Adam Torres and Jose Hernandez-Gomez discuss Mega Mix Expo.
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Show Notes:
Listen to Mega Mix Expo 2025 coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres and Jose Hernandez-Gomez, Managing Partner at CPIS Financial, explore CPIS Financial and Mega Mix Expo at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California.
About Jose Hernandez-Gomez:
He first contributed his focus and time in 2008 in AmeriCorps, a program supported by the United States Federal Government to assist self-represented families in the areas of family law, housing law, and contract law. In addition he continues to donate his attention and support to raising awareness for the new generation of advocates and the community.
About CPIS Financial
They provide tailored retirement planning and life insurance solutions to ensure clients enjoy financial stability and security throughout their lifetimes. Their team of industry experts uses innovative techniques to help clients navigate the complexities of financial planning, ensuring that their finances are secured.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. Today I have Jose Hernandez Gomez on the line and he is a managing partner over at CPIS Financial.
Jose, welcome to the show. Thank you, Adam. Thank you for having me. All right, Jose. So we’re recording this January 2nd. The new year is starting and , you’re going to be participating in the Megamix Expo coming up that Tony and his team are throwing over in Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California.
That’s March 12th and 13th. You’re coming out, right, Jose? Yes, this would be my second time coming out. Come on, you’re a pro, man. This is my first time. , what can I expect? This is my first time. You know what, Adam, the 1st time that I went, I had 0 expectations. I, I’m not a big guy doing events like that.
I’m more referral based but with this new world, social media kind of networking and especially kind of post pandemic. I went for it and. Very, very fruitful for me to say the least got a lot of great relationships out of it. And Tony’s a heck of a guy. Yeah, that’s, awesome.
and I’m looking forward to it. It’s my first one, as I mentioned, and like going to events like this and being out in the community and seeing things , what surprised you about it? Like the first time. And by the way, for everybody listening, just so you know, it’s going to be a huge event.
Like I went and I walked. The grounds recently at Santa Anita Park and Tony showed me the Tony’s the event organizer and one of the founders of the expo. And I did a walkthrough and he showed me where it was that the footprint of the event last year, which was big in this year. I think it’s like double what it was last year.
I’m like, Oh my gosh, better you than me, Tony. That’s a lot of work. Uh, but what surprised you about it last year? Like those relationships and things you walked away from lately. Tell me a little bit more. Sure. think what really surprised me was Tony. Tony really made it huge effort for everyone to really interact and I’ve been to events like that in the past where we kind of all set up a booth and it’s like, here’s my shop.
Here’s what I do. And. get the walk bys, but Tony really made an effort for us as business owners and service providers to just interact and commingle. , he took us kind of like a tour, like, Hey, these are these people you need to meet this person. So he was already kind of behind the scenes saying, Hey, look, you know, Jose, you need to connect with so and so’s tax office.
You need to connect so and so’s with credit repair. And so. He having a good understanding as to what you do and the people that are there He’s already trying to make those introductions. So that to me was kind of the the all behind what he was doing really? That’s amazing. And , talk a little bit more about what you do.
So about CPIS Financial. Yeah. So CPIS Financial we’re a firm more of a kind of small business based firm. I, I have a background in financial planning and I’ve gone independent, gone to corporate America and, and Went back out to going independent and we really target more of the Hispanic community.
This why I personally did back in the day about a decade ago that there’s not too many financial advisors that speak Spanish. And I can actually connect with these Hispanic business owners, Hispanic attorneys and doctors. And so I felt like there was a need for that community and It’s really branched off of that.
Of course, it’s open to all just not Hispanics, but I would say 75 percent of my business has been in the Spanish community. And so we’ve been able to really exploit that here in Southern California, and we also have a branch out in Salinas area. So yeah, it’s all been Hispanic community for the most part, but.
Yeah, we really want to educate that. Community when it comes to financial planning did you originally get involved in the business? Like how did you start in your path to becoming a financial planner? Oh, man My mother hates when I tell her this tell people this story But i’ve embraced it so much that I tell people all the time.
It came through bankruptcy my folks went bankrupt was that kid that had a brand new car, life was good, didn’t have to, like, the money that I made from hustling on selling candy and CDs, it was all mine, it was nothing to, put towards the household, but it had financial issues, and in our community, we really don’t talk about financial issues, and in the household, and so there, one day, my BMW is getting towed, and I was wondering why, and that’s when my mother broke down and said that, you know, And we’re going bankrupt and that really shocked me.
In hindsight, it made me the man who I am today because it taught me that I needed to man up and pay whatever was in on our past. It was great. But I need to protect this household. And so I started. Kind of Googling stuff, trying to figure out. I sat down with the financial advisor which was my first mentor in the business, and he kind of alluded to going and doing the chapter 13 vacancy and protecting your assets and just doing this payment plan.
Long story short, I’m in a room with attorneys and figuring out how to protect my parents wealth and through that process what I learned is how small minded your mind can get. Like, I was at one point thinking, well, if my parents go bankrupt, well, You know, my dad’s fine. My mother and I will go live in an apartment or I’ll go live in my car.
Go shower at the gym. And I started working with this advisor because I was just so just attached to what he had given me from that advice. And he ended up giving me a job and doing paperwork for him and. Next thing you know, I’m getting my series seven series, 66 insurance license. And I had no clue what I was getting myself into, to be honest, Adam.
And all of a sudden he gave me access to a part of his portfolio and it was 33 million , of client’s assets. And I had never seen that amount of money in my life. And this came to me at a very young age. I was. About 19 years old, and it just impacted me a lot. And I still remember those days, just logging on just to see that client money.
But I had no clue what to do with it. From a financial perspective, I was like, my parents are going bankrupt. I’m barely making it. How can I sit down in front of somebody and tell them what to do with their money? But I realized that was all the foundation, because there’s a lot of people out there that are scared to go to an advisor or some kind of financial consultant, because they feel like have no money.
It’s like, once I get my money situated, then I can go have a conversation. You know, allow me to kind of navigate some difficult conversations that financial planning comes with and I tell people I can help you at any point in time, even if it’s just getting your mindset on track , when it comes to, hey, I’m in the whole you know, credit card debt, credit lines , are kind of getting maxed out.
And, you know, what do I do? And sometimes , having a conversation about it allows the therapeutic part of just repairing your mindset and going forward and achieving what you really want to talk a little bit more about the mindset side of things and what investors should be doing.
If anybody wants specific financial advice for your situation at the end of this, I’m going to give Jose. The opportunity to leave some contact information. So, if you want to follow up and ask them questions directly, but speaking high level, Jose, like, give me some of the things that when it comes to the mindset that people should be thinking about as we head into 2025 and beyond.
think , the mindset really should be attached to what is it that you truly want , for your individual self or your household? You know, if you’re the leader of your household. And it’s more goal oriented. When we talk about investing money, nobody wants to lose.
Nobody wants to see red. And there’s a certain mindset that comes along with that. And for me, it’s just been really learning how to be patient patient about learning. Even when it comes to a loss, like why did we lose and be patient enough to explore that? I find it very interesting how we don’t question when your portfolio is up.
We don’t question, Oh, how did it go up? But we do question the downside at times. It’s like, why are we losing money? What’s going on in the world? And versus the other sides of the coin. So the mindset is definitely individual. How do you perceive risk? And believe that once we Have a conversation as to what your mindset is.
Then we can start really implementing. Okay. Well, if I think of a certain goal this way, is it really truly important for me and how important it is for myself to achieve it? And I relate it a lot to like weight loss. It’s, you know, I can. Tell you we can have a conversation, but I can’t do your pushups for you.
and so if we take responsibility for our own financial position and where we’re at in life, I think that’s the best foundation for your mindset to move forward and really be creative with this world. I know in financial planning, obviously a lot of it has to do with finances, but , what does legacy just in general mean to you and not just financially?
Like when you’re talking about building something meaningful and lasting life, like what does legacy mean to you? For me, legacy is really the principles that you want to pass on to the next generation. if you could teach and you could feed a man, right? But if you teach him how to fish, you can feed himself for the rest of his life.
And sometimes it’s not so much, Hey, let’s leave, all this money through a trust or an insurance policy or a portfolio to the next generation. It’s really teaching them. What are we going to build on and how do we really move this legacy forward? And a lot of it has to sometimes come with family members and some.
Really tough conversations about what are we going to do each person is has their own emotions, but if we have a common goal about legacy, we can really build upon that and not necessarily just pass on money to the next generation, but pass on values that through time sometimes can get diminished. You’ve worked with lots and lots of successful people at this point in your career.
What are some of the things that they did right? Like, cause I think sometimes what happens is people think that you have to be born with money. You have to have like all this other knowledge, all these other things. But I’ve been, I mean, there’s just so many different ways that people have been able to build great legacies, both financially and otherwise.
What are some of the things that people have done? Right.
Undefinitely surrounded themselves with people that they kind of wanted to achieve the same lifestyle. , I’ve seen a lot of that. Like, it’s interesting how in school we’re kind of Punished when we copy our neighbor, but you know, once we hit the reality of the world, it’s like, yeah, we’ll copy what your neighbor is doing.
So, you know, whether that be. I never thought about it that way. You’re right. You don’t have to be original. Right? You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. . That’s probably one of the biggest things that I’ve seen with with individuals that come from successful backgrounds. It’s like, well, I just, and like, so let’s talk about like, well, some of those things that are copying.
So maybe it’s a 401k, right? Maybe it’s having your insurance in place. So that if something happens or catastrophe , that the family’s not out on the street, right? , there’s like, Actual things when you say not copy, like, having a meeting with the financial planner, right? If all the wealthy people, you know, have financial planners and you don’t have a financial planner.
I mean, happy your neighbor, right? Exactly. Adam, that’s you know, when it’s really kind of pinpointing it down is, yeah, go and have a conversation with the advisor. This was something that I did back in the day, Adam and I appreciate the advisors that gave me their time. But when I was starting in the industry, I had no idea how to talk to.
Clients. And so I would go and I sat down with Bank of America advisors, JP Morgan advisors. And I just said, Hey, I’m inheriting all this money. What should I do with it? And they would just kind of start talking. I’m like, okay, well, this is how I should kind of present. And so. The idea of copying somebody and copy paste, you can get very creative, but the reality, what I was really trying to do is, is learned and kind of cut their learning curve.
And there’s a lot of people out there willing to share how they got into the industry or how they got into a particular investment and how it went for them and It’s just giving yourself a shot, one of the most important things, and I think you would agree with me, Adam, is time. Like, just starting, just get started, whether that be even just having a conversation, you have no idea how fruitful that conversation could become 10, 20, 30 years from now.
It’s great. Great advice. And man, let me make sure I understood that. Right. , you would meet with them. How’d you even get that idea? That’s an interesting idea, man. I’ve never heard that story. How’d you even get that idea? Where’d that come from? Well there was 1 client at the firm that inherited all this money.
It was 1 of the biggest clients. Obviously, he wasn’t my client, but he was the firm’s client and my advisor had told me, yeah, I’m meeting with basically the next generation. And he told me you should do that. You know, when you sit down with clients, try to meet with their kids, because essentially they’re most of the time they leave it to their kids.
And then I just thought about it. I was like, this guy’s like 22 and he’s been in here like 10 million. I’m like, Hmm. I’m like, and he’s sitting down with this guy that got me out of my jam. I’m like, you know that was my situation, but how do I like my thing was how do I prove it? They’re gonna ask for statements and this and that and they didn’t they were just excited I told them that I had a couple million being sent down from my and she had passed away and you know, My grandma had already passed away at that point You weren’t putting that on her.
I understand go ahead and and it just made me think you know what if I booked a couple meetings with advisors and You That, Hey, the wire transfer is kind of pending or, you know, the life insurance policy is pending, but it was just an idea that came out of almost desperation because I was like, I have this book of business.
I can’t even get on the phone with these people. I don’t have no clue what to tell them. My advisor, he was an independent advisor, great man. But he had already built his practice and he wasn’t working even full time. So he had no time to train me. Perfectly sent me off to corporate America. He’s like, go get trained.
They’ll teach you. They have the systems and and he was right. It was there was the missing piece to the puzzle. But yeah, before that, I got that idea and I had some great stuff, man. And I started kind of putting it together in pieces. I’m like, okay, this is how they’ll present. But at the end, I do kind of feel bad when they’re like, oh, so we’re gonna move forward.
I’m like, well, I’m interviewing other people too. But all good, man. I just thought it was super creative. That’s why I asked you. I was like, cause that was smart. And , the point I like to make there. And why I asked you that question is because. The information is out there. And now, I mean, that what you’re talking about quite some time ago, but like now you can go on YouTube, you can do other things.
There’s all kinds of ways to get information out there. And , not all of it’s, , the best. So , I like your approach. Cause you’re going to people that are actually doing the business versus taking Tik TOK. I don’t know if I always agree with that one.
Not saying there’s nobody good on Tik TOK, but you know what I mean? Of course. Yeah. Well, Jose, this has been a lot of fun, man. I’m looking forward to meeting you in person at the Megamix Expo, and that’s going to be for everybody listening. Again, March 12th and 13th at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California.
It’s a beautiful horse racing track. In the background, there’s these amazing mountains. And I mean, it’s just a picture as beautiful, beautiful site. The lawns are immaculate and manicured. I mean, it’s just a really fun event venue as well. That being said, Jose, if somebody wants to follow up and if they want to learn more about CPIS financial and connect with you and your team, how do they do that?
Yeah. So two ways. We have , our website, CPI is financial. com and , my personal Instagram is Gomez financial. And so either which way send us a message, see how we can support you. I’m very open as you can tell, Adam, I had some creative ideas back in the day. So I can definitely help people that want to start something through their own financial planning and even share some inside things in the industry.
I sure wish I would have had somebody like myself when I first started. Fantastic. And for everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll definitely put the links in the show notes so that you can just click on the links and head right on over and check out Jose and his team.
And speaking of the audience, this is your 1st time with Mission Matters, and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show each and every day. We’re doing new content, releasing new interviews, and hopefully bringing you new inspiration. To help you along the way in your journey as well.
And then also don’t forget, head over to that mega mix expo.com website, grab your tickets, head over.
This is gonna be a lot of fun. March 12th and 13th, mega Mix Expo. Love to see you out there. Love to meet you in person.
So definitely pick up some tickets and come meet us out and hang out with me and Jose. And Jose. Thanks again for coming on. Appreciate you. Thank you, Adam. See you soon.