Josh Cadillac [00:00:00]:
Hi. I’m Josh Cadillac, and welcome to my podcast, know your shit. I’ve been blessed to see great success as well as seeing the bottom up close and personal in 2008. And if there’s one lesson I’ve learned is that if you want to have success and differentiate yourself from everyone else out there, you need to know your shit. As a successful real estate and crypto investor and an educator, it drives me insane that people do not immerse themselves in their craft. Everyone is so busy advertising and testing new sales techniques, they forget the most important thing, the product. Here, I wanna talk to the folks that got this right. The most successful people in the world in every industry, bring them to you and find out what they learned in their business that made it great.

Josh Cadillac [00:00:48]:
When you listen to my podcast, you will know for sure that the topics and experts we have on have one thing in common. They know their shit. Hello, everybody, and welcome to Know Your Shit podcast where our knowledge and pride in what we do drives us to be excellent. My name is Josh Kadlek. And once again, you’re stuck with me in the driver’s seat for today’s show. But don’t worry. We got a great show for you. And the reason why is because as always here at the Know Your Ship podcast, we have a great guest, mister Eric Brotman.

Josh Cadillac [00:01:14]:
Eric, thank you so much for coming on.

Eric Brotman [00:01:16]:
Oh, Josh. It’s my pleasure. I’m excited to be here.

Josh Cadillac [00:01:19]:
Eric, let’s start off with where we always start off. Why don’t you tell everybody what it is you do?

Eric Brotman [00:01:24]:
We we are wealth managers, financial planners. I started a financial planning practice in 1994, which makes me prehistoric. But nonetheless, after 31 years, we’ve been we’ve been growing and working with families all across the United States, helping them make financial decisions, and that’s folks who are high net worth, but it’s also folks who are who are just getting started in their wealth building journey. And our our belief is that financial literacy is the key to financial success, and then that’s how we become, financially independent, and therefore, you’re not beholden to anybody. So that’s the that’s the goal whether you’re 27 or 77 when you get there.

Josh Cadillac [00:01:59]:
Eric, I can’t tell you how much I love that. My first book was a book called Roadmap the American Dream, and it basically contended that if you were not investing, you were never getting ahead. The biggest lie is that your paycheck is somehow gonna eventually. The paycheck that you struggle to live on is eventually gonna get big enough that you’re gonna have enough that you can actually get out of the rat race.

Eric Brotman [00:02:20]:
I I mean, not only is that true, but the taxes on earned income in this country are so ridiculous Oh my god. That you cannot your income, your salary cannot build wealth. It just can’t. It it it builds your tax bill and it pays for other people, but it cannot build well.

Josh Cadillac [00:02:36]:
Most recently pays for their college education. Right? The the ordinary income rate is the most punitive tax rate in the entire tax code. Am I correct, Eric?

Eric Brotman [00:02:45]:
Well, it it the government typically uses taxes as a way to dissuade certain behaviors. Your sin taxes, your cigarette taxes, your alcohol taxes, your gas taxes. They tax things trying to get you to stop doing it, which makes me wonder why is there an income tax. Is the idea you

Josh Cadillac [00:03:01]:
want to stop earning? Well, it’s it’s so high.

Eric Brotman [00:03:04]:
Well, I could tell you why it’s high. It’s high because 50% of people pay it, so 50% of people don’t have to. Yep. That’s that’s that’s that’s a form of insanity, and we do it every every 2 weeks.

Josh Cadillac [00:03:15]:
Absolutely. Totally a thing. So, Eric, what got you started down that path? What got you started doing this?

Eric Brotman [00:03:21]:
You know, I came about this the natural way. I was an English major in school. And, and and so Makes sense.

Josh Cadillac [00:03:26]:
Yeah.

Eric Brotman [00:03:26]:
I mean, it’s it’s a natural transition to finance. I actually started my plan was to go to law school. Like most English majors, I was either gonna teach or go to law school, both of which sounded great until I got to experience some law firms and I got to experience the brokerage business. And I was in the legal department at a brokerage firm and fell in love with the financial world. And I’m so glad I did. It was it was blind stupid luck because I was really looking for jobs out of school to to work for a law firm to get my foot in the door. And I wound up in the legal department of a brokerage firm, fell in love with finance, never went to law school, single best both financial and logistic, and happy decision I ever made in my life was not going to law school. I don’t know any happy lawyers.

Josh Cadillac [00:04:06]:
I I am such a big fan of BSL, blind stupid luck.

Eric Brotman [00:04:09]:
Well, I had some.

Josh Cadillac [00:04:11]:
I have been on the winning side of that a few times, and I’m very grateful for it when I can get it, man. It is it is good stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I I think that there’s kind of an extra sense of peace when you’re not a member of the ivory tower and and which I put attorneys, sadly in that category a lot too. Because while they’re kind of in the game, they’re also kind of in the ivory tower surrounded by by concerns of liability, but not necessarily with the fundamentals of getting your hands dirty, getting some dirt under your fingernails of how the sausage gets made.

Eric Brotman [00:04:44]:
I I think at the end of the day, there’s only 2 kinds of people in this world. There and this is coming from my Ayn Rand. It’s it’s producers and looters.

Josh Cadillac [00:04:53]:
And if

Eric Brotman [00:04:53]:
you’re not producing something, you have to loot somebody. And and so to me, it’s the business owners whether you’re, whether you’re steaming pipe fitters, whether you’re whether you’re running a a nonprofit, whether you’re running a a service business, whether you’re whether you own a restaurant, or you own a corner store, or whatever it is, the people who own businesses and employ and are small business owners and employ other people are the folks who make this country run. It is not the big the big companies. The big companies are the ones who who essentially get their their elected officials elected. We know this, but they’re not the ones who actually move the needle and make the economy run. It’s all the small business owners. It’s people who produce, people who make something or or who perform a service that other people want, whatever that service is.

Josh Cadillac [00:05:37]:
You know, Eric, there’s a book that I read a long time ago. Very small book written, brilliant author. And by the way, first guy in in in gotta be close to 90 podcast to quote Rand on here and, you know, having read just about everything Rand did. And, I mean, the thing with Rand is, like, you gotta be careful because there’s a little bit of crazy going on there. But at the end of the day, I’ve I there’s one thing that I’ve always loved about Ayn Rand is that the separating the folks into the category of looters, I thought was at producers and looters. I think it was the most simple. And you know what? It is the the correct pejorative for people that think something I work for somehow belongs to them. Yeah.

Josh Cadillac [00:06:18]:
I I I love that. But, there’s a book called the Myth of the Robber Barons.

Eric Brotman [00:06:24]:
Okay.

Josh Cadillac [00:06:25]:
And it’s I’m I’m trying to think who wrote it. It’s a a guys from Hillsdale wrote it. Burton Burton Folsom.

Eric Brotman [00:06:33]:
Okay. And

Josh Cadillac [00:06:33]:
if you haven’t read it, it is a tiny little book, but it goes through, like, one guy after another who was supposed to be a robber baron. And it talks about how much he drove the cost down to the consumer, like, how much better the world was because this guy was just ruthlessly relentlessly. One of the big guys being, the standard oil. Right?

Eric Brotman [00:06:54]:
Mhmm. Mhmm.

Josh Cadillac [00:06:55]:
All that was done. I mean, just people needed their oil and they needed it cheap. Right? And how to drive the cost down, not to put anybody else out of business, but because he knew that’s where Rockefeller knew that’s where his bread was buttered. And yet they vilify some of these. Now I I take a step back and I the book does as well. There are some guys that were back that were just absolute scumbags because we don’t have any of those now. Right? No.

Eric Brotman [00:07:18]:
No. Everybody now is yeah. Everybody is a saint.

Josh Cadillac [00:07:21]:
Totally. But if you want a real a really great short little read, what a good book it was, and Folsom does a great job. If you if you never read Folsom, he’s he’s really a worthwhile guy to to check out.

Eric Brotman [00:07:31]:
I’ll check it out. Thank you.

Josh Cadillac [00:07:32]:
But yeah. Sure. If you wanna find the secrets they never teach you, you need to join my mastermind community. Guys, the classes I’ve written, I’ve written them all for the same reason. This is all the stuff they never taught me in all my time in real estate. I couldn’t find anybody that taught me the things that I needed to know to actually be successful. I learned those the hard way through pain and suffering and through other businesses, from making mistakes and doing it the wrong way, from other agents that wound up being helpful and wound up being generous with their time to to help me learn this stuff. But the classes that I took, those didn’t have the information.

Josh Cadillac [00:08:11]:
And so I wanted to spare you that. I wanted to take and put it all in one place. And I’ve been teaching these for years. It’s some of the most popular classes all over the country that there are in real estate. All these courses I’ve put together and all the stuff that they never told you that you need to know. Well, now we have them available to you available to you online. And that’s because you’ve been asking for years, and I finally got my act together and got them out there for you. Got them to you in a way that you can get them whenever you want them.

Josh Cadillac [00:08:38]:
As part of our mastermind, ACE University exists to give you all of the ACE classes in a place where you can access them at your leisure, at your pace, broken up into small groups that you can take and get the ideas. If there’s ideas that you need to take a look at more than once with the calculator and the investment calculation, any of that stuff, you’re gonna have it available to you there on the phone at any time on demand for you. Join our mastermind group and have the access whenever you want it. What do you like best about what you do, Eric?

Eric Brotman [00:09:15]:
Well, there’s it’s a combination of things. The the thing I like the best is that we’re changing lives. We’re making people’s lives better. We’re helping create confidence. We’re helping create decision making that is objective, that is thoughtful, that is, dispassionate. We’re helping taking some of the emotion out of the decision process, which, by the way, we’re all subject to. We’re all emotional creatures. We all react to things whether it’s a market movement or an or an economic movement or an election or any of the big things that happen.

Eric Brotman [00:09:43]:
We are all emotional creatures. But to take a dispassionate look at money and finance and decisions, it it removes some of the psychological torture that people put themselves through when there’s news du jour. And so being able to being able to change lives, being able to make sure that that junior gets to college, being able to make sure that mom and dad can can live, the remainder of their lives with dignity, making sure that we are not giving the government money we don’t have to. Because at the end of the day, understanding the tax code, this game is rigged, and you absolutely have to have the right people, be it lawyers or accountants or financial advisers who understand the rules so that you can play by them, not to break the law, but to understand how the game works because it is absolutely rigged against the the the middle and upper middle class. It is so hard to become wealthy today. It is so easy to stay wealthy and so hard to become wealthy. And that path, it shouldn’t be this hard, but it’s politically expedient to some groups to make it this hard and to keep people sorta at the bottom end. And it it frustrates me to to no end, but we can help people pull themselves out of some of that cycle, and that’s been a ton of fun.

Eric Brotman [00:10:52]:
We’re also helping people do well by doing good. You know, figuring out their their philanthropy and changing the look. I don’t know anybody who wants to make a donation to the government, but I know lots of people wanna make donations to their favorite charity, their favorite organization, their favorite cause, and figuring out ways to do that that makes sense. It can change not only a family dynamic, but a community, and that to me is just it’s rewarding as heck. I I love it.

Josh Cadillac [00:11:19]:
Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean, I it it always amazes me. There’s nobody wants to make a contribution to the government, but there’s plenty of people out there that want me to make a contribution to the government for them. And and that is the thing and and this is the thing. You know, you need people who know where the incentives are lined up so that you can take and and do what you do in line with the incentives so that you’re not cutting against the grain. You’re cutting with it.

Josh Cadillac [00:11:41]:
It’s easier to cut down this financial tree to get to the other side of financial freedom. Right? Which how do we how do we saw the how do we saw the lumber to make the most with every stroke of the saw? Because at the end of the day, that stroke of the saw is you getting your ass out bed every day and swinging that ax.

Eric Brotman [00:11:56]:
It is. It is. I I wish I could tell you there’s some magic pillar shortcut there isn’t. It’s kinda like getting yourself in physical shape or or any of these or or getting a degree in various there is no shortcut. It is absolutely bootstrapping. It’s absolutely sweat equity. But making good decisions and having some of the basics. And at the end of the day, I think most of this is behavioral.

Eric Brotman [00:12:18]:
Most of it is is behavioral. It it means turning off the Kardashians and not trying to keep up with the neighbors and not driving a car that’s ridiculous and not you know, Warren Buffett has a a small home. He could buy at the Taj Mahal, but he has a small home because he realizes that that’s not, a, it’s not wealth, and, b, it’s not important. And so this this this idea that consumerism in this country is is putrid. And the fact that we all have to have it immediately and we’ve we’ve grown a generation of humans who think that this stuff grows on trees. I swear if you interviewed certain college students, they would not know where the money in the ATM was actually coming from. I swear, they would think it’s just a money machine. I I I I I think literally don’t understand.

Josh Cadillac [00:13:01]:
Totally. I I one of the reasons why I wrote road map the American dream, Eric, was was totally because I went back to college when I was in my thirties. So when I finished high school, I was like, I am never writing a stupid paper about nothing ever again. They have gotten a lot they had this forced labor that I had been mandated from on high, which was basically my parents, like, you gotta go. Right? I am done with this BS. I already had businesses going. I was out. And then I went back in my thirties.

Josh Cadillac [00:13:32]:
And the thing that blew me away was how poor the scholarship and the understanding of how the real world actually work. We had professors, these respected bastions of all knowledge, making proclamations about things that showed that they had a once upon a time in a land far away approach to how the world actually worked. I mean, I literally had a professor that said, we should stop using all fossil fuel energy today and switch to renewables. So, like and these kids are sitting there like, yeah.

Eric Brotman [00:14:06]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Josh Cadillac [00:14:06]:
Sounds like a good I was like, so you hate poor people.

Eric Brotman [00:14:10]:
Right. Right. So you don’t want people.

Josh Cadillac [00:14:13]:
Yeah.

Eric Brotman [00:14:13]:
No. I I understand. And, look, I I’m not anti environment. I try not to be anti No. Anything. Nobody is.

Josh Cadillac [00:14:19]:
But there

Eric Brotman [00:14:19]:
has but there has to be reality. A pro pro people. A pro human being. Human. Human. Yeah. Human. The the the problem with academia is that it is that ivory tower you talked about.

Eric Brotman [00:14:31]:
It people people can thrive in that space without ever having actually worked a day in their lives. And that’s not to say that getting a PhD I know getting a PhD is hard work, and I don’t I don’t I know it’s hard work. I’m not this I’m I’m not I don’t not casting shade at people who decide that academia and teaching, it’s a noble profession. It’s a great thing. However, if you’re teaching business classes and the only business you know is from the textbook you read 30 years ago, you’re not helping these young people. They’ve gotta understand how it really works. I I remember Rodney Dangerfield in back to school saying, oh, you’ve missed some stuff. Like, I love that scene.

Eric Brotman [00:15:06]:
You missed a few things you gotta do in order to get stuff done. It’s not just the balance sheet and the p and l. And and

Josh Cadillac [00:15:11]:
I’m fortunate that’s true. Pick up the trash. Do you think that’s the Boy Scouts? I mean, I

Eric Brotman [00:15:15]:
Yeah.

Josh Cadillac [00:15:16]:
I I know the scene. I love it.

Eric Brotman [00:15:17]:
Yeah. I love it. Yeah. No. No. That’s that’s not how it really works. That’s not how it really works. It’s not a panacea that that’s textbook.

Josh Cadillac [00:15:25]:
Totally. And I think that’s really the the piece. Right? It is possible to have a very safe and this is the thing with with academia in general. It’s a relatively safe, risk free, risk averse career for a lot of folks. The respect for what goes into measuring and taking risk is something that you’ve never actually if you’ve never experienced the lack of sleep that comes with a decision that has people’s paychecks associated with, like, will I be able to make payroll this week? It’s not just will I be able to pay my bills, but it’s a lot more than that. Yeah. A 100%. The insulation that academia gives professors from that doesn’t do anyone, and especially the people that are trying to educate, it doesn’t really do many favors.

Josh Cadillac [00:16:05]:
And so I think very much in line with what you’re saying is is is is how I would approach it.

Eric Brotman [00:16:10]:
And Well, as a startup, Josh, as a startup, I borrowed money from everywhere, from everywhere and took a risk. I was in my thirties. I was divorced. I had no kids. I was literally my my balance sheet was negative. I I literally had just given most of my property to my my former spouse, who was delighted to have it. And and I sort of started over and said, I’m gonna I’m gonna start a company. I was 31 years old.

Eric Brotman [00:16:35]:
I can do this. It was 2003. Hired 2 people, leased some space, leased some equipment, did all the things that I had to do to to start up, borrowed money from everywhere, did not take a paycheck for the 1st year. And when I finally did start taking a paycheck, my employees had direct deposit, and I didn’t because sometimes the check had to sit. I couldn’t even cash my own paycheck. Yeah. And people and and being at the office Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and being there till 3 in the morning because of an IT issue or or a deadline or something, people have no concept, until they’ve done it, until you’ve started a business, until you’ve hired people and their family’s welfare is in your hands. You know, you talked about making payroll.

Eric Brotman [00:17:15]:
It’s not about paying myself. It’s about making sure the people who have entrusted themselves to to work with me and who have believed in the Kool Aid that I had and said, yeah. I’m in. I like your vision. Let’s do this together. The people who worked with me, I had to make sure they and their families were okay first and and that our clients were taken care of and that our vendors were taken care of and all these people before it got to me. And so now, you know, I’m 30 years in, 20 plus in the in the company. We’re doing great.

Eric Brotman [00:17:44]:
We’re growing like crazy. And people now look at it like, you know, the joke is, oh, it took me 30 years to be an overnight success. Like, I I’ve reached I’ve reached the level where where I can take real time off, but people don’t remember that I went 9 years without a week off. Like Yeah. That that memory has faded. Some of our employees weren’t born when I was starting the company. That’s bizarre to me, but totally true.

Josh Cadillac [00:18:07]:
Yeah. I know. And it’s a thing because there’s there’s a tremendous lack of appreciation. They see success. And because they’ve never had to achieve it, they have no idea what goes into it. I I see the cake and I think, man, that’s nice. It must be it’s it must be easy to make cakes, but they don’t realize how long it takes to make the frosting and how how you gotta work the they don’t know what goes in to it. And because that’s not known, it can be despised.

Josh Cadillac [00:18:29]:
It can be ridiculed. It can be looked down on. And as our tax code can chose, it can be punished. They don’t realize the BST, blood, sweat, and tears Correct. That goes into into doing this and so much. This is ours.

Eric Brotman [00:18:43]:
The federal government the federal government was it was not set up to govern 400,000,000 people. It just wasn’t. The documents were not set up for that. And if you look at the the various rules that are affecting Manhattan, New York versus Manhattan, Kansas, It doesn’t make sense there. None of it makes sense. But if you look at the state level, the tax policy in various states now have states competing with each other in a way that that is causing migrations. Yes. You know, Texas Texas and Florida are thriving, and New York and California are not.

Eric Brotman [00:19:15]:
And and there’s a reason for it. And the wake up call has to be that if you tax people with money so much that the people with money leave, you run out of other people’s money to take. And it’s coming, and it’s coming for California in a like a like a roller coaster ripping through.

Josh Cadillac [00:19:32]:
Absolutely. The the word shadenfreude comes to mind because Yes. Yeah. I’m in Florida, and I’m originally from New York, the People’s Republic of New York. And I’m very grateful to be on this side of the equation as opposed to that side of the equation. As, you know, I remember paying city, state, and federal tax on everything. And I remember back in the eighties, we had a prop the the eighties, early nineties when Cuomo, Mario Cuomo decided the way he was gonna take and balance the budget was a brand new tax, the Cuomo tax on real estate. 10% of the gross sale price.

Josh Cadillac [00:20:07]:
And there

Eric Brotman [00:20:07]:
went real estate. Market. Well, of course. Of course. Nobody wants it. Well, I’m I’m a I’m a proud resident of of Maryland. I’m born and raised. I love this place.

Eric Brotman [00:20:17]:
It’s where my family is. It’s where I’ve grown up. I cannot retire here. It would be asinine. It would be asinine to retire here. It would be a contribution. It would be a, a a 7 figure gift that I don’t have to make to people I don’t wanna give it to.

Josh Cadillac [00:20:34]:
Yeah. I don’t even like

Eric Brotman [00:20:35]:
them. Well, some of them are great. Don’t get me wrong. I I have enjoyed living here. I’ve enjoyed working here. I’ve enjoyed going to school here, but you cannot retire here if you’re if you’re in a position where you’re going to be making, you’re gonna get clobbered and neighboring states know this. Virginia knows it. Delaware knows it.

Eric Brotman [00:20:54]:
Florida knows it. Lots of places have figured this out. And if what you’re looking to do is you’re looking to have people come join you who will participate in the community at through consumption tax, that’s a totally different thing. Consumption tax to me is you pay for what you use. I pay for the I pay for the roads I drive on. All fine. I don’t pay for the rides I don’t drive on. Also fine.

Eric Brotman [00:21:18]:
And and that’s that’s something that the the the government has to figure out because the the migrations that are happening are real, and the the tax policy. I think we’re gonna look back on 2024 and sort of the last decade or so from a tax perspective in this country as the good old days. I know that sounds horrifying, but our marginal tax rates are actually lower than they’ve been in a long time. Of course, nothing’s deductible anymore, but you could solve all of this. This is not a hard thing to solve. A balanced budget is not a hard thing to create. It’s impossible if you’re running for office. Totally.

Eric Brotman [00:21:52]:
I could I could fix social security in 40 5 minutes with a yellow pad, but I’m not running for office. If I was running for office, I would be vilified. There’d be some group of people, whether it’s group a or group b, with pitchforks in the street for me because I had I dared to come up with a solution that actually works.

Josh Cadillac [00:22:10]:
Absolutely. Totally. There is no there is no equity in solutions. There’s only equity in voicing the problems and vilifying the other side and saying it’s their fault that the problems exist. That’s where that’s where that’s where and I gotta be careful using the word equity because that means something to me.

Eric Brotman [00:22:26]:
A lot of different things to a lot of different people. Yeah. I mean, Change

Josh Cadillac [00:22:29]:
the meaning. I I gotta get a new the the source.

Eric Brotman [00:22:33]:
Yeah. Well yeah. I mean, ultimately ultimately, a lot of words have been have been arguably bastardized in certain ways. Absolutely. And and I’m with you. I I don’t think that, I I don’t think that it’s necessarily about good people or bad people or even good people doing bad things. I think there are, very uninformed people who are making decisions, because they’re in positions of of and I use power as the word. It’s power.

Eric Brotman [00:22:59]:
If you’re an elected official, you have an enormous amount of power and often you have no credentials to get there. You’ve done nothing to earn that other than pander for votes. And and that is not a a political statement about red or blue. They’re all bad. They’re all bad.

Josh Cadillac [00:23:13]:
They’ve won a popularity contest. Their big achievement is they were more popular than the other person.

Eric Brotman [00:23:19]:
And then and then their only job is to stay in office.

Josh Cadillac [00:23:24]:
Total. You And it

Eric Brotman [00:23:25]:
used to be volunteerism. It was people went to congress way way back in the day. It was volunteer. It was doing your civil service. It was civil service. Now it’s a career. Now people go to school to learn how to learn political science so they can learn how to how to do these things and they can, you know, basically suck off the teeth of the government. It’s nuts.

Eric Brotman [00:23:47]:
And The

Josh Cadillac [00:23:48]:
taxpayers let’s be clear. Let’s be clear. It’s not the it’s the taxpayers. We’re the one fit in the bill. Right?

Eric Brotman [00:23:53]:
So now I’m having fun with this, and we’re gonna get ourselves in trouble pretty soon. Oh, but, nonetheless, I’m having fun with it. That that the the the reality is that there is no, there there’s no easy solution to fix any of this. I don’t think most of the country believes the nonsense on the far right or the far left. They’re just the ones with the loudest megaphones. And so that’s what we’re subjected to. I think if you if you could get if you could get a 100 people in a room, I bet you could get 80 to 90 of them to come up with solutions that everybody can work with. And you’re gonna have and you’re gonna have 10 who are loose cannons one way or the other who you’re never gonna please.

Eric Brotman [00:24:30]:
But we have to stop listening to those people. We just have to.

Josh Cadillac [00:24:34]:
The the problem really has become it’s with the nature of how people take in information now. It is only the extreme, only the ridiculous that gets any attention. And so people go over and the problem is also actually, I had a friend of mine who very politically is about as physically far away from me as we could get. Yet she and I together in a room could come up with solutions that we would both stomach. Right? And I remember her saying this to me. She said, you know, it used to be uncle Louie with the tinfoil hat would say something crazy, and everybody like, oh, yeah. That’s uncle Louie, you know, who listens. But now uncle Louie has an Instagram account, and nobody knows it’s uncle Louie.

Josh Cadillac [00:25:13]:
So they’re like, oh my god. Secret society found buried under Antarctica that has really been running the country for decades? No way. Right? I I I should I should be careful. Somebody’s gonna sit there and say, what do you mean there’s no hidden society under Antarctica?

Eric Brotman [00:25:31]:
I I can’t say if there is or isn’t. I have not been. I can either confirm I can neither confirm nor deny that that suggestion. I don’t know.

Josh Cadillac [00:25:40]:
I don’t know. There we go. So let me Eric, let’s kinda get back to to to your your story a little bit because I am having too much fun here.

Eric Brotman [00:25:47]:
Yeah. Where

Josh Cadillac [00:25:47]:
did all the success come from for you, my friend?

Eric Brotman [00:25:50]:
You know, it came from grit. It came from it came from hard work. It came from long hours. It came from, it came from finding the right people to get on this bus and then getting out of their way. I have surrounded myself with really smart people who care, who are who are ethical, who are doing the right things, and they’re all different. They’re different. You know, you talk about diversity. They’re different in every conceivable way.

Eric Brotman [00:26:15]:
They’re different, They’re different from backgrounds. They’re different from race and gender and age and political affiliation and nationality and all of this stuff, but we all come together and we work incredibly hard, and they’re the right people and they’re smarter than I am in lots of ways. And if I could surround myself with people who are really good at things I’m not good at and who really love to do things I don’t love to do, then I’m gonna get to spend a whole lot of time doing the things I’m best at and the things I love to do. And it took me a long time to discover that that epiphany that if we’re if we all have the same skill set, we’ve got all the same blind spots. And so if if you ask me what the secret to success is, other than hard work, which there’s no substitute for, I know there’s blind stupid luck, but generally, luck comes to people who show up. Luck doesn’t come to people who aren’t there. So you show up. Yes.

Eric Brotman [00:27:04]:
There’s a break here and there and and isn’t that nice, but there’s also bad breaks along the way. Let’s face it. So you surround yourself with good people. You let them do their job. You get out of their way. It’s people, people, people. It’s human capital, and there’s an incredible talent drain. In this country, it is so hard to hire, and companies are fighting over the scraps because so many people either don’t wanna work or don’t have any skills that are useful in the workforce.

Eric Brotman [00:27:30]:
And I don’t care what industry you’re in. As the trades people, how they’re finding apprentices, they’re not. It’s it doesn’t matter what field you’re in. There’s an incredible lack of talent and and grit. And so when you find it, you grab it. So there’s a a local university here that really is a a career focused university. And I I think the world of it I I’ve served on their board. I’ve gotten real involved with them.

Eric Brotman [00:27:52]:
They do an incredible job of preparing young people for work. And they get a a great education, but they’re also ready to work. And so we’re hiring exclusively, when we hire young people from there because there’s no silver spoons. There’s no that job is too big or too small or I’m I’m not right for it or I’m not willing to do it. There’s a lot of how can I make a difference, how can I help, how can I learn, what can I do, and give me 10 of those people, 50 of those people? And and we there’s nothing we can’t do. So I’m we’re literally hiring specifically people with some grit, who are willing to work, who don’t have the attitude that’s coming out of the the ivory towers that I I got no time for.

Josh Cadillac [00:28:31]:
Totally, man. You know, like, I I I think it was Thomas Edison who said, it’s kind of amazing. The harder I work, the luckier I get. Yeah.

Eric Brotman [00:28:38]:
You know? It’s true.

Josh Cadillac [00:28:39]:
It it’s it’s a thing. And I like what you said. You know? I think that that’s the right way to do diversity in general is to hire the best people. And lo and behold, they’ll be from all over the place. Right?

Eric Brotman [00:28:51]:
A 100%. All day.

Josh Cadillac [00:28:53]:
It should always be qualitative based upon what the person does, not what they look like, not what they sound like. What do you do? Merit. You know, that idea of merit and and making sure that you’re color blind to this stuff and not hiring yourself because that is the discipline. Right? Yeah. There there is kind of that that I don’t wanna call it, like, a confirmation bias type issue that we have that we tend to want. Oh, you think like me? We do great together. The problem is you you need you need folks with different views. And so Correct.

Josh Cadillac [00:29:21]:
I I love what you said there.

Eric Brotman [00:29:23]:
Yeah. I

Josh Cadillac [00:29:24]:
think I know the answer, Eric, but I I wanna ask the question anyway. What in your makeup do you think makes you good at what you do?

Eric Brotman [00:29:33]:
What in my makeup makes me good at what I do?

Josh Cadillac [00:29:36]:
Yeah. What in you?

Eric Brotman [00:29:37]:
I think it’s a I I think primarily an insane fear of failure. Love it. An insane fear of failure.

Josh Cadillac [00:29:44]:
Oh, man.

Eric Brotman [00:29:44]:
I, you know, I I wanna make sure that I’ve done everything possible to be successful at whatever I’m doing, and I’m gonna fail. And I’m gonna dust myself off, and I’m gonna try again. And there’s gonna be stuff I could dust myself off 8 times, and I’m just not gonna get it. That’s real. There are things we are not meant to do. I’m not gonna be an astronaut. I’m not gonna play in the NFL. There’s just certain things I’m not gonna do.

Josh Cadillac [00:30:07]:
Ships of scale.

Eric Brotman [00:30:08]:
And it’s okay. It’s okay. I don’t have to be great at everything. But the the what drove me initially was this, rabid fear of not being successful. And success there’s a lot of different definitions for success. For me, what it meant was sustainability. It meant being able to sustain not only my lifestyle and my family’s, but our employees and and our clients and our business and creating something that would run without me, which it now will 100%. If I took a year off, no one would notice except for my lovely disposition and my complexion.

Eric Brotman [00:30:42]:
But other than that, no one would notice. I mean, because the the place would run without me immediately. We have amazing people at every level of the organization. And if if I kiss the bus tomorrow, quite frankly, the company will be fine. And that to me is the ultimate measure of success for an entrepreneur. I didn’t hand it to somebody. I don’t I haven’t raised children to come and and take it over and become everybody’s boss. It’s all a meritocracy.

Eric Brotman [00:31:07]:
It’s all hard work and good people, and, and that’s what’s gonna happen. So this place will exist long after I’m here either, either actively engaged or on this planet. And that to me is success, but I was I was terribly afraid of not having not only success, but but a legacy. You know? To to me, having a business like this that’s taking really good care of people for for the long term, to me, that’s a form of immortality that’s better than slapping my name on a building.

Josh Cadillac [00:31:38]:
Totally. No. Their their lives the the people they care about’s lives, their children’s lives, they’re all better because of something that that you did. You’re you’re fighting against the forces that prevail against us that that the headwinds for years

Eric Brotman [00:31:53]:
I am.

Josh Cadillac [00:31:53]:
Has yield yielded the opportunity for these folks, and that is a beautiful thing that I I wish more people understood and recognized because it is kind of the, the secret sauce of the entrepreneur behind the scenes of the big why that everybody’s worried about right now, why we do what we do. Because, frankly, fighting for yourself only is so big. And at some point, you’re gonna sit there and say, you know, this is BS. I’ll go live on a beach someplace, be a bum, and, you know, I could get by with less. But the idea of having something that you’ve built. And I’m I’m gonna say this to you, Eric. Congratulations, sir, on building what it sounds like a great organization, something that you can really be proud of, man. That is that is the dream for so many.

Josh Cadillac [00:32:30]:
And so congratulations on that, sir.

Eric Brotman [00:32:32]:
Thank you. You’re kind. We’re we’re we’re just getting started. I mean, we’re 30 years in and we’re just getting started. And that’s that’s what I’m excited about. We’re empowering some awesome people to take this to the next level and and go places I couldn’t take us. You know, what worked to get us here won’t be what works to get us there, and part of that’s me. Part of it’s me.

Eric Brotman [00:32:49]:
Like, at some point, at some point, transferable skills are are are are governed by or they are provincial of the young people. And so, you know, I I read a book recently. We’re talking about books. I I read a book called from strength to strength, which I totally recommend. And it’s it’s about the shift in our work from what is called the intelligence curve to the wisdom curve. And this idea that when you’re in your twenties and and thirties even, you’re trading on intelligence. You just got that degree. You’ve just learned that skill.

Eric Brotman [00:33:21]:
You’re at the cutting edge of everything. And then you fast forward to 40, 50, 60, I’m no longer on the cutting edge of anything despite even if I try, I won’t be because, you know, I I did my CFP education in 1998. It’s not the same it’s not the same all these years later. No. But what I do have other than gray hair and a bald spot is I have the ability to to understand some of those life events. I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. We work with a 1,000 plus families.

Eric Brotman [00:33:49]:
So if I can marry the wisdom that comes from 30 years of experience with the intelligence that comes from 3 years in in the education and in the in the trenches learning the latest and greatest, and we can work together, there’s nothing we can’t do.

Josh Cadillac [00:34:03]:
But I hear you.

Eric Brotman [00:34:04]:
I can’t do it all, and and neither can they. They can’t fake they can’t fake experience, and I can’t trade on intelligence that is that is that old. I just that that’s not how it works.

Josh Cadillac [00:34:15]:
Yeah. No. It’s staying on the cutting the bleeding edge is a young young person’s game.

Eric Brotman [00:34:19]:
It is entirely. And let’s let’s let’s embrace it instead of fighting it. Totally.

Josh Cadillac [00:34:23]:
And let’s let let that synergy occur where the young and the younger and the older come together and recognize each other’s value at the table. I I think that the the disrespect and distrust that exists for experience in younger for that has been one of the phenomenons of the younger generation is that they don’t respect experience. They they think their seat at the table is kind of guaranteed, and it’s not everybody, but it’s just more prevalent in society than it used to be, is is a tremendous disservice that has been done through either, you know, like, with the source, whether it’s helicopter parenting or, you know, the participation trophy world that, you know, well, you know, you’re good enough the way you are. You know?

Eric Brotman [00:35:02]:
I think it’s deeper than that, Josh. It’s deeper than that’s

Josh Cadillac [00:35:05]:
one of

Eric Brotman [00:35:05]:
the reasons why I wrote the book that I just published, which is called Don’t Retire, Graduate. It goes Yeah. 100 of years back to this idea. If you go back in history, with villages, who had the biggest tent? The elders. Who were the most respected member members of the community? The people who had seen it before, who had witnessed wartime or famine or storms or or expansion or migration or all the things that tribes experienced at the time. It was always the elder who was the most respected who you went to with the biggest life problems. They were the ones sitting on the top of the mountain.

Josh Cadillac [00:35:38]:
Yep.

Eric Brotman [00:35:38]:
And you fast forward into the 17 1800 when retirement was invented. It was a way to put older people out to pasture because they were no longer useful. And so you you talk about the helicopter parenting and the other things and the sort of the generational stuff. I think it’s deeper than that, and I don’t think it’s new. I think there’s this idea that you reach an age where you’re no longer useful. And I think we’ve I think as a society, we have not only tolerated it, we’ve allowed that to to proliferate. You’ve got a generation of people who work from 80 from 18 to 65, got their social security, and they were dead at 72. Yep.

Eric Brotman [00:36:13]:
Well, one of us, between you and me, one of us might be a 103 at some point. And and so you’ve got a huge amount of living left to do beyond whatever the government decides or business decides is retirement age. 60, 62, 65. 65 used to be elderly. Look at look at people’s paychecks. 65 year old were

Josh Cadillac [00:36:33]:
kicking my ass in pickleball all the time, man.

Eric Brotman [00:36:36]:
What? I got more time than you. But but if you if you if you look at your paycheck, people people with w twos have OASDI on their paycheck, and it absconds with some of your money and it’s Social Security, but it’s not called Social security. That’s the the nomenclature, but it’s the old age survivor and disability income program. It was for old age. Social security was set up for the extreme elderly as a safety net in case they outlived their ability to take care of themselves.

Josh Cadillac [00:37:04]:
They’re doable to produce

Eric Brotman [00:37:05]:
You can claim that at 62. Hell, I’m almost 62, and I don’t feel unable to take care of myself or provide for myself in any way. I hope I’ve gotten new chapters to go to. So, you know, I I wrote a book to try and reframe this and to try and reframe what retirement is because if retirement is daytime TV and shuffleboard, you’re doomed. You’re doomed. You won’t thrive. You won’t live. You won’t continue to learn.

Eric Brotman [00:37:30]:
You won’t you won’t do any of the things, and it’s gotta be more than a bucket list, Josh. It can’t just be I wanna I wanna see these 5 world wonders and then I can die. It doesn’t work that way. We’ve got a third of our lives ahead of us at 60 and half of our adult lives. There’s a lot that can be done and a lot of good that can be done. And so instead of ignoring our elders, instead of ignoring them and saying, oh, that old guy doesn’t know anything. How about let’s let that old guy or gal share some of that wisdom with the folks who’ve never seen it, who don’t remember this? I mean, we got we got people in our organization now who are who are out of college, who weren’t born on 911. If you know concept of the world pre and post, the TSA has always been there.

Eric Brotman [00:38:15]:
They’ve never been able to go into an airport and and say goodbye at the gate. Well, the little things, but but but cultural things. And they have no idea how I graduated from college without email and without a cell phone and how I turned papers in and that like, how did how did you meet up with people for to go to the bar at night if you could? We said it’s 8 o’clock. If you’re not there at 8:0:5, we left without you.

Josh Cadillac [00:38:38]:
If you’re not there, you’re square. Be there or be square. Absolutely.

Eric Brotman [00:38:42]:
So I I think we have to reframe what retirement is. I think this idea of working really hard so we don’t have to work anymore is a fool’s errand. I think instead, we should define retirement as the absence of needing to work, not the absence of work. We should define it as financially independent, and we should make that a goal. Every family should strive for financial independence so that you are as free as free can be to do the things that you’re passionate about, that you love, that you have vision about, whether it’s for income or not, whether it’s consulting or coaching or teaching or mentoring or volunteering. Whatever it is, be passionate about it. Have a reason to get out of bed every morning or I promise you, you will stop getting out of bed every morning, and you’ll be the guy at 1 in the afternoon in his pajamas waiting to go to bed. It makes no sense.

Eric Brotman [00:39:26]:
Why would you do that to yourself?

Josh Cadillac [00:39:28]:
Absolutely. No. I mean, there’s a gentleman that that I had on here not too long ago who retired. He was a very successful guy, and he is his schedule is booked, slammed, and all he does is mentor business people. He tries to help people that are in business right now to take and some of it does for free. Some of it he he charges for whatever. But he knows stuff from the pain and suffering, BST, blood, sweat, and peers, that went into building his advertising business for 30 years that he is now able to take and help folks avoid some of those mistakes. And he finds it very fulfilling.

Josh Cadillac [00:40:00]:
And the guy is, you know, young and spryer running triathlons. The guy’s in his mid seventies. You know? And, I mean, he’s just going, you know, full bore. And he’s living and enjoying life as opposed to just kind of running out the clock waiting for the reaper to come. Right. It it’s it’s such a big idea to take and because at the end of the day, right, you got this life. You got so much sand in the hourglass. What the hell are you gonna do with it? And just realizing that you’re reaching the I don’t know how much sand is left.

Josh Cadillac [00:40:29]:
That’s right. Maybe I got a sneaking suspicion, but I really don’t know. There’s people you think, oh, man. They’re on their last, like, 30 years later. They’re still here. Right? And there’s other folks that Spryers can be in kale 16 times a day, and they drop that at 42. You don’t know. And so all you could do is take and try to turn in the best day every single day that you possibly can.

Josh Cadillac [00:40:49]:
Yeah. Just squeeze out of this. Set yourself up to be successful. Squeeze out of this all you can. Try to keep as much as you can to give the people that matter to you. But one of the important things, and this is a big lesson from both, Andrew Carnegie and my father, that you gotta be very, very careful what you give your kids.

Eric Brotman [00:41:07]:
Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

Josh Cadillac [00:41:09]:
Living get leading people things, giving people things they didn’t earn is poison to human beings. We we just there’s very few people that can can deal with that

Eric Brotman [00:41:20]:
Yep.

Josh Cadillac [00:41:20]:
And not take and squandered because they don’t know. They don’t understand what went into it, into the making of it. And so my father used to say all the time, from the people to the people in 3 generations. Yeah. Oh, absolutely.

Eric Brotman [00:41:32]:
Yep. That’s So but there there are things you can do to to, curtail that. Some of it’s education. Some of it is is and I don’t mean formal education. I mean, it’s it’s a boots on the ground education.

Josh Cadillac [00:41:45]:
Yeah.

Eric Brotman [00:41:45]:
Some of it is if you think about the gift you can leave your kids to help them understand money, it’s the gift of influence. So rather than giving your kid $10,000,000, what if you put 8 of that into a foundation or some kind of fund that your kid is now gonna manage and give away to to philanthropic organizations important to him or her?

Josh Cadillac [00:42:06]:
Mhmm.

Eric Brotman [00:42:07]:
They’re gonna wind up at all the right black ties. They’re gonna have 50 yard line seats. They’re gonna meet all the right people, but they’re gonna do it because they’re doing good for the world. And they’re gonna learn not only the value of money, but they’re gonna meet other like minded people doing great things, and they’re gonna create opportunities for themselves. And you have given them an incredible tool to wield for good instead of turning them into Billy Madison. You know, we talk start talking about I I I look at I love that movie because I I just imagine having so much money that you don’t give a darn and you lay by the pool and drink all day. And while that’s a lovely way to spend a few days of a vacation, it’s no way to live. So so I I think there’s ways to empower our kids, and our grandkids and our great grandkids and to build multigenerational wealth.

Eric Brotman [00:42:52]:
Some of some of that is trust and legal planning. Some of it’s tools and and and and, and techniques, but most of it’s communication. Most of it is explaining to your kid. Because let’s face it. If we lived on 95 years old, our kids are inheriting this property at 65. They’re not children anymore. Absolutely. So it what it should be is it should be a blessing that creates, not only abundance and amplitude, but the ability to do some great things at that third stage of your life as the.

Josh Cadillac [00:43:25]:
Yeah. Right.

Eric Brotman [00:43:26]:
So so if we’re not talking about leaving a ton of money to a kid who’s 19, which I don’t know if anybody thinks that’s a good idea, but even leaving a ton of money to somebody 55, if they’re sitting around thinking I only have to work until mom dies, that’s that’s horrendous.

Josh Cadillac [00:43:40]:
That that’s poison.

Eric Brotman [00:43:41]:
And and it is it’s poison. So there’s gotta be a better way to say, yes. There might be something that that’s, that’s gonna that’s gonna fill our coffers further at that point in time. But let’s make sure we understood what mom’s vision was and what was important to her and that we honor that and that we create legacy around that to do good for people. And, yeah, I I think left to their own devices, people who have that mindset will do incredibly great things, and people who don’t will blow every penny and then some.

Josh Cadillac [00:44:12]:
Absolutely. Let let’s do right by the person that that that did the work to earn this is is a very, very important idea. And but only that only works if you respect what goes into the earning of the money. If if you’ve been told and this is this is the big problem that I have with academia right now. They downplay what goes into the cost, the human cost in your own soul of what you have to give up and do in order to earn that money. By downplaying it, the the folks they educate just do not respect how much has gone in to that process. And, therefore, when it comes to honoring somebody’s wishes who made that money, they’re like you know, it it they they don’t feel like that person is entitled, to that respect. And I’m I’m not saying that’s anything new, but it it seems to have become a more prevalent idea to kind of downplay what goes into the making of money and what comes into downplay them the work that has gone into building something.

Josh Cadillac [00:45:08]:
But I don’t wanna I we’ve I feel like we could keep talking for quite a while, Eric. And I don’t I wanna be respectful of your time. So I wanted to ask you this question. What are your what do you see as the opportunity in the market today? What’s got you excited?

Eric Brotman [00:45:20]:
What’s got me excited? What’s got me excited, is is the longevity of markets and the understanding that owning things, whether it’s real estate, whether it’s equities, whether it’s private equity or public, owning things owning things works long term. Loaning things, saving, and squirreling away doesn’t work in the same way. So you need to be an active investor. You need to be involved in in this process. You have to do it by yourself. You can hire good people to do it, but you should absolutely understand what they’re doing. I think for me, I look at the opportunity that’s coming as the largest in a in a generation, not only because of the wealth transfer that’s getting talked about all day long, but but also the fact that so few people are so few families are served by really good financial advisers. There’s a ridiculous shortage of financial advisers in the US and a and an even bigger one, a good financial advisers.

Eric Brotman [00:46:13]:
So what I see, I see the the ability to make a difference by being, by being that that copilot and by helping with everything related to finance, whether it’s refinancing a note or buying that vacation home or figuring out this job offer or these benefit packages or whatever it is, it goes well beyond asset management. So the market itself right now doesn’t thrill me. I’m not super excited about any of it. And the reason I’m not super excited about any of it is because I think the knuckleheads in Washington and every other every other bureaucracy are gonna find a way to screw various things up. Left to its own devices, capitalism works great. When it’s when it’s bastardized, it doesn’t. So I worry about that. I’m not losing sleep, and I’m not Yeah.

Eric Brotman [00:46:55]:
Not investing. I think time’s on our side. I do think having interest rates back at a normal level is a healthy thing. We haven’t seen it in a long time. There’s a whole generation who didn’t understand that that could happen, so now they know. I don’t wanna see rampant, you know, Jimmy Carter inflation by any stretch, but I think having interest rates at a normal space where cash is an asset class again is good. I think it’s good for older people. It’s good for people not only on fixed income, but for those who are living on their portfolio, it’s not a bad thing.

Eric Brotman [00:47:24]:
You know, where there’s opportunity, I think private equity is still the way to go. I think public the public domain, whether it’s because of Dodd Frank or Sarbanes, Oxley, or other the other the all the other giant legislation that makes public equities have to have to govern to the quarterly report.

Josh Cadillac [00:47:41]:
Mhmm.

Eric Brotman [00:47:42]:
It it is it is not, I think, the best way to go. I think the best way to go is ultimately private. And I think we’re seeing more companies, privatize. We’re seeing the the the public markets in this country have fewer names. There are fewer public companies in the US than there were a few years ago. And that’s not because of failures. That’s because of private deals. So I think in order to understand where the where the the economy and where the markets are going, it’s getting more private and less public because the onus on public companies is absolutely unsustainable.

Eric Brotman [00:48:14]:
The nonsense you have to go through to be public, it’s you’re not seeing as many IPOs. You’re not seeing as many companies say, hey. We’re going to the markets. We’re going to Wall Street. Most of them are saying just the opposite. How do we get out of this?

Josh Cadillac [00:48:26]:
How do we get out of this?

Eric Brotman [00:48:27]:
How do we get off of this treadmill so that we can now utilize capital to grow instead of utilizing it to to to to create this report and that report and this report and and this filing and that filing and this it’s very punitive.

Josh Cadillac [00:48:41]:
What what you’re saying is and and and and correct me if I’m wrong, is that some bureaucrat in Washington is not the best judge of the way that companies should allocate their capital in order to meet their bureaucratic requirements for for filings. Is that

Eric Brotman [00:48:56]:
Well, that’s part of it. Yeah. I mean, all I I believe that the way to look at this is that there is there is no how do I how do I phrase this without getting us both thrown off the air? I I I don’t know how to say this, Josh. So I’m just gonna come out and do it, and and we’ll see what happens. I I I think the biggest threat to all of us, be it in the private sector, as entrepreneurs, as business people, as employees, as citizens, the biggest threat to all of us is government. It’s a giant black hole. It’s getting bigger, and it’s like a vacuum that’s sucking itself up. And that’s not to say there aren’t good people working for I’m not I’m not I’m not trying to to pick on individuals, particularly.

Eric Brotman [00:49:38]:
We’re close enough to Washington to to smell it. Yep. And I’m not gonna tell you what it smells like in, you know I was gonna say Yeah. Yeah. You know what it smells smells like one of one of the fields in in in, in the Midwest during planting season, but we’re close enough to DC to smell it. I’m 40 miles away. Forty miles which can take 3 hours to drive, by the way.

Josh Cadillac [00:49:56]:
But Yep.

Eric Brotman [00:49:57]:
It the the solutions are never government. If if you wanna know how government runs a business, look at the post office. You talk about the greatest monopoly ever created, and they screwed up. Money. They lose money. They lose money, and the reason they lose money is because of politics. The post office could be profitable if there were fewer people, fewer trucks, if they delivered Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and weren’t open on Saturday. All of that could work.

Eric Brotman [00:50:23]:
Mhmm. But the the unions and the politics and the you can’t, so they’re gonna keep losing money. Look at the railways. Amtrak doesn’t make money. Amtrak is subsidized. And I love traveling by train. I think it’s the best way to get around. It’s comfortable.

Eric Brotman [00:50:38]:
It’s it it it’s great. Yeah. But they lose money, and the reason they lose money is because the government’s involved. And as soon as they’re involved, it won’t be run well. I I I have often said the government couldn’t run a bake sale. And I’ve seen 4th graders run a really good bake sale. Yeah. The government couldn’t do it because by the time they approve the ingredients, it’d all be stale and nobody would want it.

Eric Brotman [00:51:01]:
Well, I mean, this

Josh Cadillac [00:51:02]:
is this proves the the point that if you’re a 4th grader, you’re overqualified to be in government.

Eric Brotman [00:51:09]:
Well, from a morality standpoint, there’s no question. You you you’re still you’re still pure enough to to have good ideas.

Josh Cadillac [00:51:17]:
I mean, as a person that loves history, I mean, I’ve read a lot of, of Jefferson. I’ve read a lot. I mean, obviously, Thomas Jefferson would be rolling over in his grave big time seeing the the the size and scope of government when he didn’t wanna take and even fund the navy. Right? But even the big government guy in Alexander Hamilton

Eric Brotman [00:51:34]:
Mhmm.

Josh Cadillac [00:51:35]:
Didn’t wanna take and approve a grave for a soldier. The that that the government should cover his funeral costs because he thought it was outside the purview. I don’t think there’s one founder of this country who were all terrified of government because they had been on the wrong side of the kind of power that government brings to bear. Not one of them would sign on for what we see because they would be terrified what would happen when that power gets turned against them. And, guys, I mean, it just it it it always amazes me how many people wanna empower government. I’m like, well, what if the other guy you hate gets in? Because you don’t like the the other guy you think is the second coming of Satan. Right? Regardless of which side you’re on. I mean, if you listen a little bit, the the other guy is the worst thing in the world.

Josh Cadillac [00:52:19]:
Whether the the current guy or the other guy, it doesn’t matter. Right. What if you give them the power, and then the other guy gets in and starts using that against you? You know, it’s this this idea that somehow they’re gonna fix it. I I have a chart that shows Richard Nixon fixing the inflation from the gold speculators who were taking and selling off the the paper dollars because they realized there was more paper money than there was gold to back it up. So they realized they were exchanging it for gold. So, mister Nixon, to stop the inflation, wisdom here took us off the gold standard. Yep. And then see the inflation that took off after that happened because that was the instigating event that led to all the inflation.

Josh Cadillac [00:53:05]:
Fixing the inflation caused the inflation. I mean, it’s Yeah. Wow. It’s insane

Eric Brotman [00:53:10]:
That’s right.

Josh Cadillac [00:53:11]:
Look at this stuff. But, again, we could easily go in touch. I I wanna ask you one more serious question and a couple lightning questions if you don’t mind.

Eric Brotman [00:53:17]:
Sure. No. I don’t mind at all.

Josh Cadillac [00:53:19]:
What’s the most important thing you’ve learned in the process of doing what you’ve done, Eric?

Eric Brotman [00:53:25]:
In which way? As an entrepreneur or as a financial adviser? What which how way you lean.

Josh Cadillac [00:53:30]:
Take the question wherever you want. I mean, it’s it’s your retrospective on what you’ve done. What would you say is the most important thing that you could take from looking back?

Eric Brotman [00:53:39]:
Well, we we talked earlier about the the idea that it was to hire the right people and get out of their way. I still believe that’s the best thing that we’ve done as a as a company. From a financial standpoint, what I would say is the best thing that we’ve taught people to do and that we’ve done is to avoid unnecessary debt. That’s a killer. You can’t build a mountain if you’re starting in a hole. And, and and consumer debt you know, the first book I ever wrote years ago was called debt free for life, and it was this idea that debt was was a a noose. It was a, an albatross. And and I understand that there’s good debt and bad debt.

Eric Brotman [00:54:15]:
There’s leverage for a business or for a or for real estate or for other things that are growing. You know, debt on a real estate property that’s making you money is different than debt on real estate you’re living in. If you’re living in it, it’s not making money. It’s costing you money. So I I I think that avoiding that debt and helping people see that it wasn’t important to have that next thing and that it was much more important to live on 75 or 80 or 85% of what you make, and then what you spend it on is up to you. Yeah. You know, I I I don’t believe in budgeting as a household. I know that sounds crazy, but I I consider budget the b word because nobody sticks to it.

Eric Brotman [00:54:52]:
You you’re not gonna stick to it. If you if you figure out how much you need to put away for the long term, for your own financial independence, whether that’s 10% or 20 or 30 of what you make, whatever it is, you figure that out, and the rest of it’s spending any way you want. Yeah. If you wanna go to Ruth’s Chris every 3 months or you wanna go to Applebee’s every Tuesday, I don’t care. I just wanna make sure that what you’re not doing is you’re not spending every nickel and then expanding every time you get a raise, expanding your lifestyle so that you never get off that treadmill. It gets steeper and faster and faster and steeper, and you get nowhere.

Josh Cadillac [00:55:27]:
And you’re getting older every single day as that happens. So it’s it’s brutal. But lightning round.

Eric Brotman [00:55:32]:
I’m ready. I’m ready. Alright. Bring it up.

Josh Cadillac [00:55:34]:
What are you most proud of in business you’ve accomplished?

Eric Brotman [00:55:38]:
Financial independence, frankly. The fact that I could quit tomorrow and and never work again is the great achievement from as far as I’m concerned.

Josh Cadillac [00:55:47]:
Same question. What are you most proud of in life?

Eric Brotman [00:55:50]:
Having the greatest daughter on the planet, being a dad, you know, ultimately, raising a kid who is just a phenomenal human being, a good person, a good friend, and just so many people struggle with kids in so many different ways, and we’re very, very blessed. And some of it might be might be parenting and some of it might be luck. Yeah. But at the end of the day settlement. Yeah. Well, what what am I most proud of in life, it’s that that that little girl who’s not a little girl anymore, but that’s what I’m most proud of for sure.

Josh Cadillac [00:56:27]:
There you go, brother. And you know what’s one of the great things, Eric? One day, she may hear this and hear her dad saying just that, man. And I’m sure you were just screaming that from the mountain tops, brother. So that’s awesome.

Eric Brotman [00:56:37]:
All day. All day, every day. Nothing’s more important. Nothing.

Josh Cadillac [00:56:40]:
Alright. What one piece of advice would you give our listeners?

Eric Brotman [00:56:44]:
Start immediately. If you’re looking to build wealth, start immediately. Start with inventory. Figure out where you are and be honest with yourself and be honest with your spouse. If you lie to yourself or you lie to each other, you’re you’re you’re not gonna get there. You have to be transparent. You have to be financially naked. It’s awkward.

Eric Brotman [00:57:02]:
It’s uncomfortable. There might be baggage around it, but start immediately. You know, it’s never too late to start, but it’s always better today than than it would have been if you’d waited till tomorrow.

Josh Cadillac [00:57:12]:
Love it, man. What one book would you recommend?

Eric Brotman [00:57:16]:
Other than Atlas Shrugged, which is the greatest book ever written, I mean, I I yeah.

Josh Cadillac [00:57:22]:
That’s what

Eric Brotman [00:57:22]:
I would argue. So so I’m gonna give you 3. Atlas Shrugged, which everyone should read. They should force it to be read in colleges and and schools and other things. The second is, from strength to strength, which I mentioned. And the third is a a selfless plug to read my book, Don’t Retire Graduate. I I’ve read it. I’ve read it.

Eric Brotman [00:57:40]:
It’s pretty good. So you you ought to, yeah, you ought to go

Josh Cadillac [00:57:43]:
for that. I I’m in the same boat. They made me do the audiobook recording for my last book, Post for Life.

Eric Brotman [00:57:49]:
Oh my god. And I’m like, no.

Josh Cadillac [00:57:50]:
I’ve read it.

Eric Brotman [00:57:52]:
Well, I I did the audiobook for a former book. I’m not doing it again. That’s hard, especially if there’s charts and numbers and stuff. Like, it’s just my god.

Josh Cadillac [00:58:00]:
I don’t want like, I’m so glad I didn’t include any because I didn’t have that problem.

Eric Brotman [00:58:03]:
Well and I was asked I was asked about the audiobook. I said, well, James Earl Jones and Morgan Freeman are not available for this. What why why am I reading?

Josh Cadillac [00:58:10]:
What’s me? They made me audition. I did the audition. I’m like, there’s no way they’re gonna go for me. Right? And they’re like, no. We want you. I’m like, crap. Like, I I can’t remember the last time I read a book out loud. Like, who

Eric Brotman [00:58:26]:
who would be so good? Well, it was doctor Seuss, but

Josh Cadillac [00:58:28]:
you did Like, a few years ago. I’m like, this is gonna be a train wreck, but, you know, that’s what editing is for, I suppose.

Eric Brotman [00:58:36]:
Well, yeah. Yeah.

Josh Cadillac [00:58:37]:
Favorite movie?

Eric Brotman [00:58:39]:
Favorite movie? One movie?

Josh Cadillac [00:58:43]:
Favorite movie of all time.

Eric Brotman [00:58:47]:
Man, you know, you you finally stumped me.

Josh Cadillac [00:58:51]:
And and you know everybody’s gonna judge it based upon this.

Eric Brotman [00:58:53]:
They are. I’m gonna get you I feel the judging right now. I feel what happening. Going on. If if I had to choose one movie

Josh Cadillac [00:59:01]:
I I

Eric Brotman [00:59:01]:
I’m I’m gonna pick something out of left field. My favorite movie is Elizabethtown. Believe it or believe it or not. And and it the the reason why is because it does such an incredible job of developing characters. It’s sweet. It’s sad. It’s funny. It’s, scary at times.

Eric Brotman [00:59:20]:
And while I love, like, horror flicks and I love, you know, your big Bravehearts and Gladiators and I love all different kinds of movies, if I had to just watch one movie, it’d be Elizabethtown. I know that’s a bizarre answer you’ve never heard before, but it’s

Josh Cadillac [00:59:32]:
it’s okay, man.

Eric Brotman [00:59:33]:
But there it is.

Josh Cadillac [00:59:34]:
I’m sure our listeners are digging it. They’re all looking it up right now and getting ready to put it on their eye.

Eric Brotman [00:59:38]:
They’re like, what the hell is that? Yeah. No. The thing

Josh Cadillac [00:59:40]:
is Ayn Rand at Elizabethtown did not see that coming.

Eric Brotman [00:59:44]:
Listen. I’m a well rounded English major. There you go. That’s what you gotta know.

Josh Cadillac [00:59:49]:
There you go. What famous person who would in history would you wanna meet if you could?

Eric Brotman [00:59:53]:
Famous person would I wanna meet if I could in history? Wow. What famous person in history would I wanna meet? That’s an awesome question. You know, probably Ben Franklin. If for no other reason than he founded my university, which has also become over the years, and I’d love to know what he thought about it. Yeah. I don’t think I don’t think he was a particularly good guy. You know, at least he’s not portrayed that way anymore. But, but I I’m I’d I’d be interested in meeting him not only because of some of his various accomplishments, but specifically because of my alma mater.

Josh Cadillac [01:00:34]:
You know, I I think he I think he wasn’t as great a guy, but I don’t think he was a bad guy either. I mean, he did a lot of things. And, you know, he definitely was had a very curious and brilliant mind. So, very interesting guy. Very interest I’ve never had anybody pick Ben Franklin before. Alright. This one’s much more personal.

Eric Brotman [01:00:52]:
Okay.

Josh Cadillac [01:00:52]:
What person from your past would you wanna sit down with and have lunch with today if you could?

Eric Brotman [01:00:57]:
Oh, my grandfather. All day every day. My father’s father was one of the brightest, people I ever knew. He was a guy I played a lot of chess with. He was a guy who who just had the right moral compass, and he he died January 1st 94, literally a few days after I finished college. And we had a great relationship, but, man, I can still hear his voice and the wisdom that he had, I would all day long choose him.

Josh Cadillac [01:01:28]:
Love it. What one piece of advice would you go back and give a younger version of you?

Eric Brotman [01:01:34]:
Don’t worry about the small stuff. Oh, god. I stressed about the dumbest crap. You know, whether it was school or whether it was girls or whether it was, you know, an apartment or whether all the stuff that you sort of go through those rights of passages, so many of them are such a non big deal. You know, that that science test in 7th grade was not gonna change my life, and I might have lost sleep over it. It makes no sense.

Josh Cadillac [01:01:58]:
Wasn’t a deal was it a deal breaker?

Eric Brotman [01:02:00]:
It really wasn’t. And I and I I you know, I’m sure I didn’t do that well anyway. But but, nonetheless, I I think we we I created stress for myself about stuff that didn’t matter. And and if I could look back if I could go back now and do that differently, I don’t know that I would make a huge life changes differently. I would just react to them differently. I’d be able to handle them better.

Josh Cadillac [01:02:21]:
Alright. Love it. Last of the lightning round questions.

Eric Brotman [01:02:26]:
Alright.

Josh Cadillac [01:02:26]:
Now we got 2 left, really.

Eric Brotman [01:02:27]:
2 left.

Josh Cadillac [01:02:29]:
What who would you wanna be stuck in a foxhole with taking fire? Oh,

Eric Brotman [01:02:36]:
I wanna be stuck in a foxhole with taking probably probably my daughter. Okay. Because I I I don’t know anyone who would be smarter at figuring something out than she would, And I don’t know anyone. I would rather if I had to go down, there’s no one I’d rather go down with. And if I had to to fight something off, there’s no one I’d rather have by my side.

Josh Cadillac [01:02:57]:
Love it, man. Love it. Last simple question. What do you do to unwind, Eric?

Eric Brotman [01:03:04]:
Well, I’m a hockey fan. I’m a very, very big hockey fan. And so I go to games all over, and I love that. I’m also a gamer. I’m a 52 year old man who still loves his Xbox. This is true. I’m not ashamed of that. It’s good fun.

Eric Brotman [01:03:18]:
And my favorite happy place is the beach. So I have a place at the shore, and I can I can sit out on the beach for hours and be a perfectly happy human? So can’t do that every day because I don’t live there yet. But for right now for right now, I I unwind with, with with sports and maybe a good glass of wine.

Josh Cadillac [01:03:35]:
And when you’re done with Maryland, brother, we got a little bit of shore down here in Florida. I a thing.

Eric Brotman [01:03:39]:
I’m already I’m already aware.

Josh Cadillac [01:03:41]:
I’m Alright. You you you should be sneaking a peek. Sneaking a peek. Alright?

Eric Brotman [01:03:44]:
Looking. You you know anybody in the real estate business? Can help me out?

Josh Cadillac [01:03:47]:
I know a guy. I got a guy.

Eric Brotman [01:03:49]:
That’s good. I I could use some help.

Josh Cadillac [01:03:51]:
There you go. So what’s what’s next for you, Eric? What’s the next thing? I know you got you’re a busy guy. You got a book out. What’s what’s next?

Eric Brotman [01:03:58]:
Next is is my transition, my career transition. We’ve identified the next CEO of of our firm, and it’s gonna be a multiyear transition, but I’m gonna move into a growth officer role where my job is gonna be to grow the organization, to create strategic alliances, to to onboard, other advisers, and to create opportunities like that. So, I’m gonna be moving away from being in the business and working almost exclusively on the business. It’s gonna be a fun challenge. It’s gonna be an ego check. You You know, not having CEO on the business card is gonna take a little getting used to. And, but, ultimately, that’s what’s coming, and and it’s all aligned. I mean, my my world right now is lined up for 2028 to be empty nested, finished with tuition because of the college savings that’s already been done, Empty nested, finished with tuition, probably finished with Maryland, and definitely finished with the CEO suite.

Eric Brotman [01:04:51]:
And, it’s all coming together and debt free. Debt free. That’s the that’s the key to financial independence. I’m sure of it.

Josh Cadillac [01:04:58]:
Love it, man. So, Eric, where can people find you? Where can they find your book? Where can they get more of all the great stuff we’ve enjoyed here today?

Eric Brotman [01:05:06]:
The the book can be found at Amazon or any place where you buy books. Be very cautious though because there’s another Eric d Brotman who writes books. It’s true. He writes books on how to toilet train cats. That’s not me. I’m the financial guy, not the cat toilet trainer. But Amazon has the book on sale. You can also go to brotmanmedia.com to see podcasts and interviews and and some white papers, and and all of the content, much of which most of which is free.

Eric Brotman [01:05:32]:
And if you’d like to check our our company out, we’re at b f financial advisors, and we’d love to talk to you.

Josh Cadillac [01:05:40]:
Love it, Eric. And this is the part where I always remind our guests. They can find all of our stuff on closed for life.com. The books, the brand new mastermind is there, as well as Ace University where you can find all of our classes. Eric, thank you so much for coming on. And, honestly, one of the longer podcasts, but definitely one that I’ve enjoyed more than just about anyone that I’ve done, and I’m, 80, 90 podcast into this thing. So, Eric, thank you so much for your time.

Eric Brotman [01:06:04]:
It’s been a ton of fun. I hope I hope folks enjoyed it as much as as we did doing it.

Josh Cadillac [01:06:08]:
And to all of our listeners, thank you guys for coming and hanging out with us, reminding you as I love to do, as I want to do, as I need to do, that there is never a good excuse not to know your shit. Till next time, guys.