an amp since 1997 because I found ones that I like and I work with it and I thought about getting more but they're more expensive than they used to be you can't get a proper base for 100 bucks from mowing lawns anymore so I I work with what I've got but yeah orange apparently it is now I know they're fantastic CS very

cool sound very cool English like Brit sound yeah okay okay H all right all right so you've done this with other people lots of people has there been any potential crossover have you been able to introduce any music people into the boutique Finance world are there Finance people that you get to do music with or does it remain separate as far as the people in your life go well I let's see I try to do my best to you know include um people and the different parts of my life um I would say so the

our cover band the 17 pound Goose we still play together we're no longer you know formally with the School of Rock program but we do still get together every week in practice and we still go out and play shows and open mics and so um that's a lot of fun and so I've had you know clients come to those shows I think um my first show I had a client come and I was like oh my God I was like she was so cool about it and and I was just I was very grateful because

I was like oh my gosh you know but um but just getting to yeah enjoy all parts of the process learning process and then with the um Financial rock songs I played those at open mics and um I have played them now at Financial conference and um and that has been really cool and wild at the same time um and in financial presentations um when I do Financial presentations now it's it's really fun to include a financial song it just brings that element in um so um and then right now I have the the songs

that I wrote at the writing Retreat I'm putting out one song every few weeks um with some reflection questions around Financial topics so I'm bringing the world together in that you know bringing the community into all parts of the music and then also hopefully creating a greater sense of playfulness and engagement with financial education as well yeah yeah I I can't help but notice when you talk with your hands that your nails are painted beautifully with vibrant color how did you not end up doing art it just seems I me I know you chose music

because it's out there but I keep on smashing the symbol but do you paint other than your nails do I paint um not yet I don't paint I have painted um it's not my number one thing I do draw um you know I have markers at my desk that's cool and um I have a sketch pad but normally I um you couldn't you couldn't just use a cup to hold your markers it had to be a tetr he it's beautiful it's very dark it's very dark side of the moon it's a prism and a you

know I love that I love the colors for yeah it was for succulent yeah you put a succulent in those and then after you know and then I was just like oh it's it's pretty because it holds them up so I can grab them easily um not a green thumb then okay well no I I did do spent a lot of time gardening and and um and and that's like a also a big source of inspiration but I would say um I think I think it was being in um a very technical environment for a

really long time and you know mostly I was um you know um information was being conveyed in a certain way we're all wearing you know black blue and gray suits and I felt that after I wanted to shift gears and create something that could have a different feeling that sense of security and freedom at the core I think that's when color came into my life you know um a little bit like The Wizard of Oz you know I and I started thinking about color in a more intentional way um and so I yeah back I

you know you probably wouldn't have seen these nails 15 years ago but I think that everything I don't know I think that creating environments to to make things approachable and beautiful is is f it'ss honor my wife is highly driven by color and it's it's become established that hey look pal if you're going to show me a spreadsheet it needs to not just be Excel green there has to be multiple colors totally and i' I've learned that yeah this can be an effective way to separate information and and now all our rebalancing charts are multicolored

and they're pretty it's so important the assd allocation like each asset class having a color that represents like what's happening like does it make sense to have certain asset classes be like dark red you know some of them you know this growth what are we doing here you [Laughter] know yeah yeah all right well if somebody wanted to get into electric guitars and it sounds like is it just go down to the local Guitar Center and and find a color that strikes you or what's what would you having done it how would you do it

differently or what what what about your path would you recommend to to somebody else I would invite them to think about is there a creative thing you've always wanted to do but you've never done you or if you've said something like I would totally do this but I don't feel like I have the time to do it or like my fourth grade you know art teacher or something said you're not good at this but I've always wanted like singing or like art painting or something is there something you've always wanted to do or you're like

oh when I have the time someday I'll do that think about what is that thing and is there like one step you could take to do a creative experiment just to see what that sense of freedom feels like for you like and you know with the Free Bird challenge I I would always say like if you don't know what is see what it feels like to just toer [Laughter] Freebird sure sure yeah don't do it at a classical concert though it's frowned upon I know it sounds like there are many many ways that you've put

yourself out there if somebody wanted to find you in your work with the music online what what would be the best plays The tedex Talk The Facebook challenge where where would you direct them if they wanted to hear and see what you've done and where you're at now totally so I would say go to finrock rocks.com um that's where I am um putting out all the financial rock songs the finrock songs that I've written so far along with reflection questions and also where I'm um sharing news and and ideas around this th Rock movement or

ways we can make Finance beautiful all of us is financial professionals like I think as I talk to fi it's so fun to see how different people are making Finance beautiful so I would say I would love to connect and I would love to and so it I would love for you to tune in and be a part of this overall movement so if you would go to thinck rocks.com put in your email that's the best way to do it second to last question from me one of the things I enjoy about these podcast series

that we do is get to ask questions about things that I'm totally ignorant of and and I'm the sort of person that Prides myself in knowing things and so it takes effort for me to put myself out there and say I don't know a thing is 17 PBS big or not big for a goose cuz the Canada geese that we have around here look to be about 40 and that right yeah well I don't know I keep my distance because they're nasty but so 17 PB Goose scale 17 PB Goose my understanding is a 17lb

goose is a larger um bird and the reason okay it's a heft yes and the reason that I think that is because um I was on a conference call with somebody who um Was preparing a dinner party and he was telling us that he had made a 17 pound goose and he was explaining to us how that was a really you know sizefull and just thinking you know it's like the idea of being a free free bird and flying but also at any level just like taking off no matter where you are and having you

know well will we fly I don't I don't know if 17 pound geese always fly I don't know but we took that as a metaphor and and and thought could we yeah just make a game out of seeing how can we Infuse this sense of play okay into what we're doing at first I wondered if it was a Dickens reference to the end of the Christmas carol go down and buy the goose in the window deliver it to the cratchet family but apparently not okay I love them maybe maybe okay and then the final question

from me where would people go to find out about your work that you're doing professionally and the the way that you're expressing your creativity on behalf of clients yes I would still recommend going to thin Rock rocks.com for that okay no it's and people can of course look look up um cred and the work that we're doing and I would say that my int is to share all different ways of making Finance beautiful through that medium and so I think that would be the perfect place to start okay with the work excellent thank you thank

you so much do you take fan submissions there like if I were to write a song about the importance of rebalance to the tune of Smells Like Teen Spirit like you know smells like rebalance or something is that something I could do and submit to the finrock Rock site you put it out there yourself just put it out there fil yourself okay yeah that I I've also learned that um that there it's a whole different conversation but if you're you have to be thoughtful about using someone else's uh like chords and changing the words because

sure can you just so I would just that would be the first thing I would say you're not Weird Al not yet don't monetize for one well I would say ask their ask the artist permission yeah if you could do it or write your own thing that's that's what I would say yes I think Beethoven is in the public domains but yeah I appreciate the Cy with the licensing and the you know the cop stuff yeah yeah yeah and I bring it up because that you know I had that was my one of my initial

instincts too and you know obviously you know it's artist that artist Integrity is really important and and it's there's lots to know about that and in terms of like fed Rock and growing it as a movement like absolutely and like I would love to stay connected and terms of thin rock rock and expanding I have so many ideas so many ideas my right brain is just lit up like a Christmas tree right now so all right well I'm afraid I have to shut you down because it's time okay it is time we've hit the we've

hit the limit so and thanks so much for coming on this is really interesting uh we can't I know I speak for myself but joshu know will definitely check out Finn rock rocks and encourage everyone else to check it out as well and uh we look forward to hearing more from you and your music uh in the in the very near future thanks so much beautiful pleasure thank you unexpected Hobbies of financial advisors is brought to you by fiduciary CFO forward-thinking tax and planning solutions for business owners like ra firms and their business owner clientele

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