Season 5 is here and Don’t Retire… Graduate! is back to share more actionable strategies for reaching financial independence and talk to more money nerds about what they want to be when they grow up.
And your eyes are not deceiving you—this season we’re recording in VIDEO! If you’re on an audio-only player, thank you so much for listening. If you’re watching our first time doing this on camera, thank you and welcome!
Starting a new season is exciting enough, but we wanted to really kick it off, so we brought back one of our favorite guests and all-time favorite Stacker, Joe Saul-Sehy, host of the Stacking Benjamin’s podcast and co-author of the book STACKED: Your Super Serious Guide to Modern Money Management.
Joe is back to share some of his experiences from his past life as a financial advisor, including the best and worst advice he’s ever heard and the red flags he’s seen from other advisors that should have you running for the office exit.
In this episode we’ll talk about:
• Social media and the harmful financial advice that can be found on it
• What compliance means and how it keeps financial advisors from sharing bad information
• Identifying the filters, credentials, and backgrounds of the people you get advice from online
• Bernie Madoff, undisclosed insiders, and schemers to look out for
• Red flags of financial advisors you can see just walking into the office—from what’s on the television to the layout of the furniture
• Asking who, not how when you need to do learn something new—like writing a great book with Emily Guy Birken
About Joe Saul-Sehy
Joe is the creator and co-host of the Stacking Benjamins podcast and co-author of STACKED: Your Super-Serious Guide To Modern Money Current board member at large of The Plutus Foundation. Former board president and Board Member of Partnership For The Pathway. While Joe’s “money expert story” includes being a former financial advisor (16 years) and representing American Express and Ameriprise in the media. His real story is how he was a money disaster in his early life, pulled his financial house into order, and left his business at age40 to pursue an entirely different path. Joe was the “Money Man” at Detroit television WXYZ-TV, appearing twice weekly. His advice has appeared in Bride, Best Life, and Child magazines, the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Detroit News and Baltimore Sun newspapers. He’s also appeared online in more than 200 different places, including CNBC.com and WSJ.com.
The Stacking Benjamins Show was called the “Best Personal Finance Podcast” by Kiplinger. Lifehacker listed the show as one of the top 10 of 2021. Joe and the SB team have won five Plutus Awards and the Academy of Podcasters “Best Business Podcast” award (beating well-known shows like The Tim Ferriss Show, How I Built This, and Gimlet’s Start Up). The Stacking Benjamins Show is created in Joe’s mom’s basement in Texarkana, Texas, where Joe lives with his spouse Cheryl and their cat Cooper.
[00:00:58]Joe Saul-Sehy: I, I love how you made yourself the valedictorian, by the way. That’s always my favorite part. I’m the valedictorian.
[00:01:03]Eric Brotman:I was never, I was never close. I was never remotely close.
[00:01:07]Joe Saul-Sehy:Who’s the head master?
[00:01:08]Eric Brotman:I, I don’t even want, think about it, but yes, this is the first time I’ve ever been referred to as the valedictorian and it’s irrefutable, which I really love.
[00:01:16]Joe Saul-Sehy:Well, it is, it, it is.
[00:01:19]Eric Brotman:So you, you’re a repeat guest on our show. And, and I did have Emily on the show. We’ve talked about the book and, and hopefully some of our viewers have picked it up and enjoyed it as much as I have. I know we’ll get into that a little bit today, but what I really wanna spend some time with you on today is talking about some of thebest and worst financial advice you’ve ever seen, heard, or encountered. And some of the best and worst financial advisors you’ve ever seen, heard, and encountered, and I’ll pitch in on both of those because I certainly have encountered both, but I, I just thought it would be fun to, to not only leave our, our audience with some great ideas but also some, some red flags and they’re ample. So, so where would you like to begin?
[00:02:02]Joe Saul-Sehy:Man. Do we, are you asking me if I wanna start with advisors or with advice? Is that what you’re asking?
[00:02:07]Eric Brotman:Absolutely. I’m okay either way. There’s this is it’s an equal opportunity kind of thing.
[00:02:12]Joe Saul-Sehy:Well, let’s start with advice because I personally, you know and your listeners may not, Eric, that I haven’t been a financial planner in a long time. It’s been maybe 14 years since I was a financial planner, but I still think that most people need people in their corner. Like we need to be thinking about the things that are important to us. So I don’t wanna go after financial advisors right away for that reason, because I think that we all have blind spots and protecting those is super important. So let’s go over after bad advice because what’s funny is, is that when I, when I made the transition from advisor to just more, what I do now, financial media, what I found was I started spending a lot of time on social media.
Of course, you know that over the last 14 years, that’s gotten to be more and more, more time. And we’ve gone from, you know, doing just audio on our podcast to now video to doing all kinds of different channels. Like you, you, it’s hard to make sure that you’re finding your audience. And if you’re trying to preach financial literacy like you and I are, you’re increasingly finding yourself in all these other places.
The problem I’ve seen, Eric, is that the worst financial advice is always on social media channels. And the reason for that I think is because most of the responsible people and a lot of people don’t know this. You and I know this, but a lot of your, your listeners and viewers now don’t know this is that there’s this thing called compliance and compliance makes it so that really smart people don’t accidentally say something dumb, right? That that is hurtful might hurt their financial picture. So they have this system of checks and balances that make sense. There’s always when things like this happen, where we have this well-intended thing called compliance, there’s also some negative stuff that came out of that, and that is, this vacuum still gets filled. There’s now a vacuum of smart people who aren’t talking because they’re afraid of their compliance monster coming down to them and going, “no, you shouldn’t say that.” Or in some cases, you know, Eric, some people that are great people to work for big firms, the big firm, rather than spending a lot of money on compliance that says, “no, you can’t talk. No, no, no, you can’t do anything on social media.” You can’t do much on social media or it else has to be these pre-programmed ugly, you know, just very salesy messages.
So this void gets filled by people that don’t have any compliance. So generally when you get advice on social media, the first thing you have to do, you have to do, and nobody does it because it’s a pain and people don’t even know to ask this question is you have to look at not just what are the person’s credentials, but, but are they working through any filters? They have any compliance? They have any background? They have any, are they a CFP? Are they a fiduciary? Are they all these different things before you actually listen to them. Some of those people are out there, but man, some of the advice that I see I’ll say just crazy because the smart people can’t counter them I think enough.
[00:05:04]Eric Brotman:You know, compliance, I’ll, I’ll give, compliance a shout out because they, they really are looking out for, for all of us as an industry. And of course they’re also dealing with regulatory impact and legislative things and things that do make it more difficult in a lot of cases to send a message out to the public. And there there’s plenty of advisors who really don’t mess with it or who think this is a little too scary. I’m not going into those waters. But I would say having that filter has been good for, for me and for our firm, because it has allowed us to hone our messaging to make sure that it is that it’s crisp and that it’s reasonable and that’s not always an easy thing to do.
So I, I you’re right. A lot of the advice on social media is garbage. And by the way, that’s not just financial advice. You can get advice about anything. I’m not sure you can trust the recipes you see on, on Pinterest either. So in fairness, there’s lots of junk out there. But on the financial side, you could really do a lot of damage to yourself and to your family and to your business and the, and so forth by taking advice that is not only not sound and certainly not prescriptive for you, but also might be not based on anything.
[00:06:10]Joe Saul-Sehy:Some of the worst ones that I’ve seen are people that just don’t … it’s well intentioned, but they don’t know what they’re talking about. Like some, these people bother me more than schemers. We can go to the schemers next because man, some of these people with these, these crazy things that they’re pushing on social media drive me crazy, but, but I’ll tell you one that was big as an example, somebody was talking on social media about, you know, if you think that the markets are volatile and right now you’re finding that savings accounts aren’t paying any money, Eric.
So you know what we do? You put your cash reserve in gold, you put it in gold. And you, and I know that gold is so damn unpredictable. It is eight times more volatility on a daily basis, not over long terms over long term. Gold is boring as all get out. but on a daily basis, it’s so damn volatile. It’s eight times more volatile than the stock market. So when we, when, when you say don’t put money in stocks, because it’s too volatile, Put it in gold. Like you’re taking your money out of the stock market to put it in sometimes the eight, eight is eight times the casino in any given day. I don’t want that. I, you know, stick with, stick with the savings account. So when I hear well intentioned advice from people that just don’t know what they’re talking about, it kind of makes me sad.
[00:07:28]Eric Brotman:Well, and a lot of the people who espouse that advice are in the gold business strangely where you, where you hear folks who are actually…
[00:07:37]Joe Saul-Sehy:which is our next one, the schemers.
[00:07:38]Eric Brotman:Well, but that may not even be a scheme. It might just be that that’s what you do for a living. And so that’s what you’re espousing, but one size never fits all. Yeah. I don’t know about you, but I don’t look great in a hospital gown. It’s the only garment I’ve ever worn, I think, that’s one size fits all and I’m not even sure if it fits my all. It fits my most. so there’s that.
[00:07:57]Joe Saul-Sehy:Just keep the front, just make sure open backside. Doesn’t show off.
[00:08:02]Eric Brotman:Correct.This is a family show. I’ve already destroyed that. Yeah. The family show is already out the window, my bad, but, but no. So when you talk about those situations and you talk about somebody who’s, the schemers are one thing. I mean, I can’t go six hours without getting some kind of phishing attack or attempt on my cell phone or this bank or that bank or click here and it it’s especially pervasive for seniors. I mean, seniors are getting these messages and they look so authentic and it’s really a very scary thing. But beyond the, the technical side of it, you just have people who are, who, who make a living stealing from people. It’s horrible. And, and it does happen. There’s no question about it. And Bernie Madoff didn’t do our industry any favors and he was on, I believe, he was on the list of candidates for the board positions and the regulatory agencies.
[00:08:53]Joe Saul-Sehy:Sure. Well, I spoke Eric with the woman, Diana Henriques is her name, who wrote the original book that the movie was based on.And I interviewed her and she dove into just how trustworthy this guy was. Like in every other facet of his life. He was a community member. He talked very professionally. There was nothing schemy or scammy about him. It was a first class operation he ran. They had an amazing client experience, right? His charts and graphs that he showed you. Heck the, the fake statements you got from Bernie looked phenomenal. All fake, all fake. So, so that makes it difficult. Yeah.
But when I was talking about schemers, Iwasn’t even talking about him. I was actually talking about who you were talking about early on, which is people that work in an industry because if somebody’s giving you advice about gold and they work in the gold industry and they don’t disclose that, which happens far too often.There’s all these.. You know, people complain about, a lot of people, especially in our business, complain about commissions and paying commissions or paying advisors, right. Paying advisory fees. And yet they have a bunch of undisclosed links on their social media and on their website that are all commissions , they’re getting paid tons of commissions while they’re complaining about our people and commissions, which I find very ironic.
But, but I’ll tell you, when I talk about schemes, I’m talking about using life insurance as a savings account, which can go well. I dunno how much you know about infinite baking. It can go well, the problem is it goes well, Eric, until it doesn’t. And the bad news is is that when crap happens and you can’t use it in the prescribed way that makes this very complex strategy hum, it not only unravels that it unravels your entire life. Like it goes from good to bad in a hurry because you didn’t just play the straightforward game. So that one bothers me, the people out there now with the markets all over the place, right. People selling fear with annuity sales annuities.Aren’t the devil, as you know, annuities can be fine, could be great. But the people selling. Fear along with their annuity and not disclosing that there’s a commission at the end of this rainbow. For me, I think is pretty disgusting.
[00:10:55]Eric Brotman:Well, and, and I do think that happens frequently and, and I agree with you, the annuity, as an example is a tool. It’s not the right tool for every job. It’s certainly not right for everybody. And there are reasons why some people should, and some people should not utilize that. I think if you’re in the annuity business and what you do is you call and sell annuities to people, and that’s what you do. That’s problematic.But I think if it’s part of an over, you know, an overarching strategy, I don’t know that that’s problematic. The life insurance thing. It’s interesting. You bring that up because. I’m actually a very big fan of usinglife insurance as a cash equivalent and as an asset, and have used it personally to buy my first home and to start a company and have used it properly.I do think there are a lot of folks out there who are selling life insurance for things that’s not intended to do. Like I’ve seen folks out there saying it’s a great way to save for college. It’s not, it’s not a great way to say for college. I’ve seen it misused many, many times by people who that’s the only tool in their toolkit so they try and use it for every job. But I don’t think as a strategy and you’re right, it is complicated to do it properly, but I think if you’ve done properly, it can be very, very helpful and, and very tax efficient, but used improperly, I think, it can be a disaster.
[00:12:07]Joe Saul-Sehy:Yeah, Eric, once you understand it and that’s the problem is everybody’s using shortcuts.And I think that that cash value, life insurance policies, you can’t use shortcuts. You have to understand the mechanics of the process. And frankly, once you, once you know, it it’s a little like riding a bike, right. I mean then once you know it, you know, it. But so many people don’t get the fact that if you stuff and, and here’s, here’s the big for everybody, the mindblower, which is, if you stuff more money in it, it’s cheaper. Like that right there sounds like what the hell? Hand your life insurance company, more money. It is cheaper. What? No, no, that just goes again, but it’s true. It is absolutely true. Yeah. Well the, the thing, . Yeah, it does.
[00:12:47]Eric Brotman:As long as, as long as you don’t trip the IRS rules on modified endowment contracts and all the things where you, where you screw up all the tax. So you can go too far. So, yeah, it’s not like someplace where it’s a panacea. Theonly, the only panacea I’ve come up with. My compliance department, since we talked about them, our compliance department hates when I say it’s the perfect vehicle, but by gosh, it’s the perfect vehicle.So sorry about that, compliance. Is the HSA, the health savings account used properly as the single perfect. Vehicle I’ve ever seen. It’s the only place where you can get a tax deduction for contributions, where you get tax deferred growth and can invest the money and where you can get tax free with drawals for things that are healthcare that by the way, all of us are going to use at some point in our lives or our spouses. It’s truly a perfect tax planning tool that is grossly misunderstood and misused. I’ve had Jean Chatzky from NBC was on our show talking about this and she said, people just don’t understand it. They’re not using it properly, but used properly it’s it’s as good as it gets.
[00:13:48]Joe Saul-Sehy:Super. It’s absolutely super. And man, I hope we get rid of some of these, this ambiguity between the HSA and the FSA. I feel like as, as we see wider adoption to the HSA, we’ll see some of these things get, get cleaned up that, that sadly I think make it adopted less. And I think everybody’s on board, right?I mean, who’s not on board with more adoption, the HSA, I think the insurance companies like it, cuz it takes some of the onus off of them. Right. Makes more high deductible plans out there. Think that they I think the average person’s saving once they understand it, likes it. Like there’s nothing not to like, and the fact that we’ve got some barriers between you and using it is is sad.But man, I would, you know, I don’t like predicting the future and I know you don’t either is like deal with the reality the way it is, not the way you hope itwill be. Yeah. Is a, is a great Jack Welch, Jack Welch, quote, easy for me to say, that I really like, but but I do think that’s gonna get cleaned up at some point.
[00:14:43]Eric Brotman:Well, the flexible spending accounts because of the use it, or lose it nature of them, people mess them up and you wind up with three pair of glasses at the end of the year that you didn’t need, because otherwise you were eating the money and, and you know, now it works great for dependent care for people who can use it for, for daycare.And I’d actually love to see that expanded because a $5,000 limit toward daycare expenses is a joke. For anyone who’s got kids in daycare, it’s not five grand a year. It’s a lot more than that. And finding a way to [00:15:11]Joe Saul-Sehy:It’s a bajillion.
[00:15:13]Eric Brotman:Oh my gosh. Paying for kids makes you, makes you question whether it makes sense to have both of you even working at a job. Like at some point, you have to think it’s better to, to work, to work, to have both spouses work so that you can pay for daycare or to have one spouse not work just so you’re not paying for daycare. It might be a wash.
[00:15:33]Joe Saul-Sehy:I have twins. And when my twins got done with daycare, went to school, I felt like I got the most massive raise. Like I got this massive, massive raise. All of a sudden, I’m like, why the hell is there money in my savings account? Like, what is this about? holy cow.
[00:15:48]Eric Brotman:Well, your, your kids must be in public school then. Cause private school is no panacea either. [00:15:54]Joe Saul-Sehy:Yeah.
[00:15:54]Eric Brotman:How old are your twins?
[00:15:55]Joe Saul-Sehy:Yeah, they did do, they did a public. Well, they’re 27. So that was a long time ago. So hopefully they’ve graduated by now. I’ll have to go ask them.
[00:16:02]Eric Brotman:So are you already saving for you saving, saving for grandkids education yet doing some legacy planning?
[00:16:06]Joe Saul-Sehy:I am not. You know, I don’t know if I’m happy or sad that they have not had kids and neither one seems interested at this point, so.
[00:16:13]Eric Brotman:Oh, wow.
[00:16:14]Joe Saul-Sehy:Yeah, on one hand you’re like, Come on kids, clock’s ticking on grandpa, but on the other, I’m like, you know, good for them to get their financial house in order first. So
[00:16:23]Eric Brotman:It’s true. The people who procreate young they always say, it’s great because we’re empty nested when we’re 48 and can do anything we want. But what they’ve missed is their twenties, which I don’t know by you. But what I remember of my twenties was a great time. I was not married. I had no kids and it was a good time. I?That was
[00:16:40]Joe Saul-Sehy:I’m on the opposite. End of that. Yeah. We had kids, we had kids fairly young. I was 27 when my kids were born. So, but, but, but like you said, you know, by the time I was 45, my kids were 18. Yeah. And, and it actually has made these later years a ton more fun.
[00:16:57]Eric Brotman:Well, I’m, I’m in my fifties and have a middle schooler so it it’s a totally different path. Yeah, and I don’t think there’s one right or wrong way, but so let’s shift gears and let’s beat, let’s beat on some bad advisors. And let’s also send some, let’s send some atta boys to some good advisors too, because there’s, there’s some really good people.I, every industry. I don’t care if it’s law or medicine or engineering or education. Every industry has really great people in it and really lousy people in it. That’s just the nature of humanity. It’s the nature of a bell curve. It’s the nature of life. In the financial business and in a lot of businesses, you, you hear about the bad ones.
You know, we don’t hear every day. There’s no report that comes across your phone that talks about the plane that successfully landed at LaGuardia. You only hear about the one that crashes. So in the financial world, it, it’s very easy to, to, to think that everyone out there is out to get somebody because you’re hearing that. You’re hearing the really egregious, horrible Ponzi scheme type stuff.But the fact is that like any other bell curve, if you look at the average financial advisor and then you realize that half of the people who call themselves financial advisors and we can get into whether they are or not. But half of them are below average. That’s alarming in any business. I wouldn’t wanna below average doctor, but let’s talk about some of the below average advisors.
[00:18:22]Joe Saul-Sehy:Yeah, the you know, I think we’ll talk about great advisors just as the, as the opposite of this. Cuz I wrote a piece a while ago for our old blog. It’s no longer up, I do have some of this in, in the book because it was so good, which are just these ideas, these, these tips to find out if an advisor stinks before Eric, before you even meet with them.So if you go into an office, like people used to a lot and, and some people still do. You can get so many clues from the office, and here’s why I’m an expert in this area.
When I was doing public relations for American express and then for Ameriprise, I my, my work took me into different offices. So I got to see how different people operate.And average person doesn’t know how this organization Ameriprise works, but they are independent by and large independent semi captive people that that, that work inside of these offices, but, but a lot of them own their own business. So it’s like a McDonald’s franchise, I think might be an analogy that they won’t like, but we’ll go with.So so I’d walk into all these different, you know, in semi-independent businesses. And I’ll tell you, if you walk into that lobby and they are playing Kramer or Fox business or the midday, you know, what’s hot in stock world land. If,if you see wall street at all on a big screen, you’re in the wrong office. Because a good financial advisor.
[00:19:50]Eric Brotman:We’re good. We got that one, right? I was, wait, wait a second. Oh, Joe, Joe, you haven’t been to my office yet. Be very careful but no, no. I’m with you on that one so far so good.
[00:20:01]Joe Saul-Sehy:Knowing you, I know you’re not gonna trip over any of these dude. You’re not gonna trip over any these.
[00:20:05]Eric Brotman:Oh, well, I hope not but the pressure’son. I’m sweating.
[00:20:08]Joe Saul-Sehy:But the reason is a bad advisor a, a bad advisor is somebody that leads with product and not process. And if somebody wants you to believe that they’re a trader, that trading is important versus goal aspirationbeing the most important thing you’re in the wrong office. And this was always the case. It was some person that wanted position themself as, as an Oracle, that they knew everything about investing about stocks.About whatever. So they’d always put the investment channel on and by the way, all the, all the people I would see in their lobby waiting to meet with these advisors, they had deer in the headlights, Eric, they’re like, oh, you know, they’re like, oh, what’s Oracle gonna tell me, would I do it? Because that TV makes them nervous.But if they have like the travel, if they have the travel channel on or some cooking show on or whatever it might be something aspirational that we do, motivational video, that’s a great office to be. Another another, another tip.
[00:21:02]Eric Brotman:Before you go on.
[00:21:03]Joe Saul-Sehy:Yeah.
[00:21:04]Eric Brotman:Before you go on, can you imagine being at your surgeon’s office and walking in and you sit down in the waiting room for your surgeon and what you see on the video is somebody having surgery.Can you even imagine that for two seconds, you’d be ill and be like, oh my God, I gotta get outta here. What you wanna see is HGTV. Or you know, something
like is, or a food network. I, I particularly enjoy the food network. Yeah. When I’m sitting in waiting at the doctor’s office. So, all right. So go ahead.Number two. Yeah. What we got?
[00:21:35]Joe Saul-Sehy:Well, you know what? I like my, my doctors I used to complain because this, this, they did not have a good experience, a good, a good patient experience until you got to the doctor and there they were awesome. And luckily, my doctor became a friend of mine and I, and I talked to them and they’ve made some of these changes, which is kind of flattering that they, that they did that mm-hmm , but the doctor’s also in back and doesn’t know like what’s going on, but that’s right. But they were playing like these, they were playing these news channels. And what’s funny is I walk in and I immediately think my doctor has some political beliefs, right. Which I either espouse or I don’t espouse.
And by the way, even if you’re an advisor and I know advisors, I know some advisors that were with clients. And when I sold my business, I actually sold my business to a guy who’s like this. So if you’re watching mm-hmm yes. I’m talking about you. he, he, he, he would talk politics in his client meetings.I’m like, you have no idea what your client’s politics are. You’ve no, and it doesn’t matter what your politics are to manage your money. I mean, we’re not trying to predict what’s happening in Washington. We need to deal with the fallout no matter where laws are today, again, deal with what’s already happened.Not what we hope is happening and he’d spend half the meeting bitching about politics.
But so if we’re showing you know, MSNBC or Fox news to pick the goal post right on either side. If we’re showing that in the lobby, that’s horrible, but let me give you the next one. The next one is whenever I walked into an office or I called an office and the receptionist sucks. The receptionist seems not happy to see you or seems bitteror seems just like, they’re not good at their job, or they’re not good at the customer service experience. I will tell you all that comes from the top and this is not a financial advisory office is even if they’re six or seven advisors working in an office is not that big.And so every single office I went into where the receptionist. And, and I guess I’ll give a little nod to receptionists that are new and just don’t know enough yet. But if the receptionist is experienced and sucks that’s cuz their boss sucks. I saw that every single time in offices where I knew the advisor sucked. Like I knew when I walked in, I already knew it. Her or his receptionist, Eric was crappy was just absent. Because they knew it too. They knew it too.
[00:23:51]Eric Brotman:Yeah. You’re, you’re never invited to my office just in case somebody’s having a bad day. You’re never welcome here. In fact, I’m changing the locks. so what, so how about, how about a good one?Because you know, we have a client relations department that I’ll put up against anybody’s and they are, they are the first impressions and it’s not reception as much as it’s true client relations concierge. Sure. And we have three, three people who do that, who were born to do this. And it’s, you know, you find theright people and you empower them to build relationships.And I think our clients actually like them more than they like us, which is fine. But, but you’re right. That does make a difference. So what are some other things, you know, I, I, I will tell you that when we built our office, we built it in such a way, or we designed it in such a way that it didn’t feel ultra corporate.There’s no marble, it’s not stark colors. It’s not gold everything. It’s not. There is no, there there’s no TV actually in, in our front. And the last thing we want is the wall street journal sitting there because it does cause a certain reaction.
[00:25:00]Joe Saul-Sehy:Right.
[00:25:00]Eric Brotman:We wanted it to feel more like somebody’s den more like somebody. And if, if you, if you come in, even, even the conference tables, they’re all rounded. You don’t wanna feel like you’re on the opposite side from somebody. You want to feel like you’re, you’re sitting down and just having a chat. In fact, the conference room in, in the conference table in my office is a dining room table.I bought a dining room table instead of a conference table, because it feels like you’re sitting down with, with people you wanna just sit and, and chat with, and it’s a different experience.
[00:25:31]Joe Saul-Sehy:Well, it’s funny you say that because my next point and all of these are, are actually the inverse. If you walk in and the receptionist is great in my experience, that’s because the advisor’s great.The advisor generally, doesn’t just get it with their employees that get it with their clients. They understand what people are looking for. The reception experience is good. And it doesn’t have to be, by the way, over the top, I’m not talking about over the top. I got very distrustful. Somebody’s offering me like eight different kinds of very expensive coffee served in this immaculate thing.I’m like, are you spending money? Are you spending tons of money on, you know, this stuff that really doesn’t matter, but don’t get me wrong. I walked into one office and they had these not even the full size. They had these little like three quarter size styrofoam cups where they’re serving the world’s crappiest coffee, like, like that made the advisor look cheap.You don’t wanna look cheap, but on the other side, right, you wanna look good, but yep. To your point, the next thing I was gonna say, when you go to the advisor’s office, if they are sitting in a high back chair, Behind a big old desk and Mr. And Mrs. Client or miss client is sitting in a very uncomfortable chair across the desk.They’ve got this beautiful thing. That’s very comfortable for them. You’re uncomfortable. That is, I will tell you how many times I saw that was on purpose. The advisor has I don’t know if it’s a Napoleon complex or doesn’t feel comfortable in their own skin, but they, but they wanted you to feel a little uncomfortable and they wanted to be seen as the boss.
I think a good advisor was exactly what you talked about. The best advisors had often a round table, like, you know, Arthur in the, in the round table where all the nights are equal. Right. Mm-hmm and we’re learning from each other. And I like the advisor to kind of have really the heart of ateacher. If, if the advisor. If the advisor is trying to teach you that this stuff is easy enough for you to understand it, and that you’re gonna be smarter when you walk outta that office than you were when you came. So if your advisor gets hit by a truck, you’re actually a smarter consumer. That’s a great advisor. If the advisor’s hiding it behind a shield and is going, yeah, I’m not gonna tell you anything until you pay me.That’s a, that’s a, that’s an absolutely rotten rotten advisor.
So the heart of a teacher and we’re all in the same chairs that we’re in this very comfortable environment to meet is something that, that I really like. And by the way, virtually, virtually it’s still the same, right? If I’m on a. If I’m on a zoom call and somebody’s leading with product and not process, I think I run.If somebody isn’t inquisitive about my life, I think I run. And if the people that work for them are not inquisitive and it just feels like a factory that’s because it is, I mean, trust Eric, I think, I think in a lot of this customer experience thing, you can really trust your gut because over time I found 99% of the time, my gut was right.
There were a few advisors that had some rough exteriors that I found out were just some of the best people ever. But you also saw that from the people around them. , you know, mm-hmm I was like, why does a guy who comes across like such a jerk have such great people around? It’s cuz they’re not a jerk it’s because they have resting, you know, whatever face or whatever it might be.And I find out later they’re really, really good people, but you can get lots of clues I think, and, and learning to trust those clues is a great way to find great advisors.
[00:28:45]Eric Brotman:So, so I wanna make sure we spend a little time talking about the book. Because first of all stacked is a great book. It’s worth reading.I, I read it on an airplane and it’s bright yellow so that everyone on the airplane knew I was reading it. Which I I’m sure wasn’t an accident. I’m sure you were like, what we want is something that glows in the dark so that no one can miss it on the shelf at the bookstore, which I, you know, whatever works for you.But no, talk a little bit about it. We heard Emily’s take on it. And, and she and I, she and I beat onyou. Pretty good actually in, in that episode. Good. So if you haven’t heard it, I think you probably should. But this is a chance to get even, she is definitely gonna see this. So here’s, here’s a chance if you choose to take the, the, you know, the low road you could get even, or you could take the high road and say that she’s the, the brain’s behind it, whichever way you want to go.Let’s talk about the book.
[00:29:34]Joe Saul-Sehy:Well, I can’t get even cuz you know her and you know me and she is the brains behind it. well, and And she was fantastic. The idea for the project was mine. So I will take I will take that. I will say that a great lesson I learned in writing this book is something a mentor taught me a few years ago, Eric, that if I had been younger, when I learned this, it would’ve made me lots and lots and lots of money, which is when you’re in the weeds about something, ask who not how.Don’t ask how to do something. If you ask how to do something, you’re gonna end up at a bunch of YouTube videos. It’s gonna be … you know, you’re gonna try to DIY something that you don’t have any background in. Ask, who knows how to do this, and can I either hire them work with them or can they teach me?Right. They’ll teach me exactly what I need to know. And if it’s somebody, you know, they also know your learning style. So you’re much more likely to know it.
So I had written a book over 10 years. It had been absolutely horrible. It, it, it was not at all me. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t funny. I’m not saying that I’m super fun.I’m I guess I am saying I’m super fun and funny when I say it that way, but that is, I think so that’s our whole Stacking Benjamin’s world is to, you can do this, it, you can do this, you need smart people in your corner, but you still need to know it and guess what? You can do this.And so I asked who not how and Emily Guy Birken as you know, somebody that’s written marvelous books about retirement, about financial planning, about social security, about all the topics about investing, all the topics she’s well respected the industry. And I said, Hey, you wanna do something that is incredibly, I think competent it’s a very competent book, but it also is a book with a sense of humor that I don’t see a lot in, in this business.
Yeah. So so she, I was very excited that she, she jumped on board. But we talk about advisors as you know the book is organized like the Cub scout Wolf guide.So it starts off with it’s all achievements and you start off with easy achievements at the beginning, if you’re just laying the foundation. Or if you know your stuff go to the back quarter of the book, because that is all really the, the kind of high end 201, 301, and graduate level stuff toput it in Eric Brotman terms.
[00:31:41]Eric Brotman:Well, thank you. I actually, when we spoke with Emily, she said, she said this was the first chance she had to write a book that allowed her to be funny because usually it’s such a serious topic and it doesn’t have to, like, I, I wrote my book. I had one of, one of our employees this morning said, I really enjoyed what you said about the Salem witch trials in your book. And I thought, well, you know I hope you, you, you took it in the context I meant it, my gosh. But you know, I, I had likened well be because the, the creator of, of retirement was the same human being who came up with that.No joke.
If you, if you do the research on retirement, the whole idea of retirement is brutal and no one should doit. If you knew the real definition, no one would sign up for it. People sign up for financial independence, financial freedom, a sense of purpose, a sense of all those, but no one would sign up to retreat and be, and be literally put out to pasture and just to go wait to die somewhere.Which is what that was. And so so, so it’s nice that, that it was relatable in that way. I mean, I, I know when I, when I wrote don’t retire graduate, I wanted to, to quote great philosophers. And one of ’em was one of my favorite philosophers is Chris rock. And what Chris rock said was he, he said, wealth is relative.He said, if bill gates woke up tomorrow with Oprah’s net worth, he’d want to jump out a window. And I thought that was brilliant because the rest of us could probably do just fine on what Oprah’s worth. Right.
But so, so stacked is a book people should pick up. And for those folks who don’t know stacking Benjamins, And who won’t get the reference that I have spent time in your basement.Tell us a little bit about the show so we can get some, so, so get you some new earbuds because it’s, it’s a, it’s a phenomenal show. It’s funny, it’s time sensitive. You, you have a great way of making something both timely and timeless, which is hard to do. And you guys do an awesome job of that because it, it allows for the news of the day to be put into perspective, that’s more than just tomorrow’s waste basket.And I, and I really like how you do that.
[00:33:54]Joe Saul-Sehy:Well thanks man. And we work very, very hard at it. Our production schedule is, is pretty intensive, but you know, there’s a. I think we need to make it playful on purpose. Like I’m not being playful. And whenever I see the negative, any negative, and we don’t get a lot of negative reviews, but when we do, it’s always the same one: stop messing around.Well, let me tell you why we mess around. Cuz I love statistics and I love the science of play. Studies show that it takes you about 4,000 repetitions to something to make it a habit. But if you turn it into play, it takes between 40 and 80 repetitions. Just think about the difference in those numbers. If we just make it a little more playful and we stop this, these, these, you know, wind conditions that are horrible, and we do it even more with money.As you know, Eric, we get all, we get all you know, the temperature’s so high, we need to lower the temperature. We need to relax. We need to make it fun and relatable and realize it’s a marathon, not a sprint. And man, if I can do just one or two good things every day pick up one or two new skills a day like that will help me a ton.
So Stacking Benjamins is born of that. It’s in my mom’s basement because of the fact that when we started this almost 11 years ago,everybody was in mom’s basement that made a podcast and we, we were gonna own it. But also we’re two guys that know what they’re talking about and we wanted to make sure that people didn’t get obsessed with the fact, oh, I don’t wanna listen to a couple of, you know, long time money nerds.Let’s forget about that. We’re two dudes in mom’s basement chatting about money, where people smart people like Eric come down and and we have a good time just chatting in a very light way about some frankly pretty serious stuff, you know? And so if we, so that is our teaching style. If we can lighten it up and make it lots of fun, you’re I think you’re much more likely to to, to get some financial literacy in your life, which I think we’re all after.
[00:35:45]Eric Brotman:We’re definitely all after it. So I, I gotta ask you before we, before we call it a day today and I could talk to you all day. What do you wanna be when you grow up? I’ve asked you this before and I was dissatisfied with your answer. So I’m gonna keepprying cause you failed the first test. So this is a retest. What’s next? What do you wanna be when you grow up? And I, I don’t well, and more importantly…
[00:36:09]Joe Saul-Sehy:I know, and I know what I, [00:36:10]Eric Brotman:who do you wanna be when you grow up?
[00:36:11]Joe Saul-Sehy:You know, I know what I told you last time. And, and I told you last time that, that I’m very lucky that I, I actually have a quote second career, right. So I am doing what I wanted to do.And if I’m doing this, when I’m 90, I’m happy, but you know something. So I’m gonna give you a real answer, which, which I. I really wanna be a race car driver. Like I would fricking love to be, oh, my favorite, my favorite thing to do because I don’t drive fast cars. My wife has a heart attack every time I talk about it.So I play fans of our show know that I, I like playing Xbox. I don’t have nearly the time to play Xbox that I hope I do when I do I play golf or racing games, generally mm-hmm and man, I, I just love racing.Racing is so fun. I like every type of racing. Formula one, man, that formula one series on Netflix is so good.Watching NASCAR on TV’s a little boring. But watching NASCAR live is fantastic fun. So I, yeah, racing, I I’ll be a race car driver about that.
[00:37:14]Eric Brotman:Have you, have you driven a stock car before?
[00:37:17]Joe Saul-Sehy:I haven’t even done the where you go to the track and do the thing.
[00:37:20]Eric Brotman:What, what you waiting for? Yeah. I’ve done it twice.
[00:37:22]Joe Saul-Sehy:And my wife will have a heart attack. I drive..
[00:37:24]Eric Brotman:Well, she doesn’t have to be in the car.
[00:37:26]Joe Saul-Sehy:A ton. I drive a ton on my Xbox and I love it. And by the way, I always use, now you can change the view, know you can change the view on your video game. I always change it. So I’m in the driver’s seat. I don’t do that crap where you’re behind it. And, and I have, and I should have had it out out here, cuz I knew you were gonna ask me this question. Mm-hmm I bought the world’s most expensive steering wheel where you sit and you’ve got steering wheel and pedals.
[00:37:48]Eric Brotman:Tell me don’t havethe chair. You have the chair? You have a gaming chair?
[00:37:51]Joe Saul-Sehy:No, no, I don’t have the, I want one. I would love to.
[00:37:54]Eric Brotman:Why don’t you just go to a real, go to a real track. Go drive. Your wife does not have to bein the car with you.
[00:38:00]Joe Saul-Sehy:I’ve driven. All great places. I’m not that she should, right. I’m not, I’m not unhappy, but you’re right. Yeah.
[00:38:07]Eric Brotman:All right. Well, that’s an awesome answer and I like it better than you’re already doing what you wanted to be when you grew up. Because as I tell my, my 12 year old adulting is a trap and no one should do it.So just because we get older, doesn’t mean we have to grow up for sure. So I love that. And I’m for, for the record, I’m an Xboxer too and not nearly as much as I’d love to be, but I I’m a gamer. I it’s it’s, I think it’s a generational thing. You know, I think it’s reasonable for our parents to still look at us and go you’re in your fifties.
What are you doing, man? But the fact is it’s it’s, it’s, it’s fun.
[00:38:39]Joe Saul-Sehy:It’s such a great release man at the end of a, at the end of a tough day. If I just sit down, I tell my wife, sometimes I’m like, Hey, I just want to go back in the back room and have a controller in my hand and just be around nobody. Like that is that is heaven for me.It’s fantastic.
[00:38:54]Eric Brotman:We, we, yes, I think we have just taken money nerd to a new level and just been nerds. Both of us. We’ve just, we’ve just our, ourinner nerdom is definitely out. And I, and I love it, Joe, where can people learn more about you, hear your, your amazing podcast, get a copy of your book and all that good stuff.
[00:39:12]Joe Saul-Sehy:Wherever you’re listening here you’ll hear the Stacking Benjamin show. The greatest money show on earth. We call it that because it’s a circus, as you know, Eric, and you know what, with the book support your local bookstore. I love local bookstores. If you’re gonna listen to it, listening to its fun, because we actually include experts.You mentioned Jean Chatzky. She’s one of the subject matter experts in the book. At the end of every chapter, we have snippets from the Stacking Benjamin show that are interviews with these people that kind of, you know nail down a chapter. So that you can, so you’ll hear it. And plus you get to hear my mom ranting a little bit on the audio book, which is also fun.
[00:39:48]Eric Brotman:Do you ever clammer for meatloaf? Just do you ever say mom, meatloaf!
[00:39:52]Joe Saul-Sehy:Meatloaf!?
[00:39:52]Eric Brotman:Does that ever happen? Meatloaf. All right. [00:39:55]Joe Saul-Sehy:We, we play that clip at the beginning of some of our shows. Meatloaf!
[00:40:00]Eric Brotman:Joe. Thanks. Thanks for being on. Thanks for being the kickoff. The firstguest ever on video, I’ve been told over many, many years that I have face for radio. So we’ll see how this goes. But it, it’s great to be on video. It’s great to have to have the don’t retire, graduate season underway. You are a great first guest. I knewyou would be. I’d like to thank all of you for listening and many of you for watching for the first time. We’d love to hear from you.So please send us a message. Leave us comments. Go to don’tretiregraduate.com, go to Brotmanmedia.com, leave ratings and reviews. They mean everything to us.
And if you enjoyed the show, don’t keep it a secret. Share it with your family and friends. We will be back next week with another installment of office hours and in two weeks with another engaging guest.Hopefully another xboxer. For now this is, yes. your valedictorian. Eric Brotman reminding you don’t retire. Graduate!
[00:40:57]Narrator:Securities offered through Kestra investment services, LLC. Kestra IS. Member FINRA SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through Kestra advisory services, LLC Kestra AS. an affiliate of Kestra IS. Kestra IS or Kestra AS are not affiliated with Brotman financial or any other entity discussed.
