Carl interviews "Stacking Benjamins" host Joe Saul-Sehy. Joe is a former financial advisor and has represented American Express and Ameriprise in media. He was "Money Man" on WXYZ-TV in Detroit and has appeared in countless newspapers and magazines, including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Detroit News and more. Joe left his financial advising career at age 40 and never looked back. His award-winning podcast is one of the most listened to in the personal finance sphere. Plus, he's really funny! (Full disclosure: Carl is a total fanboy of the show.)

Joe grew up in Michigan in a hard-working middle-class family. He tells us that whenever his parents would discuss money, as kids they had to leave the room, which was like a lot of families back then. "So I end up going to college with zero understanding of how money worked, how credit cards worked." His financial lesson came when he went to a military college in South Carolina and with no money, no income and no job, he somehow secured a credit card. He bought things, not thinking about how he was going to pay for them. "I burned my credit right out of college."

Joe worked at a call center for a water treatment plant and decided he needed to make a change. He eventually became a financial advisor.  He loved helping people, while not taking his own advice. "The lie that I lived, that people still live today, is that if I just make more money, I don't need to budget. All my problems are solved if I just make a little more." Over time he realized that he should start taking the advice he was giving other people and did well in his 16-year career.

AHA moment: At age 40, a fellow employee was leaving the firm, saying he felt like he had  "...other mountains to climb." Those words had a huge impact on several people at the office, including Joe. "Why spend your life doing something that's a 6 or 7 outta 10 for you?" he says.

Joe sold his business and pursued one of his dreams--to be a high school teacher and track coach. He figured out quickly that dealing with administration wasn't going to work for him. He said that sometimes, "you just have to go down the path to see what opens you up, what lights you up." Joe pivoted to consulting for financial planners, ghost-writing for them in various media, becoming the Money Man on TV and working as a radio host.

"My favorite radio guest Josh Bannerman (AKA OG) and I decided to start a podcast different from the others, about making personal finance more approachable, interesting and fun. We had no idea how to do it!" Thirteen years later, the Stacking Benjamins podcast is a huge success, one of the top listened-to podcasts in the financial realm. He currently lives with his wife in Texarkana, and when not working on the podcast, one of Joe's other passions is board games.

What's with Joe's Mom's basement? You'll need to listen...

Joe Saul-Sehy's Unretirement advice:

• "Stop spending time online. Go to conferences on whatever interests you. Go and meet people!"

• "If you join and volunteer with local clubs, you actually find your real-life community."

• "It's a truth: You are a product of who you surround yourself with."

• "It ain't about retirement. It's about the journey we're on." 

• More about Joe Saul-Sehy

• Joe's book STACKED

• Sponsored by How to Retire and Not Die

• Sponsored by Capital Advantage

• I Used to be Somebody World Tours

Diana Landau is the Content Wrangler for Pickleball Media After 15 years in corporate marketing, in 2012 she pivoted to write and wrangle content for Niche Media's weekly blog. She now manages the "I Used to be Somebody" blog

Tags:    blog   Joe Saul-Sehy   Money management   Personal finance   Personal growth   Career change  

Meet the remarkable Edward Hechter, who has "unretired" multiple times. He was a highly successful exec in tech, another incarnation as an entrepreneur with his wife, a consultant who helps companies overcome challenges and even the CEO of the giant Pickleball Central. "I tend to stay involved helping people that I adore solving business puzzles."​

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Edward grew up in Southern California in a typical middle-class family. "People say I was overly verbose and precocious." In high school he became active in debate, skills he would use for the rest of his working life. It was during his junior year of high school that he became one of the best high school debaters in the country. Midway through his senior year, he transferred schools and the new school didn't give him credit for some of his earned coursework. He decided to leave.​

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Edward began working in 1981 at the age of 17 in a tech consulting firm. He applied for the "girl Friday" position and as the company grew, he advanced. The company built websites for businesses all over the country and when Edward took the helm as the EVP and GM, the company went from $8 million in revenue to $100 million. "I was the right guy in the right chair," he tells us.​

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In his first unretirement, Edward figured he'd focus on becoming a soccer dad, volunteering and skiing on weekends. But he missed the intellectual side of solving complicated business puzzles. So he and his wife went shopping for a "broken" business to rehabilitate. They found a family-friendly, fixer upper in PartyPail, an online party supplies company. Edward says they went from just two orders a day to exploding in volume in just 5 years with $5 million in revenues.​

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In his second unretirement, Edward still wanted to help companies so he became a consultant/investor/mentor to help businesses break through whatever was holding them back. He loves helping countless entrepreneurs solve real world puzzles. "My love language is service," he says. "So I have to do good things for others. And if it turns out to be a good thing for myself too, even better." He was asked to come on board as the CEO of burgeoning Pickleball Central in 2015. And eventually helped the founders sell the business. In 2017, Edward created the Hawaii Open Pickleball Championships, the first sanctioned Hawaiian pro pickleball event.​

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Now in his third unretirement at age 60, (we see a definite pattern here), Edward and his wife live in Hawaii and the state of Washington. Edward still consults as much as he wants to and plays pickleball 3-4x a week. He says he's focusing on pickleball, poke, people and peace.​

Edward Hechter's tips on life and work:​

• ​"Know thyself, and what lights your fire."​

• "It is often hard to tell what lit your fire until it's gone. Then you recognize you want it back."​ (Edward's example is his drive to help companies solve problems. He missed that.)​ 

• "Figure out what your love language is. It's about finding the one thing that brings you a feeling of love. Start from a premise of joy and everything is easier."​

• "Who do you want to share a foxhole with? That to me is the ultimate test."

• More about Edward Hechter

• Sponsored by Capital Advantage

• Sponsored by How to Retire and Not Die

• (Un)Retirement Travel with the Pro Allan Wright, Zephyr Adventures

• I Used to be Somebody World Tours -- Tuscany, Portugal, Pickleball Adventures

Diana Landau is the Content Wrangler for Pickleball Media. After 15 years in corporate marketing, in 2012 she pivoted to write and wrangle content for Niche Media's weekly blog. She now manages the "I Used to be Somebody" blog

Tags:    Blog   Unretirement   Edward Hechter   Entrepreneurship   Consulting   Life Lessons   Personal Growth   Mentorship