Check out this video to get some insight into David’s personal story which lends to the purpose in his passion to help his clients achieve retirement success.

Context is always beneficial to ensuring you are matched with the right advisor and David’s story brings you just that; a level of understanding to the WHY he works so hard to create a plan to fit your needs.

Hi everyone and thanks for joining me today. I thought it would be appropriate; I don’t think I’ve shared this with you personally before but my story. Because I think it is important to know where somebody comes from, how they see the world, paradigm about life. Whether it’s a friend that you have, whether it’s a doctor, how do they perceive the world? For me, that’s super important in relationships.

And I can tell you, it started a long time ago, when my parents got divorced when I was 2. Obviously, I didn’t know that they got divorced and I was very blessed to have my grandmother and grandfather, Edna and Kermit, to help take care of me. Because I had a single mother, I ended up having two other brothers and sisters. So very, very difficult for my mom. So I would spend a lot of my summers, a lot of time with my grandparents, Edna and Kermit.

My grandmother passed away way too early. She had a lot of health issues. She died in her early 70s. And my grandfather got to live a full and long life. He use to work for Sears, Sears Roebuck. In fact, they just got saved out of bankruptcy. I think the CEO bought the company. Thank God because what a storied company.

And my grandfather worked there for, I believe, like 30 years. And he was a television repairman back when that was an actual job. Now we can barely fix our cars or our TV anymore. But I use to remember my grandfather behind our own TV – I think it was a Zenith – and fixing the tubes or whatever he called them. He drove the white van with the red letters and the ladder on top. I would be waiting for him to come home. And that was a big, big imagine for me.

In fact, my first, I guess, foray, for a lack of a better term, into business and into finance was my grandfather owned Sears stock, which back then was very, very profitable company. And every Sunday we would go through, I remember putting my finger on the business section looking for the ‘S’ for Sears stock because his whole pension was tied to Sears stock. So he cared very, very much about the value of his stock.

He was a frugal man; saved his pennies, was not wealthy by any stretch. But was free and clear with his house, saved his money, had a little bit of a pension. And fortunately like a lot of folks that were around – a lot of family members and friends – he was diagnosed with dementia. And he private paid so he paid for his own care for about 3 or 4 years, and he ran out of money, which is unfortunate.

He then qualified for MediAccount. It’s called for Medi-Cal across the country. In order to qualify you can only have $2000 in the bank, a burial plot, a wedding ring, a house and a car. That’s basically your life is over. Your life savings is gone, and now you’re basically indigent. It’s a welfare program, Medi-Cal is.

So he was taken care of by Medi-Cal for another couple of years, and then he passed away. Add insult to injury, I received a phone from my mother crying and saying, “I just got a notice from Health and Human Resources that there is a lien on our property for $20,000 due to the fact that he had received benefits from Medi-Cal.” And that was very stressful. And this was the first year I was in the business in 1995.

And so the people who were my clients, my family was coming to me for advise and I know zero about this stuff. So long story short, hiring an attorney – an elder law attorney – figured this stuff out. We were able to save the home. He taught me a lot. But the one thing it taught me – why I do what I do in retirement planning – is that I watched in my first year of the business my grandfather and grandmother lose everything they had. That has an impact on me.

There is a lot of you out there, who are my clients – you included – knew their parents were called ‘Depression Babies.’ Right? Banks failed, 25% unemployment. They didn’t trust banks. They’re very nervous about markets. And so when I came into the business in ‘95, I came from that mindset, “Of, wow. We have to protect what we have first.” And so doing retirement planning for now over 20 years, what it has taught me is that we have to protect capital first, then grow capital, and then create income from that capital.

So I hope that helps you to see the world through my eyes, through my paradigm. And why that we do what we do. Why do what I do. And the perspective that I have and hopefully that helps you learn about me and the firm.