The Master’s Minute

Helpful Tools and Tips

The Master’s Minute – Planning for the Future While Trusting the Process

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Seedling growing to show how trusting the process is a lot about preparation for your finances.

Building Confidence Through Patience and Perspective When we talk with clients about planning for the future, one theme often comes up: sometimes it’s hard to stay patient. We live in a world that measures everything in instant results — but meaningful financial progress doesn’t happen overnight. A solid financial plan is like planting a garden. You prepare the soil, plant the seeds, and care for them over time – but… Read More

The Master’s Minute – Real Estate Investing for Small Business Owners

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A small house in front of an out of focus stock ticker board representing real estate investments for small business owners.

As a small business owner, you devote most of your financial resources and energy to growing your company. It is not uncommon for a business owner’s net worth to be comprised of 70, 80, or even 90% of their principal business interest. Over time, diversifying a small portion of your assets away from your business equity can help to reduce financial pressure on the business, provide essential investment diversification, and… Read More

The Master’s Minute – What’s Going on with the Stock Market?

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An advisor talks to his client about what's going on with the stock market.

These days, it seems like every minute brings a new headline: inflation surprises, interest rate changes, a central banker’s hint, new tariff signaling, or a CEO’s offhand tweet. It seems the market jumps, tumbles, and pivots on whatever dominates the news cycle. It’s no wonder so many investors feel overwhelmed and wonder: what’s really going on with the stock market? In today’s post, we’ll focus on the two simple forces… Read More

The Master’s Minute – Business Owners Should Know These 2025 Tax Updates (OBBBA) | 2025 Tax Series IV

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Over the past four weeks, we’ve covered 401K changes and written a series of blogs exploring tax changes in 2025. That series started with a high-level overview for everyone and continued to specific audiences such as high-income professionals and retirees. For the final blog in our series on the tax changes introduced by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, we are focusing on the major changes affecting business owners, ranging… Read More

The Master’s Minute – Tax Changes That Impact You in the OBBBA | 2025 Tax Series

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On July 4th, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) was signed into law, and with it came a number of changes for current and future tax law. Over the next four weeks, we will break down these changes and how they will impact tax planning for our clients going forward. In Part I of our series, we focus on the big picture changes that the bill signed into law…. Read More

The Master’s Minute – Alternative Investments in 401(k) Plans: The Impact of the Recent Executive Order

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Image of a hand over paper charts and graphs with puzzle pieces and a red pen working on their 401k changes. The puzzle pieces say stocks, bonds, and on the paper is written alternative investments.

On August 7th of 2025, President Trump issued an executive order with the intent to allow defined contribution plans, such as 401(k)s, to include alternative investments as an available investment option in their fund lineups alongside more traditional equity and fixed income funds. 401(k) plans are essential and powerful parts of many retirement strategies. It’s important to understand any changes that impact them and any potential benefits or risks that… Read More

The Master’s Minute – Types of Life Insurance | Series Part IV

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By now, we hope you recognize the important role that life insurance plays in a financial plan. For this final installment in our series, we want to answer the question: What type of policy is right for me? The goal of today’s blog is to provide an initial framework for how to begin thinking about this question. We’ll discuss the basic types of life insurance, and move into how to… Read More

The Master’s Minute – Does Life Insurance Build Wealth? | Series Part III

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An umbrella shelters a small tree on a pile of coins, representing the protection of life insurance for the building wealth article.

  Today’s blog post begins by asking a fundamental financial planning question: Does life insurance build wealth? Or, to make it more personal, you might be asking: Should I use a life insurance policy as a long-term investment? To answer these questions, we need to first understand some regulatory compliance issues and essential cautions that you need to know before purchasing certain kinds of life insurance. These are great questions…… Read More

The Master’s Minute – Transitioning Your Business: Succession Planning Essentials

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Business owners handing off a baton, symbolizing succession planning.

Every business owner eventually reaches the point where it is time for them to exit their business. Ideally, this exit is a voluntary one that is planned out and in line with the goals of the owner. However, exits can also be forced, either due to health, age, or trouble with the business. The importance of succession planning for business owners, even if they are still years away from their… Read More

The Master’s Minute – Regular Investment Analysis and You

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Couple with their financial advisor talking about investment analysis, smiling.

Your portfolio may seem to be running at peak efficiency, but how do you know for sure? Regular investment analysis is an essential piece of the puzzle. Personal financial planning, or business planning, will always be the primary focus of our relationship with you. Does that make our investment management unimportant? Certainly not! Perhaps you can think of it this way: financial planning is “the vehicle” that gets you where… Read More