I Reverse Engineered Retirement Planning. I Hated the Answer.

I was not in retirement income at all. I was a mortgage professional, and more than a thousand families came through my office over the years. Then the dot-com crash hit and my clients lost money. So did I.

Treating loss like weather

Everyone around me treated that loss like weather. Something you accept, because that is how it works.

That never sat right with me. If it is predictable enough that everyone shrugs at it, it is predictable enough to plan around.

Three times through, same answer

So I took the entire retirement planning process apart, backward. The work kept landing me in the one corner of this business I had never heard a good word about.

I did not believe it, so I threw the work out and started over. Same answer. I started over a third time. Same answer.

What this video covers

This is the story of what I found when I finally stopped rejecting it and went and checked. What happened when I took it to the fee-only advisors the industry holds up as the gold standard. And what 2008 did to the same families who had already been through it once.

It is also why I rebuilt the way I work around a different question than the one the industry asks.

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More about Kurt H. Jackson and how KJ Financial works

What is Lifestyle-First income planning?

Everything on this page is illustrative and hypothetical as of August 2026. It is education, not investment, tax, or legal advice. Any people shown are examples, not real clients, and your situation will differ. Withdrawal-rate rules of thumb are general guidance from published research and are not a prediction or a promise of any result. Protected Lifetime Income figures rely on the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company. Kurt H. Jackson is Life and Health Insurance Licensed in MO, NE, KS, IA, and FL, and is not a securities broker, registered investment advisor, or CPA.

Browse all of Kurt’s retirement videos on the Retirement Planning Videos page.