The Secret Skill of the Wealthy: Embracing Financial Risks

Are you ready to transform your financial game by taking calculated risks? Former financial advisor Rob Cook joins us to unravel the secret skill that separates the wealthy from the non-wealthy - the art of informed risk-taking. Discover how knowledge, negotiation, and investment protection play pivotal roles in wealth creation.

Venture into the world of real estate as we explore the power of passive investing. Fear of risk-taking is common, yet with the right strategies, it can be overcome. Learn how diversification, knowledge, and due diligence can alleviate fear and induce confidence. Rob shares his personal journey, moving from traditional financial advising to becoming a trusted advisor for wealthy clients and how this shift has redefined his perspective on wealth management.

As we round off this enlightening journey, wealth coach Ryan steps in, offering invaluable insights on risk management, and the art of becoming a trusted advisor. Drawing inspiration from the movie 'The Ultimate Gift', we emphasize the significance of mentoring and education in embracing financial risks. This episode is packed with a wealth of knowledge that serves as a comprehensive guide for anyone aspiring to elevate their financial standing. Get ready to reshape your financial future!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:20

Ryan Dement from Chasing Financial Freedom podcast. I hope you guys are having a great day. Today on the podcast we have Rob Cook, former financial advisor, who saw the holes in the financial service industry and left to be part of the solution, and he has an update on his story and I'm going to let him share that instead of going through the rest of his bio. Rob, welcome to the show. Thanks, ryan. Thank you so much for having me on. You're more than welcome. So I know it's been a little bit of time since we spoke last year, so why don't we play a little catch up on what you're doing and then we'll start jumping out some rabbit holes.

Speaker 2: 0:56

Yeah, as the bio that you read alluded to, I am a CPA and a CFP, a former financial advisor. I had worked in the traditional financial advisor space for almost four years. I became really disenchanted with a lot of the stuff in the industry, particularly guys calling themselves comprehensive, independent, fiduciary. Well, at the end of the day, they're just asset gatherers or just insurance salesmen and just did not sit well with me and so I ultimately left, joined a startup called Elements. It's a software company where we were trying to be a change in the industry, showing financial advisors that you could profitably provide advice, just pure advice, and use that, because the real value, in my opinion, in most financial advisory type relationships is not the investment management, it's the actual advice that you can get from them and specifically the strategic and behavioral advice that you can get from them. And did that for a year and a half or so, really enjoyed it, did quite well.

Speaker 2: 2:00

Things wind up going a different direction. It's really hard to sell to people who make good money, don't have a lot of pain and don't really care to change. You think we would have figured that out towards the beginning. We did all right. We found a good little niche we worked in grew from about 120,000 over a million in the course of about eight months but then just stagnated, started going backwards. I hit the usual bump.

Speaker 2: 2:21

So the startup. And then I got approached by some people who saw my expertise because at the same time I was also running another business on the side just taking my own clients myself with my own background helping people, got approached by a large multinational accounting firm and to join what they call their private client services group. More effectively, I'm coming in and I'm the advisor to the ultra wealthy, the entrepreneurs and business owners who are in that millionaire, decim, millionaire, centimillionaire plus range, coordinating their wealth and their strategic tax planning and their offices and businesses and all sorts of things for them to maximize their wealth long term. So I'll be joining them very shortly. That's the most recent up.

Speaker 1: 3:06

So I got to just jump right in and just go ask the first question what makes the? What differentiates the wealthy versus the non-wealthy? What, in the financial aspect, differentiates them?

Speaker 2: 3:22

The very first thing that popped in my mind and this is something I see all the time is the willingness to take risk. I think risk has is a dirty word by a lot of people it is, but learning to take calculated risks is a skill that a lot of the wealthy I've come to know have really honed, whether it's in their particular field that they have a lot of expertise in or just generally. But this ability to think through the various risk factors and the ways to mitigate them or to way to structure the deal such that they can shield themselves from their biggest risks, those types of things they learn how to do and most people just take it as it is. Well, this is the deal, this is just what I have, this is what I have to do, whereas a lot of the wealthy that I have come to know and talk to and understand their own stories. Everything's negotiable, everything is figure outable. We can find a way to make it work. It just takes a little extra work, but the that work and protecting themselves against those downsides becomes incredibly beneficial.

Speaker 2: 4:27

Because Warren Buffett says most people have heard this saying two most important rules of investing. Number one don't lose your money. Number two refer to rule number one. Right, everyone knows this, but the ultra wealthy? I've come to know that they do certain things that protect themselves so that they don't lose their investments, don't lose the money that they put in, whether it's their business or an outside investment.

Speaker 1: 4:50

So can we continue to go down that rabbit hole? What are those things? What? Let's talk about risk. It is a four letter word. It's like change it's, but risk is truly a four letter word. But how do you, how do you effectively work with somebody that is not a multimillionaire or ultra wealthy to take on some risk, with some calculated work in the background? Let's talk about it Starting up a business ultra risky, Just you got it. I'm a two time failure at entrepreneurship. So I feel like, yeah, so I feel that pain, Actually maybe more than that.

Speaker 2: 5:24

at this point you could say but how do we?

Speaker 1: 5:31

does it start with the education piece? There's got to be a starting point to where we can say it's okay to take risk if you do, or you're able to work through that thought process or I can't remember how you described it, but there's that work that you have to do. Does it start on the front end of education and understanding finance?

Speaker 2: 5:52

Yeah, that's definitely part of it. In fact, I like to tell people that there are four factors that really impact the risk of any sort of investment or opportunity that you're taking, and this applies actually, I would say, to whether it's starting business or investing in some real estate, or investing in the stock market or anything else that you could do to try and create, well, frankly, starting a podcast, whatever might. So there's four attributes, four things that will, if we can get those things on our side, will actually really lower the risk profile of that particular. So like, number one is actually knowledge. Sorry, one second here. Right, clear my throat, sorry, not a problem. Number one is just knowledge. Okay, so the more you know about a particular investment that you're making, the less risky that it is going to feel. We know this intuitively. That's one of the reasons why investing in the stock market can be considered fairly risky, because it feels very opaque.

Speaker 2: 6:43

It's very difficult to understand what is actually going on behind the scenes with these businesses that we're investing in. It's Apple, it's Google, it's Amazon, it's name your fangsta, oh fangsta, it can be S&P 500. Yes, they have public filings. Yes, you can look at financial statements, but do we really actually know what's going on. If you actually looked at those statements, do you actually understand what they're telling you? What is the story that they're actually telling us? Right, and the same can go make an investment in a business. Do we actually understand the market that they're working in? Do we understand their customer base? Do we understand their strategic advantage? Do we understand what positions them and makes them different from the rest of their competitors? Is it that I need to understand about this business, or the market that they're going into, or their customer base that can help me lower my risks?

Speaker 2: 7:28

That's number one. Number two the others are a little bit. When you think about them, you're like, yeah, duh, but we don't really tend to apply them as it pertains to our investments. Number one is just the amount of control you have over that investment.

Speaker 2: 7:40

If, as an entrepreneur yes, we all know that starting a business is considered extremely risky, but it really doesn't feel that risky when you're the one that's at the reins and you can control. Okay, I need to go make some more money, so I'm going to go do make some sales. Or we need to cut back a little bit, so I'm just not going to buy X, y and Z or I'm going to downgrade A, b or C, whatever it might be feels a lot less risky because we can control the outcome. So if you can position yourself in a deal where you can control the outcome of that deal. A lot of times people love the idea of passive income and passive income can be fantastic and there's a lot of things from a tax risk activity due to create pals, those passive activity losses or passive activity gains but at the end of the day, if you can still maintain some form of control over the outcome, it's going to feel a lot less risky making any sort of investment.

Speaker 1: 8:28

Is there truly passive income? And this is just me playing devil's advocate. You still got to do the work up front. You still got to understand what you're investing in. I'll give you a good example. My day job, as I say, is a real estate investor. We develop affordable homes. I use private investors, I use their self-directed 401ks or IRAs and they call it passive investing, but it truly is not. Because they have to do the due diligence on the deal, they have to make sure that it makes dollars and cents for them. And are they willing to risk $60,000, $80,000 on a build? I don't know, and maybe I'm off and I'm always open to hear different opinions, but you still. If you prepare yourself up front with the work, then it can truly come somewhat passive as the money comes in. But you still have to lay the foundation down, don't you? 100%?

Speaker 2: 9:24

No, I completely agree. In fact, I would argue that passive income is honestly a myth. There's no truly passive income and if it is, you're not nearly going to get the returns that you want. Because, frankly, the closest thing to quote unquote passive income might be investing in the stock market, because you could just throw a bunch of money in a predetermined portfolio, auto rebalance and let it sit there. But the returns are going to get there maybe 6% to 7% a year after inflation, if you're lucky on average. Long term You're not going to get the large double digit returns or the home runs quote unquote that people want and are looking for, because that's just not the way that I would argue.

Speaker 2: 10:02

There's this kind of a scale the more passive, the lower she should likely expect of your return. The more active that you're willing to participate in that thing, the higher the return you could likely expect. Now, there's a lot of factors that play into that, but that's just a general correlation that I've noticed in talking with my clients. But yeah to your point. Yes, there is some more passive types of investments, even a syndication type of style investment that you're describing right now. That requires due diligence on your part on the front end. It requires knowledge of the investment. It requires you doing the work to ensure that you can then get that mailbox money later. And that should not be taken lightly, because there's a lot of people that can get burned on those types of investments if the due diligence is not properly, and that's one of the things I like to simplify on that end is I don't syndicate, I do individual deals.

Speaker 1: 10:51

So like we're doing a 15, they're doing a 15 property deal on a whole block renovation. I do one investor for each house, clean, simple, to the point, and there's transparency. The syndication not saying it doesn't work, believe me, it does for apartment doors and a few other things I just don't see it in the affordable housing space. It gets so convoluted because there's another aspect of our business is the personal touch, Because once we get to the point of a family buying the house, we typically introduce them to the investor and the investor he or she or the family office, whatever it is they get to see that family being impacted by their dollars at work and that just it's a feel good thing. But also, at the same time, it really sets the investor up saying, hey, I'm doing different, I'm doing something different than most others won't and I use it as a social good because it truly is. You're giving back to the community and there's so much coming back to you. That's fantastic. So just one of those things. Anyhow, we digress.

Speaker 2: 11:54

Should we keep going on the different factors, that kind of impact risk or you want to stop there?

Speaker 1: 11:59

Oh no, I want to keep on going with the risk piece, because that's I mean, we all struggle with it.

Speaker 2: 12:04

Okay, let's keep going. So we've talked about this idea of both having knowledge and then control. Those two things can help lower our risk. There's two other factors. Number one is the amount of money that you actually put into a deal. If you put a lot of your money into a single deal, that's going to feel far more risky than if you just put a little bit of money into it. That's why for someone to take let's say they've worked their whole lives, worked a traditional W2, have a million dollar 401k actually in our today's environment, hopefully three million dollars at least but let's say you have a million bucks in a 401k and you're going to give all of it to one financial advisor and have him manage it for you. Wow, yeah, no wonder it feels risky Because the largest chunk of your net worth likely aside from potentially your home is sitting with a person. That feels a lot riskier. We know this intuitively, but we just don't think about it. So let's just think about the example of a single family home. If you were to make an investment in a home, if you have a million dollars to allocate to investments and you take your million dollars and say one house that feels very different from, I'm going to take a hundred thousand dollars and put it in 10 different homes. We know this.

Speaker 2: 13:17

Generally. We call it diversification in the general investments sphere, but it's the same principle that helps us lower our overall risk. The last factor that can impact the amount of risk that you feel in any investment you're making is how quickly you get your initial money back. For some people they structure it such that they basically put their money in and they get right back within a couple of months. We talk about in the traditional investment space. There's stocks and there's bonds. With the traditional stock market investment you're not going to get any of your money back until, potentially, you sell it, which could be decades down the road. Or if you have a bond, which is supposedly a cash, they have interest payments that they're making. Generally, those interest payments generally are stretched over 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 plus years into the future.

Speaker 2: 14:00

No wonder it feels a bit more risky for those that aren't very well-versed, have a lot of knowledge or control in the traditional financial markets. It's going to be the same thing in a business. If you start a business and you put very little money in and then you know that you can get that money back out within, say, six months, because you're very good at advertising or sales or whatever it might be, it feels a heck of a lot less risky. Or even if you get your initial investment back within a few months and it fails a few months later, it's okay. It feels a lot less risky to you because you've got your initial money back.

Speaker 2: 14:30

Those four basic principles are going to help us control the amount of risk that we personally feel and that we actually have in any potential investment are number one, knowledge of it. Number two, control of that particular over the outcome of that particular investment. Number three, the amount of money that you actually put into that investment as it pertains to the rest of your net worth. And then number four, how quickly you get your initial investment.

Speaker 1: 14:53

So how do we excuse me how do we, as novices, get into this space and be able to invest and be able to start growing our wealth to become that millionaire and I know I'm going down another rabbit hole, but I mean that's, we all struggle with it when do we start out and how do we educate ourselves?

Speaker 2: 15:12

I would say first off is just pick a path, and I say a path. Right, you say, how do we educate ourselves? I think that one of the problems that people run into is that they get shiny object syndrome and they're looking at a million different things. If there's one thing that I've noticed about almost all of my clients is that they were very focused, whether it was one particular business, one particular type of investment, one particular type of thing that they do like. For example, warren Buffett he does value based investments, period, nothing else, okay.

Speaker 2: 15:44

Or Alex Ormazzi I don't know if you're familiar with him. He's blown up across the internet nowadays. He did hit. He started gyms Was his one thing was gyms. A gym launch was his business and they got him very successful and he's expanded since then. Or you can think of any of the biggest, most wealthy names that we know out there Jeff Bezos, amazon, mark Zuckerberg, facebook. There's one particular thing that makes them incredibly wealthy and then they expand from there. So, if you talk about this idea of like, where do we start? What starts? By just choosing a path and don't stress about it too much. I'd say, for example, I had a quiz that I used to take all my clients through and help them figure out like a which path of, let's say, three general paths or entrepreneurship, real estate and traditional stock market investing which.

Speaker 2: 16:27

Of those is going to suit you best. Which is going to? Do you like being a W2? Do you like having that stable job but want to create kind of wealth on the side with some things that are really easy, really liquid? Maybe the stock market's a good thing for you. Do you like getting in your hands on the ground and doing, say, single family homes, real estate type of stuff? Or are you the kind that you love learning all sorts of things, you love growing a business? You got some sales, maybe some sales expertise. You got some product expertise or marketing expertise or whatever. You got this great idea for that's going to solve a specific pain point and problem for a specific maybe a business is a great idea, whatever it might be. Pick the thing that is your, that suits you and your goals, your desires, your outcomes, and then focus on that particular thing, get knowledge in that particular area and understand when it comes to reducing your risk. I share those four different factors. You're never going to likely have all of them working for you, but pick a couple and try to aim for those Right.

Speaker 2: 17:23

Let's say we're going on an entrepreneurship route. Try and be very well educated. Start in a startup business in an area where you already have some expertise and some knowledge in. Go in with that ace already in your pocket Great, okay. But then, when you're also there, maybe do some research and find a way to start that business with as little capital as possible potentially Be bootstrapping. Or maybe put as little of your own money in and try and raise money from other people. If you're okay with that, well, opm right, other people's money is the term you hear all the time in real estate. Maybe go find some outside investors. Find a wealthy uncle that's willing to invest in you, or a wealthy cousin, or go to. There's all sorts of loans and things you can get if you prefer to go that way, whatever it might be. But pick a couple of factors and try and get them in your favor and help you lower your overall risk for that particular opportunity.

Speaker 1: 18:15

The challenge and I say the challenge is getting people off the couch and actually to do that, because we're in this instant gratification world that we live in with social media and, yes, I know social media is a good thing, but it also hurts us too.

Speaker 1: 18:31

It's tough because we'll sit there on the couch and want something and then expect it to come to us, but we don't do anything with that, and I think that's the huge difference between individuals that become wealthy or live comfortably, I should say, however you want to look at that, versus the people that struggle is because they, like you said earlier, they put the time, they put the effort in, they go through that process and I don't know if this is something you want to talk about. I think that front end piece is getting off the couch and actually putting the time in is hard and being able to have that conversation. I don't know if you helped any of your clients with that in the past or have some ideas, but that's a struggle that some of our listeners have and we all have it at some point. But is it something you can talk about? I know?

Speaker 2: 19:16

I can talk about it. I can talk about it as it pertains to my own entrepreneurial experience. Let's be real. I was, before I started this whole entrepreneurial journey, I was working at a financial advisory firm called an RIA registered investment advisory firm A bunch of wonderful people in my hometown and if I just sat there and did nothing, I would have lots of clients handed to me and I could have been financially fairly secure Just following the path. But I had felt drawn and pulled towards lots of these entrepreneurial ideas. I saw so many potential changes and opportunities. I wanted to go down this other path right.

Speaker 2: 19:57

But I had an honest conversation with myself because I sat on my hands for a long time and, at the end of the day, if you're sitting on your hands, it's probably because you're scared. If you actually get down to it, that's probably the truth of the situation. You're afraid and you're either making excuses and unwilling to admit it, or you do know that you're scared and you're unwilling to do the work you need to do to overcome the fear Period. And for me, recognizing that there was fear that was holding me back, ultimately, just because of my own personality type, I was like screw that, I'm not going to overcome that. I'm going to go do what I got to do. That was just me. As soon as I had that recognition I was like done, I'm out the door, I'm going to do whatever I need to do. And for me the things that helped the most was just it can feel very overwhelming. It's normal to be afraid of the unknown or the risks that you're taking, but just take a baby step.

Speaker 2: 20:59

Like I said, I knew for me, start some form of a business Great, what's the first thing that I can do? Just one thing, and just maybe it's a simple goal. I'm going to spend 30 minutes a day learning something, doing something I'm not going to advocate here. Just get stuck on the trap of just constantly learning, because that's never good either. But maybe just start there right. Or maybe I'm going to do just one thing, pick one thing every single week that I'm going to do to move myself closer in that direction of that business, that goal. Let's say you're in a software startup Okay, I'm going to locate some software engineers. Okay, I'm going to design X, y and Z. Okay, I'm going to, whatever it might be, do some education on the side that's always helpful, but one thing that's going to move me in the direction of actually business going. How can I right it boils down.

Speaker 1: 21:51

No, you keep going. I'm going to give you some more to think on, but it boils down to being scared and then taking the action. And would you say that's the big? I don't want to say the biggest, but it's one of the major factors that differentiates a person that lives comfortably wealthy versus those that do not.

Speaker 2: 22:11

Go back to my initial comment right, the idea of calculated risk. At the end of the day, calculated risk actually, to quote John Wayne. John Wayne, right, the old cowboy actor I'm going to be 50 this year.

Speaker 1: 22:20

So, yes, courage is being scared to death, but sad to learn up anyways.

Speaker 2: 22:24

Yep, calculated risk is just being a little afraid, but taking the steps anyways. Like the world always rewards those who step into the dark. Yeah, yeah, sometimes you're going to step on a piece of crap and that sucks, but it's the only way also to find the golden road that we're all hoping for. At the end of the day, sitting there is not going to figure it out. They aren't going to find it. Yeah, no, I completely agree. One of the biggest factors differentiating people is their relationship with fear. Do you embrace it? Are you comfortable with it? Are you willing to push against it? Even if you don't like it? That's okay. We're human beings. Most of us don't. Yeah, are you willing to be uncomfortable? Are you willing to find ways to be uncomfortable in the uncomfortableness that makes? That's the whole point of those risk-imitation things that I just shared. Right, like it's just, yep, finding ways to be comfortable with the uncomfortable period. I'd definitely say that's one of the biggest factors for sure.

Speaker 1: 23:27

Yeah, that's a huge factor. So in your new role, you're going to be working with some pretty wealthy individuals. Just out of curiosity, just out of the blue question does that intimidate you at all?

Speaker 2: 23:39

No, I can say that honestly because at the end of the day, we all put our pants on the same way.

Speaker 1: 23:48

Left leg or the right leg? Yeah or both. Yeah, true.

Speaker 2: 23:55

Like, yeah, they might have a lot of money, yeah, but the same fears and frustrations and worries and preoccupations and things that we all do, and they're all looking for the same thing that we're all looking for. They just have a few extra zeros on their bank account.

Speaker 2: 24:10

So it doesn't really, and one of the here's another reason why I'm not intimidated by these groups. Most of those individuals that I've come across who are in that space the CENTA DECA millionaire space they're pretty normal people that were just like me and did incredible things and so pretty easy to connect with. Actually they're pretty great people, most of them that I've met. For example, my dad works for Caterpillar Tractor and he has a couple of customers that are in that range of individuals I'll be serving, and one in particular that I'm thinking of Great guy salt of the earth. If you took a look at him, you think that the guy. He works on a construction company. He doesn't drive a Rolls, he doesn't have the fancy suit, he just is a normal looking dude and talks with a funny accent and has dirt under his fingernails and wears boots and jeans everywhere and he's a great guy and so working with those kind of people actually doesn't intimidate me at all.

Speaker 1: 25:24

So if you had your picks today and you had a clean slate, you can go anywhere you wanted to go. What would be that dream position, business or whatever, what really gets you up in the morning to go and make a difference in the community that you serve?

Speaker 2: 25:44

Okay, so I'm going to reference actually a movie. Have you ever seen a movie, I think it's called the Ultimate Gift?

Speaker 1: 25:50

or the Greatest.

Speaker 2: 25:51

Gift, the Greatest Gift. Yeah, for those of you who haven't seen it, it's the story of this Texas oil billionaire who ultimately decides to give all of his wealth to one of his grandsons. But in order for the grandson to get it, he has to go through a series of tests and challenges in order to, for example, make a real friend and actually earn money on his own and learn the value of good hard work. So he has to do all these tests his grandfather puts him through before he can even get the money and he almost fails multiple different times. But it's a great movie. Go check it out. But in the movie there's this character. He's the I think he's the attorney in a CPA for the grandfather and he becomes effectively this mentor to this young man as he is going through these trials to earn his grandfather's wealth. And I remember watching that movie as a kid and thinking I don't want to be the billionaire because his family is really messed up. That's cool to have all the money, but that sucks. But heck, could be that guy, because I'm still friends with the billionaire, I still get to do this go on a private jet with a billionaire, but don't worry about all that other stuff, but I can make a great positive impact in his business and his family and all that sort of stuff. And so for me, I think, actually the job that I'm going to I'm really excited about I think I had the possibility to become that character in that movie I want to be the advisor to my clients, whatever that might be.

Speaker 2: 27:20

I want to be there, and this is a term that's thrown around a lot in the financial services industry and so it loses a lot of its meaning. For me, it means a lot, and this is the idea of a trusted advisor. I want to be the guy that, when anything comes as it pertains to finances or their business or navigating that stuff with their family, I want my clients to turn to me and go Rob, what do you think I want to be that guy, and I've realized that the traditional financial advisor space they're not those guys. Some of them might be, but the vast majority of them are not, and so that's part of the reason why I took the job that I did with this accounting firm in this particular group, because they are those people for their clients.

Speaker 1: 27:59

So they're going to allow you to be you and be able to do that in this room. That's all. That's a total different approach than your typical sorry, typical financial advisor. It's just going to go out and say give me your money and I'll make money, no matter if you make money, and that's just a horrible business model.

Speaker 2: 28:19

Well, it depends on what you mean by horrible, because, heck, they collect a lot of money and make a lot of money doing very little. That's pretty big business model for both businesses, right? For them yes, but for their clients it's not. Yeah, it's a brutal, horrible business model.

Speaker 1: 28:34

I just I can't, my God. What's the guy's name? That is the older gentleman. It's a green and white logo that talks about their fiduciary responsibilities and they're all over the commercials. Oh my God, I forget his name. I'm going on a tangent, but I was just going to go down a rabbit hole with that, but I can't remember the guy's name, my gosh. Anyhow, I'll skip that. That was just came into my head, but anyway.

Speaker 2: 28:57

What's that? I don't know if this should be included or not in the podcast, but Fisher Investments is likely the one that you're thinking of?

Speaker 1: 29:01

I believe I think so, yes, and that is it. I guess. My question there is what separates them from everybody else, because they tout this, but what really truly separates them? Much Okay, there are enough of them. I rather get the truth.

Speaker 2: 29:19

Honestly, the answer is it's window dressing, it's posturing the vast majority of it. I'll go on a little bit of rant here, and this is just. This is me and my personal experience, having worked in the financial advisory business. There are a lot of good people in the financial services space, but there's some important things to understand. Most financial advisors are not there to make any make wealth, to create any sort of wealth for their clients. They're there to protect it best or to collect it and make money off of it at worst. In the space there's really only three space, three different types of businesses.

Speaker 2: 29:53

You're going to come across An insurance business. That's why you see, like the Northwestern Mutual guy saying selling you index universal life insurance and telling you that's the most fantastic investment ever and you can be your own bank. For the vast majority of people, that will never be the case, but for some people in particular situations which, if you're thinking that you are, you're probably not it can work. The opposite side of that are the pure investment guys that think that they are the God's gift to investments. They are greater than Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger and they're fooling themselves. And then in the middle there's these things called RIAs, registered Investment Advisory Spokes. They're sometimes a kind of a mix of both and their independent a lot of times fiduciaries, if they're CFP types of financial advisors.

Speaker 2: 30:41

By the end of the day, the game is the same Collect the money, have a fee off of it. We're going to call ourselves comprehensive, but in all reality we're probably going to do mostly retirement planning, because the vast majority of the people that we're going after are retirees, because they have big bank accounts, so that we can get their money and we can manage that money. And we're going to call ourselves wealth advisors, but we only know stock market investing, even though wealth also encompasses your business, realistic and a host of other things, and we a lot of times don't even do the investing. We actually will outsource it. We're called Tams. We're literally just there to be the face that you talk to and to tell you don't worry about it. This happens. Just keep your money, which is the best course of action for most people their money on the stock market, but also great for the financial advisor. Yes, you are on the same side, but you're also biased.

Speaker 1: 31:40

We could have a long conversation about that. That's pretty crappy, but whatever it is, it's the situation, it's the thing that we're in. But where I wanted to go with that was if you're somebody starting out, I got to go back to this and you do have some money and you want to be able to. You get some education. Maybe you want to invest in stocks. Let's just go there, simple and easy. How do you find somebody in work with an individual to grow that money effectively but also not be taken to the bank on fees and so forth?

Speaker 2: 32:15

Yes, I feel it's ironic that you asked this question. The first thing is figure out how you want to invest in the stock market. There's lots and lots of different ways, even if you just do the traditional stock bonds types of. There is value investing, there's momentum investing. There's a dozen different types of strategies. Let's just say you want to go the most passive way possible. I've got some extra money. I just want to put it in my account every single month. You don't need a guy. In fact, I've been considering making a course that I was in charge probably 25 bucks. Just say, hey, I will teach you the basics of what you need in order to be able to beat most professionals, because after their fees, you're going to beat them, or it's just put it in there, let it ride and forget about it and let it just grow over time.

Speaker 2: 33:02

Honestly, what it just comes down to is learning some simple basic things. One of the things I like to tell people is that, when it comes to investing in the stock market, one of the reasons why it feels scary is because there's a lot of jargon. There's a lot of terms and phrases and things that seem really complicated, like alpha and beta and options, a lot of things that the end of the day, can be really simple. Actually Learn some basic, simple things and capiche you're good. For example, let me just give you a simple book here on my bookshelf.

Speaker 2: 33:40

It's the Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. This is a 800-page book. Benjamin Graham was the mentor to Warren Buffett At the end of this entire tomb of a book, which is fantastic the definitive guide of value investing. By the way, if anyone's really interested and want to learn, it's all sorts of great stuff. At the end of the day, he says in his book, I ran basically a 75% equities, 25% bond portfolio for the entire extent of my career. People worry about how much should I have where and what does it look like and what's the exact allocations At the end of the day. If that works for Benjamin Graham, one of the most successful investors of all time and the mentor to Warren Buffett, it probably works for you and me too. If you ran his entire career that way, his entire life that way, it probably works for you and me.

Speaker 1: 34:30

What you're saying is let's dumb it down and be very simple and be methodical about it and just go.

Speaker 2: 34:36

Yep, it's a basic system, basic process. Learn some simple things to clear away some of the confusion and you'll realize that, oh, this is actually really simple. I don't need to hire someone for this. I can save myself tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of my lifetime and get likely better results, definitely.

Speaker 1: 34:58

If you put a course together, let us know and I'll share it with our followers.

Speaker 1: 35:02

I'm sure they would definitely love that that would be a great thing. We're going to land this thing here pretty quickly, but I did have one other question. If individuals I don't know how to, I'm taking this out of left field If individuals needed somebody to reach out to and maybe start walking down this path of things that they want to do, is it somebody like you they could reach out to, or is there places that they could go to that need some information?

Speaker 2: 35:27

Oh yeah, all sorts of different places, depending on what they're looking for. In fact, I'll give my email. I still have my whole business's email robitcontenderswantedcom that I'll keep up for a few bucks a month the email up. Feel free to email me and I'm happy to either do a free strategy call with you which I do those for free, still 30 minutes to an hour and what you need. I'll point you in the direction. Give you as many resources I can and help you out In a way I don't take bank clients through my whole business anymore to help out in any way that I can.

Speaker 1: 35:56

That'd be awesome, sir, this has been a great conversation. I will link your email in the show notes, for sure, but thank you for coming on and sharing all the great information but also debunking a lot of the things that go on in the industry and realizing that if we simplify things, we can actually be successful. Thank you, ryan, I really appreciate it. You're more than welcome. Thank you for waiting most a year, but thank you for coming on and we'll be chatting. Sounds great, thanks. No-transcript.