[00:00:00] Voieover: Every number on a balance sheet tells a story, late nights spent building something meaningful. The risks taken, the difficult conversations, the lessons learned along the way. But true wealth is not measured in dollars. It’s woven into the stories that we create, the experiences that shape us, and the memories that outlive us.
[00:00:21] Voieover: Welcome to the Living Beyond The Numbers Podcast with Jude Boudreaux. From the planning Center, this show is not about spreadsheets and financial jargon. It’s about real conversations and powerful stories that help you align your money with your values, your dreams, and your legacy. Because at the end of the day, it’s not about how much you have, it’s about the life you want to live and the stories you leave behind.
[00:00:46] Voieover: Now onto the show.
[00:00:51] Jude Boudreaux: Hi everybody. Thanks for joining us for another episode of The Living Beyond the Numbers podcast. I’m your host, Jude Boudreaux. I’m here with our director of [00:01:00] positivity, Caleb Irvingdale. Hello. And today we’ve got special guest who is the founder of our Fresno Branch office, now retired. Uh, John Longstaff.
[00:01:10] Jude Boudreaux: So John, welcome.
[00:01:12] John Longstaff: Thank you so much. Great to be here.
[00:01:14] Jude Boudreaux: Well, we’re really excited to have you here and, uh, learn a little bit more about your history and what you’ve been up to these days since you retired from the Planning Center. So, yeah, maybe we begin there. Tell me about retirement. How’s that been going for you?
[00:01:27] John Longstaff: Actually, better than I thought. Uh, it, it’s interesting, the year I retired, we, uh, opened a building at our church with a commercial kitchen and, uh, I’ve been chefing ever since. We probably do 80. Memorial meals, special functions a year. So, uh, it’s interesting. We wake up in the morning, my wife says, do you have a funeral today?
[00:01:51] John Longstaff: In other words, don’t you have some place to be? Uh, but yeah, it’s, it’s been a lifesaver. It’s been a lifesaver.
[00:01:58] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah. Well, that’s great. [00:02:00] And I know mission censored for you and, uh, on the cooking side is like doing tri tip or what are we doing out there?
[00:02:07] John Longstaff: Uh, you name it, tri-tip, chicken pastas, uh, New York Strip.
[00:02:12] John Longstaff: Uh, anything I can sear flesh, I’m gonna do it.
[00:02:15] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah. Perfect. Great. Well, thanks for coming to share with us a bit about, um, yeah, we’ve been kind of this section of the season is, you know, conversations with the founders. So, um, if you don’t mind, just share a little bit about, you know, your journey and the, you know, you spent 35 or so years as a planning practitioner, so.
[00:02:34] Jude Boudreaux: Um, yeah. Where, what made you come to the CFP to begin with? How’d that all begin for you?
[00:02:40] John Longstaff: That’s an interesting question. I spent nine years in drugs and just to make that sound better than it probably did, I was a pharmacist and, uh, I came home for a barbecue with, uh, my then wife and we were barbecuing at my father-in-law’s and he had taken over a practice from his father-in-law that was a mutual [00:03:00] fund.
[00:03:01] John Longstaff: Sales company. My then father-in-law was a PA before C pa, so he goes back that far, huh? Wow. He was in the process of considering retirement and he said, uh, you’ve probably got enough knuckle bumps on your head. Would you like to consider this? That was 4th of July, about October. I made the decision because of managed healthcare sweeping through the state of California that it might be nice to be in something a little more stable.
[00:03:31] John Longstaff: So January 2nd, 1984, I joined his firm, uh, moved back from the Bay Area to Fresno, California, and that’s how the story started. Uh, the question about how did we determine CFP, we actually ro Shambo. Is it going to be A-C-H-F-C? A CFP and the reason that we landed on CFP was that there was actually a class being [00:04:00] taught in Fresno by USC.
[00:04:04] John Longstaff: It was their extension school. So like I said, I started in, uh, January 2nd of 84 and March of 84. We were enrolled in the CFP program at USC. So it was the most fortunate happenstance, uh, certification wise that could have happened.
[00:04:22] Jude Boudreaux: All right. So John, you, you said that you were born with a servant’s heart when, um, was reading through some things, and so yeah.
[00:04:29] Jude Boudreaux: Tell us about how that led you to be to this place where you were meant to be.
[00:04:33] John Longstaff: What’s interesting is, when I think about that phrase, I think of an incident. I came home one summer from college. My father was an attorney and I came home one summer and I said, dad, I’m thinking of going to law school. And my father in his very stoic and judicial face, and that same from the bench voice said, why John?
[00:04:55] John Longstaff: People like you? That was a click. Secondly, when I was [00:05:00] doing a residency in pharmacy school, I was the one that was always sent out to the people that needed the new prescription consult. For some reason, they accepted what I said versus what a license said, or somebody else that was a, didn’t seem to want to take time with people.
[00:05:18] John Longstaff: Somehow that culminated into the fact that it didn’t take me long to realize that, uh, when my father-in-law asked me to join the business, this might be a step in the right direction.
[00:05:28] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and another step on that was, you know, you got very involved with the CFP, uh, you know, designation in 1996, the presidents of what was the ICFP?
[00:05:41] Jude Boudreaux: Maybe a little bit of background. Yeah. And like, so yeah, for. Modern. Now we don’t have that organization. So tell us about how that all evolved.
[00:05:50] John Longstaff: Most certainly. Um, my involvement actually started after we had graduated with our CFPs. Uh, I went to a [00:06:00] retreat at uc, Santa Cruz. Apparently I said the right thing or didn’t say the wrong thing to certain people.
[00:06:07] John Longstaff: And after that residency that fall, I was called and asked if I would consider serving as a regional director for the Institute of Certified Financial, uh, planners in the Central Valley. Uh, mostly because Fresno had the largest and most active ICFP chapter. From LA to San Francisco area. Uh, that led to an invitation to serve on the board.
[00:06:33] John Longstaff: I served on the board, uh, matriculated off. The board was called a year later to ask if I would come back on the board to fill a position for an illness. Uh, that’s when the latter process started and, and the rest is pretty much history. The ICFP Institute, certified Financial Planners was started by the board.
[00:06:54] John Longstaff: The ICFP, what was the name of the board who, I’ve lost that one. [00:07:00] Anyhow, it was the organization for membership of CFPs. It was CFP Centric. The other organization at the time was the IAFP, international Association for Financial Planning, and when I was president, it was in between. Merger attempts. A merger attempt had failed in the early nineties.
[00:07:24] John Longstaff: Um, my period of time on the board was not because of my intellectual prowess, it was because of intelligence. I would never be considered intellectual, and I believe there is a vast difference between intelligence and intellect. My intelligence. Basically went through a healing process with the ICFP and brought us to a position with the next couple of presidents that allowed for the merger.
[00:07:51] John Longstaff: Was it 99 or 2000? I think it was 2000. And, um, I, I, I honestly believe that. [00:08:00] Where the need is, there is someone that’s available at that time. Uh, I happen to have been that person, and I say this not to slap myself on the back, it was a healing process that allowed the the CFP or the ICFP to go forward. In a less contentious fashion than it, than it had in prior years.
[00:08:20] John Longstaff: Let me put it that way. I’m not mentioning names. Don’t even ask. Maybe over an adult. Maybe over an adult beverage. We can, we can chat about this.
[00:08:29] Caleb Arringdale: You were telling me before this that you were a athlete all throughout your, your youth and through college, obviously very competitive. Do you think that had a part in your pushing for, I’ll say higher office in the industry?
[00:08:42] John Longstaff: Actually not, uh, because, um, I had a board member tell me once that if, since I was not a fee only planner, and this is back in. 90, 0, 91 or 92, and [00:09:00] I had never heard the term fee only at that point. Uh, I was basically being ridiculed and questioned, why are you on this board if you’re not fee only? Well, that sparked a competitive, uh, it lit a, a competitive fire in me.
[00:09:16] John Longstaff: I came back from that board meeting and made the decision that we were going to move the firm to a fee only firm. That took about eight years coming out of a peer commission environment, and I calculated in projecting that it would probably be have 80% retention. Well, we ended up having 97% retention, so the process that I had been taught, learned and implemented, basically paid off at least in the Fresno office.
[00:09:45] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah, well maybe share a little bit more about that. Like how did you view that experience of working with clients? What was your mentality in going into those?
[00:09:53] John Longstaff: That is what I miss the most in retirement is the people, the relationships, the work. [00:10:00] It’s, it’s, it. I wanna get into later, if you’re gonna ask me the question about the time that JJ was in Fresno in the transition and the succession, because it’s a phenomenal story for my part on what a great individual JJ is.
[00:10:16] John Longstaff: But it, it was very similar in that transition into the fee only it was done. Um, I wanna say meticulously, uh, looking back. I don’t know that I would’ve done it again, but we did it be out of necessity and out of, uh, sheer stupidity, uh, not knowing what was gonna happen. And fortunately, it, it ended up positively, I shouldn’t say stupidity.
[00:10:42] John Longstaff: It was, it was blindness of what was gonna happen, but, uh, the competitive nature, the drive to get it done, uh, made it successful. And I’d love to take credit, but it wasn’t me. I have great clients that understood the process.
[00:10:58] Caleb Arringdale: Yeah. [00:11:00] What pushed you towards that? Obviously you had this conversation with, with the person asking you why you weren’t fee only, but w did you have any other drivers pushing you towards the fee only side
[00:11:09] John Longstaff: effects?
[00:11:09] John Longstaff: Well, here’s where you’re probably gonna edit this out. This gentleman that told me this pissed me off and, uh, it was a, it, it just lit a fire that I’m gonna show that son of a gun. And that was the drive at the time. Now that’s a very immature reason, but it’s reality. And it, and it worked. Like I said, it worked.
[00:11:30] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah. So, yeah. So it became fee only and then, um, yeah, maybe paint a picture for us on just how, you know, you’ve got this practice you took over from your father-in-law in Fresno. So how did you come to, you know, be a part of the planning center based in Moline?
[00:11:45] John Longstaff: Interesting story. As I, as I shared earlier, Marty and I met.
[00:11:49] John Longstaff: I wanna say it was 1999 when we were both, uh, interviewed and ultimately elected to the Board of Professional Review. You’ll hear me [00:12:00] refer to it as the bopper, the BOPR, the Board of Professional Review, uh, for the, uh, the CFP board. I had heard of Marty. I’d never met him. Uh, fortunately he had never heard of me, so I had a clean slate going forward with him.
[00:12:15] John Longstaff: Uh, we served three years. We, uh, we shared a lot of stories about our practices. I went to Moline a couple times. He came out to Fresno a couple of times during that time, uh, over a, probably an adult beverage. One evening. I can’t remember whether he said it to me or I said it to him. It was probably Marty that asked me, John, if I die, would you come to Moline and take over my clients?
[00:12:41] John Longstaff: And that was a, that was a question I had never been asked before. And it was a compelling question to think that I think this guy’s, somebody that I could do business with. That was in the early 2000, uh, two thousands. Marty and I stayed in [00:13:00] contact. He ultimately then became president of the Board of Professional Review and then went on to serve as a president of the FPA.
[00:13:10] John Longstaff: And of course, we followed each other’s careers at that point and. What was it? 2010, and it ultimately didn’t take place until 2013 or 14, I believe. Mm-hmm. But we started talking more seriously about what might this look like to the point that he and I met with a business consultant and we talked about every question that Marty and I could fire back at each other.
[00:13:37] John Longstaff: What could go wrong? What should this look like? How can this end up. Looking in with the geographic differences that we have. And, uh, we shared this story with this consultant and the consultant leaned in to listen to us and he leaned back and then he leaned in and he looked at Marty and said, just do it.
[00:13:57] John Longstaff: So that stemmed the conversation [00:14:00] to apparently go a little bit further. Marty, at that time had Matt and I wanna say Eric on board. Mm-hmm. And, uh, it wasn’t too long after that that uh, the discussions came. In fact, I joined the planning center and I think JJ was 20 minutes behind me maybe.
[00:14:18] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah, I know. I remember that was in close proximity.
[00:14:21] Jude Boudreaux: Jj, you know, one of my partners now, but was just a very close friend at the time, um, taking over his father’s practice in Twin Cities and, uh, you know, looking around at ways to. Figure out how to work the business more effectively and um, you know, so merging with the planning center became a possibility and was one of the many kind of steps that brought us to where we are today.
[00:14:45] Jude Boudreaux: So it’s a pretty exciting, I dunno for me looking back at all of that to see how everything pieced its way together.
[00:14:51] John Longstaff: What a powerful study group you guys came out of. Unbelievable. Yeah.
[00:14:56] Jude Boudreaux: No, I feel very fortunate that you know, Eric, who’s our [00:15:00] CEO, jj, who’s one of my partners, is, you know, people who are some of my closest friends too.
[00:15:05] Jude Boudreaux: You know, so it, it makes it easy to do business and trust each other when you know, where you know where people came from. And it sounds like it’s kind of the relationship you and, uh, Marty had was
[00:15:13] John Longstaff: Yes.
[00:15:14] Jude Boudreaux: You know, very similar from that.
[00:15:15] John Longstaff: I don’t know, uh, Judy, if you remember the conversation you and I had prior to your joining the firm.
[00:15:23] John Longstaff: I wanna say we were in Firestone, Arizona at a retreat.
[00:15:28] Jude Boudreaux: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:29] John Longstaff: Out on the lawn one afternoon or one morning. Do you remember that? Yeah.
[00:15:32] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah. I mean, I love that location. It’s such a great, great property, so I remember that. Remember that place very specifically? It
[00:15:38] John Longstaff: it is. Yep.
[00:15:39] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah. Good convers conversation.
[00:15:40] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah, and mean. I think that’s the, we’ve often said about the planning center, it’s not where, but who, uh, you know, we wouldn’t have set out perhaps to have an office in Anchorage or Fresno or New Orleans, even from the quad cities, but if it’s the right people, then we’ll kind of have that conversation.
[00:15:57] Jude Boudreaux: And so, um, so yeah. So that, [00:16:00] that led you to, you know, merging your firm in. So what was that like, you know, taking, being a lone person and now being part of this bigger group, what, how was that process for you?
[00:16:12] John Longstaff: One of the first decisions that I made, or one of the, one of the many decisions I made shortly after the merger was, we need a larger, uh, big screen TV in the conference room.
[00:16:24] John Longstaff: Well, I went ahead and bought it because that’s what I had done my entire career. Right? Not thinking that at that point I had six partners that might be concerned that I’m spending X number of dollars for a television screen. That was an education to me. To be a little more open, I guess, in sharing thought process.
[00:16:48] John Longstaff: Uh, what are your plans? Uh, I had never had to do that before, so that was an awakening to me to have partners that all of a sudden, oh, might care how much money you’re spending or, you know, those [00:17:00] kind of things. So that was. It wasn’t shocking. It was just an aha moment.
[00:17:05] Jude Boudreaux: Sure. Yeah. I think all of us that were, were independents.
[00:17:08] Jude Boudreaux: Uh, you go into working with people and it’s, yeah. You start to figure out that, um, oh, they, we might need to have a conversation about that before I go off and do something. So,
[00:17:19] John Longstaff: yeah, I learned that very quickly.
[00:17:21] Jude Boudreaux: Right? I,
[00:17:22] Caleb Arringdale: I look back at this, I joined the planning center in 2020, so I, I look back at this and say, wow, this obviously worked so, so smoothly, so effortlessly.
[00:17:31] Caleb Arringdale: But what were the mistakes made at the time? And how did you learn from them?
[00:17:37] John Longstaff: Well, if you remember, uh, I mentioned that Marty and I spent some time with a business consultant and Marty and I tried to turn over every rock and look for every negative. The one thing that we did not consider yet, we went ahead and made the merger anyway, was health insurance policies in different states.
[00:17:56] John Longstaff: And that was a big, again, an aha [00:18:00] moment that we should have thought about that uh, our minds were elsewhere. That was one of the, one of the issues easily, uh, rectified, but it was just one that we really had not addressed in that whole conversation and, and thought process.
[00:18:16] Caleb Arringdale: I guess no matter how hard you plan for these sorts of things, there’s always going to be these unexpected roadblocks that you’ll just have to have to hurdle together.
[00:18:25] Caleb Arringdale: That makes sense.
[00:18:25] John Longstaff: Well, and these are the realities of life. These are the things that you take into consideration when dealing with clients. You and I both know. Clients hear what they want to hear. Sometimes it’s our job to share things they don’t wanna hear or reiterate things that they might not wanna pay attention to or repeat things in a way that they’re going to understand versus the way that it comes out of our mouth.
[00:18:51] John Longstaff: We think that they should understand it. So, uh. I, I, I honestly think that that carried on into the practice and in [00:19:00] dealing with, uh, with clients at their level.
[00:19:03] Jude Boudreaux: Oh, sure. Yeah. We’re all humans and we’re, uh, as I like to paraphrase the great quote, like, we’re not. Thinking beings that have feelings or feeling beings that also happen to think.
[00:19:13] Jude Boudreaux: And so we periodically will
[00:19:14] John Longstaff: think, yep.
[00:19:15] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah, right. So we’ve got our, our emotional filters that go into all of these things as well. So it’s, um, very natural that, that we might not, uh, always perceive things exactly the way that they were meant to be, uh, sense across the table towards us.
[00:19:30] John Longstaff: I was, uh, it was an honor for me the year I was chairman of the ICFP.
[00:19:35] John Longstaff: It was also the 10th year of the Japanese Association of Financial Planners, and they were having a conference, and I was fortunate enough to go speak, uh, in Japan, uh, first time. Number one I’ve ever spoken with simultaneous translation. Mm-hmm. So what, what might be funny to us as Americans, you get that blind stair look from an audience of 3000.
[00:19:59] John Longstaff: [00:20:00] Japanese financial planners, but I can remember Jude, uh, with the note that you just mentioned. I can remember saying, because the question was asked about, uh, the technical aspect of financial planning, and that seemed to come up over and over and over again. And finally I got frustrated, which I oftentimes do, and I stated that it is about the people.
[00:20:23] John Longstaff: It is not about. The technical, you know, always remember that it’s the people first, and as you said, we’re a, we’re an emotional being that sometimes thinks, and, uh, that’s the reality.
[00:20:37] Caleb Arringdale: Something Marty said was that the job of the financial planner is to make the client curious enough to want to make a change about something.
[00:20:46] John Longstaff: Mm-hmm. What’s his famous phrase? We know what we know. We don’t know what we don’t, something along those lines. And it’s, it’s, it’s a real, you’d think I’d have that tattooed on my body somewhere, but I don’t.
[00:20:58] Jude Boudreaux: So John, I mean, you, three and a half [00:21:00] decades you worked with a lot of families, you know, making these life choices and things, you know, what separates those who you felt like, you know, found fulfillments and were able to, you know, get where they wanted to go versus those who, you know, maybe struggled with, uh, you know, heading in that direction that they might have otherwise wanted to pursue.
[00:21:19] John Longstaff: So many of ’em, uh, and we’ve gone back on this a hundred times, but so much of it was dealing with their life money scripts. Um, just like when you talk to a married couple, each of them comes from a different financial history. One came from a lot. One came from not much. One came from a spending family, one came from a saving family.
[00:21:44] John Longstaff: Uh, you go on and on and on. A lot of it had to do with the sticktuitiveness and the ability to deal with the differences in those money scripts, address them, own them, and work on a, on a mutual, uh, [00:22:00] resolve or solve for that problem. Uh, I think the most successful of my clients have been the ones that have been as consistent in their savings plan or their investing plan.
[00:22:11] John Longstaff: Regardless of the current financial condition, we had the pleasure of working with a number of, uh, farmers and crops go in cycles. Some crops are good crops, some crops are bad crops. Uh, it’s almost biblical at that point. Hey, at good times, you put it away at bad times, you still try and put it away. So, uh, the longevity and the consistency I think are, are what makes it, uh.
[00:22:41] John Longstaff: Makes it work the most. Now, trust is something I believe that is earned. It’s not something I can take from a client. So I think that’s important when they realize what you’re doing for them is not what you’re, what a lot of people think you’re doing to them. So if you’re doing this for [00:23:00] them, listening to what their needs are, listening to what their goals are.
[00:23:04] John Longstaff: Sounds awful basic, doesn’t it? Uh, if you’ve done any planning for any period of time, you’ll understand exactly what I’m talking about.
[00:23:10] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah, no, it, it is basic. Uh, I think all of planning goes back to core principles and it’s easy to, uh, to forget them. Um, Arnold Palmer says about golf, it’s deceptively simple and infinitely complex, and it’s, uh, working with humans, I find is, is very much the same.
[00:23:29] Jude Boudreaux: Um, so
[00:23:30] John Longstaff: yeah, that’s a baseball anal, it’s a baseball analogy as well. A golf ball is standing still to not moving. So it’s, yeah.
[00:23:38] Jude Boudreaux: Right.
[00:23:38] John Longstaff: Yet it’s, yet it’s one of the most difficult things to make go straight, uh, that there is to do.
[00:23:44] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Wow. So, um, yeah, I mean, uh, so you’re retired now. Uh, kind of looking back, uh, anything that you feel like you wish you’d known.
[00:23:56] Jude Boudreaux: Before, uh, about being retired that [00:24:00] might be helpful for somebody on the customer of retirement, what advice would you give them?
[00:24:04] John Longstaff: Jokingly, I say I wish somebody had warned me. I was moving into my wife’s home. Uh, and that was, um, my wife had been medically retired for a number of years, and um, and I’m being extremely facetious, but I remember watching my mother and father when my father retired all of a sudden, um.
[00:24:27] John Longstaff: My mother said she had twice the husband and half the income. And my dad, who is meticulous, uh, there wasn’t a blade of grass outta place. There wasn’t a cabinet that squeaked and my mother used to wish that she had gotten a puppy ’cause she at least put the puppy outside. The reality of that is it’s a transition for both parties.
[00:24:47] John Longstaff: I’m usually an early morning person. I’ve become a little bit lazy. I might stay in bed now till six 30 or seven. But if I did not have this chef gig that [00:25:00] I’m doing, I don’t know. I honestly don’t know what I’d be doing because, uh, I don’t do nothing very well. And if I’m doing nothing, I’m usually stirring the pot.
[00:25:10] John Longstaff: And that sometimes cannot be very healthy as well, or is not healthy.
[00:25:15] Caleb Arringdale: So before you retired, you were really a mentor to jj. You were kind of one, you know, as we discussed, one of the founders of the planning center. How did that work? How did it work? Bringing on kind of someone else to, to fill your shoes?
[00:25:28] Caleb Arringdale: How was that? Both in a technical way, but also kind of an emotional way?
[00:25:32] John Longstaff: I thought I would have a harder time retiring. Kayla, and that’s an excellent question. Uh, I think it, first and foremost is a tribute to jj, the person that he is, I share every time asked, and I know that JJ gets tired of hearing this, but I had a parental feeling of this is good.
[00:25:52] John Longstaff: JJ would come out and spend a week for Minnesota about a week, a month for about two years. Wasn’t it [00:26:00] Jude? I believe it was, yeah. And then he finally convinced his bride that they should move out here, and I think it took, the whole process was three years. Anyhow, the whole purpose was getting JJ in front of the clients as much as possible, so that week that he was here in town, we were just slam jam packed with appointments or going out seeing clients.
[00:26:23] John Longstaff: I can remember as if it was yesterday sitting in the conference room at the Fresno office and watching a client turn their questions from me to jj, and that was a proud. Parental moment, if you will. So much to the point that I actually felt in the way about the last four to six months. I was still working because I did not want to take on any new clients and have to transition them.
[00:26:54] John Longstaff: Uh, JJ was. Cordial enough, allowing [00:27:00] enough to have me sit in on some of the older, well, I don’t mean older age, but longer term clients that we’d built relationships with, but it was a short visit. I just come in and socialize, hightail it outta the conference room and let him take care of the business. I have not, it’s funny, when you retire, you still get calls from clients.
[00:27:20] John Longstaff: I have pretty much turned those all over to, you know, I, I let JJ know when a call comes in, if it’s a technical or a, a planning question. Most of ’em have still been social questions and to the number. They are absolutely thrilled with what JJ is doing. And again, that gives me such peace knowing that, uh, we did the right thing and I had nothing to do with that.
[00:27:45] John Longstaff: This is all about JJ at this point. You set the stage and you hope that the actors come out and do what they’re supposed to do. And he exceeded, exceeded what I had expected because I had gone through a fairly negative [00:28:00] succession plan attempt and that was my own fault because I came in with some unrealistic expectations and it didn’t work.
[00:28:08] John Longstaff: And I was blessed when, uh, I got that phone call from American JJ one day and said, Hey, why don’t we send JJ out to Fresno? Boom.
[00:28:18] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah. No. Life comes together when, uh, when it’s right. Right. When, uh,
[00:28:22] John Longstaff: amen.
[00:28:23] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah.
[00:28:24] John Longstaff: Yep.
[00:28:24] Jude Boudreaux: Wow.
[00:28:25] John Longstaff: Yeah. I love, that’s Rachel. Lemme tell you, I, I mastered this, but it, it wasn’t me.
[00:28:29] Jude Boudreaux: Sure.
[00:28:30] John Longstaff: And, and, and to that point that took away the emotion and the need for control upon my departure, it was a very calm.
[00:28:42] John Longstaff: Positive thing that happened from my perspective. Now you asked JJ that same question may get a different answer and I would expect so. But from my standpoint, oh man. Hit it out of the park. Hit it out of the park.
[00:28:55] Jude Boudreaux: Now I know he’s very fond of you and grateful that that, that this all came [00:29:00] together. So I know you’re, you’re being self-deprecating there, but it’s, um, I think it was a good fit for, for y’all, for the clients and, um, yeah, and I, I think he’s real happy with how life’s worked out for them in Fresno.
[00:29:11] John Longstaff: And I could not be happier.
[00:29:12] Jude Boudreaux: Right. Well, um, we’re heading towards the end of our time together. John, any final thoughts before I pass it over to Caleb for some rapid fire, uh, questions for you?
[00:29:21] John Longstaff: Rapid Fire Pass Pass, PA, how many you got? As many as
[00:29:26] Caleb Arringdale: you’ll answer.
[00:29:27] John Longstaff: I think this is a phenomenal thing that you guys are doing to, um.
[00:29:33] John Longstaff: To give us old farts a little bit of credit for what, uh, what went before you? I, uh, sometimes I think it’s comical that we didn’t do anything. It was all by trial and error. And again, had I thought about doing this before it happened, I probably would’ve never done it again, knowing what I know today. But hey, it, it was positive and that’s how stuff happens.
[00:29:53] Caleb Arringdale: I just have one final question, though. The transition from pharmacist to CFP. [00:30:00] That seems like such an odd switch to me, like such a totally different career field. What was the, like, what tied them together in your mind? Besides obviously a familial thing, what was the impetus, or not even the impetus, how did it work?
[00:30:16] John Longstaff: Well, let me go back to the impetus. Uh, managed healthcare was sweeping through the state of California, which was changing medicine to a point that it also changed pharmacy. Getting back to what drew me to, uh, financial planning and the CFP, the technical did not scare me. I had. A modicum of technical knowledge.
[00:30:38] John Longstaff: The math, if you will, didn’t scare me at all. In fact, that’s the stuff that I love getting into it. Uh, I love quantifying something, so, uh, that part of it didn’t bother me at all. Uh, the gift of a servant’s heart, uh, that played out in spades, so it’s just a heck [00:31:00] of a combination. I wasn’t counting by threes and fives anymore.
[00:31:03] Caleb Arringdale: Very cool. No, thanks. That was, I was appreciate that, that was, it was just really fascinating to me. How, how do you make that career choice?
[00:31:09] John Longstaff: Yep. Understood. Understood.
[00:31:11] Caleb Arringdale: No. Then let’s jump into some rapid fire questions then. John, these are easy, I promise. The first one we ask everyone. Favorite animal. As I said, these are tricky
[00:31:23] John Longstaff: now you talking about to eat or to own
[00:31:26] Caleb Arringdale: your choice?
[00:31:27] Caleb Arringdale: Maybe both.
[00:31:29] John Longstaff: Ooh. Nothing better than a good old dead steer to eat. Uh, I’m a dog guy. I’m a dog man.
[00:31:34] Caleb Arringdale: Very nice. Right. Any, uh, any favorite experiences with a dog then?
[00:31:40] John Longstaff: Oh yeah. We’ve always had hunting dogs, always had labs. Labs are both great working dogs, great personalities, great temperaments, uh, very loving animal.
[00:31:50] John Longstaff: They’re just a big boob.
[00:31:51] Caleb Arringdale: If you had to go buy happiness, what would you buy? How much would it cost?
[00:31:58] John Longstaff: If I had to [00:32:00] buy happiness.
[00:32:01] Caleb Arringdale: Yeah, if, if, if you say, Hey, I’m gonna go buy a little bit of happiness today, is that an ice cream cone? Is that a, what? Is that a trip? What does that look like for you?
[00:32:12] John Longstaff: That might be a hike on a trail, uh, in Glacier Park.
[00:32:20] John Longstaff: It’s
[00:32:21] Caleb Arringdale: good park. Okay, great. Along those lines, best trip you’ve ever been on?
[00:32:26] John Longstaff: Uh, the trip that my wife and I took when I spoke at the Japanese Association of Financial Planning trip and we extended two weeks to visit a client in Beijing. That was one of the, the better trips the two of us had been able to go on, and that was, believe it or not, that was right when she was diagnosed with ms.
[00:32:49] John Longstaff: It was one of the last large, uh, big timeframe trips that we’ve taken. Mm-hmm. So yeah, that was a great trip.
[00:32:58] Very
[00:32:58] John Longstaff: cool. Only time I’ve, only [00:33:00] time I’ve considered tall in my life was in Japan.
[00:33:03] Caleb Arringdale: It’s fun, isn’t it?
[00:33:05] John Longstaff: And then our tour guide in Beijing was a lady that was six two. So Yeah. From one reality can’t to another.
[00:33:12] John Longstaff: I know. There you go. I know it.
[00:33:14] Caleb Arringdale: I, is there a dream trip you haven’t done yet or one you’d like to do in the future?
[00:33:19] John Longstaff: We’ve always wanted to do, uh, New Zealand and we’re still, uh, figuring out a way that that might work out for my bride. Uh, only because she can’t really sit that long, which makes it difficult for an 18 hour flight.
[00:33:33] John Longstaff: Right.
[00:33:33] Caleb Arringdale: Absolutely.
[00:33:34] John Longstaff: Uh, and it’d be a three week, it’s always
[00:33:35] a
[00:33:36] Caleb Arringdale: boat trip.
[00:33:36] John Longstaff: Yeah, I was gonna say it’d be a three week boat trip and she can get it. Walk around. I know it. I know it.
[00:33:40] Caleb Arringdale: Mm-hmm.
[00:33:43] John Longstaff: Alright, we’ll be passing the hat later.
[00:33:46] Caleb Arringdale: Very nice. The last question, best advice you’ve ever received?
[00:33:51] John Longstaff: Oh, best advice. Well, one of the ones from my father was Measure twice.
[00:33:56] John Longstaff: Cut once, uh, had a baseball coach. Share with [00:34:00] me if you’re 10 minutes earlier, you’re 20 minutes late. I never missed another bus. I can tell you that for sure. Yeah, those, those are probably the two that stick with me. Well, my dad used, my dad used to also tell my brother and I when we were going out in high school, Hey boys, if you do something stupid enough to get thrown in jail, you may want to call home and tell your mother where you are.
[00:34:22] John Longstaff: Which was his way of saying he’s not bailing this out. So those kind of things stuck too.
[00:34:28] Caleb Arringdale: Oh, very nice. Well, thanks John. Those were great.
[00:34:30] John Longstaff: Oh, you’re very welcome. Can’t wait to see that on the editing floor.
[00:34:33] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah, no, this was a fun conversation. Um, any final thoughts for you?
[00:34:38] John Longstaff: Like I said, I appreciate more than you know, that you are, uh, willing to accept what it is that people like Sicily, Marty, and I have to say, and how we got to where we are.
[00:34:51] John Longstaff: And, uh, hopefully you’ll learn from our mistakes. So I couldn’t be prouder of what’s going on at the planning center. Appreciate the time.
[00:34:58] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah, no. Well thanks for joining us [00:35:00] and grateful for your time. But yeah, we, um. I think we all believe the same things, you know around here, that it’s about the people way more than it’s about the money.
[00:35:11] Jude Boudreaux: And um, you know, if we create a safe place for people to come and talk about the life transitions that they’ve got going on, then we can find a way to be a servant for that. I think everybody here is. We got a servant’s heart and while we talk about money, it’s, yeah, it’s almost never about the money, it’s about the life and what, what it is that we’re trying to help that family accomplish or navigate.
[00:35:32] Jude Boudreaux: So, um, so yeah, so I’m just grateful that we get to help be a part of, you know, continuing that legacy and that story, and hopefully teaching enough people that one day they’ll continue to carry that same story forward.
[00:35:45] John Longstaff: Well, wish you all well in that endeavor.
[00:35:48] Jude Boudreaux: Yeah. No thanks. Thanks John. Um, I appreciate that very much.
[00:35:52] Jude Boudreaux: So All right everybody. Well thanks for joining us for another episode of The Living Beyond the Numbers podcast. Uh, you can reach me, I’m [00:36:00] jude@theplanningcenter.com. You can always catch Caleb at caleb@theplanningcenter.com and, uh, hope that you’ll like, subscribe and join us again for another episode, uh, upcoming.
[00:36:10] Jude Boudreaux: So. Thanks everybody and hope to see you again soon.
[00:36:15] Voieover: Thanks for tuning in to the Living Beyond the Numbers podcast. If today’s episode resonated with you, be sure to follow us so you never miss a conversation. For more resources and to learn how we can help you align your wealth with your life’s purpose, visit us@theplanningcenter.com or give us a call at (888) 333-6986.
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