Good Mornings And Great Days: The Power Of Consistency And Momentum With Chad Hufford
There is no way around hard work and consistency if we want to achieve what we have always dreamed of in life. This applies as much to financial freedom as it does to any area of your life or your career. In this insightful conversation, Tom Dardick and his guest, Chad Hufford discuss the importance of starting the day positively, the impact of small actions on the overall flow of the day, the importance of making commitments to oneself, and the necessity of accountability in achieving life changes. They emphasize the importance of adopting an abundance mindset, living within one's means, breaking down long-term goals into achievable, measurable steps, taking ownership and responsibility for one's life, and the significance of positive feedback loops. They also share their professional experiences and ways to connect with their clients. Tune in for a powerful exchange of wisdom!
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Good Mornings And Great Days: The Power Of Consistency And Momentum With Chad Hufford
It's my great pleasure to welcome Chad Hufford to the show. Chad and I talked a little bit and I was super impressed with his approach. He's a financial guru type of guy. I'm not sure if he calls himself a financial advisor, a wealth planner, or an abundance coach. He could add any of those names those monikers to himself, but he has a great approach, a great energy about him. It's my pleasure to welcome you all the way from frozen Alaska. Welcome, Chad, to the show. Chad, if you don't mind, continue on that idea of getting off to a good start and that dynamic you were talking about.
How you start your morning is how your day goes. Not always, but getting a good start with gratitude with a workout, with some education, putting some positive thoughts, and some good information. All those things help you start your day with positive momentum. Too often, people start their day with negative momentum. They pick up their phone and they look at all the horrible things that happened while they were sleeping. They check Instagram or Facebook and they compare their lives to others. They compare what they don't have with what others do, and it's hard to have a great day when you start it off on the wrong foot. I think a great life is built by great days and great days start with good mornings.
Start The Day Right
You talk about the hard right versus the easy wrong. My understanding is you take that towards the idea of making sure that we're creating abundance in our lives. I think it's related to what we're talking about here. Most people, you wake up, you’re tired or you might have an ache or two. There's something that's going to make itself known that needs attention and we can look at that and say, “That sucks,” or, “That's something I got to pay attention to and take care of.” It's the same thing. It's our reaction to it.
I think a lot of us start the day with a defeatist mentality. Think of the snooze button. It's so insignificant, it seems, but when you hit the snooze button, you start your day by giving in. You're already giving in to temptation. You're choosing the easy path of staying in a nice, warm bed for a few more minutes. Can 7 or 8 minutes of sleep actually help you feel more rested? Absolutely not. It's probably not even sleep. It's terrible quality.
Now, you've got 7 or 8 minutes less to get ready to do whatever you do, which means some positive things like journaling, writing a note of gratitude, or reading something positive. Those things are probably going to be the things that get cut. You're more stressed. You've already started your day working from behind simply by hitting the snooze button. That's one small example.
Also, hitting that snooze button is basically the same thing as lying to yourself in the sense that you set your alarm at a certain time. Now you're saying, “Screw that agreement.”
You're starting the day with a broken commitment and letting yourself down. It's already starting the day with negative momentum. You get 2 or 3 of those things in a row, it can be hard to turn a day around.
It’s so easy to slip. It's so hard to get that discipline and build yourself strong. It’s so easy to slip back, as you pointed to, one thing after another and before you know it, you're back down the hill.
Think of that continuum. You already mentioned it. You already broke the commitment to yourself. You slept in. Now you have less time to get ready. You're probably more stressed. Maybe you snap at your kids, at your spouse or you're speeding on the way to work, eating breakfast in the car instead of having a nice leisurely breakfast at home.
There's actually science that shows you get less nutrition from your food if you eat it under stressful conditions. Your food is less healthy eating it in the car than eating it at home at the breakfast table, the exact same meal. You have more stress. You have potentially more frustration and you're setting yourself up for failure. We're talking about a morning routine, something so simple, but it carries over to everyday life where it's so easy to choose the path of least resistance and we're hardwired to do that. I think to your point, Tom, it's choosing in advance that we're going to do the right thing and not the easy thing.
It's so easy to choose the path of least resistance and we're hardwired to do that. We need to choose in advance that we're going to do the right thing and not the easy thing.
You mentioned earlier that it's that it's negative 28 degrees there. How easy it how easy is it on a day like that to stay under the covers?
I'll tell you what. I get up at 5:00 in the morning, get to the office by 6:00. Crawling back into a nice warm bed sure sounded nice, but I have things I needed to do.
You didn't and you didn't start this. Let's keep going, though. Let's go into your philosophy, the Veritas approach, and getting days started. How does that unfold in terms of ultimately getting in the right mindset to be abundant financially?
Well, and you said it earlier, like abundance is a mindset more than anything else. I've met with people who are very wealthy who still live in scarcity. They're stressed out about money. Now that they have money, they're worried about losing it. They have more to worry about, more to stress about. Abundance is a mindset and that's what so important about gratitude. Gratitude focuses our attention not on what we want but on what we already have. It heightens our awareness of the blessings that are already in our lives. That's a big part of having an abundant life. It’s not getting more. It's appreciating more.
The Path To Financial Freedom
That being said, we want to still build wealth and we want to build financial independence, financial freedom and it’s going to take sacrifices. It's going to take a lot of hard decisions and they're not exciting. They're not sexy. It doesn't happen overnight. Building wealth is a long, slow, sometimes even drudgerous process. We do have to stay in a positive mindset, being appreciative for what we have and it's a little bit of a dichotomy because we want to be content but still striving forward, still pushing forward and appreciating what we have while we are trying to be a good steward of what we're building towards.
It's this idea of consistency and patience and discipline that I don't care if you're building wealth, a business, a podcast or a relationship. It's those same disciplines. When we talk about creating Financial freedom for somebody, it's a decade. It's a long process. It doesn't happen overnight and it's being willing to swim upstream. It's going against the grain of society. We live in a microwave society where we want to get rich quick. Six Minute Abs, One Minute Rice. You have to be willing to do things differently and it's hard. It's hard when you see the world around you taking the easy road, taking the quick out.
They bought a nice car. They went on a nice vacation. It went into debt to do it. Now, they're stealing from the future versions of themselves, but their current versions of themselves have either pleasure, relief or something. They're getting some temporary benefit, but it's being able to forego that and say, “No, I'm going to serve the future version of me. I'm not willing to steal from that person.”
You pointed to it earlier as far as there's a balance because we can live spartan, we can live off steer, we can live certainly well beneath our means and one of the keys to wealth creation is living below the means that you have and investing the difference in building that over time. That is the path. Whatever that level is, it's still the mindset of abundance that would allow us to enjoy our days and find that balance between what may be too frugal and missing out or to spendthrift and being irresponsible towards our future self. What guidance do you give people to help them? My guess is the balance point isn't the same for every person, but what's your orientation guidance on finding that balance?
First of all, that's a great question that not enough people are asking because of the tendency to lean towards one side of that continuum or the other. Human nature is hardwired to seek immediate return. We are hardwired for immediate return, but we live in an environment that is ideal for delayed return or delayed gratification. A lot of us are working against our own wiring so that tendency though is for folks to lean towards living in the present and sacrificing the future.
However, you're absolutely correct. People who are natural savers, maybe people who grew up in certain situations or whatever reason they're naturally more prone to sacrificing for the future. Sometimes they over-sacrifice. One of the folks I was talking with in the oil field up here in Alaska told me his biggest regrets. It’s working too hard.
He's a blue-collar guy. He's made good money but not great money. He's in his mid-50s, a multi-millionaire worth probably $8 million or $9 million. He said, “Chad, I've got nobody to share it with because I've sacrificed every meaningful relationship in my life to get to this point and I wish I could go back in time and tell myself, ‘You don't need to sacrifice so much.’”
That's why it's so important to have a plan. Have a blueprint that balances living in the moment with saving for the future. You're right that you must be willing to live within your means. That's a huge thing that's holding many people back in our society. There's no margin in their life. There's no margin for their time. There's no margin in their diet. There's no margin in their finances. We have to have margin.
It's so important have a blueprint that balances living in the moment with saving for the future.
However, that margin should be balanced. If people have specific, meaningful financial goals, and we talk about the importance of finding your number, having an actual specific target for your investment strategy. That target can change the move and that's okay. The idea is that there's a finite amount of wealth that people need to accumulate to produce financial independence, to replace their paycheck, to replace their income so they can live comfortably without a paycheck.
What is so important about that is it is finite. It's a specific number. We can reverse engineer that number in the future, that target, that objective to where they are and say, “Tom, based off your goals and your financial objectives for the future, you're going to need to save X amount of dollars per month.” Now, that still might be a stretch for you, but it's finite. It isn't more and it isn't I have to work forever because every year you work, you put aside more money but money never tells you enough and that's one of the problems.
Wealth never says, “Tom, you've done it. You're okay. Take a break. Focus on yourself. Focus on your family, whatever.” It doesn't. It says, “More.” We have to be the ones to tell our wealth, “I've planted enough seeds this month. I'm going to plant some seeds over here. I'm going to focus on the things. I'm going to take the family and vacation. I'm a payoff some debt. I'm going to give generously to church or charity.”
When people have an actual financial blueprint, it gives them the guidance to know when enough is enough not just in the long-term but on a monthly basis. “I hit my target for the month. I can live and enjoy the moment and be present with my family and community and not have to worry about stealing from the future version of myself.”
The other thing that comes to mind as you're laying that out is having the plan, having the number, knowing what the destination looks like, and having the discipline along the way to get there. It seems to me like a major component of that is to have a thought partner. I'm not sure couples are the best thought partners for each other in this way, maybe in some cases, yes, some cases, no, but to have somebody like yourself, somebody who can be that objective or that sees the blind spots.
I talk about that in the Eye of Power. The whole system is based on working with somebody had guides you and you guide somebody else because we all need each other in this way and it's a beautiful thing. The idea of working financially, you might have a plan, but without a thought partner, it seems to me like you're still trying to fight the battle with one hand tied behind your back. What's your thought on that?
Take Charge Of Your Own Life
You're absolutely right. I know you said this you believe this. A lot of times, our biggest obstacle is ourselves and accountability is huge. That's a huge part of what we offer and not just the savings part. Some people have no problem putting aside the money, but when the market hits turbulent times, like we've experienced over the last couple of years, especially I over the last five years, you had extreme market volatility, staying in the storm, staying in the midst of it continuing to invest even when you're 401(k) looks a little bit like a 301(k). That takes accountability.
Consistency: A lot of times, our biggest obstacle is ourselves. Accountability is huge.
Think about it from this standpoint. Right now, we're recording this first day of February. A month ago, the gyms were packed with people who downloaded a workout plan. There's a strategy that probably would have worked great but a month later how many of those people have already quit? It wasn't because they didn't have access to the right tools. It wasn't because they didn't have a plan. It's because they lacked accountability. They didn't stay consistent.
They're trying to make a life change at 30 or 31 days and a lot of those people are already off the path. We talk about building wealth. You can have a great investment portfolio. Those are the tools. That would be like the gym equipment in this metaphor. You can have a great workout plan, a great financial strategy, but if you don't execute it, if you don't have somebody holding you accountable, you're not going to get the results. That's where a lot of people lack. It’s that constant encouragement.
Going back to that plan, that's another reason why we do it the way that we do. If I tell you, “Tom, you need $3 million in order to be financially independent,” that's such a big number. It's easy to look at that and be overwhelmed and think like, “That's future Tom's problem. I don't have to worry about that.”
When you take that and say, “In order to hit that number based on what you saved towards retirement, you need to save an additional $400 a month,” or something like that. Now, every day matters because now we're not talking about $2.5 million. We're talking about, “I've got to find another $13 a day every single day in order to win this month.”
Now you've broken that big long-term goal into measurable bite-sized chunks that you can be held accountable for. You're not going to be held accountable for the $2.5 million yet, but you can be held accountable for it. Am I saving the extra $400 a month or whatever that number is? Having a plan and having a strategy keeps us proactive. It holds us accountable to our future goals or ask us this question, “Are my actions today in line with the person I said I wanted to become in the future?”
The note I put down here that you inspired was in personal and professional development, we talk a lot about the concept of our identity and our self-picture. You said it there that we're planning on. Something pretty deep. It's not just money. It's who am I as a person? Am I the person that has to be dependent or has to suffer or has to be without? Am I the person that's been able to manifest the power in the world the force in the world that allows me to write my own story according to my terms? A lot of people think they don't have this choice, but I don't know that there's anybody that doesn't.
One of one of the phrases that I wrote to close out a book I finished was, “Are you willing to get to the driver's seat of your own life?” To take responsibility, to take ownership. Maybe you're in a situation that isn't your fault, but it's absolutely your responsibility to fix it, and people need to take ownership. I got off the phone before I got on this recording with a dear client. We work with a great family man. He had a horrible accident work. His company is not treating him well.
Are you willing to get to the driver's seat of your own life?
What happened is not his fault. I told him, “We have to take the responsibility to fix this because your company is not.” He might have to retire five years early because of this accident. It's a huge change and it's not his fault, but it is his responsibility. He's taking ownership of the situation and that's one example. Unfortunately, in finances, a lot of people point to things that they can't control. They don't want to invest until the stock market does better, whatever that means, or until the economy looks better. There's no bell or whistle to say, “The stock market is going to do well this year. Everybody jump on in.”
When everybody thinks things that's going well, that's when you are in most danger.
There's always going to be waves, but a lot of people think that they've got to time something right. It's dependent on the market. It depends on the economies. It’s depending on who's in the White House. It depends on whatever laws or regulations they're made. It's dependent on their employer giving them a 401(k) match. What happens is we end up pushing our responsibility and all these other people and every time we point fingers or make excuses, we're taking some of that power away from ourself. I think it after time, it eventually puts us in a place of learned helplessness where we're now sitting in the passenger seat of our own life.
You're singing the tune of the Eye of Power, Chad. That's one of the greatest things I'd love to see change in the world where people stop giving their power away. I don't think people know they're doing it most of the time. Sometimes they do. I think that path that easy path draws us in to say, “You deal with it and then I don't have to think about it.” I think that does happen, but I think a lot of times, people don't understand how they're actually undercutting their own power, the questions we ask, how we frame those questions, and how we frame our situation.
You gave a great example there with your client. That's something that's going to cost you five years of being productive. Who knows what the emotional cost and the reaction and then serving other people. I don't know the capacity here, but this is a ripple effect in the world. It's not a minor thing. When we say, “Woe is me,” or, “Aren't those people bad,” or whatever it might be that it's going in the direction of lower power, that has ripple effects, too. We get to see it.
I was thinking of the movie. I don't know if we talked about it before but the movie It's a Wonderful Life where you don't get to see all the things. You can complain about the creaky floors and the drafty and the broken door knob as George walks into his house. He's like, “Woe is me. I should be better than this. I should have a better life. I should have a better house. I should have all this stuff,” and then only when he sees what is true if he wasn't in the picture does he say, “What gifts all these things that I put a negative on that's a true gift.”
We're talking about shrugging off that victim mentality. Unfortunately, we have a world that screams at people, reminding them they are victims. It keeps people trapped. A victim mentality is a place of learned helplessness. We have to be willing to push that aside. Yes, bad things happen. Yes, difficult circumstances have to be dealt with, but if we remain in that victim role, we're going to be stuck there forever. Nobody's coming to rescue us. We have to be willing to take some that responsibility.
A victim mentality is a place of learned helplessness. We have to be willing to push that aside.
I also think you're right. It's usually not a conscious decision like, “I'm going to be a victim or I am going to shirk responsibility.” It's like a river running alongside a bank and it takes a little bit away at a time. You don't notice that day to day, but pretty soon, your agency will have been eroded by years and years of not taking responsibility. Just like that river, it slowly eats away at that riverbank. A lot of people are sitting there looking at their life. I'm making up this metaphor, but that river of victimization has slowly eroded away at their ability to act on their own life.
I think it might even be worse than that because I think things tend to spiral. One thing feeds another so we go in one direction towards power, things feed on another and we rise. The other direction’s true, too. We fall and so you get into these negative or positive feedback loops. For anybody reading, make sure that you get on positive feedback loops in your life and stop the negative feedback loops, which you can do. It starts with what we're talking about earlier about gratitude. Starting off with a gratitude journal where You take inventory of all how the glass is half full.
We talked about starting your day off. It's about momentum. Whether it's building financial freedom, building a better body, or building a better life, it's a momentum thing. We have to be willing to put in that extra effort. It's like pushing a car. If you got a car from a dead stop, you have to put so much effort to get to budge. Once you get it to budge, it doesn't take as much effort to keep it rolling.
It still takes intentionality. It still takes discipline and effort but it takes a ton of energy to get it to start moving. If people are trying to make a change in their life, getting on a budget maxing out a 401(k), those new habits will take a lot of intentionality and effort to get those habits started. Once you create that positive momentum, it's a lot easier to keep it going. I encourage people. They're trying to make that change. It's going to be hard. Yes. Embrace that but it's not that hard forever. As you build momentum. It doesn't feel like there's quite as much effort and energy going into keeping yourself in that right direction.
That seems like a nice structure for our conversation. We started out with that gratitude and the rituals that get us off to a positive spiral, starting off the days and the right format and setting yourself up for success. Not only setting yourself up for success because you don't know what arrows are coming your way during the day, but the more you're resonating with your own personal power, the more resilient you are, the more able you are to respond. You have more responsibility because you have their ability to respond. It picks you up.
Incorporating that over the plan that's lasting years and decades, be it financial or whatever aspect of life where we're invested in and measuring, it is the little things. I think that we've laid out a nice way for people to think about these kinds of decisions. Is there anything else you might add that might make sure we don't miss something that's pertinent to what how we laid that out?
You talk about consistency in the small things. Maybe as a standalone, that doesn’t seem to be such a big deal. Putting an extra $500 towards your mortgage this month isn't going to change your life. If you do that every month, you're going to be debt-free a heck of a lot faster. Putting an extra couple hundred bucks a paycheck into your 401(k) isn’t going to change your life now. In fact, it's going to feel like a sacrifice in the moment, but that can build huge rewards in the future if you stay consistent.
Going to the gym, getting up early, eating more broccoli, all those little things don't seem to be super significant. When you add those up over time, it makes a huge difference. To sum this up, it's about agency. The choices you make, your habits, your behaviors are the little choices, the little things you do every day. That matters.
The decisions you make and the behaviors you accept for yourself will be the biggest determining factors in the trajectory of your life. I hope that's empowering for people to hear that. It might feel like I'm calling them out, but I want that to be encouraging, that what you do is the ultimate ingredient to your success or failure, so we have to be careful. We have to be willing to be consistent in the small things because what builds success in any area of life, health, finances, business is doing consistently what most people only do on occasion.
That consistency is a strength of character. It's a discipline. It's a commitment to an ideal. It grabs a lot of the virtues that we need to be to reach the pinnacle in any endeavor that we put ourselves to. I think that's a great way to wrap it up. Chad, it has been an absolute blast talking to you. You have such a great calming strength to yourself. I'm sure your clients value you to come alongside as a thought partner. If anybody wants to reach out to you, how would you say they should do so?
Our website is probably the best place to start. It's VeritasAlaska.com. We were founded here in Alaska. We have folks who work with all of the United States. You can find us at @Veritas.Alaska on Instagram. If people have questions or comments, they can shoot an email to Ask@VeritasAlaska.com and we're happy to respond and give people some answers.
Thanks so much, Chad. I very much appreciate you.
Tom, it's been a pleasure. It's a great conversation. I appreciate your wonderful questions. This is great information and I hope it's encouraging your audience.
Thanks so much, Chad.
My pleasure. Thank you.
Chad, Thanks so much. It has been an absolute wonderful pleasure to talk with you again to share what we did. I thought our conversation had a great symmetry to it. You were able to share some important things. Specifically, what I take away from your approach is how the big things are made up of the little and the ones that count are the things that we can do consistently, that are aspirational, that require discipline rather than the easy out, the easy wrong, the easy thing that's a compromise. The snooze button, as you said earlier.
Quit hitting the snooze button of life, make commitments, and keep them. Make a decision to do something and do it. You share the idea of the New Year's resolution. Here we are right now, it's February 1st. So many people struggled. They made that New Year's resolution for a reason. They know where they want to be, yet we're already off course because it takes that little bit of discipline.
The other thing I think is important is to stop trying to go it alone. We can't see our own blind spots and the easy path is something that we're wired to take. It's not a character flaw. It's not some problem or failure to lean on another person, to rely on other people and help us see what we would not see ourselves.
Embrace the idea that we need each other and it's beautiful, whether it be working with a guy like Chad on your finances or working with a personal trainer to get in shape, working with a guide like we do in the in the Eye of Power model, to be open and to allow yourself to be held accountable and co-create plans of action, little things that you're going to do over a period of time. They're going to make a big difference. These are the kinds of things that we should accept as a matter of how the journey to the high place. It looks like that. If you take one thing from our discussion, I hope it's something along those lines. Thanks again, Chad. I’m glad to have you among my new friends.
Important Links
@Veritas.Alaska - Instagram
About Chad Hufford
Born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, Chad grew up in the financial industry, but also developed a strong background in athletics, nutrition and performance psychology. Chad brings a coaching mindset and the heart of a teacher to financial planning and investing as he strives to both empower and educate his audience to not only become better investors, but to live more intentionally and create an abundant life.
Chad is Dave Ramsey’s SmartVestor Pro and owns a boutique financial planning firm, Veritas Wealth Management, that manages $500 million dollars and serves several hundred families across the US. In addition to finance, he regularly teaches and speaks on fitness and faith, seeing these as all important aspects of a purposeful and abundant life.
Chad and his wife, Tiffany (also a lifelong Alaskan), have been blessed with six wonderful children. Tiffany stays busy homeschooling the kids, and the whole family is very involved in their church and local community.
Their family loves fishing, camping (okay, maybe more like “glamping”), hunting, and enjoying the wonderful outdoors Alaska has to offer. Living in a more rural area outside of Anchorage, and just few hundred yards from the home Chad grew up in, they regularly have the privilege of watching bears, moose, and lynx walk right through their yard.
Believing that to whom much is given, much is expected, Chad strives to employ his knowledge and experience to serve and enrich the lives of those around him.