Episode 1366: Interview with Chad Hufford about Investing as a Christian

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining us on episode 1366 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:08] Chad Hufford: I'm Chad Hufford, and I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact in the world by using your time, talent, your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to live a life of abundance is key, and one of the ways to be inspired to do that is to listen to this Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my good friend, Scott Maderer.

[00:00:33] I think habits and behavior is the most important because if you have the right tools and don't know what you're building or don't know how to use them, it doesn't matter if you have the right plan, the right strategy and the right tools, but you don't execute, it doesn't matter. So the best.

[00:00:58] Scott Maderer: Welcome and thank you for joining us [00:01:00] on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:01:02] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:31] In today's podcast episode, I interview Chad Hufford. I asked Chad to share with you his journey through faith and challenges to become a financial specialist. I also asked Chad about whether you should focus on behavior or tools when it comes to finance. And Chad also shares with you why money and investing should be different for Christians.

[00:01:51] I've got a new book coming out called Inspired Living, assembling the puzzle of your call by mastering your time, your talent, and your [00:02:00] treasures. You can find out more about it and sign up for getting more information over at InspiredStewardship. com, InspiredLiving. That's InspiredStewardship. com, InspiredLiving.

[00:02:15] Born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, Chad grew up in the financial industry, but also developed a strong background in athletics, nutrition, and performance psychology. Chad brings a coaching mindset in the heart of a teacher to financial planning and investing as he strives to both empower and educate his audience to not only become better investors, but to live more intentionally and create an abundant life.

[00:02:38] Chad owns a boutique financial planning firm, Veritas Wealth Management, that manages 500 million and serves several hundred families across the U. S. In addition to finance, he regularly teaches and speaks on fitness and faith. Seeing these as all important aspects of a purposeful and abundant life. Chad and his wife [00:03:00] Tiffany, also a lifelong Alaskan, have been blessed with six wonderful children.

[00:03:04] Tiffany stays busy homeschooling the kids and the whole family is very involved in their church and local community. Their family loves fishing, camping, okay, maybe more glamping, hunting, and enjoying the wonderful outdoors Alaska has to offer. Living in a more rural area outside of Anchorage, and just a few hundred yards from the home Chad grew up in, they regularly have the privilege of watching bears, moose, and lynx walk right through their yard.

[00:03:31] Believing that to whom much is given, much is expected, Chad strives to employ his knowledge and experience to serve and enrich the lives of those around him. Welcome to the

[00:03:40] Chad Hufford: show, Chad. Scott, thank you so much for having me. It's

[00:03:43] Scott Maderer: a pleasure to be here. Absolutely. I'm looking forward to our conversation today.

[00:03:48] And yeah, I read through your intro. I shared that with the listeners. They just heard it, but I always laugh and tell people that the intros that we do on these things always, it feels like your Instagram version of your life, right?[00:04:00] It's all the, it's all the highlight reels. So talk a little bit about.

[00:04:04] Your journey and what brought you to focus so much on being a financial specialist, being that person that helps people with their money.

[00:04:14] Chad Hufford: So my journey to this is long and it. It wasn't long. It was, it seemed a little bit disjointed, probably going like every

[00:04:26] Scott Maderer: other journey.

[00:04:28] Chad Hufford: So I actually went to school, Scott to get into medicine.

[00:04:34] I have a degree in biochemistry. I was making my rounds, collecting little bits and pieces for my resume to make it look good. I was getting letters of recommendation from professors at the medical schools that I wanted to apply to I thought all my ducks were in a row.

[00:04:54] Then I met the woman who is now my wife and mother of my six kids, [00:05:00] and I realized very soon after meeting her that, She did not want a hotshot surgeon as a husband. She wanted a husband. She wanted a family. She wanted a father for her eventual kids. And I was blessed with a great, stable upbringing, two parents that loved me.

[00:05:20] And my wife didn't have that. And then she wanted stability. And I realized that... The way my makeup is got I wasn't sure I was going to be able to balance being an excellent father and husband and an excellent physician. Some people can do it. And in fact, one of my good friends was staying with us this week.

[00:05:42] He's in town for a medical conference. He does, he balances it. I don't think I would have been able to. So I had to pivot. I spent a few years leaning on my athletic background, training people in athletics, training some professional athletes. I did a stint working with [00:06:00] the army, getting soldiers ready for deployments, while trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.

[00:06:07] I was blessed to grow up in a home where we were, I, the simplest way to say it is we were doing Dave Ramsey before Dave Ramsey was. We grew up listening to a guy named Larry Burkett, who you're familiar with, but we grew up with fantastic financial principles. I saw my dad coaching others in finances.

[00:06:27] He taught the crown financial class many times, maybe a dozen times. I'm not sure, but I saw the impact it made. And what I realized Scott is when you help clarify the financial confusion, when you help people see what stewardship looks like, when you help take the frustration out of finances, a lot of other, a lot of other areas in their life can fall into place.

[00:06:56] And it's such a huge pivotal piece. It's a source of [00:07:00] great stress. It's a huge source of marital issues, but it's also an incredible source of potential blessing and an ability to create. Freedom in your life. And I saw that happen as a kid and realizing that I had a lot of those principles, even if I didn't have a formal education, I had the pillars and I had an opportunity to really have a deep impact the lives of others, while still creating a work life balance for myself.

[00:07:29] And it I'll be honest, I chose the profession originally for the ability to create a work life balance and own a company that didn't own me. But as I got into it more and more, I realized just the impact that I was able to have and my team is now able to have in the lives of people we work with.

[00:07:52] And it's been phenomenal. It's such. It's a blessing to get up and go to work every day and to [00:08:00] walk people through this pathway to especially in times like right now when the world is crazy and people just, they need to see a glimmer of hope sometimes. And

[00:08:10] Scott Maderer: of course I went to the school teacher route and then ended up in the coaching and financial world at the other end.

[00:08:16] So I think it's funny that we've got some of that I had the same. I'm going to be a doctor in medical research. And no, I'm not. This is, I hate

[00:08:26] Chad Hufford: this. What's interesting is God never took away that interest. In fact, I still collaborate with a lot of my friends who were physicians and nerding out on some research stuff, but recently I've been really interested in how the gut biome how that.

[00:08:46] affects neurology and brain health and things like that. And so that never really taken away, but I've been able to still hold that piece. And what's [00:09:00] interesting is even holding onto that, I've been able to draw so many parallels in creating better health financially and physical health.

[00:09:09] Scott, as it's a lot of the same disciplines. It's choosing to eliminate the mistakes. It's choosing to eliminate all the harmful decisions. It's choosing discipline. It's choosing sometimes even discomfort. Like it's not. It's not a fun decision to invest in your 401k when the markets are going down and it's feeling more like a 301k or a two it's not easy to get up.

[00:09:36] In the morning when it's cold and your bed is warm and you need to go for a run, but it's paying that temporary price for a long term payoff. And there's so many parallels between physical health and financial health that actually that background in biochemistry has served me very well. Even though I never could have imagined it at the time

[00:09:57] Scott Maderer: That it is [00:10:00] interesting how we can look backwards and connect those dots.

[00:10:03] I've, I'm sure you've had it too when you're working with a client and they start to make changes in their life in that financial realm, I've seen times where a client will come back and be like I'm losing weight. Why am I losing weight? I'm not starving myself.

[00:10:18] I've not, I haven't and it's just getting disciplined in one area of your life often overlaps and you get more disciplined in other areas as well.

[00:10:27] Chad Hufford: You start creating better habits. And really what it comes down to a lot of this Scott is creating a better relationship with your future self.

[00:10:35] And that kind of can sound a little warm and fuzzy, but when you're paying off debt, when you're saving for retirement, when you're. Investing through a difficult market, you are, you're providing a payment to your future self. And when you choose, Broccoli over the cheesecake. When you choose to run rather than sleep in, you are, you're paying a temporary price so your future self [00:11:00] can live with more freedom.

[00:11:02] You're taking a little bit of pain so your future self can have less pain and it's the same mindset. So you're absolutely right. We see that all the time when people take control of their financial lives. That discipline, that perseverance, that patience. It bleeds out into other areas of somebody's life.

[00:11:22] Relationships often get better, health gets better, but also the reverse is true. If people's finances are in disarray their health often suffers, their relationships suffer. So it goes both directions. I think it's so important for people to create good habits around this because. As Scott, excellent spreads.

[00:11:42] Stewardship is about so much more than just finances, but it's such a big piece of an individual's life that they can create good stewardship habits in this area. It's a lot easier to create those, that domino effect in a positive way, creating change in [00:12:00] other areas too.

[00:12:01] Scott Maderer: And you like, again, we share this in common.

[00:12:05] are a man of faith. And you mentioned God a couple of times in the intro it's clear that's a component of your life. How do you see your faith journey intersecting with the journey you were on to become what you are today? And then vice versa the work that you do today and the work you do with other folks, how does that feed back into your faith?

[00:12:29] Chad Hufford: A scenario when I was 19 I was exposed to fatal levels of carbon monoxide should have been fatal between 30 and 60 minutes. I was in it overnight. I slept in it. And it's a lot of people know with carbon monoxide you gradually asphyxiate you fall asleep, you don't wake up and I continue to wake back up.

[00:12:51] And Scott, there's no reason. for me to be alive, other than the fact that God wasn't done with me. So I was 20 years old. This, it [00:13:00] happened, I was 19, a week before my 20th birthday. So I'm 20 years old, feeling like the best of my life was behind me. It was a painful recovery. It was very difficult. And I gradually came to this realization I could be standing, I should be standing before God right now, trying to give an account for my life.

[00:13:15] and I would not have much to show for it. God provided me so much opportunity. But I was the lazy servant in Matthew 25 that buried the talents in the ground. And I did not want that to characterize the rest of my life. I felt like I was given a second chance and I think that has provided a mindset for me that God doesn't give me what he's given me so I could be comfortable.

[00:13:45] He's given me what he's given me so I can bless others and help them to overcome the frustrations and challenges in their life. And if I stop when I'm comfortable, then I'm going back to that servant in Matthew 25. And that's what a lot of people don't realize about that [00:14:00] parable. That is the parable of talents.

[00:14:03] If your listeners aren't familiar, but a talent was not a coin. It was a unit of measurement equivalent to about 75 pounds. So even the poor servant that had one talent, think about the value 20 or 75 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold. He was entrusted with a fortune, but he was given enough.

[00:14:23] So he was comfortable and he buried it in the ground, not to protect it. But to protect himself and it was actually out of selfishness and I think that was a huge turning point in my life, at least the beginning of a turning point where I realized that I needed to be more outward focused and this has been so my faith journey in my professional journey, I think began to emerge at that point.

[00:14:49] Where I wanted to find a career where I could have an impact on the lives of others and help them overcome feelings of helplessness and challenges. And I thought like a surgeon would [00:15:00] be a great way to do that, but

[00:15:03] Scott Maderer: this was another path. Yeah, it would be, but so is what you're doing now. So when people come to you and they're wanting help in that financial.

[00:15:14] Realm that their financial life when you're working with them, what do you think is more important the behaviors or is it having a right strategy or the the right tools or the right portfolio or whatever name you want to give it what do you focus on with your clients?

[00:15:37] So they're all

[00:15:38] Chad Hufford: important, but if we're having to prioritize them, I think habits and behaviors are the most important because. If you have the right tools, and don't know what you're building, or don't know how to use them, it doesn't matter. If you have the right plan, the right strategy, and the right tools, but you [00:16:00] don't execute, it doesn't matter.

[00:16:01] So the best plan in the world the best diet in the world, that is, written down on a notebook that's sitting underneath a box of Krispy Kremes isn't going to help you. It might be a fantastic plan, but if you don't execute it on a consistent basis, it doesn't matter. So it really goes down to habits and behavior.

[00:16:22] To use another fitness analogy I was speaking to a group of healthcare administrators a couple months ago, and I explained this. So we. Took these 100 people and we gave them all access. I was in Nashville at the time. So it's like we did this 100 people. We give them access to Nashville's best gym and Nashville has some tremendous athletic facilities.

[00:16:48] But if we gave all these folks access to this place for a year. After that year, almost nobody would look significantly different than they do today [00:17:00] because the people that are already dedicated to their physical health, regardless if they're in a garage gym or the best gym in the state, are already doing all those behaviors.

[00:17:10] They already have those habits. They're going to figure out a way to make it work and the people that aren't committed to that, you could give them more tools, better access. But until you change the behavior doesn't matter. So it really comes down to the right mindset, the right behaviors, the right practices.

[00:17:28] That is primary. But it's really hard to keep those behaviors up unless you have a plan or a strategy. And then the plan and the strategy then dictates the tools that you use. Just if you were building a house, Scott, you would have a blueprint. It would dictate the tactics. It would dictate the tools that you use to finish the house, but it's the vision of what that plan looks like.

[00:17:50] That's where it starts and to have the commitment to continue to build. even when it's raining and the storm and it's cold and you don't feel like building. [00:18:00] So that's why those, it always goes back to habits. And if you change how you act, the circumstances around you gradually change, but too often people want circumstances to change first.

[00:18:12] I think it's going about it backwards or to your question we pick up the right tools. We get into this, some great portfolio and. And then they, somebody abandons it. It doesn't matter how good those tools were, or if they're not utilized correctly, they don't work. In fact, Just before our conversation, I was talking to one of the oil field folks up here and he's trying to put a plan together.

[00:18:40] He's expressing this concern. He bailed out last year out of his portfolio because the market was down as uncomfortable. All this bad news is gloom and doom in the media. He had a perfectly good portfolio that he abandoned and it's cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars. There's nothing wrong with the tool.[00:19:00]

[00:19:00] And he even had a plan, but he stopped executing. So I, I do think all those things are tied together, but it starts with Maderer.

[00:19:10] Scott Maderer: And when you think about that the funny thing is like you, you said if they have all the right tools, but they never. utilize them or are inconsistent in utilizing them.

[00:19:22] At the very least, they're not going to make as much progress as they could at the very least. Yeah.

[00:19:29] Chad Hufford: Go ahead. If you go, if we go back to that gym metaphor a little bit, you take somebody that, that, that is in a gym, they don't know how to use the tools. They don't have a good plan. Like you have some people.

[00:19:40] They're in the gym three or four days a week and they just wander around. There's no plan. So they haven't really changed much. At best, if you don't have a good strategy, you're not executing, you're not utilizing the tools properly, to your point, you're not getting the results that you could.

[00:19:55] But. If you go a little bit further along that road, you [00:20:00] take somebody that doesn't know what they're doing, doesn't have a good plan. They could actually injure themselves and be in worse shape. And that, and we see that all the time. That's what happened with this gentleman. He had good tools.

[00:20:12] He wasn't using them. He actually, he wasn't using them correctly. He's, Actually got injured financially it wasn't an issue with the tools. It was how the tools are being utilized. So that's an important thing for people to realize we, we've got to take ownership of our own mistakes and not blame the market, not blame our 401k.

[00:20:36] It's no, I got panicked. I sold or I was trying to time the market. But I think the other side of that too, is, We have agency like yeah, you're your 401k provider might not have The best options, but if you utilize what they have, you can still get a lot out of it. Better than nothing. Exactly.

[00:20:58] Exactly. Yeah. [00:21:00] Perfect. Doesn't exist. Perfect. Perfect. Rides on a chariot being pulled by unicorns. Like we don't need perfect. We just need good. And if we can execute a good plan with a good strategy for years and decades. excellent and wonderful things start to happen. Yeah. I've, I had back in the day when I was in the corporate world I had somebody tell me another employee I'm not going to, I'm not going to put money and get, take the match, which we had a 6 percent match.

[00:21:33] Scott Maderer: So like good match and a 401k, because I don't like some of the options in the 401k. And it's Wait, what? You're gonna completely opt out because, huh? What does that mean? What are you really doing? And again, it's that idea of at the end of the day, there was financial harm that they were doing.

[00:21:58] They could have done a different [00:22:00] way if they had just thought about it a little differently.

[00:22:03] Chad Hufford: And I think a lot of times we let perfect become the enemy of good or become the enemy of done. Like we're waiting for this perfect investment strategy and this perfect time to invest or the perfect spouse to come along the

[00:22:21] Scott Maderer: perfect business.

[00:22:22] Perfect time to have kids.

[00:22:27] Chad Hufford: My first child was born in the middle of the great recession. I just started my practice. I have no idea what I was doing, either from a professional standpoint or from a parenting standpoint. In fact, my daughter was born at the house. And I remember everybody leaving the midwife friends, family, and then they left this little girl.

[00:22:48] I'm like, somebody forgot to take this baby. I'm not, I didn't do this, but it was not the perfect time, but it was it was God's time. And [00:23:00] I had to step up and figure that out. And I think a lot of times people wait for perfect on the sidelines and I would just encourage folks that are listening focus on.

[00:23:12] Standardizing before you try to perfect focus on what is sustainable rather than what is optimal. A good diet that you can maintain for the next 20 years is far better than a perfect diet that you maintain for a week. Or people January 1st, they get all jazzed up and they're like I haven't worked out in 10 years.

[00:23:37] I'm gonna do what the Navy Seals do, and they feel sore and miserable and it's not sustainable. It might be a great workout plan that. builds people into physical machines, but if you can only stick to it for three days, it's not going to work. And in a lot of people to your point of this coworker it might not have been the optimal thing, [00:24:00] but he was getting a match.

[00:24:02] He was getting a hundred percent return on his money right away. And if he could have just made that sustainable, it would have been tremendously valuable but that people, I think, worry about optimal too much rather than looking at, okay, I've got to maintain this for decades. I've got to worry about not how to make it perfect, but how can I sustain this for a long period of time?

[00:24:24] Scott Maderer: That consistency is often more powerful than that idea of waiting for the perfect time or the perfect moment or the perfect plan.

[00:24:33] Chad Hufford: Absolutely. And the people who are successful, not just financially, but in business and in relationships and in health they have a tendency to do consistently what most people only do occasionally.

[00:24:46] There are people that go to the gym three or four times a year, whether they need to or not people who write their wife a card or buy her flowers on her birthday. But not on a consistent basis.[00:25:00] There, there are people who make good decisions on occasion, but not consistently. To your point it's not that people that have great results do extraordinary things.

[00:25:13] They just do ordinary things with tremendous consistency.

[00:25:19] Scott Maderer: So what do you see as some of the critical components for somebody to, to live that kind of life of consistency, abundance with that kind of mindset? I think some of the founding principles to this would be, number one, having a faith in the future and this isn't like a Pollyanna, Pollyanna optimism, like everything is always going to get better, because that's not how things work we try to teach people that a healthy view of optimism is not that things always get better But there is something better out there in the future, but there's a lot of trials and tribulations in between.

[00:25:57] Chad Hufford: I think a lot of people are looking for a [00:26:00] staircase where every day things get a little bit better. And we're here in Alaska, there's mountains all around us. Life and investing is more like a mountain range. Sometimes you have to cross valleys before you can start climbing again. And I, so I think that perspective is.

[00:26:16] Every step is taking me closer to this outcome, this better life this better situation, but not every step elevates me. Sometimes I have to go through, through darker places, go through storms, go through valleys, but having faith that things will be better in the future. Otherwise, Why are we sacrificing?

[00:26:37] What are we doing this for? Anyways people talk about this, these Armageddon type scenarios I don't want to put my money in, in, in the market because what if we go into nuclear holocaust? At that point, I think the idea of a full retirement is out the window.

[00:26:57] You have to have some faith in the future. [00:27:00] Also, Patience, like wealth is not created overnight. This is not about get rich quick. It's about building wealth slow And when I say wealth i'm talking more than just financial wealth and also discipline perseverance doing hard things in difficult circumstances and patience and discipline can be like two sides of the same coin.

[00:27:27] I think that patience is. resisting temptation and distraction. Discipline being more the consistent execution. So the patience is not getting distracted off the path. Discipline is continuing to step forward even when it's a struggle. So I think those three things are really important, but one of the biggest things that comes down to Scott, I think is this idea of gratitude.

[00:27:53] The more grateful somebody is for what they have, the easier it is to hold those other three principles. principles in [00:28:00] place, because if you're grateful for what you have, you're less focused on what you don't have. You're less focused on what other people have. So you're more resistant to distraction.

[00:28:09] You're more more resilient to stay on that path. And. you can see the good in what's happening instead of just the bad. So when you're crossing those valleys, it's easier to keep your mind on the peak that you're working towards, not the valley that you're in at the moment. So I think gratitude is something that's all encompassing and it's a practice.

[00:28:32] It's not just my, it's a practice. You practice gratitude to have a grateful mindset. You don't just try to have a grateful mind. So one of the things I do, I start every day with this guy. is I write down three things I'm grateful for, and some days it's harder than others, and I'll tell you what this week, right now this is real my wife and my daughters.

[00:28:57] They were in Lahaina earlier this week in [00:29:00] the middle of the fires. I couldn't talk to them. I couldn't get a hold of them. It was really hard to write down three things I was grateful for, but I had to find something. And what it does is it teaches people to, even in the darkest moments, find those flickers of light And though that mindset, that practice, and again, it is a practice, a discipline, allows you to fuel those other practices those other mindsets.

[00:29:28] I think having a discipline or practice of gratitude puts people in a position where they can execute all those other things.

[00:29:40] Scott Maderer: When you're talking to a person of faith, a Christian, and they're talking about investing and money and these sorts of things, what do you see that either is, or maybe should be, might be the better question, different about how people of faith look at money, investing, and those sorts of things?[00:30:00]

[00:30:01] Chad Hufford: I think our society and probably human nature, but let's, we'll just pick on our society. We have a tendency to look at money as number one, a goal in itself, wealth for wealth's sake rather than a tool to build independence, to build freedom. But I think Christians need to go a step further than that.

[00:30:24] It's a tool to not build comfort for ourselves, but to be able to comfort others, to be able to be generous. And it also have more of that kingdom mindset. I was on another interview earlier today, and we were talking about this idea of a lot of people view retirement or financial independence as a finish line where you get to this finish line and then you get to chill, you get to relax.

[00:30:53] And I think it's detrimental from two sides, Scott. Number one on the way to that finish line, there's this tendency to say [00:31:00] here's the finish line. I need to accumulate 2 million by the time I'm 65 or whatever that finish line is, then I'll be able to retire. It's this tendency to put off living life, put off making moments and memories, put off generosity.

[00:31:15] People tell themselves, I'll be generous when, I will have joy in my life when, and we keep moving the goalposts. The other side of that, though, is this idea that we get there, we have financial independence, and then we're back to that, that, that servant in Matthew 25, and we're buried in the ground and we just get comfortable, but we don't challenge ourselves, we don't stretch ourselves, and I think for believers who are able to achieve financial independence, you don't have to go to your job anymore, you have a work optional lifestyle you don't need your career anymore, Now you can enter into a calling and you and I are blessed to be in a situation where our calling and our careers intersect a lot.

[00:31:57] Not everybody has that. So to [00:32:00] be able to provide freedom from their career so they can go after what they were uniquely called to do and not have a nine to five to get in the way. I believe that for people who can intentionally work towards financial independence, those years, In retirement or work option lifestyle, wherever you want to call it, could be, probably should be the most impactful years of their life, not coasting.

[00:32:28] Scott Maderer: That, that's that old idea of I, I tell people all the time that it's never too late to ask the question, what do I want to be when I grow up? I don't care if you're 99 or 99, you can still ask that question. It's what do I want to be when I grow up? There's always something else you can be, you can do.

[00:32:45] So I've got a few questions. I like to ask all of my guests, but before I ask you those, is there anything else about the work you do or what you what we've talked about today that you'd like to share with the listener? I don't want to [00:33:00] make this seem it's the hardships that people encounter don't matter or that.

[00:33:07] Chad Hufford: the difficult people face. There are people that have like legitimate major things to overcome. And but I also want people to feel like they do, they still have agency, even in those deepest, darkest moments. I'm not minimizing the obstacles that people have to overcome, but even still having that sense of gratitude, having the discipline, the patience, it doesn't eliminate those things.

[00:33:37] Those things are still painful, they're difficult, but it helps people overcome those feelings of helplessness that can so often engulf them. And I'll be honest, Scott, I was right there this week, several thousand miles away from my wife, couldn't get down there, couldn't get a hold of her. I felt helpless.

[00:33:53] I hate that feeling, but I had to look and say, okay what can I do? In this situation right [00:34:00] now, what can I do to try to make this situation better, even if it seems tiny and minuscule? So I just, I want people to understand I'm not diminishing the obstacles. I'm not diminishing the valleys.

[00:34:12] They're real. But if we can look past that and see something better on the other side, and a lot of times the best parts of our life are on the other side of pain and

[00:34:24] Scott Maderer: trials. So I like to ask all of my guests this my brand is Inspired Stewardship. I got to run things through that lens and you've mentioned stewardship a few times in our conversation already.

[00:34:37] When you hear that word stewardship how have you defined it or what does it mean to you? And what is the impact of that word had on your life?

[00:34:46] Chad Hufford: To me, it's. being entrusted with something with an expectation. Again, it's going back to that Matthew 25 parable that those servants were entrusted with something that [00:35:00] was not theirs.

[00:35:00] Now they were in a place where they could benefit with what that blessing provided, but it was not theirs to do whatever they want with. They were going to be held accountable. They were going to give an account of what they did with that blessing, good or bad, positive or negative. And that's what I try to remind myself and my kids and even our clients is this, we have an accountability.

[00:35:27] We live, I'm not saying that this nation doesn't have issues, it does, but we live in, I believe, the most blessed nation on earth. That alone is something I think we're all going to be held accountable for. And also too, just reminding myself, it's not mine, like to hold things loosely, knowing that. They can be taken away and my faith, my joy, even those feelings of abundance should not be tied to material things.

[00:35:57] I'm a steward of that thing and if God chooses to [00:36:00] take away, that's his decision because it was his to give, it's his to take back.

[00:36:07] Scott Maderer: So this is my favorite question that I like to ask everybody. Imagine for a minute I invented this magic machine and with this machine, I could pluck you from where you are today and transport you into the future.

[00:36:19] Maybe 150, maybe 250 years. But through the power of this machine, you were able to look back and see your entire life, see all of the connections, all of the ripples, all of the impacts that you've left behind. What impact do you hope you've left behind in the world? I hope

[00:36:40] Chad Hufford: that people could look back and see that my, my team, my, my practice help people overcome feelings of helplessness that.

[00:36:54] That we gave people hope And help them see [00:37:00] purpose and direction for their life that they may not have been able to see otherwise. And we didn't cause it. We didn't create it. We helped draw that out of them. But most of all scott it would be that it That my faith would impact others and my especially my kids that's what I want more than anything is my kids to come to know and love jesus and that creates a ripple effect where people look at my family and my business and say these guys helped me have hope.

[00:37:34] Scott Maderer: So what's on the roadmap? What's coming next as you finish out this year and look forward into 2024. The

[00:37:41] Chad Hufford: big thing we're working on right now is I'm writing my first book about these ideas of stewardship and mindset and how to think appropriately about finances. Even the idea of retirement itself.

[00:37:56] I like, as you already heard, I like to challenge that [00:38:00] idea of retirement means you get to kick back, do whatever. Retirement should not be a 20 year vacation. I, it doesn't work out well. I've seen it too many times. So that's that's a big thing that we'll work on right now. And in getting some of my thoughts and ideas and my years of experience out of my head, actually on paper and in other forms where it can be more easily shared.

[00:38:33] Scott Maderer: You can find out more about Chad over on his website at VeritasAlaska. com. Of course, I'll have a link to that over in the show notes as well. Chad, is there anything else you'd like to share with the listener?

[00:38:47] Chad Hufford: Scott, I'm just really grateful to be here. This was an uplifting conversation for me. I'm encouraged just to be able to have this talk with you and to be able to be in front of your audience.

[00:38:57] It's been an honor. And a [00:39:00] blessing and just a privilege to, to share this time with you.

[00:39:26] Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode please do us a favor, go over to inspired stewardship dot com slash iTunes rate, all one word, iTunes rate.

[00:39:58] It'll take you through how to [00:40:00] leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed. Until next time, invest your time, your talent, and your treasures. Develop your influence, and impact the world.