Agency Intelligence

In this solo episode of the Stuff About Money podcast, host Erik Garcia, CFP®, ChFC®, BFA™ sits down for a candid one-on-one about goals. Not the shiny, New-Year’s-resolution kind, but the messy, honest kind we whisper to ourselves when no one’s listening. Erik shares two personal moments that reshaped how he thinks about goal setting, including the year Dr. Matt Morris bluntly told him, “You just made a bad goal,” and the overly ambitious golf objective that nearly convinced him to quit the game altogether. These stories spark a bigger conversation about why we so often overestimate what we can accomplish in the short term and underestimate what we’re capable of over the long haul. In the second half of the episode, Erik unpacks a healthier, more realistic framework for pursuing goals — especially financial ones. Instead of obsessing over hitting a number by a certain date, he encourages listeners to think of goals as direction and objectives as the checkpoints that keep them moving forward. Erik explores w