Up Your Average

"I've known him ten years longer than I knew my mother."

How long have you known your oldest friend? In this episode, Keith Tyner swaps stories with Phil Byers, Jim Crews and Tom Abernethy, three Indiana University basketball national champions. And they make the case that lifelong friendships beat any trophy or paycheck.

This episode covers:
• Who stood with the families after the 1977 Evansville plane crash
• Why Jerry Sloan asked Bob Knight about stress tests
• When the 1953 and 1976 teams finally got their championship rings
• What sudden money does to a young athlete...

"The only way you get confidence is you gotta earn it."

Who taught you to think like a champion? In this episode, Keith Tyner sits down with Phil Byers, Jim Crews, and Tom Abernethy, three Indiana University basketball national champions. They credit the parents and coaches who shaped them and kept them humble.

This episode covers:
• How a stack of play cards turned Phil's evenings into practice
• What Jim learned about ownership in the family garden
• Why Bob Knight rated the mental game four times above the physical
• Who stepped in when Tom...

"Most communication is selfish."

What if the conflicts in your life are trying to teach you something? In this episode, Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve talk about how they learned to communicate at work and at home. And they make the case that the best conversations start with what the other person needs.

This episode covers:
- How to raise a problem without putting anyone on edge
- What Doug's dad says when someone tells him he's wrong
- Who keeps the grandkids at her table with a frying pan and a...

"I want people to see me, when my career was over, as a person."

Could you introduce yourself without mentioning your job? In this episode, Keith Tyner and Phil Byers sit down with former No. 1 overall draft pick Andy Benes. And they make the case that an identity built on your role can't survive the swings.

This episode covers:
- How the third-best pitcher on his high school team reached the majors
- Who to cheer for on your hardest days
- When a month at home taught Andy empathy for players...

"There's an opportunity cost of time with having a dog."

What is your dog worth to you? In this episode, Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve sit down with Keith's son Caleb Tyner, a dog lover since he was knee-high. And they make the case that a dog belongs in your financial plan.

This episode covers:
• How to budget a dog's whole life before you bring one home
• What Caleb learned about time the day his dog was away
• Where Keith found a Bible verse on his dog's last walk
• When to set the...

What would you give up for the work you were made to do?

In this episode, Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve sit down with Curt Edmondson, pastor of Emerge Church in Fortville, Indiana, who also runs Kona Ice of Indy. Curt traded a sales career for a pulpit and is happier for it.

This episode covers:
• How Curt beat his sales region by $6 million and still got fired
• What he prayed when he could not tell which door to take
• When an 86% pay cut arrived two days before his fourth child
• Where he...

"None of us got to where we are today on our own accord." 

Who paved the way for your success? In this episode, Keith Tyner, Doug Shrieve and Keith's son Caleb Tyner name the parents, mentors, teachers and clients who came before them. And they make the case that gratitude opens doors for your future.

This episode covers:
• How Keith's mom came up with $10,000 when he was $10 short on rent
• What humility tells you about whose shoulders to stand on
• Who tutored Doug in trig at 6 AM every Friday
• Why a retiring...

Dan Stroup's handwritten birthday letters have followed his students from eighth grade into their fifties, and some of them have kept every one.

Dan spent 41 years at Heritage Christian School in Indianapolis, most of them teaching eighth grade Bible. When CBS News sent Steve Hartman to Indianapolis in 2013, the count stood at 2,800 birthdays and the writing ran up to three hours a night. Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve call him living proof that you can change someone's world ten minutes at a time.

This episode covers:

Buying and selling, mortgage interest, and the case for calling where you live a house, not a home. Keith Tyner and his son Caleb Tyner compare 40 years of moving from place to place.

Caleb's first house is a new build beside a cornfield, with a bed, a desk, and not much else inside. Keith and his wife have listed the house they raised their kids in and are hauling a load a day to Goodwill. Keith grew up with 220 square feet per person and has 2,250 today, and the house he most enjoys visiting raised six kids in...

Living courageously is a choice. Keith's daughter has made it in a war zone, facing brain surgery at 24, and alone in cities where she knew no one.

Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve sit across from Kristen Hakalmazian, Keith's daughter, who details the anxiety and perfectionism she has struggled against and the motto that reframed her setbacks: rejection is spiritual protection.

• How fear loses its grip when you move toward the thing you dread
• Why failure at 18 in San Diego turned into redirection
• What a brain tumor diagnosis at 24 changed about ordinary days
• When a m...

The road to someday leads to a town called Never. That warning moved Tony from Indianapolis to a surf town in Costa Rica.

Tony O'Neill, founder of Highline Outdoor Group, runs executive search for the outdoor and sporting goods industry and once built Yeti's leadership team during its biggest growth run. He tells Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve why he and his wife Marla were not trying to escape Indianapolis, and what finally made leaving practical.

This episode covers:
• Why paying off a mortgage created the capital for land abroad
• What selling a hous...

The crowd follows the same biases into the same losses. Don names every one and shows how to catch yourself before the next mistake.

Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve sit down with Don Murphy, a former Marine and longtime friend of the show who has spent decades around markets and the people who invest in them. He starts with the behavioral gap: investments that performed fine while their owners earned less.

This episode covers:
- What a breadmaker that wouldn't sell reveals about restaurant wine lists
- How one question about your news...

10 minutes is the one block of time nobody is too busy for. Doug set a stopwatch at a coffee shop table and beat it with 36 seconds to spare.

Keith argues that our world shrinks with time. And investing only 10 minutes a day in the right activities can keep it open. Doug warns that even 10 careless minutes close it just as fast. The old line about handing a job to a busy person turns out to be about valuing the 10 minutes rather than the hustle.

This episode covers:
• How you can buy wisdom with 10 minutes a...

Choosing who to trust comes down to two qualities. Keith has used both to vet every professional in his life and he uses a fishing bobber to explain them.

Most people negotiate every hire like a commodity, shopping price on work they have no way to evaluate. Keith and Doug Shrieve argue the habit costs more than it ever saves, and that the fix is a short list of people you stop pricing altogether.

This episode covers:
• What the two colors on a bobber tell you before you hire anyone
• How a fifteen-year-old stop...

Keith hired his first employee at thirty and got one thing badly wrong. He waited too long to say the hard thing, and it cost him twenty nights of sleep.

Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve talk through feedback: how to give it, how to take it, and why the gap between those two skills shape your life. Keith elaborates on how, just like a good story, your life is filled with protagonists and antagonists. You choose which one you play at work, at home, and in every room you walk into. Doug admits he still flinches when...

Keith and Doug learned the hard way that being sure of something and being right are two different things. This week, they name three things they believed for years, and none of them held up.

Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve open up about opinions they held onto for too long. Doug avoided the weight room for years, then swung from insecurity to overconfidence before landing on humility. Keith misjudged a stranger's parenting, misread his own father, and misunderstood what clients actually want from an advisor. They trace how fear shapes what people believe, why competition doesn't have...

Andy Benes gave up the home run that tied a playoff game, and three decades later it still gives him chills. The man who hit it was Don Mattingly, and Yankee Stadium came unglued.

Keith Tyner and Phil Byers sit down with Andy Benes, the number one overall MLB draft pick in 1988 and a 14-year veteran of the San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners, St. Louis Cardinals, and Arizona Diamondbacks, for an All-Star break conversation about the moments that stick. Andy and Don Mattingly both grew up in Evansville, Indiana, yet never faced each other until the 1995 playoffs...

America's founding fathers stepped into total uncertainty with no guarantee it would work. The only thing that gave them the courage to do it was faith.

On this Fourth of July weekend, Keith and Doug sit down with sculptor Sabin Howard, the artist behind the National WWI Memorial in Washington, D.C., as he prepares to unveil his next project: the Grand Liberty Arch, a monument to America's founding story headed for the Utah State Capitol. The conversation moves from faith and freedom to why self-responsibility feels harder to find today, and what it actually takes to...

Before you assemble the crib and install the car seat, there are a few commonly forgotten questions you should ask.

Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve of Gimbal Financial cover the financial and life decisions young families get wrong, skip entirely, or never think to ask. From estate planning basics to building community, rethinking the cost of kids, and developing a parental education philosophy that outlasts any classroom.

Key Topics:

A legacy letter, a father's voice, and the question every child carries for the rest of their life without asking out loud. Blake Brewer, founder of Legacy Letter, joins Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve to share how a letter his father wrote before his unexpected death became the framework for helping more than 20,000 families pass down what matters most.

This episode walks through the Legacy Letter framework from beginning to end: apology, unconditional love, specific affirmation, belief in your children's future, shared memories, and the advice that only sticks when it follows genuine connection...

Keith packed everything for the Inca Trail. A porter could have carried most of it for a few dollars a day. It’s a good picture of how most of us handle life.

In this conversation, Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve of Gimbal Financial talk through the expectations, costs, and burdens people carry without ever deciding to. They cover the SpaceX IPO and what investor history actually teaches, why the idea that parents fund college only dates to the 1980s, how housing cost is the single biggest financial variable most people can control, and wh...

Have you ever felt like no matter how much you accomplish, it still isn't enough?

Many people spend their lives chasing success, approval, achievement, and significance, hoping the next milestone will finally bring peace. In this episode of Up Your Average, Keith and Doug share how Bob Warren’s Romans study challenged that mindset and changed the course of their lives.

What began as a simple study eventually transformed how they viewed themselves, God, forgiveness, purpose, and what it truly means to live with confidence and peace. Decades later, th...

The future belongs to skilled workers.

In this episode, Keith and Doug interview Jason Altmire, author of Trade Up, who explains why skilled trades are becoming one of the most important pathways to career stability, entrepreneurship, and long-term financial success.

As the cost of college continues to rise and the demand for skilled labor grows, more families and young adults are reconsidering what career preparation should actually look like. Jason discusses how trade schools and certificate programs are equipping students with practical skills, entrepreneurial training, and real-world opportunities in fields like electrical work, plumbing...

Regulatory compliance is usually treated like the most boring part of business, but this conversation proves it doesn’t have to be.

In this episode of the Up Your Average podcast, Doug sits down with Gimbal Financial’s compliance officer, Sue Mitchell, to talk about what regulatory compliance actually looks like behind the scenes, why compliance matters more than most people realize, and how businesses can stay compliant without losing their personality.

Sue brings a refreshing perspective to compliance by mixing practical insight with humor, real-world stories, and a will...

Buying a home is exciting—but many new homeowners quickly realize there are hidden responsibilities and unexpected expenses nobody prepared them for. 

In this episode of the Up Your Average Podcast, Doug sits down with expert repairman Micah Langmaack to break down a practical homeowner checklist designed to help first-time buyers and aspiring homeowners avoid costly mistakes.

From home maintenance basics to common repair issues, this conversation covers the real-world things every homeowner should know before problems become expensive emergencies. Whether you recently bought a home, are preparing to buy one, or simply want to sta...

What if the biggest thing holding you back isn’t your past, but how your brain learned to respond to it?

In this episode, neurosurgeon Dr. Lee Warren breaks down how neuroscience, trauma, and mental health intersect and why lasting change doesn’t come from rewriting your story, but from rewiring your brain.

We explore a powerful idea: you don’t need a different life, different parents, or different circumstances to heal. You need to learn how your brain actually works and how to operate it differently.

Dr. Warren shares practical insights from years...

Your 40s are a unique season of life, full of energy, opportunity, and motion.

In this episode, Keith and Doug talk through why this decade can feel like a “sweet spot.” You have more experience, more discernment, and often more financial stability, but at the same time, life is moving faster than ever. Your kids are growing up, your responsibilities are expanding, and your time and attention are being pulled in multiple directions.

One of the biggest ideas we unpack is simple but powerful: nothing gets better without attention.

A lot of people waste their twenties and it’s not because they lack ambition. It’s because they’re focused on the wrong things.

In this episode, Keith and Caleb break down what actually matters in your 20s. And it’s probably not what you’ve been told. It’s not just about making more money, chasing status, or waiting until everything feels “perfect” before making big life decisions.

Instead, they explore a different framework: one built on purpose, intentional living, and the habits that quietly shape your future. From how...

Financial planning has evolved in ways most families don’t fully understand.

In this episode, Keith and Doug break down the 60-year evolution of financial planning, from relationship-driven advice in the 1960s to today’s metrics-obsessed world of 401k balances, market headlines, and financial gurus. Along the way, they unpack how major events like market crashes, media influence, and cultural shifts have reshaped what people think financial advice should be.

But here’s the deeper question: Has modern financial planning drifted too far from what actually matters?

If you’ve ever wondered whether today’s...

Most people believe success comes from saying yes to more opportunities. In reality, the opposite is true.

In this episode, we break down the power of saying no and why your ability to filter decisions is directly tied to your financial outcomes, time freedom, and long-term fulfillment. If you’ve ever felt stretched thin, overcommitted, or stuck in an “average” lifestyle despite doing all the right things, this conversation will challenge how you make decisions.

You’ll learn:

Unforgiveness is rarely obvious at first. It doesn’t show up as a single decision. It builds quietly into bitterness, frustration, and ultimately a sense of hopelessness.

In this episode, Rick Underhill shares a deeply personal story about how unresolved resentment began to shape his thinking, his behavior, and the direction of his life. What started beneath the surface eventually led to consequences he couldn’t ignore and a realization that changed everything.

This conversation goes beyond surface-level advice. It unpacks what it actually looks like to confront that internal weight, take ownership, and choose forg...

Caring for aging parents can be one of the most emotional and complex seasons a family will face. For many adult children, the conversation quickly turns to assisted living or facility-based care. But in many cases, home care deserves much more consideration than it gets.

In this episode, Keith and Doug interview home care experts David Morgan and Tracy Seals about why staying at home may be a practical and deeply personal option for older adults, especially when dementia, memory changes, or growing daily support needs begin to affect family life. They explore how...

Social connection has changed dramatically over the last few decades—and not necessarily for the better.

In this episode of Up Your Average, we rewind the clock and compare what social life looked like in the 1960s versus today. Back then, boredom pushed people outside. Kids rode bikes until dark. Neighbors talked on front porches. Community happened naturally.

Today, we have more technology, bigger homes, and endless entertainment, but many people feel less connected than ever.

So what changed?

We...

In this episode of Up Your Average, Keith and Doug sit down with Hall of Fame college football coach Mark Richt to talk about the leadership principles that carried him through one of the most competitive environments in sports.

Coaching at the highest level of college football, Richt learned quickly that even the best leaders only win a little more than half the time. If the greatest coaches make the Hall of Fame at around a 65% win rate, how do leaders maintain confidence, identity, and perspective when things don’t go their way?

Mark shares co...

What if your self-confidence could increase 60–70% in just eight weeks?

In this episode, Caleb and Libbi take a deep dive into the Dale Carnegie Course with Steve Haines to learn why high performers continue investing in personal development decades after achieving financial success.

Self-confidence isn’t personality—it’s a skill. We explore how structured training improves communication clarity, reduces stress by up to 50%, strengthens leadership presence, and deepens relational awareness. For families managing careers, investments, and legacy planning, those soft skills often determine long-term outcomes more than raw intellig...

How do you retire without anxiety? For high-net-worth families, retirement planning isn’t just about growing wealth—it’s about spending it wisely and confidently.

In this episode of the Up Your Average, Keith and Doug unpack one of the most overlooked transitions in financial life: shifting from saving mode to spending mode. If you’ve built over $500,000 in investable assets, the question is no longer “Can I grow this?” but “Can I enjoy this—without running out?”

We explore:

Artificial intelligence is everywhere. But can AI actually help improve your cash flow, or is it just another shiny distraction? In this episode, Doug breaks down how artificial intelligence tools can be used practically to bring clarity, discipline, and efficiency to your cash flow, especially for families navigating rising income and the quiet threat of lifestyle creep.

Many high-earning families don’t struggle with income—they struggle with visibility and control. As spending grows alongside success, cash flow often becomes reactive instead of intentional. We discuss how AI can help identify spending patterns, surface inefficiencies, and support bett...

Most families think about generosity emotionally—but few think about it strategically.

In this episode, Keith and Caleb break down a surprising way to give generously while improving your tax planning, especially for families with significant assets. When done correctly, generosity doesn’t just improve the world around you—it can reduce taxes, preserve family wealth, and help future generations thrive.

We walk through the four ways wealth is typically used over a lifetime: consumption, taxes, loss, and giving. While most people fixate on spending and investing, high-net-worth families often overlook how intentional giving can become...

What can you really accomplish in your first year as a financial advisor?

In this episode, Keith sits down with Caleb Tyner for an honest, behind-the-scenes conversation about the lessons that only come from being in the trenches—working with real families, navigating real markets, and learning what it actually takes to give meaningful financial advice.

From mastering financial advisor fundamentals to learning how to communicate clearly without industry jargon, this discussion explores what surprised Caleb most during year one on the job. We talk openly about confidence, decision-making, client relationships, market volatility, and wh...

Most people believe their worst job was a waste of time. The low pay. The long hours. The frustration. The feeling of being stuck.

But what if the job you hated was actually overpaying you?

In this episode, Keith and Doug take a candid look at the lessons learned from the worst jobs we’ve ever had—from fast food counters to hotel front desks—and why those experiences quietly shaped skills that paid dividends for decades. This is not a motivational speech. It’s a practical reframing of work, tr...