Reimagine Retirement w/ Bryan Huhn

What does it really take to retire with both financial freedom and a sense of purpose? In this episode, I’m joined by Bryan Huhn who shares how his journey from the corporate grind to purpose-driven work reshaped his entire outlook on money and retirement. From investment strategies to liquidity planning, Bryan offers practical advice and personal stories that will inspire you to think differently about your own financial path. 

What You’ll Learn:

✅ Why mindset shifts around money are crucial for financial freedom

✅ How embracing minimalism can boost both joy and wealth

✅ The role of diversified investments and emergency liquidity

✅ How to align work with passion especially near retirement

✅ Why your retirement plan needs more than just savings goals

Connect with Bryan:

LinkedIn

Website

Ready to Get Clear on Your Retirement Path?

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Or, grab one of my free resources to help you take the first step:

5 Must-Do Steps for Retirement Planning — A simple guide to help you prepare with purpose

Retirement Ready Checklist — Make sure you’re not missing a single step on the road to retirement

Transcript

 Brian, welcome to the episode. I'm excited to chat all things retirement, but also all things about purpose and life. Before we dive into that, share who you are, what you do, and how you help people. Yeah, thanks dalene. My name is Brian Hu. I spent most of my career a little over a decade.

Well my entire career in the wealth management industry. A little over a decade of that was working for different fund companies. So I would go in and act as a consultant to financial advisors at, a lot of the big Wall Street firms, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, those kind of places.

And educate them on different types of investment solutions that they can use with their clients. And I did that like I said, for a little over a decade. And then I spent a couple years directly working with high net worth investors primarily retired investors that basically.

Retired and needed to live off of their assets. I did that for a couple years for one of the largest registered investment advisors in the world. And then, I think we'll get into my story a little bit, but then I had some things go on in my personal life that caused me to course correct a little bit.

And now I run my own business really trying to help other people to benefit from. The experiences that I've had throughout my life. I didn't enjoy the work I was doing for the most part in corporate America. You know, I go so far as to say that it made me miserable, although now I realize there are a lot of other things that contributed to that as well.

But, working that corporate grind certainly was a big factor in that. And now I'm doing work that. I'm not worried about how much money I'm making anymore, like I'm just kind of worried about covering my bills, meeting my family's financial goals. And if we make more than that, then that's kind of bonus.

But I just wanna be able to wake up every day and continue to do this work that I really enjoy doing and help the people that I'm helping. And as long as I can say that I don't see why I would ever actually wanna retire. So I've kind of flipped my mindset around money a little bit. 

That's huge. And being a Gen Xer, just like, you know, most of my listeners not all of them, but most of them, we come to this time in life where we realize money beliefs are a struggle for us. And what we grew up thinking, learning, doing now is hindering us. Can you share some of your perspective about that?

I think our money beliefs can definitely be a hindrance. Like for me growing up. I was born in 1980, so I guess I'm kind of on the cusp of like late Gen X, early millennial. But you know, I vividly remember being a child in the eighties and all the money scripts that were downloaded onto my hard drive, so to speak.

And it was, I didn't come from a family that had a whole lot of money. I was like, lower middle class and both my parents came from families that did not have very much in terms of financial resources. So I was taught with this mindset of just everything you have hold onto with white knuckles and never let it go.

It was a very, very scarcity driven mindset around money and. I think that drove me to that. Like I just said, there were a lot of things that contributed to my unhappiness and I think that was a big part of it. I never felt like I had enough. I was like, I need a million dollars.

Then it's like, I know I need 2 million, I need 3 million in the bank so that I can retire comfortably, and it just never was enough. versus now what I, what I had mentioned how. I, I view work, the way I view work now where I don't really want to stop it now instead of not having enough to stop in order to stop working, it's like I just need enough to pay my bills so I can continue doing work that I actually like.

Yes, and as you were discussing the four, it's almost like that carrot in front of the horse just far enough that you keep going, you keep going, you keep going, and you don't give any other perspective. So how do individuals. Kind of start searching for that other's perspective. I think the most important thing is to, I think simplify.

I've become just such a big fan of minimalism concepts and a lot of times we think of minimalism and we just think in terms of like not having a lot of stuff, which is a really big component of it. But also it's like decluttering what's in our head. What are the things that we're actually giving our time and attention to, and are they serving the life?

We want to be living. And oftentimes when we can really get honest with ourselves, ourselves, and just radically declutter, like focus on the most important things based on the life you want to live, you as an individual regardless of anyone, parents, relatives, coworkers, friends, whatever anybody else thinks that doesn't matter.

What's the life that you wanna live? And for me it's simplified the way I live my life, but it's also simplified the way I view my finances, and it helps me, obviously, if you're not if you don't have a lot of things pulling your attention in different directions, you know, you're, you're probably not gonna be wasting as much money and you'll be saving more and investing more, and growing your wealth over time, but you're also just happier.

Because you're spending the money on the things that are actually most important. So I don't know if that answers your question, but to me, like getting really introspective and figuring out what you want out of life, I think that's the first step to kind of changing your money mindset. I agree. And I know that before we jumped on, you talked about, everybody should have a purpose and. That's something I keep sharing on here as well, especially as you're headed into retirement. What is your purpose going to be? Traveling and retirement. I don't think that's a purpose.

While it's great and it's fun and you've got time freedom to do it, how can they think about purpose differently? It's it's funny, I mean, because our careers are such a big part of our purpose and identity, and I. Oftentimes it's the biggest part for a lot of people.

And it's a huge void that has to be filled. And I do mean it has to be filled, because you've probably seen there's studies out there that show that a lack of purpose can literally kill us.  It can lead to higher rates of anxiety and depression. It can significantly reduce our, physical resiliency as well.

On the other hand, when you have that sense of purpose, it tends to create a high level of resiliency and toughness both mentally and physically. And that can significantly increase not only the length, but the quality of our lives. So I'm just such a huge believer in that we should always have that sense of purpose.

Not to go off, off topic too much, but it's just crazy how. Here in America, like our society has been conditioned to like work their 

asses off doing work that they don't particularly like until their sixties and seventies just to retire, do nothing. And then again, according to some of those studies, just die early.

It just doesn't make much sense to me. But there's so many ways I think that we can get purpose. It could be like if you want to retire in golf. Okay. Well if you're truly gonna like put yourself to the test and be like, all right, I'm gonna become a scratch golfer and then you know, I wanna start consistently shooting under par and And you want to continue to get better and push yourself.

to the point where maybe you could compete with people on the senior PGA tour. Okay, well then that gives you a sense of purpose. But if it's just like, I want to go out and golf and drink with my buddies. I don't know if that's really much of a purpose but I think about work, you know, I mean, you could get a fun part-time job in your neighborhood.

I walk into Trader Joe's in my neighborhood and all the people are so friendly and they seem so happy. And why not get a job like that where you can meet people in your community and become kind of a staple in your community? That would be pretty cool in a sense of purpose. A fun part-time job around a hobby.

I have one client that when he retires, he's talking about getting a part-time job at a concert venue, so that way he can just go and interact with all the other music fans and he can listen to music. I've got a family friend who does a part-time job at Wrigley Field. Every Cub season, she's one of the guest services folks there, and she absolutely loves it.

I bet if she was a billionaire, she would still do it, so there's all these different ways joining a, a meaningful nonprofit organization where you can get paid a little bit of money. I think, I think that's the thing, is not only finding purpose, but maybe finding a purpose where you can earn a little bit of money and hell, if you can make $40,000.

At a part-time job that you love, according to the 4% rule, that's a million less that you need in retirement savings. I love that you have talked about, not only purpose, but leading it to part-time quote work that provides for us. So let's talk about minimum required income, the number that individuals need to have to be able to retire.

I know you said. It's not as much as they think it is. And I agree with you. Let's talk about that and why everyone should know that number. So for me, in finding that purpose it was starting being able to start a business like relatively risk free.

What I want to do is basically help others to experience this mindset shift that I've experienced and financially plan in a way they can live their best life now and in the future instead of constantly putting their future on hold. So that's my story of like finding a sense of purpose in the work that I'm doing and the minimum required income really enables that.

I wish I would've done this sooner. I started this business three years ago, and I might be farther along than I am today had I realized this sooner. But when I looked at, the savings that I have, well, both me and my wife, what we have in, in retirement savings, in non-retirement savings, equity in the home, you know, that we could sell one day.

And my wife works her full-time, nine to five job still. Because she loves it. Like she wasn't miserable like I was, you know? So I'm actually very blessed to have a partner in this and, and have that teamwork working in my favor. But when I looked at all of that, and if we, never contribute to my retirement accounts again, and I'm only 44, if I never contribute to my retirement accounts again and just let them compound over the next 20 years.

Well, this year I only need to make $36,000 and then each year going forward until, I put it at age 65, so like a traditional retirement age, I would only need that number to increase by a measly 3% each year from 44 to 65, 36 grand a year. That's nothing, so that allows me the time to just slow down.

You know, figure out what kind of business I want to build, and probably more importantly, what kind of business I don't want to build. I've gone through the process of refining my business and actually reaching out to clients and saying, Hey, you know what I. I think you'd be better suited working with someone else, and I can refer you to that person rather than just trying to get more money to grow a business, so having that minimum required income and understanding what your number is, it's just so empowering. I did this for a client recently who she got let go from a job. It was at a tech startup. And she was really nervous. This was the first time in a long time that she hadn't had an income.

We put together different scenarios and figured out what her minimum required income was. For her it wasn't that high. We actually modeled out the idea of her just taking a part-time job at the Home Depot doing interior design work because that's a passion of hers and she would really enjoy those conversations and that would free up.

Like both time and space in her brain to think about like, what kind of business does she wanna start? And we modeled that on a salary of, I think it was like $48,000 a year. And she knew she could do that. That was a very good option that she would be happy with. And having that information empowered her where she started going into interviews.

Knowing that they needed her more than she needed them. And now she's got a job that not only does she love because it's working on this healthcare technology that she's really passionate about developing it gives her a deeper sense of purpose behind it, but it's also more money than she made at the job that she was let go from because she had that confidence and and empowerment.

You bring up some really good, important stepping stones is what I, I see them as being, you know, it's. You get laid off, which I know a lot of individuals in Gen Xers are getting to that, where they're feeling pressed by that and they're worried. But recognizing what the options are and really how much do you need to live on and working with somebody to help you get there is huge.

And then being able to then find something even bigger and greater. That's amazing. And understanding that you also brought up another point, slowing down. I think that so many times with money, we think it's a sprint. Okay, I'm gonna save $500 for the next six months. That's great, but is that sustainable?

Right? Are you going slow enough that it'll keep going? And so, those are some really hard things to do. Especially if they're at this point in age where they don't feel like they have enough money.  So I don't know if you can maybe give them some wise words, mindset shifts and then maybe some things to do moving forward.

It's a never ending process. I think of finance, like wealth building is a forever game. It's not like I need to build enough wealth so that I can retire. It's, I need to build enough wealth so that I can continuously draw more income off my investments to reduce the amount of income that I actually need to earn from a job.

And, even though I have enough to live off of, I'm gonna continuously have a plan that's gonna grow my wealth over time so that I can either continuously increase the quality of my life, or continuously increase the impact that I can have on people around me. And then even after I die, I think about my money continuing to grow.

To create generational wealth for my kids and their kids. And so it's like a never ending game. So those sprints don't make a whole lot of sense when you think of it in that context.  It's like, if you think of it in, in terms of exercise, you could get a gym membership on New Year's Day.

You can get on that treadmill and run five miles a day every single day for six months, get shredded. You know, you're lifting weights in there and you're getting all shredded. And then six months later, 12 months later, you're back to your out of shape self. Or you could just be the person that goes for a two mile walk every day.

For the rest of his life or her life, and there's like this whole, you know, instant gratification is what we're looking for. And I think you can find it on your journey. You just have to do it in a different way. You're not gonna do, leaps and bounds of all of this.

So really slowing down, recognizing your small little wins and making 'em, sustainable, I love that. Let's talk about retirement and non-retirement account and drawing income from those accumulated assets. Before you answer that, a lot of individuals are like, okay, so I'm setting my money aside so then I can retire at 65.

And then I think they also think about it's done growing and it's not the way you just talked about. So yeah, let's speak around all of that so they understand that it's gonna continue. It's gonna continue moving on. And so drawing this income, how does that work and support us as well.  As far as the mindset of continuously growing wealth I always think about Warren Buffett because 99% of his wealth came after the age of 50.

Because he just stayed patient and consistent and he managed his emotions around investing in the stock market, right? If you invest in something you believe in and you think it's gonna grow over the long term because it's a sound business, or you have a fund that's a collection of sound businesses.

Then why you're not just gonna close up shop and and sell the business just because you went through a month of a down stretch. Right? So I always try to think of it in terms of that. And I, if you have a properly, and I, I mean properly diversified stock portfolio, you know, US international, large companies, small companies, growth stocks, value stocks, we're getting a little technical here, but that's a pretty safe bet long term. You can pretty confidently say that's gonna grow by, eight to 10% annually over time. And knowing that if it's gonna grow eight to 10% annually over time, if you're pulling, four or 5% off.

Each year, maybe increasing that in years when the market does really well and decreasing it. Maybe in years when it doesn't do well, tightening up the belt a little bit, then you're gonna continuously be growing your assets above and beyond what you're withdrawing. And I think that's how everybody should think about retirement investing.

One of the things that I do with my clients is I make sure that we have, a sufficient amount of emergency cash in place. I call it the liquidity sleeve. And what I do is instead of just putting it in like a,  cash high yield savings account that's paying for 4.5% or whatever, I split it up among like ultra short duration bonds that actually give you, a good level of interest a little bit of growth potential, and really high level of stability.

We take that and we have a liquidity sleeve that might give them, two years worth or three years worth of the amount of money they would be withdrawing off of their portfolio. So that way if we do get into that severe decline, which is known as a bear market, when we're below that threshold of a bear market, which is generally considered as 20% down.

We say, okay, we're not pulling off of that. We're not gonna sell our stocks when they're down 'cause that will kill our long-term returns and can ultimately lead in running out of money before we die. We're not gonna do that. We're gonna switch over to this cash that we've set aside, and we're gonna use that temporarily to give us time to let the markets recover because.

As you know, dalene, I mean, over time they've always recovered. Sometimes it takes longer than others and you wanna make sure you have a plan that's nimble, that you can adjust if you need to, but you gotta make sure that you have a plan to get you through those periods of time. I love that insight.

That's huge in having, first off, diversification and understanding what that means, and then. What that means for you. But I do also agree with a liquid sleeve. I mean, I had some liquid and I just moved. I wished I would've had more. I was stuck with my money in my house, and so I was trying to figure out that spot of how do I make this happen for me?

I'm glad that you shared that and, spoke of that, especially as we're heading into retirement. I think that the more you can have in there the more confident you're gonna feel.

Especially in times like right now where the market's going crazy with all the geopolitical stuff. I think that the key is just. Look at what's the growth potential on the remaining amount that you have invested, and make sure that growth potential is gonna be sufficient to make sure that you can achieve all your life goals without running outta money.

Once that's secure, then yeah, put as much as you want into that safe, secure sleeve so that you can feel confident and sleep at night. Okay, before we finish up, is there any last maybe story or tidbit that you wanna share so listeners can be better prepared for retirement planning?

The last thing I would leave the listeners with is a quote that I got from a good friend of mine and he said, maybe retirement planning isn't about how much money you save.

But about finding work that you don't want to escape from, and I think just thinking about that can really change your views on retirement money and, and kinda life, that's huge. All right, Brian, where can listeners connect with you if they're wanna reach out and ask you specific questions or become a client of yours?

I keep things pretty simple. LinkedIn. That's the only social media platform that I really put any time and effort into. And then my website is reflective wealth.com. Perfect. Listeners, go connect with him schedule. I know he does free calls and he will chat with you as I've sent several of my clients to him as well.

So make sure you go and connect. Thank you, Brian, for all your words of wisdom. Was a great conversation. Thank you dalene. Enjoyed it.