0:05 spk_0
Welcome to Warrior Money, the show devoted to supporting our brother and sister veterans in business. I’m Patrick Murphy, and I’m Dan Kons. Today’s guest is US Army veteran of the Elite, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, who’s now a respected financial advisor dedicated to veteran outreach to the 3 Rangers Foundation. Please welcome Marcus Hall.
0:29 spk_1
Thank you very much, Patrick. It’s a privilege to be on the show with you this afternoon.
0:33 spk_0
Yeah. All right, brothers, so this, we start up every episode with the bluff. So bottom line out front. So what’s the one piece of advice that you would give the transitioning warriors who are leaving military service?
0:46 spk_1
I think the biggest uh advice that I would give Patrick would be to tell those uh warriors who are separating from service that uh do not discount the leadership.Knowledge that you’ve learned in your time and service. That is a huge benefit and it’s very hard to articulate uh that you have to do something that you are probably not used to is you have to become your, your, your best advocate, right? You have to figure out how to uh put it into a position where the civilian world can understand that you have leadership that you’ve gained, even if it’s only in a for sure year.A short 4 year enlistment like I did, uh, I was able to really learn a lot and apply that to my day to day life and still use a lot of those principles today.
1:32 spk_0
Yeah, no doubt about it. Listen, I, I, it’s hard because you’re great year after year, you know, all three of us are army veterans. You know, even for basic training, there’s no I in team. It’s all about the team. And then when you leave, you gotta get comfortable talking about the things that you’re doing or things that you can do and what you can do for them. So appreciate it. That’s great advice. Um, tell us about your role now. You’re an RBC Wealth Management, right? So tell us what your day to day is on how you help our brother and sister veterans.
2:01 spk_1
Yeah, so I had the privilege of having one of the best jobs in the world. I, I think, um, you know, I become a, uh, position of leadership within the family. Some would say you call me the family concierti, uh, and they.Family really relies on uh bringing me into various discussions, uh, not just financial ones, but you know, what are we gonna do about buying a house for our kids when they go to college or what’s the best way that we can help our kids out when they’re going to buy their first home, uh, and it’s just really uh an honor to be in that.Um, in that position. I have clients that, uh, my father was a financial adviser for 38 years. They started with him and now they’re the great grandparents have died and I’m working with their, with their great grandchildren. So I have 5 generations of clients that either my father or myself have been servicing, and that’s a credit to our planning process and the way that we put the client first.
3:01 spk_2
That’s awesome. Yeah, that’s really, that’s really impressive. But like if we go back in time, you’re an Army Ranger, you’re in the 75th Ranger, and then it looks like your career path was like, I wanna be, I want to take care of people. I want to be a, like a health person that takes care of people, uh, physically. Can you talk a little bit about your transition out of the military and into both education and what you originally did when you first left service?
3:25 spk_1
Yeah, it was really great, you know, coming out of the military after 4 years. Uh, we had jumped into Panama uh about a year earlier, um, and, and actually had gone to combat, gone to the show, and so I was ready to get out, really just wanted to go to move back home and go to go to college. And, um, I was cross trained as a medic, uh, in my time at the regiment, and I thought.And it’d be really good to do medicine, uh, and maybe I can become a police officer one day and do tactical medicine like I was doing, uh, with the regiment. And, uh, so I went to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, uh, graduated from the EMS, uh, paramedic track program, got hired, uh, almost right after graduation by Montgomery County Police Department.Um, I was, uh, went through the police academy and then was on the road as a police officer and so I was also doing volunteer work with Montgomery County Department of Fire Rescue Services, uh, Station 3 in Rockville, um, and we were busy with, um, uh, all sorts of, uh, you know, civilian emergencies and that sort of stuff, um.So, um, after about 2 or 3 years on the department, I saw it was, it was really a lot of stress on my family life and uh the possibility of me going to tryouts after 10 years of that kind of uh working on the road as the street life.Uh, um, that, that just didn’t appeal to me and my, my dad said, hey, why don’t you come into the financial services advisory business. It was a great fit. I was already talking to police officers on my shift, uh, and other shifts and other stations. They were asking me to review their deferred compensation plan and help them to give them ideas.Uh, I, I was registered at the time as, uh, with my Series 6, so I was able to do that. And that’s really when my love for financial planning really started.
5:25 spk_2
That’s awesome. We, we have so many guests. Well, first of all, first of all, you are our 2nd Montgomery County Police Department guest outside of Maurice Village and he was one of our first guests on the show. That’s, that’s awesome. Uh, secondly, though, it’s, it’s really cool, um, when you talk about your journey, how you saw transitions based on things that you were passionate about.And one of the things that all of our guests have in common is that they’re finding their purpose in service to somebody else post military service. And it sounds like that was really what guided you through your, through your transitions from like military to then doing what you’re doing now and the purpose behind that seems to always be guided and how do I help somebody move somewhere forward.
6:06 spk_1
Others before self, uh, is what we were taught and, uh, and it just carried through and everything. And so to serve as a volunteer firefighter, volunteer paramedic, as a police officer, uh, serving my, my county, it just was a, a natural fit.And, and now, you know, serving people by helping them with their finances and um being integral part um in um in the rest of their lives of financial planning, uh, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s really a privilege.
6:39 spk_0
It’s. Yeah, it doesn’t get any more personal when you’re talking about people’s, obviously, their bank accounts and what they want to give to their kids as far as estate planning.So let’s dive into that if you, if you don’t mind, Marcus. Let’s talk about the blended retirement system. You know, obviously just came online, uh, with the military. Tell us about what that is and what people should know about it.
6:56 spk_1
Yeah, you know, over the past, um, I don’t know, 20 years or so, uh, that I’ve been uh doing uh financial planning, I’ve gone back to to teach classes at the venty-fifth Range Regiment at Montgomery County Police Department, um, at a couple of uh fire departments around here.And uh through that course, um, uh, back in 2017, 1 of my clients let me know, hey, they got this new blended retirement system. They were just calling it BRS, uh, they got this new BRS stuff, uh, coming around and uh do really great if you could come down here and talk to the guys about it. I ended up uh finding out that there was a certification course online that was available for financial advisors or anybody who wanted to take this DOD approved course, and I took that course and it was, uh,very informational, got a little certificate with it, and I had a better understanding of this new plan. And the idea here is, you know, many years ago, um, we saw a transition in the civilian world where, you know, 60 years ago, probably 60% of the businesses out there provided a pension or a defined benefit plan for their employees, and I think nowadays the number is less than 20%.And, and, and what has happened is over those 60 years, we’ve seen a transition of the responsibility for retirement to be shifted away from solely the employer, uh, to the, to be combined with the employer and the and the employee. And that’s essentially what the government did back in 2017 or 2018, uh, when they rolled out.The BRS, uh, plan. So they, they take your defined benefit, uh, um, plan, and they change it to, uh, a combination of a defined benefit and a defined contribution plan. And what that means it is a defined benefit plan says we’re gonna put X amount away for you and when you retire after 20 years, you’re gonna get amount Y.Um, when you have a defined contribution plan, they say, we’re gonna also add on to that an investment portion where we’re gonna match uh what you are putting into the investment account, which is the rift savings plan, uh, and we’re gonna go ahead and use both of those things to be able to provide you with a more beneficial benefit than what you originally have with just the defined, uh, benefit plan.Um, and so it’s a partnership. You have the defined benefit that you’re gonna get on this side and the defined and the defined contribution which formed together to be able to give you uh a plan that provides you monthly income and it also provides you assets that you can use.And access when you want to.
9:50 spk_0
Yeah, we tell people, let your money work for you. So the and how the 8th 1 in the world is compound compound interest. Um, let’s go real quick. I know we only have about 90 more seconds before we take a break, but let’s talk about the your savings plan. You know, what is that and what should people know about it when they’re in the military?
10:08 spk_1
Essentially, the thrift savings plan is a 401k plan like they would have in the civilian counterpart. You’re putting money into that plan every paycheck, either pre-tax or post-tax, and that money is getting put away and every month you’re buying a little bit more investments, uh, 2 times a month, and over a period of 20 years that can grow very easily to be in excess of several hundreds of thousands of dollars,
10:35 spk_0
you know.Yeah, and, and we tell people like this and the, the number one reason, unfortunately when people fall through the cracks or in the worst case scenario, take their own lives, it is really that financial stress, uh, on them and their family. And that’s why thinking about ahead of time before you need it is incredibly important. So listen, why don’t we, we’re gonna stop here. We’re gonna go on a quick break. Marcus, we’ll be right back with you. Does that sound good?
10:59 spk_1
Sounds good. Thank you.
11:00 spk_0
All right, brother. Rangers lead the way. We’ll be right back.All right, welcome back to Warrior Money. We’re back with Marcus Hall. Marcus, as I said before we left, Rangers lead the way. So thanks so much for what you do. You know, whether it’s, it’s Turf station’s plan or people making sure they’re taking care of their family, etc. um, when should people start caring or following what they should be doing with their money? Is it when they’re 40, 50, or is it sooner?
11:32 spk_1
Uh, you really want to follow what’s going on with your money from the very get-go. I, I see constant examples on a daily basis of people bringing in money that they are like, here, we don’t know what this is, um, and they’re 60 years old and they’re thinking about retiring. Uh, that’s way too late. I had a discussion last night, uh, with my son for about an hour. He’s said, I just turned.21 in December and he’s in the army now. He’s putting 15% into the TSP Roth and he wants to know what the difference is between a Roth TSP and a traditional TSP. And um, so we went through his statement. He sent me a copy of it, and I went through each line to help him understand so that he knows why he is puttingaway 15% of every one of his paychecks. So you got to start early. You gotta maintain it. It’s like any plan. Once you start a plan, it’s gonna go sideways from the get-go usually, uh, and then you have to adjust and modify the plan, bring it back in line, and we do that on a consistent basis. I try to do that yearly for myself. Se week of January is when I do my asset allocation and my rebalancing. I don’t touch the money at all that I have in my personal investments until the following year.
12:43 spk_2
Yeah, that’s really, really good advice. It’s actually funny. I was on, on this show a couple of weeks ago talking about how I was talking to my financial advisor about transitioning my TSB into my defin into my own uh portfolio. Can you talk a little bit about like, there’s two, there’s two parts of it before we get into it. One, like,All right, I got money. I just left service, like, what, who, what, how do I find somebody? Like, what do I do? Uh, that’s probably the first question, and then the second question is like, if I’m not leaving service and I don’t know anything about money, what do I do? Uh, so could you help me out with those two ideas?
13:17 spk_1
Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, think of it as a, you, you’re building a house except instead of a house that you’re going to live in, this is a financial house. And the question is, do you know what it takes to build the right kind of foundation, what sort of construction materials and or are you willing to learn? Do you have the time to learn? Do you have the desire to learn? And more importantly, do you have the discipline to maintain and stay on plan when everything else is blowing up, right? So today everyone’s calling about the market’s dropping and oh my gosh, what are we?Do they are not people that can be their own financial advisor. They need someone like me that they can call and I can talk them down off the ledge, keep them invested, keep them calm, and reassure them that we’re still on plan. So finding a planner is probably a really good idea, and I would be interviewing people. There’s some great planners that are out there. Uh, talk to at least 2 and then see which one is the better fit. At the end of the day, we all financial planners, we can all provide.essentially the same kind of investment, but it’s a service that you’re going to get. And what does that look like? That that’s what has to be custom tailored to fit your best needs.
14:24 spk_2
You know, it’s interesting. Every, everybody can be a good investor or trader when the S&P 500 is up whatever percent in a year as an index fund enough to worry about it. But it’s, it’s, uh, to your point on the emotions behind it, when it isn’t working in that it doesn’t seem like it’s auto portfolio, I think that’s your point, like you need to have someone.And you need to also have a blended strategy to make sure that what you’re doing works and that you’re not making stupid decisions because you’re scared, you’re stoic, so.
14:53 spk_1
Yeah, and then what was the second question? I’m sorry, I,
14:56 spk_2
uh, was you’re in service and you’re, you’re like, even just thinking about it and like, all your platoon mates don’t know anything about money either. This may be the first time they ever got money. Like, how do you think about, like, where do you, how do you think about that?Besides,
15:13 spk_1
unfortunately, it isn’t a one stop shop or a quick answer to that question. At 75th Ranger Regiment, we’ve instituted something called a Ranger for Life program, which gets these active duty soldiers thinking about this 18 months out, um, and we have counselors that Three Rangers Foundation has hired and pays for them to be there 24/7.Uh, available to the soldiers to, to map out a plan. Now, if you didn’t have that, I guess what I would do is basically try to ask around. A lot of times, the officers, uh, who are typically, you know, college graduates and are probablyhave their already own investments that might be a good place to start and say, hey, what do you guys, who do you talk to? What do you, what do you do to manage your finances?
16:00 spk_0
Yeah, yeah, that’sgood. Yeah, and I, and first of all, I appreciate you mention your son Niko is in the army. I know you have a stepdaughter with Jay Sock and Riley. Um, let’s talk about your family though in the military, even though, you know, you served, you got out, you went to the University of Maryland.Uh, but you are the chairman of the 3 Rangers Foundation. Can you walk us through what that is and, and why you’re so passionate about it?
16:23 spk_1
Yeah, you know, Three Rangers Foundation was something that was started by uh Mogadishu veteran John Collette, and his idea was to form a a for-profit, uh, company that was gonna make whiskey, uh, and then that profit, uh, was going to go to help stand up a nonprofit called Three Rangers Foundation, and somehow that foundation was going to help Rangers. Uh, and, and, and now, and then I, I got asked to join uh the, the organization, uh.Uh, a little about 10.5 years ago to come on board as the finance director, take care of, you know, the books and the treasury and the money, uh, and from there it’s morphed and grown amazingly and we’ve had significantly.Um, beneficial partnerships with Wounded Warrior Project, Gold Star Peak Foundation, uh, and other nonprofits that are out there focused on the seventy-fifth Ranger Regiment, and, um, it’s really been transformative as seeing the impact that you can have on somebody else’s life, uh, by taking on a trip, uh, to Alaska to Gold Star Peak or the way we.Uh, you know, help, uh, day to day with our um network of veterans, um, mentors, just like myself who had transitioned well and are successful in our respective careers. There’s 1400 of us on standby to link up with these young rangers in the Ranger for Life program and be able to give them best advice on things to do andAnd best practices and things to avoid.
17:56 spk_2
We, we often talk about how, how this network, this, this military veteran and affiliated network, is your best source for jobs, it’s your best source for referrals, it’s your best source for network. Can you talk a little bit about the amount of people you’ve totally like you’ve that you’ve covered in the time that you’ve been working, like how big is the network? What does that look like? And just, just because people at any of the scale of what you do?
18:17 spk_1
Yeah, I think, you know, we, we do, uh, Ranger for Life briefings at, uh, all, all the Ranger battalions. Uh, so there are, there are 5 of them right now, uh, and so, and, and typically we have the entire battalion that’s present for those uh briefings. So I mean, you know.we’re addressing 2 to 3000 guys, um, engaging them once a year for the last 5 years that we’ve been doing it at that scale. So it’s, it’s a big population that at least hears the message. Now they don’t have to take advantage of it. Some of them have great transition plans on their own.Uh, my transition was really great because I had a super supportive father and and mother and uh family who was able to say, hey, well, look, you know, we’re going to give you the tools that you need, and I ended up coming into the family business, but most people don’t have that luxury, uh, to do that. And uh relying on your tribe has been said many times in the past, and that’s what we’re doing.
19:16 spk_2
Yeah, it’s cool. You just got to give people the tools and what they do with it is up to them. But at least know that the tools are available. All right, we’re going to jump right now Warrior Q&A right now. Um, that’s my three favorite questions. My favorite question is, what’s money advice that you know now that you wish you wish you knew you were younger?
19:33 spk_1
Um, a systematic investing, uh, you know, to, to, to take a chunk of money and put it away and forget about it, whether it’s in the S&P 500 or into your checking or savings account, um, or if it’s into a Bitcoin account, like it doesn’t matter, right? Um, consistently saving into something is gonna put you uh in a better position later down the road.
19:56 spk_2
And, and what’s the biggest mistake that that you do see people make with money?
20:01 spk_1
Uh, the biggest mistake that I see is people putting it off, people putting off the, uh, systematic contributions that you’re, you’re, you’re burning the most valuable resource, which is time. You come to see me and want me to do, uh, financial planning for you to help you to retire and you’re starting this discussion at age 45. That’s, there’s not a whole lot I can do for that.
20:23 spk_2
Yeah. Uh, and then what is the most, what has been the most unexpected part of your journey?
20:29 spk_1
I think the most unexpected part of my journey has been the impact that I have on people’s lives, whether it’s a ranger that I’m uh mentoring through uh through Rangers Foundation or whether it’s a client, uh, you know, I constantly am sort of blown away, um, when someone says to me, wow, you know, we did this because you advised us to, and you are exactly right on.Um, and that’s just, um, I, I, I thank God every night for the knowledge that he puts into my brain to be able to pass on to others.
21:00 spk_2
I love that. Thank you.
21:01 spk_0
Yeah, well, you have that servant’s heart that the Bible talks about Marcus. So thank you so much. You served in uniform as a Ranger, as a medic, uh, as a police officer, and you continue to serve in your role in the private sector with the Free Rangers Foundation. Marcus, appreciate you, appreciate your leadership. Uh, keep crushing it down in Maryland and beyond, and we hope to see you soon. Thanks for joining us on Warrior Money.
21:23 spk_1
Thank you very much. It’s been privilege.
21:26 spk_0
All right, so listen, that’s our show. So listen, subscribe and review Warrior Money wherever you get your podcast or on Yahoo Finance. I’m Patrick
21:34 spk_2
Murphy and I’m Dan Kons. We’ll see you again next week.