Chad Hufford, founder of Veritas Wealth Management, gives a thought-provoking dialogue about the intersection of leadership and lifelong learning. Chad, a prolific reader, impresses upon listeners the profound impact of reading on leadership skills and personal growth. He reads over 120 books annually, drawing from a variety of genres to enrich his understanding and application of leadership principles.

Throughout the conversation, Chad introduces the concept of "intellectual obesity," warning against the dangers of information hoarding without application. He stresses the importance of executing ideas and learning through action, challenging the paralysis that can come from over-planning and perfectionism. His insights emphasize that true leadership is demonstrated through courage and the willingness to implement imperfect ideas in pursuit of continuous improvement.

Key highlights from the podcast include:

• Leadership through learning: Chad advocates for a model of leadership that values continuous intellectual engagement and practical application.
• Overcoming intellectual obesity: He encourages leaders to move from knowledge accumulation to action, highlighting the necessity of applying what one learns.
• The courage to execute: Discussing the balance of fear and action, Chad believes in pushing forward with ideas to see real-world results, thereby fostering a cycle of learning and adapting.

Want to learn more about Chad Hufford's work? Check out their website at https://www.veritasalaska.com.

Connect with Chad Hufford on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/chad-hufford-066208100/.

Key Points with Time Stamps

• [00:01:49-00:02:00] Chad discusses the personal aspect of his book reading habit.
• [00:06:24-00:06:54] Chad talks about lifelong learning beyond formal education.
• [00:07:35-00:07:55] Concept of "intellectual obesity" introduced.
• [00:10:30-00:10:55] Discussion on the necessity of executing ideas rather than striving for perfection.
• [00:18:11-00:18:33] Chad explores how action can be an antidote to fear.
• [00:24:19-00:24:57] The importance of having a clear business vision and not reacting to external pressures.
• [00:33:04-00:33:28] Chad promotes his book, "Forging Financial Freedom," emphasizing a mindset of independence and proactive living.

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment of my career.

00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;10
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on the show.

00;00;51;10 - 00;01;21;01
Craig Andrews
Today, I want to welcome Chad Hufford. He is the founder of Veritas Wealth Management, which is based in Anchorage, Alaska. He's helping a lot of people in the oil industry, achieve their financial freedom. But there's something that Chad's one of the few people I've met that just devours books on average. average year, he'll read 120 books.

00;01;21;04 - 00;01;33;06
Craig Andrews
And that is just. That's more than two a week. And so people who do that always fascinate me. I think this is going to be an amazing conversation. So, Chad, welcome.

00;01;33;08 - 00;01;49;25
Chad Hufford
Hey, thank you so much, Greg. I appreciate the introduction. some people might be impressed by the books. my wife just teases me for being a nerd, like, all the time. And I tell her I was like, Tiffany, when you met me, I was finishing up a biochemistry degree. Like, I feel like my cards were on the table.

00;01;49;25 - 00;02;00;07
Chad Hufford
You knew you were getting a dork out of this. So don't. Don't act like you're surprised that I'm a bit on the nerdy side, but, she still likes to tease me about it, so I'm glad that you appreciate it.

00;02;00;09 - 00;02;20;21
Craig Andrews
Yeah. No, it's it's impressive. You know, I just I'm a slow reader. I don't I like to read. I don't read that fast. And, I mean, I'm always impressed by people who do. And, and so, so what type of books do you. Yeah. So in the next two weeks, what type of books will you be reading?

00;02;20;29 - 00;02;51;21
Chad Hufford
Okay. So I try to read at least one faith based book every month and one health or fitness or physiological based book every month. at least one business based book every month. and obviously, you know, some books some months. There's, there's multiples of those. sometimes I'll, I've been trying to read more history. and every now and then I'll throw a fiction book in there.

00;02;51;23 - 00;03;16;10
Chad Hufford
I there's a, there's almost a sense of like, guilt, like, oh, this is entertainment. but I think as as you as you well know, I mean, reading fiction is, is shown to increase creativity. And, kind of expand the way you think. And so I think there's benefits to, to all those things. But, those are the three categories that I try to hit every single month.

00;03;16;12 - 00;03;42;17
Chad Hufford
right now, I'm reading a, the faith based book that I'm reading is really focused on family. it's called Take Back Your Family. I'm reading a book, business related book, by Morgan Housel, called The Psychology of Money, which is absolutely fantastic, even if people are not super interested, the money side of it is, it's a very, very well-written book.

00;03;42;20 - 00;04;07;20
Chad Hufford
as it can be very rare in the financial industry, which I know. so those are two books I'm working on right now, and, I'm not sure what my next one is. I've got a couple in the in the hopper. but, one of the ones that I'm looking at is an Eric Larson book, who's, he writes about historical events, but he writes so well, you'd swear it was,

00;04;07;23 - 00;04;18;23
Chad Hufford
You swear it was fiction. So he's got a couple books out there. He's got a new one that, it's a big one, but it might be my next, kind of fun read, so to speak.

00;04;18;25 - 00;04;41;07
Craig Andrews
Well, I'll. I'll throw in two recommendations. One is hope that won't die. My wife and I co-wrote that. And it's about my early departure from this world. And and the other book is Make Sales magical, which, is actually not a sales book. It's a marketing book. I, I think I screwed up in the naming of it. Everybody thinks I'm a sales consultant.

00;04;41;07 - 00;05;09;29
Craig Andrews
I'm like, no, no, no, I'm a marketing guy. And when the marketing is done right, the sales are magical. But, the when I was writing Hope that won't Die. one Friday night, I was sitting down with, mentor of mine. The one that I mentioned previously just absolutely berated me, in front of a group of people about how horrible my writing was and that particular example.

00;05;10;01 - 00;05;35;11
Craig Andrews
And I told him, I said, you know, I it's I've written the introduction to the book, and I love it. Absolutely love it. so that were the first chapter, and I hate the first chapter as much as I love the introduction. And he said, you know, you should read travels with Charlie, by John Steinbeck. And he said, it's been it's never gone out of print since 1960, and it's a travelog.

00;05;35;11 - 00;05;57;22
Craig Andrews
And he said that last big thing that he wrote before he died, and he said, it's really well-written. And so I downloaded it to my Kindle that night. And then the next morning, Ireland, flight, and started reading it on the flight. And within 20 minutes, my head was just exploding with words. And so I, I put that down and started working again on one.

00;05;58;00 - 00;06;02;27
Craig Andrews
hope that won't die and just start clicking.

00;06;02;29 - 00;06;24;19
Chad Hufford
And I think that's fantastic. I mean, it's amazing. Again, the creativity that can be initiated with something like that. one of one of my big regrets of my 20s was assuming that because I was no longer in school, that I was no longer a student. You know, once I graduated, in my head, I started telling myself this story that I'm not a student anymore.

00;06;24;22 - 00;06;54;17
Chad Hufford
And it was a really harmful story to tell myself. and I've told my kids, I have six kids, and trying to encourage them, like, and studying is not something you do because you're in school. It's something you should do because there's so much knowledge to unlock, so much creativity that's inside you that hopefully you are embracing and nurturing throughout your entire life, not just between now and when you're 22, when you walk away with the degree that you may or may not be able to use.

00;06;54;19 - 00;07;03;11
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah. We have a yeah, a term that you used. You said something about intellectual obesity. What is that?

00;07;03;14 - 00;07;35;12
Chad Hufford
Well, it's the idea that some of us take in information and and this is, this is something we're very analytical people, people who are avid readers, who are heavy into education, I think can get caught up. And when we take in information and it could be good, but we don't do anything with it. And just like somebody sitting on a couch and eating, eating, eating, even if they're eating healthy food, at some point they're going to experience caloric toxicity where it doesn't matter what you're eating.

00;07;35;14 - 00;07;55;19
Chad Hufford
If you eat too much of it, it's going to start causing problems. And if we don't, if we don't take the information that we're that we're devouring and actually apply it to our life, does it really make that much of a difference? So if I read if I read five books this year on how to be a better husband, but I didn't apply any of it, does it make a difference?

00;07;55;19 - 00;08;08;03
Chad Hufford
I even read that book or any of those books. You know, that's of question I asked myself. So I'm trying to have a balance between not just taking in information, but making sure I'm executing it as well. Yeah.

00;08;08;05 - 00;08;33;08
Craig Andrews
No. And that's so valuable. And I'll tell you, I just in a moment of honesty, I think that I may be guilty of some of what you're talking about. I love, one of my temptations is if I hear about some place in the news or something, I'll dig in and I'll start reading and studying about it. I'm just fascinated by it.

00;08;33;10 - 00;08;59;01
Craig Andrews
And but at the end of that, okay, I know some stuff about some obscure place that I'll probably never visit, but it's, I often feel guilty of. It does feel like that story of gluttony, intellectual gluttony, that what if I had taken that time and and I used it to study something that I could put to work this week.

00;08;59;04 - 00;09;25;08
Chad Hufford
Now, here's here's where it gets really subtle and dangerous, though, when it is something you could put to work this week, but you still don't when it's something that direct relates to what you could be doing. So in my line of work, it could be a financial planner studying maybe a marketing idea or studying, economic data, which I believe is more destructive, maybe distracting at best.

00;09;25;08 - 00;09;51;06
Chad Hufford
But anyways. But studying something that does relate to their day to day work, their, their profession, I think that's where it gets the most dangerous, because I think a lot of times, Craig, the I think perfectionism is, is often very well disguised procrastination by by planning and learning and researching, we we give ourselves permission to not act well.

00;09;51;06 - 00;10;06;28
Chad Hufford
I just need to study this little bit more. I just I want to revise. I want to revise this draft a couple more times. What some at some point you just got to ship the thing, you know, some you have to put that new product, that new plan, that new idea out in the marketplace. And you might have a mentor say, Craig, that was crap.

00;10;06;28 - 00;10;30;05
Chad Hufford
That was the worst thing I've ever read. But now you can go back and revise it. But nothing is ever going to be perfect. I think there's and I'm I'm preaching myself right now. There's a lot of people who are so concerned about getting it right, getting it perfect. They sometimes never actually produce the thing. And I've had to remind myself a lot, especially when when I was writing my book, that that done is better than perfect.

00;10;30;06 - 00;10;55;19
Chad Hufford
There will never be a perfect business plan. There will never be a perfect investment of perfect budget, a perfect, perfect diet, a perfect workout plan. At some point we just need to execute. And where I get where that intellectual obesity, where it gets me is when it is something that's very much related to what I'm doing. And I've noticed, okay, I've read 3 or 4 books on this now I just need to go do the thing and I can learn as I go.

00;10;55;21 - 00;11;06;01
Chad Hufford
But one of the things that I've had, another thing I've try to remind myself of, is we can always learn by doing, but I'll never be able to do by learning.

00;11;06;03 - 00;11;22;14
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Well, there's a one of my favorite quotes, ever is by George Patton. He said a good plan violently executed today beats a perfect plan executed next week.

00;11;22;16 - 00;11;23;17
Chad Hufford
Yes.

00;11;23;19 - 00;11;48;00
Craig Andrews
And yeah. So another book, if you haven't read it yet is War. War as I knew it. His wife compiled, letters that he wrote to her during the war. And there's so much wisdom in that. The dude was just wicked smart and very, very practical. He's also the only, he was the only Allied commander that Field Marshal Rommel actually feared.

00;11;49;27 - 00;12;01;19
Craig Andrews
But that whole principle of take something you have back to what you were talking about, the perfectionism or the procrastination. However, that lines up.

00;12;01;21 - 00;12;12;15
Craig Andrews
Get to know enough of a concept and then push it out there and try it instead of constantly perfecting it, because it will never be perfect.

00;12;12;17 - 00;12;36;13
Chad Hufford
And so, to give you another quote from another World War Two general, along the same lines, Eisenhower said, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. So no matter how perfect I'm doing, air quotes for our listeners who can't see us, no matter how perfect your plan appears to be when it meets the real world, you will realize, okay, there's stuff I've got to revise.

00;12;36;13 - 00;12;59;27
Chad Hufford
I've got to change. But. And here's where I think my biochemistry background is really powerful for me because I am a recovering perfectionist. And if I'm really honest with myself, it wasn't perfection I was after. It was I wanted guarantees against failure. I wanted I didn't want to step out into the unknown and experience failure or rejection. So I call it perfectionism.

00;12;59;27 - 00;13;22;28
Chad Hufford
But what it really was was fear of the unknown. And what was really good for me about about biochemistry is we had to run these experiments and they were experiments and we had a vision. We had an idea for how we wanted the experiment to, to result. Like what was the outcome. And it almost never was the outcome we wanted.

00;13;23;00 - 00;13;42;12
Chad Hufford
But we weren't so much married to the outcome. As much as we were interested in the process to learn as much as we could now, it wasn't that we weren't studying. It wasn't that we weren't researching. We put a lot of time and effort into planning the experiment. But once a week, sometimes twice a week, we just have to run these experiments.

00;13;42;14 - 00;14;04;15
Chad Hufford
Sometimes they went well, sometimes they didn't, but we had to run. We always ran the experiments and we we did prepare. We did plan, but there was a finite limit to it. And at some point we just had to go execute. And then we learned from that process as well. So the learning didn't stop once, once we shipped our product or idea into the lab, it was just a different type of learning.

00;14;04;15 - 00;14;24;21
Chad Hufford
So I think as individuals, especially as entrepreneurs, we have to think about it that way. Like, yeah, you're you don't want you. You don't want to knowingly put a crappy product or a crappy idea out there, but you won't learn how good ideas really could impact or how good the idea could be until you get it out there and start revising it.

00;14;24;21 - 00;14;45;24
Chad Hufford
Hearing feedback, hearing some criticism. you know, that's why we've got like, what, iPhone 16 now? I mean, this wasn't the first version of the iPhone. It's gotten a little bit better every time they've revised it. Listen to feedback. The technology has improved, but had they waited until they had an iPhone 16, there'd be some other company. We would Apple might not even be here today.

00;14;45;24 - 00;15;06;29
Chad Hufford
So I think it's just that willingness to to step into the unknown with something that we know is far from perfect. And we're not we're not we're not committed to mediocrity, but we're also saying, I'm going to put this out there. As good as it is right now, as good as I can make it right now with the commitment to make it continually better.

00;15;06;29 - 00;15;09;21
Chad Hufford
And I think that's the differentiator now.

00;15;09;21 - 00;15;43;23
Craig Andrews
And I like that. I think that's a you know, it's a really good, perspective because one of the things that happens is when you take a step forward, you discover parts of the world that you didn't previously understand, and that's going to adjust your strategy. And I think that ties back into the Eisenhower quote. and, you know, it was it made me when you said that, I laughed because it made me wonder if, Mike Tyson was reading Eisenhower because Mike Tyson said, everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face.

00;15;44;14 - 00;15;47;02
Craig Andrews
Which is almost exactly the same idea.

00;15;47;03 - 00;15;48;19
Chad Hufford
Yeah. Yep.

00;15;48;22 - 00;16;17;15
Craig Andrews
But that's the thing. You take a step forward and you learn something and but you have to, you have to get it out there, you have to get the idea out there. I mean the original iPad was basically a $500 solitaire tablet. It did nothing. There were no apps for it. It did nothing. You know, for 500 bucks you could play a few stupid games.

00;16;17;18 - 00;16;37;09
Craig Andrews
And yeah, I remember I, you know, when somebody in my family got one of the original iPads and said, I can't check it out. And I did, and I was like, I looked at it. I was like, what do you do with this? You said, I play games. And but they got it out there and became a platform where people started developing for the App Store.

00;16;37;11 - 00;17;02;06
Craig Andrews
the second generation was way more powerful. And the same story is true with the iPhone. the first generation iPhone. It was supposed to be a data phone, and it completely sucked as a data phone. the second I mean, I remember sitting in a in a restaurant in Fredericksburg, Texas with some guy, and he was sitting there with his iPhone, pulling up a web page, and you're just sitting there watching it slowly grind.

00;17;02;09 - 00;17;23;25
Craig Andrews
And it's like when this comes up, it's going to look really cool. And we're just sitting there waiting and waiting and waiting. It's sucked as a data phone, but he got it out there, got, you know, and was able to learn from that and then make, the next you know, I think the next one was the iPhone 3G, which was a lot better.

00;17;23;28 - 00;17;51;19
Chad Hufford
And I think to your point, we can get so focused on on being perfect rather than committing to those iterations about, you know, slowly getting it's it's not so much about where we are. It's a lot of times the direction we're headed. Are we constantly improving or are we becoming better? Our business is improving and and I think in, in business, you hear these gurus talk about, you know, feel no fear and, you know, be fearless in the marketplace.

00;17;51;21 - 00;18;11;22
Chad Hufford
I just don't know that that's great advice because I don't if we wait until we don't feel fear, we're going to sit on our ideas all day long, like our ideas will never be put out there. Because I think I think it's stepping forward with that fear. And I believe that, action is one of the great antidotes to fear.

00;18;11;25 - 00;18;33;20
Chad Hufford
And in inaction is, I think, a a a garden of fear. I mean, the longer we sit on on inaction and we procrastinate, we think of all the what ifs, all the bad things can happen, all the criticism that fear just grows it. It nurtures fear. But but I think action can dispel it.

00;18;33;22 - 00;18;38;02
Craig Andrews
Will encourage, has no meaning. In the absence of fear.

00;18;38;04 - 00;18;40;11
Chad Hufford
Exactly.

00;18;40;13 - 00;18;46;05
Craig Andrews
It's impossible for you to be courageous. Unless you're scared. Then you're just stupid.

00;18;46;08 - 00;19;09;07
Chad Hufford
Yeah, if there's no fear, you're reckless. You don't. You don't want to go into battle with somebody who's fearless. He's going to get you all killed. Yeah, you need fear, but you need. You need to be in control of your fear and have it as an ally, not as not as a dictator. And I think too often, fear can dictate what we do rather than be a consideration.

00;19;09;07 - 00;19;13;25
Chad Hufford
It should influence what we do. But it shouldn't control what we do.

00;19;13;27 - 00;19;48;21
Craig Andrews
So your specialty is obviously growing well and and what have you. And and so speaking of fear, let's the the economy right now there's so many people talking about what's going on with the economy is it should they sit on cash. Should they not sit on cash. It's there is a lot of fear around the economy. And what would be your advice as somebody who's looking at the financial markets every day and keeping your head in that space.

00;19;48;24 - 00;20;17;07
Chad Hufford
So you're you're absolutely correct. There's a tremendous amount of uncertainty right now. And there's another time that this reminds me of. and it's every other day that I've been alive. There is always an uncertainty. And if you think about even just the last 50 years, we had, you just saw 50 years ago, Nixon left the office, presidential office, with Watergate scandal.

00;20;17;08 - 00;20;43;09
Chad Hufford
We had OPEC, in the oil embargoes, the energy crisis going on. You had crazy inflation starting to build up throughout the 70s. meanwhile, interest rates were starting to, to climb, not unlike some of the things we're dealing with right now. That was with the entire backdrop of the Soviet Union and the Cold War. And then we go into the 1980 and there's assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan.

00;20;43;12 - 00;21;16;28
Chad Hufford
You had, the, the just before that, the rescue attempt, of the Iranian hostages, which went horribly, actually the first, Delta Force operation, you had, the, the saving the loans collapse in the 90s. You had in 1987, the biggest single day stock market crash. we're not even halfway between 1970 and now. And like all this up yet the the, the Gulf War, all these different things, like the world is always uncertain.

00;21;16;28 - 00;21;45;24
Chad Hufford
It's always scary. And what's different I think about today is because of the technology we just talked about. We can hear about all of the uncertainty, all the bad things faster than ever before. And I just don't know if we are hard wired to be able to deal with that much potential bad potential harm, that we're able to have at our fingertips on a moment's notice, I don't I, I mean, this is all very new.

00;21;45;24 - 00;21;55;17
Chad Hufford
It's just been the last 10 or 15 years we've had this type of access to so much bad news and doom and gloom, and I don't think the human psyche is is designed to handle it.

00;21;55;20 - 00;22;08;10
Craig Andrews
Well, let's go back to this iPhone story. I'm sitting in the restaurant in Fredericksburg for you to look up at what was going on. The stock market was would take like 60s to download time. Now it's instant.

00;22;08;10 - 00;22;08;24
Chad Hufford
Yes.

00;22;08;24 - 00;22;15;27
Craig Andrews
And so you can you can scare the crap out of yourself in a split second any time of day you want.

00;22;15;29 - 00;22;43;00
Chad Hufford
Yep. Yeah. Anything bad in the world going on right now? You can find all about it instantaneously. And anything that might be bad in the future, you can find out about it instantaneously. And what it does is it distracts us from our long term goals and it distracts us from our own agency. People get so focused on what's going on around them that they forget to to put effort and time and energy into what they can actually control.

00;22;43;06 - 00;22;48;01
Chad Hufford
And we give away our power. We give away our agency. We give away our control.

00;22;48;03 - 00;23;05;01
Craig Andrews
Wow. So what would you recommend to businesses? First I would say, look, I'm just trying to make good, thoughtful decisions for my business because I have a payroll. To me, you know, my decisions impact the lives of others. What would you tell them?

00;23;05;03 - 00;23;26;13
Chad Hufford
The same thing I would tell investors, is have some clear goals, some clear objectives for what you want your life or your business to look like. And then reverse engineer that. We want to have a plan. You know, you wouldn't want to live in a house that was built without a blueprint. You wouldn't want a a financial plan or a business that doesn't have a blueprint as well.

00;23;26;13 - 00;23;58;00
Chad Hufford
So the way I think of it, Craig, is if you have a plan, you can act on a plan. If you don't have a plan, you're more likely to react to the crazy world around us. So having a plan, you have that plan changes we already talked about. No plan survives first contact with the enemy, but what it does, it gives you something to proactively work towards so you're less likely to to react or respond to all the uncertainty around us.

00;23;58;00 - 00;24;19;27
Chad Hufford
And then then you can iterate, right? but a lot of people don't have that. They're making businesses decisions based on emotions or peer pressure or whatever. They really don't have a design for where my actions today line up with my desired business three, five, ten, 15 years down the road. And it's like asking for directions without a destination.

00;24;19;27 - 00;24;36;22
Chad Hufford
Well, this road looks fine and this road looks fine. And that road has a few more potholes, so I'm not going to go down that road. But what if that road is the most the road with the potholes? That's all we can see. But that road is the most direct path. If we don't have a destination, it's really hard to take the right directions.

00;24;36;22 - 00;24;57;14
Chad Hufford
And I think a lot of people, a lot of businesses, don't have clear destinations for where they want to end up even five years down the road. So they aren't being proactive, they're being very reactionary. And rarely do we make good decisions, good long term decisions when we're reacting to the emotional triggers in our environment.

00;24;57;16 - 00;25;27;18
Craig Andrews
You know, we did, a number of years ago, we were marketing a financial newsletter. And so in our research, we we found some behavioral economics, data on, individual stock pickers. And it was really interesting what came out of that. And I'm trying to remember the exact language, but basically, the, the behavior of individual investors was heavily influenced.

00;25;27;21 - 00;25;56;16
Craig Andrews
They prided themselves as being pioneers, but they were really part of a herd. And when everybody was telling them to sell, they would sell. When everybody was saying to buy, they would buy and always put them at a disadvantage. they would hold onto losers and sell winners. And it was just all these behaviors that was really responding to the herd mentality rather than, like you're saying, setting that destination to say, hey, you know what?

00;25;56;18 - 00;26;15;02
Craig Andrews
I know on average, you know, after five years, this is what I should expect, and I'm just going to stick to it, or I'm going to put it in the hands of somebody like, Veritas to kind of map that out for me, take me out of the emotional equation and, and just stick to that path.

00;26;15;04 - 00;26;32;00
Chad Hufford
Well, and just to use that metaphor of the herd, I think that's perfect because if you don't know where you're going, the most likely path is the one that everybody else is on. Like, well, if if I don't know where I want to end up, if I don't know where I should go, I'm just going to follow everybody else, follow the crowd like that.

00;26;32;00 - 00;26;59;10
Chad Hufford
I think that is the path of least resistance. If I don't have clear direction, I'm just going to go with a large group of people. And what's difficult about that was harmful about that is too often we would rather be wrong in a crowd than be right by ourselves. and, and we have normalized in our world unhealthy behavior, whether it's bad, bad diets, bad workout plans, bad financial decisions.

00;26;59;10 - 00;27;31;24
Chad Hufford
I mean, we've normalized being broke, depressed, in debt, lonely, frustrated, like all those things. Obese. All those things have been normalized in our culture. That's the herd we have to be willing to to break off from the herd. But we have to know where does we want to go. And when you talk about following the herd from a business standpoint, if I'm a business owner and if only everybody else is doing they have, they might have different business goals, they might have a different business strategy, they might have a completely different market than I do, even if they're in my same industry.

00;27;31;26 - 00;27;54;08
Chad Hufford
And it'd be like following somebody else's directions and wondering why you got lost. You have a different destination, you have a different starting place, but you still follow their direct directions. You're dancing to somebody else's music and it's frustrating. It can be. It can be painful, and so many people are doing it. So I think having a vision again, this is set in stone.

00;27;54;08 - 00;28;14;09
Chad Hufford
This isn't chipping into two blocks and having, you know, Moses coming down the mountain, but it's a vision of where you want your business to be in three years, five years, ten years, and then trying to reverse engineer those decisions and say, okay, here's the choices I'm making today. How does that line up with where I said I wanted to be in five and ten years?

00;28;14;15 - 00;28;36;08
Chad Hufford
It's a really good question to ask ourselves is it perfect? No. Or are you still going to make mistakes? Absolutely. Can you still learn from those mistakes? Sure. But it gives you a construct. I think you said earlier, it's like guardrails. You're putting up guardrails and you automatically limit the universe of decisions because so many of the choices out there don't line up with where you're trying to get to.

00;28;36;08 - 00;28;51;24
Chad Hufford
Now, the decision you might make may or may not work to getting you closer to your long term goal, but you can eliminate the the large majority of potential decisions because, you know, right now they don't line up at all with your goals and what you're trying to get to.

00;28;51;26 - 00;29;14;05
Craig Andrews
Yeah, well, and something I run into periodically is I'll have a client who says, look, our competition is doing this. Why don't we just copy that? And there's a couple problems with that. As one, when you do that, you're mathematically limiting yourself to being average. the other problem, I said, how do you know what you're copying is one of their successes?

00;29;14;08 - 00;29;18;23
Craig Andrews
What if what you're copying is one of their failures?

00;29;18;25 - 00;29;39;03
Chad Hufford
Oh my gosh. You know, here's what I see it in my industry. And it's so true. Is you could be copying somebody else's mistakes and not know it. And in what we have in our world right now. So just I'm going to go into personal finance for just a moment, if I may. But what we see is not wealth.

00;29;39;03 - 00;30;01;07
Chad Hufford
We see consumption. So when somebody is posting on Instagram the the exotic vacation that they went on or they're standing in front of their, their new car or, giving you a tour of their, their big, beautiful house. That's not wealth. If if you pull up to my house and a $250,000 car. I don't know if you're wealthy or if you're just in a lot of debt.

00;30;01;10 - 00;30;25;13
Chad Hufford
What I do know is you have $250,000 less than you used to have. That's it. Yeah. You know, but but that's what we look at. And that's what especially this younger generation, you know, people in their 20s, 30s are chasing. They're chasing consumption, not financial freedom. What we see is the exact opposite of what we see is people spending their wealth, spending their money on things.

00;30;25;15 - 00;30;44;26
Chad Hufford
And, and it's it's exactly what you just said it were copying other people's mistakes, like, oh, I see this person who appears to be wealthy driving this really nice car. I need a really nice car. No, it's the this exact wrong thing to do, but it's the obvious thing, and that's what gets people's attention.

00;30;44;28 - 00;31;13;13
Craig Andrews
Yeah. You know, Austin Austin's changed a lot, but when I first moved here, Austin was famous for what they called the Oak Hill millionaires. Oak Hills, a district, a region in southwest Austin. And the basic advice was, if you see some guy that looks at a bum, looks like a bum sitting having lunch next to you, most likely he's worth many times what you're worth.

00;31;13;16 - 00;31;30;08
Craig Andrews
my wife worked at a bank before we met. She worked at a bank, and she said, there's this kind of homeless looking guy that would come in on Fridays and make a large cash withdrawal. And finally, one day she's like, who is this guy? Because he just he looked homeless. He had none of the trappings of wealth.

00;31;30;11 - 00;31;53;01
Craig Andrews
And they said, oh, that's Tito of Tito's vodka. he likes to gamble. And he was just. That was his gambling money they would pick up every week. Not that that was not that, you know, shown as prudence, but his everything else about him didn't say, you know, he wasn't wearing the Rolex watch. He wasn't wearing the expensive suit.

00;31;53;01 - 00;31;56;15
Craig Andrews
He wasn't driving the expensive car.

00;31;56;18 - 00;32;16;19
Chad Hufford
And, and and what we see, even for the people that do have wealth, what we notice are the trappings of that success. Not all the sacrifices that they made to get there. We see we see the side effects of their wealth, not the causes. And it could be very misleading to a lot of people.

00;32;16;21 - 00;32;38;17
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Chad I but I, we could go on forever. I'm just I'm absolutely loving this conversation and and maybe we, we do it again because I just think you have so much wisdom. But real quick, you have a book out there called Forging Financial Freedom. What's that about and why should people get it?

00;32;38;19 - 00;33;04;10
Chad Hufford
It's a book that's more about mindset and taking control of the trajectory of your life. I'm applying it to finances, but so much what we talked about today, I touch on in that book because, as I mentioned, we have normalized a lot of bad behavior in many areas of life. And in our culture there. What is normal, what the herd is doing is not the direction we want to go.

00;33;04;13 - 00;33;28;27
Chad Hufford
So with this book does is to free people up from feeling like they have to follow what everybody else is doing to create their own path and to pursue financial independence, to pursue freedom. Because what I've seen is when people experience freedom and victory in their financial life, then that has a ripple effect in many, many other areas because, ultimately after is people experiencing abundance.

00;33;28;27 - 00;33;41;10
Chad Hufford
And I'm not just talking about abundance from a money standpoint, but autonomy and meaningful pursuit and the ability to chase what matters most in their life. That's what I'm after, and that's what this book is going to help people do.

00;33;41;12 - 00;33;45;05
Craig Andrews
Awesome. And how do folks find you?

00;33;45;07 - 00;34;05;08
Chad Hufford
Veritas Alaska is are very hot toss alaska.com. And we're not just based in in Alaska where we were founded. We've got folks all over the United States that we help. And then we're Veritas Dot Alaska on Instagram. We're trying to every day post encouraging, uplifting and educational content. Wow.

00;34;05;11 - 00;34;15;10
Craig Andrews
Chad, this is just been such an exciting conversation. And, I think we may have to have you back again. I, but thank you for coming on Leaders and Legacies.

00;34;15;13 - 00;34;24;01
Chad Hufford
Greg, it's been a pleasure. I've joined our conversations, and it's an honor to be able to speak to you and your audience.

00;34;24;01 - 00;34;52;27
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Alize for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this episode on social media.

00;34;52;29 - 00;35;16;11
Craig Andrews
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00;35;16;13 - 00;37;26;27
Craig Andrews
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