Episode 1507: Interview with Nick Garofalo About Why Faith and Finances Are So Related

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining us on episode 1, 505 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:07] Nick Garofalo: Hey, my name's Nick, and I want to invite you to take ownership of your time, talent, and treasures, to invest in yourself, to pour yourself into others, and to steward your influence so that you can leave a lasting impact.

[00:00:21] Stewarding your faith and your life is essential. And one way to fuel that journey is by tuning into the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer.

[00:00:39] You should be giving something. And the reason, a couple of reasons there why you should give something and not just say, I'll wait to give till later. First off, generosity shifts your mindset from scarcity to abundance. Which is worth its weight in the purest goal, because if you can start to think in an abundance mindset, it will affect everything about your life and personality and [00:01:00] friendships.

[00:01:00] It's so helpful.

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

[00:01:34] In today's podcast episode, I interview Nick Garofalo. I asked Nick about why he sees stewardship as more than money and how faith and finance intersect. And Nick also shares how advising can be different and how by taking a faith based approach, he sees financial success differently. And Nick also talks with you about how generosity is fundamental to financial stewardship.

[00:01:56] I have a great book that's been out for a while now called [00:02:00] Inspired Living. Assemble the puzzle of your calling by mastering your time, your talent, and your treasures. You can find out more about that book over at inspiredlivingbook. com. It'll take you to a page where there's information and you can sign up to get some mailings about it as well as purchase a copy there.

[00:02:19] I'd love to see you there. Get a copy and share with me how it impacted your world. Nick Garofalo is the founder of Open Handed Wealth. He wants to help Christians align their life goals and vision with biblical wisdom, transforming stress into clarity, and solving the client's pain point. He talks about the intersection of faith, business, and generosity, empowering listeners to find financial peace, give freely, and leave a lasting legacy.

[00:02:46] One small choice at a time. He's a guy who loves Jesus, his wife, and his kids. He's passionate about helping people solve their money problems and answer their money questions. You can find him on the mountain bike trail, at his [00:03:00] church, playing with his kids, or reading a good book. Welcome to the show, Nick!

[00:03:05] Thanks for having me, Scott. I'm glad to be here. Absolutely. So I talked a little bit in the intro about some of the work you're doing over at Open Hand Wealth and working on sharing things with folks around finances. And of course, that's a topic I find near and dear to my heart as well. But before we talk about some of the work you do, would you talk a little bit more about your journey and what has brought you to this point where this is the work you feel called to do?

[00:03:32] Nick Garofalo: Yeah, absolutely. It comes from my own firsthand experience. I know how overwhelming it can be to juggle the demands of running a business and supporting a family and trying to, create some financial stability. So my journey really started as the son of a business owner who was struggling himself to find clarity and strategy in the midst of just the chaos of financial decisions and running a business.

[00:03:58] Yeah. And I [00:04:00] realized watching my dad try to do his best with man, very little guidance that I wanted to devote my life to filling that gap for people of helping the business owner, the entrepreneur who's going out, like trying to create in the world and trying to do good. But I wanted to help them with strategy, with intentionality and wisdom to apply, those frameworks to their decisions and to their business.

[00:04:31] And for the last 10 years, I've dedicated my time to trying to build the skills, to help entrepreneurs. And about a year ago, I finally set out on my own journey as a business owner. So

[00:04:40] Scott Maderer: this When you talk about the 10 years of developing the skills what what was some of that journey like in terms of how did it help you figure out that, Hey, I want to do this.

[00:04:52] On my own, I want to do this a different way from, from just working for somebody else or just taking it on as a quote job. [00:05:00]

[00:05:00] Nick Garofalo: Yeah. My mind goes to two different categories there. There's the practical kind of the nuts and bolts skills. And then there's all the soft skills the more I guess I'd call them more personal, right?

[00:05:11] So there's nuts and bolts, I think are the easier ones, right? That's the learning, the analytical skills, the how to read and analyze financial statements and, vet an investment or plan for taxes or implement a 401k. Those things, those are the hard skills, right? And in a lot of ways those are really the easier things to master.

[00:05:34] The personal skills, the soft skills are the ones that I find tricky because that's when you're dealing with a real person who has feelings and thoughts and fears and embarrassments about their finances or their personal life and they're inviting someone into it to give advice. It's hard to As the client, it's hard to not feel scrutinized when someone looks at your it's you're sitting there in the doctor's office.

[00:05:58] It's hard to not feel [00:06:00] uncomfortable. And so I will, man, I watched that so many times play out in my own father's search. I worked for him for several years and then we were acquired and I was the chief reporting and analytics officer for about three different companies in the portfolio.

[00:06:17] And. Learning what it's like being on the inside of a family business. And then I, a short stint, I spent at another family business, but I was on the outside of the family. Just taught me a lot. Taught me a lot about working with different people and how much trust is a crucial part of it.

[00:06:33] Component of that role as an advisor.

[00:06:37] Scott Maderer: I think what you said there about money is interesting. I work as a coach. It's a little different work than the work you do but related. Sure. I tell people all the time, it's the math part. That's the easy part. Yeah. You can Google how to do a budget.

[00:06:50] You can Google, investments. You can Google this sort of thing and you get lots of data and lots of information. But then how do you implement it? What does it [00:07:00] actually mean for your life? What, should you do this or should you do that? That's the hard stuff. It's all the very personal decision making that usually freezes people up.

[00:07:10] Would you agree with that? I, I would, and I would

[00:07:12] Nick Garofalo: agree from my own experience. And I'll tell you something else, Scott is the experiences I've had where I'm paying for someone to do something for me, like hiring a coach or an advisor. I think that I'm hiring the hard skills. I think I'm hiring a web developer.

[00:07:27] I think I'm hiring a a template, creator, some sort of hard, tangible, deliverable asset. And really what I'm getting is someone to push me to implement, right? Like maybe they've got a great template and I'm sure they do, but I need someone to push me to implement it and then help me tweak it along the way.

[00:07:47] That's what you're really hiring.

[00:07:50] Scott Maderer: Yeah. And how to deal with and adjust when when things don't happen exactly the way you had it on that piece of paper for the plan cause like I tell people there's there, when you sit down and write a [00:08:00] plan, there's one way that plan goes perfectly, there's an infinite number of rays that something goes wrong. Oh, yeah.

[00:08:06] Nick Garofalo: Yeah. It was Eisenhower, I think, that said plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

[00:08:11] Scott Maderer: Yeah. Plan plans mean nothing, but planning means everything is the version I've heard. But yeah, it was Eisenhower during the war.

[00:08:17] You're absolutely right. One of my favorite quotes as well. So talk a little bit, you were also mentioned that you're, a person of faith and you have that. that connection between the work you're doing, again, this is back to that hard skills, soft skills kind of question that we were just talking about.

[00:08:32] How do you see your faith journey having played out and how does that affect how you view the work you do around finance and around business owners and helping them? Sure.

[00:08:44] Nick Garofalo: Yeah. I could talk about this for a long time. So feel free to stop me at any point, but. I think it was C. S.

[00:08:49] Lewis that said, I believe in God in the same way I believe in the sun. Not just because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else. My faith is the [00:09:00] most core part of who I am. It's integral to everything about me. Anybody that I've heard it put like this, anybody that can predict their own death and then rise from the grave three days later when they said they were going to, I'm going to believe anything they have to say.

[00:09:18] And I was born and raised in the church. So definitely that's been very formative for me, but it wasn't until I really was an adult starting to take ownership of my own faith and really dealt my own relationship with with the church, with God with Jesus himself, that I started to realize just what stewardship really is.

[00:09:36] It's not, when I was a kid, stewardship was the thing that was preached about when the pastor's gonna ask for money. That was her way. My joke is

[00:09:44] Scott Maderer: it means we're starting a building campaign.

[00:09:46] Nick Garofalo: Yeah, exactly. It's okay, this stewardship talks, I guess we're gonna, I guess we're gonna be asked to give money.

[00:09:51] And as a kid, I was like, Oh, great, let's give that's great. And I had rose colored glasses, I guess for that, but. As an adult, I've come to a very different [00:10:00] understanding of this, right? Given that my, my faith is the lens that I see everything through I've realized that we live in a resource rich world.

[00:10:08] God has provided us almost unfathomably limitless resources, And he's asked us to have dominion over them. He's given us dominion and he's given us the mandate to create. Entrepreneurship is the beautiful, like blending of those two mandates that God gave us in Genesis go take dominion and go create.

[00:10:33] And so entrepreneurs. filled that that command with this beautiful integration of creativity and and dominion and implementation. that I don't know if I really find anywhere else. And so I guess getting back to your original question, I approach my finances the same way that I approach my time management, the same way that I try to approach [00:11:00] relationships.

[00:11:01] And it's asking the question fundamentally, what would the owner of this resource do with it? What would he do with the assets he's given me, whether it's money or whether it's a business or whether it's whatever the resource may be, what would he do? And I don't want to go do that. That's it. And bring him honor and bring him glory and bring his kingdom to the world.

[00:11:21] That's what I'm about.

[00:11:23] Scott Maderer: So one of the things too, I think as entrepreneurs adding to that, why not only are entrepreneurs awfully creators and take dominion, but we're also uniquely positioned to really live out a message of servanthood. I know what I mean by that is, and I'd like your take on it is I think the most successful businesses.

[00:11:50] Long term, at least our businesses that truly take on that attitude of we're here to serve our clients. We're here to serve our employees. We're here to serve, we're not just here [00:12:00] to make money. We're here to actually help people short term, sometimes focused on the bottom line, making money seems like it's real successful, but long term, it doesn't seem to play out that way.

[00:12:11] How have you seen that kind of servant mindset play out in the entrepreneurs you work with?

[00:12:17] Nick Garofalo: I don't know if I could say it better than you just did, Scott. The most successful companies that all the experts talk about that have books written about them and documentaries made about them, the good ones, not the bad documentaries, right?

[00:12:29] But like the good ones, those are all companies that are really devoted to customer service because at the end of the day, If you can't have a business without customers, it's like it has to, you have to be focused on delivering really good product, really good service. And yeah, I think that's a really beautiful connection you just made there though, of business as an opportunity for service, serving with, servant mindset.

[00:12:55] I think that's great.

[00:12:58] Scott Maderer: What do you define [00:13:00] as that intersection between faith and finance? You talked earlier about, stewardship and how we always label that with finance, but it's more than that, but when you are looking at money, how does that intersect with people's faith or how do you view that kind of intersection of faith and finance?

[00:13:16] Nick Garofalo: Okay, so yeah, it's building on a couple points I made. So God is a generous God. I believe God's an entrepreneurial God in the truest, most holy sense of the word. But also he's, we live in this incredibly resource rich world where everything is his in the first place. So money is his, right? The cattle on a thousand hills the gold and all of the earth, right?

[00:13:38] Like it's all his. and our stewardship and our creativity and our uses and creation of new wealth and development of all these great products or services that we can create. All of that is simply either reflecting or iterating on his original [00:14:00] creation. I was just listening to something the other day.

[00:14:01] It was incredible point I've never really considered, but in Genesis, when God created everything, he said, it's good. Yeah. Now in the Hebrew, I'm not a scholar, but I always, understood that word to mean like good in the best richest sense of the word, but the the scholar who is talking said actually he could have used perfect.

[00:14:19] He could have said, Oh, God saw what he made and said it was perfect. He didn't. And, he thinks, and I agree, one of the reasons for that is that. It wasn't done. It was never intended to be. That's it. No more. He's given us these resources to iterate, to get more creative. So the intersection of faith and finances to me, that is what stewardship is.

[00:14:38] And it's truest sense. It's asking that question. What would the owner of these assets do with them and then doing it? So where does that play out for me as a person or for a listener, for anybody just owning a business and running it? It's, at the most fundamental sense, it's, At least being open to asking that question and starting to [00:15:00] see what you have through a different lens from a different perspective.

[00:15:08] Scott Maderer: And even changing your vocabulary, cause I know for me, I try to not think of quote the resources I have, but I literally changed the word to these are just the resources I've given to manage. Or steward, if you want those sure to use the old fashioned word for it. Because I know because when I start thinking of it as the stuff I have, that's when I start making different decisions.

[00:15:36] Not always decisions that I think are the most in alignment with what God really is calling me to do. It's harder to, it's harder to write a check to give away money whenever It's my money. It's so true.

[00:15:49] Nick Garofalo: It's so true. It reminds you of a story. I'll have to come back and share.

[00:15:54] Scott Maderer: No, go ahead. Go ahead.

[00:15:55] Share.

[00:15:56] Nick Garofalo: I've had a real privilege of working with a really sweet couple who are [00:16:00] full time missionaries. And it's not your traditional financial planning advice. The reason that they haven't worked with any other advisors is because most advisors even faith based advisors I think still have a really hard time.

[00:16:17] Starting from stewardship first and money next. I think, yeah, so working with this couple, there have been multiple times that they've given away a huge amount of their emergency fund, which is never that big to begin with by modern standards. Traditional financial advice says absolutely you don't do that.

[00:16:38] That's your, we lost our job rainy day. Something goes wrong fund. You don't touch, but God's laid it on their heart to, to give it away. And Scott, it would bring tears to your eyes if I told you some of the stories of the people. That they're seeing up close on the real front lines of ministry and they have an opportunity to like surgically inject [00:17:00] God's capital into a really tangible material need and help provide for people.

[00:17:06] It's look, and I told her, I was like, look, guys, I'm not going to tell you. That you shouldn't do that. Yes, you should definitely try to rebuild your emergency fund, save back up. But I, I'm so impressed and so proud of you guys. And I think it just brings God such joy to see that your trust is not in money.

[00:17:21] It's not, it's just not because you just gave away. your comfort zone right there to meet somebody else's need. It was such a challenge to me though. It really was.

[00:17:33] Scott Maderer: It's back to what you just said. It's that weird dichotomy that you have between the practical And, the faith or the soft side or the human side of, in other words, that decision, I don't think either one of us would say that decision is the right decision for everyone to do in every situation, but does that mean it's not the right decision for somebody?

[00:17:56] Those aren't the same thing,

[00:17:58] Nick Garofalo: they're not one. And again, [00:18:00] just, it was the difference of this is money we have versus this is just money we're managing.

[00:18:07] Scott Maderer: And feeling truly called that was what they were being called to do with that money. My, my guess is that they've never yet had a situation where they've been really left in the lurch after doing that either that somehow or another it's worked out usually with some sort of coin.

[00:18:26] Yeah. I always tell people I, I find God a lot of times in the coincidences. And you know what I mean by that is I do something in faith. I put something out there going, I really don't see how this is going to work, but I truly feel God is calling me to do it. And stuff shows up,

[00:18:42] Nick Garofalo: never missed it.

[00:18:43] Right.

[00:18:44] Scott Maderer: And it usually doesn't show up the way I thought it was going to either. It shows up in some sort of weird way that it's like Oh, that's what we were doing. Okay. I missed that. I didn't, turns out I'm not as smart as God.

[00:18:58] Nick Garofalo: Yeah, and good thing too, [00:19:00] right?

[00:19:00] Scott Maderer: I'm glad God is not as dumb as me. I'll just put So, when you talk about financial advising that's one of those things that people hear about and they know this term.

[00:19:12] Oh, there's financial advisors and that. I think people also think about it as this kind of one uniform monolithic, everyone has the same approach. It's all the same kind of thing. I can go to anybody that calls themselves a financial advisor, and it's all the same. And yet I know, and there's different flavors and different approaches and different mindsets that folks take as, both on a practical level, as well as a individual level.

[00:19:37] Talk a little bit about, what advising is, different flavors of it, and then what you do specifically in the approach that you take.

[00:19:47] Nick Garofalo: Scott, so I'd start with just a brief history. If you look back in the, I don't know, the 60s, 70s, even into the 80s the financial services landscape looked like mostly insurance.[00:20:00]

[00:20:00] It was mostly life insurance. The early development of, whole life policies and things like that. And so if you were a financial advisor, it meant really you were a life insurance salesman. And so your job was to, that was it, right? Fast forward a couple of decades, the complexity of investing and the kind of proliferation of retail investing meant that anybody could buy and sell stocks.

[00:20:29] Oh, that's awesome. Which ones should I buy? Poof. Now enters, the new financial advisor. He is now a stock picker, a stock analyst, a stock advisor, and he will take your money and he will invest it well. And as mutual funds evolved into ETFs, and now we've got, super, super cheap, diversified, readily available investments for everybody, that isn't quite as prevalent anymore.

[00:20:58] And it's now evolved more [00:21:00] into what I do, which is comprehensive flat fee or fee only financial planning. And what we do is like fee only advisors is we're not just, selling you an insurance policy, which I don't even sell policies, by the way, I can advise on them and certainly vet them, but I don't make commissions.

[00:21:20] I don't sell products. It's great. I'm completely agnostic to what, my clients do or buy or invest in. I can manage assets. So if you did come to me like, yeah, I really don't know how to invest my 401k. I can tell you, give you advice on, on, on what to actually put your money into.

[00:21:35] I can take custody of certain assets as well and manage them. But like the comprehensive planning model answers not just one or two questions But it's designed to really incorporate all the different various aspects of somebody's financial life from disability insurance to budgeting and debt reduction to, investments, and obviously taxes is a huge [00:22:00] question for most people.

[00:22:01] Most of us have no clue how taxes work and how to reduced taxes, all the way to estate planning, which is beneficiaries and legacy and who's gonna, take care of your kids if something happens to you or get your assets or resources when you pass away, like, all of that is part of the planning process.

[00:22:19] And it's not just, focused on one silo of somebody's life. And so the evolution, there are also how people charge, right? So back in the day, it was life insurance. That was all commissions. Then it was stocks. A lot of it was commissions. Then it was asset management, which is, a percent of assets or a fee like that.

[00:22:40] And then now it's it's almost more like coaching where it's yeah, I charge 200 bucks a month. And I just, I'm your financial coach for everything. And so that's the progression, the history, and I'm in that last category there.

[00:22:53] Scott Maderer: When people are thinking about, the different questions that they can ask, or when they come to [00:23:00] an an advisor, what do you see as the kinds of questions that people should be asking that maybe they don't usually come to asking if that makes sense?

[00:23:12] Nick Garofalo: Oh, that's a great question. And I think people are uncomfortable asking this because the question I'm about to share, because it feels very pushy and almost awkward, but in our space, it's not it's not at all, but you should definitely ask, Hey, how are you paid? Advisors are required by law to disclose that in paperwork.

[00:23:31] So it's in there. You're not asking how much did you make last year? You're asking who's paying you. And if the answer is anything, but you and you alone as the client. Then, at the very least that they're getting some sort of compensation elsewhere, whether that's a commission or a residual or something but that can really, that's a really good question to ask is who's paying you and then also where are you registered or how are you licensed or registered?

[00:23:59] [00:24:00] It takes a little bit of Googling, but basically there's a handful of regulatory bodies. And it's really helpful to know. where people are registered and,

[00:24:11] Scott Maderer: How they're licensed and how are they regulated or licensed? One of the questions that I've told people to ask before too, is, when we're working together, when are you acting as a fiduciary and when are you not acting?

[00:24:23] As a fiduciary, when are you held to that standard? Because even though that's a weird word and people don't necessarily know what it means, but, the fiduciary act of an advisor, there's other types. Go back to your insurance salesman. Insurance is not held to that same standard in terms of, what I do as an insurance salesman as when I'm acting as an advisor.

[00:24:44] So if I wear both of those hats. I need to know when you're wearing what hat. Yeah.

[00:24:51] Nick Garofalo: I've got a resource on my website. That's like questions you should ask your financial advisor. And that's another great one is what is a fiduciary [00:25:00] or what is a fiduciary? Because you may be surprised to learn that the person you're talking to actually isn't a fiduciary.

[00:25:07] Scott Maderer: And define it for folks that maybe don't know what that word means. What, when we talk about fiduciary standard, what are you talking about?

[00:25:13] Nick Garofalo: Yeah, I love this. It's got biblical overtones as well. And it, it, legal overtones is, so a fiduciary is someone who acts in somebody else's best interest.

[00:25:21] So the best way I could illustrate that as a guardian of your kids, if you're leaving your children to someone, that person is a fiduciary of your children. And so you need to make sure that you trust them. And you trust their decision making. And then their job is to put all of their self interest aside and focus only on what's in your best interest.

[00:25:40] And advisors like myself CFP professionals certainly legal advisors, but others have taken an oath to do that. And I don't think people realize that, it's not quite like the Hippocratic oath, but it's comparable in the sense that. If a client comes to me and says, Hey, I'm just curious.

[00:25:58] I'm interested. I want to learn [00:26:00] more. And they're not a good fit for me. I have a duty and oath I took to say, no, I'm not the right fit for you. And I've done that. I don't think people realize that because it's pretty foreign in the finance space, right? Not to be cynical, but I think most people just assume you're a salesperson.

[00:26:14] You're just going to tell me to buy something from you and it's going to be expensive and complicated. I'm not going to understand it. And it's I understand why you feel that way. I feel that way. That's why I do it differently. I'm not, I don't even call myself a financial advisor. Because it just can bring up very different, preconceived notions or expectations for people when they walk into that meeting.

[00:26:36] Scott Maderer: And that, that idea of quote, doing something because it's, so I talk about the difference between influence and manipulation at times. And the way I define that is manipulation is when I get you to do something because it's good for me. Influence is when I get you to do something because it's good for you or it's good for both of us.

[00:26:54] It's a different mindset, , and yeah, something else may be better for me, [00:27:00] but if I'm influencing you, I'm taking into account no. That should be best for Nick. Yeah. I may get some benefit too. That's okay. But it's gotta be best for Nick . It's gotta be best.

[00:27:09] Nick Garofalo: And you're absolutely right.

[00:27:10] And my goodness, like we're so exhausted of being sold to as a society and as people. And so I think there's just a huge skepticism, especially, you're a coach, right? So like you probably deal with this I think more than the average where you know, especially yeah, just friends and family Scott can try to sell me on his coaching or whatever.

[00:27:31] It's we're just, we're so pre charged to, Oh, no, I don't be sold to, I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to, and man, we can really miss out on. a lot of benefits.

[00:27:42] Scott Maderer: I describe it to people like this. Have you ever gone into a store and you legit need some help finding something you're not finding it on the shelf where you thought it was, they've got it at this store, but you're not sure where it is.

[00:27:54] It's a great big store. You legit need help finding it. And a salesperson walks [00:28:00] up and says, Hey, can I help you? And our knee jerk response is no, just looking.

[00:28:08] It's you legit need their help. You honestly could turn to them and say, where do you find X, Y, and Z? And our shields are so up that we'll immediately say no, I'm just looking. And then we'll wander around in the store for 25 minutes trying to find something.

[00:28:22] Nick Garofalo: Okay. Let's go back real quick to the start of our conversation about customer service.

[00:28:25] Where do you find those people to be the most friendly and helpful? Name a store. The customer folks. Yeah, the service folks. Yeah. Can I help you find something? Where do you, when you hear that, where does it take you to oh yeah, to this place? Cause I know that they have great customer service,

[00:28:42] Scott Maderer: honestly, for for me, and this is a bit of a personal answer.

[00:28:45] It's actually a grocery chain that we have here in South Texas called H E B which is a family owned and operated business. It's still not publicly traded to this day. It's still owned by the same but family that owned it generations ago. It's like [00:29:00] down to the grandchild, grandson or great grandson now.

[00:29:02] But and they legit try to train that. Other examples of course is Chick fil a. That's a big one. I was thinking of Home Depot. I haven't. It depends on the store. Some Home Depots, I get that. Some Home Depots, it doesn't feel that way. It's more like you're looking around going, I can't find anyone to help me.

[00:29:20] And I think a lot of that has to do with the manager and how they train up their people too. Sure.

[00:29:25] Nick Garofalo: But yeah, again, going back to your overarching point is like that person isn't, they're not trying to manipulate you, right? They're not trying to coerce you. They're there to help you.

[00:29:36] And I think that's.

[00:29:37] Scott Maderer: But our instinct is if I left ask for help somehow or another, I'm going to get taken advantage of.

[00:29:42] Nick Garofalo: Yeah.

[00:29:43] Scott Maderer: Which is a really sad thing, honestly. Let's talk a little bit about generosity and giving. You told that great story earlier of those folks that have been called. to give away parts of their emergency fund at different times.

[00:29:58] How do you approach generosity when [00:30:00] you're talking to people about, financial planning and planning for your future and balancing those ideas of being a generous person versus. Taking care of what you need and take care of financial planning.

[00:30:16] Nick Garofalo: So it is a balance. A couple of thoughts jumped on my mind.

[00:30:19] First is everybody should have a financial finish line. And most of us have no idea what it is. But we can create one. We should have one. And it's the goal of both income and accumulation. We should have really two finish lines, depending on how you're measuring them, but ultimately it's just a, an enough goal.

[00:30:43] And I'm pretty conservative on that actually, and it might not make me many friends, but I actually think that we should pretty average in terms of income level and pretty sufficient in terms of wealth accumulation. And everything above that we get to give. [00:31:00] And so based on where you are, if you can imagine a 2x2 matrix where you've got four boxes, the bottom axis is income, And then the vertical axis is wealth.

[00:31:12] And so the closest to the, the X on the axis there is you're early in your wealth accumulation and you're early in your career journey of income. So you really could use some more income and you certainly could use some more wealth before you'll reach your financial finish line.

[00:31:28] So you should be saving aggressively and you should also be giving some. The sum number S O M E, that sum can vary. For some people, it might be zero for now. And for many of us, it might be, we're probably all accustomed to that 10 percent time concept. I don't know, I don't know if that's right for everyone at every stage.

[00:31:52] And depending on your. context, and so ultimately between you and the Lord to figure that one out. But you should be giving something. [00:32:00] And the reason, a couple reasons there of why you should give something and not just say, I'll wait to give to later. Okay. First off, generosity shifts your mindset from scarcity to abundance.

[00:32:09] which is worth its weight in the purest gold. Because if you can start to think in an abundance mindset, it will affect everything about your life and personality and friendships. And it's so healthy. It's so good for you. So give money away just because it's good for you. Okay. Actually, I have a funny, Kind of side story about that, about how giving is almost as healthy for you as not smoking is, or like going for a 20 minute walk every day.

[00:32:36] And it's not just fluff, it's actually like a Harvard study that was done, like it really is physically healthy for you to give. Okay. But it also reinforces the idea that wealth isn't just about accumulation. And that, you're receiving to give, right? Paul talks about that. Okay, but then the other three boxes in that matrix are you've got plenty of income, but not enough wealth.

[00:32:59] Or you have plenty of [00:33:00] wealth and not a whole lot of income, or you have plenty of both, right? Plenty of income, plenty of wealth. And based on where you fall, you're either giving some and saving some, you're giving a lot and saving none, or you're just giving a ton and saving nothing. But based on where you fall, whether you're past your finish line it will inform the amount you can give away and that frees people up.

[00:33:24] I love helping clients set like giving targets. We have saving targets, right? 10, 15, 20, 25%, 401k match, all the good stuff. But what about giving target? What about I want to give a million dollars away before I'm 40? Or I want to give away consistently, 15 percent or 20 percent of my income.

[00:33:41] Or I want to, golly, I knew this guy one time. He was almost a reverse tither where he was living on 10 percent of his income. And this guy was making quite a phenomenal income, but he, like he was living on a fraction of it. And just giving the rest away. So [00:34:00] just a handful of

[00:34:00] Scott Maderer: ideas

[00:34:01] Nick Garofalo: there.

[00:34:01] Scott Maderer: Yeah. I've had one of those clients as well that made an insane income and had done it for a number of years.

[00:34:07] And I always use it, he, he was interesting in that, there were times we had a conversation one time about, do I continue to charter flights when I want to go somewhere, or do I buy a plane and hire a pilot, and people are like, Oh my God, that's insane. And it's no.

[00:34:20] This guy made. The kinds of money where everyone that he knew, they all owned their planes and had a pilot. That was normal. That's, it was a small fraction of his money to do that. He actually decided not to do that because in part by chartering flights, it let him save more money, which allowed him to give more money.

[00:34:39] And he was the same sort of guy who'd written very large checks to various charities, usually without ever. anyone ever knowing that he was doing it, but he did it because that's what he felt called to do. But but it is interesting when you're talking to somebody with those kinds of numbers and realizing, oh, wait, you, you're, you can live [00:35:00] on a very small amount and still do things that most of us don't get to do because you make such a large amount of money.

[00:35:06] Nick Garofalo: Yeah. And that's why, so much of these numbers are relative, right? They really are. For some people that, yeah, the finish line, the financial finish line is going to look different, but I do like to challenge people to think aggressive feels the wrong word, but just to think a little differently that, The Parkinson's law dictates that demand expands to meet supply, and that if you cut your budget, your brain will get creative on ways to fit into a smaller budget.

[00:35:36] It just will. You'll find places to save money you didn't know you had it. And so I always.

[00:35:41] Scott Maderer: And that's one of the reasons that I think we're encouraged to give from first fruits, get another one, give before you spend, not after.

[00:35:49] Nick Garofalo: Yeah that kind of gamifies it too. I don't know if you ever studied like game theory and economics, but when you turn something into a challenge that you're trying to solve, it becomes.

[00:35:58] It's just more interesting [00:36:00] to the brain and you start finding creative ways to make it work. Yeah,

[00:36:03] Scott Maderer: that's like the no spend months where, I'm going to, I'm not going to spend any money in February. It's okay how are you going to do that? You got to get creative to be able to do that, but you can do it.

[00:36:11] Is there anything else about the work you do or that you're doing that you'd like to share before I ask you a few questions that I ask all of my guests?

[00:36:19] Nick Garofalo: Scott, I think just one thing I'd want to add real quick is that going back to our conversation about business owners. If you own a business and it's profitable I just want to encourage those listening, God's entrusted you with an incredible resource and it's not by mistake.

[00:36:36] It's not by accident. And if you don't have a team of advisors or at least, depending on your size, at least one good advisor, that's giving you an outside perspective. On that there may be incredible blessings that you're missing out on because you're the only one who's, trying to make all those decisions alone and that, financial stewardship and financial [00:37:00] responsibility is about so much more than just the numbers.

[00:37:03] Absolutely.

[00:37:04] Scott Maderer: Absolutely. So we've talked a lot about stewardship and you've used that word a lot and that's one of my favorite words, but I always like to ask folks to actually, for you, what does the word stewardship actually mean?

[00:37:17] Nick Garofalo: Yeah, that's a great question. Stewardship has come to mean that the pressure's off because it's not all up to me. That when I'm really at my best and I'm really thinking clearly about my life and my business and my family and my work and our future, it's not a problem I need to solve. It's a journey through which I need a very wise and trustworthy guide in my Heavenly Father.

[00:37:54] And it's a co laboring. I never saw stewardship like [00:38:00] that. I never, like I said, it was just, the topic for giving Sunday, but seeing that God is actually, God wants my business to do well. He really does. He really cares. he wants me to help people through my business. And when I see it like that, man, like the pressure just melts away.

[00:38:20] It's oh we're in it together. I'm not like that every day, but on good days when I'm, when I don't want to paint a picture that like, that's, I wake up in the morning and it's just sunshine and roses. It's not, but that's what it really is. At its core, that's what stewardship really means to me.

[00:38:37] Scott Maderer: But I think also that's why, you talked earlier about God saying created and it is good, but not saying it's perfect, and talking about the generosity and how that helps change our heart. I think all of this is related to that same concept, which is, we are imperfect beings, but we're called to journey towards perfection.[00:39:00]

[00:39:00] That doesn't mean that we've arrived, it doesn't mean every day is the perfect day. Cause I don't know about you, but I don't have perfect days every day, but I won't speak for anyone else, but I sure don't. So this is my favorite question that I like to ask everybody.

[00:39:17] Imagine for a moment that I could invent this magic machine and with this machine, I was able to pluck you from where you are today and transport you to the future, maybe 150, maybe 250 years. And 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 you've left behind.

[00:39:39] What impact do you hope you've left in the world?

[00:39:40] Nick Garofalo: Wow, what a cool question. First, I actually believe with all my heart that's what heaven will include. That life in the kingdom someday will that'll be a part of it and hearing the stories of people we've impacted So I think at some point I will actually get to [00:40:00] we all will get to see the answer to that question You know if I was gosh hoping and dreaming today, two two prayers I prayed for a long time scott.

[00:40:07] The first is right out of proverbs I think it's either chapter 30 or 31 where he says give me neither poverty nor riches Feed me with the food that's needful for me. Don't give me more than I need, lest I be full and curse you, or less than I need lest I steal and dishonor the name of my God.

[00:40:25] And then the 2nd prayer, similar, is, God keep me from bearing fruit that my branches are not yet strong enough to hold. I think a lot of people, one of my favorite authors talks about this a lot too, a lot of men who do well and do good work and are honorable and trustworthy are given kingdom, right?

[00:40:47] Quote, unquote, like given responsibility and authority and presence and platform. much too early and it becomes their ruin [00:41:00] in some way or another. And so my, yeah, my prayer is that the, when I, that fruit that will be, be produced in my life will have a similar effect on those that enjoy it.

[00:41:18] Right that and I think that what this is interesting. I think it's again going back to the, it's not all up to me the pressures off that can, turn into patient so that can develop patients. And that patience I'm thinking of a couple of New Testament references here, like Peter and Paul's letters, but where they talk about, character and patience and proven hope and all these things.

[00:41:43] That process, I hope that my impact on other people is, a desire to,

[00:41:54] how can I say this, live out their life in the same way, right? Where it's not all about [00:42:00] fame and fortune and whatever the world wants to throw at us, but it's about the slow and the study journey of walking patiently with God and subjecting ourselves to his process in his time.

[00:42:11] Scott Maderer: Yeah, said.

[00:42:14] So what's on the roadmap? What's coming next for you as you continue on your journey?

[00:42:19] Nick Garofalo: With four kids I can only see about a week into the future, but with four kids,

[00:42:23] Scott Maderer: if you can see a week into the future, I'm impressed.

[00:42:27] Nick Garofalo: Yeah. So we've got a full busy house of young kids, but yeah, professionally, I'm focused on expanding my business.

[00:42:36] I want to help as many people as I can. I want to create educational resources. I want to, man, I have to inspire other people. Yeah. To steward better. I hope to, be an encouragement to people. I hope more than anything to be a disarming reassurance to people that they're not nearly as bad off as they feel like they are.

[00:42:53] And but, yeah, I look forward to exploring ways to collaborate with other business owners and, help people [00:43:00] build. legacies of faith and generosity and purpose. So the journey is Lord willing, far from over for me. And I'm excited for what's ahead.

[00:43:09] Scott Maderer: So you can find out more about Nick over on his website at openhandedwealth.

[00:43:17] com. Of course, I'll have a link to that over in the show notes as well. Nick, anything else you'd like to share with the listener?

[00:43:24] Nick Garofalo: If this has been interesting to you and if you'd like to get to know me or schedule a call, you can certainly visit my website and strategy sessions are free.

[00:43:31] I just love to meet people and find any way that I might be able to help or add value. Feel free to head over there and reach out. I'd love to meet you.

[00:43:38] 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. [00:44:00] If you enjoyed this episode please do us a favor. Go over to inspiredstewardship.

[00:44:07] com. iTunes rate, all one word, iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to 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.