The Visibility Room™: On-Air (and Off Script)
The Visibility Room™: On Air & Off Script is a candid, leadership-forward podcast recorded inside Detroit’s premier visibility studio. Each episode features conversations with the leaders, deal makers, advisors, and builders you want to know; people who live here, work here, or fly in just to be in the room.
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The Visibility Room™: On-Air (and Off Script)
Retirement Planning Mistakes to Avoid With Gina Wells
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In this episode of The Visibility Room™: On Air & Off Script, host Karyl Morris sits down with financial strategist Gina Wells to discuss retirement planning, financial confidence, and why having a personalized plan matters more than following generic financial advice. Drawing on more than 30 years of experience, Gina shares practical insights on building wealth, preparing for life's unexpected expenses, and creating financial strategies that fit your unique goals—not someone else's. From navigating inflation and retirement to understanding financial products and avoiding costly mistakes, this conversation offers valuable guidance for anyone looking to take control of their financial future.
Who's Gina Wells?
Gina Wells is the founder of Financial Design Strategies and a financial planner with more than 32 years of experience helping individuals and families create personalized financial plans. Rather than relying on one-size-fits-all solutions, Gina takes a relationship-first approach, helping clients understand their options, build long-term financial confidence, and prepare for every stage of life. Through education, thoughtful planning, and customized strategies, she empowers clients to make informed financial decisions that support both their current lifestyle and future goals.
Keep Up With Gina Wells:
Website: www.yourfds.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ginacwells
Who's the Host?
Karyl Morris is the founder of The Image Impact Group and host of The Visibility Room™: On Air & Off Script, filmed exclusively in Detroit's ONLY visibility creative studio for high-impact leaders. With every hand-selected guest, she explores the real stories behind leadership, visibility, and influence. Through candid conversations, Karyl helps listeners understand how people build credibility, navigate change, and show up with confidence—on camera and beyond.
Keep Up With Karyl Morris:
Website: https://www.theimageimpactgroup.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thevisibilityroom/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karylmorris
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KarylKMorris
#TheVisibilityRoom #FinancialPlanning #RetirementPlanning #WealthBuilding #PersonalFinance
The problem is when our incomes don't increase along with the inflation, then we have to fall back on all of these assets that we do and take a 401k loan, do we go and take uh money out of a IRA? Do we liquidate a CD? Right. Or do we have the ability to leverage from an asset that will continue to grow, borrow from it? No banks, no credit reports, no anything.
SPEAKER_00Hey, hey, hey, everybody. It's Carol Morris from the Image Impact Group and the Visibility Room on Air and Off Script. And I am here today with Gina Wells from Financial Design Strategies. Gina, welcome. Thank you so much, Carol. I'm glad to be here. Yes, I am glad you're here too, because you are a wealth of knowledge when it comes to finance and financial designs and setting people up for success. So before we get started, I do want you to just give kind of an overall view of who you love to work with and what it is about what you do that makes it so special to you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I love to work with families who care about their money and who are serious about their money and who don't like it to be leaving their pockets. Yeah, right. I like them to be friendly and fun. Yeah. Um because even though financial planning may be serious, um, I like it to be relaxed and, you know, in an atmosphere that they're comfortable talking to me about their personal lives because that's really what it's about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. And I know for you um in particular, building a relationship, an actual relationship with people is really important, which I totally get and totally appreciate about the style that you work within. Um, and we're gonna dive deep into some questions that I have about financial um planning and such, but first, we need to do our rapid fire questions. So you ready? Okay now. What first impression do you want others to have of you?
SPEAKER_01That I'm friendly and approachable.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and I think you do a great job of that, knowing you for many years now. Um favorite way to connect with people, virtually or in person?
SPEAKER_01Well, I've gotten so used to virtual connections now that it's gotten pretty easy. I'd definitely love to be, you know, here with you and with other people, but it has come uh since COVID and even before COVID, Carol, you know, I was doing Zoom conferencing because I'm licensed in about 20 different states. Yes. And it gets that way because I hit referrals from other people in other states. So I get licensed that way. So there's there are some of my clients I've never met in person. Yes. So that's a tough one. But if I get to meet them in person, it's definitely a hug and a so good to see you at part time.
SPEAKER_00No, is that crazy? It's funny. Totally. This is why it's called off script, by the way, because I can go off script if I want. Oh, there you go. Yesterday we had a networking, and uh, it was so fun to see somebody that I literally have been connected with on LinkedIn for uh probably seven years. Never met her in person until yesterday. So I can imagine that when you see that client that you've been working with for so long, to see them off screen in IRL in real life. That's pretty cool. All right, what builds credibility faster? Expertise, presence, or consistency?
SPEAKER_01Consistency. And why do you say that? Um, because I am consistent um with my clients. You know, if I meet with someone and they're good and I tell them straight up, hey, you're you're doing great. There, you know, if anything changes, come and let me know. Yeah. And then if they come back to me, where I consistently do the same thing I did the first time. Tell me what's going on. Where are you at? How are things moving for you personally and professionally? Yeah. And do you have enough money to retire the way that you want to? Right. Same lifestyle, because you know, when you retire, you're on a seven-day vacation every day.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. All right. Um, what's the number one trust killer that you often see?
SPEAKER_01Number trust killer. Trust killer, yeah. Well, obviously, if you tell a lie. Yes. Yes. You know, that uh trust is built on open communication, communication that's honest and truthful. Um, so that works both ways too. When I have a client who might say to me one thing and then all of a sudden I find out that's not how it was. You know, it's not that they've said a lie to me, but they didn't tell me the truth. And so I'm gonna ask them why why was it that you didn't tell me about this? Or an omission. An omission. Yeah. Because the other thing is we have fears and frustrations about talking to somebody like myself. Yeah. What are they gonna think about what I'm doing? Right, right, you know, do it wrong. Right, right. So it may not just be that, but um I would definitely say not telling the truth. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, last one. What is the number one leadership lesson that has stuck with you over the years?
SPEAKER_01Leadership. Um, I've been in different areas of leadership over my 32-year career, um, especially in associations that are dealt with. Uh, National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, uh, Million Dollar Roundtable are some of the organizations that I've stuck to and have been members of my entire career. And that leadership is great because when you're in business by yourself, yeah, it's tough. And you need somebody to understand what you're going through to help you mentor you through those things. And so I've had great mentors. Uh Nelson Nash, who wrote Becoming Your Own Banker, he and I mentored for over 18 years together before he passed. Yeah. Um Don Blatton of uh Circle of Wealth, the software that I use to help people understand where things are at when they see the private reserve strategy. It was created by Don Blatton and his team at Circle of Wealth. Um, and so it's just having those people to follow that have led um me in a positive direction. Yeah, I love that. And I'm hoping to lead uh people in a positive direction as I meet with them as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I, you know, I mean, talk about positive. You have great positive energy, which I really appreciate. And I know one of the things that you have consistently talked about when we've gotten together is the necessity for you to early on in your career get help. So, what age should somebody be talking to a financial planner? When when's the right time?
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, I think parents should be helping their children talk to them about sound financial planning, saving money. You just don't get the birthday present for $50 or $100 and go spend it. Yeah. What if you put, you know, 10% of what you got from a birthday gift into a savings account so you can save up for something larger in the future. So early as possible. But um, you know, generally at times when when you get your first job, your first job that is meaningful. Right. Um, I would say the average age of people who get serious about the work I do is in their 30s. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh I just had a young couple come in. Um, they've got, you know, a baby, but they've got college debt. Almost every young person in their 30s has college debt. And they're trying to buy a house. Yeah. And other things have happened where they've had to rack up their credit card, but they've got good incomes. And so they're like, we're gonna hurry up and pay off this credit card as fast as we can. And I'm like, well, slow down a little bit because the credit cards got there because you needed something. And and that's kind of a cost of a lifestyle that you chose to lead. So that's fine. That'll cost will be there. But if you ignore the protection elements right now and just uh keep sending all that money to the credit card companies without keeping anything back for yourself, it's gonna just repeat and repeat. And I've seen that happen time and time again.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think, I think too that it's such a it's such a major conversation that it feels first of all, it just feels heavy thinking about it. And then, you know, there's some I think for a lot of people, some embarrassment about talking about their finances if they haven't been really um savvy in the past. And the thing is, is that the example that you just gave is of some some younger people that already know that they need help. It's not that it was a mistake, it was a choice at the time, and now the best choice is to ask for your help, to get some good guidance to move forward in a way that makes sense for everybody and allows them to have that life that they want to lead and not dig deeper, right? Right.
SPEAKER_01That's a procrastination. The longer they procrastinate, the worse, worse it will get. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, let's talk about that. But how do you come up with a plan? How important is a plan to have? So here you are, maybe you're in your you know, late 20s, you're you're now in a job that feels pretty secure. You're starting to think about having a family. Where does the plan come in? What does that look like?
SPEAKER_01Well, first, you know, it's really about what are you doing, right? What is your lifestyle? So I need to hear about their life because you know, it's not a cookie cutter one size fits all.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And although a lot of soundbite, what I call soundbite financial planning out there makes it sound like that's what it is. Put all your money in the 401k and pay off your debt. Yeah, you know, all this little soundbite, but it doesn't work that way in real life. Something bad happens, your tires go bad, your roof needs fixing your life, you know, there's one thing that happens all the time. So I always start by just checking out their paychecks. What does their employer give them as benefits? Are they maintaining the correct balance of employer benefits to their own benefits? Uh, the first start. Then from their paycheck, who's in control of the money, right? Do they have separate bank accounts? Do they have both bank accounts together? I want to hear a little bit about how they do banking. Right. And then how do they spend money? What do they decide? Do they have a budget or is it just, oh, we need this, so we go buy this and we debit this or we, you know, charge it on a credit, you know. Just want to hear what they're doing. And then if there are areas that we can improve, we'll talk about whether they're open to those improvements. Because not everybody's open to improvements. I hate to say that. Right, right. It's the truth, yeah. But you need to be open to hearing and improving. And if if you are, then then we'll find areas that work for that specific individual. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I know on on your website, you you have a foundation um and um an acronym design that you follow, right? It's your framework that you take your clients through. And you know, for those of you that are listening, that you're out there watching, make sure to drop by her website and look through that design acronym and that framework because it's designed to really cover each step of making the plan, not only making the plan, but implementing it, the growth strategies, the nurturing, and all that good stuff. That's right. Yeah. So I think that's super important. So that's my 401. Thank you. Yes, you're 414, right? 411. Yeah, yeah. My info. Well, so you know, I mean, in in a perfect world, everything would stay the same. You, you know, you you decide to reach out, you have your plan, and and life goes on perfectly. But as we know, you know, not to get down on things, but the economy changes. It's just part of life. So what happens when the economy changes? What what is the plan then?
SPEAKER_01So, you know, you're looking at different financial products that you own at that point. Okay. Right? You're gonna have your 401k that may be pretext, you'll have your 401k that may be Roth. You might have an annuity, you'll have cash value life insurance, you'll have CDs, you'll have all sorts of areas that you have money. And if, for example, like gas prices, right? Yeah, that that hits lifestyle, that hits your credit card. So are you pulling money away from buying groceries? Are you going, oh, I guess we're not going on that vacation now because instead of costing $500 is going to cost a thousand dollars and we don't have it. When those types of things happen, there are different financial products that will work within that framework because inflation, although things will always go up in time, normally our incomes increase along the way with it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The problem is when our incomes don't increase along with the inflation, then we have to fall back on all of these assets that we have. Yeah. Yeah. Do we go and take a 401k loan? Do we go and take uh money out of our IRA? Do we liquidate a CD? Right. Or do we have the ability to leverage from an asset that will continue to grow, borrow from it? No banks, no credit reports, no anything. And when you're ready to pay it back, you can pay it back, and you'll be right back where you should have been had you never used the money in the first place.
SPEAKER_00Because you prepared to borrow from yourself. I prepared to borrow from yourself. Yeah, yeah. The bank of me. There you go. Yeah. The bank of me.
SPEAKER_01And the larger your bank gets, the better off you are. Yeah, yeah, exactly. To apply all those things.
SPEAKER_00You know, it it's again, it is a heavy conversation to many. I I know, like I start talking about money and my you know, handshake. I just I don't, it doesn't matter if I have it or I don't have it. I just don't love the conversation. I just want everything to be happy. And you know, as long as I can, you know, do the things that I want to do, I feel happy. But that doesn't create a plan, right? And I think that's really important. And I love the fact that you love helping people that are in that in that space of either learning or in the space of preparing so that you can take a step back from you know, the five to nine, right? Nine to five. Sometimes it is five to nine when I'm, you know, get home and I'm still thinking about business, right? But anyway, um, but yeah, I mean, you know, like you said uh just earlier today, you know, when you're retired, that's seven days of vacation. How are you gonna afford that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and you don't want to just sit at home, right? I mean, you know, there's all all sorts of places to go when you don't have to do anything but do whatever you want. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00What is your one piece of advice you would give somebody that is um trying to prepare to retire and has not had any help yet?
SPEAKER_01If they had had no help, get some help, right? Because it's overwhelming in what we think to be true about IRAs, really are or even 401ks. I mean, I've told the story to you before. My own father, when he was retiring from General Motors, um, was going to use most of his 401k to go buy a home in Florida. Oh, he was gonna liquidate it. Yeah. And my mom told me, and I was new into the career, so he thought, you know, what does she was a paralegal? Now she's in a in a financial planner. Right, right. But anyway, I said, Dad, you need to sit down with me as though um I'm not your daughter.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That I am a financial planner. And when I explained to him that if he pulled that money from the 401k, he'd be in a higher tax bracket, number one. Number two, he's putting that cash into a piece of property in Florida that may or may not appreciate. And number three, he can't get access to that money anymore. Right. So he's kind of cutting off access to cash.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So um they understood that leveraging their paid-off home in Michigan to buy a second home in Florida gave them tax benefits, gave them flexibility of income. And ultimately, it uh unfortunately, when my dad passed away, gave my mom um more flexibility to decide what she wanted to do. Today she lives in Florida full-time, but yeah, initially she was able to maintain two homes, one in Michigan and one in Florida, because they sat down and talked about how to use the money accurately. And people are always, I'll say this, they want to have their mortgage paid off, right? They want to have their house paid off. Number one thing. Well, if having your house paid off costs you money in the future that you don't have access to unless you go knock on the door of the bank again and say, Hey, can I get some of my equity back? Yeah, yeah. And what also happens is if your house is paid off and you need access to cash and you're over 65, there are things called reverse mortgages that are out there. But again, if you don't have a plan, then that mortgage just builds up and yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_00There's so many moving pieces, and I think that's why it feels overwhelming to people because it it is it is not an easy answer and it's a different answer for everybody, right? It's like it sounds like it's a big puzzle. And depending on the lifestyle that you're trying to have, and depending on the income that you have, depending on the expenses that you have, the puzzle looks different. Sure does. And so you've got to have somebody like you that can design the puzzle in a way that makes sense. That's right. And at the end of the day, the picture looks great, right? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Isn't that funny? You know, there are 100-piece puzzles, there's 500-piece puzzles, you know, and I mean it's it's very true because there's a lot of moving pieces that need to be put together and work and work to make a framework.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because you know, and if a piece is missing, then is the picture as good as it could have been? Maybe not. Look at us go designing. This is fun camera. All right, we are going to well, first of all, thank you for walking through that because I think it's really important. And um, for those of you out there too, connect with uh Gina on LinkedIn because she runs a great series of videos and uh newsletters that will give you some insight on the regular about what to look out for, um, things to to consider. And I think that's the biggest thing, right? The knowledge is power. Yeah. So the more that you have, uh, the better off you're gonna be. All right. Are you ready for this, my friend?
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, one other thing I wanted to add to it was always people always ask me, how do I get paid? Oh, yes. That is the number one thing. And there are so many different, you know, I I had a client come in and say to me the other day, Gina, you you know, are you a financial planner or what what do I call you when I tell people about you? And and we kind of had a laugh about it because I said, Well, what do you think that I do? He goes, Everything. Yeah. We laugh. But the reality is that I don't charge a fee because when I sit down and talk with my clients, there are three ways that a financial planner will charge, right? There are some planners that will charge you an upfront fee just to sit down and talk to you. Some will charge you after you they talk to you and know how much money you've got. You go, oh, well, my minimum is $1,500, but my maximum is $5,000. Right. Um, and you know, you'll fall into in between here. And the reality is the third way is that those same financial planners who charge a fee also have to sell the products to whether it's assets under management, which they charge a fee for how much money is growing in the stock market, or if it's commission on a product like long-term care, annuities, life insurance, uh, something of that nature. There is always a cost to buy into a financial product. And my whole motto has always been, I'm helping people find money that are unknowingly and unnecessarily transferring away. And you ask me the clients that I like the most are the clients who were honest with each other, right? Yeah. You see how I get paid. It's not you're out of your pocket, right? But you can see, because you understand how these financial products work, that you're moving forward. So would you rather pay me a fee and a commission, or would you rather just pay me a commission? Um, but the third way I get paid are referrals, Carol. Yeah. And it's great that I get people uh all the time, hey, I need you to talk to my son or daughter, which is where I'm at now for 32 years in this career. Uh I am now talking to the children of my first clients.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it is cool. And which is again to kind of wrap it up, the the reason that you are licensed in so many different states because of the referrals to be able to help those people. So well, congratulations on 32 years in business because that is amazing. We're gonna wrap it up with the magic bowl. So go ahead and pick something out of here. It may be about Detroit, it might be about something completely irrelevant. Oh, I'm gonna read it for you because I have chicken scratch handwriting. All right, all right. Ooh, what is a risk that paid off?
SPEAKER_01What is a risk? Marrying my husband.
SPEAKER_00Oh I want to know why that was a risk.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it wasn't a risk. Well, it's kind of a funny story because we uh courted for such a short time. Yeah. Oh, okay. Uh yeah, we we met on a blind date and uh we kind of hit it off from there. And one thing after we got, you know, our he had children, I had children, we melded our families together. In fact, our children gave us away when the preacher said, Who gives this man and woman to be married? They all went, We do.
SPEAKER_00Oh, how cute is so cute. How long did you date for before you got married? Like seven months.
SPEAKER_01Oh and now you've been married for we just celebrated 34 years. That's amazing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, on we're just gonna end it on that note. Well, cheers to you. Thank you. Congratulations. Risk equals rewards so often, and that is um a great way to end this. So thank you for stopping by. For those of you again that are watching or listening, make sure that you take matters into your own hands, design the future that you would like, and check out Miss Agen Wells and financial design strategies. We will talk to you guys another day. Make sure to like and follow, and we'll see you later.