Cousins Trevor Hanson and Dr. Caleb Pinegar Wrote Unsplode So Readers Stop Deferring Their Lives
“Life deferred is a life gone.”
Trevor Hanson, co-author of Unsplode
Trevor Hanson manages money. His cousin, Dr. Caleb Pinegar, repairs bodies as an orthopedic surgeon. For seven to ten years they kept having the same conversation about health, wealth, and balance. Unsplode is that conversation, written as one book with two front covers.
A word from a five-year-old
Clip · Caleb Pinegar on where the word unsplode came from · 45s
The title came from Caleb’s son, who was five at the time. When a Lego broke apart on the floor, he said it “unsploded.” Caleb was already thinking about how often the families in the book saw their lives explode from tragedy or poor preparation.
“And the intent was to say, Hey, before your life does explode, why don’t you recreate it? Why don’t you unsplode this system?”
— Caleb Pinegar
He brought an elaborate display of prefixes and nouns to the next book meeting to make his case. He did not need it.
“And so when he came up with the unsplode, I was just like, That’s it. That’s the one, you know.”
— Trevor Hanson
They had to unsplode their own lives first
Clip · Trevor Hanson on leaving his career before writing the book · 36s
Trevor was managing over a billion dollars for a large financial institution. When the firm asked him to sign an agreement that would have locked him into that career, he left and started his own wealth management practice. Caleb left his practice to start his own business. Only then did they have time to write.
“So we tell people like, you know, how could we have wrote that book earlier when our lives were about to explode anyway?”
— Trevor Hanson
Once they started, it took about 18 months.
One book, two sides
Clip · Trevor Hanson on building one book with two sides · 45s
Switching between a wealth chapter and a health chapter would not work, so they split the book in two. Trevor’s Wealthspan side and Caleb’s Healthspan side mirror each other, and each author comments on the other’s half, explaining money in health terms and health in money terms.
“It was kind of fun noticing that a lot of these terms that we don’t frequently bridge between these two worlds have a lot of similar pathways.”
— Caleb Pinegar
A life deferred
Clip · Trevor Hanson on the client who deferred his life · 58s
Trevor’s side opens with a couple who saved every penny for the trips they would take in retirement. He built their financial plan. Not long after, the husband was diagnosed with brain cancer and given three to four months to live.
“You deferred your life. You wished your working career away, you know, with all the things that you wanted to do.”
— Trevor Hanson
That client, Trevor says, is the one that probably changed his life the most. It is why he wants to be a coach to his clients, not only a planner.
Start going right now
Clip · Caleb Pinegar on why patients should start going now · 24s
Caleb sees the same pattern in his clinic. Patients with knee pain tell him they will enjoy their lives once the surgery is done. Before he operates, he wants them moving.
“But the very thing that they think they’re coming in to try to get fixed is usually more in their own power than they know.”
— Caleb Pinegar
A plan without a purpose
Clip · Trevor Hanson on a plan without a purpose · 41s
Most people Trevor meets think the pie chart on their statement is a financial plan. He starts somewhere else.
“So everyone says they have a plan, but they don’t have a purpose.”
— Trevor Hanson
“I would say majority of retirees have no financial plan and even more people have no plan with purpose. And that’s what we’re trying to teach.”
— Trevor Hanson
Why they chose Scribe Media
Clip · Trevor Hanson on why they chose Scribe Media · 31s
Both of them had years of ideas and no shortage of things to say. Getting it onto the page was another matter.
“I’m a numbers guy. I’m not a big guy that knows how to write a lot of words.”
— Trevor Hanson
They wanted a coach to organize their ideas and keep them on schedule. They also needed someone who understood that wealth management and medicine are both heavily regulated, so the book would stay compliant. Trevor did his research.
“I would just say you [Scribe] guys have a good reputation. The research I did was fantastic. You know, a lot of wealth advisors like myself have used you [Scribe] guys in the past.”
— Trevor Hanson
A roadmap for people with great ideas
Clip · Caleb Pinegar on the Scribe Media roadmap · 46s
Caleb had read about authors who silence their phones and sit in a room for eight hours a day. That was never going to work for two busy professionals who, by their own admission, get derailed easily. XX with general ideas, then built them step by step into chapters, then into the ideas within each chapter, lining up the health and wealth sides as they went.
“All we had to do was talk about something we’re passionate about and talk about something we love, which is easy for us. And in the end, it was coordinated and navigated by a professional who knew what they were doing so that we didn’t have to veer way outside of our talent and outside of our lane. And this beautiful product came out of it.”
— Caleb Pinegar
What comes next
Clip · Trevor Hanson on the billboard line · 22s
The book is the start. They have launched a podcast with the same name, and unsplode.com offers quizzes that tell readers whether they need more balance on the wealth side or the health side, plus a chapter or two to read for free. Caleb hopes for speaking opportunities next. In the meantime, the stories they hear from friends and family keep matching the ones they wrote down.
“The odds are pretty decent that we’ve got a story in this book that kind of correlates with what that person’s going through. And that’s why we wrote it to say, look, like we get what you’re talking about.”
— Caleb Pinegar
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