The What If Show

Tim Whisler, Founder & President of The Whisler Agency in Peoria, Illinois, never planned to be on TV. A paper route, a family loss and a look at his dad’s account statements pointed him toward retirement income planning. Today he hosts the TV series and podcast Income is the Outcome and wrote the book License to Spend.

In this episode, Mike Langford, Brooke Thomas and Steve Goldstein talk with Tim about how familiarity builds trust before the first meeting, what he does in the room with Retirement Analyzer, and why he says no to some prospects.

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If you've been paying attention to the financial services industry, you've heard the pitch: $84 trillion is moving from Baby Boomers to the next generation. It's the greatest wealth transfer in history — and advisors are being told to position for it. Go get that money in motion. Your Gen X clients are about to come into a windfall.

Here's the problem with that strategy: most of them aren't.

Only 1 in 4 people will inherit anything meaningful. The wealth transfer is real — but it's concentrated in a very small number of families. If you're building your business around the...

For most clients, 40 to 80% of their total net worth is sitting in their home — and most retirement plans barely touch it.

In this episode of The What If Show, we welcome our very first guest: Bob Tranchell, Home Equity Retirement Specialist and RICP® at Mutual of Omaha Reverse Mortgage. With 23 years in the business, Bob is one of the most respected voices in the HECM space — and a genuine expert in Retirement Analyzer (he's been to two boot camps). He joins hosts Mike Langford, Steve Goldstein, and Brooke Thomas for a conversation that will change how you think...

Most people think life insurance is just a death payout. Brooke Thomas and Steve Goldstein are here to change that.

In this episode of The What If Show, host Mike Langford sits down with Brooke and Steve to make the case that life insurance is one of the most powerful — and most underused — tools in a retirement plan. They cover why the need for coverage doesn't go away at retirement (it sometimes gets bigger), how to have the conversation without making clients clam up, and a lineup of use cases that most people have never considered.

Wh...

Medicare is one of the most expensive and most misunderstood variables in any retirement plan — and most clients don't see it coming.

In this episode of The What If Show, Brooke Thomas and Steve Goldstein of Thomas Gold Solutions break down exactly why Medicare deserves its own dedicated chapter in every retirement plan you build. They cover the IRMAA surcharge tiers (and how a single dollar over the income threshold can spike a client's premiums), which types of income — including Roth conversions and capital gains — feed into that calculation, why the two-year look-back period creates planning blind spots...

In Episode 4 of The What If Show, host Mike Langford sits down with Thomas Gold Solutions co-founders Brooke Thomas and Steve Goldstein to make the case that a monthly expense plan isn't just a budgeting exercise — it's the cornerstone of every great retirement strategy.

Fresh off their 86-person Scottsdale Bootcamp, Brooke and Steve explain why "klumping" a client's expenses into one round number — even with a reasonable inflation rate attached — produces a fundamentally less accurate plan than itemizing the components. The difference isn't academic: it can shift a plan outcome by more than a million dollars at age 10...

How fast can a financial advisor show a prospect or client that they are genuinely worth their time and trust?

In Episode 3 of The What If Show, host Mike Langford sits down with Retirement Analyzer co-founders Brooke Thomas and Steve Goldstein to answer that question with practical, specific strategies advisors can use starting in their very next meeting.

Brooke and Steve walk through the exact moments that create an immediate “aha” for clients — starting with something as simple as showing a prospect a sample plan before you ever ask them for a single piece of person...

You just downloaded Retirement Analyzer. You clicked the icon. Now what? In this episode, Brooke Thomas and Steve Goldstein walk you through everything you need to know to get started — fast, confident, and with zero anxiety.

This is your new user's roadmap for the first 30 days with Retirement Analyzer. From the very first session to your first real client appointment, Brooke and Steve break down the exact steps that turn brand new users into confident RA advisors — and reveal the full support and training ecosystem that Thomas Gold has built to make sure you never feel stuck or a...

In this debut episode of The What If Show, host Mike Langford sits down with Thomas Gold Solutions founders Brooke Thomas and Steve Goldstein to pull back the curtain on the origin story behind one of the most trusted retirement planning platforms in the financial services industry — Retirement Analyzer.

You'll hear how a solo producer in Idaho named Chuck Cravens built the foundation of RA on Excel spreadsheets over 30 years ago because he was obsessed with answering client "what if" questions at the click of a button. How a 23-year-old Brooke Thomas, fresh out of college with ze...