04/26/2023 - Matthew Garasic was interviewed by FeeOnlyNetwork.com

Ice breaker, what does your life look like outside of work?
I have a competitive personality, so I’ve always enjoyed playing and watching sports. I started training and competing in boxing tournaments in high school but transitioned to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu toward the end of 2021. Now I train Jiu-Jitsu 4-5 days a week and continue to compete regionally and nationally.

Outside of Jiu-Jitsu, my girlfriend and I spend a lot of time spoiling our Rottweiler, Frankie. We take her hiking or swimming every weekend and then follow it up by trying different breweries.

What is the biggest misconception about your job?
As soon as people hear I’m a financial advisor they either ask me for my hottest stock tip or assume I’m going to try and sell them life insurance.

Unfortunately, a lot of people are much more captivated by the idea you can offer them a get rich quick stock recommendation than they are by asset allocation and comprehensive financial planning. However, those that buy into the value of persistence and planning make great long-term clients and really appreciate the depth of our work.

What makes you or your firm particularly qualified to serve executives or business owners with equity compensation?
From a professional standpoint, my whole career has included helping business owners and executives monetize equity compensation, capitalize on exclusive tax/retirement strategies, and structure tax-efficient liquidity events.

As a business owner, I personally understand the time constraints executives and other entrepreneurs face when trying to run a business, maintain a family/social life, and manage their personal finances. These individuals often have the most complex financial situations, but don’t have time to optimize the opportunities available to them.

Tell me about a client where you were able to help them solve a unique problem.
Before starting my own firm, I worked with a C-Level executive who owned over $20 million of employer stock in the form of nonqualified stock options (NSOs), incentive stock options (ISOs), restricted stock units (RSUs), and outright shares.

Since he was an insider at a publicly traded company, he had to submit his trading plans far in advance (10b5-1 plan) and have them approved by the company’s general counsel to certify he wasn’t trading on inside information. The value, amount, and various tax considerations for each option type made the situation extremely complex so he had never monetized the shares.

Collaborating with the accountant and custodian, I created a 10b5-1 plan to exercise and sell various share lots across over 30 different price points. Within six months the client had monetized over $8 million across two different tax years and made gifts of appreciated employer stock to a Donor Advised Fund (DAF) to offset a portion of his tax liability.

What do you wish more people knew about the process of creating a financial plan?
Creating an effective financial plan requires a lot of information, personally and financially. It may seem like an advisor is getting too personal, but there are so many nuances that factor into making recommendations for a client’s specific circumstances.

If an advisor has to make (or not make) recommendations with partial information, the best-case scenario is missing wealth enhancing opportunities, but the worst-case is implementing a faulty strategy that diminishes wealth.

Is there a particular book that has had a positive influence on your personal or professional life?
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel was actually the catalyst for starting Unrivaled Wealth Management. At the time I was reading the book I had a great job that I liked, but there were two quotes in the book that ultimately pushed me to start the business I always had in the back of my mind. The two quotes are:

• “Doing something you love on a schedule you can’t control can feel the same as doing something              you hate.”
• “The ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want to,              pays the highest dividend that exists in finance.”

There are endless lessons in the book, and I recommend it to everyone.

How has your family background influenced your personal financial mindset today?
I have a blue-collar background, so my family was never financially sophisticated. The only specific financial lesson my parents taught me was to pay the full balance of my credit card every month to avoid being charged interest. That was a useful tip, but the most influential values I took from my family background are discipline, responsibility, and enjoying the simple things.

They didn’t seem very influential when I was in college working two jobs while my friends were at happy hour, but in hindsight, I recognize that those values taught me to avoid taking on unnecessary debt, live within my means, and not rely on money or material things as my source of happiness.

Where does your passion for financial planning come from?
My senior year capstone project was creating a comprehensive financial plan for my parents.

Through the project I found they had accounts managed by two different advisors. However, there was no cohesion in their investment strategy, my dad was drastically under contributing to his 401(k), they were paying into life insurance policies they no longer needed, and a host of other issues. In short, no one had ever taken the time to create a comprehensive financial plan.

I’m passionate about holistic financial planning because no specific investment recommendation was going to make the difference in my parent’s retirement plan. The flaws we discovered and fixed through their financial plan are what allowed my dad to retire when he did and I know there are millions of other people in the same situation.