The Quiet Part

The Secret to Building Wealth for Six-Figure Families with Kids

• Second Comma • Episode 2

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They say time is money, but have you ever felt like you're constantly running out of both?

Struggling to align your six-figure income with the financial freedom your family deserves?

You’re not alone.

In this episode of The Quiet Part, financial planner Mark Hansen shares the secrets to turning financial chaos into clarity for single-income families with kids.

Discover why high income doesn’t always mean financial security and learn the five foundational pillars—estate planning, risk management, retirement, investing, and tax planning—that every family needs to master.

Through personal anecdotes, including Mark’s own journey from financial mismanagement to becoming a trusted advisor, you’ll gain actionable insights on how to align your finances with your family’s priorities and long-term goals.

Mark also introduces the philosophy behind Second Comma, a unique approach that emphasizes intentionality, simplicity, and creating systems that protect quality family time.

Ready to take the first step toward financial clarity?

Subscribe now and check the show notes to download a free eBook, explore the Asset Map tool, and learn more about how Mark helps six-figure families achieve financial freedom.

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About Second Comma
This podcast is hosted by Mark Hansen, founder of Second Comma, a financial planner specializing in helping six-figure single-income families with children. Mark holds the Series 66 – Uniform Combined State Law Exam and the Series 7 – General Securities Representative Exam, demonstrating his commitment to providing informed and reliable financial guidance.

Our Commitment to Trust
At Second Comma, we prioritize transparency, accuracy, and honesty. Every topic discussed in this podcast is grounded in reliable financial principles, with the goal of empowering families to make informed decisions with confidence, free from conflicts of interest.

Disclaimer
This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Each family's financial situation is unique—consult with a qualified financial professional for advice specific to your needs. Topics discussed on this podcast are not a substitute for comprehensive, holistic financial planning.

Learn More
To discover how Second Comma can support your family’s financial goals, visit our website or contact us directly at contact@second-comma.com. We welcome your questions and feedback to help ensure our content meets your expectations.

Intro by Mark Hansen: [00:00:00] Hey there! Welcome to 'The Quiet Part', hosted by Mark Hansen, a financial advisor at Second Comma (that’s me, by the way). This podcast explores our often unspoken priorities and dreams. You know.. the things that shape our lives, even if we aren’t conscious of how it plays out. The reasons why we sometimes struggle to do what we know we should do.. and even.. continue to do the things we know we shouldn’t. Join me as we go through the everyday…. gaining a deeper understanding of ourselves, our decisions, and how we spend our time.. our money.. and ultimately.. our lives.

[00:00:46] Bill Tucker: Hello and welcome to the podcast, the Quiet Part with Mark Hansen. Mark, good to be with you again. This is your second episode for those who wanna play catch up, they can go back and listen to episode one, but, uh, good to be with you again. 

[00:01:02] Mark Hansen: Yeah, this is an important milestone. We now have twice as many episodes as we used to have.

[00:01:06] Mark Hansen: This is really important stuff. 

[00:01:08] Bill Tucker: It's really important. We are, we, we are, we are operating on a factor. A multiple factor, but actually one could say it's even exponential. As a matter of fact, now we have a few leftover questions from the last episode. Uh, you know, and it was actually a quite interesting conversation and, and very revealing.

[00:01:26] Bill Tucker: And today after learning about you in the first episode, we're gonna talk more about your company and your approach and how you work with clients and who those clients are and that kind of thing. So why don't we just start with the question of. Why are you a financial planner?

[00:01:40] Mark Hansen: Hmm. When I think about that, it I, I really just want to come alongside people and people who say, “I wanna be, [fill in the blank].”

[00:01:51] Mark Hansen: I. With my money. I wanna come alongside those who know that they aren't where they desire to be and where that comes from. I think I touched on it a little bit in the last episode. When I was growing up, I was not, I was not good with money. Yeah. I was trying to stretch every dollar that I had, I was spending above and beyond the money that I was making for a long time.

[00:02:10] Mark Hansen: I didn't understand how to save. I only knew how to spend. And when I think about. Being younger, you know, I didn't, I, I don't feel like I was taught how to save. And mom, dad, if you feel different, I'm very sorry, dad.

[00:02:26] Mark Hansen: You know, my dad would give me advice like, pay yourself first. I. He would even go beyond that. He would tell me how much he was saving each month and and what account he was putting it into, but it was hard for me to translate that into the actions and the advice for me and my situation and my income and my expenses.

[00:02:47] Mark Hansen: And because it was hard, I didn't prioritize it and because I didn't prioritize it, it didn't happen right when I was growing up, I was try, I've been trying to think through how did this. Come to be. How did I get to where I [00:03:00] was not knowing how to save? And I, I think about when I was growing up, you know, the, when I was born, the way that I remember it being told to me, my parents, they couldn't afford daycare.

[00:03:08] Mark Hansen: So I stayed at my grandparents' house a lot, which was super cool. Love my grandparents' house. Uh, fun fact. I just went back to my grandmother's house recently and my son has recently gotten into Legos and I knew that at Grandmom's house was a giant bin of Legos and I kept telling my son, it's like when we go, we're gonna play with the Legos that daddy used to play with when he was a little boy.

[00:03:30] Mark Hansen: And so we go to my grandmother's house, we get the bin out, it's giant. It's like. Two feet, two feet wide, you know, a foot and a half deep and a foot and a half tall, this giant bin of Legos. And I open it up and I was like, these Legos are kind of different. And I started looking at 'em and I realized it was the, the original set of Legos when the, when Legos first came from Denmark to America, it was the original set of Legos.

[00:03:54] Mark Hansen: Every block says patent pending. And I was like, I didn't know. I was playing with like the coolest version of Legos, so my son is that. We spent Christmas break playing with the original Legos that came over from Denmark before Lego even had the patent on the brick that we call Lego. 

[00:04:14] Bill Tucker: Oh, whoa. You know, we've got a, we've got a, now I've gotta go downstairs because we have a tub, a storage.

[00:04:20] Bill Tucker: Tub that's probably twice the size of the one you talked about filled with Legos that our son played with. Oh man. Yeah. So now I gotta go down there and go look at them. Yeah. That's cool. That is great. Yeah. 

[00:04:33] Mark Hansen: But we, yeah, I go to my grandparents' house a lot and the reason they couldn't afford daycare was because my parents just were riddled with credit card debt.

[00:04:42] Mark Hansen: They were, they were working hard. They were going to work, getting money. They were paying it off. And every time that they would pay off a credit card, we would celebrate. And we would celebrate by going to McDonald's. 

[00:04:53] Bill Tucker: You mentioned this in the first episode. Yeah. 

[00:04:56] Mark Hansen: Yeah. And the, the celebration was that they would watch me eat a Happy meal.

[00:04:59] Mark Hansen: Right. And that's. Like, that's a really interesting thing for me to remember as a kid that that was all tied together with me staying at my grandparents' house. Now, as a kid, as I grew up over time, I saw we went from the house that I was born in to the house that I, uh. We built in an up and coming neighborhood to an upper middle class neighborhood.

[00:05:17] Mark Hansen: You know, the house was one story, then it had stairs and then the house had a pool and we couldn't afford daycare, and then we could, and then we could afford the super cool daycare with the air hockey table in the computer lab. Whoa. Yeah. Oh, and just as I've moved through life, I've chatted with people.

[00:05:35] Mark Hansen: I see it over and over again. Some parents struggle with finances and some don't. Some parents can come clean about their struggles and some hide it and they keep up the facade that everything's okay, and it's, it's very interesting to me that some people just need someone to come alongside them and help teach them the new skills.

[00:05:56] Mark Hansen: If I look back at my life again, but flash way forward, right? What was [00:06:00] it that took me from who I was to who I am today? And very common answer, right? I met a girl. I met a girl in college and, uh, I really wanted to get to know her. So I got a job where she had a job and actually this was a, I had, I was already gainfully employed.

[00:06:14] Mark Hansen: I took on a second job at the bar that she worked at so I could meet her. Okay. And before anybody gets been outta shape, we're married now. Okay. Like I met a girl at a bar, but we're married now. We got three kids and I forever will get to tell our kids that Daddy met Mommy. In a bar. And I, I think that, I think that's hilarious.

[00:06:35] Bill Tucker: Oh, quick, quick. No, I think it's hysterical. My son met his wife in a bar, so it's, it's fine. 

[00:06:41] Mark Hansen: There we go. Yeah. And what was so interesting to me is that she was really good at saving, really good at it. Oh, wow. And she found out how bad I was at saving when we graduated and we got engaged and I finally disclosed some of the debt that I had on credit cards, which if anybody's listening.

[00:06:59] Mark Hansen: You see a pattern? Yes. That's how patterns, that's how patterns work. That's how patterns work. Yeah. Yeah. Now, luckily I had so little money that I could barely even get approved for a credit card. So everything was maxed out, but it was like five or 600 bucks. Okay. But my spouse was really the one who taught me how to handle money mentally and emotionally, and I realized that was the big.

[00:07:20] Mark Hansen: Difference. She taught me how to make smart decisions. She taught me how to think about what I was spending my money on. The fact that I was going to work, I was being paid and I was wasting the [00:07:30] money, means that I was wasting my time. I was wasting my life. She tied all of that together for me, and I didn't think about it like that until I knew her.

[00:07:40] Mark Hansen: That just flipped a switch in me. I saw things so differently. I started to see the cascading series of consequences good and bad. When I made a singular action at a point in time. It was like, you can't spend the same hundred dollars on a date night and then, and then try to put it into your retirement accounts.

[00:07:57] Mark Hansen: You have to pick what you want to do, and you have to go through the process of realizing. What's actually important to you and what is not. And all of these new thoughts and mental models started flooding into my primitive worldview of money. And then I combined that with my passion for learning that I, I definitely talked about last time.

[00:08:15] Mark Hansen: And you flash all the way forward to right here, right now, this podcast. My name's Mark. I'm the owner of Second Comma. It's a virtual financial planning firm dedicated to helping six figure single income families put their money to work and get out from underneath the burden of personal finance. 

[00:08:34] Bill Tucker: It's amazing. It's amazing, and I would really recommend anybody who's listening to this. Edition of the podcast, they go back and listen to the first one. 'cause, uh, your personal story is, is is pretty phenomenal. and it's, it's, uh, that was a great conversation. I'm looking forward to this one because now we've arrived at Second Comma.

[00:08:56] Bill Tucker: So what is Second Comma? Let's talk about the whos and whats [00:09:00] and whys around Second Comma.

[00:09:02] Mark Hansen: Yeah. Who is Second Comma? It's me. Yeah, it's me, myself and I and I, I like small companies. I like, uh, efficiently run companies and so that's what I have. It is a one man operation that provides an ever increasing level of quality service to my growing list of clients in the future, if part of providing ever increasing levels of quality service requires an additional person or two, then that's great.

[00:09:30] Mark Hansen: I, I'm totally open to that. It will, will always be prioritized, is quality service. And so for anyone that's listening, just so you guys know, I don't have grand visions of a giant building with the company name or my name plastered all over it. I have, I have grand visions of deep relationships with my clients that I care about, and I have grand visions of families being more confident in their finances and their ability to make informed financial decisions.

[00:10:00] Mark Hansen: If we pair that up with what is Second Comma? If I had to put it in one sentence, I would say I help people in their thirties spend the next 30 years preparing for the last 30 years. And Second Comma is a place where knowledge is translated into specific systematic actions that my clients can take in their finances.

[00:10:20] Mark Hansen: We lay out a path to go from where we are to where we need to be. Sometimes that's a short path. Sometimes that's a long path. But that's what we're doing. We're [00:10:30] we're laying out specific steps. And I think my favorite part is the, the why of Second Comma. You know, why does Second Comma even exist? You know, second Comma is a company that's optimized for quality family time, and that's gonna be for yours.

[00:10:45] Mark Hansen: And mine, you know, if you look at the logo, it's a speech bubble. That represents that we're gonna be having strategic conversations. Sometimes those strategic conversations are gonna involve dollar signs. The name of the company is an allusion to, it's an allusion to the effect that comes when we take actions today, right?

[00:11:05] Mark Hansen: If we can have strategic conversations and commit to a long, slow obedience of stewarding our money, then the outcomes can be beyond our comprehension. Which is again, captured in the logo, right? Go back, look at the logo again. Frequently people will say to me, oh, okay, I see, I see the comma, but where's the second comma?

[00:11:25] Mark Hansen: If people like to make that joke, and I tell 'em, well, go, go look again. It's two commas and they're stacked on top of each other, and then they say, oh. It is too commas. And it's like, but then they finally see it. It was right there in front of 'em the whole time, but they didn't notice it. And that's another, that's a really good representation of what happens when we put intention and, and intentional work into our finances.

[00:11:47] Mark Hansen: We often, we can't accurately gauge the full outcome of the efforts that we're putting in it. I love walking people through that process, and that's what we do here. 

[00:11:56] Bill Tucker: What do you mean by intention? I wanna stop for a second. When you talk about intention, [00:12:00] intentional work, are you talking about what some people use as as purpose or, or how are you using that word?

[00:12:06] Mark Hansen: I think it is gonna be a mixture. So people need to know their purpose to attach intention. To their actions. And so if, if I was gonna paint a mental picture for somebody, I would say you're picture a bucket in your head and you're holding it by the handle. And that bucket has two holes in it, but one of the holes has a spigot with like a, a handle that you can turn on and off.

[00:12:32] Mark Hansen: Okay. That's the two different concepts. Okay. The, the bucket. Is your finances in general. If you have a hole, you have a leak. It is ruining the purpose of the bucket. If you have a spigot. You have an additional feature that you can intentionally do something with, you can now use you, you are increasing the utility of the bucket.

[00:12:54] Mark Hansen: And I, I use that verbiage a lot where I tell people, this is a hole in your bucket, or this is a spigot in your bucket. This is a, a detriment to the function of the bucket. Or this is a feature that enhances the utility of the bucket and it taking that knowledge and laying it onto. Every time we swipe our credit cards or some cash, that's kinda what I was talking about with the intention and the, the application of, of the knowledge.

[00:13:19] Bill Tucker: So you, you mentioned that you like your ideal client is, uh, is a couple in their thirties or people who are in their thirties, they don't have to be married.[00:13:30] 

[00:13:30] Bill Tucker: Give us a better idea. I mean, is this, are, are, are you really looking at people who, uh, are just starting out their, their journey? Or are you looking at people, are you looking to talk to people who have been, like you ask themselves, where did the money go? What happened? What, what? I'm making a decent paycheck.

[00:13:49] Bill Tucker: Where did everything go? I mean, who do you work with? 

[00:13:52] Mark Hansen: I, I do work with people. I, I'm finding, as I get into this, as I build a a client base, I'm finding that it's typically people earlier in their investing career. Mm-Hmm. Okay. Now if I add some more color to that picture, I, I specifically focus my time and my effort towards six figure single income families.

[00:14:13] Mark Hansen: So let's work through some of those terms. Six figure meaning we have a level of income. We can start tying different strategies together, right. We're not, we're not scraping by. And sometimes I, I should clarify, sometimes people have high income and they spend all of it, and that's still a version of scraping by paycheck to paycheck can go to, to any level.

[00:14:34] Bill Tucker: I, I live in a, I live in a high cost part of the country. I mean, there are people who I know who make six figures, who barely get by. That's not, I mean, you know, the, the, the idea that it's like, whoa, if I make six figures, I'm gonna be like cruising on the mountaintop, and that's not true often. 

[00:14:51] Mark Hansen: Yeah. The giant, the giant asterisk on that statement is it depends on your expenses.

[00:14:57] Mark Hansen: If your expenses, no matter your income, if your [00:15:00] expenses are in relation equal to your income, you'll always be scraping by. The, you know, the next category is gonna be single income. So I, I have found a really beautiful place to work with people. When someone has chosen to stay home, to provide for the family, and someone has chosen to go to work, whether that's virtually or physically, but they go to work to provide for the family.

[00:15:22] Mark Hansen: There's only one income, so you could say it's, it's almost twice as important to take care of the one income. And I, I like that meeting place because these are families I. Two people with little ones running around the house. And I find in inside of there, there's some business owners and there's some people in managerial roles, and there's people who have gotten to a level of success or a level of income that they start asking questions, right?

[00:15:49] Mark Hansen: Just like I did. It's the income is at this level. Why do I not have the outcomes that I'm looking for? So these are people that could use a little bit more structure a. to help things take off or to, to get into a system. And I see a lot of synergy between what I do and the expertise that I have and what these people need.

[00:16:09] Mark Hansen: The, I think the big, my big caveat is like, I describe these people partially, but here's the real crux. This is, uh, this is what the quiet part is all about, and this is why I started this podcast. A couple quotes. Okay. So the first quote says, the general human failing is to want what is right and important, but at the same time not to [00:16:30] commit to the kind of life that will produce the action that we know to be right and the condition that we want to enjoy.

[00:16:38] Mark Hansen: To translate that, right? Like we know what we want, but we don't understand the full suite of actions. Necessary. Yeah. To give us what we want. And I love helping people figure that out. You know, I just listed off a lot of good intentions, family, children, living intentionally, spending your money on things that are important to you.

[00:16:59] Mark Hansen: But I bet there's a lot of people listening that resonate with those good intentions. I bet there are some percentage of those people who can't seem to take their good intentions and translate it into action in their business, in their home, in their family, in their finances. And I meet that with my second quote.

[00:17:16] Mark Hansen: I think this, this is really the foundational statement for the quiet part. And the last quote is, I do not understand what I do for what I want to do. I do not do yet. I do the things that I know are not good for me. That right there. I believe someone out there just said to themselves, I don't even know this guy, but he just perfectly described my life.

[00:17:40] Mark Hansen: And that's, those are the people that are motivated and ready to take action, and that's who I hope to, to talk to with, with my company. Second Comma. 

[00:17:49] Bill Tucker: Yeah, that is great. I mean, I, you, you, I'm not being cute, you know, you're sitting there giving those quotes and, and I'm thinking let's just, I, I can boil it down to even a [00:18:00] more simple level.

[00:18:00] Bill Tucker: You know, I think a lot of us want things, but we don't understand what we need to do. And sometimes when we understand what we need to do, we still don't commit. To doing it, which is where, I have found in my, experience and I've seen in other people's lives where, a person like yourself, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use the word coach, but, you know, a, a planner or somebody can say, Hey, bill, you, you, we know what you want.

[00:18:29] Bill Tucker: We know you can do it, but. I'm gonna be here to make sure you're committed in taking the steps that you need to take to do it. 

[00:18:37] Mark Hansen: Yeah. I've had somebody say, I'm, I'm hiring you to be my accountability coach when I'm doing this. Bam. Yes. These are things that are important to me. It's important to my family, and my family's so important.

[00:18:49] Mark Hansen: I'm hiring you to help me make sure I get it done. 

[00:18:51] Bill Tucker: Yep. No, that makes total sense. So like, what is it? I want to explore what it's like to work with you when, when a family obviously has thought about this and, and thought, we, we need to go seek some help. We need to go talk to somebody and kind of get our acts together here when they come in, what's that first meeting like and what's the process look like?

[00:19:11] Mark Hansen: So when I come alongside of a family, I like to give. All the information upfront. I want everyone to know what we would be doing before we get into the actual relationship piece where maybe money starts moving between one account to another or something like that. Yeah. So a lot of people come to me and they think that their [00:19:30] answer is, I need to be investing.

[00:19:32] Mark Hansen: And I, it's more of a, Hey, let's hit the brakes. Let's put the car in park actually, and let's just talk before we keep driving. Let's make sure we're going in the right direction. And when I sit people down and I think about it, or they think about it, it's. You came to me and you said, Hey, we need to be investing.

[00:19:47] Mark Hansen: We're not investing enough. And I'm like, well, let's talk about my whole, I have kinda like five, five peers that I talk about. So if you think of like a house with a a, a pier and beam foundation instead of a slab foundation, the piers are the pieces that run vertically into the ground and they hold up the whole house.

[00:20:04] Mark Hansen: Okay. So I have five peers that I like to focus on. That's estate planning. Risk management or insurance. It can be called retirement investing, and then tax planning. And so I walk each per, I get information from the potential client and I put it through all five of those filters, right? So estate planning, you do or you don't have it if you don't have it.

[00:20:26] Mark Hansen: Then we're gonna talk about bringing in an outside licensed professional to address what's needed. And estate planning is essentially what do you own? Who do you want to own it when you stop owning it? How do you want them to own it? And this topic can be really hard because it's about when you, it's about when you bite the dust, right?

[00:20:42] Mark Hansen: Right. 

[00:20:43] Bill Tucker: Yeah. No, no. It involves the D word. It's about when you die. Yeah. Yeah. And then nobody wants, wait, I'm immortal, man. Yeah. Whoa. Hold on buddy. I'm gonna be here forever. Let's stop. 

[00:20:55] Mark Hansen: Estate planning is super easy to ignore, but it doesn't make it less [00:21:00] important. And so that's, that's the first thing.

[00:21:02] Mark Hansen: That's kinda the first checkpoint that we go through is like, you, you, you do or you don't have something and it is, or it isn't taken care of correctly. That's something we're going to address. And then we get to risk management and insurance. We bring in another outside licensed professional to address what's needed.

[00:21:16] Mark Hansen: We do personal needs. We do business needs. Your clients can be entrepreneurs, and that comes with additional considerations. And sometimes risk management is completely ignored on the business side of the equation, and that can leave your family really exposed. Uh, that that's not to be. That's not to self fear, that's just to to level set.

[00:21:36] Mark Hansen: Right? This topic can be hard for people too because it's about preparing for situations where you can't keep being yourself, right? In one capacity or another. Then we jump into retirement, like, what do you want it to? B, what do you wanna do? Who do you wanna do it with, and when do you wanna start doing it?

[00:21:53] Mark Hansen: And this is a 30 year conversation. It's constantly changing, and the financial plan that we have in place will change right alongside with it. That's the benefit in my, in my belief of going with an ongoing relationship, having a, an ongoing conversation with your financial advisor versus trying to take like a snapshot in time and then play that out for 30 years now after retirement.

[00:22:17] Mark Hansen: Which in retirement is a very high level conversation. It's not, um, Hey, what's your utility bill gonna be when you're 76? And it's winter. It's not, it's not a conversation like that. We're talking broad conversations. 'cause again, we have 30 years [00:22:30] to really fine tune what we're talking about. We get into investing, how do we go from where we are to where we need to be?

[00:22:36] Mark Hansen: What kind of accounts do we need? How many dollars are we trying to put in each account? You know, there's strategies to be implemented when you're saving for retirement. You can choose specific accounts because there are benefits that come with those different accounts. You can hold specific investments and specific kind of accounts.

[00:22:53] Mark Hansen: You might have heard of. IRA Roth, IRA brokerage account. I mean, did you know that each of those accounts have different rules, different benefits, different uses? You can think of? Uh, sometimes I explain it this way, it's, you can have a wine glass, you can have a beer glass, and you can have a sports bottle, like a, something you would drink, like a squeeze bottle on your bike or something like that.

[00:23:13] Mark Hansen: They all do the same thing. They hold liquid, but if somebody comes to your house and you serve them a beer in a wine glass, they're gonna look at you. 'cause that's weird. They'd be like, that's weird. Well, no, no, no. It's, it's, 

[00:23:27] Bill Tucker: well, they're gonna think you don't do the dishes. I mean, 

[00:23:31] Mark Hansen: wait, it, it says you don't know what this is for.

[00:23:34] Mark Hansen: Right. It doesn't just hold liquid. It holds a specific kind of liquid. And that's the same thing with these investment accounts. They can hold investments, but if you wanted to really talk about the nuts and bolts of it, they can hold specific kinds of investments because there are benefits to doing that.

[00:23:48] Mark Hansen: And there's a simple way. To work through all that. And again, that's what I like to do. And the last thing we usually talk through is tax planning, which is we'll work with your CPA and the goal is to lower your lifetime tax bill. The [00:24:00] taxes can easily be the big biggest expense that you have in your life.

[00:24:04] Mark Hansen: And there's so many strategies that we can try to, you know, legally minimize your total lifetime expenses when it comes to taxes and people. I get scared of that a little bit because the tax code is scary and IRS is scary. Those are, you know, things that I've heard people say and say no to the tax code.

[00:24:20] Mark Hansen: There's professionals that know exactly what to do and we're gonna partner with them to lower the tax bill. Now, everything that I just talked about, all five of those phases are part of the onboarding phase, right? We get through there. Yeah. And we say. Now we've got a plan now. Now we move into kind of the maintenance phase.

[00:24:37] Mark Hansen: We're having conversations about automating the finances. We're removing. Your need to keep finances at the front of your mind. We're allowing things to kind of go on the back burner. We're automating things and we're, we're no longer having to feel that tension. When we come to money. We'll talk about buying a house or buying a boat, buying a car with saving for college, saving for vacation, saving for Christmas, right?

[00:25:00] Mark Hansen: Like you can take the expense of Christmas and you can stretch it out over 12 months and just by the time Christmas comes, you can have the money ready versus. Uh, oh, shoot. It's, it's Thanksgiving. I have not saved up money for Christmas. Now we've gotta try to cash flow Christmas and it's that same anxiety that we feel every year.

[00:25:17] Mark Hansen: Yeah, you, you buy a boat, you might need to sell a boat. These are all things that we can talk about. We really, I say our conversation can be about anything that involves dollar signs. That's what I offer to people. And sometimes [00:25:30] we'll come across a situation where the financial plan needs are small.

[00:25:34] Mark Hansen: Course correction, and sometimes we'll come across where we need a big course correction, but in general, we're gonna be, we'll keep ourselves liquid, right? We're not gonna lock ourselves up into ice, if that makes sense. And if we have a good plan and we see a, a way to shift over and have a great plan, then that's what we'll do.

[00:25:52] 

[00:25:52] Bill Tucker: so it's the, it sounds like. The hard part's committing to getting started, but once you commit and you are started, correct me if I'm wrong by saying this, it sounds like we are now into really a fundamentally simple process. 

[00:26:07] Mark Hansen: Yeah, I would say overall. It's a very simple process. It is structured. We go from A to Z, right?

[00:26:14] Mark Hansen: We have, we have direction, we have orientation. I fit it in at the cadence of the client's life. But don't hear me say simple and, and think that I'm saying easy. 

[00:26:24] Bill Tucker: Yeah. No, no, no. I didn't. No, no. It is a big, big difference. There's a big difference between the two. There's a big difference between the two.

[00:26:30] Mark Hansen: Yeah. there can be a lot of homework. To get this process started or to go from A to Z and there can be a long list of actions, but that's why I have a system to meet with my clients at their convenience. I capture all the important to-dos and I help my clients work through them very systematically and in order that makes sense based on the priorities and the needs of the family.

[00:26:56] Mark Hansen: That that's, that's the whole point of what I'm doing. And then [00:27:00] as those priorities need to shift and reshuffle, I'm right there to handle all that and shift and shuffle right alongside my clients. 

[00:27:08] Bill Tucker: That's great. Well, we're getting ready to wrap this episode up and before we do, I want to ask you for the folks who are listening, what is, what is your ask of the audience if anybody's listening to you and think, Hmm, what should they do now?

[00:27:20] Mark Hansen: If somebody's wondering what they should do now, I would ask you to lean into that as in, don't ignore it if you, if you have an inkling of, Hmm, I think Mark's talking about something important, I would say lean into that and you can lean into that a couple of different ways, right? If, if anything that we said today piques any of your interest, then we might have something to talk about.


[00:27:58] Mark Hansen: If something piques your interest but you aren't ready to chat, you wanna learn a little bit more, then I would say go to the website and download my ebook.

[00:28:19] Mark Hansen: The ebook. Takes a fictional couple through everything that I just talked about. They go through estate planning, risk management. They talk about retirement [00:28:30] and investing and tax planning. You can see examples of what this actually looks like and say, oh, I do, or, I don't want this. This does or This doesn't make sense for me and my family and where we are in life.

[00:28:41] Mark Hansen: There's gonna be a link for the ebook in the show notes. I will offer an additional thing here. There's a software that I use called Asset Map. An asset map is think of putting your whole financial life on one piece of paper. All the people that are in your life, the accounts that you have, the business entities, your trust, your debt, your income, all of it just neatly organized into categories and sections and set down on one piece of paper like would come out of your printer.

[00:29:11] Mark Hansen: That is a software that I have that I'm offering to anybody who's listening to this website. If you would like to make your own asset map, then check the link in the show notes. This is totally free to you. The only thing I need to know is where to send it, and then if you would like to have a conversation about that, that's awesome.

[00:29:27] Mark Hansen: If not, the asset map is yours, but I can get you a link where you can make your own asset map and then you can at least understand. What your financial life looks like. A lot of people couldn't even sit down and put it on paper, and I wanna give people the chance to do that. As you go about your day and your week and your month, if you bump into someone and you have a conversation that sounds like anything that we've said today, share this episode with them.

[00:29:52] Mark Hansen: Let them hear what we do here at Second Comma. talk about this stuff all the time. We just don't take action on it. 

[00:29:59] Bill Tucker: No, I hear you. [00:30:00] I, no, it's totally true. I've been guilty of it myself, so I, no, it's all of us. And by the way, for those of you who are listening, who are thinking, God, I didn't get all of that stuff, I don't know what to do here.

[00:30:11] Bill Tucker: It's in the show notes. Okay. There, they're show notes down below. You can, you can look in those and you can see Mark's contact information. You can reach out to him that way. And, and if you're not sure of the website. It's there as well, so there are links for you. Don't worry about it. The only thing you need to do right now is hit subscribe because if you're not a subscriber, we would really like you to subscribe to this podcast.

[00:30:34] Bill Tucker: That way you will not miss another episode. Mark puts one together, it'll be delivered to you. You'll be notified and you won't miss another podcast. Pretty easy. Pretty easy. Mark. Yeah. Thanks, mark. This is a great conversation. I'm looking forward to this podcast going on and on and on out into the future because it's a lot of really important, really valuable information.

[00:30:57] Bill Tucker: Not always easy, surprisingly simple. on behalf of Mark, I'm Bill Tucker, the producer of this podcast, thanking you for listening and reminding you that today go out and make it a great day. Or not It's your choice. Thank you so much for listening. 

[00:31:15] Outro by Mark Hansen: Thank you for joining us on 'The Quiet Part.' If you found value in our journey today, please subscribe to stay updated on future episodes. Check the links in the show notes to learn more about Second Comma or to discuss working together. Remember, 'The Quiet Part' is more than a podcast; it's a journey towards understanding the deeper aspects of our lives. It’s about saying the quiet part out loud. Click the follow button and be part of this conversation about uncovering the unspoken.

Lastly, here’s some important information for our listening audience to know: The opinions voiced in this episode are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations to any individual or entity. Any depictions made in this podcast are hypothetical only. For a comprehensive review of your personal situation, consult with your financial or tax advisor before investing. Cetera does not provide any tax or legal advice. Securities and advisory services are offered through Cetera Advisor Networks LLC, member FINRA/SIPC, a broker/dealer and Registered Investment Adviser. Cetera is under separate ownership from any other named entity. Neither the co-host nor guests are affiliated with Cetera Advisor Networks LLC. Any information they provide is unrelated to Cetera Advisor Networks LLC or its registered representatives. Mark Hansen.. Financial Planner.. 2751 Teakwood Lane.. Plano Texas.. 75075



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