#144: T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth)

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:00:00]:

He uses an example in that book about paying your mortgage off, right? And he said it was the smartest decision he and his wife made. And it wasn't the best financial decision they made. It was the best decision they made because it helped them sleep better at night. And so our most valuable asset, whether you are a billionaire or you're just starting out in the world, is time. We all trade in the same currency. What do you want to do with your time? Land independence is a fancy tagline that we use in the industry, and really what that means is freedom of time, your autonomy to do what you want, when you want, with whom you want. So that is at the core of all of our client relationships.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:39]:

Let's discover what people are building in the Greater Cleveland community. We are telling the stories of Northeast Ohio's entrepreneurs, builders and those supporting them. Welcome to the Lay of the Land podcast, where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio. I am your host, Jeffrey Stern, and today I had the real pleasure of speaking with T. J. Gliha, the co founder of Journey Wealth. Established in 2021, Journey Wealth is a full service wealth planning firm that helps entrepreneurs explore the world of opportunities availed by their success by addressing their needs and enabling them and their families to lead the lives that they aspire to. From its humble beginnings with just four employees, Journey Wealth has grown as a self governing registered investment advisory firm to nearly 20 professionals with the strategic acquisition of a significant equity stake in FSM Wealth, offering multifamily office services primarily to professional golfers.

Jeffrey Stern [00:01:41]:

With a robust background as a portfolio manager and trader at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and also as a former shareholder at the Sequoia Financial Group, TJ brings a wealth of experience to the table. Not only is he dedicated to helping entrepreneurs make the most of their time their most valuable asset, but he also plays an active role in the community as a board member of the Make A Wish Foundation and Cleveland Clinic Children's Council, in addition to his role as treasurer of the Avon Lake Football Club stemming from his passion for football. This was a really fun conversation for me. As a longtime student of public market investing TJ and I really got to unpack the wealth management, business and industry overall, the intersection of investing and of entreprenuership, the psychology and cognitive biases of investors, his formative past as a trader on the exchange floor the evolution of journey wealth over time and service of entrepreneurship, his perspective on leadership and so much more. So please enjoy my conversation with TJ Gleha after a brief message from our sponsor. Lay of the Land is brought to you by Impact Architects and by 90 as we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio. Impact Architects has helped hundreds of those leaders, many of whom we have heard from as guests on this very podcast, realize their own visions and build these great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:19]:

If you two are trying to build great, impact Architects is offering to sit down with you for a free consultation or provide a free trial through 90, the software platform that helps teams build great companies. If you are interested in learning more about partnering with Impact Architects or by leveraging 90 to power your own business, please go to IA layoftheland FM. The link will also be in our show notes. So I've been really looking forward to having you on the podcast for a while now, because when we had the opportunity to meet a few months back, I felt like I got to hear an abridged version of what we'll get to talk about today. And your tenacity and passion in recounting your story was just, like, very memorable and engaging. So I hope, you know, setting the bar too high here before we even start.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:04:19]:

Not Teddy Roosevelt, so I won't be pounding on the table or anything.

Jeffrey Stern [00:04:24]:

No. It'll be fun, though, to share your story with a greater audience than myself, so I think that's what I've been looking forward to.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:04:32]:

No, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:04:35]:

So recounting what I can recall from your story before we get to Prop Trading and the Chicago Board and transitioning to entrepreneurship, land wealth management in Cleveland, I think it would be awesome to just start closer to the know with your earliest of motivations, know what it was like for you preferably to break into Wall Street?

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:05:01]:

Yeah. So what's interesting about that? Wall street? So I grew up in a middle class family, grew up on the east side of Cleveland, and I always wanted to be an attorney and want to be a family of attorneys and whether defense attorneys or estate planners on the legal side. And I had one uncle who was in private equity. We're sitting around on a family barbecue at my uncle's house. Beautiful home. It's located in Pepper Pike. And when I was asking my one uncle, who's an attorney, questions about how was this week? What are things going on? And he know some of the questions I had, he said, you should really start looking outside of law. Just make sure that when you come into law that this is exactly what you want to do.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:05:46]:

And be careful about selecting a career where you just charge for time. And I was okay. You know, at the time, I had no idea what he was talking about. And I was a lifeguard at the Shoreby Club and Shorby Club. It's a beautiful yacht club out on Lake erie, and there was a retired dentist and his wife, and this was at the height of the.com bubble, 1999, 2000. And every day they would be day trading, and they'd have newspapers and investment books, and nobody was ever in the pool. So I would just sit and chat them up and ask questions. And they took me under their wing, and we started following five stocks.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:06:30]:

And I think I remember it was like land because I had a cousin who worked for EMC. I think it was Best Buy because at the time, everybody wanted a Sony Discman or whatever was popular at the went kind of fell for the Peter Lynch method where just look at and identify things that you can touch, feel, and you understand, right? So I started following those stocks, and at the same time, my cousin who was in from New York, had his girlfriend at the time, worked for Goldman Sachs on the fixed income trading side. And Goldman, I had no idea what Goldman was. You kind of hear about it, but I had no idea what it was. And fixed income, no idea what that meant. And so they came in for a July 4 barbecue, and I remember just sitting next to her and peppering her with 25 a million questions. And after we got done, she's like, you know, why don't you do this? Why don't you prepare a resume and send it? And I'll submit it. They have an internship program that they start interviewing this fall for the following summer.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:07:34]:

And I said, great. Okay. I wouldn't even know where to begin on doing a resume or anything like that. So prepared a resume, gave it to her. She helped me get in front of Goldman Sachs, a connection to Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse First Boston, and I think one other firm. And leading into it, she said, Listen, I think this is great experience. You get to ask questions. You get to see Wall Street on Wall Street.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:07:58]:

She said, but you won't get the or they only hire Ivy Leaguers. But I think it would be a great opportunity for you to experience that and kind of dip your toe and see the world. And I said, sounds good to me. I have nothing to lose. This is great. So submitted my resumes, went out there that fall and interviewed, and I will tell you, it was the most stressful situation. You're peppered all these questions and things, and most of which I have no idea. But on the other aspect, I had nothing to lose.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:08:26]:

So I just went in there and said, okay, well, I'm just going to go and talk to these people, ask them questions, learn more about it. And lo and behold, I actually got a job offer from Credit Suisse First Boston. So I was the only non Ivy League guy at the time from this interim class. And I was floored. I was so excited so I spent that my whole junior year. And at the time, I was pre law and had now started taking dropped a bunch of classes, took economics, finance, a bunch of things, try to bolster up what I knew or education. So then got to go to Wall Street and Wall Street.com bubble biotech desk, listed block trading desk. This has got to experience Nasdaq in 2000 and 2001.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:09:13]:

It was such a different dynamic at the time and the experience that I went through in a couple of things. One, not only the experience of learning the industry from the best of the best. I mean, CNBC was interviewing a couple of the traders on a daily basis, and you're just standing you're just sitting there in awe. But I had no idea what the fixed income was or derivatives or the difference between different equity portfolio sales. So many things about the industry that I got to experience. So that was fantastic. The other aspect is just challenging myself. It was the first time in my life where you're like, you know what? What's the worst? The say, no.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:09:50]:

All right, great. I can do this. And so I remember my mom hooked me up. Like, we went to the suit, and it was the cheapest suit, and it was like, two sizes too big for the interview, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. It was such a fantastic experience. And then I got to live in Manhattan and spent the weekends going to the Hamptons and going to the shore and going up to Newport, Rhode Island, and just kind of living something that I'm a guy from Chestnut, Ohio. I think the tallest building in Chestnut is our library. Right? If you fell off, you wouldn't even break your arm.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:10:21]:

So it was a fantastic experience in learning what I wanted to do, and I just fell in love with it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:10:27]:

So we'll spend a lot of our conversation today talking about wealth management and the business behind it, particularly through this lens of journey wealth and FSM wealth and the whole entreprenuership journey that you've embarked on here. But I wanted to level set about what wealth management even is. What is wealth, and how is it that you manage it.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:10:51]:

When I first started studying finance, land, financial service industry, wealth management 20 years ago, was you're more of a gatekeeper to a stock or a bond, right? Financial planning, it wasn't what it is today. There were financial planners around 30 years ago, but it wasn't at the core of what the financial service industry did. It was more, hey, we're a gatekeeper to a stock or to a bond. And wealth management has evolved, right, providing additional services to clients based on what they're looking to accomplish financially. So even when I started in the investment or wealth management industry, people still referred to their guy as a broker, right? And so a broker just says, hey, I got a hot stock tip, which is totally not what the industry is or has evolved to being. But wealth management is really the way that we view it is really getting a thorough understanding of what your clients are looking to accomplish financially and beyond and helping provide solutions. Right? We believe that wealth management is the core of it is financial planning. And financial planning is not just what a cheesy tagline you hear at a Super Bowl commercial, right? It is really understanding your clients short term, intermediate and long term goals and helping provide proactive solutions to accomplish those goals.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:12:12]:

And like a fitness routine, anybody can write you a fitness routine and then they give it to you and then they disappear. But having being partners with your client and helping them whatever the checklist for the next 90 days or 180 days or five years beyond is really providing those proactive solutions to helping your clients achieve whatever their purpose or legacy is. So when I graduated college, I took a job working for a derivatives trading company of which I loved. I got to trade short term options on short term interest rate futures. I did that for a little over twelve years in Chicago, yelling and screaming at the Board of Trade. It was the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. And then the CME bought out the Board of Trade and moved everybody to the Board of Trade. But it was at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, it was the most liquid, most actively traded options pit in the world.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:13:00]:

I got to trade in it during the advent of technology as a lot of things moved to electronic trading, as well as yelling, land, screaming in the pit during the subprime crisis, which was the most volatile time in interest rate, at least modern day interest rate history. The lessons I learned, the relationships I grew, it could be very lucrative. It was high risk, high reward, it was very intense. But the one thing about the pit, when you trade in the pit, it's a relationship. You have to have relationships with the brokers. I was a proprietary trader, so we didn't have clients. We traded our own money. We had backers who were essentially the bank and you and your partner and your team that you build out, you traded throughout the year and we were half speculators, half spreaders.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:13:47]:

Basically we provided liquidity to the marketplace, but the brokers were on the outside of the pit. We as the locals were on the inside of the pit. They facilitated orders for large institutional investors being hedge funds, pension funds, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman, and they used this product as a way to hedge their risk land interest rates. So we as the proprietary traders, would take the other side of these bets and spread it off against other positions within the product. But the relationships you had with the broker, if when things got busy, you developed relationships with the broker, they knew they can count on you to make a timely market to provide liquidity for their clients. And I really appreciated that, the risk management side and the relationships that I had with the broker. But as the industry grew, it became as I mentioned earlier, it went from being risk management, fast market making, pit trading, to how fast your algorithm was computer programming, and it switched. We went from hiring Ivy League athletes to hiring PhDs and computer programmers from MIT.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:14:54]:

And the funny part is they're like, hey, TJ, you need to go interview this PhD from MIT. I'm like, I don't know what the heck I'm going to ask this guy with the square root of 500 is. I mean, this guy's smarter than I'll ever be when it comes to that. So some of my questions were, you'd be on the horn with these guys for 12 hours a day. You'd have to talk to them nonstop. And so I would ask them, can you name me all nine positions on a baseball field, or can you tell me who won the game last night? Because a lot of it is these are your team members that, yes, you have to talk about work, but there's also a lot of it, are you going to gel and be able to work well together outside of just the number side? So in 2011 so our clearinghouse was MF Global land. In 2011, there was a scandal in which MF Global basically combined segregated assets with non segregated assets and caused our clearinghouse. Our dollars were frozen, and so we couldn't trade for over a week.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:15:54]:

And that was a lot of money. Tied up towards that Friday was unemployment. Unemployment is a big number in our world back then. My backers and bosses did a fantastic job of providing liquidity during that time. But it shook me at the time and said, listen, I want to be part of something. I want something different out of my career. Like, we did everything right and I couldn't control the one thing and you can never really control. You can't control everything.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:16:21]:

But it started me on a path of thinking about I wanted more out of my career, more than just making money. And I started writing these down like I wanted a career or an opportunity to really focus on relationships, focus on helping people with their finances. Because in the proprietary trading world, we only got paid once a year, so we got paid every March. And you had to financially plan for the next year coming and beyond. So if you had a bad year, you better have saved. If not, your wife's going to be really disappointed in you. So financial planning was always at a core of what we did, and I really was intrigued by it because you could build a business based on relationships, based on trust, and it's something that I could spend the next couple of decades doing. So I went from proprietary trading to I joined UBS for a small period.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:17:17]:

I had a cup of coffee at UBS, but realized I wanted to be more on the independent, the more in the independent side. We can get into that if you want. But I wanted to know the gentlemen that I worked for were great guys. They were fantastic people. But the way that they wanted to run their business was different than the way that I saw the future of the industry going.

Jeffrey Stern [00:17:37]:

I remember the first time we talked, I'll hearken back to one of our mutual favorite authors. We had talked about this fellow, Morgan Hausel, who wrote a wonderful book called The Psychology of Money. I love this book because it's just grounded in reality. And basically he argues that wealth can consistently and predictably be built through discipline and avoiding our cognitive biases over time that would have us lose that wealth. And he talks about what these biases are, practically how you might position yourself to best avoid them, to even pointing out how modern financial saving instruments like the Roth IRA weren't created as concepts until the late seventy s and ninety s, respectively. So how novel these vehicles are in the grand scheme of wealth management. Conventional wisdom in practice. So all that is to get at an approach for how individuals can think about managing their own wealth and how others may advise people in the managing of their wealth.

Jeffrey Stern [00:18:41]:

From your own perspective, how is it that you came to the kind of philosophy that you have around wealth management and your own approach to it?

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:18:49]:

I have the opportunity to work with a lot of entrepreneurs. I mean, that's a core focal point of our firm and business owners inherently look at the world differently, right? And so finance has always been it's kind of a buy the book type thing. So what I loved about Morgan household's book, Psychology of Money, he uses an example in that book about paying your mortgage off, right? And he said it was the smartest decision he and his wife made. And it wasn't the best financial decision they made. It was the best decision they made because it helped them sleep better at night. And so our most valuable asset, whether you are a billionaire or you're just starting out in the world, is time. We all trade in the same currency. What do you want to do with your time and financial independence? It's a fancy tagline that we use in the industry.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:19:38]:

And really what that means is it's freedom of time, your autonomy to do what you want, when you want, with whom you want. So that is at the core of all of our client relationships. We have a lot of clients that say they want to be philanthropic, right? That's what they want to do with their free time and their free resources. We have a lot of clients that say, I want to spend more time with my family, right? I want to take my family on a large trip every year. And that's what they want to do with their time, land their resources. And that's great. We can help them plan for that. But if we only focus on the investment side of the equation, with the advent of technology and the enhancements, the investment side is a commoditized piece of that's, the commoditized part of the business.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:20:16]:

92% of investment returns are driven by asset allocation. Right. Your mixture between stocks and bonds. And so if you understand what people are trying to accomplish and whether that's pay off kids college or save for retirement in a start a new business or transfer money to the next generation, assigning an allocation around that, that's the easy part. But helping clients achieve those goals, quantify those goals, and actually define those goals, is really where the rubber meets the road. AI. So AI is the buzzword over the past year. AI technology can solve for all the IQ part of the equation.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:20:57]:

IQ can be solved by AI. It can be and will be. We see that type up chat, GBT, what you want and spits out a paragraph for you. But we at Journey want to take that technology, the AI, so that it can free us up for more time to focus on the EQ, the emotional side of the equation, understand what our clients are really trying to accomplish and what their aspirations are and what they want to do with their freedom of time. 90% of the clients that walk into our office aren't focused on I mean, yes, dollars and cents are really important, but a lot of that is solved, right? It's going to be, I'm 52, I'm selling my business. Now what? I have no idea what the next chapter of my life looks like. And we help define that. We help them bring that out, crystallize it, and then work with other advisors in a collateral fashion to surround the needs and help them track that out.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:21:55]:

75% of business owners that sell their business profoundly regret it a year later. And a lot of that is not because of the money aspect. It's because of they didn't know what was next. So that's why at Journey, something we're doing a little bit differently is we're bringing on a life coach and an executive coach that's helping surround the needs of our clients. Because when we think about wellness, it's not only financial wellness, but it's emotional wellness. It's spiritual wellness. It's physical wellness. Prime example, everything.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:22:24]:

A lot of times we hear, hey, I want to take my grandkids. We want to go on a vacation every year. I want to hike. We want to tour the Grand Canyon. Well, you're 50 pounds overweight. You haven't talked to your daughter in two years. How are you going to have a relationship with your grandkids? Let's start to mend some of those other things. The largest unknown cost in retirement is health care.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:22:46]:

Right? So we need to begin now to establish good habits which will establish better outcomes and results moving forward. So Journey is not just about the financial picture now that's at the core of what we do, but we're continuing to add value to our clients in other areas that they deem important.

Jeffrey Stern [00:23:04]:

So tell us a little bit about Journey's story. How is it that you came to this holistic approach to wealth as a concept and just an overview of the company itself and how it came to be sure?

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:23:18]:

So I had the opportunity. I used to work for a great firm, worked there for seven years. And as I mentioned before, I worked with a lot of entrepreneurs. And when working with entrepreneurs, it becomes contagious. Right? My prior role as a proprietary trader, we were entreprenuership. We had our own business, we managed our own expenses, we managed our own net. We didn't really have a boss. So I had the opportunity to work with a lot of entrepreneurs at my previous firm.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:23:44]:

And in that I kept every night would go home to my wife and be like, I need to do something. I just feel it wasn't structural, it was personal. I wanted to sign the front of my paycheck and not the back. And it's not about the end destination. It was really about the Journey land. I wanted to have fun land, do things a little bit differently. So an opportunity presented itself in 2020. COVID, which was we know has affected everybody in a million different ways, both bad and good.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:24:14]:

It presented an opportunity. There was a gentleman locally who had an existing RA firm that dealt, provided multifamily office services for professional golfers, great existing platforms, great niche business, very customized solution, something that I liked. There wasn't a solution that this firm didn't say, if you needed help with your kitchen being redone, they would hop on the phone, you need to help get financing for a plane, they would help get on the phone. And I like that customized, tailored approach. And at the time he was looking for succession. He was in his early sixty s, and a lot of his clients are in their 40s saying, if something happens to you, what happens to me? Right? But he knew he didn't want to sell out to one of the bigger boys and he still wanted to be involved in the relationship and in the business for a period of time. So at that time I was networking and came across this opportunity. I met with this gentleman and it seemed like a really good fit, a great match made in heaven.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:25:15]:

And I believe firmly, strongly believe in our industry. It has to be a team based approach. Certainly just because I wanted to be an entrepreneur and start my own business did not mean that hanging a shingle was in the best interest of the client, because it isn't. And so I formed a group of partners, and we took a material equity stake in FSM Wealth. And FSM Wealth, as I mentioned before, we service multifamily office services for four professional golfers. We manage 55, and we do everything from pay their bills, do their bookkeeping, manage their assets, do their financial planning, tax planning. You name it, we do it. And so it was a great platform, great client base.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:25:54]:

Five of the top 50 all time money leaders on the tour. We had three guys in the President's Cup last year. Right? Now we have two guys slated to be on the Writer Cup. We have three of the top eight amateurs in the US today. So we have a great, robust client platform providing niche tailored solutions with complex. They play in 34 different states, four different countries. So there's a tax piece to this that is nuanced. So we founded Journey.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:26:23]:

Journey took a material equity stake in FSM Wealth, and Journey provides multifamily office services for entreprenuership and ultra high net worth families. So we provide very similar services, just with a different set of clients.

Jeffrey Stern [00:26:40]:

And where did the focus on entrepreneurs come from, the impetus for wanting to focus there?

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:26:47]:

I think coming into the wealth management industry from the institutional side, a little bit older in my life cycle, probably. And I'm still young, right? I'm still a young guy. I'm 43 years old. But this wasn't my first job right out of college, right? So I had experience and a little bit of life experience that helped me with empathy and, I think, rational thinking. And I didn't just learn financial planning by the book, right? And entrepreneurs, being an entrepreneur, it really resonated with me. And so I had the opportunity to be affiliated with a group called EO. And EO is an entrepreneur organization, which is an organization where in Cleveland there's 100 and 4150 business owners in which this is the opportunity for them to learn, to develop, to share the 5% that they don't share with other people about their businesses. Right? How do I make payroll or my family relationships suffering due to the time I'm spending in my business? So all the nuances of being a business owner, because nobody really understands if you're not a business owner or you're not an entrepreneur, you don't understand the risk associated with it.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:27:57]:

You don't understand that it consumes you. Right? This is everything you think about. You sleep, breathe, eat your business. And how do I make it better? How do I market? I'm thinking about my clients. I'm thinking about my employees. So I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with these members and the ability to understand what they're trying to accomplish and then provide value. In addition to everybody that's a financial planner or in the wealth management industry, everybody wants to manage your money land. The way that I.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:28:26]:

View it is. I don't want to manage your money. If the greatest asset you have is your business and you want to keep 90% of your net worth in your business and that's your biggest tool to financial independence, then I want to help you grow your business. I want to help you maximize the value in your business, maximize the value outside of your business, right? I want to help you in areas, whether it's estate planning or cash flow optimization or wellness or whatever it is, I can help, right? Because the business owners moist. They don't have any time, right? They don't have time. They don't have time to sit there and talk to their accountant about X, Y, and Z. And they don't have time to have that same conversation with their insurance professional or their same conversation with their estate plan professional. So we come in and we work collaboratively with the other advisors.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:29:12]:

I think this term is overused, but really is the financial quarterback. We are the CFO. We come in and basically we take over. And I guess our relationship is built on trust. And trust is when action meets words, right? So people say they do all these things and then what separates the good from the great is consistency. So we consistently keep doing that. And if we can't take on another client because we aren't consistently delivering good work, then we're not going to take on another client until we're delivering for our clients, right? So we want to consistently do good work for our clients. And that's what I love about it.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:29:51]:

So working with entrepreneurs and seeing how that they created their own playground, right? They created their own instrument, they created their own world. And I've learned so much from the clients. And I attribute taking this risk to the entreprenuership that I got to work with, to the organization of EO, giving me the confidence to say, go for it. Right? And I remember I sat with the client land. I told him what I was doing and he looked at me and he said, it's about time, let's go. It's amazing how inspiring entrepreneurs can be to other entreprenuership. As long as you don't compare yourself, right? Because everybody's running their own race and comparison is the the of joy. I know we've heard that statement before, but it really is.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:30:34]:

If you understand that you're running your own race and you're living in a world of abundance, then life's going to work out. It just may not be. And I told my wife when I said, hey, I'm leaving my old job and we're going to start this business. And I remember her saying, Go for it. Knowing that you have the support of your wife, have the support of your clients and then the stakeholders, it's like, what happened? Worst case scenario, I don't care. I'll go work in Walmart. It does not bother me. But the regret of not taking the shot would far outweighed, not right.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:31:12]:

So you had to take the shot.

Jeffrey Stern [00:31:14]:

Right. Something you just mentioned there reminded me actually of something we had talked about when we had first met as well. And it relates and maybe is a good segue to talk about the process of how it is that you actually sell. But I remember you had mentioned that the conversation that matters the most in selling in your business is what the spouse says to their partner on the car ride home.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:31:37]:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Stern [00:31:37]:

What do you mean by that?

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:31:40]:

As I mentioned before, this is a business based on I think what we do is in our industry is we sell the hardest thing in the world to sell, and that's trust. And it's not a fancy screen TV, it's not a software application. It's a relationship. And when you sit across from a couple and you say, we care and we're going to deliver for you, we're going to do all the things that we've set forth in this financial plan for you, the conversation isn't there. It's when they get in the car and they're on their ride home and the wife looks to the husband and says, I believe in them. I trust in them. Every time I'm talking to our colleagues internally, I say that's what we have to focus on. It's not a fancy speech.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:32:24]:

It's not a mahogany office. It's that car ride home. When the wife turns to the husband says, I believe in them. I trust in them. They can help. And so that's where there's nothing more compelling in the world to say than we have a ton of experience in working with clients similar to you. And I know we can help in meaning it resonates. And trust is something that, as I mentioned before, it's when actions meet words, right? And it's when in doing the thing.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:32:50]:

So I love what I do. I love the relationships we have with the clients. And it's such a joy to understand and learn from our clients and to help them. I think it's the most rewarding job in the world. I mean, I really do. I love what we do because it goes far beyond just managing assets. It's really understanding. And I don't mean to be crass here, but people will talk about their sex lives before they talk about their pocketbook.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:33:16]:

When you get to understand people, basically show you everything they got and tell you everything that they're trying to accomplish, all the hurdles, the challenges that they've had along the way, and you're there to help, and you begin to add value to them, there isn't anything that's more rewarding. And you develop a really close relationship with your clients.

Jeffrey Stern [00:33:38]:

So I would imagine going to this idea of competition, that a lot of people say that they will do these things. And to your point about trust, and that being the point where action meets those words, how do you think about how journey wealth actually differentiates from other wealth management companies? What is the role of technology in the business? And you mentioned how the wealth management industry kind of writ large has changed since you began your career land, how it's more than just what stock are you buying tomorrow? How do you think about journey's positioning land evolution of that over time?

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:34:19]:

Sure. Well, first given I wouldn't say specialization, but our dedication towards entreprenuership and professional golfers, there are custom solutions. Right. So we continue to hire and bring on team members that add additional value to our existing clients. So we have bookkeepers on staff, we have CPAs on staff, we have financial planners, two CFA. We have a bunch of we'll call alphabet soup. We have a bunch of dedicated professionals on our team that are there to surround the needs of our clients. When we look at technology, technology is a tool where if we're only focused on using technology to enhance internal operation efficiencies, then we're failing.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:35:00]:

Everything we do has to be in the best interest of the client, whether it's providing a solution in a technology solution or an investment solution or a planning solution, whatever it is. We stole this from Jeff Bezos. But essentially there's an empty seat in the room at all times in representation of the client. Right. So if we're not doing it for the best interest of the client, delivering for the client experience, then we're not interested in doing it or it has to be rethought. So now we're beginning rolling out here shortly. It's a learning style assessment for our clients, not a test for our clients, but to understand how they curate, how they consume data and content so we can deliver the content that's most easily comprehended by them. A lot of times, historically, hand them 150 page financial plan and they don't ever open it because it's just a lot.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:35:53]:

Or you have other engineers that love to dissect everything and provide. So we're going to provide content, land, tools available to them. If they want to stress test and do modeled scenarios, they can. So we want to curate content and then be able to deliver solutions based on what they're trying to accomplish in a fast manner. Right. So using AI has helped us leverage that. It's helped us saying, if you're telling me you have a philanthropic endeavor, we can help use AI to help deliver solutions faster, but then we use the personnel side to be along there to help you implement those solutions. The big initiative that we've come out this year is like I mentioned before, we brought on a certified life coach, executive coach, and we've begun a family journey process in which we're working with our ultra high net worth.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:36:42]:

Families and delivering family meetings. Helping them set core values, helping them educate, align the family around how the wealth was created with the legacy they want to preserve for the family and beyond. And so continue to add more services or I'd say more value to our clients is what we're going to continue to do. And continue to add people and solutions. And there's a lot of consolidation in our industry now. Right? So there's a lot of consolidation. There's a lot of roll ups for us. We're going to continue to be White Glove boutique.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:37:15]:

You won't see a whole lot of marketing. For us. Our marketing and sales strategy is we've tripled in size in the last two and a half years based on client referrals and word of mouth. Right. And so we're going to continue to be boutique. It doesn't mean in the future we won't do some sort of marketing. But we really like being kind of under the radar. Right? Land.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:37:36]:

Just delivering for our clients. That's the most fun. And empowering our employees. If they have a better solution or something they see behind the scenes, we're going to constantly reinvent, right? We're students, right? We're Students. And I'm not going to sit here land, continue to push something that's not working right. So if somebody in the trenches has a better solution or a better way or a more efficient way to deliver to the client, then we're going to empower our employees to do that. And we want to hear the what.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:09]:

Do you think are the biggest misconceptions folks coming into working with Journey have about succession? And generally, what do you wish more people understood about it?

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:38:24]:

So, succession, I think people, when they think about Succession, they think I have to sell my business. They have. Private equity, for example, gets a bad rap for a lot of entrepreneurs. I sell my business to private equity, they're going to fire all my employees and they're going know, move geographic locations or whatever it is. I think succession, like know, when did Noah build the ark? Before the flood, right? So if we map out here's a couple external solutions, here's a couple internal solutions, and then ultimately always goes to the core of your financial plan, like understanding what you need for your family and what you want your legacy to be. If your business is your main tool to retirement or to financial independence, then let's talk about what succession looks like. Having open dialogue with your current employees, your key management team very important. And most importantly, have an open dialogue with your family.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:39:19]:

Right? And do you have children that are interested in being in the business? Do you not have children or your kids moved out and they don't care? Do you have key management team that have been with you for 2030 years that want to sustain the business moving forward? So it's understanding what you need personally. Right? For? What's your purpose? What's your legacy? What is the evolution of your legacy? Because it's going to be way different when you're 35 than what it is when you're 65. But beginning time you always got to think about the defensive side of the equation. What happens if I get hit by a bus? Right, but along the side you start thinking about the strategic side. And with that I think if it's internal land you want mass ownership. You may consider an ESOP if you have a key management team that you want to sell the business to or you have strategic or private equity on the external side. So it depends on what you're looking to accomplish. But I've seen the best end results are when there's open dialogue.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:40:24]:

The owners have clear ideas of what they need personally. So for example, if the business is worth $10 a share, you're financially independent at $8 a share and you sell to your internal management team for $9 a share. Everyone wins. Right. If your goal was to sell internally, you wanted the business sustain. You believe in the community, you believe in your key management team and you get to sell it to them at a discount to fair market value. But you're still financially independent. If that's important to you, then I've seen it happen.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:40:56]:

Right? And I've seen other people grow business and say I want max value and they sell it to private equity or to the highest bidder. So I think understanding what you want out of the business and it's going to change. It's going to change. There's some people that say I never want to sell. Three years later there's a family event or a lifestyle change or something's changed significantly in the economy or industry in general. And they're like, I need to get out. And so when we help plan, part of the process is that we start thinking through those things. Right? We stern building the arc land, helping them think through best, worst and base case scenarios.

Jeffrey Stern [00:41:35]:

Yeah, no, it's really cool. One of the things that you had mentioned that really kind of resonates is the whole kind of boutique idea for the firm and word of mouth and really having the whole business built on trust. It brought me back. One of my first professional experiences was with a firm called Allen and Company, and they're one of these boutique, old school shops. And in my mind, they're kind of like very close to what the ideal business looks like, because it's ultimately just someone is deciding that your wisdom and practice is so worthy to give you your capital. And the business itself doesn't really require so much of that itself. And so it's a very accretive thing overall. But it really stems from building this relationships over time.

Jeffrey Stern [00:42:31]:

It's, I think, fun to think about because it stands, I think, in contrast to product management and other service offerings in a traditional sense. And so it's interesting to think about from a business context how that looks in practice.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:42:45]:

We don't need to be pioneers, we can be settlers. Right. There's been a lot what I mean by that is I don't need to be Lewis and Clark. We could be the dude that founded, right? Like, there's been so many smart people that have come before us, so many entrepreneurs. And what I love about the opportunity I have and the clients that we get to work with and the network that I have is asking questions, hey, what happened if somebody stripped in a hole? I want to make sure I avoid that hole, right? And humbling myself to ask questions. And I mentioned this earlier, but the one thing is living in a world of abundance. And it's easy to say, but I don't believe in our industry that there's a zero sum game. I firmly believe that everyone can win.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:43:27]:

You find the right fit clients for the right firm, and there's going to be certain clients that aren't interested in what we provide. They're more interested in something else for another firm. And that's okay. And so understand that if we live in the world of abundance and we just are authentically true to ourselves, you're going to attract the clients that you want to work with. You're going to attract meaningful relationships that way, and it's just going to make it more enjoyable. And same with our employees. Our employees are so valuable. I love the team that we have with us today and look to continue to build and grow because our employees are as valuable, if not more valuable than our clients and our job.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:44:10]:

What we owe our employees is vision opportunities, land, clear expectations, right? So we have to help them achieve all that they want to achieve, whether it's if the want to be the next CEO, have at it. You don't have a bigger supporter than me. Let's just map it out and help you get there. I think in the business world, it can be cutthroat right if we continue to do the right thing. Life has a funny way of working out, right? And so you and I have talked about Jamie Dimon. I listen to the Jamie Dimon 2009 Harvard commencement speech every year, once a year. I think there's a lot of great feedback, great input on that 47 minutes YouTube video that I like to revisit every year because every year I hear something different. All the entrepreneurs that I've heard on your podcast, I've listened to 100 of them, and every one of them are avid readers, and there's different books that they've referenced within the podcast, and it's constantly just taking the good right.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:45:09]:

What can you learn from this book or what can you learn from this story? Founders podcasts? I've really appreciated every single one. The one I think you and I talked about at lunch that it was so compelling to me was James Dyson in Against All Odds, his book. But James Dyson, he failed 5124 times. He had 5124 prototypes. Took him 14 or 16 years. I don't remember till the end result of what we see today. And they're going to continue to evolve. Right? And he didn't quit.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:45:39]:

He just kept going. So like our services, we're going to continue to enhance our services. We're going to continue to grow. We're going to continue to evolve. The industry today is going to look a lot different than it will be ten years from now, right? And we have to continue to grow. But as long as we keep the client at the forefront of what we do, I have no doubt. I listened to a virtual meeting of an M and a conference in our industry, and I listened for 45, 50 minutes and I was taking notes. And it's interesting between us, not one time did I hear anything talk about the client.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:46:09]:

Not one time. It was talk about EBITDA, multiples consolidation, how you integrate teams, how you do all these things. And not one time did I hear about the client. And I just circled that on my notes saying, all right, not interested. You know what I mean? We're going to continue to deliver for the client. Eventually we're going to grow. And if it hinders our growth, at least I know we're doing it this way right today, which I appreciate.

Jeffrey Stern [00:46:33]:

Where would you like to take the business? What's the vision for the future?

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:46:38]:

Yeah, that's a great question and I think it's going to continue to evolve. Our goal right now is to help 1000 families land. We're going to add right now we have roughly 20 employees. And I think over the next three to five years, I'd like to get to 35, 50 employees and continue to deliver for more and more families. And both in the professional golf space and in the professional golf space, it doesn't grow, as you're talking, a target rich environment. There's only so many professional golfers and we want to have calculated growth in that area so that we can continue to deliver value there. And then in the non golf side, I'd like to continue to grow and work with additional entrepreneurs and work with providing additional services. And I really think that the wellness solution for our existing clients.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:47:28]:

And then working with closely held businesses here through Northeast Ohio, as well as ultra high net worth families and helping them with know we'll call it the family journey, is really going to differentiate us in the marketplace.

Jeffrey Stern [00:47:41]:

So I know as Journey wealth has grown and evolved in its both focus and direction, you've taken seriously an approach to apply the concepts, the tools, and the discipline in the form of a business operating system to guide the company and team to your envisioned future. So I would love if you could take us through this adaptation from how you recognize the need to actually institutionalize a new way of running your business to how you went about implementing it with the buy in of the team, to ultimately how it has transformed the.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:48:19]:

Business today in the luxury of working with entrepreneurs. And as we've talked about throughout this podcast, sometimes you don't need to be a pioneer, you could just be a settler. And a lot of the clients that we work with and have the opportunity to work with, they've implemented EOS, so they've implemented traction and where they found the greatest values that helped them align their values and focus and create an infrastructure and a framework to make really good decisions. And so we as a partnership group, which is a little different than a lot of our entrepreneurs where you have the sole visionary and then he or she builds a team around themselves. We always knew we wanted to operate in some sort of framework, right? We wanted to come in as an entrepreneurial group with more of an institutional framework. But we failed at doing it ourselves. We tried to do certain things ourselves. And what we realized is we were being way too nice.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:49:17]:

We were spending way too much time in meetings, land, getting nothing done. We'd spend 3 hours of our time talking, going round around with no end result. So we knew that we needed to bring in, first of all, confirm that the EOS or the operating system was what we wanted, what would be the best fit for our firm, bring in a professional integrator to help us do it and execute it because we needed that. So we made a conscious effort to do that. In that process, we received a lot more buy in from not only our partners, but from our team members, from our employees for several reasons we can clearly articulate our core values of the firm where we wanted to be over the next year, three years, five years, ten years and beyond. And it's kind of like what do you want to be when you grow up, right? In aligning our partnership group on saying are we building a lifestyle business? Are we building a business that's sustainable beyond us, right? What type of legacy do we want to leave in the business community for our stakeholders? Land beyond so it helped us define that and build towards that. It also helped us give clarity and focus on our strategic objectives, right? So areas of the business we want to focus on, our clients that we want, types of clients we want to continue to work with, the families we want to work with, et cetera. And so it helped us define that.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:50:46]:

I think one of the things, the biggest value, well I shouldn't say the biggest, but a significant value to this is accountability and responsibility. So it's interesting differently than an.org chart where your name is a title and here it helps you define who's accountable and responsible for that and you track towards it, right? And so early on I was included on technology calls or internal calls where after the phone call I would look at Anthony by one partner and say whoever you decide is who we're going with. I don't have much input on this. My question is going to be is who do you think is the best fit? Because that's who I think we should go with. So it helped with you make the decision, this is your responsibility. We define a budget and here's the budget. And if you think that these three vendors are the top three and we're going to pick one from the top three, great. We're empowering you to make that decision.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:51:42]:

So I could focus my time on, you know, the offensive side of the equation, the growth, the strategy and things that that fit my skill set better. So I really think land people, people when they understand, I think we talked about this earlier, but vision, expectations and opportunities are the three things that we owe to our employees. And when we have an aligned vision and we create reasonable expectations on what their responsibilities are, what their real duties are, who we're servicing, how we can best do that, and then an opportunity for the to enhance in their career or personal development inside land outside the organization, that's what we owe our employees is that. And so this operating system and institutionalizing our framework really has helped us develop that land, help us focus more. Our attention on that. With that is also identifying people's strengths and weaknesses. So people are responsible for certain areas of the business if that's not the right fit for them. I'm a firm believer in you hire for character land, you train for skill.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:52:54]:

Right. But I would be doing our employee a disservice, our clients a disservice, all of our stakeholders a disservice if we have defensive minded people in offensive minded roles. Right. So we have to make sure that we continue to look at right people, right seats. And where I see this in my experience where the biggest detriment is ego, I think ego gets in the way of a lot of this and understanding that there's going to be a time in this business future where I'm not the right fit or the best fit to be the visionary. And we have to separate ourselves from saying we are owners of this business and sitting in the owner's box. We have to make a strategic decision on who the best visionary is, who the best integrator, and aligning the right people in the right seats. Because ultimately I want to win, right? I want to win.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:53:45]:

So if that means early on I have to throw the ball, great. If that means that I have to block or catch or whatever my responsibility or pour water, I don't care. I want to win land this operating system that we've adopted, that's how we're making our decisions.

Jeffrey Stern [00:54:03]:

So I think there's kind of a trope or call it an observation that I think is somewhat more prevalent in athletes than in others, generally speaking. But it's this phenomenon where they tend to spend their money land, while having achieved an extraordinary level of wealth, very quickly find themselves without it. So I'm curious, especially through the lens of golf, the athletes that you've gotten to work with, how is it that you help them manage this phenomenon and what is going on, generally speaking?

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:54:45]:

There sure, that's a great question. Well, the good thing for a lot of this is that a lot of the golfers that we when a relationship is found, they're 22 years old, and they're just coming out, they just turned pro, and they're solely focused on playing golf, right. And so we give them a credit card land. We basically say, go play golf. We'll take care of everything else. And with that, it's like anything, we help them establish good habits. We kind of force save the and advise them on saving of your income. You're going to have to save X percent here, and we help them manage that.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:55:21]:

Right. Where professional golfers have an interesting is that they can have a very long career, right? I mean, they have the Corn Ferry Tour, you have the PGA Tour, and you could be on the PGA Tour for 20 years, never win an event. But if you're making cuts, you're going to have a lot of financial success. And so our job is to just help educate. So a lot of what we do is educating our clients on here are savings mechanisms. Here are ways that we're going to sock money away. Because in a golfer's life, 22 to 40, that's their peak. Earning years from 40 to 50 before the Champions Tour is really where that shortfall starts to begin.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:56:03]:

Because the competition at a 40 is a 40 42 year old on the PGA. It's hard to keep up with the young bucks, if you will. And then you can't really play on the Champions Tour until you're 50 years old to 60 65. So there it's helping them. The biggest issue, whether it's golf or not, golfers, is raising your standard of living to a point where you have to earn X amount of dollars in order to sustain that standard of living. So we help educate our clients in understanding what they need in assets to sustain the lifestyle that they have, or helping them identify the lifestyle that here's the lifestyle you want to live. Here are the things that we need to do to sustain that. And frankly, our client base has done a fantastic job with that.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:56:54]:

They've done a fantastic job with it. They're excellent students, and for the most part, they care more about providing for their family and their core values and things. So we've been very fortunate in working with the client base that we do have. But, I mean, it's hard in an industry. We're keeping up with Joneses, where people have four different homes, and they all are 10 million. Plus and private jets and jet setting all over. And then when you turn it off, there has to be a significant pot of money there to sustain that life. Or you dip your toe in when you can land, you live below your means.

Jeffrey Stern [00:57:36]:

I'll butcher Hausel's quote, but it was something like past a certain level of income. What you need is just what sits below your yeah, it's interesting. Very cool. So what are the important parts of the journey? Well story of your story that you don't think we've touched on yet that you would like to the one thing.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:57:57]:

I'd say is when we talked a little about hanging a shingle in the team, which I think a very beneficial point is the team we have. Right. We all complement each other really well. Our partnership group challenges each other. We push each other to be better in the roles we've had. We've implemented EOS, which I think has been a game changer for our business, helping us sign accountability, align goals. I think at the beginning, everyone was a little too nice. Right.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:58:24]:

And this allowed us to call somebody to the carpet or assign roles in accountability. I think EOS has been monumental in our business, and I think the best part and it's hard because we're not really talking I haven't really extrapolated too much on the business itself, but I will tell you that we have a company that I'm so thankful to be a part of. That egos are checked at the door. Right. Everybody here wants what's in the best interest of the client, what's in the best interest of the person sitting next to them. And there's so much opportunity out there to continue to enhance and work with additional families and add value to the and I think that the clients that we have the opportunity to work with in the business owner landscape, the entrepreneurs. Our team is built on servicing entrepreneurs and business owners, and there isn't a lot of firms around town or I think, across the country that can say that. And so I think it provides a really good opportunity.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [00:59:24]:

Our firm was founded on that. So if someone's looking to make an acquisition or somebody's looking to add additional services or needs help with building out financials, these are things that we can do. And have the dedicated team members on staff. If people are looking to incentivize their key executives infringe benefits like executive coaching or financial planning, or we can help them retain top talent and add additional services. It's interesting. Publicly traded companies, I mean, executives spend 60 to 100 grand a year in executive coaching. The best golfers in the world, lay coaches, the best basketball players. LeBron James has a coach.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [01:00:02]:

Right? Everybody has a coach. So that's another reason why Fidelity was in our office, I'd say six to eight months ago. And Fidelity did a nationwide study with all their clients on services that their clients were looking for. And the top two things that they were looking for were personal CFO and Wellness life coaching. And I started laughing. That when the guy was telling us, he's like, what's so funny about this? I said, well, we just hired our certified life coach. He starts, and it doesn't mean that we're going to get it right. We're going to fall down, we're going to skin our knee.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [01:00:33]:

But I think if we continue to evolve and deliver services to our clients that they're looking for, that they're longing for, it's going to be a lot of fun and we're going to have a lot of success. And success isn't driven by numbers on the income statement or the balance sheet. Success is driven by how many families you help. Right. The thing about our job is we're there in the best scenarios. When they sell their business, they ring the bell. Or the worst scenarios, when recently we just had a really fantastic client pass away, and they were really organized and now helping his widow. We've taken over bill pay, we've taken over a lot of the family management.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [01:01:13]:

We've taken over things. And we're there to help in the most difficult situations. Right. Land so I'm not celebrating that, but that's just the value that we have to help with our clients. And that's what our firm is founded on. And what I love, what I love.

Jeffrey Stern [01:01:27]:

About our job, who have been those coaches and mentors to you?

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [01:01:33]:

What's interesting is the trading guys that I used to work with, it was a very incestuous group. Right. So what I mean by that is we were all trading. We challenged each other. There was six of us all together that were there were seven of us that were really close. And so that was our trust tree with the nest. That was kind of like my EO before I knew what EO was, where you'd be able to commiserate and talk about experience, share on what's going on. I could tell you I had several mentors at my previous firm that helped me accelerate my learning curve and planning for business owners.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [01:02:07]:

And then I would say there's a handful of clients that I have that even though they don't know that they've mentored me when I'm calling them and asking them questions that the are right. And so I've been very fortunate to have fantastic friends, clients, and former colleagues that were wonderful mentors and I think weren't afraid to ask. When I first started trading, I can't tell you, I would go around and tug on guys coats and say, can you tell me why you did this trade? Can you help me out here? Walk me through here. At that point, I remember, and you've heard this before, but never judge a man to the answers to his questions, but by the questions he asks. Right. So I always, at that point, ask questions, learn as much as you can. Don't be afraid, because six months is going to go by, and the question you didn't ask, if you didn't ask it then and you don't know it now, you look like an know, like, don't be afraid to ask questions. So, mentors I've had, again, I would say, the old trading group that I used to work with.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [01:03:08]:

That was my trust tree. I had two or three fantastic colleagues that I had at Sequoia that were very helpful in my development. And then I would say there's a handful of clients, existing clients, that have helped push me to be better, that have helped me become more operationally efficient and challenged me to be the best version of myself.

Jeffrey Stern [01:03:27]:

A lot of things I want to ask you about, but one of them, land, kind of unrelated before we get to our more traditional closing question, is, I wanted to ask you about the Day of Madness, which is a concept that you had told me about that I had never heard of before.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [01:03:44]:

Yeah. So I have a client and friend who is one of the top ultramarathoners in the world, or it was one point top five in the world. So he and his friend his friend was actually one of the guys on Running the Sahara. So Running the Sahara is a documentary done by three gentlemen who basically ran across the Sahara Desert, and I forgot what it was. It was like two marathons a day for 111 days. Something ridiculous. I don't even know how anybody would be able to do that. So this gentleman, land, my friend and client, founded this day, and it's called Day of Madness.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [01:04:18]:

And what you do is you wake up in the ocean, and this goes back to the comfort crisis, right? So everybody comfort is a great place to be, but it lacks growth. So challenge yourself. Come up with something annually to where you're challenging yourself. There is a little risk of it doesn't have to be death, but there a little bit of risk of physical harm or kind of shakes you to the core a little bit, requires process of training. So the Day of Madness is you get in the ocean. You surf as the sun's coming up. You get out of the ocean. You run a half marathon.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [01:04:49]:

You immediately change your shoes. You go play 18 holes of golf, immediately change, and then you end up on the mountain, and you go ski down the mountain. There was a part of there where there was talks if there was time in order to go skydiving, but there was no skydiving. So my three year goal now is to hike the Highland Bowl in Aspen. So I wouldn't say I'm a great skier by any means, but it seems really cool to hike up. I had a buddy of mine who did it for his 50th birthday party, and I put it down. I'm like, all right, next three years I'm going to hike the Highland bull and ski down. So I have three sons and I want my sons to challenge themselves.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [01:05:27]:

I want my sons to set goals and to accomplish them. And even if they fail, don't get stuck in the gap trust. Enjoy the process of training from where you start to ultimately where you end up. And so we can go down another rabbit hole about how I think we're teaching kids the wrong stuff in school now because I think we're setting them up to never take risks. Kids are so focused on getting a 4.54.6 or whatever the grade points average go up to now, and then they're going to grow up, go to college and go to Ivy League schools and then get a job working for the Big Four or become a doctor or a lawyer or whatever it is that their parents wanted them to be. And the they're 40 years old saying, I hate my life and I can't stand my job. It's because they were afraid to take risk. They were afraid to not get it to challenge themselves or to do something different.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [01:06:13]:

And so whether it's hiking the Highland Bowl and creating Aspen or skiing down Aspen or starting betting on yourself and starting a business, I want my boys to challenge themselves. Take risk, smart risk, but you only get one crack at it. Like I was telling my wife yesterday as we were walking our dog, I said, when our kids graduate college, I want them to buy a motorcycle and ride cross country or do something. And she's like, you're nuts. And I'm like, well, whatever. Then they're going to be older like me and now they can't do it. So take risks and have fun while you're young.

Jeffrey Stern [01:06:50]:

Yeah, there is a lot to that, I think, to the education piece. And I don't know exactly how you do this, but the instilling of the love of learning and trying to the goal being not to be right but to understand right, that's like embedded in the whole Entreprenuership journey, right? I think about this concept all the time that the business that a company succeeds with is rarely the business that the company started with. And it's rare because it's so difficult to discern at the onset what exactly is going to work in the long run and you're going to have to iterate and all of it is just like being resilient enough to continuously fail but learn to eventually get it right. And yeah, I don't know how exactly you teach that resilience.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [01:07:45]:

The only way you teach it is by my grandma used to say, little bunnies have ears. You teach it by doing right, and you teach it by trying to do the best you can because your children are watching, right? And your clients are watching, your employees are watching. Right? So you lead by example. It was one funny thing. My dad I was telling my son this as I was driving him to football, is discipline yourself so others don't have to, right? And so those are the things that if you set goals, discipline yourself to accomplish those goals. And the thing is, you're going to fall, you're going to fail. Just get back up and keep going.

Jeffrey Stern [01:08:24]:

Well, I'll ask our traditional closing question here, which is for a hidden gem in Cleveland, something that other folks may not know.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [01:08:37]:

Think let me think about this. So hidden gem, I will tell you it's hidden, and I don't know if many people will find it, but in where I grew up, on the border of Chesterland and Munson, there's a farm. And in the back of the farm, there's an old and there's a bunch of trails, but in the middle of the trail, there's an old maple syrup factory that burned down. Okay? And so there's remnants of this in and around it where they had all the horse and buggies that would come through land, created trails. And I spent my childhood riding dirt bikes and mountain bikes and snowmobiles and things through these trails. And I took my children there recently and my nieces and nephews, and we walked, and it was beautiful. Ten acre Metro Park back there with this. And it's still the clubhouse of the I'm sure people can find it.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [01:09:28]:

It's Heath and Wilson Mills. There's a farm back there. I'm sure the farm whoever owns the farm doesn't want people knowing about it. But back there, it's the most beautiful, serene there's a creek running through it. And it made me appreciate the childhood that I had. It made me appreciate the opportunity that I had to grow up in such a cool spot. And Northeast Ohio has so many great metro parks and outdoor and I'll leave with whether whether it's a famous historian, philosopher, the Bible, whatever it is, anybody who's seeking clarity, they always go outside, right? It's always go on a hike, go on a walk, watch a sunrise, watch a sunset. It was a very peaceful part of my life, and I'm so thankful, and it is a hidden gem.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [01:10:12]:

And I'm so glad I got to share with my kids, and I'm so thankful I grew up in an area where this was around. I don't know why the maple syrup factory burned down. I hope it wasn't a story of some there's arson or something, but I could tell you that I really appreciate that. And it was a hidden gem, and it's such a really cool spot. It's such a really cool, special spot.

Jeffrey Stern [01:10:31]:

Yeah, that's a beautiful hidden gem. Thank you for sharing. Well, TJ, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [01:10:40]:

Oh, this is fantastic land. I really appreciate you having me, and I really appreciate the time we spent today.

Jeffrey Stern [01:10:46]:

If people had anything they wanted to follow up with you about, what would be the best way for them to do so.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [01:10:52]:

Yeah, they can email me, they can call me. My contact information is on our website journeywealth.com, always available for a conversation, a coffee, a lunch, whatever I can do to help, I want to do that.

Jeffrey Stern [01:11:05]:

Awesome. Well, thank you again.

T.J. Gliha (Journey Wealth) [01:11:06]:

Thank you.

Jeffrey Stern [01:11:09]:

That's all for this week. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show, so if you have any feedback, please send over an email to Jeffrey at layoftheland FM or find us on Twitter at podlayoftheland or at @sternjefe J-E-F-E. If you or someone you know would make a good guest for our show, please reach out as well and let us know. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on itunes or on your preferred podcast player. Your support goes a long way to help us spread the word and continue to bring the Cleveland founders and builders we love having on the show. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of the land.