Zero To A Hundred – Episode 37: Setting The Right Mindset Around Your Finances With Ethan Ho

Zero to a Hundred - Jarrod Guy Randolph | Ethan Ho | Mindset

 

Accelerators! 🚀 Are you ready to reshape your relationship with money? This week, we’re joined by Ethan Ho, founder of Kala Capital Partners and certified financial planner, to explore how your mindset affects your finances. Ethan shares strategies for setting financial goals, managing risk, and understanding the emotional connection to money—all while building generational wealth. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or just starting your financial journey, this episode is packed with actionable insights to help you thrive! 🎯

What’s on the Menu:

💼 Setting financial goals and actually achieving them.

🧠 Overcoming limiting beliefs about money and wealth.

🔑 Creating a plan to enjoy the wealth you’re building—guilt-free!

Why Tune In?

Ethan’s fresh take on money combines practical strategies with a human approach to finance. Discover how to use money as a tool for freedom, security, and purpose, and start building the financial future you deserve.

💬 Gem from Ethan:

“Your financial goals should work for you—not the other way around.”

Get in Touch with Ethan:

📧 Follow Ethan on Instagram at @EthanTheMoneyManHo or visit KalaCapitalPartners.com to learn more.

Don’t miss out—hit that subscribe button and let’s take your business from zero to a hundred! 💥

Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

 

Setting The Right Mindset Around Your Finances With Ethan Ho

Our guest is Ethan “The Money Man” Ho. He is the Founder and CEO of Kala Capital Partners. He is a certified financial planner who advocates for financial literacy and building generational wealth, and we are going to have a very good conversation because we are going to talk about money and mindset. First of all, setting and hitting your financial goals and then how to enjoy it once you’ve done so, strategies around managing risk, how to properly set up an S-Corp, and also getting over the hurdles of limiting beliefs around money. This is going to be a good one. I want all of you to tune in.

For those of you who do not know me, my name is Jarrod Guy Randolph. I am the Founder of BoxFi. We are the nation’s leading payment consultant providing business growth solutions through payment processing, and I’m very excited to share the network that I have built over the years entrepreneurial journey to help you grow your business and become more profitable. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s accelerate together.

 

Zero to a Hundred - Jarrod Guy Randolph | Ethan Ho | Mindset

 

Ethan Ho, thank you for joining us.

It’s a pleasure to be here.

How Ethan Got Into Financial Planning

As a financial advisor professional, there are a ton of titles, as we have discussed before in this industry, but technically you do it all, and you genuinely are an expert. I want to talk to you first before we get into the technical nitty-gritty good stuff. Takeaways for the audience tell us how you ended up getting into the business.

I feel like I fell into the business. I was in college in New York City, going to Fordham University, and I always had this affinity for money and business, and it always captured my interest. I thought going to college was going to prepare me financially to enter the real world and understand how money worked. As I was graduating, I realized I was woefully underprepared. I don’t understand the basics of money. College didn’t quite do it for me, and so I figured you might not learn about money from the professionals.

That’s what led me to apply and interview with various financial firms, which was in my junior year of college through internships. I am also from Hawaii, and so I love surfing. I was like, “I need to be back at home for the summer so I can surf,” because I wasn’t getting the surf I wanted up in New York. That led me to apply to firms at home and accept an internship at a financial planning firm, and I quickly realized when I got that internship, it was more of an administrative role. I realized I was terrible at admin but would be good at the advisory role. I saw what the advisors were doing, and saw the problems they were solving, and that’s what got me into this. I ended up getting hired at that firm before I even graduated from college.

Tell us one of your first lessons in money that you learned while you were in college that made you say, “I don’t know enough about proper financial planning.”

I feel like none of the practical side of money was taught. We were learning things like the present and future value of your dollars, but not how to go out and open accounts and analyze what your investments were doing. My whole thing has been connecting what you do with your money and how you invest to the human side of it. I realized that how much money you have or make has no bearing on how you feel about money. People who are extremely successful didn’t have a good relationship with money, and I thought that was crazy and I was like, “This is something that’s intriguing. I wanted to dig into it a little bit more.”

You say a lot of people that you have known and I don’t know if it’s now or at that time don’t have a good relationship with money. What does that mean?

It didn’t seem like the relationship with money was supporting their well-being. It felt like it was causing more stress than peace. It was more of a headache than calm. Even when you had a lot, even when you had a good job and a good income, there was always this idea of chasing more. For me, it was always more for why. What was the purpose, what was the intent? What’s beneath that?

Improving Education Around Capital Management

They say money is energy. It does have a lot to do with mindset, and I have adjusted my relationship over the last several years with money. What I have realized about my relationship with money or lack thereof is that I didn’t have the right connection to it. I wasn’t managing it well. It wasn’t until the last few years of my professional career and personal life that I started to have a better relationship with money and manage it better. That had to do with my education around money, and I know that’s something that you guys focus on education around capital management. I’d love for you to talk to the audience a bit more about that.

Making informed and empowered money decisions, at the root of it, is having the education. Having that foundation of how it works gives you the confidence to go out and make that final decision. Push that buy button, push that sell button, allocate it this way or that way, and spend it on something that you may want but don’t need. Understanding the role it plays in your life, understanding how it works for you simply as a tool, can allow you to take that step back and feel a lot better about the decisions that you are making with your money.

Walk me through it. I’m a business owner, I have a relatively successful business, and my business is continuing to grow. I’m getting to the point where I have more expendable income coming in, where I have met all of my fees and expenses, and I have some things that I can now do and potentially play with my money. How would you advise someone to manage their money when they get to that point in time in their business?

The first thing would be digging into what is the role that money plays in their life. Why is it important to them? Is having a lot of money in the bank account or your investment account a sign of power, and do you get true satisfaction and enjoyment out of having a large number? Is it so you can have freedom, autonomy, and security? Those are the big ones that I can boil down to the role that money plays in people’s lives. Freedom, autonomy, security, and power.

Digging into what is the thing that lights you up, why is it important to you? How does that manifest itself in your life? Is it the freedom to go fishing with your child or take them on a wonderful trip? Is it the security of knowing that you don’t have to work if you choose not to? Getting to what is going to be the most meaningful thing for that person whatever it is for them because it’s very individual. It’s very specific.

Once we have an understanding of that, “What are the types of accounts and the investment strategies that are going to best support that specific goal?” There’s going to be a difference between an early retirement and maybe a normal retirement. How you allocate that, not only in your asset allocation but also in the type of account you use, “Which one are you going to put more of a concentration in,” will play into that ultimately based on the goal.

Financial Planning For People In Their 30s, 40s, And 50s

I’d love to break something down in a unique way that I haven’t done on the show, and it popped into my brain. Let’s flow with it. Let’s take someone who is in their 30s, with a young family, who has had a business for 5 years. They are doing well. They are starting to get over that hump of growth, and now they have something and it’s an engine that’s working. How would you advise that 30-year-old with a young family on how to manage their money? What buckets should they consider? Are there specific percentage allocations? What would you tell them to do?

You want to leave your options open. You want to be able to maintain flexibility. We would want to look at what options you have created for yourself already. I find that a lot of new business owners, especially when they are seeing that breakout success that you are describing, haven’t taken the time to set up the right accounts for their business that will allow them to put money into those buckets.

Depending on the business, maybe it’s something simple like a SEP IRA. Honestly, I’m not the biggest fan of SEP IRAs. I’d much rather see someone do something like a solo 401(k) if they are a single-member LLC. Taking it a little bit further, doing a traditional 401(k) or setting up a retirement account for the business that you can contribute to as the employee of the business but also the business can contribute to on your behalf. Making sure that you have accounts that aren’t retirement accounts that you can access before retirement age, you the flexibility to invest capital in a new project, venture, or business, or access your money before you hit that typical 59-and-a-half-year-old threshold. Now you have the green light and you touch the money without penalty.

Is there a percentage allocation that you would suggest based on different buckets?

To be honest, I stray away from those blanket recommendations. There are tons of them that you could find on the internet like the 50/30/20 rule or doing a minimum of 10% or 20% to your retirement account. I don’t like that because when I’m working with my clients individually, it is very much based on what their situation entails.

For me, I forewent my retirement contributions heavily, knowing that I wanted to start my own business. I wanted to start my firm, and I wanted access to my capital. Ultimately, I knew that would be the biggest ROI I could get, and I’m willing to risk it. Most of my money in my early twenties was going into a brokerage account. I was like, “I’m going to need access to this.” That goes against a lot of retirement planning and financial planning philosophies, but it was unique to my situation. I knew I was entrepreneurial, I knew I was willing to bet on myself, and those are oftentimes conversations I have with clients who may share a similar mindset as myself.

You had mentioned earlier setting up accounts that you can access before retirement age. What type of accounts are out there that someone who is in their 30s could set up where they would be able to access them earlier than the 59-and-a-half threshold?

Your classic brokerage account, is a good place to start, and then your cash account, your high-yield savings accounts, your money market accounts, your checking, and your savings accounts, but I would say your brokerage account is the big one and oftentimes is one of the pieces missing in someone’s financial plan. When they come to me, they are like, “I’m getting started. Maybe I’m a W-2 employee. I have done my 401(k). I have done my retirement contributions.” What else is there? That’s always a gap. It’s nice to have a few million dollars in your retirement account, but if you are 50 years old and you are done with working, it’s not that accessible to you. What’s going to bridge the gap from 50 to 60? You want something available there.

If you are 50 years old and are done working, having a few million dollars in your retirement account is not that accessible. You want something that will bridge the gap from 50 to 60 years old. Share on X

The ultimate flexibility when someone is in their 30s is super important. Let’s talk about someone who’s starting to do financial planning in their 40s. Kids are a little older, have a family, and have a business that they have had for about a decade. They have been working very diligently, and now they are at the point where they are starting to see some extra cashflow, but they haven’t done any financial planning. What would you advise someone in their 40s to do when looking at putting together a financial plan?

I’m going to bring it back to the goals again. Are you planning on working forever? Do you love what you do? Do you want to exit the business and sell it at a certain point in time? Are you unsure? Do you not know exactly what the end destination is for you? It’ll still come back to a lot of those traditional core accounts that you have. Retirement Roth and traditional, your brokerage account, your cash accounts, and risk management strategies are something to consider. We want to prevent loss, we want to make sure that we are mitigating some of the biggest risks that we all face, and then tying those accounts to the goals that, again, are defined by us through questions and digging into their financial lives.

We now went 30s and 40s, and this is very different from what we typically do. Let’s talk about somebody in their 50s. Kids are in college, running a business for fifteen years, they are now finally getting over that hump, they are seeing that extra cashflow, but they have done zero financial planning. Is there a different approach for someone like that, or is it still a values-driven approach for financial planning?

Still a value-driven approach, but in this example, is it like zero financial planning, I have nothing to my name and all I have is my business, or is it like they have stuff? They don’t have a purpose behind it, they are not sure the role it’s playing or they are all my entire net worth is my business?

Let’s first and foremost focus on their entire net worth is their business.

Is this person looking to exit the business and sell? Does it have enterprise value, or is this like a cash-flowing service business?

This is a cashflowing service business.

It’s time to buckle down hardcore and focus on habits. Time is your most important asset. You are never going to be able to get those past decades back, but there’s no better time than now if you haven’t started, and so it’s not even focused on what the accounts are I would say. It’s a focus on how much you can contribute to your financial future and how long have.

Are you planning on working until you are 70 or 80 years old, or are you saying, “I want to retire in the next 10 years? I’m done doing this business. It doesn’t have any enterprise value. It’s cashflowing good. How much can I be saving and investing?” It’s not about getting the highest rates of return, in my opinion. It’s about managing behaviors, managing habits, and then creating that system and structure that allows you to put dollars aside for your future.

You can still focus on running your business. You can still focus on being profitable. You can still focus on being the best family, husband, wife, spouse, parent, whatever you need to do. You can still prioritize those valuable things in your life, but creating a system that’s running on autopilot and the background that is moving you closer to that ultimate financial dream or goal of yours.

Setting Up The Right Cashflow Management Tools

Talk to me, if we are talking about this service-based business that has very good cashflow, how do you set up the right cashflow management tools in your business to make sure that you are allocating money to the right places?

A lot of times I also like to start to separate it. The whole financial plan looks at both your personal and your business side of things, but oftentimes you should, business owners should run their finances like a business, and you should also vice versa. We want to be taking chips off the table, essentially. How much are you paying yourself in wages? How much are you taking as profit distribution coming into your personal life? How much do you need that’s going to sustain the life that you want to live?

What are your fixed expenses? What are your variable expenses? How important are things like travel to you, or are you less about experiences and more about material things and getting that nice car or watch or whatever it is? Also, allocating dollars so you feel fulfilled, so you know that you are enjoying yourself because tomorrow is not promised.

That’s always this fine balance that you are playing. It’s like how can we be financially responsible for our future selves but also enjoy ourselves? On the personal side, it’s looking at that like what is the bare minimum that I need to live the life that I want to live? How much is left over or unallocated every month? On the personal side, once we have that number, whatever it is, is it $5,000 or $10,000 a month? Is it much less than that number? It’s okay.

Now how can we allocate this towards different buckets? Is it your brokerage or retirement account? Is it cash savings for immediate needs? Then saying, “We understand that this is the goal and it’s happening in 5 years, this is another goal and it’s happening in 10 years,” and this is the immediate goal that’s happening now. I have X dollars coming in, and these are the priorities of my goals. Which is most important? If I only had to accomplish one of these, which one is it? Taking that approach and then saying, “I’m going to allocate a heavier percentage to this thing that is the most valuable, the most important to me, and then setting it on autopilot.”

Why Business Owners Should Enjoy Their Success

How do we, as business owners, convince ourselves that it is okay to go out and enjoy our lives and the success that we have created?

By having a financial plan that has a good statistical probability and reasonable means of getting you to the goal that you set for yourself. One of my clients called me. He’s like, “I want to pull $10,000 out of my investment account.” I’m like, “Cool, no problem. What’s it for?” He’s like, “I want to buy a watch.” I’m like, “That’s awesome. You should because we have run your numbers. You are a frugal human being. You have a high probability of hitting your financial goals. You can afford to spend $10,000 on a want. That’s not a need, and by all means, you should do that.” When you have the clarity of where you are going and where you stand financially, then it allows you to take those extra dollars and have fun with them.

I love that. What’s super important for our audience in general is to set and hit your financial goals, and then frankly go out and enjoy yourself. Take a trip, buy yourself something, buy your spouse something. Do something for your family that you are truly going to enjoy because that is one of the reasons we are working. We are working for that freedom.

Once you know that everything is on autopilot, money coming in, money going out, how much you are saving and investing, and that is going to move you to the goals that you’ve defined and the timeline that you’ve defined then everything else is there for you to spend freely and without guilt. There are so many people, and I struggle with this myself, thinking, “I want to buy this thing, but should I? What am I giving up?” There’s an opportunity cost to every decision that we make, and there’s always that financial component to it as well but when you have a solid plan, when you know that it’s aligned with your priorities and your values, that extra stuff is for you to spend and do in whatever capacity lights you up.

Risk Management Strategies Every Business Owner Must Implement

That’s very sage advice. Talk to us about some of the risk management strategies that you help business owners implement.

Managing the downside is the most important thing. We can look at it from a lot of different angles. I would say if you are looking at it from a holistic point of view, ask yourself, “What are the biggest threats that you face that could derail your ability to meet your goals?” Most often, it’s your ability to earn an income. Disability or death. Who’s relying on you, and how do you want to support them?

That’s where risk management, as insurance policies, does come into play. If something happens to you today, is your spouse, your kids, or your family member taken care of to the capacity that you would like to take care of them? If your answer is, “I don’t care. I’m dead,” that’s fine. Maybe this isn’t a conversation that needs to be had but for most of us, we are inspired to help other people. We want to do things for other people more than we want to do things for ourselves.

It’s a common trend I see, and so ask yourself. Are they set up in the way that you would like to set them up if something were to happen to your ability to earn money today? Whether that’s life insurance or disability insurance, the whole point of insurance is to pay a little bit of money, and hope that you lose that money, to avoid a bigger loss.

On the investment side, it comes down to your classic asset allocation and diversification. Often, people are striving to get the highest rates of return, and I often coach my clients that it’s not about getting the highest rates of return, it’s getting the best rate of return risk-adjusted for the level of risk you are taking with these dollars versus the return you are getting. Does that balance out?

I find that a lot of new or novice investors look at the rate of return. They say, “This investment got a 12% rate of return, and this one got an 8% rate of return. Twelve percent must be better.” Our thought process is, let’s call it units of risk. How many units of risk did you take to get that 12% rate of return versus that 8%? If they are significantly different, our firm will lean towards the 8% rate of return with lower levels of risk all day long.

Let’s set the compounding aside because I want to dive a little bit more into the risk factors. How do you define units of risk when looking at an investment with one of your clients?

Volatility is probably a big one. Whether you are going with standard deviation or something like that. There are a lot of different technical ways of measuring risk, and they can get into modern portfolio theory and some heady stuff but are they comfortable with it? Are you comfortable with seeing your portfolio take hundreds of thousands of dollars in swings because you are invested in maybe a newer asset class like Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, or can you not stomach that because it keeps you up at night and sends you out on a tailspin? We can look at the numbers and get analytical there, but I feel like that often doesn’t resonate with clients.

Are there any investments that are out in the market that everybody knows about that you think are a no-no, that you shouldn’t be putting your money in?

No. I’m not like, “You shouldn’t do this, you shouldn’t do that, this is an absolute no-go.” It’s about risk tolerance and your understanding of it. There are things that we won’t invest our portfolio in for our clients yet, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t think it’s something worth analyzing or looking at if it’s something they are interested in.

The Right Tax Strategies To Become Tax Efficient

Talk to me about how once you get that portfolio together that is helping you set those goals, you are hitting those goals, and you are investing in a way that aligns with your values. How do you start to build the right tax strategies around that to make sure that you are tax efficient?

Asset location for tax purposes. There are three basic accounts. One’s taxed never, your Roth account. One’s taxed always in your traditional account, and one’s taxed sometimes, in your brokerage account. Make sure that you either have an understanding of how each of those accounts is taxed, the tax that’s going to be triggered when you use them the way you use them or have a balance. If you’re like, “I’m not sure,” then let’s create a little bit of balance here. Have some money in tax-free, have some money in tax-deferred, and have some money in taxable or sometimes taxable.

As a business owner, what are some of the ways in which you can use the tax system to your advantage to reduce your taxes?

The first thing is to become a business owner. That is the tax code. The tax system is set up for business owners. It is not set up for W-2 employees. Having a business by itself is the best, I would say, one of the lower-hanging fruits that is often overlooked or maybe not executed the right way for many business owners who are in that breakout success is entity election. It’s having the right entity election and then doing the right things to make that entity election help you. I would say one of our clients came in, and they had an LLC. They did not have the right entity election. They didn’t have any entity election, for that matter. We looked at their situation, and we worked with their accountant. We were deciding between an S-Corp entity election and a C-Corp entity election.

We went back and forth. It was a tough decision because both of the elections when structured correctly, would help them tax-wise. For them specifically, we ended up feeling like more of an anomaly than normal. We ended up in a C-Corp entity election even though there was double taxation. That year, it saved them like $90,000 plus in taxes.

For a vast majority of our clients, it is an S-Corp entity election that makes a lot of sense. Paying yourself a reasonable payroll and then avoiding self-employment tax on the profits that you take. That strategy nowadays is coming to light a lot more thanks to social media. It’s been talked about, I would say, in the last few years more than it was previously but what I find is that it’s not executed the right way. People will make the S-Corp entity election, but they won’t pay themselves payroll, things like that and it’s like, “You’re so close, but you didn’t fill out the right form, or you didn’t set up the right system, and now you don’t get the benefit of it.”

Walk me through what the right setup is for an S-Corp if that’s what you elect as an entity.

Fill out your tax form. You elect for your LLC to be taxed as an S-Corp, and then you need to run payroll. You need to run a W-2 wage for yourself. This is where it often falls apart. They don’t set up the payroll, they don’t run it. Let’s say you have a business that’s making in profit. Of that profit, maybe you can pay yourself $60,000 or $40,000 a reasonable salary based on your profession. Whatever you can take out above and beyond that as profit avoids self-employment tax, which is about 15.3%.

If you split it 50/50 you pay yourself a $50,000 wage through W-2 and then take $50,000 of profit, you’re going to save 15.3% on that $50,000 of profit that you took. Previously, when you didn’t make that S-Corp entity election or pay a payroll, you were going to pay that 15.3% on that entire $100,000 profit that you are taking.

For me, I was embarrassed when I figured this out because I was maybe 4 or 5 years into being a financial advisor at the firm I started at, and I’m like, “There must be a better way to reduce my taxes. There has to be a way.” I’m going through accounts and asking all these questions. This was before social media made this strategy very prevalent. I figured it out. I talked to enough accountants, and I did it, and it saved me over $10,000. I was like, “I could have been saving $10,000 for the last 3 years easily.”

The financial planner in me was like, “What’s $10,000 compounded? I could have put that in my investment account and rolled that out another 40 years or so.” I realized that was like a $650,000 mistake, and it was huge. I could have taken a lovely trip and created priceless memories for those last three years, just by legally paying the government less legally. I was an advisor. I didn’t even know that.

Making Financial Panning Easier To Understand

First of all, thank you for being open about the fact that you were an advisor, and didn’t even know that earlier on in your career. How do you and your team simplify all of this to make it understandable and executable for the clients you work with?

Bite-sized chunks. Part of the process is coming up with, “This is the action plan.” You can have the perfect plan with poor execution, and it’s worthless. The best plan is a simple one that you can stick to. My New Year’s resolution was to lose the sympathy weight I gained from my wife’s recent pregnancy. I was like, “I almost hit 200 pounds. I never crossed that mark.” I was like, “I’m going to start eating better and working out more.” I’m a big surfer, but I couldn’t surf. New father. I didn’t have the time, and I gained a lot of weight. I was like, “I’m going to start running.” I hate running, but I’m like, “Running is good for you. That should help.”

The best plan is a simple one you can stick to. Share on X

I ran, and my knee swelled up. It was miserable. I just couldn’t do it. I was like, “This wasn’t good because it wasn’t a plan I could stick to.” Finances are the same way. You need to figure out a plan you can stick with, and that is by far better than having the perfect plan like a C plan with A execution beats an A plan with C execution all day long.

Common Limiting Beliefs That Cause Financial Hurdles

I love what you said about taking it in small bites. That’s very important for our audience of entrepreneurs and business owners but talk to me about some of the consistent limiting beliefs that you see with business owners and why they hit these financial hurdles.

There are so many, and they are so deeply rooted in their past, childhood, and experiences. Frankly, I’m constantly learning. I wish I had done my degree in psychology or something. I know that the amount of money that you can make is a big one. I did this exercise several years ago, and it helped me decide to go into business for myself entirely. I asked myself, “What are the chances you’ll make $1 million in the next 30 days?” I thought, “Low chance. Probably not going to be able to make $1 million in the next 30 days.” Then, I reframed the question, “What are the chances of you making $1 million in the next 30 days if your spouse, your kid, or your mother or father’s life depended on it?” I was like, “With that fire, I’m going to figure out a way. I’ll find a way.”

That was one of the things that helped me start opening my eyes to the ability to earn an income so much farther beyond what I originally thought. I left college thinking, “If I can make 6 figures a year, $100,000, I’m good to go. That would be great.” I hit that goal right away, and I was like, “Where’d the money go? Is that enough? I wished I had created a goal that was 10X that.” Then it reframes how you think about achieving that goal because it’s so much bigger than what you originally thought. You start to problem-solve it from a different area or a different way.

Glorifying The Hard Work, Not The Result

I like that. It’s all about that turnaround, that problem-solving from a different way. I’d love for you to give us an example of one of the biggest turnarounds you’ve had with a client who walked through your door. Whether you helped them change their mindset or financial position, how did you approach it?

This is the thing I would love for people to glorify how far someone has come and not where they ended up. I have clients who walk through our door who are so much more financially successful than the ones about when you ask me that question. The ones about when you ask me that question came to us with no financial background, maybe a little bit of debt, a money mindset that was confused, lost, and insecure around their situation.

 

Zero to a Hundred - Jarrod Guy Randolph | Ethan Ho | Mindset

 

By going through their goals, teaching them some basic financial literacy, helping them automate their accounts, checking in with them, and making sure they know what’s happening with their money, it’s doing something very meaningful. Then feeding the emotional side of like, “This is good, this is important, this is valuable work you are doing, the decisions you are making, the sacrifices you are making to get to this end-all-be-all goal of yours. You are breaking the mold.”

That is such a bigger turnaround than the client who comes in and says, “I got $3 million to invest. Can you help me do that?” Sure. They make more money with them on paper. They might see a bigger dollar value added to their lives, but the true value of a turnaround and how you feel about money, and your approach to it. I think about those people who have come so much farther. They may never get to where some of our other clients are, but their journey there is so much more inspiring to me like a lot of times what lights me up. Full disclosure, on the business side, I have to balance the heart-centeredness I need to help all these people with the fact that I need to run a profitable business.

I read a book, The Gap and The Gain by Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan. An incredible book because so many of us as business owners and entrepreneurs focus on the ideal. We don’t pay attention to where we started and where we are. That gain is from where we started to where we are. The gap is from where we are to what our ideal is.

To your point, when you have people come through with no financial plan, maybe some debt, and confusion, going from that point to a year later having a plan in place that’s some of the biggest growth you could see out there. They start somewhere, look back, and appreciate what they’ve created. That’s a great story. You have a lot of clients and you’re able to help a lot of clients get there. A lot of people are very confused when it comes to finances and genuinely don’t know what to do.

The peace of mind around good money habits, and a good plan in place, is priceless. That’s usually the first win for most of our clients. It’s not, “We doubled your net worth,” or, “You’ve now achieved this monumental financial goal.” It’s peace of mind.

The peace of mind around good money habits and a good plan in place is priceless. Share on X

Notable Trends In Financial Planning And Management Today

Talk to me about any trends that you are seeing in the market right now that the audience should be aware of when it comes to financial management, entities, taxes, or whatever it may be.

What comes to mind first is my client, the people I enjoy working with are, I would say, in their 30s to 50s, and maybe even on the younger side of that. Not to say we have clients throughout the spectrum, but there’s this trend of clients burdening more of the financial risk in achieving their goals than the generation before us. Mainly through not having access to pension plans like we used to. When I look at older clients, they’ll say, “We have this nice pension, our house is paid off, we have some money invested, we’re good to go.” As companies take away pension plans, they realize they don’t want to burden the retirement risk of all their employees and past employees, so they are putting that risk onto the employees themselves. It takes a lot more discipline.

It takes more from the employee to go out and create a retirement plan or a retirement life that works for them. That’s a big one. Our generation is being stretched thin in the sense that we may be making more money, but prices aren’t keeping up with the income. There’s a discrepancy there. It’s harder to make it work whether it’s extra student loan debt, more than normal, or financially supporting your parent because I have a good handful of clients who do that. Meanwhile, they’re still balancing everything else, sending their kids to school, living a life that’s meaningful to them in the present, and funding their retirement. Their income is going up, but everyone is stretched thin.

The cost of living is insane. I’ve watched my partner’s grandparents pass within the last few years, and they all left their kids money. They were well into their 80s and 90s. People have nothing in the bank, and that’s why it’s so important and why we have this conversation, especially targeting these entrepreneurs and business owners to make sure you’re managing your finances, whoever it is. Find someone to help you manage your finances. You’re doing what you’re doing because you have a passion for it, but also because you’re working towards that freedom. Make sure you’re growing your business, and becoming more profitable, so you can enjoy life after work. It’s very important.

 

Zero to a Hundred - Jarrod Guy Randolph | Ethan Ho | Mindset

 

Treat it like a business, delegate this stuff off to people who do it every single day. I so often meet with people who are incredibly smart, I would say smarter than me in so many ways, and they are more than capable of doing it themselves. The question is, should they be doing it themselves? That’s where it’s like, where you spend your time, the most precious asset you have, are you getting the return that you need on that? Is it best spent managing your portfolio, creating a financial plan, and learning all the tripwires and nuances of money management, and personal finance?

I remember early in my career, such a mistake of mine. I was meeting with this guy, he was a Navy Seal, like the coolest dude. His kids were cool, his wife was cool. This guy was the man, and I was like, “We were putting this financial plan together.” During the recommendation meeting, I made the mistake of saying, “You can’t do this alone.” You never tell a Seal you can’t. You don’t do that. He came back the next meeting, and I was like, “You said I couldn’t do it, and I’m going to do it to prove you wrong.” I was like, “That was a mistake because you can do it.”

Most people are successful in their earnings, if you are a good earner, you are successful. You can do this stuff, especially with access to Google and AI. It’s not a lack of information. It’s the implementation of the information that you get, and then it is understanding and the meaning behind, “You are saving this and you are investing that.” What is the meaning behind that? Then taking it a step further, what are the emotions that invoke in your life that serve you now?

Rapid-Fire Questions And Episode Wrap-Up

You are blowing my mind here because having that emotional and human connection is so important to the energy of how you manage your own money, and we as entrepreneurs and business owners know this. You are speaking our language, and this has been incredible. Before we do our wrap-up and you tell everyone where they can connect with you, we are going to do a little fun rapid-fire section. Are you ready to go with me?

Let’s do it.

Coffee or tea?

Coffee.

Are you watching an awesome streaming channel series or a movie that you would suggest our audience watch?

I started Squid Games 2 with my wife.

Is there a book that you would recommend our audience of business owners and entrepreneurs read?

I would say scratch the book right now and use ChatGPT. Take it a little modern because there’s a ton of books out there. There are so many good books, but it’ll be a little different. Start asking relying on and utilizing this new tool as an arsenal in your quiver. It is so powerful.

I’m going to one-up you on that. The books that I read that had the biggest influence on me were Profit First, Who Not How, 10x Is Easier than 2x, The E-Myth Revisited, and Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell. I have transcribed all of those, and it was a whole thing to have to transcribe all those, and now I’m putting them into a custom ChatGPT, and that’s going to be my advisory for 2025. Anybody who wants access to that ChatGPT, hit me up, and I will email it over to you so you can play with it, but that’s a good idea. Use Chat versus reading.

I’m dyslexic, so reading was never my thing. Audiobooks all the time. I forgot what I was using. It was sparknoting these books, and it would be like a 15 to 20-minute listen, and I would get below through the books because the books are great, but there’s usually only 2 or 3 real valuable nuggets, and they are supported by stories. I love that. It’s great, but I’m like, “Time’s of the essence. I need the thing. Give me the juice or the sauce.”

Now I’m like, “Let’s combine these.” You could go out and ask ChatGPT to find the best books of 2024 and then summarize them for you and apply them to your life in the way that you know makes sense. The more you talk to it, the more it knows you, the more it understands you, and the more you can start getting customized answers to your situation.

This is supposed to be the rapid-fire section, I got to lean into this a little bit more. I suffer from dyslexia too. Last year, 2024, I read over 60 books. That was more books than I have ever read in my entire life, and the way I did it was I read the book while listening to the Audible, had a pen and a highlighter, marked up the book the entire time, and because the way my brain works and being dyslexic, I can listen to an Audible on 2.2 to 3.5 speed.

A book that would take 8 to 9 hours to get through, I could get through in 2.5 to 3 hours. I was reading 2 books on a weekly basis, like 1.5 and 2 books on a weekly basis. That became a game changer for me because I retained more information, I didn’t fall asleep while reading, and started to enjoy it. I love it. I do a weekly book review on one of the books that I read on LinkedIn every single week. You brought up Audible. It’s been such a game-changer to read with all those different sensory elements combined. It’s been a huge game-changer. Let’s get back to the rapid-fire section. If you had the opportunity to have dinner with anyone dead or alive, who would it be and why?

I would want to be my future self. I would be like, “You know me. We don’t need to do any of this extra stuff. Let’s sit down and have a real conversation. What makes sense? What did you do? What did you do wrong? What are the things you can fix and change so I can take that back.” It’s hard for me to think of anything that would be more applicable.

For 2025, give us 2 money-saving techniques that we can implement into our business to be more profitable.

Know your numbers, and so you need to have the team member, accountant, or bookkeeper help support the numbers and then have quarterly meetings with them. Understanding your P&Ls, your balance sheet, and what’s driving the needle so you can focus on the 20% of stuff that drives 80% of the results. The numbers tell the story. Know your numbers there.

Know your numbers. Understand your P&Ls, balance sheet, and everything driving the needle so you can focus on the 20% that drives 80% of the results. Share on X

Our last question is, what is the number one hurdle that you have personally had to overcome in your life to build the success that you’ve built?

My mindset. It’s always the thoughts, the things that go on through your head. The limiting beliefs. You may not even be aware of what you think is possible. It all starts and stops with the thoughts that you have. It’s a constant work in progress. I’m nowhere near where I want to be success-wise, personal development-wise, business-wise, and it’s all predicated on my mindset.

Positive mindset. That’s what it’s all about. The gap in the gain. We are going to focus on the gain and we are going to keep striving forward. Please tell everyone where they can connect with you if they’d like to do so.

You can find me on social, Instagram @EthanTheMoneyManHo would be a great place to start. The link in the bio will take you to all my main things, my website, our free stuff, and schedule meetings. You can find us by Google, Kala Capital. Kala means money in Hawaiian. That’s where we have our roots in Hawaii. A lot of our values are based in Hawaii, so that’s a little bit of the backstory there but those would probably be the two best places.

Thank you for joining us on the show.

Thank you so much. It was fun having a good conversation with you.

 

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About Ethan Ho

Zero to a Hundred - Jarrod Guy Randolph | Ethan Ho | MindsetBorn and raised on Oahu, Ethan grew up with a passion for business and an immense interest in the subject of money. He graduated from Punahou School on Oahu and went on to Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business in New York City and London, where he gained a deeper understanding of his passions for money, entrepreneurship, and marketing.

With over twelve years of client-facing industry experience and the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ certificate, Ethan has a deep understanding of personal finance and what it takes for people to achieve their goals.

As an Eagle Scout, Ethan has adopted the same scouting mottos and principles into his business practices. These guiding principles are the foundation he leans on while building trust and demonstrating his competency as an advisor. When Ethan is not working you can find him surfing ocean swells, diving for seashells with his wife, Marissa, taking sunrise strolls with his daughter Velzy, playing fetch or hiking with his dog, Luna, and practicing the martial art of Jiu-Jitsu.