Guest: Jim Crider, CFP® and CEO of Intentional Living FP.

In part one of our conversation, Jim joins my Between Now and Success podcast to discuss how his desire to guide people through the personal stress that money can create led him to a career in financial services and, ultimately, founding his own firm.

In part two, Jim and I jump over to my Digital Money Advisor podcast to discuss what led him down the Bitcoin rabbit hole and why he now allocates 5-20% of his clients’ portfolios to Bitcoin and Bitcoin-related companies.

Jim Crider:

In the years that I was at Fidelity, I probably had 20 to 25,000 conversations with clients, just one after another. So, lots of at-bats, lots of practicing with language and hearing from normal people about what money means to them and their lives. For most people, money equals stress and a quick fix on things. Having these conversations one after another really gave me insights about people and how they relate to money.

Ultimately I would say my role is a guide. It is helping the client discover on their own what’s important to them. It’s not my job to tell someone what their values or goals should be, but rather leading them through a discovery phase so they can actually understand on their own what’s important to them. And if they discover that on their own, they’re going to be a lot more prone to continually make decisions that further that cause because it’s something they came to decide is important to them rather than being assigned to them.

Jim Crider:

I wouldn’t have identified myself as an Austrian economics thinker or a goldbug or anything like that. I liked some of those thoughts on economics, but it wasn’t on my radar. I’d say to be someone who likes Bitcoin, you don’t have to align yourself as being someone who is anti-government or anti-establishment. That’s not at all where I came from.

We’re considering their total family allocation. The average client I have is about 34 and a significant portion of their money is going to be in their current employer’s 401(k). So we’re going to consider, if you have $300,000 in your 401(k) plan and I’m managing $80,000, and we want 5% of your total portfolio to be in Bitcoin, we need to consider your 401(k) and plan around that. There’s going to be times it’s lump sum, and then over time we’re going to dollar cost average. I’ve helped clients go into Grayscale Bitcoin Trust Company (GBTC). I’ve helped clients actually set up their own wallets and dollar cost average into that. Or go into mining companies that are related to Bitcoin. So there’s all different ways this can be achieved depending on their comfort level for managing and their tax strategy.