When your savings in any one of your accounts reaches over $250k, it becomes just as important to protect it as it is to continue to grow it. Most people know how to grow their money through investments, but most people don’t know how to protect it from a major market crash or a bank failure. If your capital is over $250k in any one of your accounts, here’s how to protect it.

I believe the Bible and business go hand in hand. I’m very big on the family business and how it can work practically, and Biblically, on a very high level.

If you don’t know me, my name is David Mitchell and I’m the founder and CEO of TRADEway. I’m also the senior pastor of Park Meadows Church, and involved in several other businesses.  I have 5 grown kids, and 13 grandkids (so far). 

The Old System and the New System

I believe a family business is the best way to create a legacy that lasts for generations. If you go to the beginning of our nation, most people were part of a family business. A lot of these businesses were agricultural–they would work on the farm together each day. Or if they owned a store, they would teach the kids the skill set of how to run that store.

I talk to people around the country about what I call “the old system and the new system.” It usually makes people a bit angry when they hear this and they start thinking about it.

In the new system, you take your kid, who you love more than anything, and you send them off to college to learn something no one in the family has ever done. They’re taught by someone who doesn’t love them. They go work for someone who hates them. (The reason they hate them is that if they’re very smart, your kid will take their job. So they’re not going to teach them the skills–at least not all of them–because your child is their competition). At this point, your child is trading their infinitely valuable time for a little bit of someone else’s money, and every single generation starts over in this endless cycle. That’s what I call “the new system.”

“The old system” is your child taking part in your family business and learning the skill sets passed down from previous generations. I was fortunate to grow up with the old system. I am a fourth generation family businessman, and my grandkids are now the 6th generation.  Let me explain a bit more how “the old system” works by telling my story…

My Family Business Story

Pictured from left to right: My great-grandfather, C.L. Brown; my grandfather, E.G. Hall; my father, Fred Mitchell with me on his shoulders; and me giving a talk in Hawaii.

My great grandfather C.L. Brown got into the oil business in Texas many years ago. It took him his whole life working in an oil field to save up enough money to buy that oil field. He had to borrow about 80% of the money from a bank to buy it. The very next year, he had made enough money to pay the bank off in full. It was the largest oil field in the world just a few years before he bought it. Then he bought some oil fields in east Texas and west Texas. Since he had spent his life working in the oil fields, he knew everything from top to bottom about how an oil field works.

He taught all of that to his favorite daughter and her husband, Elvis Hall, or E.G. Hall as he was known. Elvis was actually the first guy in the family to have a college degree. So Elvis was taught all of these skill sets and the company kept growing.

At that point my grandfather had a problem. He had a lot of money laying around and he didn’t know what to do with it (bad problem huh?). So he decided to learn how to be a stock and bond trader. I remember sitting on his knee when I was little, listening to him talk to brokers. Back then, you had to call your broker on the phone and say, “I need you to buy 500 shares of such and such stock.” The broker would try to tell him, “Mr. Hall, these are three great stocks that just came down the pike, and you need to buy some of these.” And he’d wait a second or two and start cussing at him (real oilmen cuss worse than a sailor, not that I condone that) and he’d say, “I already have my list. I want you to buy this many shares of this, this many shares of that, and this many shares of that.” At eight years old, I learned that you don’t let your broker or your financial advisor tell you what to buy. It’s important that you learn to make your own list.

All of those skill sets were then taught to my dad and my mom. And they taught them to me, and I taught them to my five grown kids, and now we’re teaching them to my 13 grandbabies.

The Power of Compounding Skill Sets in Family Businesses

Here’s what happens in a multi-generational family business: In every generation–not only are you passing down the skill sets of my great grandfather, the oil man, but you’re also passing down the skill sets of my grandfather, who mastered stocks.

Now you’ve got my great grandfather, grandfather, my dad–and now I’ve got the benefit of all of those skill sets. And I’ve learned a few more things and taught them to my kids. And not only that–any ideas your child has, the family finances it. You don’t have to go to the bank and pay the bank interest. So now you’ve got generational wealth.

So which system do you like better–the new system or the old system? In the new system, your family has to start over every generation. I’ve never seen real wealth created that way. It doesn’t give you enough momentum.

Today, my daughter, Katie Huber, is the C.O.O. of TRADEway, and she runs all of it with her husband, Dave Huber. I don’t make any decisions without talking to the two of them. Although lately it’s kind of the other way around! They’re making all of the decisions and sometimes they talk to me. But I kind of like it that way because I have 13 grandbabies. I don’t need to be at the office all the time these days, and I prefer that.

Pictured above: My son, Ben Mitchell.

Why We Started TRADEway

You might ask, if we already had the successful family oil business–where we’re set for life, and our kids are set for life–why go and start another business by starting TRADEway? After all, for many people, the objective of work is getting to a place where one day you don’t have to do it anymore. Hadn’t we already reached that point?

It was because my wife Charlotte and I got to thinking–what if our children don’t like the oil business? What if we could create a new business that has enough divisions where if our children had an idea that’s their own, we could bring it in and make it a division, finance it and it becomes part of the business? So that’s what we did with TRADEway. We thought if we did that, then maybe one or two out of our five kids would work with us and our grandbabies would be near. What ended up happening was that all five of them wanted to.

Ben Mitchell, my son, wanted to start something with precious metals. He’s a great stock trader, by the way. So we started a precious metals division of TRADEway. He built the whole thing, and he did that when he was 20. Yes, I said 20!

So it worked. And you have to think the Lord kind of put that in our minds. He also put it in the Bible. Because, as my friend Dr. Myron Golden says, “The kingdom of God is a family business.” I’ve used Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as my model. It wasn’t that I was thinking, ‘Well, let’s build this thing where we have generational wealth.’ I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking that I wanted to work with my kids and see my grandbabies. 

Want to hear more of my origin story from businessman, to preacher, to founder and CEO of TRADEway? Listen to this interview I did with my dear friend Dr. Myron Golden, “Leveraging the Legacy of Family Business.”

Are you ready to get started with your stock trading journey? Book a complimentary strategy session today! We’ll talk you through your goals for learning more about stock trading, and the best ways to get started. 

Blessings,

David Mitchell

Well, isn’t that a good question!  How much do you need to comfortably retire? This is a question for which people have been trying to come up with a simple answer for decades. Many think the answer is one million dollars. Others say more. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer. There is no exact figure one can come up with to “know” they will be able to comfortably retire. The reason for this is that there are so many unknown variables in the future.

The biggest unknown variable is that we simply do not know how long we will live. According to the CDC, the average life expectancy for a male in the United States is 73 years, while the average life expectancy for a female is 79 years. However, if you are healthy, it is not difficult to live well into your 80s or even later. One could narrow it down by looking at family history, but you would still not be able to come up with an exact age.

There are plenty of other unknowns as well, for example, which future laws will change regarding finances. Will taxes increase and if so, how much? Will Social Security still be around when you retire? Other things which need to be considered are what you plan to do in retirement. Do you plan to travel? Will your retired life look simple and modest or will you want to splurge and enjoy some of the finer things in life you did not have time to enjoy when you were working? And then again there are the unknowns about future life circumstances. What will your medical bills be as you grow older? What curveballs will life throw at you that will end up being costly? As you can see there simply is no possible way to determine an exact figure of what your expenses will be in retirement.

Therefore, I think we need to shift our focus and start asking some different questions.  First, I think we need to take a close look at retirement…

The traditional form of retirement of working until you are 65, quitting your job, and discontinuing being productive is actually a fairly new concept, and not a good one either.  Many studies have shown that this harsh transition from working full time to lounging full time actually decreases your life expectancy dramatically. I would also argue this is not what God wants you to do with the last years of your life. All throughout the Bible you can read stories of people following God’s will into their old age and they are always working on the mission God has given them. Obviously, this mission changes as their life progresses. The work they would complete in their old age would be appropriate taking into consideration the limitations that come with aging. They would not quit work and sit around using their time only for self-interests.

Even though we may “retire” and leave our career, we should continue the work God has given us to do. There is much work outside of our job or career that God calls us to do. For some of us that might be teaching Sunday School, or serving in a homeless shelter, or coordinating missions teams for overseas trips. For some it may simply be helping to take care of the grandkids or mentoring younger folks through their life challenges. My wife’s grandmother is still alive at the age of 101 and she is still faithfully fulfilling the task that God has currently laid on her heart. She is a prayer warrior who fervently intercedes in prayer on behalf of all her kids, grandkids, and great grandkids. She is old and frail but she continues to be used by God in mighty ways on a daily basis.

Now, the fact that we continue to work and serve God in the new ways He has laid out for us does not mean we cannot take advantage of some of the extra discretionary time available in retirement. Maybe you have always wanted to do some traveling. I personally love to travel and see as much of God’s beautiful creation as I possibly can. Perhaps, your hobby is carpentry and in retirement you would like to devote more time to this hobby and maybe even use it to bless God’s children. Maybe you love gardening and experience great enjoyment in caring for your plants which God has also created. Your answer could also be a combination of several of these potentials and more. We are all uniquely created.

Retirement will look different for everyone and will probably change as we grow older. The question we should be asking ourselves in retirement is ”How does God want to use me?” In fact, this is the question we should all be asking whether we are retired or not. You may even find that God doesn’t want you to stay at your job grinding it out until you are 65. Maybe He has different plans for you which will take you on a more fruitful path before you hit “retirement age.”

The question posed in this article is “How much do you need to comfortably retire?” We have now discussed a bit what “retire” could mean and what it shouldn’t mean.  Let’s discuss the word “comfortably.” This really is the operative word in the question. How do we define what comfortable retirement is? We could talk about what kind of house you will live in, how much traveling you will do, what kind of cars you will drive, etc. I would argue that we need to look to

God for this answer. If we closely examine God’s Word and seek God’s mission for us in retirement we will quickly see that God doesn’t as much call us to a comfortable retirement as He is calling us to a fruitful retirement. So, the real question should be “How do we continue to be fruitful in retirement?” The answer to this of course will vary person to person based on their giftings, resources, health, personalities, and more.

Our mission at TRADEway is to help Christian families have more resources to use to further God’s Kingdom. As you know we teach trading in the stock market.  One of the beautiful things about this type of business is that you can easily continue trading when you retire. Just because you leave your job or your career does not mean you need to quit trading too.

Having developed trading skills has the potential to substantially reduce the amount of money needed to retire. You simply need a smaller lump sum of money if you continue to bring in an income. Imagine how incredible it would be if your funds did not dwindle or decrease in retirement but instead continued to increase as you got older! This is one of our missions at TRADEway.

TRADEway’s AMPT Program aims to help ease the burden of managing your long-term retirement funds. Too many financial advisors are content with leaving your money in the market with a buy and hold mindset. “Hopefully” there will be enough to comfortably retire whenever you hit retirement age. In the AMPT Program we are not seeking to be merely content. We are also not banking on hope. We look to actively manage funds, using the knowledge and skills of a trader, and the wisdom God has given us to position you to carry out the purpose God has for you now and in retirement.

Now, I hope you have realized by now that I am not trying to avoid the initial question, but instead give you a framework of questions you need to ask yourself and prayers you need to ask God so you can make a wise and informed projection for your finances. You will need to estimate at what age you might leave your employment. You will need to consider how long you might live. You will need to have an idea of what life will look like for you when you are retired and roughly what your expenses would be. Will you have any income at all to help counter the expenses? Again, more questions which will take some contemplation and prayer.

As you can see, the question posed at the beginning is really a myriad of questions. Everyone’s answer will be different. Once you have wrestled and prayed through all of these questions you will better be able to answer the first question. How much do YOU need to comfortably retire?

To learn more about TRADEway’s long-term investment program–AMPT–book a call with one of our incredible reps here.

–David Verbruggen

Speaker, Consultant, Director of Charts & Coach