Landing a Smooth Retirement

By Glenn Ullmann CDFA®

Landing a Smooth Retirement turns conventional wisdom upside down by challenging currently accepted perceptions of how people attain financial independence. This book proves that the path to financial success is bound by four basic principles. Whether you are a sophisticated investor, a highly paid executive or an employee at a retail store, this ground-breaking work will reduce your financial stress by steering you towards traveled paths of success. Creating wealth and maintaining affluence requires changing some basic thinking about investing, taxes, the cost of advice, media, risk, and your control of the process. The real-life stories and simple examples in this book will open doors to a new financial prosperity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664128064

Glenn Ullmann CDFA®

Glenn Ullmann is President of Ullmann Wealth Partners, a wealth management firm with a long history of helping clients achieve financial freedom. Since forming the firm in 2002, Glenn and his team have utilized a customized, goals-based approach incorporating investment management, advanced planning and relationship management to adapt to life changes, reduce financial stress and celebrate progress. A graduate of the US Air Force Academy and a recipient of a MA from the University of Oklahoma, Mr. Ullmann has lectured throughout the country on the need for discipline, simplicity, optimism and professional advice for investors and professionals alike. As an Air Force pilot and commander, he began informally counseling civilians and military personnel on financial issues more than thirty-five years ago. He and his team advise and aid in the management of over a half billion dollars in client assets. He is the proud father of three adult children and two adult bonus children and lives in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida with his wife, Lisa.

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Copyright © 2003, 2011, 2021 by Glenn Ullmann, CDFA.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including

photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 12/10/2020

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

DEDICATION

SEVENTEEN YEARS DOWN THE ROAD

PROLOGUE        In the Beginning

CHAPTER 1        The Four Core Principles:

A Written Financial Plan, the Power of Advice,

Simplicity, and Optimism

CHAPTER 2        The Risks You Don’t Notice

CHAPTER 3        The Wealth Management Plan as Your Road

Map to Success

CHAPTER 4        Taxes: A Drag on Performance

CHAPTER 5        The Advice Isn’t Free

CHAPTER 6        Experts: They Asked Me, So I Answered,

Not Because I Know

CHAPTER 7        Optimism and Systematic Investing

CHAPTER 8        Selecting a Financial Advisor

CHAPTER 9        Women and Investing:

Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later

CHAPTER 10      Asset Protection and Things to Do Now

DEDICATION

This book has become possible only with the help

of many and the personal stories of hundreds.

I am indebted to my team,

to my family, and especially to my good friend Ken Yaphe,

who helped me shape and develop this work into

its final form.

TO MY LISA, YOU HAVE SHOWN ME LOVE THAT I DID NOT KNOW

EXISTED. I AM SO LUCKY TO HAVE YOU IN MY LIFE, AND I CANNOT

WAIT TO WAKE UP EACH MORNING WITH YOU BY MY SIDE.

SEVENTEEN YEARS

DOWN THE ROAD

When I wrote the first edition of Landing a Smooth Retirement in 2003, the chaos of the dot-com bust and the painful down market that followed had not yet begun to recede. In fact, the US stock market would decline close to 50 percent and not begin to recover until months after the first copies were printed. Adding to the market decline was the psychological and very real impact of the terrorist attacks of September 11th and the changes as to how we felt as a country following that horrible day. We were clearly engaged in one war, and the second one—in Iraq—had not yet come. For all the fear that day created, it also provided a national sense of unity and willingness to work together. As a country, we were committed to getting through this disaster, and we did!

Our country was not the only one that experienced challenges. I too had experienced significant personal changes in my life during that ten-year span. The personal stories in this book were reflective of my life in 2003, and although some relationships have changed, the core foundations that we recognized then have remained the same: financial success is more a function of process and less a function of product. In addition to making a difference in how we serve the clients of our wealth management and advisory business over the previous ten years, this distinction has generated far better results. During that time, several key themes began to crystalize that allowed us to better help our clients. They were the necessity of a written financial plan, the power of advice, implementation simplicity, and the ability to remain optimistic.

Despite the tremendous geopolitical, national, and technological changes that have occurred over the last nearly twenty years, those themes remain as strong and applicable as ever. Since then, another theme has emerged: the ability to push aside the constant negative impact of financial media, supposed experts, and well-meaning friends and coworkers. This has been driven by the constant changes in technology and the additional ways that financial information and advertising are created and distributed.

Today, we are confronted with information and content coming at us 24/7 from more sources than we ever could have imagined back in 2003. In addition to the traditional print sources like Forbes, The New York Times, Smart Money, The Wall Street Journal, and Businessweek, we can now access content from these providers online, as well as from e-mails, blogs, and discussion groups. Additionally, there are now dedicated television business news networks and thousands of websites dedicated to all things financial. Truly a case of information overload.

While rereading the original book and this foreword originally written in 2011, it was amazing to me how little mention there was about the Internet. I couldn’t figure out how this was so. Certainly, in 2003, the Internet was a part of both our business and our personal lives, but search was in its infancy. Surely, you could go to a website (like cnn.com or priceline.com), but if you wanted to know how many miles of paved roads there were in the United States (2,734,102 according to my Google search that took under a tenth of a second), good luck figuring it out. So here is just my quick list of things that have changed in the world since 2003 (those in italics are changes over the last decade):

Geopolitics: Removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq; ascendency of Iran and its quest for nuclear weapons; Israel leaving Gaza; terrorist attacks in England, India, and Spain and throughout Africa; nuclear North Korea; the G-8 expanding to The G-20 to incorporate the growing power of India, China, Brazil, and Russia; fighting wars with pilot-less drones (climate change impacts and debate; espionage on a grand scale, including state actors like China and Russia; a deal with Iran to limit its nuclear expansion and then the destruction of that agreement; a global pandemic demonstrating both the advantages and disadvantages of a global economy)

Healthcare: Healthcare reform moving the country closer to universal access to coverage; new biotech drugs; improved MRI (3-D) and ultrasound technology; electronic records; ER physicians using iPads to improve both efficiency and care; routine hip, knee, and shoulder replacements; the application of human DNA sequencing to discovery, diagnostics, and specific new drugs (the acceleration of these trends in terms of vaccines, new therapeutics, and immunologics; telemedicine becoming not only adopted but also preferred as a way to get better access to all segments of the population regardless of wealth)

Technology and Communication: Smart phones, movies, and video on demand both on TV and via other devices; Google, iPod, iPhone, iPad (I-everything); Skype; texting, Facebook, and other social networking tools (Netflix, HULU, Zoom, GoToMeeting)

Transportation: Hybrids and electric technology, increased MPG standards, and in-car GPS navigation; backup cameras and proximity sensors and standard ABS and traction control on most cars (Uber, Lyft, Amazon shipping directly to your door; the broad adoption of electric vehicles (Tesla); commercial space with reusable rockets (SpaceX, Blue Origin)

Business: The bankruptcy (and subsequent rebirth) of GM, Chrysler, and Lehman Brothers, the collapse of Wachovia, Citigroup, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and the entire residential housing market, the end of independent investment banks (Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley), credit markets and liquidity frozen in fall 2008, GMAC and GE within days of bankruptcy; federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage entities (massive government infusion of capital during the COVID-19 pandemic, changing landscape of commercial real estate and retail)

Politics: A woman and African American competing for the presidential nomination, the election of a non-Caucasian as president for the first time in US history, the rise of the Tea Party, Fox News, conservative talk radio and blogs becoming more pervasive and influential, fundraising for campaigns occurring via the Internet (election of Donald Trump as president, redistricting of congressional districts, Supreme Court Justices’ deaths and retirements and new appointees, political segmentation)

Markets: Rise of US stock market from the 2002 low of S&P 815 to the October 2007 high of S&P 500 of 1468; the subsequent collapse of the S&P back to 666 in March of 2009 and the rise back to 1275 in January of 2011; the rise and the subsequent collapse of the US residential housing market; the rise, collapse, and subsequent recovery of the price of oil and gold (record low unemployment until March 2020; tax code rewrite in 2018; federal budget debt and deficits reaching records with lower taxes and higher expenses, especially health care; S&P 500 exceeds 3500)

Thinking back to the spring of 2009, the pundits on TV, the Internet, print media, and of course, the politicians who pandered to frightened voters, declared that we were heading for an economic depression. Sell everything and go to cash was the mantra (even though the US stock market had already declined by 50 percent). And then something amazing (and totally predictable) happened—the same thing that always happens following a panic—values became very inexpensive, and the smart, disciplined, and patient started buying these assets, whether it was oil, real estate, or stocks. Over economic history, the advances in equity prices have been permanent, the declines temporary (albeit sometimes frightening). We certainly had a few clients during those dark days who wanted to panic out of their meticulously crafted investment portfolios and beautifully constructed wealth management plans because of the headline du jour. But the beauty of the four themes (plan, advice, simplicity, and optimism) kept their attention where it needed to be—and not on the coming economic apocalypse.

Despite these tectonic shifts in our world, the need for process over product led our team to codify our planning process into what we call The 360° Financial Discipline Process. This five-step process enables us to focus on each client’s unique strengths, opportunities, and dangers to craft a customized plan that enables them to know where they are, where they need to be at the end of every year, and how to get back on track if events get them behind schedule.

We live at an amazing and exciting time. Just over thirty years ago, I was flying AWACS missions for the Air Force over Iceland, protecting the United States from a potential attack by the Soviet Union (remember them?). Today, Russia emerged from the Soviet system, first into a pseudo capitalistic country (its former satellites and most of the Balkans entering the free market and in many cases the Eurozone itself), then more recently into a totalitarian state ruled by Vladimir Putin who has reimagined its role in world history (intervening in civil wars around the world). Back then, China had just begun to move four hundred million people (25 percent more than the entire population of our country) from abject poverty to middle class (and then moved another four hundred million in the following ten years). The future in medical information and environmental technology is going to wow us. In 2011, I was typing these words plugged into my iPod (doesn’t exist anymore because we are on our iPhones or wireless noise-cancelling headsets), listening to Beethoven, about to e-mail this file to my publisher, a process that takes only seconds. We are at the very beginning of a new Renaissance of human ingenuity and activity that will not only take our investments and our world to new and exciting heights but also bring along anxiety, worry, and information paralysis. Without proper process and advice, many may not be joining us for the ride to new frontiers. I am glad you will.

I hope you enjoy the book, and please remember to visit our website at www.ullmannwealthpartners.com, our LinkedIn account, and our Facebook page.

Glenn Ullmann

Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida

December 2020

PROLOGUE

In the Beginning

My sixty-one-year-old (now ex) mother-in-law, Dee, the wife of a now-deceased career military officer, had a stroke at 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 4, 2003. What ensued is most instructive on human behavior and perfectly illustrates why people need advisors, especially when it comes to financial planning and investing. Dee suffered this stroke while shopping for blue jeans. The pain, she described, was so intense, she thought her head was going to explode. Interestingly, although this happened on a Tuesday afternoon, we actually learned of it the next day when she called to tell us that she wasn’t feeling well, couldn’t see out of her right eye, and was getting worried. It helps to understand that my wife’s side of the family is about as pigheaded as they come, and they certainly never go to the doctor—better to go to the undertaker than to the doctor.

Shocked that this had been going on for at least a day, we threatened to take her ourselves if she didn’t consult with her physician immediately. No, no … she was feeling well enough to drive herself. Of course, she didn’t go. By midafternoon, my wife, Lurah, called me at work and told me to go see Dee because she had taken a turn for the worse. When I arrived, she was cold to the touch, couldn’t walk without wobbling, and was unable to see out of her right eye. I thought stroke and became very concerned. Dee adamantly