Glenn Ullmann's Net Worth Is ~$40 Million — And He Tracks His Spending In A Paper Checkbook

Glenn Ullmann manages about $1.5 billion of other people's money — and still writes every expense into a paper checkbook ledger with a pen. He left the Air Force at 29 with “a couple hundred thousand, if that,” cold-called 200 strangers a day out of the Ponte Vedra phone book, and built Ullmann Wealth Partners into an RIA that has never had a down year — not even 2008. Today he's 63, worth around $40 million, spends $30–40K a month, flies his own $1.25 million Cirrus, and gives away more appreciated stock than he can legally deduct.

Like all Moneywise episodes, Glenn breaks down his net worth, income, portfolio, and monthly expenses and then I, your humble host, pick it all apart.

We also went deep on: why he handed over 80% of the firm he owned outright, the net worth number where he finally stopped worrying, why a $10 million portfolio is really a $300,000-a-year paycheck, and why he tells clients to fly first class now because “your kids will when you're dead”

Below you'll find my summary of the episode along with the entire transcript.

And by the way...this podcast, the concept of it came from Hampton. Hampton is a private, highly vetted community for high net worth founders started by Sam Parr. Members range from companies doing 3-5 million in revenue all the way up to hundreds of millions. The reason we started this podcast is because there are amazing conversations about money and growing companies that typically happen only behind closed doors, and we thought it would be awesome to share all of this information. If you're a CEO, founder, or business owner, check this out. New Moneywise episodes come out weekly.

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Now, below are the notes and the full transcript.

The Numbers

• Net worth: approximately $40 million
• Assets under management: ~$1.5 billion; client sweet spot is $2M–$20M
• Net worth leaving the Air Force at 29: “a couple hundred thousand, if that”
• Net worth where he stopped worrying about money: “probably above 20” ($20M)
• Ownership of his own firm: 100% → ~20% after recapitalizing with four partners
• Monthly burn: $30–40K/month, about $500K/year — not including philanthropy
• The plane: Cirrus G7, ~$1.25M to buy, $40–50K/year to operate
• Homes: two — Jacksonville, FL and North Carolina
• Portfolio: ~90% global equity (excluding real estate), with slices of private equity, private debt and private real estate
• Portfolio “rent”: $10M generates roughly $300K/year in dividends and interest; $20M about $600K
• Charitable giving: exceeds his deduction limit every single year
• Cold-calling math in the early days: 200 dials a day → 10 conversations → 1 client per 10 appointments
• Most painful recent expense: a $100,000 driveway replacement

From AWACS pilot to 200 cold calls a day

Glenn grew up north of New York City, where his father and grandfather ran a plastics consulting business. His dad opened him a Morgan Stanley account at 14 — funded by paper route money — and his first stock was Sears Roebuck. Nobody from his high school went into the military, but he wanted to fly airplanes, so three days after graduating he landed in Colorado Springs at the Air Force Academy.

“That is the best thing I ever did. Other than marrying my spouse, it was the best thing I ever did.”

He flew AWACS for seven years, ferrying aircraft to Saudi Arabia in the '80s with a navigator taking star shots over the North Atlantic because GPS didn't exist yet. He left at 29, did a month of pharmaceutical sales, hated it, and became a stockbroker in Jacksonville, Florida — a city he and his wife had to find on a map.

“I would start in the Ponte Vedra phone book at A, and I would just call and say, 'Hey, it's Glenn Ullmann at Smith Barney. I do financial planning and investment management. Let's meet for coffee.' I dialed 200 people a day, and I probably got 10 people to talk to me... and 10 appointments would turn into one client.”

Why he gave away 80% of the firm with his name on the door

Ullmann Wealth Partners launched in October 2002 — almost exactly the day the market bottomed after the dot-com crash and 9/11. Glenn owned 100% of it. Then the firm recapitalized and he took himself down to roughly 20%.

“I at that point owned 100% of the firm, and that wasn't sustainable, and it really wasn't right. Pat's been with me 12 years, Brian 10, Carrie 8. So how could they not have equity to improve their net worth? It just didn't make any sense... it would've been almost impossible to keep great talent.”

He's now the oldest person at his own firm at 63. The youngest planner is 26; the youngest partner is 36. In roughly 25 years, he says, the business has never contracted — not even 2007–2009, when portfolios were down 40–50%. In bad markets, people show up looking for someone they trust.

The $1.5 billion wealth manager who still balances a paper checkbook

Asked what his monthly burn is, Glenn's first answer was that he didn't know — which, for a man who runs an RIA, is a fairly great piece of television. Then he corrected himself.

“The firm manages all of my liquid net worth. I don't touch it. I don't look at it... I do know where all the money's going 'cause I still have a checkbook ledger, and I write — uh, yeah, with a pen.”

The system: every card charge goes into the paper ledger with “AX” in place of a check number, the date, the place and the amount. When the Amex statement arrives, he ticks them off one by one. The cash is already accounted for.

“I don't have to think, 'Oh, where am I gonna get that $17,000 for my Amex bill?' It's already written out of the checkbook.”

The plane, the driveway, and $30–40K a month

Glenn and his wife spend $30–40K a month — about $500K a year — before philanthropy. A third of it is fun and travel; five kids between them are spread across New Zealand, Berkeley and Boston, and he flies to see them.

He flies himself. The plane is a four-seat Cirrus G7, bought for about $1.25 million and costing $40–50K a year to operate, fuel included (“the airplane's brand new, so it's under warranty”). It's the seventh generation he's owned. The pitch that makes non-pilots sit up: pull a lever and a parachute lowers the entire aircraft to the ground, and if Glenn stops functioning mid-flight, his wife pushes a button and the plane declares an emergency, talks to the passengers, finds the nearest suitable airfield and lands itself.

What he doesn't own much of is real estate — two houses and his office building. “Every real property I've ever had has made me money, but there's a tremendous cost of carrying it.” Case in point: the $100,000 driveway he just replaced, which required fixing the irrigation first.

“If you don't spend this money and fly first class, your kids will when you're dead”

Glenn's business, as Daniel put it on the show, is partly the business of telling anxious rich people it's okay to spend their money. He didn't argue.

It starts with an 11x17 “life map” — a graphical picture of what actually matters to a client, built from questions like “what's your greatest accomplishment?” and “what's the biggest obstacle you've ever had to get over?”, right down to the names and ages of the pets. Then the plan shows them, on a chart, what $100,000 of vacations a year actually does to their net worth line. Usually: not much.

“At some point, the conversation is, 'Listen, if you don't spend this money and fly first class, your kids will when you're dead.'”

He's blunt about why the math should lose to the calendar sometimes: “Things happen. People get cancer. People die in freak accidents, going hiking and falling off a ledge.” For clients in their 60s and 70s with health issues facing a two-connection itinerary, the advice is to charter the flight. “I can't afford to do that.” “You can afford to do it. Is it improving the quality of your life?”

Where to park $10 million after a liquidity event

The question every founder post-exit asks. Glenn's answer starts with the part people forget: a portfolio pays you.

“What people forget on $10 million is you're probably gonna collect around $300,000 a year in dividends and interest. Whether markets are up or markets are down, that's the rent you're getting on your portfolio. At 20 million, $600,000 a year.”

The build: decide what you're going to spend, carve out what's going into the next business (“a lot of entrepreneurs are serial entrepreneurs, so they're gonna need liquidity”), then a balanced equity and fixed income portfolio using low-cost funds and ETFs, with a modest allocation to private equity, private credit and private debt. “Doesn't have to be complex.”

He also uses that income number to reframe big-ticket spending. An $80,000 charter flight sounds insane — until you tell someone collecting $30,000 a month in dividends and interest that it's a month and a half of income they weren't spending anyway.

“They're not stocks. They're companies.”

Take real estate out and roughly 90% of Glenn's money is in global equity, with small slices of private equity, private debt and private real estate. He is deliberate about not calling any of it “stocks.”

“I don't like to use it 'cause I think it creates that visual image in many people's minds of the stock market crash and food lines in black and white. They're not stocks. They're companies. You invest in the S&P 500, you're buying a piece of the 500 greatest companies in the United States. Why wouldn't you wanna do that?”

He's not an asset-class snob — “no asset class, in my opinion, is bad” — but he does keep one line from a former celebrity client: “I never invest in things that eat while I'm asleep.”

Still going to the office at 63 — and why he'd study English or history

He doesn't need the money and says so. He goes in anyway.

“The real reason is I still love what I'm doing... I just feel like it's an opportunity to teach and to mentor, and I love the clients.”

The firm calls every client on their birthday, and Glenn now hits names on the list he doesn't recognize — which he counts as a win, because it means his team owns those relationships. Every client has two advisors, a “wingman or wing woman,” so nothing lives in one person's head, and the life map means anyone can pick up a client's whole picture in a minute. He figures he'll be around until 70, while also holding the harder thought: “sometimes it's important for a founder to get out of the way.”

His favorite proof that the job is worth it is one of his first clients, with him since 1993, who started at $100 a month into a mutual fund, moved to $500, then maxed a 401(k) — and now, in her late 50s, “takes the best trips on Earth.”

And the parting advice for a 20-year-old who wants his career? Not finance. “I actually think English or history.” English because talking to people is a dying skill — “everything's on email or text.” History because it keeps you calm: “Every time I hear a newscaster say 'this is unprecedented,' I'm like, 'No, it's not.'”

Other Key Quotes

"I dialed 200 people a day, and I probably got 10 people to talk to me... 10 appointments would turn into one client."

"I at that point owned 100% of the firm, and that wasn't sustainable, and it really wasn't right... how could they not have equity?"

"I do know where all the money's going 'cause I still have a checkbook ledger, and I write — uh, yeah, with a pen."

"I'd say not including philanthropy, I'd say 500 — 30 to 40 a month to run our lives."

"At some point, the conversation is, 'Listen, if you don't spend this money and fly first class, your kids will when you're dead.'"

"What people forget on $10 million is you're probably gonna collect around $300,000 a year in dividends and interest. Whether markets are up or markets are down, that's the rent you're getting on your portfolio."

"They're not stocks. They're companies."

"I never invest in things that eat while I'm asleep."

"Every time I hear a newscaster or read some article where somebody says, 'This is unprecedented,' I'm like, 'No, it's not.'"

Links You Might Like

• Join Hampton Community: https://joinhampton.com
• Ullmann Wealth Partners: ullmannwealth.com
• Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4uFJPqZs1o
• Subscribe to Moneywise on YouTube: @themoneywisepodcast
• MoneyWise Podcast: Full episode archive

Full Transcript

Daniel Berk: Glenn Ullmann founded Ullmann Wealth Partners in October of 2002, which, as he pointed out to me, was almost exactly the day the market bottomed out from the dot-com crash. Today, the firm manages around a billion and a half dollars. He owned 100% of it. Now, he owns about 20 after selling equity to the partners who helped him build it. He left the Air Force at 29 with roughly $200,000 to his name, and he stopped worrying about money somewhere north of $20 million net worth. He and his wife spend about 30 to $40,000 a month. Let's call it $500,000 a year, and that's not including philanthropy. He owns a plane where he flies himself because, as we've already learned, he was in the Air Force. He loves flying planes, and he paid about $1.2 million for it. He loves to have fun, and he keeps most of his liquid net worth in a surprising place that I think you're going to want to hear. This is Glenn Ullmann on Moneywise. I'm your host, Daniel Berk. Let's get right into it. Glenn, thank you so much for joining Moneywise today. How are you doing?

Glenn Ullmann: Great to be with you, Daniel. I'm doing great.

Daniel Berk: I'm excited to chat today and learn a little bit about what makes your unique perspective around money and some of the advisement that you do with ultra-high-net-worth individuals unique to the show. Tell me about yourself. Tell me what it is that you do.

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah, sure. I founded Ullmann Wealth Partners back in October of 2002. That was actually the day the market bottomed from the dot-com and 9/11 events. And we focus really on three things. We believe wealth management is managing investments, and we manage about 1.5 billion of client assets, but that's really not enough. You can do a great job with investments but not have bracketed a client's advanced planning and professional relationships. You know, I say, you know, you, you could have returns of 100% a year, but then if you don't have an umbrella policy and you've got your head down and you run, uh, you've got your head down looking at your phone and you run into the back of a car with Melinda Gates in it and you do a lot of damage, it doesn't matter how well you've done because they're coming after your assets. So we believe in, uh, that wealth management is the investments plus the advanced planning. How do we increase cash flow? Decrease debt, where applicable. Decrease taxes, always applicable. Wealth protection, how do we put a moat around a client's assets? Wealth transfer, how do we get those assets that a client or a family has built to the next generation? And/or charitable giving, a huge part of our practice. Uh, philanthropy, how, how do we both explain it, teach it, inculcate it, one of my dad's favorite words, and so that those who much has been given, there's great obligation in our communities. And then we make sure that our clients have the tools and data, performance reporting, uh, online, and make sure that they have the best in accountants, bankers, estate planning attorneys, personal attorneys. So we wrap that whole thing around the client. That's essentially what I've been doing since the early '90s when I stopped flying in the Air Force, but I'm sure we'll get to that later.

Daniel Berk: Well, it's a great segue because I am curious, given your history flying in the Air Force, what was money like in the household growing up that you ultimately enlisted in the military and then started this wealth business? I mean, that's a huge spectrum of, of things that you've done professionally.

Glenn Ullmann: That's such an interesting question. I grew up north of New York City in, in the suburbs. My dad and my grandfather owned a plastics consulting company. So of course, I don't have a pen right in front of me, but if you were trying to make a million pens, you would contact my father and grandfather, and they would work as the middleman between you, the customer, wanting your million pens, and manufacturers.

Glenn Ullmann: So I grew up, as did my siblings, you know, going with my, my dad and, and my grandfather to injection molding factories around the tri-state area. My grandfather was an amazing salesperson. I remember going to an injection molding plant with him, and their injection molding plants are loud, I mean, 'cause you're stamping out plastic pieces from raw materials. And he had a robin egg Cadillac Seville, and I always loved that car because it had, like, the indicator lights. You could... Instead of it blinking inside like we do now, it was, like, on the hood, and they would blink. I just loved that car. I, I know it's not germane to our conversation, but in this car, my grandfather had more tchotchkes. And he knew, in a factory of 100 people, I remember, he may not have, but I remember him knowing everybody's name. I remember him bringing these little gifts in. One of them I have on my desk here in the office, and it said... It's, like, this gold. It looks like gold coins, and on the back, you flip it over and it says, "Your friendship means more to me than a pot of gold." I love that. Yeah. So, you know, it was... A, b- and they trusted him. They tru- my dad was a different personality, but they trusted him, too. So, you know, I was always a- he-- my dad taught all four of us, there are four kids, how to invest and the importance of investing. He retired in his mid-50s and lived off of his investments and my mom for the rest of their lives.

Daniel Berk: Wow.

Glenn Ullmann: And so he taught us. He opened an account at Morgan Stanley for me, I think, when I was 14. So I, you know, delivered papers after school, after track practice, learned how to collect from nice people who tipped you and people who would stick their dogs on you. Yep. And I remember reading, you know, Ann Landers and-- hopefully that name, Daniel, you're much younger than me. Hopefully that name makes sense-

Daniel Berk: It does

Glenn Ullmann: ... and reading the stock pages. So I think the first stock I ever invested in was Sears Roebuck. Um-

Daniel Berk: And that was at 14 years old?

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah, 14. I mean, it was his account, but I was allowed-

Daniel Berk: Sure

Glenn Ullmann: ... to call his broker and- But I also, I also loved airplanes. I had a picture of a 747 cockpit, and you can't see it in this picture, but on the wall to my right is, um, a photograph of a 747 landing at LAX. It's huge. So things haven't changed very much. I was always interested in flying, took a couple of flying lessons, and where I grew up, north of New York City, nobody from my high school had ever gone into the military. You know, that people went to the Ivy League, students went to the state university system in New York, SUNY, but I, I, I had never heard of ROTC or OTS. The... But my folks said when I was 17, "Hey, there's a school you can go to, and if you graduate, you can guarantee- you're guaranteed to go to pilot training." So that's how I ended up at the Air Force Academy. Three days after graduating from high school, landing in Colorado Springs, and that is the best thing I ever did. Um, I learned that-

Daniel Berk: Wow

Glenn Ullmann: ... the whole country is not Catholics and, and, and some Jews, uh, sprinkled in. Not all Caucasian like where I was from. It was, you know, it's the great melting pot of America goes to the service academies. So it was, it was the best thing I ever did. Other than marrying my spouse, it was the best thing I ever did.

Daniel Berk: And so it sounds like you grew up a- around money. I mean, having a Morgan Stanley account at 14 through your dad, you were stock picking. Um, would you say, would you call that upper middle class or how successful was the business at the time?

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah, I think, I think I would say upper middle class, though we did go through a time in 1973, the Arab-Israeli war, Arab countries embargoed the United States, so we weren't getting oil. That was the time of very high gas prices. Inflation was starting, though it would get worse five years later. And my dad and grandfather's business was built on petrochemicals. I mean, that's where plastic comes from.

Glenn Ullmann: So they, they went through a really tough time. In fact, I remember my dad wanted to move to Connecticut to get his taxes lower and, uh, my mom let him look and at one point he said to us kids, "Hey, you know, things are tight. I'm gonna... You know, we may need some money." And I said, "Well, Dad, you can have my paper route money." And my younger sister said, "Well, you can have my, uh, babysitting money." My younger brother was like five. And then my older sister thought about it and said, "Dad, Mom, I'm so sorry you're having, you know, financial difficulties. I'm going to live at Grandma's house." So that was her solution. But yeah. Okay. So I would say upper middle class, but then there was a time where things were super tight. But again, my dad-

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah ... and, you know, my parents, they had very diversified but very good investments, and that's how we learned. All f- all four of us learned the importance of owning equities, the importance of paying yourself first. I mean, you know, how to balance a checkbook. Um, I know my dad, until his... He died in '97, but I think he was still balancing his checkbook until about '97.

Glenn Ullmann: Hmm. He used to send my sister, my older sister, off to, uh, my younger sister, to this grocery store for him in his later years, and he would always say if, you know, it was $9.50 and he'd given them $10, it's like, "Where's my 43 cents?" So, um, they used to say, "Well, Dad, we had to put gas in the car," so...

Daniel Berk: Of course. So what was it about flying and the lifestyle, the excitement, the, the energy from going to the Air Force? You mentioned that had never really happened with peers in your high school, so you sound like you were one of the first in that area. Why did you decide to leave what, other than the exception of the, the turmoil in that season of life, an otherwise very comfortable lifestyle to go into the military at that time?

Glenn Ullmann: I just wanted to fly airplanes. That was it. So it was the easiest, most direct route to flying airplanes. If I had figured out ROTC, I know I would have had more fun. But, you know, I got to fly, you know, except the, the, the needs of the Air Force were constantly changing, so it used to be that you had to be 20/20 uncorrected. The year I was commissioned in 1985, it was actually up to 20/70, and I was 20/70 when I got through-

Glenn Ullmann: Wow ... pilot training. So I, I just, I've always been in love in air- with airplanes. You know, we, we own, um, a small airplane, a Cirrus. Um, this is the, uh, airplane that-

Daniel Berk: And you fly that personally-

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah, we do ... I would imagine. We do. We're flying the G7 now, but we've owned a, a s- a second generation, which didn't have air conditioning, which by the way is not a good idea in Florida, and, uh, a third generation-

Daniel Berk: Not in South Carolina either.

Glenn Ullmann: No, no, no. Uh, a sixth generation and just went to a seventh generation. They're great airplanes 'cause they have now a dual safety system. If you lose the engine, you just pull a h- a lever and a parachute lowers the airplane to the ground. Whoa. That's, that's saved, that has saved hundreds of lives since 2000, I think, when the first production airplane. Now we're up to, I think, 11,000 total airplanes. And now in addition to the parachute, it's got auto return. You talk about technology. Auto return, if, if, if Glenn stops functioning, Lisa just pushes this button and the airplane declares an emergency with air traffic. It, uh, talks to the passengers. It finds the nearest suitable airfield and lands. It's incredible.

Daniel Berk: That is incredible. I mean, really. It is. I, I've never heard of that in my life. Yeah. That is one of the coolest things I've ever heard of-

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah ... before. And, and the, and the thing is, you know, when I was flying big airplanes, AWACS, uh, airborne warning and s- surveillance airplane, control and surveillance airplanes, we brought those airplanes back and forth to Saudi Arabia in the '80s. GPS hadn't been invented.

Glenn Ullmann: Our navigator was taking sh- uh, what we call cell shots. He was seeing where the stars were so he could figure out exactly where we were over the North Atlantic. And today, most of us have never seen a map, right?

Daniel Berk: Right. It's all-

Daniel Berk: Wow ... yeah, how does Google say I need to get there? I mean, so tell me how you went from that. You flew for seven years-

Glenn Ullmann: Mm-hmm ...

Daniel Berk: if I have that correct.

Glenn Ullmann: Yep.

Daniel Berk: And now you own an RIA wealth management firm. Walk me through that shift. Those are two totally different people.

Glenn Ullmann: Well, I think the skill set is probably very similar. So, uh, you know, as we talked about, I, I've always been interested in money and investing. At the academy, you know, when I was a student, undergraduate, I would help, uh, cadets balance checkbooks. We would always be with the s- select few that were interested in investing, talking about investments. My m- m- emphasis at the academy was in management, but every academy grad is an engineer when they get out, but, you know, took investment classes and tax classes. So when I left the military, I actually got a job working for a pharmaceutical company, Ciba-Geigy, in Boston, and, um, I had never really had a real job in my life, right? I went from high school to the academy, and then, you know, the academy, you know what you're gonna be doing. So, and then, you know, after, after graduating, you know what you're gonna be doing. But I knew I didn't wanna do pharmaceutical sales after about a month because it was, it was-- I was like a professional caterer. So I don't remember who said to me, probably some friend or a family member, said, "You know, you love investments. You love talking about money. You should go be a stockbroker," 'cause that's what we were called back then. So my first job was in Jacksonville, Florida, with Smith Barney. My wife at the time and I did not know where Jacksonville was. We had to look on the map. This was before the whole thing. And a lot of people still... No, just kidding. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. It's like, Jacksonville, North Carolina? No, Jacksonville, Florida. Yeah. And, um, I had an opportunity at Merrill too, and so we liked Jacksonville. We liked Ponte Vedra, where we eventually settled. And, um, you know, I worked for Smith Barney for, I think, three, four years. Built, started to build a client base. Cold calling. I mean, I would pick up the phone. I would start in the Ponte Vedra phone book in, at A, and I would just call and say, "Hey, it's Glenn Ullmann at Smith Barney. I do financial planning and, and investment management." The wealth management term hadn't been coined yet. "Let's meet for coffee." And, you know, I dialed 200 people a day, and I probably got 10 people to talk to me, and I knew how many people I need to call every d- every week to get 10 appointments, and 10 appointments would turn into one client. So after, yeah, so after four years, I wanted to go out on my own, but it was the, you know, mid-'90s. The internet was in existence, but I mean, there was no Wi-Fi or... I mean, I remember plugging my computer into a landline, and it would just-- to show my dad how great my, my, my connection was, and it would just go-

Daniel Berk: Sure ...

Glenn Ullmann: ding, ding, d- I mean, it would do that for five minutes. He's like, "Uh, I don't see anything yet." Um-

Daniel Berk: All I was doing in the '90s with my computer was playing "Rollercoaster Tycoon" and "Minesweeper," so-

Glenn Ullmann: I-- That's great ... there was, uh, there was stuff, there was stuff going on in the '90s, but it wasn't, it wasn't super high-tech-

Daniel Berk: Yeah ...

Glenn Ullmann: compared to, you know, parachute lowering-

Daniel Berk: No ...

Glenn Ullmann: self-driving planes.

Daniel Berk: No, and, and Google Maps.

Glenn Ullmann: So yeah.

Daniel Berk: Yeah.

Glenn Ullmann: So, um, I was gonna go independent, but it was, it was just too big a lift with two little kids at home. So I had an opportunity to build a, uh, uh, an office for Robert W. Baird, a regional firm out of Milwaukee. They had only had two CEOs in their entire history when I joined. Um, that would change about five years later.

Glenn Ullmann: But, you know, built an office for them, and then in 2002, as we talked about earlier, I wanted to start, uh, my own registered investment advisor. I wanted to be a fiducianar- a fiduciary. That was really important to me. I wanted to focus on planning. And, um, you know, I've been very lucky to be able to, uh, have had amazing professionals join me over the years. And several years ago, um, we recapitalized the firm, so I, I now have, uh, four other partners. So, um, you know, it's a, it's a great joint venture. I feel very lucky to be able to work with them. And they keep me around.

Daniel Berk: Yeah, it sounds like-

Glenn Ullmann: I'm still here, so.

Daniel Berk: Yeah, right. I, I'm sure you, uh, I'm sure you carry your own weight.

Glenn Ullmann: I hope so.

Daniel Berk: Um, I'd love to get into the numbers. Yeah. When you left the Air Force, what was your approximate net worth? It sounds like you were already investing quite heavily by that time.

Glenn Ullmann: That's an answer I don't know, but I would suspect in the couple of hundred thousand dollars. You know, uh, an Air Force second lieutenant, first lieutenant, they, we, they didn't make much money. We didn't make much money. And I just, you know, when I was captain, I made a little more money, but... And the Air Force didn't have a 401then. They do now. Uh, DOD does now, but they didn't then. So probably a couple of hundred. But Daniel-

Daniel Berk: Okay ...

Glenn Ullmann: I, I remember, um, when I was getting out, sitting down and calculating based on where I was then, so I was 29 when I was getting out, and if I put away X amount of dollars every year, what I would be worth, you know, how long it would take me to get to my first million. And all I can say is that it never happened. I mean, for a variety of reasons, it never happened. I probably would've gotten over a million and then went down again. But I remember having this, it was just on- It was just on a piece of paper. Not a bad th- not a bad goal setting, but, um, yeah, I, I know. I, I'm long-winded. I would say a couple of hundred thousand, if that-

Daniel Berk: Okay ...

Glenn Ullmann: when I left the military.

Daniel Berk: And so after the military, pharmaceutical sales, then firm, firm, uh, eventually an RIA of your own. Right. Walk me through some of the milestones in your own net worth and journey to where now you mentioned, uh, 1.5 billion under management. What's your current net worth now, and who's the, uh, you know, individual that you're typically working with?

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah. The, well, the f- the firm works with clients... I, I'd say our sweet spot is probably two to 20. We have clients below, we have clients above. The, th- we don't make a determination like a minimum. W- we want there to be a good fit. We want the client-

Daniel Berk: Mm-hmm ...

Glenn Ullmann: to c- perceive the value, and we're developing a trust relationship. That's the most-

Daniel Berk: Sure ...

Glenn Ullmann: important thing. And we have obviously clients above that level. And I think as we've added great professionals, our, the type of client, the sophistication of that client has also increased. We work with a lot more business owners, pilots, physicians, attorneys. One of our, um, partners is a former family law attorney. He and another one of my partners, Caitlin Frederick, run our divorce advisory group. So we have never had a year, I don't believe we've ever had a year where the business contracted. So even if-

Daniel Berk: That's awesome ...

Glenn Ullmann: even if-

Daniel Berk: So is that for how many years? 25 years now?

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah. Even '07 to '09, where account values, if you were just invested in the S&P, went down, you know, 40 or 50%. We're obviously diversified. Clients have fixed income. But we've always, in times of market trouble, we have always added new clients, 'cause people need, you know... Uh, our, th- the quote that I love, um, one of Maya Angelou's many famous quotes is, "People may forget what you did, people may forget what you said, but people will never forget how you made them feel." And I, I think-

Daniel Berk: Hmm ...

Glenn Ullmann: to point to this firm and the people, there is a l- an actual love of the people, the clients we get to work with, and that trusting relationship is most valuable. Yes, the firm is financially very profitable. Uh, we all make a good living. We pay our team well. But if people didn't trust us, I wouldn't still be working, I'll tell you that. Yeah.

Daniel Berk: And what do you pay yourself, and what's your all assets in, your personal net worth today?

Glenn Ullmann: Let's just say you and I had a side conversation, so I'd rather not say, because it seems to me like a form of conceit. But my net worth has grown over the years. The way our partnership works is we, we pay all the partners a set amount, and then you get distributions based on your stock ownership, uh, of the firm.

Daniel Berk: Okay. And you own what percent of the firm?

Glenn Ullmann: I own around a 20% now. So my other partners-

Daniel Berk: And that's because of some different partnerships over the years, right?

Glenn Ullmann: Well, when we recapitalized, we, it was very important, 'cause I at that point owned 100% of the firm, and that wasn't, that wasn't sustainable, and it really wasn't right. 'Cause, uh, Brian- Hmm ... James, uh, Carrie King, Pat Kilbane, and later, uh, Caitlin, and we're about to add another equity partner, they helped build it. Pat's been with me 12 years, Brian 10, Carrie 8. So how could they not have equity to improve their net worth? It, it just didn't make any sense. And, um- Yeah ... it would've been almost impossible to keep great talent. So that was when we recapitalized, and I'm getting older, and I have younger shareholders, so, you know, there'll be a process of, of selling shares to them so that they can- Yeah ... enjoy the, the wealth that I've been able to create for myself.

Daniel Berk: I talk about money, business, and all the different happenings behind the curtain with people in the Hampton community all the time. If those are the types of conversations that you also wanna have with people, people like you, your peers, people who are maybe a few steps ahead of you even in their business journey, check out joinhampton.com.

Daniel Berk: When I think of what you do in terms of R- RIA, uh, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's almost as though you're running a business whose product is telling, this is the wrong word, but anxious rich people that it's okay to spend their money. Yeah. Is that an accurate description of what it is that you do?

Glenn Ullmann: Yes.

Daniel Berk: So tell me what, uh, uh, pretend I'm stupid.

Glenn Ullmann: Which you're not.

Daniel Berk: What is RIA, and how do you explain the philosophy of spending wealth attribution, uh, you know, actually building generational wealth to someone who's maybe the anxious spender?

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah. Maybe they're already wealthy and they need help spending because they don't spend. Right. Maybe they're not. You know, maybe they're on the, on the bottom of that spectrum that you provided, and they wanna be closer to the top. Yeah. So, so much of what w- uh, w- me and my partners do is spend a lot of time on what we call a life map. So a life map, the way we do it is a 11 by 17 graphical illustration of what's important to the couple or the individual. So, you know, we start kinda like where you started. You like, "Well, tell me about, you know, how you went from where you grew up to the academy," or, "Tell me how you, uh, you know, how you, how the business has progressed."

Daniel Berk: Mm-hmm.

Glenn Ullmann: And I mean, it's the same thing for people. It's like, "Where did you grow up? What did your parents do?" I like to ask, "What is your greatest accomplishment?" But I also like to ask, "What's the biggest obstacle you've ever had to get over?" So, you know, you talk about getting to know somebody. We've had clients tell us things in that conversation that we'd never heard before, and that we never would have heard if we hadn't asked.

Daniel Berk: Hmm .

Glenn Ullmann: And what somebody has lived through absolutely affects their outlook on money and spending, on security and life. And, and so we, we ask about those values, their values as they relate to money. Obviously, we asked about their goals, but also who their professional relationship. Who is their CPA? Have we ever heard w- of them? Uh, are, are they top tier? Banker, estate planning attorney. We always ask, "What do you like to do when you're not sitting here talking to us?" It could be, "I go to church. I go, I go to mass every morning." You know, we, we will talk about assets, liabilities, insurance. So, you know, and, and obviously then family, and not just family as in humans, but family as in pets. You know, we know all the pets, how old they are. So, you know, you take that and then w- we use that to create planning. Even in our second opinion services, you know, we offer that free of charge, as do a lot of firms. You know, that's, that's not groundbreaking. But we'll build a full life map. We'll do all the planning. And so if... To answer your questions, I think it's bifurcated. We have lots of HENRYs, high income, not rich yet. So these are professionals-

Daniel Berk: Okay ...

Glenn Ullmann: who are able to put away 10,000 a month, 5,000 a month. So they're, they are not high net worth yet, but 20 years from now, they will be.

Daniel Berk: Yeah.

Glenn Ullmann: So that's on one side. So this is all about m- you know, a client like that needs to also enjoy their lives, right? So yes, max out your 401Ks. Let's put X amount of dollars into your investment account, and we can show them what that looks like. But let's say there's another $10,000 a month sitting around that's not saved. Well, we encourage clients in the accumulation phase to go enjoy that money.

Daniel Berk: Hmm.

Glenn Ullmann: 'Cause when you have kids, then, you know, you got the education fund, and kids are expensive. But it's so important because things happen. You know, I've been around as long as I have been in this business. Things happen. People get cancer. People die in freak accidents, going hiking and falling off a ledge. So it, it's important that somebody, a couple that's working that hard also enjoys themself.

Daniel Berk: Mm-hmm.

Glenn Ullmann: So that's on people who are growing wealth. Yeah. I think for people that have had a liquidation event, inherited money recently, I, I think the most important thing is realizing that you need to h- help your community, and we talk a lot about philanthropy. Obviously, there's a great tax reason for philanthropy, but there's a moral imperative to philanthropy. But at some point, and we do this through planning, you build confidence through planning. If we have a plan and the client can spend $35,000 a month, plus their mortgage, plus their federal income taxes, and the graph of their projected liquid net worth is going straight like that, I don't know which way on the TV screen works, but is going up, you know, we can show them, "Okay, well, this is if you took $100,000 worth of vacations in a year." So if it's still going up to the right, but may- maybe not like this, maybe like that, that gives people the confidence that they can spend that money.

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Glenn Ullmann: Same thing- Yeah ... in philanthropy. And as people get older, you know, I'm, I'm in my, I'll say early 60s, 63.

Daniel Berk: You don't look it.

Glenn Ullmann: Thank you. I dress up well for podcasts. So, you know, at some point, the conversation is, "Listen, if you don't spend this money and fly first class, your kids will when you're dead." We have clients who have health issues in their 60s and 70s, and we say, "You know, y- you wanna go to... You have to go to Little Rock." Well, from Jacksonville, y- you can't go to Little Rock direct. You have to go through Atlanta or you have to go through Charlotte. "So let's, let's fly you private." You know, we have relationships with, uh, air charter services that can, can fly a client from A to B. We're, we're, we're not, we're not in that business, but we can connect and help work out the, uh, the, the details. Oh, I can't afford to do that. I was like, "You can afford to do it. Is it improving the quality of your life?" Um, because if your kids inherit 10 million each, trust me, you know, they're gonna either have a Wheels Up account or they're gonna have a fractional ownership. Again, that's, that's at the, that's at the, at the higher end. Sure. Some people, based on their history, you know, my, my dad and grandfather's business didn't go out of business. I do remember it struggling, but there are other clients who have grown up in, you know, tre- in tremendous need, um, with single-

Daniel Berk: Mm-hmm ...

Glenn Ullmann: single parents raising them, assistance from both churches and, and the government, and their greatest fear is running out of money, so sometimes those people need, you know, five or six years or 10 years worth of reserves that are just sitting.

Daniel Berk: Yeah. You know? And that's fine. And when you think of your story, were you that anxious spender as well, that you can resonate with some of these individuals? Or I mean, when did you... What was your net worth when you stopped worrying about spending?

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah, I mean, I would say probably above 20, I stopped worrying about it.

Daniel Berk: And so in terms of a range now, I would expect you're probably somewhere in the 25 to, to 40 million net worth range.

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah.

Daniel Berk: And so you don't worry about money anymore. You don't worry about your spending.

Glenn Ullmann: No.

Daniel Berk: Do you find that your own journey is typical with your clients, or that a lot of them come with their own baggage that you have to sift through?

Glenn Ullmann: I think it's as, as unique as we are all as human beings. I mean, I've always-

Daniel Berk: Yeah ...

Glenn Ullmann: been, I would say I've always been a spender, and the times in my life where I have gotten, you know, we call it in the military in flying behind the power curve, behind the power curve is when you can st- you can increase the power, but you're probably still gonna hit the ground because you're behind the power curve. You don't have enough ground below you for the, for the engine to spool up enough to get you away from the ground. And although I've always been a saver, I would say my inability sometimes to say no to expenses has gotten me in trouble.

Daniel Berk: What does that look like month to month? Uh, you s- you're a spender. What's a typical monthly burn for you, and where does that money go?

Glenn Ullmann: A good amount of it goes to fixed obligations, but a lot of it just goes to... Daniel, I don't know. I mean, I don't, I used to keep track of-

Daniel Berk: The wealth, the wealth manager, the-

Glenn Ullmann: I know, that's a horrible thing ...

Daniel Berk: the RIA company owner doesn't know where his money's going? Okay, that's- You need someone from your own firm- Well- ... to help you know where your money's going.

Glenn Ullmann: Okay, so here's the thing. The firm manages all of my liquid net worth. I don't touch it.

Daniel Berk: That's great.

Glenn Ullmann: I don't look at it. I, we have a great system, so that's the first thing. I do know where all the money's going 'cause I still have a checkbook ledger, and I write-

Daniel Berk: Wow, like manual with a pen checkbook?

Glenn Ullmann: Uh, yeah, with a pen. And so-

Daniel Berk: Oh, man ...

Glenn Ullmann: I just came back from Colorado hiking and, you know, I go to a restaurant, let's say it's $170, we all go, go to dinner, a whole bunch of us, and I will put in the checkbook ledger instead of the check number, I just put Amex, AX, and then the date, where it was, and, um, the amount so that when my Amex bill comes in, I just check them all off. It's already out of my, you know, cash flow. I mean, I don't have to think, "Oh, where am I gonna get that $17,000 for my Amex bill?" It's already written out of the checkbook. So it is poorly worded that I don't know where the money's going. I know exactly where it's going. But if you had to s- if I had to say where does it go, I would say, say mostly fun, travel, and, you know, having an airplane.

Daniel Berk: So you fly yourself in there. How many seats does your plane have?

Glenn Ullmann: Four, and you can put an infant in it, but pretty much four. So we can get from-

Daniel Berk: Okay. Operating expense on that, let's say annually, what does that come out to?

Glenn Ullmann: It's gotta be, including flying and gas, it's probably 40 a year.

Daniel Berk: Oh, that's less than I would expect.

Glenn Ullmann: Well, the airplane's brand new, so it's under warranty.

Daniel Berk: Okay.

Glenn Ullmann: So, um, yeah, 40, maybe 50.

Daniel Berk: Okay. Yeah. And the, the plane itself was how much?

Glenn Ullmann: I think it was 125, uh, 1,250, 1.2.

Daniel Berk: Yeah. Okay. So you, you fly, you have fun.

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah.

Daniel Berk: Your fun expense, what does that come out to? 20, 50, 100 a month?

Glenn Ullmann: No, not that much. Fun is probably about a third of it, and then we've got five kids between us, and so I've got one in New Zealand, one in, in Berkeley who's about to get married, and one in Boston. I try to see them on a periodic basis.

Daniel Berk: Okay. And you have a home in Jacksonville. You have a home in-

Glenn Ullmann: North Carolina ...

Daniel Berk: North Carolina. Yep. Are there any other homes?

Glenn Ullmann: No, that's enough.

Daniel Berk: I try to throw people once or twice during every episode.

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah.

Daniel Berk: Um, but so all in, your, your annual burn, let's say 150,000 with the plane all in.

Glenn Ullmann: I'd say not including philanthropy, I'd say 500, you know-

Daniel Berk: Okay ...

Glenn Ullmann: 30 to 40 a month to run our lives.

Daniel Berk: 40 a month, and then so that's not including philanthropy, and you mentioned a couple times so far a lot of the even philosophy and morale of your business model is philanthropic. And so walk me through what your personal giving looks like and why that's so important to the way that you run your business. How do you make sure the charity's gonna spend your money correctly?

Glenn Ullmann: Yes, it's a huge tax benefit, but every year I exceed the amount I can deduct because especially in up markets, to give appreciated stock and never pay capital gains and put it into a charity fund is incredibly powerful. So if I meet-

Daniel Berk: Hmm ...

Glenn Ullmann: somebody, um, or I'm introduced to somebody, like we were talking about, I think we were talking about this earlier on, um, no, maybe we weren't talking about it I have a lot of conversations during the day. I can't remember who I'm talking to.

Daniel Berk: That's okay. Maybe people shouldn't know that.

Glenn Ullmann: But, um, you don't have to be messing up your cash flow, your monthly cash flow, because you have a philanthropy fund.

Daniel Berk: Um, I'm curious. You mentioned, or you, you joked earlier about, you know, they, they, they still have me coming in. Why are you still going in? It sounds like you're well past the threshold number of, you know, needing more. You're giving, you're spending, you're having fun, you're traveling. It sounds like you had two liquidity events, if I'm not mistaken.

Daniel Berk: Um, or I guess recapitalization rather. What's driving you to continue now and not just kinda retiring or whatever that would look like?

Glenn Ullmann: I don't have a lot of other interests, as I'm sometimes reminded, but the real reason is I still love what I'm doing. You know, to be able to work with my partners and other team members, I mean, it's, it's just fun. Our advisory firm, I'm the oldest at 63. Our youngest planner is 26. Our youngest partner is 36. We've got partners in their 40s. I just feel like it's, it's an opportunity to teach and to mentor, and I love the clients. I mean, that's the thing, and there are a lot of clients now that I don't know. You know you have what's called an ensemble practice when you don't know a lot of the clients. Like, we call every client on their birthday. No cards call. That's cool. And so they'll come up on the list, and I don't know who they are. Well, that's great. That means the rest of the team has their own prime relationships. Every client in our firm has two advisors so that if one is n- unavailable, one gets hit by a bus, the other advisor, the wingman or wing woman, knows everything about the client. The life map is another way that we make sure that not only does the wingman or wing woman know the client, but the whole team can pick up a life map and pretty quickly get a sense of the client. We talk about this in terms of succession. I mean, we don't have to really worry about succession 'cause we have partners at all ages. I mean, as long as I'm, I'm healthy and enjoying what I'm doing, I'll easily be around till 70. But I think it's also important to get out of the way. I mean, the firm does have my name on it, for now anyway, Ullmann Wealth Partners, but I have a strong personality, and my other partners do too, and sometimes it's important for a founder to get out of the way and, um- Yeah ... 'cause if I'm around, you know, sometimes I think that deference to my opinion may or may not carry the day. So I know- Yeah ... it's a long answer, and I struggle with it. I really do. But I love being involved. That, that's it.

Daniel Berk: Yeah. I can tell. Yeah. It, it's a passion of yours. I mean-

Glenn Ullmann: It is ... it's, it's no secret.

Daniel Berk: Talking to you, I can, I can feel that for sure.

Glenn Ullmann: I've been able to do the two things that I have loved doing. I mean, flying airplanes was a, a passion of mine from before I'd ever been in an airplane, and money and wealth management and making people... I mean, our tagline is, "Our discipline, your freedom." Giving people that freedom, that freedom not only from worry, even people who come to us and are not in good shape. I mean, I can't tell you how many times this team has helped people get back on track-

Daniel Berk: Mm ...

Glenn Ullmann: has helped people pay off student debt, has helped them set up a payment plan with the IRS. They didn't even know they could call the IRS and say, "Hey, can I set up a payment plan?" Encourage people to, to, um, advocate for themselves where they were being underpaid in a market, and go get a different job. Um, so it's not just that we manage a lot of wealth. We do, but giving people that confidence that if you do this, this, and this, this is gonna work out. I know you got another question, but I have to tell you about one of my longtime clients. She's been a client of mine since '93 — one of my first clients. She's been in the IT tech business. Never out in c- you know, with Google or anything, but when I started with her, she was putting $100 a month into a mutual fund. Then it went to $500 a month. Then she got a 401, she maxed that out. Today she takes the best trips on Earth. The amount of places that she's gone is incredible, and she has created this wealth by doing it systematically-

Daniel Berk: Mm-hmm ...

Glenn Ullmann: literally doing it systematically. That is so gratifying. You know, she's now in her mid to later 50s.

Glenn Ullmann: There's nothing greater than getting somebody on track, getting them back on track. It's just- That's amazing. Yeah. I get to do the two things, and I get to go fly my airplane.

Daniel Berk: Yeah.

Glenn Ullmann: When you- How lucky am I?

Daniel Berk: ... you say you like having fun, it's like, oh, no, no, that's like actual fun, like-

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah ... flying your own plane to and from.

Daniel Berk: But how- When, um-

Glenn Ullmann: But how lucky... I mean, seriously, how lucky-

Daniel Berk: Yeah ...

Glenn Ullmann: am I? I mean, my life could have gone a lot of different ways.

Daniel Berk: Incredibly ...

Glenn Ullmann: I don't know what another version of my life would've looked like. It must've been a cockroach in a prior life or something, so you know. Anyway, I feel very grateful.

Daniel Berk: Yeah. I, I feel that from you. I, I'm curious, you know, 'cause half of our listeners, I would say, are ultra-high net worth individuals-

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah ...

Daniel Berk: themselves. The other half, they're aspiring. They're-

Glenn Ullmann: Mm-hmm ...

Daniel Berk: company owners. They might be doing, you know, 3 to $10 million a year.

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah.

Daniel Berk: Uh, so they're, they're, they're successful, but they haven't made it yet, in their own words.

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah.

Daniel Berk: They're still shooting, you know, for the stars. What would you tell someone who's just recently had a liquidity event? Let's say they made $10 million liquid. Where should they park that money? There's a lot of opinions on this-

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah ...

Daniel Berk: and I'm sure you have heard all of them.

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah.

Daniel Berk: But, like, where does someone put that money so that 5, 10, 20 years from now it's still growing and they're not broke?

Glenn Ullmann: Well, I'm biased. I would say figure out how much you're gonna spend, figure out how much is gonna go into another business, 'cause a lot of entrepreneurs are serial entrepreneurs, so they're gonna need liquidity. But- I mean, in a balanced equity fixed income portfolio, put some private equity in there, private credit, private debt. Not a lot, but you can't help but be financially secure. And I think that, that one thing that people forget is that if you have $10 million, you're all worried about it turning into $5 million, right? Or $2 million. But a well-diversified, and I'm talking using low-cost mutual funds. You can lo- use a personal, you know, you can create a personal index, exchange traded funds. Doesn't have to be complex, right? What people forget on $10 million is you're probably gonna collect around $300,000 a year in dividends and interest. Whether markets are up or markets are down, that's the rent you're getting on your portfolio. At 20 million, $600,000 a year. So make sure that money that you're gonna need is in, you know, fixed income. It can be in CDs, something that you can use for other investment vehicles. I'm not a big real estate guy. I own the building here, and, you know, we have the, the two houses that Lisa and I have together. I know people love real estate. To me, r- every real estate, real property I've ever had has made me money, but there's a tremendous cost of carrying it, you know?

Daniel Berk: There is.

Glenn Ullmann: Here, I mean, we just replaced the entire driveway here. It was 100 grand.

Daniel Berk: Uh- I have to replace my driveway too. Good grief.

Glenn Ullmann: Oh my God. We have the same issues.

Daniel Berk: Yeah.

Glenn Ullmann: It's, I literally have to fix the irrigation so I can replace my driveway.

Daniel Berk: Oh, that's painful.

Glenn Ullmann: Because it's right next to the concrete. I gotta move the whole thing. Uh, it's so painful. It's terrible.

Daniel Berk: Yeah.

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah, yeah. So I mean, real estate, uh, we had a celebrity client years ago, and she said, "I, I never invest in, in things that eat while I'm asleep." I thought that was a great one.

Daniel Berk: Yeah.

Glenn Ullmann: But, but, but you look, you could also make the same argument if you know real estate really well, that buying a Class A property, that's gonna allow you, A, to depreciate a big amount. That's huge on the tax savings side. We see that actually with the airplane. But you're gonna get rental income.

Glenn Ullmann: So, uh, nothing, no asset class, in my opinion, is bad. Hmm. Some people are more comfortable in real estate. Some people are more comfortable in stocks. But stocks to me, I don't use that term other than I just used it. I n- I don't like to use it 'cause I think it creates that visual image in many people's minds of the stock market crash and food lines in black and white. It- they're not stocks.

Daniel Berk: Yeah.

Glenn Ullmann: They're companies. You know?

Daniel Berk: Yeah.

Glenn Ullmann: You invest in the S&P 500, you're, you're buying a piece of the 500 greatest companies in the United States. Why wouldn't-

Daniel Berk: Yeah ... you wanna do that? I- is that where most of your money is parked, in, in index?

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah.

Daniel Berk: Yeah.

Glenn Ullmann: Yep.

Daniel Berk: Yeah. Like 60%, 80%?

Glenn Ullmann: Well, if you take the real estate out, I'd say 90% is in global equity-

Daniel Berk: Yeah ...

Glenn Ullmann: with a little bit in private equity and l- you know, obviously this firm is private equity, but, but-

Daniel Berk: Sure ...

Glenn Ullmann: outside this private equity. A little bit in private equity, a little bit in private debt, little bit in private real estate. But yeah.

Daniel Berk: Yeah. That's great. And it should be. I think, uh, yeah, I mean, I, I, I think that's typically my opinion as well. I do a, a tiny bit of stock picking, but it's typically with one of the 500 companies in the S&P 500, and there's a few that come to mind. I, I won't mention them, but I think from a lot of the people I've spoken to, whether it's 25%, 60%, like you said, 90%, the S&P 500 is hard to not invest in if-

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah ...

Daniel Berk: you have money that you want, yeah, I would say safely. M- maybe is not the right word-

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah ...

Daniel Berk: but, uh, you know, conservatively invest over time. But again, it's, it's always the income side that we forget, and the, the income is so powerful. People who we can have the c- conversation about, let's say, flying private 'cause there are health concerns or just time. They just, they wanna-

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah ...

Daniel Berk: go from point A to point B, to, you know, they wanna go from point A to point B to a little town in western Colorado.

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah.

Daniel Berk: And they don't want it to take all day. They want it to take three and a half hours. Most of the time, if we say to them, "It's gonna be $80,000," but then say, "Oh, by the way, you're getting $30,000 a month in dividends and interest, which you're not spending," they're like, "Oh, it's a month and a half of income."

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah, it's a great way to look at it. It's just changing that, that, um, that frame.

Daniel Berk: That's great. Glenn, this has been an incredible episode. I really appreciate it. I think your insights, your insights are unique, and I think given that you yourself are a high net worth individual, but also advising, you know, and, and, and helping to manage the wealth of, it sounds like, oh, you know, one and a half billion under management, that's incredible. I also love that you're a pilot. I love your, your background. Um-

Glenn Ullmann: And that we have to fix our, our driveways.

Daniel Berk: Yeah, that's right. We have the same house in different places.

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah.

Daniel Berk: Uh, so I might, I might call you g- for your contractor.

Glenn Ullmann: Come on.

Daniel Berk: Uh, but yeah. Ca- you know, man, driveways are just one of those things. You know, uh, you know, 50 to 75 years ago, people just drove on dirt. It's like driveways and roads are, are a brand-new invention in the grand scheme of-

Glenn Ullmann: Well, driveways are. Now, the Romans did have-

Daniel Berk: That's right ...

Glenn Ullmann: a pretty good road system, but I don't think they had-

Daniel Berk: That's right ...

Glenn Ullmann: driveways. You just tied up your horse.

Daniel Berk: No. They sure didn't. I, uh, I mentioned I went to Clemson.

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah.

Daniel Berk: I actually studied history, uh, and I remember learning about the first fences that were made in the United States and all the, all the things that humans just decided, "Yeah, I'm gonna put this up-

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah ...

Daniel Berk: and decide that this part of this fence is mine and that part of this fence is yours." And anyways, uh-

Glenn Ullmann: Well-

Daniel Berk: ... Glenn, this has been awesome. I really appreciate your-

Glenn Ullmann: It's-

Daniel Berk: ... vulnerability and sharing some of your wisdom.

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah.

Glenn Ullmann: No, it's been, it's been a great conversation, and I would say y- you didn't ask me this question, but if somebody said to me, "I wanna do this. What career field should I go into?" I actually think English or history.

Daniel Berk: Yeah?

Glenn Ullmann: Because-

Daniel Berk: Why?

Glenn Ullmann: Well, English because what I have found, especially with some in, like, maybe the under 30s, just not used to, you know, talking on the phone is, is hard for some in our, in some of-

Daniel Berk: Talking to people in general nowadays.

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah, because everything's on email or text. Yeah. I'm a big student of history. I mean, I, I love reading history. My son Andrew's always sending me podcasts. Every time I hear a newscaster or read some article where somebody says, "This is unprecedented," I'm like, "No, it's not." Um-

Daniel Berk: I remember the, I had a history teacher, a professor, who said "unprecedented" every single lecture-

Glenn Ullmann: Really?

Daniel Berk: ... at least five times, to the point where I would backchannel in group texts with students and just say "unprecedented" periodically every time.

Glenn Ullmann: Uh, yeah, e- everything in history is unprecedented until you read five more seconds of history and realize-

Daniel Berk: Yeah ...

Glenn Ullmann: ... nothing really is unprecedented.

Daniel Berk: Nothing's unprecedented.

Glenn Ullmann: Um, it's, you know, as-

Daniel Berk: That's funny ...

Glenn Ullmann: ... as Mark Twain is alleged to have said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme."

Daniel Berk: That's a, I love that.

Glenn Ullmann: Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Berk: Glenn, I hope, uh-

Glenn Ullmann: Daniel, thank you ...

Daniel Berk: ... we can stay in touch. I mean, this is-

Glenn Ullmann: Let's do it ...

Daniel Berk: ... you're an awesome person. This is very cool.

Glenn Ullmann: Likewise.

Daniel Berk: Again, I appreciate you coming on the show, and, uh, look forward to hearing the finished quality episode.

Glenn Ullmann: Awesome. Thanks, Daniel. Take care. Bye.