I Tell Stories From the Farm. Here's Why That Works.
Thirty-three years of sitting across from people at some of the most stressful moments of their lives will teach you something about communication. What I've learned is this: complexity isn't the problem. The real problem is that most financial conversations never connect to anything the person in the chair already understands. So they nod, they smile, and they leave just as confused as when they walked in. That's not planning. That's performance. And I decided a long time ago I wasn't interested in performing.
The principle I've built my practice on is simple: every person carries a mental world of images and experiences that already makes sense to them. My job is to find a concept inside that world and use it to explain the one they don't yet understand. For me, growing up in the rural Ozark hills, that world is a farm. Ten cows, goats, llamas, a donkey named Larry. I know what it means when a fence is down, when a season turns, when something that looked like a loss turns into something useful. Those images are alive for me, and when I use them with a client, they come alive for the client too.
Here's where this gets real. One evening I was teaching a retirement adult education class at the local university. At the break, a man in his mid-60s came bounding up to me as he headed to the restroom. He stopped just long enough to say, "You just changed my life." A few weeks later he sat in my office and told me the full story. He was a dentist. His office administrator had stolen more than $1 million in payroll taxes. He didn't find out until the IRS showed up at his door. His original plan, as dark as this is to say, was to take his own life so his wife could collect the life insurance. He changed his mind on the way there, came to my class, and heard something in the way I explained retirement and tax strategy that made him think a viable path forward might actually exist. It did. We built a plan. He retired. He now restores old cars, which is what he always wanted to do.
I don't tell that story to take credit for something that belongs to him. I tell it because it illustrates what happens when an idea lands clearly. He didn't need a more sophisticated financial model. He needed to hear the concept in a language that made the possibility feel real. The story did that work. The numbers came after.
Tax strategy is where this matters most in my day-to-day work. Taxes are the least understood and most feared corner of personal finance, and the IRS is the government agency most people treat like a threat rather than a system with rules that actually work in your favor when you use them correctly. I teach clients to respect the IRS, not fear it. The tax code doesn't just spell out what you owe. It tells you clearly how to reduce what you owe. Most people have simply never had someone explain that in plain terms. When I find the right illustration, whether it's from farming or from their own profession, I can watch the light come on. That moment is the whole job.
This is also why I ask so many questions before I ever suggest a strategy. A visitor spending a day in my office would probably be surprised by how long we go without talking about money at all. We tell clients to leave their checkbook at home. Just bring their picture of what a good retirement looks like. Because once I understand what they're actually trying to build, I can find the story that connects their current situation to the plan that gets them there. Listening is the work. The recommendations come from listening, not the other way around.
I've presented to CPAs, doctors, dentists, and federal employees. I've been on NBC and CBS, hosted a radio show, and taught at four universities. In every one of those settings, the approach is the same. Find the shared image. Build the bridge. Let the idea travel across it. I believe that's what financial planning is supposed to do, and it's the standard I intend to keep.