Mindset Hacks

Greetings and Happy New Year!

We hope you’ve had a happy and healthy holiday season and are excited to get rolling in 2022. We have a lot of plans for 2022 and can’t wait to see what the year brings. Before we get started with the newsletter, we’d like to congratulate Ben on attaining his RICP® designation. The RICP® stands for Retirement Income Certified Professional®. This is an advanced level certification and means that someone is qualified to assist with planning and executing retirement strategies. This is a huge win for our clients in or approaching retirement age. Continued education and professional development are a couple of our focuses for 2022 and they tie nicely into the theme of this newsletter, hacking your mindset for financial and personal success. 

Read – 
In our first meeting for all clients, we focus on ‘Life Planning’ questions. These questions are built to drill down into deeper values and help to crystalize why money is important to people. Money is not the end, but rather a means to create a life that is in sync with our values. Revisiting these questions is a critical step in making sure we keep our values top of mind as we move forward in life. In our January meeting with Ongoing Comprehensive Clients, we will focus on creating a Financial Purpose Statement to serve as a cornerstone for making financial decisions. If you’d like to read more about Financial Purpose Statements, check out this blog post from Micahel Kitces. 

Watch – 
This YouTube video delves into the idea of the ‘Growth Mindset’. The basic idea is that anyone can learn anything with effort and perseverance. It is the opposite of the fixed mindset which states that people are born with innate abilities. If you’ve ever felt a little stuck or unsure if you could achieve a goal, this is a great video to watch. Pairing the Growth Mindset with persistence and sound planning can help people succeed in ways they never thought possible. With the growth mindset, you change how you see the world. Things that were once problems are now opportunities for growth. For any of you with an entrepreneurial mindset, you’ll want to focus on the middle of the video where the growth mindset is shown to be invaluable in helping people overcome obstacles by viewing them as a teacher rather than an insurmountable challenge between them and their goal. 

Listen – 
While it may seem redundant, we assure you that the number and variety of episodes in this podcast will not disappoint. The Growth Mindset Podcast is a fantastic resource for those looking to learn from “incredible individuals across the world, sharing insights and lessons into how mindset helped them to live a more fulfilling life.” The podcast is a great mixture of business, philosophy, and self-help that we think everyone should listen to and benefit from. An example question from an interview, “What is a setback or failure that set you up for a later success?”

That’s it for this month. Thank you for reading and we hope you’ll find value in the links provided.

All the best in the New Year, 
The Bona Fide Family

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Bonnie Martinek

Administrative Assistant
Bonnie (Ben’s mom!) is a mother of 9 and a grandmother of 17. She has lived in rural Indiana her whole life and has a master’s degree in Special Education. In her own words, she’s done a little bit of everything but is a master of none (teaching, construction, manager of a corn maze, CNA, farm work, cashier, auto bodywork, and the list goes on!). Widowed in 2019, she is reinventing herself through her work in the day-to-day operations of Bona Fide Finance and client relations. Bonnie loves getting to know our clients and is happy to serve them well!

Deb Martinek

Relationships Specialist

Deb has been with Bona Fide Finance since its inception in 2015 and long before that with her support of Ben studying for the CFP designation and the dream of starting the business of helping individuals and families meet their financial goals.

She fills the Relationships Specialist role – Deb is typically the first encounter our new clients have as she walks them through our service offerings and introduces them to the map of financial literacy.

She has a bachelor’s degree from Ball State University and a master’s degree from the Franciscan University of Steubenville. Deb lives in Bismarck with Ben and their two young daughters, is a card-carrying member of the CDL club (read more about those adventures here) and is happiest reading an epic novel, solving a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle, or working in her kitchen where she can serve love to the people in her life through quality food (clients enjoy her holiday shipment of homemade goodies each December!).

Ben Martinek

CFP®, EA, CSLP®, RICP®, Founder and Advisor

Ben Martinek, CFP®, EA, CSLP®, RICP®, is the founder and lead advisor at Bona Fide Finance, an independent, fee-only firm dedicated to helping doctors, young professionals, and growing families take control of their financial future. With a deep understanding of student loan debt—having tackled his own—Ben specializes in guiding clients through debt repayment strategies, smart investing, and comprehensive financial planning so they can build wealth with confidence. Ben’s passion for financial planning comes from his desire to provide honest, objective advice tailored to each client’s unique situation. He loves seeing the impact of his work, whether it’s helping a family pay off student loans years ahead of schedule, setting up an early retiree for financial freedom, or giving clients the peace that comes from knowing their finances are in order. His clients appreciate his thoughtful, high-touch approach, often saying that working with him has changed their lives.

Before launching Bona Fide Finance in 2015, Ben’s career path was anything but conventional. The fourth of nine children, he grew up in rural Indiana and initially pursued a path in academia, earning a B.A. in philosophy and classical languages, followed by a master’s degree in philosophy. Along the way, he explored careers in construction and truck driving—logging over 600,000 miles across the U.S. with his wife, Deb—before finding his true calling in financial planning.

Now based in Bismarck, North Dakota, Ben and Deb stay busy raising their two daughters, Edith and Virginia. Since their truck-driving days, Ben is happiest on a long road trip—preferably behind the wheel of his TDI Volkswagen Jetta. He enjoys sailing on Lake Sakakawea, camping in their vintage ’90s pop-up camper, and smoking a pipe by the grill. A lover of strategy board games, he favors Clans of Caledonia (mostly because Deb refuses to play Risk with him). When he’s not working with clients, he can be found smoking meat, gardening, hiking, or diving into The Lord of the Rings or Dune. Ben also serves on the school board for his daughters’ Montessori school and is actively involved in pre-marriage ministry in the Bismarck Diocese.