Transforming Investment Strategies: A Scientific Approach with Corey Kaster of Inbundance Wealth Management

Kim Allchurch Flick: Hello everyone. i’m Kim Allchurch Flick. I welcome here a wonderful person that is so interesting about money, and I’m gonna let him introduce himself, but Corey Kaster is here and basically.

Corey brings 20 years of experience to his role as an investor coach, helping people eliminate speculation and gambling from their investment portfolio. As a certified B Corp benefit corporation for good and 1% for the planet member business and Inbundance wealth management is committed to business as a force for good.

Corey, welcome. Yeah, thank you. Please. Thank 

Corey Kaster: you. Kim, 

Kim Allchurch Flick: please tell us a bit about yourself and what has your journey in this sector, in this life and money and B Corps been like. 

Corey Kaster: Yeah, so well, 20 years is a fair journey. Where I, how I first got into this industry is I was recruited by Farmer’s insurance.

So I actually started mostly on the insurance side of things, auto, home life, all that kind of stuff. And they encouraged me to get my investment license and, which I did, but I didn’t really do much with which I’ll loop back to later, but it was mostly because. Anytime I started to do some digging into the investment side of things.

Nothing really added up. So I kept my license. Fast forward to 2019, I left Farmers to go independent, so I became an insurance broker with access to multiple companies instead of just farmers, not only for my own business, but as much for my clients. And then in 2022 advisor invited me to a two day event that she had.

And she said, come to this two day event at the Sheraton Portland Airport. And I thought, that sounds very boring, but okay. And that two days rocked my world and changed my whole career direction. So the first day, we talked a lot about money and scarcity versus abundance and how money exists in language and our money beliefs from childhood.

And all that kind of stuff. And then day two, they started to pull the curtain back on the investing industry and really put some data behind all these suspicions that I had about the investing industry, and also revealed that there’s an alternative way to invest. That’s all based on scientific research that’s back tested for 50 to 70 years.

So that’s where Inbundance Wealth Management was born, was out of that two days. Knowing that if I had had that information 20 years prior, I probably would’ve been able to help a lot more people. So we still do all the insurance stuff, but we focus on educating people that there is a scientific way to invest.

Kim Allchurch Flick: Wow. And what a clever name. 

Corey Kaster: Yeah, it’s one of the things I love mashing words together just ’cause it’s fun and it’s unique. So that’s how Inbundance came together. Insurance investments, inspiration and abundance. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Indeed. In the entrepreneur world and company startups, we hear about investing all the time and it seems like there’s always some potential good.

Some dark side. And what are your, what’s your take on the importance of money as a B Corps and a benefit corporation for good? 

Corey Kaster: Yeah. Well, money is one of those things where, as much as we try, or some people may try to ignore it or put it in a silo in their lives. It’s the thread that weaves through everything in our lives, whether we like it or not.

Having that conversation around how we view money, I feel is one of the most powerful conversations we can have. So the investing side doesn’t just become, I want more which can be really prone to fomo and chasing returns and getting on the next fad or crypto or scheme, that sort of thing.

But. One of the things we focus on is helping people develop a purpose that’s greater than just having more money. What do they actually want to do with that as a tool? And then as a business owner, the, I became a B Corp, oh, I don’t even know how many years ago, but it was one of those things where one of my clients was a B Corps and just said, wait a minute, why aren’t you a B Corps?

And I said. I don’t even know what that is. So, because this was many years ago, and then he’s like, well, you should go get certified because you’re already living the values. And so it was somewhat easy to get certified just because I just had to basically prove what I was already living and then also join 1% for the planet just because.

Like one sort of hierarchy of needs. Saving the planet, I think is the base level. Sure. And our biggest charity that we contribute to is Charity Water. So getting sustainable drinking water systems to communities that don’t have access to it. And so I think like having a, an empowering context around how money works and then having a purpose for money.

Can profoundly impact not only how you invest, but how you look at life in general and how you make your investing decisions, how you make your purchasing decisions, what charities you support, all of them. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: That’s so fascinating. What what are some of the obstacles that you see for your clients and for you?

Corey Kaster: Yeah, so the obstacles for clients are. There’s a lot of misinformation in the investing industry. I say misinformation generously. There’s also just a lot of lies out there. The core class that we teach is called dismantling the myths of investing, and we actually go over the four key lies that we argue this investing industry is built on, and then the data behind why we believe their lies.

And a lot of it just comes down to a core message from the traditional investing industry that. The success of your investment portfolio has to be based on some sort of prediction of the future, and so there’s a lot of movement of money moving from fund to fund buying the next hot thing. There’s this constant churn and no real plan.

And then often when we audit portfolios, what we see is what we call a Frankenstein portfolio. It’s just been basically pieced together year after year. And the result is when we actually look at. Actual investors’, actual results, like their actual returns over long periods of time. They’re dramatically below just basic market returns.

So it’s very destructive to their long-term wealth creation to be in this model based on constantly moving things around and trying to predict the future. So we basically say, if you’re. Portfolio success is based on a prediction of the future. It’s already broken, and so there’s, that’s why we teach that there is a scientific way to do it where you don’t have to fall into that and it’s.

The founder of the company that I work with, when he started this company in 91, he thought, oh, there’s a scientific way to do this. When people see this, it’s just gonna become how everyone invests and people won’t be trying to gamble and pick stocks and beat the market and all that. And it’s now easier than ever to basically treat it like a video game.

I mean like you can open an app on your phone and trade it and they even gamify it to make it look like a video game when it’s real people’s real money that they’ve worked for. And I think the biggest challenge for me as a business owner is I sort of fell into that as well. When I came across as technology, I thought, oh, I’ll just teach classes.

Everybody will get this. People understand and appreciate science. But because of how. This industry sort of gate keeps information around investing and makes it seem way more complicated than it needs to be. Most investors are outsourcing their investment portfolio design, so they’re blindly trusting an advisor just like, Hey, they’re the expert, but with no sort of audit or feedback loop.

They’re like, oh, my person’s great. They’ve been doing it forever. And it’s like, well. Awesome. I’m sure they’re an amazing human, but what kind of returns are you getting? What are your actual results? And people have no idea. And that has let this industry get away with, basically be what we call Wall Street bullies.

Like they can essentially do whatever they want with people’s money because people don’t have a way to see what’s going on and actually even audit returns and see what their money’s actually doing. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Wow I’ve heard of that. And also, sometimes people don’t know the fees that they’re paying or even where to find them.

Corey Kaster: Yeah. And 

Kim Allchurch Flick: I’ve heard that is an issue. For people and company founders as well. 

Corey Kaster: Yeah, and there’s the problem too, and we teach this in the class, is there are fees that can’t be seen anywhere. So there’s some fees they do have to disclose like how much you’re paying your advisor and how much the expense ratio of a fund is.

But there’s hidden costs behind the scenes. Based on the biggest one is the amount of churn or turnover happening in the funds in your portfolio. So a lot of people put all their money into X, y, Z fund thinking, oh well that’s a set it and forget it strategy. And then what we often discover is that’s active management.

And so what’s happening is there’s fund managers buying and selling. Stocks and bonds within that portfolio. And the more turnover there is, the more loss there is to what’s called the bid ask spread. So a lot of people don’t know there’s two different prices for a stock and there’s a little juice in the middle, as I call it.

And so the more turnover that’s occurring, the more that juice in the middle is coming directly out of people’s returns. And how much is lost to that turnover doesn’t have to be disclosed. But most people don’t even know when I ask. They’re like, oh, well I love my person. I’m like, oh, awesome. Do you wanna have a conversation?

Maybe have a third party audit this and see let’s look at some data versus just trusting this person’s personality. 

Sure. And 

then I ask them like, do you know how much you’re paying your advisor? They have no idea. And it’s fascinating to me from the psychological perspective that people notice when a gallon of milk goes up a dollar, but yet where all their money is with an advisor or even a, even if they’re doing it themselves, they often have no idea what they’re actually paying.

Kim Allchurch Flick: It’s just fascinating and yet I think it’s somewhat rampant, isn’t it? 

Corey Kaster: Oh yeah. I can’t remember the last person that I talked to that actually knew how much they were paying their advisor, 

which 

is just boggles my mind. But it’s very much how this industry is built. That’s, and it’s so common, I think it’s hard to unravel sometimes for people, and that’s one of the biggest challenges for me is.

Because I’ve seen both sides, like I’ve been on the dark side where it’s, oh, just put people in funds and if the funds don’t do well, move ’em to another fund. It’s very sort of that the cup game where you just move things around and hope people stay happy and have seen the scientific way to do it. And I think the hardest and most frustrating thing for me is when people won’t even have the conversation.

Like they’re so blinded to it and. I guess maybe they think like I’m coming for their money or they’re, oh, I just, I’m just like their advisor and I just want to be managing their money and getting their fee different than their advisor. And that I think is the hardest part, is having people realize that I’m not just another advisor.

That we have a to, like a fundamentally different strategy for how we invest money. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: And can you talk more about that and also. Your values were noticed even before your company was certified or verified as a benefit corporation. Yeah. And how has that guided you and how has it guided those conversations when you say I’m different, what I have is different for you.

Please listen. How do the values that you started with guide you through that with this industry that might in many people’s minds have somewhat of a black cloud effect for them? 

Corey Kaster: Yeah. My. Commitment that everyone has access to under at least understanding that there’s a different way to invest is what drives me.

And one of my personal main purposes in life is meaningful contribution. And so I think that’s what keeps me going. Even though I’ll have maybe numerous conversations where people just shut down or I don’t want to talk about it. It’s one of those things they don’t even wanna look at it. And it’s interesting ’cause I had I’ll never forget, I had this conversation a couple years ago with a woman. We were going over all the data and science and here’s 50 years of historical information and stuff. And then she was going to my website to do a final double check of. Who am I and what am I about and everything.

And she’s like, wait a minute, you’re a B Corp. Why didn’t you lead with that? She’s like, yeah, here, invest my portfolio. And I was like, well, I appreciate that, that you want to invest a company that is values aligned, but it always does come back to. I wanna encourage people to trust data when it comes to investing versus blindly trusting me because I think that’s what’s led this industry so far astray is it’s not data driven, it is just relationship driven.

And I’ll even tell people, I was like, trust the data, don’t trust me. But. The values aligned, I think definitely helped. And I know when I first got certified and put out a press release and shared it with clients and stuff, it was, I think a lot of my clients already knew that, but they acknowledged me for taking that extra step to actually go through the certification process and continues to stay certified.

Kim Allchurch Flick: Wow, that’s fantastic. And I think. In my world where I’m working with companies, particularly as they have their impacts, but they’re not expressing them very well, is to help with that expression, that marketing piece as well. And I base that on, Nielsen’s done several amazing studies about the social enterprise space and some highlights of a couple of them are that two thirds of consumers are willing to pay more for products and services when they know a company has good values.

Yeah. So my question, yeah. Right at the beginning it was okay, so how do they know how we make that connection? How do they know a company has good values? And verifications and certifications can help, but it’s not the end all be all to it. It also has to be the expression, the marketing of true values, but also measuring and documenting and not making claims without a proof source.

Yeah. And Nielsen did another study very similar and said of that if it was millennials, that 70, 73%. But what makes me optimistic is that globally, a whole lot of people are looking to support companies with good values. And where we’ve missed the mark is the connection. So lead with B Corps is, that’s a great quote that you heard.

So how do you feel about that now? And are you a re-certified B Corps or it’s still in, in the first term? 

Corey Kaster: I’ve re-certified at least once. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Okay. 

Corey Kaster: It all starts to blur together. ’cause it has been a while.

Kim Allchurch Flick: It does. Yes.

Corey Kaster: And it’s definitely, congratulations. It’s, thank you. I mean, we feature the B Corp logo along with the 1% for the planet member business logo in all of our emails and it’s front and center on our website.

I don’t know, to be honest, I don’t know how much I bring it up. I think it’s even on our voicemail when people call in, but I don’t know how much I bring it up during meetings because I guess because it is so prevalent. But yeah, I guess something to consider bringing up more often. But I think for me it’s one of those, I’m living the values and running the company that way and feature it prominently, so I guess it doesn’t come up in conversations as much, if that makes sense.

Kim Allchurch Flick: It does. And sometimes we admit in the B Corps world that some companies want that logo and Yeah. So they’ll do what they can to get it. And then there’s others that are living the values and would do that anyway. And adding the B Corps logo helps them be found. But it’s not the end all, be all.

It’s the certification isn’t the end all be all. It’s the growth and the moving forward and the learning. To do better and better over time and still be a very viable company. And I’m just wondering, what does B Corp benefit corporations for Good and 1% for the planet mean to you personally and how does it affect how you look at your forecasts, your goals, your visions for the future?

Corey Kaster: Yeah. What it means to me personally is. Anytime I see that logo, I know that the business has. It’s an inherent values alignment. Like I don’t have to do a lot of digging through their website and mission and values and that sort of thing. I know that they’re aligned with my values, and so that was the big reason that I wanted to get certified is, not only from some strong encouragement, but Sure.

Just so when people see that associated with my business, that they inherently know that I align with their values and. How it impacts my future, I think. It always keeps me committed to. My core principles of delivering value, because in the advisor world, there’s very much a pressure to constantly grow.

With any business. Sure.

Yeah. 

And anytime that I start to see myself drifting towards, oh, like how much is my assets under management, for instance, and how much has that grown? I translate it back into how many people have I saved from. Speculation and gambling with their portfolio because that way, even if, because like our onboarding process is pretty thorough and time intensive.

Like we’ll do a quick 20 minute discovery call just to see what they’re looking for. But then there’s a 90 minute what we call an investor inventory basically. What’s worked, what hasn’t? What got you to where you are today? And then if it does make sense to move forward from there. We do a 90 minute class, and then after that we do a two hour follow up meeting.

And so it’s fairly time intensive and for me it has no correlation to their level of assets. Like people can come to us and literally have nothing to invest and maybe want to just consider starting a Roth IRA with $25 a month or something. 

And. 

A lot of advisors would think, why in the world would you spend that many hours with someone that doesn’t have a huge portfolio for you to manage?

I’m like how is anyone supposed to grow wealth if we don’t help them at every level? Oh, I love 

Kim Allchurch Flick: that. Yeah. 

Corey Kaster: And a lot of advisors won’t even talk to investors if they have less than 500,000 or, I actually heard, and this was appalling from a, I think it was a fellow B Corp, they wouldn’t talk to people that had less than a million dollars to invest.

And it just boggled my mind how one could be a B Corp and be committed to. People and yet not want to work with anyone if they didn’t have a certain level of assets. So that’s what drives the future as I don’t get disheartened if maybe they choose a different strategy or they don’t want to invest, so they want to loop back later.

It doesn’t bother me because at least I’ve shown them that there’s a different way to do this, and so it can give them some access to a different way to do it if they ever choose that. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: That story touches me so much. I think that’s so key and so important because when people are left to feel small or you’re not there yet, and I hear this with business investing a lot that companies that are.

Really building something, doing well, but revenue isn’t great yet and they wanna go to the next step. And they’re looking for investors. And the investors say, you’re not there yet. So there’s this gap where they can’t get there yet until they get some in investment or some capital from somewhere.

Yeah, that can help get them over. And usually it’s either research or marketing expenses or somewhere. And I think you’ve seen that with companies quite a bit and people as well, individual investors, that there’s a point where without somebody who’s understanding and sending, sharing a lifeline of sorts, there’s a place where people get stuck because the people that could help have a bar.

Or limit and they’re not there yet. And I’ve heard that so many times. And what do you think about education, about money and investing for children or lack thereof? And this is a postulate, but what would it look like if children that are really young were taught some investing saving basics?

Corey Kaster: Yeah. It’s funny that you bring that up because I had the idea over the last year to start bringing this information to kids. So while it’s not a really accessible for young children, I did recently volunteer to teach a junior class at a local high school. They have a personal finance class.

So they were just learning like what is a stock and what is a bond and what is a mutual fund, and that sort of thing. And then I came in and taught our core class, dismantling the miss of investing, just like we teach to adults. And it was incredible. I didn’t, to be honest, I didn’t really know what to expect going into a high school if they were gonna sort of tune out or. But I thought alternatively, they’re close to being able to make money and invest, so they have a vested interest in learning about how this stuff works. And they were super engaged, asking really good questions, and how do we pick an advisor and how do we understand the fee structure of one advisor versus another?

And. It was incredible. So they definitely want to continue to bring me back every quarter to teach because it’s like they can learn these core concepts of what things are, but if they don’t understand how to apply them in an actual portfolio and what to do when they actually start investing it leaves a gap there.

I think the next step would also be maybe going back at the university level so they understand it. Again ’cause that 90 minute class is distilling over 50 years of academic research into 90 minutes. So it’s a little bit of drinking from a fire hose. Definitely for junior high schooler.

But it was really fun to go in and 

Volunteer to school and provide that information. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: That is so awesome. How do you see helping people invest if they’re entrepreneurs or self-employed and helping people invest who are already in a company that is giving them a 401k or giving them access to investing?

And where do you see differences in how you speak with people and where are some similarities? 

Corey Kaster: Yeah. The nice thing is, so entrepreneurs or people that run their own business they might even have their own 401k for their employees, or they’ve got a simpler, a set plan that they can control and.

Those are fun because they can implement, if they do choose this scientific strategy, they can implement it with all their portfolio, they can share it with their employees. So we’ll come in and teach the class to their employees. And so the employees have access to the scientific option through these plans.

And it is distinctly different though when people work for a large employer because. As most people know, they give you a very short menu of options of where you can put your money. Yes. Which is a real disservice. It’s very nice of course, when employers are doing a matching, which of course is basically free money.

But by giving them a limit option to choose from and not really often, much guidance, we. Really see that there’s an opportunity there for a couple different things. One, to provide the individual investors more education. 

But also to start to move up into bigger and bigger employers and help them realize, and I think there could be a good avenue to do this through B Corps.

How much. Their 401k plan impacts their employees because a lot of people think, oh, we’re doing a matching, like we’re being competitive. Oh, wow. But it’s like, well, wait a minute. Let’s dig into this and see how much do your employees understand these plans and the options? What is your engagement like?

How many people are actually taking advantage of those? Because nationwide, I think the numbers are about 50% of people use their employer plan and actually contribute, which is incredible because most plans are probably doing some sort of a matching. And so the fact that half the employees in the country aren’t taking advantage of that is a horrible disservice.

And where we can come in is. Not only helping the employees understand how this stuff works, but for instance, if they want to come to the two day event that we have, like they can have a profound shift from scarcity to abundance, which impacts the employer directly because we all know if people are more comfortable back to that hierarchy of needs, if their financial needs are met and they’re living in a world of abundance versus scarcity, they’re gonna be.

More happy, more productive at work, it’s gonna create a greater workplace environment. So yes, we really see that there’s a way to transform the 401k industry, because currently it is typically the employers are looking at it from who’s got the lowest fee. ‘Cause that’s the only thing they really know to compare.

And they’re not, I think looking at it from the side of, well, what’s the cost on the employee side and how much turnover do I have as a business? Because employees aren’t participating in the plan or they don’t understand how it works. And so they don’t, they’re not feeling that commitment to their success from their employer.

And as we know, unsupported employees are most ripe for going somewhere else 

Kim Allchurch Flick: and Oh, absolutely. What do you think are some of the reasons for the people not to engage with their 401k? 

Corey Kaster: I think a lot of it, I haven’t really dug into research about it, but I think one of the biggest things is their, the way they look at money, because typically when they first get employed, they get the big packet of, okay, here’s matching and here’s how you log in.

Set it up. So I think it’s two different things. One, it can be overwhelm, but I think more commonly it’s. They’re feeling like they’re paycheck to paycheck. And so they’re very much living in a world of scarcity. And so even contributing 3% or 5% of their paycheck seems like an insurmountable hurdle.

And it’s very, of course, destructive to long-term wealth creation because their 3% could be an immediate 6% if it matched by the employer. And so I think it’s the combination of those two and. With plans that I work with. Those are the people that I would be the most committed to is figure out what’s going on in their lives that Yeah.

Is having them look at this way and how can we help support them? 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Oh I love that. And it’s so important because the future people don’t always look at the potential for the future until they get there and when there’s no savings. In that future that’s now present it can be a scary place and for a lot of people and often not their fault.

And I myself have someone who’s been laid off a few times in good company with like 50% of the employee base, so surrounded by people who are in the same thing, but knowing that there was still something there. So I love your passion for what you do and for helping people. And you uttered the word gambling.

Yeah, and I was wondering if you could talk about that in terms of investing. And then another question I have for you is how can people decipher from like those 401k funds, and I know what some of them look like to the words impact investing, green investing, and if they want to invest with ethics or their own morals and values.

Where would you steer someone but first to just those people you’re talking to. 

Corey Kaster: Yeah. I think the gambling part, I’m trying to think the easiest way to distill it down. The data shows that if you’re trying to pick individual stocks, either yourself, which some people do, or like they’ll have Robinhood on their phone and they’ll buy individual stocks.

But the most commonplace we see it is within mutual funds in their portfolio, whether it’s with their employer or outside of their employer. And that’s where I think people don’t realize that there’s gambling happening in their portfolio because. Basically to simplify it, that fund manager that’s managing X, Y, Z fund is trying to predict where the market is going, or even segments of the market, green energy tech, et cetera, and then trying to make trades, trying to beat the market.

But most of those underperform the market, meaning that you’re basically paying them to lose your money, so you’re paying them to. Yeah, you’re paying them to perform below the market. And so that’s where I think a lot of people don’t even realize that that’s happening and it’s very destructive. So usually once we show people what’s really happening there, then they obviously want an alternative, but, and I think that’s where it can even go into like ESG and sustainable investing.

In that, well, one, I think there’s a lot of greenwashing, which is I think dangerous in and of itself. Indeed. And we have a deeper conversation with people around basically what their values are and what they want that to look like in their portfolio and where that shows up in their life. Oftentimes due to the overhead for being in that ESG category, those funds often perform, I think the numbers are around 3% below comparable funds. So they’re taking a, basically a 3% calculated loss in their. Expected return by that commitment and unfortunately not knowing well, are those companies actually committed to that or did they just pay to get this certification like that?

That’s where it gets into a very gray area, and we think that people can have a lot more of an impact with their purchasing decisions versus, even you think about oh yeah, I’ve got half a million dollars in a portfolio and I’m putting it all into ESG funds. It’s like, well, yeah, but if that’s spread across 500 different companies, 

right.

Is 

that having a measurable impact on that company versus. Or on those individual companies versus, oh, I’m going to buy a different type of vehicle, or I’m going to boycott this company, or I’m going to get the word out that they have nefarious practices. Alternatively from the positive side I’m gonna support B Corps and spend my money there and.

By the way, we do things and just letting the market do the work and getting market returns, then you also have more flexibility to donate to charities and to support the causes that you care about versus basically trying to strong arm companies based on the money that you have in a small percentage of their stock in your portfolio.

Kim Allchurch Flick: I just learned a new term in the last couple years that hadn’t occurred to me Uhhuh, but it’s donor-advised funds and for people who want to have. Either trust or have donations, in into their future and beyond to have something to be able to give. 

Corey Kaster: I 

Kim Allchurch Flick: heard that about donor advised funds.

What do you think about those for people who wanna give back to the world somehow to have some charitable donations? What are your thoughts? 

Corey Kaster: Yeah, and I think, are you just factoring, like for passing on their estate or? What do you mean specifically?

Kim Allchurch Flick: The way it was described is a little bit of both.

It’s helpful for people who are retired and have to do the mandatory withdrawals. A place to put that, and also for those who feel philanthropic, philanthropic to do it in the near term, but also for longevity as a trust, like after death or something as well. 

Corey Kaster: Yeah. One, I think it’s a great opportunity to do and this sort of dabbles, which we aren’t providing tax advice, but it, there’s also can be some very nice tax advantages to structuring things that way.

I don’t specifically have as much experience with donor-advised funds, but I know it’s one of the things that I. Could bring our same methodology to of yeah, how exactly do you want this portfolio to be managed? And then what sort of impact do you want it to have in the world, both while you’re living and after you pass.

Kim Allchurch Flick: Exactly. 

Corey Kaster: Yeah. That 

Kim Allchurch Flick: is amazing. And how, what are your values in this space and in life, and how do you find as you’re talking to someone that they resonate with how you are and your values? 

Corey Kaster: Yeah, my core purpose is meaningful contribution, epic adventure, and deep connection, and when it is pretty easy to recognize out in the world, people that align with that, and I used to refer to it a long time ago before I refined it into that current iteration, is having a growth mindset.

People that want to grow, experience life, develop themselves, contribute to the world and live life to the fullest. And so those are the people that I resonate with the most, and I think that’s. As I mentioned before, when we go through our process and have that quick 20 minute discovery call, I’m very strategic in that is this, yes, I wanna help as many people as I can, but also is this going to be somebody who I.

Align with and things like me, because I’ve definitely had those conversations where they’re like, Hey, what fun do I go into? I was like, wait, wait, wait. Let’s back up a little bit. And I remember one of those specifically, he’s like, I don’t really want to hear anything or learn anything. Just tell me what fun to buy.

And I was like we’re not a fit. Not a problem. Best of luck. But yeah, so that’s what. I find resonates the most is finding people that align with my same core values, and that’s pretty easy to find out right up front. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Oh, that’s so awesome. And what makes you optimistic? 

Corey Kaster: I think I’ve always had sort of that sunshine and rainbow look of the world.

Even in the current state of things, I’m like, oh, well maybe everything will crumble and then we’ll really rebuild it new and amazing. So, I think it’s just, it comes back probably the same sort of framework of scarcity versus abundance. 

I am a big believer in. How you look at the world creates the world.

Another way to say it is a term called terministic screens. And it’s interesting, it just popped into my head of talking about people that I resonate with versus don’t. I definitely try to stay around people with a similar mindset that. If you look at the world through a positive lens, you’ll see things that align with that.

’cause that’s just how the brain works. But if you look at the world through a very negative lens, then that’s all you’re gonna see and the, the brain will find the things that align with that. And not to say I have not fallen into some negativity for sure, but absolutely. Yeah. I keep that as a focus of like, wait a minute.

The world is just happening as the world is happening, and I choose to interact with it and see it as I wish. And so having that optimistic mindset, if I can choose my belief, why not choose the one that supports me and works versus the one that’s gonna be sad and depressing. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Makes so much sense.

And for those listening, would you share again, your website and contact information? How can they reach you? 

Corey Kaster: So my website is Inbundance.com. And the best way to get in touch is there’s a schedule button all over. The website is to book a quick 20 minute discovery call and we can just chat a bit, see if we’re a fit and if there’s anything that we can help with.

Kim Allchurch Flick: And this is all, this is in the show notes as well. Is there anything else you’d like to add before I ask the final question? 

Corey Kaster: I think the biggest thing that I would encourage people to do is to do the looking and be open to learn how investing works. I definitely understand outsourcing and trusting a professional in a lot of areas, like I have a CPA and attorneys.

And that sort of thing. Sure. But this is definitely an area of the trust, but verify.

Kim Allchurch Flick: That’s a really good thing to think of. And I’ll add too I’m a visual learner, a little bit left-brained, and when it comes to things like columns and numbers, I need a lot of repetition. 

Or I need visuals and I think some people are like that as well. And this isn’t the final question yet, but how do you adapt to how people look at.

Money and figures and text. And if they can’t get it, like I’m one of these people that sometimes it just doesn’t literally compute. And it’s a pun. Yes. But it’s also just the way my brain works and, but when somebody can show me pictures or graphs, 

Corey Kaster: yeah. So it, it’s a 

Kim Allchurch Flick: big difference. And do you see that with people and how do you adapt to.

How someone can actually take the information. 

Corey Kaster: Oh yeah, yeah. ’cause it definitely different people and absorb information in different ways. Our class is very visual, so we often, well, most of our classes we teach over Zoom, so they can do it right from home and see, we’ll go over graphs and charts and often those classes are in a small setting and so I can take the time.

One, I’ll know the people that are in the class. So as I’m going through the class, I can speak specifically to like explaining what a mutual fund is and what goes into a mutual fund, meet them where they are and we try to make all of our content. Accessible for everyone. And I was amazed that even when I had that, took that same slide deck to a high school, that they pretty much understood the bulk of it.

Even they were brand new to knowing what a stock was. And I’ve taught that same class to somebody 65 years old. 

Definitely as accessible as possible. And then when we do the follow-up meeting, we do a thing called a portfolio, MRI. It’s a tool that we built that basically, once people understand how investing works and where returns come from the class, then we can actually do an analysis of their portfolio and then we show them in multiple different ways, both numbers, side by side, percentages, et cetera.

But then even on a graph of how efficient or inefficient their portfolio is, how much risk they’re taking for how much return it’s engineered to get. And we definitely walk through everything until they get it. Like I always ask on every page, like any other questions, is this making sense? And giving them that space to feel comfortable to ask what they might think is a stupid question.

Because one of the biggest complaints I hear is when people go to ask any question of their advisor that they feel either talked down to or talked over. 

And I am out to change that ’cause I don’t want to feel, have anyone feel shame about asking a question about how their money is managed.

That’s just gross. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Yeah. Well, and this is their livelihood and their future. So thank you for that. And everyone that do look@inbundance.com. So for the last question, if you’re in community with some of your favorite people living or dead who would it be?

Corey Kaster: Yeah, I think actually the first. People that come to mind are people that have built very large companies. It’s really fun to spend time with. So the company that I work with that does all the engineering of these portfolios and provides the education is a company called Matson Money, and I’m down in Scottsdale with Mark Matson, who founded the company every couple months for training.

So the nice thing is I get. Not a sit down meal with him, but I get a lot of interaction and anybody that’s built a big empire, like he started this company back in 91 when he came across this technology. And like him and I think of even founders of. Large companies like Apple, that sort of thing.

Not that I want to emulate or become that large but just to see how they look at things such that they can build a company so large. Because it’s fascinating to me how, again, I don’t want to necessarily build something that large, even though I do see that the larger my company is, the more people that I can help and the more education I can provide.

It seems like just such a different lens through which they see the world. Talking about those terministic screens of like, oh, I can build a company from my garage to. Apple or Amazon or something. And again, not that I want to emulate all their characteristics, but it’d be interesting to see how they see the world such that they can build something that large.

Kim Allchurch Flick: This also makes me think because we’re both so much in the B Corps world, it’s also, and I’m pondering with you, how could somebody build something that large. With strong values. 

Corey Kaster: Yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: As a potential B Corps. ’cause the ones you’re the ones you’re listing. Well, they’re publicly traded first of all, but also probably not in the B Corps realm as much.

What? Yeah. That’s why I say I don’t, do you even think it’s possible and yes. They employ a lot of people. There’s a lot of things about those companies. Do you think there’s a way to do it with a really strong. True north values like you have. 

Corey Kaster: I think there is, because especially now with, as you mentioned before, the stats about how many people are willing to pay more for those products and services that are produced by B Corp.

It might not be as explosive as a growth trajectory as maybe some of these companies have seen. But I definitely think it’s possible and I’m. Back to the optimism. I hope that’s our future. Yes. Is that as we continue to vote with our dollars, that it supports the companies growing that large. I’d love to see like a B Corp, Amazon, something that isn’t doesn’t have as many destructive practices, but can provide value and services to people and. Support small businesses and be green and support the planet. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Indeed. And we are seeing them crop up, aren’t we? There’s different little pockets or different sectors, but this just popped into my brain as you said that there is one. And I’m very happy about this company, bookshop.org.

Is a B Corps and they are dedicated to bringing books to sale in several countries and supporting independent bookstores in the process. And they’ve, to date given something like almost $43 million to independent bookstore owners. And every time you buy a book that a, it’s not from Amazon, it’s from bookshop do org and every purchase.

Gives a little bit of money to this fund that goes back to independent bookstores. And independent bookstores can create their own shop on bookshop.org. So if people can’t go to their store, they can go to curated online shop. And that way, in a way, I’ve answered the question I asked you with one example.

Corey Kaster: Yeah. Yeah. There are companies that are doing that and I think we’ll see bigger, 

Kim Allchurch Flick: bigger, more. If you’re big enough to give away 42 million it, it doings. Doing some big number business. Yeah. And I find that very exciting. And then they partnered with Libro fm, which is also a B Corp, which is the audio book portion of Oh yeah.

Corey Kaster: As well. Yeah, I’ve heard of them. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: So how do we, the questions for us both that don’t have to be answered now, but how do we keep looking? How do we, there’s, there are. My optimism is the innovators, the people that want to bring the similar products and services to us in a better fashion, in a way that is better for the planet.

And they’re innovating new ways. 

Corey Kaster: Yeah, and I think it’s just our role as consumers to constantly be looking for that. So just like when you go to the store and you see two different shampoos and one’s a B Corp, but one isn’t. Like I love it because it makes it a very easy choice for me. I don’t really pay attention as much to the price, but I know that it’s a sustainable business, and I think the more we focus on that, whether it’s services or products, it’ll continue that movement.

Kim Allchurch Flick: Oh that’s fascinating. I think we could talk for a very long time. Yeah, 

Corey Kaster: for sure. Look 

Kim Allchurch Flick: forward to seeing you and networking out and about in the new year. Yeah. But I wanna thank you and everyone, this is Cory Kaster with Inbundance Wealth Management, which is a great title for our company. Thank you.

Thank you. Look at the show notes and we appreciate you.

Corey Kaster: Yeah. Thanks Kim. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Take care.