Link to Youtube –
https://youtu.be/3qXCQgA4igk

Link to buzz sprout –
https://moneypig.buzzsprout.com/2136084/episodes/17146303-episode-89-welcome-coby-sully-sullivan-to-the-gia-team

In this episode of The Money Pig Podcast, Tim Goodwin sits down with Coby “Sully” Sullivan, GIA’s newest financial advisor, for a conversation full of laughs, leadership lessons, and purpose-driven passion.

Coby shares his journey from Army Ranger instructor to financial advisor—including years spent in Alaska, a 100 km/h snowmobile ride, and what it’s like ice fishing on a frozen lake. After serving overseas and leading elite military teams, Coby sought a civilian career that still aligned with his love for service, leadership, and purpose. His transition into finance was inspired by a desire to help others, sparked by his own experience working with a financial advisor.

With a background in exercise science, a deep appreciation for discipline, and a personal motto—”you only deserve what you earn”—Coby brings a unique blend of structure, care, and curiosity to the GIA team. He’s passionate about reducing financial anxiety, building lasting relationships, and guiding clients through life’s financial decisions with clarity and confidence.

From favorite reads like Rich Dad Poor Dad to Sunday pickleball games with his wife, Halle, this episode is a chance to meet the man behind the rucksack—and the heart behind the numbers.

🎧 Listen now to get to know Sully, and check out goodwininvestment.com to learn how our team can serve you with wisdom, clarity, and care

For personalized financial guidance, schedule an schedule an intro call with our team at Goodwin Investment Advisory in Canton, GA. Our CFP® professionals can provide advice and help you navigate how to invest your wealth and plan for your retirement. We’d love to help you live out your legacy!

Goodwin Investment Advisory is a Registered Investment Advisory firm regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in accordance and compliance with securities laws and regulations. Goodwin Investment Advisory does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through the Money PIG podcast. The information provided is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax, investment or legal advice.

Transcript generated with AI

And welcome back to the Money Pig Podcast. We’re super excited to have none other, the one, the only, Kobe Sullivan. So good to have you, Kobe. It’s great to be here. Yeah, man. This is your first time ever on a podcast. You said like first time with a mic, like shut the front of your face. So, okay. Awesome, man. We’re excited to be the first for you. And I wanted to share with the audience that you have an official, uh, B-top nickname, which is Sully. I’m proud of it. Yeah, think it’s a good name because you said that you actually had some of your friends have called you that in the past. I don’t know that when the team was talking about giving a nickname that we realized that but Sully reminds a lot of us of that movie Monsters Inc and the big furry monster guy. You’re big and tough but you’re like super nice guy at the same time. So we love calling you Sully. So, right. So welcome to the podcast. We love to get started with just kind of hearing. Now we’re actually going to let the audience get to know you because you’re our newest team member here. But I love asking guests at the beginning to maybe just share something kind of unique or interesting about them that the audience doesn’t know. So you can really pick anything, Koby, because they don’t know anything about you yet. Well, I don’t know if we’ll get to all of this, right? But I was in Alaska for three years with the Army. And we did a little bit of hunting, but a lot of ice fishing. turns out driving your truck in the middle of a lake can be a little bit anxiety. A nerve wracking. Now you brought this up recently where you guys went on a snowmobile tour. How fast were you able to get your snowmobile up on the frozen lake? So I’m going to say a hundred, but it could have been kilometers per hour. But I’m hoping it could. I would like to say it was miles per Either way, the dashboard said three digits and you’re on a snowmobile open air. Yeah. Wow. That’s like. that is hustling that is super fast. so I also know that you are. I’m pausing here because I thought I had this dad joke on here that tied into something but nope, I don’t. So yeah, I’m just gonna go a whole different angle on this dad joke. So, Kobe, I’ve got a question for you. Yeah. Why did the scarecrow get an award? Get an award and award the scarecrow? Why did he get an award? Tim Goodwin (02:21.454) because he was outstanding in his field. All right, we’re gonna move on here. All right, so this is the interview of Kobe. We want to introduce you guys. Why do we do these? Because I care about the people that work here. We care about our clients and I just think it’s really cool to kind of look under the hood and get to know our team members. So let’s get started with kind of this major career transition that you just had, right? So you went from the military to civilian life here with us and decided to kind of leave the military early for the whatever 20 year. Yeah, right. Retirement kind of plan and come to finance. So really interested just kind of hear why you made that transition from the military to finance and then we might even you know, unpack some of your transitions in the military too. Yeah, so one I loved my time in the military. It was Definitely an influential time. I’m really glad that I did it something I would never take back, but it’s hard on you and the family Right a little bit right I deployed for a year while I was in Alaska So I didn’t get to see my wife for like 11 months Wow How long have y’all had been married at that point? Yeah at that point three years two or three years all right We’ll have Halle circle back with us and let us know when she’s listening to this. Just a few years, but still, regardless, that totally sucks. Yeah. Yeah. And so there was the fact that we wanted to kind of settle down, put down roots, throw it at my wife. She’s an actress out of here in Atlanta. So we wanted to be in the Atlanta area. So that kind of gave us a target for a spot. But then there was also the career transition side of this. like, what am I going to do? And I really wanted a job and this kind of came from other veterans that got out. They’re like, make sure that you have a job with purpose. Whenever you get out of the military, you don’t realize it because you get out, it feels like you’re retiring and you’re so happy to be done with all the stuff you had to deal with. But quickly you realize that you need to have a reason to get out of bed in the morning more than just a paycheck, you know? And so you want to actually do something that’s meaningful to other people as well. Absolutely. Tim Goodwin (04:35.374) Yeah. I mean, that’s going to keep you happy too. Ultimately, you’ve just got to find that work. You’re like, Hey, I would do this even if I didn’t get paid. I need to get paid. So that’s great. You know, but I was a bonus. So you made a big transition in the army from being a captain to a ranger instructor. So share with us why you decided to, know, pull rank or whatever it’s called and change it up. So as a captain, was a ranger instructor. most of the positions for that job are filled by like non-commissioned officers, NCOs. but I had the chance to, like working with small teams, right, for one. So I really enjoyed having, you know, 12, 11 guys underneath me. And that’s what I did for most of my time as a Ranger instructor. It’s called a platoon tactical trainer, right? So basically what that means is I ran a team that either did tactics or mountaineering. And so I wanted to transition to something where I worked with a small team and also got to do something fun. I like teaching, which is another reason to kind of drew me to finance. And I liked the idea of developing, you know, men and women in the military, because it’s what I did. It’s like Ranger School, if anybody doesn’t know, it’s like the premier leadership course in the military. I would say probably even potentially in the world, depending on what type, what your job is. But we’ve had people from, we’ve had Hungarians, we’ve had Ukrainians, we’ve had all over the world have come to Ranger School to include within our military, Navy, Marines, Air Force, everybody. Obviously Army come and train with us to learn and develop their leadership skills. Wow, that’s super cool. I did not know that. Share a little bit of like you talked about some of these like tactical missions. I think you’ve shared some stories about like there at night and how much you’re carrying and what you’re doing. Maybe share a little bit. Yeah. So as an instructor, my I’m not doing quite as hard stuff, guess to say, but as a student, a lot of what you’re doing specifically to ranger school. Was a lot of night operations. So you’re wearing night vision goggles. You’re moving 10 kilometers at night through the mountains in Florida. You’re moving through the swamps. No, I’ve walked past gators and snakes. So yeah, it’s a, it’s a little nerve wracking. Yeah. And then you’re doing all kinds of missions, raids, ambushes. Most people probably don’t know what those are, but it’s tactical missions on how to, you know, destroy the enemy pretty much. So that’s what you’re learning in ranger school. just. Tim Goodwin (07:01.664) also being tested in your leadership ability store. Right. Right. And that really translates to like, when we’re working in the office with rucksacks and night vision goggles. Yeah. yeah. Exactly. do that every day. clearance in the morning. We all wait outside for Kobe to clear the area before we enter the building. Let me circle back to the career transition from the military to being a financial advisor because you were saying that you’re you know, some of your mentors and friends were like, find the thing with purpose. and then you were talking about Atlanta was perfect for Hallie, you know, moving into, into developing her career as an actress. So how did you’re like, okay, I want to, I want it to be purposeful, but how did finance connect to that purpose for you? Yeah. Great question. I’ve always had an interest in it, but in the army, just didn’t have quite as much time to unpack it or to read books. didn’t really get into reading until probably two or three years into me being in the army, whenever I realized it’s actually really important. Reading thing. Yeah. It’s like, this is why everybody keeps talking about it. There’s libraries everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. So whenever I kind of got my own financial advisor back in the day, I really wanted to understand what was I being invested in? How does this work? What’s a Roth IRA? Right. Versus a traditional. And I’m the kind of guy that once I kind of get an itch for understanding something, it’s not going to go. Okay, so you got a bug. I got a bug and I really wanted to keep learning about personal finance. got like, finance for dummies and stuff like that where I can just absorb as much as I could. And then obviously expanded upon lots of other topics. That’s awesome. So actually like meeting with a financial advisor kind of ignited that was a catalyst and you already had a little bit of this. I’ve always kind of been interested in finance growing up and then you read about it. That kind of fancy flame. Super cool. So another question, you have a personal motto, you only deserve what you earn. So share with us a little bit about why this is your quote and what that means to you to hear that. Yeah, so that actually came from wrestling back in the day. So I wrestled in high school, did a little bit of middle school and I went through like a time where was pretty frustrated with myself. I felt like I deserved to be on the podium. And one of my coaches were like, need to watch this video. Cause that quote’s actually from an Iowa state wrestling coach. Tim Goodwin (09:21.674) And he was like, his quote is you only deserve what you earn. And that didn’t kind of stuck with me, I guess, at the time more got frustrated because I was like, I don’t care. I want to be on. I want to win. But as it kind of I developed right as a leader and in the army, you start to really realize like, you know, I wholeheartedly believe this. And as a ranger instructor, I instilled that or did my best to instill that candidates that would come through to the course that you don’t get a tab by just being here. You have to earn your Ranger tab and everybody that sees that on you knows you had to earn it. There’s no just yeah flopping through the core. And we all could use some more of that. I definitely need a lot of people that just like once like they feel like they deserve just because they want it like you’re saying like you wanted to be on the podium. You just felt like well I deserve to because I just want it so bad. Yeah, you know, but like you deserve it when you’ve earned it. Yep. I love it. That’s great. That’s great. So you’re also a big fitness enthusiast. It’s kind of funny like how we, you know, we’ve got some other advisors, Justin, who’s really into fitness as well. And actually I think he, his undergrad was in. Exercise science. as me. as yours. Yeah. So, so tell us about that. Tell us about, you know, health and exercise and fitness, how that plays a role. Yeah. Well, I, whenever I. went to school, I was trying to find something that I was actually interested in. Of course, in high school, who’s not interested in lifting weights as a student athlete. So I was like, how do I maximize this? My original goal was like, oh, I’ll do personal training and open up a gym someday, something like that. What you doing? Some personal training? I did. some point. did. Yeah. That was like my first job out of college. I was waiting to go do my training for the army. I did about a year of it. And I enjoyed it and also realized it’s not what I wanted to do forever. Uh, so yeah, that kind of got me started. It was just, was really into it. love biology. do like physiology and I like those aspects, especially the kinesiology, human movement side. Um, and I think that by learning that it really helped, I’d say in the finance world, because the way you have to study the material, I think, I think is really the same. Well, and there’s a lot of discipline that comes with it too, that I think kind of translates over to finance, you know, um, and Tim Goodwin (11:37.356) just the behaviors that come into it as well, right? Like you can just tell somebody like, hey, just do this many reps and this many sets with this much weight. It’s really easy to understand. Just like, hey, you can say 500 a month and a Roth IRA and it’ll be worth so much more in the future. The harder part is to actually understand the psychology about why somebody’s gonna do that or not, right? Which I think plays into the personal trainer just like the personal financial advisor. So. Well, that’s awesome. We appreciate anybody being more into fitness and health around the office. We need all the help we can get because generally we’re just going to order crumble whenever we feel like it. Yeah, sweets. We love them here. So let’s move on to more of like the job of being a financial advisor. So yeah, one of the things that I know is rewarding to you and it’s rewarding to me too is just this relationship that we get to build with our clients over time. So unpack like how that’s rewarding for you, you getting to kind of work as an associate wealth advisor here and work with clients. Like what has that been like so far? Yeah, well I think one of the best ways to not only better yourself, but to also help people is through serving, right? And so really in this role and this capacity, it’s really what I do specifically for the other advisors, right? Kind of serve the team, but I also serve our clients, right? Right, be it working with Kimberly with client, know, services stuff and then I really liked the idea of being able to answer questions and remove stress from people’s lives because I know finance can be stressful. Absolutely stressed me out. And whenever I was like studying it and trying to learn it. And so I can’t imagine, you know, getting close to retirement, not knowing, I, right? Uh, I have enough? I have enough? Is this going to last me enough time? Like your biggest risk is running out of money in retirement. Right. So how do know it’s going to work out for me? so being able to be a part of a team that helps answer those questions for people. yet again goes back to the first question, providing purpose. Yeah. I feel like I’m actually serving and helping others. It’s such a, I mean, it’s such a block for folks, this financial anxiety, like the stress that people really feel around money. And if it becomes all consuming, you know, it really limits their ability to live life to the fullest and, and be able to think about other things like creating memories, travel, spending time with loved ones, know, those kinds of things that can really trap you in that, in that fear. And so Tim Goodwin (13:59.488) it seems to be very powerful, at least for our clients to sit down, like you said, and say, Okay, like, here’s a plan. Here’s how we can empower you to make better decisions. They’re seeing kind of this, you know, I call it the left side of the brain where they’re seeing the math and the planning. Yeah. And the what if we do this first, that and we’re there seeing what the plan with the software, the projections say, or the spreadsheets. But on the right side of the brain, you’ve also got the advisor that’s helping with like we were talking about before the behavior, the psychology. that client is reassured by an advisor saying, Hey, I think this makes sense. Or this is what my clients in your stage of life would typically do in this situation. That can be very, very helpful for them to make decisions. And really, you know, you’ve seen this already, and you’ll see this more as you’re in this field is what removes that financial anxiety is having a plan. Yeah. And having a plan that is dynamically updated, not just like this printed one time plan. And also a plan that you’re working together with a trusted advisor, right? You trust that advisor, their experience, their license, you you’re working on your certified financial planner, right? You’re going to sit for that next year. So that’s, that’s super cool. So you’ll have the, um, the experience behind that as well. You’ll have those credentials. And so when a client comes in and has somebody that they can trust like you and that plan, that’s what removes that financial anxiety. And I love that you mentioned that too. We have a saying. Right. And the military army really is no plan survives first contact. So you go in and you in every mission that you do, you always have a very detail oriented plan. It’s one of the things that we teach in Ranger school. It’s called the troop leading procedures. Right. How are you going to lead this 30 or 40 man platoon into your objective and your mission and complete the mission within a certain amount of time. Right. But as soon as it starts, I can guarantee you it’s not going to go the way that you thought it was going to. So you said the first plan never survives first contact. Your plan never survives first contact. That’s so true. And so that’s why I like it here. It’s like dynamic financial plan, right? It’s the same thing. It’s we’re going to sit down in this room. We’re going to get everything good to go. And then something’s going to happen in two weeks and you’re going to need help again. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s funny because we call it a plan because it just seems to make more sense, but it’s just ongoing planning. You know, and you have this Tim Goodwin (16:20.544) moment in time where you check in on how’s the planning going, you the planning’s going well, look at what the planning or the plan looks like right now. Yeah. The market’s changing, life changes, it’s gonna be so, so different. So, but that’s cool that you relate to that financial anxiety, you realize how that’s just so common amongst just like human condition, we all have that financial anxiety figuring out how to manage it. And that it’s just really rewarding to help a client navigate those decisions. So super cool. We are you talked about getting into reading, you know, and you you’ve certainly learned by now that we’re really into reading here. We as a team, we read two books a year. Every client gets a birthday card on their birthday and can request a book of their choice. And the team always updates. Thank you, Angela, our producer who updates that list every year and is constantly shipping out books because we really care about people growing and their personal growth just not as our team. That’s an internal value we have dedicated to personal growth. It’s not just, we want to show our clients that it’s not just about them growing their portfolios, but also them growing as individuals with their books. So you’ve got a list here of some of your favorite books that I recognize that I love. So share some of those with the audience. Well, first, one reason I really love reading is because I kind of wholeheartedly believe everything you need to know is already been written down. Right. Nothing new under the sun. And so being able to be like, I don’t know how to do this so can read a book about it. It’s pretty helpful. But what really broke the financial, I guess, glass ceiling for me, I guess you could say, would be that first book, if you’re like Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad. Oh yeah, classic. I did not know any of this even existed for the most part. You know what the stock market kind of is, but no one really knows what it is until you start to get into it. Yeah, and even then we still don’t really know, but we try. We try to, we try to navigate it. But I read that book and I was like, oh my gosh, there’s a whole world out here of things that I didn’t understand. And I would much rather be like the rich dad than the poor dad. And from there comes out all these other questions. And so that just kind of led to the book that is in there. It’s called by Bob Lodich, the simple money rich life of your money. Having a purpose is really what that book’s about. And his purpose is giving. so I thought it aligned really well with like here. I actually finished that right before I like applied to GIA. Tim Goodwin (18:47.146) and it helped me with a lot of like my giving questions. and like, am I supposed to do this effectively? Right. Is this supposed to be net gross tide? Like, my gosh, I don’t know any of this. then you realize like, you know, it’s about just assigning your money a purpose. And if your purpose in the end is to give as much away as you possibly can. Well, now you have a drive behind your success. That’s awesome. True Kathy, the founder of a Chick-fil-A, he wrote a little book called wealth. Is it worth it? Like just this accumulating. built a very successful business and he was collecting cars and doing all these things but ultimately he kind of answers the question throughout the book that that wealth is only worth it essentially the acquiring and the building of wealth if you give it away. Right? Yeah. So yeah, that that gives that purpose to it and that meaning it feels so good and it makes such a big difference. alright, well right here before we sign off, would love for you to maybe share some of your proudest achievements up to this point. Yeah, wow. So I mean, So first, finding my wife and getting married. There we go. Shout out, Hallie. Shout out to Hallie. That was awesome. But it’s funny because we got married the day I graduated Ranger School. Oh my gosh. Just mix it all at Yeah, so it’s all together. Yeah, we might spread it out. So it really helps us memorize the anniversary. That’s true. Yeah, you got both tied into one. Smart. So my second greatest would definitely be probably graduating Ranger School. That was… The toughest thing I think I’ve ever done and will probably ever do. Uh, I lost like 30 pounds in the process of doing it. I had to redo a phase. You get really sick in the middle of ranger school because you’re only sleeping like 30 minutes to an hour a day. If you sleep at all on top of burning five, 6,000 calories only for, so it’s It’s very gross. It’s tough. That’s not just physically demanding, like major mentally challenging. Yeah. It sounds like a wonderful experience. Yeah. And then the last one would just be like, I’m really glad I had the chance to at least to deploy, To actually go out overseas, serve my country and then just my time in the army. was a mix of 3A and 3B there of my third greatest achievement. Well, it’s interesting because you, you know, I guess your experience in the military seems to have really ingrained this kind of Tim Goodwin (21:02.238) Service like the service to others and I love how you tie that into what we’re doing. mean technically we are professional service provider We are providing a professional service to our clients and ultimately we are serving them You know for the most part is tied into something financial which finance ties into a lot of things and so it’s still keeps that alive of that of that service and that purpose So that’s great. That’s awesome Well, thank you so much for being here. It’s been super exciting to get to know you more folks can go on the website, get an investment.com click on about team, something like that. Click on Kobe, you can read more you can see his picture and his beautiful wife’s picture if you’re not watching this, you’re listening to it. And then we love to kind of sign off on the podcast with something we’re grateful for. So while you’re thinking about that, I will share that I’m grateful for I’m starting to have a little bit more time as I’ve delegated things this year. let some things go where I can do more writing. And so excited about, I’ve never really thought about like, I’m a good writer. And I don’t think I am a good writer, but I just am trying it out, like starting to write things down. I’m to be working on my second book this year. So just grateful for having that opportunity to start doing some more writing and seeing where that goes. about you? Yeah, mine would be being able to spend some time playing pickleball with my wife. Yeah, you guys said you’re doing that on Sundays? Yeah, we tried to do that on Sundays. Okay. Especially if she doesn’t have to work on Sundays and enjoy the nice weather, go out, play for an hour, hang out and spend some time together. awesome. That’s a great weekend thing to do for sure. So you guys think I’ll be on a team or anything like that at some point? Maybe. We’re both competitive so I can see it happening. develop. we could develop. right, now the recreation is going to turn into competition soon. So Well, awesome. So again, thank you so much for coming. I did want to let the listeners know if you guys wanted to learn more about Goodwin Investment Advisory, check out goodwininvestment.com. You can sign up for our blog there. can if you’re ready to kind of unpack more about our services, you can schedule an intro call and we would love to hear more from you. I also want to give a shout out to our producer, Angela, sitting across the table from us and to Tara that helped to create some of our talking points today. Thanks so much for listening. Bye bye.

Schedule a Call

The Money PIG podcast is hosted by Reid Trego. Goodwin Investment Advisory is a Registered Investment Advisory firm regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in accordance and compliance with securities laws and regulations. Goodwin Investment Advisory does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through the Money PIG podcast. The information provided is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax, investment or legal advice.

Subscribe to our Podcast

For personalized financial guidance, schedule an schedule an intro call with our team at Goodwin Investment Advisory in Canton, GA . Our CFP® professionals can provide advice and help you navigate how to invest your wealth and plan for your retirement. We’d love to help you live out your legacy!

By Tara BrucePublished On: May 29th, 2025