E34: Michael Scarpati: Rethinking Retirement For The Rest Of Us
Planet Wealth: Fortunes of the Brave
Release Date: 12/22/2025
E40: How Founders Build Trust Before Raising Capital
Planet Wealth: Fortunes of the Brave
McKeever “Mac” Conwell, Founder and Managing Partner of Rare Breed Ventures, joins Planet Wealth CXO Mary Katherine Johnson to break down how he went from a government contractor in Maryland to launching a venture capital fund built for overlooked founders. Mac shares the unconventional path that shaped his investing lens: dropping out of school for a Northrop Grumman opportunity, building and exiting a startup through pivots and accelerators, and then entering state-backed investing where he helped design a first-of-its-kind pre-seed program for women and minorities. This episode is a...
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E39: Dr. Felecia Froe: How to Invest When You’re Scared (Because Everyone Is)
Planet Wealth: Fortunes of the Brave
Dr. Felecia Froe, board-certified urological surgeon turned social impact investor, joins Mary Kathryn Johnson of Planet Wealth for a candid conversation about building wealth with purpose. As the founder behind Money with Mission and Wealth Be Hers, Dr. Froe shares how her path from medicine to real estate investing became a mission to help women gain the financial power to walk away from jobs or relationships that are not in their best interest. After reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, Dr. Froe began buying real estate and rapidly scaled to 18 properties. Then 2008 hit, and she lost everything. What...
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E38: Joshua Kagan: Locked Out of Real Estate? Why Land Is a Smart First Step to Owning Real Assets
Planet Wealth: Fortunes of the Brave
Joshua Kagan is a real estate and fintech builder focused on expanding access to ownership for everyday people. He is the co-founder of Bonfire and the founder of Friendly Acres, a land-focused venture designed to help people exit stranded land assets while creating affordable pathways into real asset ownership. In this episode of Fortunes of the Brave, Joshua shares how his journey from fix-and-flip investor to fintech founder reshaped his views on democratized access to real estate. Drawing on lessons from launching Bonfire during a volatile regulatory moment, he explains why land has...
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E37: Lisa Phillips: Your 9–5 Can Be Fuel: Using Your Job to Fund Real Estate
Planet Wealth: Fortunes of the Brave
In this episode of Fortunes of the Brave, host Mary Kathryn Johnson sits down with Lisa Phillips, founder of Affordable Real Estate Investments, to unpack how she went from foreclosure to financial independence using affordable rental properties. Lisa is known for helping overlooked investors, especially Black professionals, build profitable real estate portfolios in working class and minority neighborhoods using low cost, high cash flow strategies. Lisa shares how she realized corporate America was not her long term path and reframed her engineering job as a paycheck to fund her real...
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E36: Pamela Cytron: Wealth Isn’t Just for the Rich: How Fintech Is Changing Who Gets a Shot
Planet Wealth: Fortunes of the Brave
Pamela Cytron, founder of The Founders Arena WealthTech accelerator in Arlington, Texas, has spent more than three decades at the center of fintech, wealth management and enterprise sales. In this episode of Fortunes of the Brave, Pam and host Lance Woodson dig into how wealth is really created, who gets access to it, and why the current system leaves so many founders and everyday investors on the sidelines. They unpack the broken incentives inside venture capital, the realities of raising capital in fintech, and why sales is still a contact sport even in an AI driven world. Pam explains how...
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E35: Bridging the Wealth Gap: Founder and Investor Lessons from 2025
Planet Wealth: Fortunes of the Brave
2025 closes by revisiting the most practical lessons shared by founders, investors, and community builders across this year’s Fortunes of the Brave conversations. This recap threads together a single theme: better decisions happen when your mindset, strategy, and community support are aligned. First, we return to a mental framework for entrepreneurs and investors who feel the pressure of constant uncertainty. A five-step system called PEACE outlines how positive thinking, embracing challenge, appreciation, certainty, and empathy can reduce fear-based reactions and improve decision quality....
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E34: Michael Scarpati: Rethinking Retirement For The Rest Of Us
Planet Wealth: Fortunes of the Brave
For too long, retirement planning and independent fiduciary financial advice have felt reserved for the top 1 to 2 percent. In this episode of Fortunes of the Brave, Mary Kathryn Johnson sits down with Michael Scarpati, CEO and co founder of Retire.us, to unpack how technology and true fiduciary financial planning can finally open the doors for everyday Americans. Michael shares how his platform connects people with independent fiduciary financial advisors who focus on holistic retirement planning, not just selling products. They dig into the mindset barriers that keep people with 50,000 to...
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E33: Dan Egan: The Behavior That Builds Wealth
Planet Wealth: Fortunes of the Brave
Mary Katherine Johnson sits down with Dan Egan, VP of Behavioral Finance & Investing at Betterment, to decode how our habits, narratives, and timing drive financial outcomes more than hot tips ever will. Dan explains why success comes from matching risk to time horizon, building automatic systems that spare your willpower, using tax-aware prompts (hello, long- vs short-term gains), and reframing money from a scarce enemy to a tool you can wield responsibly, and often with your community. We dig into teachable moments that stick, how to design routines that “pay yourself first,” why...
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E32: Nick Malouin: From Chaos to Clarity: How Innovators Turn Uncertainty Into Action
Planet Wealth: Fortunes of the Brave
Mary Katherine Johnson welcomes Nick Malouin, Senior Strategy Director at Electric Innovation, to unpack how innovation strategy turns ambiguity into action. From Capgemini to Electric, Nick has spent a decade taking ideas from insight to in-market—bridging hard data with human truth so teams can build products people actually want. He breaks down why the best work starts with the consumer journey, not the org chart; how to separate signal from noise with out-of-category insights; and why “possible futures” beat single-line forecasts. If you care about product development, consumer...
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E31: Janice Shade: How Community Capital Moves Money from Wall Street to Main Street
Planet Wealth: Fortunes of the Brave
Community capital, crowdfunding, and local investing take center stage in this episode of Fortunes of the Brave. Systems entrepreneur and financial innovator Janice Shade, co-founder of Milk Money Vermont and founder of Capital Innovation Lab and Fundamenta, joins host Lance Woodson to unpack how everyday people can invest in the small businesses that define their hometowns. From her early days at Seventh Generation questioning the “green premium” to designing new models for Main Street investing, Janice shows why traditional capital markets leave most founders and communities...
info_outlineFor too long, retirement planning and independent fiduciary financial advice have felt reserved for the top 1 to 2 percent. In this episode of Fortunes of the Brave, Mary Kathryn Johnson sits down with Michael Scarpati, CEO and co founder of Retire.us, to unpack how technology and true fiduciary financial planning can finally open the doors for everyday Americans. Michael shares how his platform connects people with independent fiduciary financial advisors who focus on holistic retirement planning, not just selling products.
They dig into the mindset barriers that keep people with 50,000 to 150,000 dollars in savings from seeking help, and why believing "advice is only for millionaires" quietly sabotages financial freedom. Michael explains what fiduciary really means in the eyes of the law, how it differs from product driven advice, and why roughly 85 to 90 percent of licensed professionals are not required to put your best interest first.
From his early days driving a squeaky Chevy to client meetings to leading a tech enabled retirement platform, Michael reveals how perception, trust, and accessibility shape who gets high quality retirement advice and who gets left out. He also breaks down how to calculate and revisit your personal "retirement number" every year so you can stop flying blind and align your saving, investing, and risk with your real life goals.
Finally, Mary and Michael explore how AI and human advisors can work together, why Retire.us offers free education and their Rethinking Retirement workshop series, and how you can start getting fiduciary level guidance without massive asset minimums or high retainers. If you have meaningful savings but no clear plan, this conversation will help you rethink what is possible. Listen to Fortunes of the Brave to start building your own path to financial freedom.
Key Takeaways:
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Break the "only for millionaires" myth and claim your right to fiduciary advice
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Understand what a fiduciary is in legal terms and why most advisors do not qualify
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Learn how technology plus human advisors can make retirement planning more accessible
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Use a simple yearly habit to track your retirement number and course correct early
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See how Retire.us is redesigning trust, pricing, and access for middle class investors
Chapters:
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00:00: Meet Michael Scarpati, CEO and co founder of Retire.us
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01:47: From independent planner to building a new kind of platform
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03:55: The mindset gap that keeps everyday investors on the sidelines
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12:04: Why 50,000 to 150,000 dollars still deserves high quality advice
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14:39: AI, emotions, and why human guidance still matters
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16:36: Fiduciary explained in plain English and why it is so rare
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19:32: The squeaky Chevy story and the power of perception
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27:45: Designing Retire.us around trust, simplicity, and accessibility
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30:51: How independent fiduciaries really get paid and why they move up market
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39:45: The one annual habit that can change your retirement trajectory
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42:14: Inside the Rethinking Retirement workshop series and free tools
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44:06: Shared missions, future fundraising, and democratizing financial freedom
Resources Mentioned:
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Retire.us platform and free mindfulness tier
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Rethinking Retirement workshop series for pre retirees and retirees
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Free retirement planning tools and education inside Retire.us
Connect with Michael:
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Website: retire.us
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LinkedIn: Michael Scarpati
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Other: Rethinking Retirement workshop series via retire.us
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