Improve Your Relationships AND Your Portfolio this Valentine's Day (SB1477)

all right Sher the courtship is over oh the Adoration oh the you are  my peanut I am your [Music] Britt live from Joe's mom's  basement it's the stacking Benjamin show [Applause] [Music] I'm Joe's mom's  neighbor Doug and today to celebrate the big pink Valentine's Day bat Joe's mom has on this  podcast we're chatting friendship love and money with the founder of the economy conference and  host of the optimal daily Finance podcast Diania Merriam in our headline what do you hire advisers  to do

would you prefer they were Market Wizards or that they created a nice boring collection of  funds we'll find out what advisers are actually doing plus we'll hear why stacker David thought  he'd Better Call Saul Sehy and OG and then I'll share some celebratory trivia and now three guys  who spent all morning fighting over which one gets to claim me as their Valentine it's Joe OG and  comedian and host of the crazy money podcast Paul Ollinger made that up right there on the spot kind  of kicked as

s didn't it it's pretty good if you don't don't say so yourself hey everybody happy  Wednesday sit back relax you found us we're so happy you're here we're about to have an hour of  financial fun with uh well well we got our special guest here but the guy across the card table who  we refer to a special quite often Mr OG I'm very special thank you for noticing Absolut 15 years  it's about time and down at the end of the table a guy that we waited for Valentine's Day to have  on because we love h

im so much Mr Paul Ollinger joins us dude it's good to be with you I love you  too Joe Doug is that your Stanley Cup is that did you get one of those Stanley it's the small one  I got the 68 oun it's just the small one yeah I don't like this controversy it's a brook trout  as Dennis Miller would say that that drink has an under toe that's right the moon affects its  Tides it's so big whenever anybody says Stanley Cup I think of these you know fashionable women  carrying around an NHL trophy is i

t just me I I believe Stanley Cup was a hockey trophy before it  was a a vessel in which to uh carry your cucha is that the next Trend where everybody's carrying  around in NHL trophy Kucha could be could be I have two cans of Kombucha in my refrigerator  and I haven't yet Dr R them I they've been there for maybe four months I have no idea going to  change your life cans of Kombucha sounds dirty everybody's wondering is this a finance podcast  what the hell are we doing Paul tell everybody about

the crazy money podcast my friend Joe is a  two-timer on the crazy money podcast so he should know uh he's a recidivist guest on crazy money  five years 200 episodes nothing compared to what you guys have done but I explore the connection  between money and happiness through the lens of my guest's Journeys professional Financial Etc and  uh in addition to Joe I've had smaller people on like LL Cool J uh Jud appat uh Mobi and winners  of the Nobel Prize Heisman Trophy and Olympic gold medals it'

s been a lot of fun nearly as  good as me it's Joe everybody else if you're not watching this my hand is is very high for Joe  and everybody else is down here Joe why aren't we getting his sloppy seconds would take any one  of those people that he just casually waved his hand off as he's talking about Nobel Lori well  when you have a podcast as big as mine Joe Joe charitably described it as the best podcast nobody  listens to so thanks did I say having friends like Joe appreciate that buddy shot

s fired oh it is  good it's fantastic you know growing these days without a big platform like you guys have big time  you know I knew you before you went corporate by the way you guys are all sellouts I'm just  wait just I just will you tell me where to sell out can you just got I need to sign to give  my soul away to get a big audience because if I get a big audience then I'll be happy he's like  how do I get some overlords too if I could have some Westwood One overlords that would be great  an

d by the way you've no idea how happy we are with our overlords we just skip to work every  day Paul this is what makes you happy I'm glad I'm glad I'm glad to hear yes we got a great  show today Diania Merriamand I talking about relationships and money and uh Diania after dating  for uh five or six years getting married this year and and she waited a long long time and uh had  a lot of did you did you I think you just called her old I did not I just said she waited a long  time but she started

thinking about it when she was six so am I working my way out of it probably  not it's getting creepier just keep moving we'll get HR in here while you guys listen to this in  Indiana that's totally legal great F fantasttic Lisa Curry our writer is from Indiana and I think  Doug I think she'd agree yeah I mean Slams on Indiana all the time because she feels like she's  allowed to I don't know if they're going to take it so well from you Paul I've been there once no  Twice anyway no I don't claim

Indiana as my home are you really have to be from Indiana to slam  on Indiana is that really it's not like it's a religion or a race you know it's a geography  everybody else takes aim at Ohio is Indiana the new Ohio I don't know I was just I just was  thinking Midwestern states I'm from Georgia and I just I people trashed the South all the time so I  thought I'd you know i' I'd redirect it toward the Midwest well let's do some good rips on Georgia  while you guys listen to this you guys have a

ds man that's incredible is it possible you wait you  guys have Revenue there's what what what I didn't know that was a thing podcast Revenue I've got  a negative monetization strategy and I'm scaling it it make it up on volume that's exactly right  that's exactly right my wife is like don't even look at my shopping bags I know what you spend  on your podcast it's important though it's who I am it's an expression of myself it was funny  Dr Drew was at podfest this year talking to all of the podc

asters out there two time crazy he  said has he really been really Dr Dre yeah are you Kidd he was my second he was my second stop  stop just please stop all flexes nobody listen we've had this for like four minutes and You'  flexing nonstop guess who I've had Joe I'll take Paul out to dinner I'll be the little spoon  you you don't get 10,000 downloads a month with just just any guest Joe saly High we we actually  got a show to do but but anyway Dr Drew told all these podcasters he's like you kn

ow I'll tell you  this about podcasting keep your real job he goes and I know half of you saying this is my real  job and he's like is it really I had to have a talk with my accountant a couple months ago he  goes do you know about the hobby tax do do you know what the I was like h no it's not a hobby  this is my identity Paul needs a sponsor to pay $4 so that it's not a hobby this year he goes you  you actually had some Revenue associated with uh some income associated with comedy this year  bu

t very little associated with podcasting I like I spoke at two events I spoke at two events  oh that's difficult anyway Paul Ollinger's here if you guys couldn't tell and Di mariam's coming  up so let's get to our headline hello Darlings and now it's time for your favorite part of  the show our stacking Benjamin's headlines our headline today comes to us from investment news  and here is something interesting OG written by Greg Greenberg New Study shows advisers choosing  separately managed acco

unts over model portfolios listen to we're gonna get a little nerdy on our  audience today models are growing less super lately as at least when it comes to advisor  investment portfolios Greg writes according to data release last Tuesday from analytics  and advisory firm escalent Financial Services fewer financial advisors expect to increase  Al ations and model investment portfolios over the next few years instead opting for separately  managed accounts the report attributes the shift to advis

or seeking increased customization their  desire to align investment strategies with client expectations let's dive into what the heck this  means OG because this I don't know if this is a trend or what so we've got this perfectly fine  maybe a little boring look at it once or twice a year ETF model or we can hand over our money  to a separate money manager who's going to buy and sell individual stocks for us and advisers  are like yeah I'll take a hot money manager for a thousand I think that s

ome of this is a is  a rise from the direct indexing Motif that's going on where people are saying well I don't  need to buy an S&P 500 fund I can go create one of my own and with fractional shares being able  to be purchased at most every brokerage company now for some reason people think this is a much  more efficient way and in some cases it can be I mean with big dollar amounts where you can tax  loss Harvest out of one particular position or something like that but for the average person  t

his is ridiculous waste of time and energy and cost frankly because you know all of that costs  money they have offices they need to uh you know pay rent on and staff to employ and whatnot so  I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze the juice of smas yeah yeah in certain circumstances  it can make a lot of sense for example let's say that you have a a uh large appreciated position  and you need to build around it and the way to do that sometimes is to hire a manager to say  okay here's this

you know position that I have maybe I worked at a company and I got a lot of  options and you know all these different cost bases and stuff like that you can say here's that  money plus my other money and now help me kind of build a strategy around making sure that this  is not you know a large concentrated position and help me get out of it over over a period of  time you know help offset gains and losses but for the average investor just buying a S&P fund  versus direct indexing an S&P fund w

ho wants to have a a brokerage statement that has 600 pages  on it I mean that what kind of sense does that make you have one line item it says the same  thing I mean it's almost it's it's a different variation of I have three different S&P funds I  got one from Vanguard I got one from ey shares and I got one from Black Rock I'm Diversified  it's like no you're an idiot you have the same thing in three places it's like that's not divers  Diversified you have the same literally the exact same Hol

dings so just have one make your life  simple Paul for people that don't know your backstory your backstory super interesting we told  that story the first time you were on stacking Benjamin and we'll link to it in the show notes  but the very short story was was that uh uh you were with this little tiny company called Yahoo  I think yes at one point and maybe one that was like a like aake Facebook where you were with the  Facebook as well we call it meta now we call it meta sorry that's right y

eah your overlord your  former overlords the zook we call him might come down if we call it Facebook still Z yes yes yes  I my my overlords uh he was in front of Congress last week the zook just paid himself $700 million  on a dividend that's a that's not bad like I think we should issue dividends Good Start you can feed  cows in your in your Hawaii uh escape hatch uh a lot of beer with $700 million you get by the way  I want to commend you for this Valentine themed uh Valentine's Day themed uh

segment here that  we've got my wife and I this year are going to we're gonna open a bottle of Rosé and we're going  to read each other's sonnets from investment news that's how we're going to celebrate we're going to  talk about you know mutual funds versus separately managed accounts it's and then and then it's going  to get hot and heavy Joe Wow way to keep the fires burning that is it sounds like according to OG a  statement that size will keep the fire burning for hours you can you got a sh

red your statement yeah  so you had this existential like what's life all about because you had lots of money at a youngish  age I'm not calling you old but at a youngish age so I would have to imagine that you've had  you've used financial advisors before you know it's funny uh coincidentally I'm just gone through  changing advisors 18 years with a with my former adviser and uh we we shifted teams jump ship went  with other people and so we went through several pitches from new potential advise

rs and all of  them said you need smas because with smas you can do more aggressive tax loss harvesting and  you can do you can play the options game uh in a way you can't with mutual funds OG you're nodd in  your head well I mean there's some I mean yes you can't you can't do options with mutual funds which  you can with ETFs especially the biggest trading ones so that's able to be Doney I'm just telling  you what they told me I don't know anything I'm pretty unsophisticated when it comes to th

is  stuff well I mean part of this is let's try to make this as complicated as possible so that it  looks like it's too hard to handle on your own you know that's what I was wondering OG is how much  of this is advisers trying to be a wizard right and go hey look it we can beat it with all these  50,000 moving Parts versus having something very very concrete that frankly 90% of America could  do well on the other hand uh maybe some advisers want to keep their cost Low by keeping it very  simple

and not having to staff up to the point where they have to actively manage your your  accounts well and the fact remains that you can't get away from Simplicity is traditionally  better lower cost puts money in investors pockets and the facts around investing are nobody knows  how to outperform the market because if that one person existed then that person would manage all  the money for everyone and since you don't know what's going to happen in the future we know that  active trading isn't wor

th it generally speaking in terms of the cost to Value ratio it doesn't  mean it doesn't work it means that you can't prove it's going to work in advance and so you write a  big check for it you pay for it and then maybe it works but 70% of the time it doesn't so just for  the average investor unless you've got some Fringe stuff going on uh it just doesn't make any sense  to to make your life more complicated especially around something like this where you should spend  most of your time on is h

ow do I get out of debt and stop paying 20% interest on my credit cards or  you know how do I buy a rental property or how do I send my kids to college or pay less INX taxes  versus how do I sell 10 calls on Microsoft share so I can get you know 18 bucks this quarter of  of option income it's it's just I I I just don't see the I just don't see the value in it for for  an average you're telling me to get a job that's what I'm hearing no I'm saying the exact opposite  saying would it kill you woul

d it kill you to have a payche this would be a job having all that stuff  makes it turn into a job versus going and what's really funny is you can do like overlay analysis  on this stuff too and you can say like I've got all this diversification look how great it is and  then you do a an overlay versus the or against a Russell or whatever and it goes oh yeah you're  99% correlated to that anyway so you have all this complication the idea with diversification is  to have things that are not corre

lated so you have one thing that goes up and another thing that goes  down you have an opportunity to sell at a profit and reinvest those money those dollars at you  know at a at a lower value in another asset class that's undervalued presently that's the that's the  benefit of diversification is uncorrelated assets when you have this whole 30 pages of statement and  it looks like one big giant expensive mutual fund it's like why not just have one mutual fund it  would be a lot easier and your C

PA will like you better to there's the phrase that Mrs allinger  will love tonight just light a couple candles put on some Berry White and say overlay analysis  there you go nothing gets all nothing gets them all hot and bothered like overlay analysis what  did you think by the way when you were looking Paul at different advisors and wondering how  the different uh pitches were for to get the the allinger family to use their services well  you know they're all a little bit different big corporat

e banks have a very different feel  than independent advisors do you know one of the things as I'm as I'm talking to some of these  big corporate bank people you're looking at these guys and you're like okay how long are you going  to stay at this bank until you know another one of the big sexy firms comes along and offers to  buy you out for 10 or20 million doar and then I got to go do this all over again in three or  four years because what's happening and what I believe would happen with our

former advisers is  there's some private Equity behind coming after rolling up these Regional firms and they've got  to come in and and shove 30% price increases on their clients and they do so in in very inartful  ways and so there's always there's a lot of money in this space there's a lot of consolidation in  this space and so when I'm thinking about a big corporate guy I'm like all right how long till he  jump ship some other place and so as opposed to a smaller independent person who's tryi

ng to build  their own thing build equity in their own practice and you know that could certainly happen to them  but probably a little further down the line so you like that better yeah I mean I I don't feel like  I need to have Goldman Sachs be my adviser you know and I nothing against Goldman Sachs but you  know the bigger banks are generally less flexible on pricing they're geared towards people who have  lots and lots and lots of money and in the world of rich people I'm a pretty small fish

right I  mean the intra 1% SL SL is a very steep curve and I think at a lot of these places if you don't  have 50 or100 million do they don't really give a damn about you Paul your comedy would never get a  bigger laugh than if you called up Goldman Sachs and said would you be my adviser that's well  that's exactly right that's EXA and what do you want to pay 75 basis points uh that'd be the  huge laugh that'd be the big laugh that'd be the you know hello hello right yeah yeah tough room  it's

it's gone it is interesting to me to see how different firms position themselves and how many  of these firms are talking about comprehensive financial planning Paul versus just managing money  in smas versus you know in some mutual funds or in a very boring Index Fund way I mean I suppose  they're all tiered but their incentive is to help you make a lot of money to help you keep that  money and so they can continue to grow their book year after year right and so the conversation  is everything

from yeah diversification and performance neted taxes performance net of of fees  and Estate Planning and it's like okay there's all different levels of Estate Planning and as  things get you know more complicated with in a in a presidential election year and we don't know  what the exempt the state exemptions are going to be going forward what in two years there's a lot  of work to be done into and to stay on top of that's why I keep having Paul on so that maybe  we get in on that estate planni

ng of his like just remember how much we love you a day like  today well the question then becomes he's like what how much do you want to leave for your kids  or would you rather give to the state or to the government kid give it to stacking Benjamin that's  right the stacking Benjamin fund the foundation stacking Benjamin Foundation we just started  it as a matter of fact today yeah today right now it's odd that you brought that up 501c 501c  2 two and a half something two and a half right righ

t OG do smas W with all the things Paul's  talking about does it get better does it become more attractive you think is there's more zeros  in your net worth well I mean I think everything gets more attractive more zeros in your netw worth  doesn't it I'm not talking about from the advisor point of VI I think I get more attractive the more  zeros that are in my netw worth I don't I can't say the same about Doug but you know no I think  there's there's a benefit of Simplicity when it comes to the

complicated life around money it's  already complicated enough you Paul you talked about Estate Planning and charitable giving in  justest but maybe you do that anyways that's the time and energy you should be spending with your  planner and with your family and money not not on you know how many shares of Microsoft do I own  because you can't prove nor can anyone else if Microsoft's going to do better than Facebook  this quarter or this year and so who gives a crap just own both um it's just i

t's just easier  to do that and spend your energy on the things that are goingon to have the biggest impact  in your family and and and Beyond and that's on those other planning related topics like you  mentioned we will dive more into if you're just confused by this discussion what the heck is a  separately managed account we barely covered that what's the difference between that and the quote  boring allocations we talked about with exchange traded funds or mutual funds we dive into all  that

in our newsletter the 2011 head to stacky benjamin.com 2011 and we will dive in even more  but it's uh it's interesting to see most advisers going that way and I do feel like you do OG that  I think we look at it as competitive advantage you know that the the client doesn't know that uh  this magic behind the scenes maybe not as much going on as as we'd hope sorry Paul but that's  that's our that's our take is it that to some degree there's some smoke and mirrors maybe I hope  not but there's so

me smoke and mirrors happening it's The Wizard of Oz we'll see I mean the claim  is they can add 1% return to the performance every year and that does add up the higher your stack  is and so if you're looking at hey I'm living off this Corpus of money you know an extra one %  per year is a sizable increase to your income if that actually happens you know if they can do it  if they that be if they can do it it'll be great to Circle back and see over time that's gonna  be I'll be calling in for my

new smaller house because I had to sell this one because of all  the the options losses that I have come down and live in the basement with us that's exactly what  you'll be doing hey time to dive into the joke off we have this math joke off going on between  all of our all of our stackers who math jokes to us and Paul you get to help us you know you ever  watch Dancing with the Stars no and they have the no swing in a Miss I have other to do with my life  Joe that that I don't watch The Mask s

inger either I don't watch Real Housewives well you get to be  one of the celebrity judges on one of those shows you don't watch Paul is exactly what's Happening  Here good good good and we don't really get a vote everybody in our basement Facebook group gets  a vote if you want to join our Facebook group so you get to vote stacky benjamin.com gets  you directly there because it's a long URL we are in the second round Doug let's finish up the  first round because we've got some results from last

week's scintilating competition uh I think  one of the last pairings of jokes we had was the four seed versus the 13 seed o yeah pretty solid  matchup it could ripe for upset let's see what happened you may recall that the four seed was  this is a pretty hard time for me financially last month I was unable to pay the bills to  my Exorcist and as a consequence I have been repossessed fabulous against the number 13  seed from Patrick that was Susie by the way uh Patrick wrote us this one Math tea

chers don't  die they just reduced to the lowest terms Paul any predictions Paul on who you think won between  those two uh as a as as a person who was raised Catholic I got to go with the exorcism joke  exorcism joke was actually the winner 4 beat 13 so Susie moves on in this one so congratulations  Susie right uh we'll be writing you and you're getting a couple books from recent guests that  were on the show oh what books what books well she gets to choose I got so many of them here Paul  Jare

d dillian no worries because of all the great guests we have the should I should I start flexing  on all the guests we have Paul you should you should this was Susie Orman though who submitted  this joke so she might already have the books I'm sure it was Susie AR the Su yeah uh down in the  bottom half to finish out the first round we got the seven versus 10 Doug yeah so that was uh I'm  going to start with the under seed this time the 10th seed was with the ark settled safely After  the flood

Noah opens the doors and commands the animals go forth and multiply and all the animals  Departed the ark except for two snakes in the back Noah proclaims again go forth and multiply yet  the snakes stay put perturbed Noah finally asks them why have you not followed my command and the  snakes flicker their tongues and answer we can't multiply Noah we're adders oh my God that was from  Kevin versus the number seven numberly that was a very long setup for very small payout I love that  we do these

uh setup jokes with comedians in the room just the look that you guys are missing on  Mr allinger's face is classic number seven number seven is slightly more efficient yeah what's  the difference Paul between taxes and Taxidermy I don't know Joe what is the difference between  taxes and Taxidermy one's cruel and inhumane the others dealing with dead animals Jeff so Kevin  versus Jeff who's our winner there Doug uh that would be Jeff I think that's wrong love you Jeff  it's great but I think th

e adders joke is so bad it's good so missing out in the second round you  ready Paul to weigh in now now now you get the flow of this thing yeah yeah no I like it I like  it I like the way you involve your your guests okay we go to the second round and uh we're just  doing one here so everybody ready to vote on this one we'll give you our idea uh it's the number  one seed versus the number nine the number one seed in the entire game is from Zack just lost  my job at the bank lady asked me to che

ck her balance so I pushed her over number one I I  I pushed her over wait Paul I pushed her over oh God still nothing oh God uh Doug what's the  number nine number nine is I saw my math teacher with a piece of grass nice way to way to sell  it Doug just crushed it wait what killing what just happened was I buffering Doug had a little  brain hemorrhage wrecked him damn near killed him all right take two okay take two take two  I saw saw my math teacher with a piece of graph paper yesterday I thi

nk he must be plotting  something that's from Jen yes Zach versus Jen is they get even better wait what was the first  one I've already forgotten uh lost my job at the bank oh checking balance yeah lady asked me to  check her balance I pushed her over I think the graph paper by a tiny margin tiny margin number  nine seed OG which one you going for yeah graph paper Doug wow uh I I like the physical comedy  so I like the pushed her over some Sten Benjamin swag on the line for the winner of this on

e we  will find out next week and we'll do the other uh round to uh this time next week I like how  he's advocating violence against women that's that's really Progressive Way To Go Guys way to  go is that what this show stands for is that what you're all about here at stacking Benjamins I  noticed there's no women on this call right now so for planting that seed no we save the woman  we have three dudes as the four Dudes as the sorry Doug almost forgot Doug otherwise known as  the patriarchy we

've got four four Dudes is the setup act for our main event Diania Merriamwho's  the creator of the uh Econome conference and the woman who's the voice of the optimal Finance daily  podcast is going to join us for a long discussion about uh well what she and I have learned over  time about money relationships and where we start there so whether you're some who is in a committed  relationship looking for a relationship just want a better relationship with your money Dian and I  cover all that but

as a way to get there Doug I think you've got some trivia while Diania comes  down darn right I do Joe hey there stackers I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug I love love italics  for emphasis love Valentine's Day every year I send dick piics to all the women I went on dates  with over the past years as well as some of the others I'd like to go on dates with oh would you  relax I send him pictures of Richard Nixon tricky dick get it tricky dick I'm so damn funny oh I  really want Joe's mom to have an

extra special Valentine's Day this year and I know she loves  weddings so I invited her over to watch movies that feature my favorite wedding scenes we're  going to watch The Wedding Singer and Wedding Crashers and and of course the Godfather which  gives you both a wedding and a bonus horse head scene she's going to love it yeah even cooking a  nice dinner for us I mean like you know most of it I'm asking her nicely to bring the main course  and lovely chicken cordon blue would be super and of

course the green beans cuz I mean I can't make  those and some good coal SLO oh yeah and a salad but hey look on my end I'm picking up a six-pack  you know how hard it is to choose a pairing with all of those different foods I just played it  safe and I got some Keystone Light after tonight I bet she'll whisk Valentine's Day was every week  today's trivia question question is oh there is one there is a trivia question we're getting there  we're getting there which country has a holiday on the 14

th of every month I'll be back right  after I get some flowers from the grocery [Music] store hey there stackers I'm canned food chef  and real life C Joe's mom's neighbor Doug you would not believe how crazy the grocery store is  right now every line was filled with guys buying flowers at the very last minute I don't know how  anyone can forget Valentine's Day it's always on the 14th starting to feel like I'm the only  real romantic left around here today's trivia question is which country has

a holiday on the  14th of every month the answer not only do they have a holiday on the 14th of each month but  in South Korea each each of those 12 holidays is love themed and now here to chat all about  relationships love and communication it's today's Mentor Diania [Music] Miriam and it's weird to not  have her do her own intro because you've heard her do the intro for the show Diania Merriam's here  happy Valentine's Day to you Happy Valentine's Day and you're not wearing I wore this shirt f

or  you Joe I thought you would show up in pink or red I should have I showed up in my beautiful  romantic bamp tourist shirt look I've got some lovely flowers behind me did you know that I do  I do flower arranging so this is not special for Valentine's Day every single week I arrange  beautiful bouquet for the house but it just so happens that it's Valentine's Day and we've  got some nice pink roses you do good work and and you just go buy them and put them around the  house yeah so I just go

to regular grocery store I usually buy a dozen roses and then I look for  an arrangement of other things that I feel like looks good with the roses and then I arrange them  and I usually do about three different bouquets one for the living room one for the kitchen one  for the bedroom that's fabulous yeah well number one buying yourself flowers we're going to talk  a little bit about today tangentially not that exactly but really kind of self-care because on  a day when there's a lot of relation

ships and non- relationships we start thinking about what  relationship should we be in what relationship should we maybe not be in you're somebody who  waited to get married and really has had lots of different relationships and and economy you  have speed dating at the conference you also a lot of people would call Economy itself like just  speed dating friends cuz in three days you make a bunch of new friends right yeah how important  to you you is relationships when it comes to somebody's Fi

nancial Independence Journey outside  of finances I think health and relationships are the most important things in life and when I  think about money money is a tool to allow you to build a life focused on what truly matters  money itself is not what truly matters health and relationships are what truly matter and so  when I think about spending money that's usually kind of my litness test is this an investment in  health or relationships great swipe the credit card you know I'm in the financia

l position where  I'm able to do that so yeah there is a connection but honestly money is the only thing in life  that you can completely mess up and it could be totally fine when it comes to your health and  your relationships you can actually do irreparable damage there you have to prioritize them over  money and when it comes to health you know we you started talking about self-care to me health  is about the relationship you have with yourself and you cannot love another person until you lov

e  yourself which sounds great as like an Instagram post right I read that in a book somewhere a long  time ago and intellectually I said yeah that makes sense but emotionally I didn't have a very good  relationship with myself you know we agreed to record this a month ago when I called you crying  because I had this realization you know I went and had this crazy experience and I realized how much  I actually hated myself and I healed that and all of a sudden I was able to see that all the love 

and connection I've ever wanted was already there I just didn't have the capacity to engage in it  wait a minute hold on hold hold on a second okay we got sorry we're getting real intense well no  but but with all the intensity I can just hear people screaming at their device right now going  hold wait you hated yourself and you healed that like you don't hate yourself and then heal that  overnight you don't wake up the next morning and go I'm Healed love myself good work right so I  did someth

ing called the Hoffman process which is basically a lifetime of therapy and healing  in one extremely intense week I wouldn't say I took shortcut I think that it is the hardest thing  I've ever done and all of the work that I've done for the last I don't know 17 years of therapy  kind of primed me to be able to be ready for that intense experience but don't you feel like  even with a week I'm I'm sorry just the concept of being healed I would think that just based  on the conversations we've had

you figured out where the wound is yeah I made a really good  head start I'm still doing the work right I'm still processing things I'm still reaching out  to people and having conversations like we had a month ago you know I keep feeling like I'm digging  deeper and deeper into this I'm still in what they call my like integration phase after the Hoffman  process the first 90 days are you're continuing the intensity I'm still in that phase right now  what is the shortcut the Hoffman method just

for people going okay wait a minute hold on what's the  Hoffman method what what does it mean I would say Hoffman is a masterclass in authenticity and if I  told you what specifically we did there you would say what is that going to do for me it's like  you're sitting there and you're doing meditations and visualizations and you're learning about  what you've read in self-help books your whole life I think what makes it different is that  you're doing it in a group so there were like 39 other c

lassmates that I had a teaching team  of five people that are incredibly skilled at what they do they've been doing this for 50 years  and they get 1,400 people a year through and no one ever does it again right there's no upsell to  the HFF process it's like they show you something wait hold on you don't buy the Tony Robbins book  which gets you to the DVDs which gets you to the event which gets you to the one-on-one sessions  no there is no upsell it's most people go for one week where you tur

n in your laptop and your cell  phone for a week so it's a complete digital detox it feels like you go to another planet for a week  you see something that you can't unsee and then you move on with your life and the work is just  the tools and practices that they give you are really basic it's like I write my appreciation and  gratitude every night I start every morning with a journaling practice to get in touch with myself  it's nothing like Earth shattering but I needed to have that intense ex

perience while I was there  to jump start my ability to like actually get get something out of those practices that I was doing  half-heartedly before it's funny and I hope it's not lost on all of our stackers hanging out with  us Diania that we started this conversation about relationships about self because that is an aha  that I had and I actually asked you if we could frame it around another book because you're like  you must have done the Hoffman method and I said yeah no I have not but I d

id read this book  called Bridge across forever and I said that framed a lot of a lot of my worldview and by  the way for those of you that haven't read it we're going to we're going to talk a little bit  through some of the concepts in Bridge across forever Hoffman method which that's why D I wanted  you to Define it just a little bit you don't need to have practiced Hoffman method no more than D  just said you don't need to have read the bridge across forever to understand what we're going to 

talk about when we talk about the book which we will a little bit will fill you in on exactly what  happens by the way I don't think it will also hurt your reading of it if you do decide to read read  it later I do want to give a couple caveats about Bridge across forever first caveat is is that this  is an older book so there's some dated stuff going on number two is if you look up the author Richard  Bach and you look up richer box relationships and this is a book about relationships relation

ship  with self relationship with money relationship mostly though finding your soulmate on a day  like Valentine's Day what a better day to talk about the idea of soulmate and this whole book is  framed in what is a soulmate what is it what is it not and what's funny is is that when you look at  Richard Bach he's kind of like the mechanic who's car sucks because Richard Bach's been married  four times the woman who he's talking about in this particular book lesli Parish they had kind  of a nast

y divorce after this so this dude is not a relationship expert but he is a great guy at  opening your brain to mindfulness really around some of these topics and what the hell are we  doing here and and why like before I go jump in somebody else's lap and and well actually  let me frame this a different way I'm going to frame it one more way most of our stackers  have heard this scene from a popular movie before I love you you complete me and I just had shut up just shut up you  had me at hello

you had me at hello best from Jer McGuire and of course she's  at a book club he walks in the book club and oh is all of the women in the room who are oooing  and eyeing and then you see her sister giving them a look because there's two ways to look  at this particular scene the first thing thing is people that haven't seen the movie or kind of  glossed over think that's a very romantic scene for people that kind of dive into the movie I  thought that was a very disturbing scene as did uh the ma

in character's sister sitting there going oh  God no oh oh God no I don't know let's dive into it though with all those caveats let's start here  there's a few Concepts in the book that I'd like to talk about uh you haven't finished it but so  far what do you think well I'm in the first 100 pages and I sent you two pages of notes because it  there so much there and I'm really really enjoying the book and I'm agreeing with like so much that  I'm like it aligns with my experience so much and I'm e

xcited to continue with this character  development because he starts out where I'm like o he gets it and then he like I'm in the part now  where it's like he loses himself he doesn't get it and I'm like he wait he doesn't get it and then  I'm like hoping that it comes back around because what he was saying in the beginning I'm like oh  yeah you know he's talking about how like he comes across a million dollars and he doesn't care and  he's got all this like Fame and people knocking on his door

and wanting him to be on TV and he's like  no I enjoy my life I don't need all this Fame and money and I was like all right he gets it and then  it like he loses that let's start with that let's talk about this idea of where money really sits  because I think Richard Buck does a really good job of this and especially on a day like Valentine  Day when people are spending money on Hallmark cards that cost $88.50 or more people are going  out to restaurant spending tons of money with people they're

trying to impress you know a lot of  that I think misses the mark the book starts off True Story by the way he's flying this bip plane  he's he's flying across the Midwest and he lands at a farmer's field and goes up to the farmer  and says hey if you let me advertise flights in the local town and I get to charge people for  flights I'll I'll take you up for free if you let me land here and the farmer always goes yeah  cool deal so he's up in the air and he's looking down and he says she's here

she doesn't know that  she's here and I don't know that she's here but I know she's she's got to be here his soulmate and  he lands the plane of course he looks at all these people waiting for a ride and she ain't there  right she is not there that in particular Diania Hit me hard and it hit me hard for what was to  come because it turns out that the more you read Richard Bo that it all does start with you you  know we heard that scene from Jerry Maguire you can't be completed there's no such f

reaking thing  and also I'm thinking about this scene that you're mentioning in the beginning of the book he's  kind of colliding with all these women and he's recognizing how beautiful they are and what good  qualities they have but she's not perfect so she's not for me it's not her because she's not perfect  and I was like reading this going like oh man like in some ways he gets it when he talks about money  and not wanting to be famous but in that way when he is not able to appreciate another

person it's  because he's so disconnected from himself it is so funny because we start off any relationship and  if you're listening and you're this is not even just romantic relationships I think we expect all  the relationships around us to complete us like I get into relationships I know Diania Diana's my  buddy because she can complete me in some way by being my friend even in that you see your friends  and you start to pick out imperfections right you go well Diana's kind of whatever let's

pick on  somebody else a brad Barrett let's go with the nicest guy in the in the universe Brad Barrett  from chfi you know he's kind of you know whatever like we start and I can't even think of anything  with Brad because he's so damn nice so he's the perfect person but you know what I mean we start  nitpicking because we want them to complete us and be exactly like us and I love this idea which  by the way you're not there yet Diana you'll get there in the book that them completing you is  lik

e the wrong freaking Mission and the fact that we're different is what's so damn fun about  life yes okay so I'll say a couple things I think other people are mirrors to your relationship with  yourself so when you're nitpicking at someone else it's because you don't have enough self-awareness  to see what they're showing you of where your discontent is with yourself and I will say that  you know me and Brad getting married on June 1st which is our 6th year anniversary it took me 5  and a half y

ears to recognize that he actually is my soulmate but I was so struggling with my  relationship with myself that I couldn't see it and he could not help me like he so desperately  wanted to help me through my long battle with depression I so desperately wanted him to help me  but he couldn't I had to do it for myself and once I was able to give that to myself s it's like  I see him completely differently now first of all I think it is a miracle that he stayed with  me for the last five and a hal

f years because I dragged that man through hell and I really did  he is the most loyal dedicated patient person I've ever met in my life and I had no capacity  to appreciate that because I was suffering so deeply like I'm going to get emotional thinking  about it but after I came to this realization and I'm telling him about all this stuff and I'm  just expressing so much appreciation for him and I asked him like how did you stay cuz if anyone  were to tell me about someone treating them the way

that I treated him I would tell them to get  the hell out you know and so I said how did you stay and he would never use the word soulmate he  would say I knew we were meant for each other and he was willing to wait for me like he was willing  to sit in the [ __ ] for for 5 and 1/2 years and wait for me to come around because he just knew  on some level and I think that concept gives me so much comfort because it makes me feel like  you can't mess it up what is meant for you you can't mess it u

p and what is not meant for you  there's nothing you can do to force it to be that gives me so much comfort because for all intents  and purposes I sabotaged this relationship and he stayed it feels like a miracle it really does  to me but how do cuz you know we've got stackers that are listening and and certainly we're not  psychologists we're not relationship experts we're just two people that have walked this journey but  what do you think the magic is there versus the person sitting there li

stening to this who's in  pretty shitty relationships somebody's treating them like crap and they probably should go away  like what's the difference between what you and Brad have versus the person who's hoping that  somebody's going to change I think that there is a level of discernment in that if it is abusive  if it is physically abusive if it is emotionally abusive it is self-care to get yourself out of  there you know I wasn't abusive towards him but I wasn't really nice to be around you k

now like  I would go through phases where we were really good you know like our relationship was really  good because I was feeling better for whatever reason for a period of months but when I was like  really depressed I was laying in bed for 5 months not participating in life and so that meant that  he would go to work full-time take care of our 11-year-old coach basketball come home and do  laundry all of the food shopping he didn't have a partner I was laying in bed all day while he  was doi

ng everything so it wasn't abusive but I wasn't participating in our partnership and it  was really hard I wanted you to say that on the microphone because you know the impression I got  from the outside looking in and this is where we get back to Richard Bach or or to Jerry McGuire is  that it doesn't sound like he was trying to change you and I think when you're in a relationship  where you want the person to change the only person that you can change is yourself we had a  great guest on about

a year and a half ago who still resonates with me and I use this language  all the time he talks about Diana penguins and he talks about you can do one or two things with  your friends your friends are all penguins you can either sit around going they're effing Birds  they should fly they have wings why are they not flying birds fly and Penguins don't fly like that  is so stupid what do they have wings for if they don't fly and you can sit around and [ __ ] that  they don't fly or you can go yo

u know what they're a penguin and a penguin's not going to not be a  a penguin even though they have wings like I can look at my friends and go yeah you know what I  just hope they realize they're a penguin because I think what he was seeing was that was there's  this Diana this spiritual Diana that I love and I love being around and I hope she realizes  she's a penguin versus him trying to make you a hawk instead of a penguin yeah when I would  have moments of being rooted in my authenticity th

at's what he loved you know he knew it was  there it was just buried under all this crap of my trauma and my emotional baggage and my  jadedness you know I mean I'm getting married for the first time I'll be 37 years old and I'm  so grateful that I waited until I'm older because it took me this long to build a relationship with  myself you know and I'm so grateful that I have a partner that was willing to wait I mean this  is his second marriage you know but he learned learned a lot from his fir

st one and now we get to  co-parent with her and it's funny cuz like I don't think she listens to anything I do but and she  would not be offended by this but you know I had a 2hour coffee with her yesterday and we had the  most bonding emotional conversation crying about how much we love these kids you know parenting  is the hardest job in the world and I'm doing it with someone that I didn't know and that I didn't  understand and there so much pain and betrayal when a marriage falls apart and

you know and it's  really hard to have to now raise kids together you know for us I avoided her for years because I  felt so insecure around her and so being able to heal that in myself and like you said it's still  a process I'm not like enlightened or anything right like let's be honest right like I'm still  working on it but like I never in a million years would think that I could have a deep vulnerable  conversation with her you called out the wound yeah you said this is where the wound is a

nd she  knows where it is you know where it is yeah it's like we had so much tension and uncomfortableness  and awkwardness between us and every time I saw her for trading the kid back and forth I felt so  like so much anxiety and nausea and like it was just so uncomfortable and like then last night he  does this brain bow it's like a trivia thing and we sat next to each other and we got yelled at by  the teacher because we were talking so much and it's like that's a that is a ridiculous amount

of  progress in like two weeks you know Bach decides that he's going to go search for his soulmate  and what happens is he sells his Bane he thinks that's all the money that he has and he jumps on  a Greyhound bus to go looking for her by the way again true story this dude actually did this and  while he's on these long bus rides going from town to town looking for a soulmate he really has these  feelings Diana there's a lot of internal who am I like the whole thing he goes through this big  lon

g thing about smoking I don't know if you're there yet I had a friend that read this book and  stopped smoking after after he did this because he had enough introspection to go you know why do  I smoke what is this about smoking like what does this have to do with life and reaffirming and  what does it really do for me and for in some ways it's like your hoffen method where it's not  a big thing but the fact that he's meditating on it for so long it becomes really I think this  placeholder for t

he introspection that we all need to have with ourself to enter into not even  romantic relationship on Valentine's Day but any relationship like the best relationship you can  have for anybody else is a better relationship with you yeah yeah and you know it's funny I  was a smoker I haven't had a cigarette in I guess two years now over two years and I wasn't  like I don't know I was kind of a heavy smoker but I look back on it now and it was almost a  little bit of a form of self- vindictivenes

s you know that like I used to joke that smoking was  punctuation for the day I was walking to a meeting I had a cigarette comma I finished something I  had a cigarette period you know I had sex I had a cigarette exclamation mark you know it's like  why do I need punctuation for the day but what it really yeah question mark um but like I think  of it as anything like that whether it's smoking whether it's Doom scrolling whether it's drinking  drinking distracting yourself from your feelings in a

ny way is a form of self- vindictiveness and  it's a form of like you're not being the adult in the room we are emotional beings and when we  bury our feelings we're saying that we don't think we're worth having a relationship with  ourselves you know when we distract ourselves with all of these kind of destructive behaviors  to me there's nothing morally wrong with smoking it's just a little sad that I did that to myself  and that I didn't respect my body enough I mean like I I had a kind of mo

ment years ago when I was  smoking I mean this was in college I had this kind of realization that it felt like I was keying my  car like I was walking up to my car and I was just keying it and I felt like it was I didn't feel bad  about it it just seem silly like why would I key my car that's just kind of silly there's nothing  morally wrong with that it's just silly you know and I feel like that about a lot of destructive  behaviors it's funny because I I think you have to look at that stuff be

fore you have relationships  with people what's funny was when I stopped caring about relationships with other people so much  and began after reading Bridge across forever I began think thinking about the relationship with  myself and a healthier relationship with myself not an egotistical way but just nobody's coming  to save me there is nobody that's going to rush in and you know the spotlights aren't all of a  sudden going to turn on I am left in my either my own miserable hell or my own hea

ven and I get  to choose that and then once I am completed inside which to your point you never are but at least  you know the path and the journey then I can go have a relationship with Diana Mariam and I can  actually bring my full self Which is far more powerful what's funny is and people are wondering  what the hell does this have to do with money Joe tell you what it has to do with money Richard  Bach then goes to I think it was was it an ATM machine or did he get a receipt from some somebo

dy  at the bank he stops to get what he thinks is a little bit of money out of his bank account and  he sees this number I think it's an ATM machine and there's two commas in it and he has no idea  that his book Jonathan Livingston Seagull has made him go from no money where he thought he  had to sell this one plane that he had to look for her to a guy that has more money in the 1970s  than he can ever possibly spend and what's funny Diana and I hope you can you can kind of fill in  the story be

cause I haven't read this in a long time but how does he feel about all this money now  that he's on this self-actualization journey well what I liked about his reaction and I'm looking  at my notes Here I said in my notes to you I love his reaction to seeing a million dollars in the  bank he's like well that's fine whatever what am I going to do with that you know what I mean and  I was just like yeah like I was so excited when I saw that and then he starts to say well what if I  could use this

money to find her right you know he kind of gets distracted by it there you groan you  start to groan yes and you know he says there's a few quotes here where he's talking about his  relationship with money he says airplanes I can handle I thought but money it makes me nervous  can money crash and you know I wrote a note here and I said I think airplanes are actually much  more dangerous than money because you can lose your life in an airplane you can lose your soul  with money but that's a lot

easier to fix than losing your life right I don't know I like the  other side of that I think people sometimes don't get afraid enough of how money can destroy your  life I mean look at these lottery winners would it be better to not be a lottery winner you  know I think that people get the lessons that they need and you know when you come into a big  sum of money like I'm really glad that I haven't I mean I think about when I graduated high school  my mom handed me $110,000 and a year later it

was gone thank God she didn't hand me more than that  you know what I mean I could have done some real damage with some more money but I was young and I  didn't know what I was doing and you know he says this other quote to be handed a lot of money is to  be handed a glass sword blade first best handle it very carefully sir very slowly while you puzzle  what it's for you know like I think people just have this assumption that if I have more money I  will have more happiness I'll have more resou

rces I will you know money solves money problems  money can take away the the stress of not having resources but it can't ultimately make you happy  especially if you don't have that relationship with yourself and you know who you are and what  you want out of life people say oh just spend money according to your values how many people  actually have a very deep rooted relationship with their own values most of us don't because we are  so conditioned by Society for what Society tells us to Value

like that's actually deep inner  work to have intrinsic motivation to really like feel comfort able in your own skin and have  contentment and have peace of mind money can't give you that and if you don't have that when  you get money you're going to go looking for it in the wrong places I think the answer to that  rhetorical question you asked you can get the answer about whether we've looked at our values  or Not by looking at walk into any shopping mall in the United States and see the numbe

r of people  that are there and then walk into any financial planning office in the United States and not that  financial planners have all the answers but that of people working on their money versus working  on retail therapy which leads nowhere is I think a great indicator I love that I love the fact that  money is subservient to the relationship like it's relationship first he gets the money he's like  yeah no and then he starts to go yeah yeah and you're like no no no no please God don't pl

ease  no don't don't have an idea here Richard please please don't and sadly he does but it does have it  does have an a nice ending there's a great chapter I don't think you've gotten there yet about a  symphony the symphony chapter is is fantastic and to tell everybody just a little bit about what  it is he also likes this idea of newness in in relationships not only does he like the sparkle  of his friends being perfect and everybody being perfect and having perfect stuff which totally  Diana

100% like you I think you nailed it that is a reflection on you not on the other person  when you're doing that he also likes it when the relationship is fresh and knew I get to meet Diana  at first and I don't see any of the penguin stuff that I want her to change you know what I mean  I can't [ __ ] about that I'm too wowed by the brilliant Diana that shows up first when she's on  and I'm on and then when we become better friends and I find out that Diana has her quirkiness and  I have my qui

rkiness well then I start to pull away because I don't need it I'm going to go find  the next thing and lesle writes him this wonderful letter saying that life is like a symphony and to  truly get to know people you got to get through that you know at the beginning of uh of Beethoven  you got the and that's all exciting but the middle of that is very soft and delicate and much more  nuanced and relationships go from big and bold to nuanced and Leslie challenges him and goes you  can't handle the

nuances of real relationships and it has no reflection of us it's a reflection  of you and you don't know yourself enough which is funny I read this book and I said here I'm  Valentine's Day I'll say this I said I'm never getting married cuz I don't know myself enough  I can't bring anything to a relationship I can't bring crap to a relationship if I don't know who  I am it hit me that hard and it sounds like the hoffen method hit you the same like I got to do  some discovery on me totally and

I think I had before I had this relationship with myself I had  some sense of of like I've always wanted to get married but I I said I need to be with someone  for at least 5 years before I marry them because I wanted to get into the symphony so I think it's  getting through the symphony but also I needed to have that relationship with myself before I could  fully participate in this relationship with him yeah I love this on Valentine's Day because um  there's a lot of people out there that are

single that may be thinking what you and I thought  at one point I need somebody to complain no you don't complete yourself right and by the way  one of the best ways they can complete themsel how about that for for a thing is to go learn  a bunch of economy yes and you know we're not doing speed dating anymore because we did it one  year and actually two steamy relationships came out of that however I feel like it was too much  pressure in the interaction to have that undertone of romance to it

and so what we're doing instead  is on Friday night kicking off the the weekend we do something called speed friendshipping and  actually Brad Barrett the nicest man in the world co-hosts it with me so annoying because  he's everybody's friend and um he co-hosts it with me and so we have this process it's kind of  formalizing it's like it's speed networking like way less professional though and so you end the  evening the activity with 14 new people that now you know that you may feel more comf

ortable with  going up to afterwards and so many people in my postevent survey last year was the first year we  did this said that that was their favorite time of the weekend and usually like the people that they  met there became their friends over the course of the next two days so is a really nice way to start  and if your soulmate is at economy you're going to collide with them just trust that and if you  marry them I will crash your wedding and I'll also offer to officiate if you're looking

for I think  I could be good at that you know um but yeah don't you don't need speed dating to find your soulmate  you need to know yourself you need to put yourself out into the world and trust that you will collide  with them and just bring the best you work on the best you absolutely Dynam Mariam where can we get  our tickets to economy because they're going fast we are recording this on well we're launching this  on February 14 about 2 weeks away so they might be sold out we are like so clo

se to being sold out  but you can go to economy conference.com you can buy your tickets there and you can get 10% off  with the code stacking Benjamin's all one word there it is go do it stackers and what's funny is  and I know I've complained about this previously I see a lot of stackers a lot of people wearing  stacking Benjamin swag when I'm there and yet Diana has said and I'm just going to put it out  there nobody's ever used our code okay one person this year one person used we finally got

one  but come on it's your it's your what four of me supporting this thing and one person this  year has used our code you know what it is Joe you have such a generous audience that they just  want to pay full price so they're not they're not using your code let's prove Diana wrong use  our code Diana Miriam thanks for hanging out with me well thanks so much for having me hey hey  this is Tiffany Grant from the money Tu with Tiff podcast and when I'm not sprinkling business and  money gems ever

ywhere I'm stacking Benjamin's big thanks to Diana Miriam for joining us and we'll  we'll have a link to bridge across forever and to the uh Hoff method on our show notes at stacking  benjamin.com hey time for one stacker that thought they Better Call Saul SEI and OG and Paul and Doug  in this case this is the segment where we take a listener call who's wondering man maybe you guys  can help me with a financial issue we have if you need to better call all it's stacking benjamin.com  voicemail to

day it was Dave who decided he need to call us Dave what's happening man hey guys I'm  curious what do you use for long-term stock market returns I have seen 4% 6% 8% there's even a guy  that says 12% over the long term the S&P returns about 11 do you use different numbers for clients  depending on their aggressiveness conservativeness do you use different numbers for yourself for  friends and family I'm curious also what kind of rebuttal do you use when someone says oh the  stock market only re

turns 5% or whatever imaginary number they put in thanks Dave try to figure out  how to finish the call yeah um I think that's it checked all the boxes I've said all the words  Dave thanks so much for the call Paul neither you nor uh Doug nor I have clients but when you're  thinking about returns that you use what kind of a return do you use in your plan well traditionally  like 7% but uh my new advisers promised 37% based on the SMA that we're g they're cover calls that  you're gonna do the nam

e Sam bankman freed came up in their strategy I'm not sure how they're going  to do it but I just pay them and let them do the magic there's a madeof on the board of directors  of your what could go wrong Jimmy Buffett song made off made off with all the money that in his  lyrics it's pretty good made off's in prison like wasted away again in margarita with his flipflops  on in jilo bille here's what I okay you know that there's this whole all these Jimmy Buffett  retirement homes right like the

y're called Margaritaville do you know what Jimmy Buffett how  he explained Margaritaville when he was asked back in the 70s what it was he said it's the lonely  place at the bottom of a quero bottle that's how he described what Margaritaville was and now  people are moving there to drink their their retirement away yeah and stroll beaches that are  strewn with dangerous canned Lids right there're anyway sounds like paradise what I don't get your  point I could have a cheeseburger in that paradi

se Doug you're good you're good I could uh OG what  return do you suggest that uh Dave uses so I just whip out my handy dandy Matrix book that has all  the returns oh thank God he said Matrix book of all the asset classes from all time and uh we can  see here this is the S&P I don't know can't see it it's really tiny says the S&P averages 10.1  over the last uh roughly 100 years I think that the real answer here is you have to be careful  with return assumptions that are either too high or too l

ow because if you put 10 in there which  is the historical number over the last you know roughly 100 years and and the future gives you 9.8  you're not going to hit your goal and if you put four in there and you get nine you're going to  be saving way too much or waiting way too long or all these other things that are going to delay  your financial Independence also so I think it's more realistic to be somewhere in that 7 to 10%  range and model out different scenarios along the way and then hav

e a a process for checking in  every so often maybe every couple three years to say well what am I really doing based on my  plan my plan was seven I'm getting five now is that because my investment allocation's a little  bit more conservative is it because I Market timed and got wrong is it because some asset class that  I have isn't performing the way I anticipated I need to make some changes it's important to have a  number in mind and then Benchmark yourself against your plan and if for 10 y

ears you're planning  seven and you're getting six you better change the plan to six otherwise Paul said earlier 1% is  a lot of money over a long period of time millions of dollars compounded it can work in the other  direction too you know if you go from 9 to 10 yeah you have millions more dollars over 30 years  but if you go from 10 to nine you have millions less and that is a far worse thing so whatever  the number you pick Benchmark yourself against what your plan is go am I am I attaining

what  I think I should be doing for my plan and then you can adjust your savings rate your financial  dependence time frame goal withdrawal rates all that sort of stuff this is why I like beginning  Dave with what you need to do you know start off with how much money do I need to save and what  rate of return does that mean that I'm going to need to get on that money then that's when I look  at risk uh because then I think OG then instead of starting off with one of these I don't know Silly  ris

k tolerance quizzes people take when they get a new job they begin with oh here's what I need  and then they look at Investments historically that have done that they can go yeah no thank you  yep can't do that like you know because to your point if I use the four or five number and and  I'm comfortable with the roller coaster that's a stock market I'm wasting my time saving too much  money and not experiencing as much joy today as I could but to your point on the other side you know  you alread

y went through that but I think this is exactly why I don't begin with my assumption I  begin with based on the amount I can save what return do I need to reach that goal because from  a planning standpoint I mean if you sat down and I'll give you a great example of this I was using  chat GPT to kind of just screw around a couple of weeks ago and I I think we talked about this  on the show maybe three or four weeks ago and I said okay here's my net worth how much money do I  have to save every y

ear to be a billionaire by age 90 and it was like you need to save 1.9 million a  year and I'm like or a month or some astronomical number and I was like okay well that's not GNA  happen but I'm going to use the power of time what if I live to be 110 I give myself 20 more years to  get there and it went yeah you're good you don't need to save anymore the power of compounding  that extra 20 years on the back end is so much more powerful sometimes the adjustment Factor  isn't saving more money or

getting a better return it's just giving yourself another five years in  terms of working or in terms of saving because that really has a profound impact in a really  profound way it's really dumb way to say that you're going to be the sugar daddy at the nursing  home you're you're going to have so much cash now I'm living to be 140 so I've like kind of been my  Prime at 110 that's kind of how I'm feeling but I think Joe you said it the best you have to from  a planning standpoint figure out wha

t you have to get because you can't say like oh I'll just save  a million dollars a year then it's like well you don't make a million dollars in order to save like  that's not a realistic oh yeah you plan you know so how much can I save what's my budget all that  sort of stuff now what are the Investments that reach the goal that I need and if that number  is my money needs to grow at 133% a year those Investments don't exist in real life so you have  to change something else now savings or time

I think Dave de your second question what do you do  to friends to say the Market's only done five yeah I think you just do what you just did OG hold up  the real number yeah it is what it is yeah yeah but still none of this matters in the future right  it's like yeah that's what it did in 1974 but what is it going to do in 2025 nobody knows but over  long periods of time I think there is a a case to be made for something in the 8910 range when you  look at the the amount of debt the average co

mpany has so companies have to be able to pay the they  have to be able to pay their debt and then beyond the debt then they also have to make a return for  shareholders or shareholders are going to bail on the company right they're going to go this isn't  worth even having the company why do we own this company if it never makes any money so there's  like an acceptable return over and above the debt so if you look at the average debt is maybe  at a four or five perc rate and then the average ac

ceptable appreciation rate that a investor will  have maybe is another four or five I think that's why we look at eight to 10 is specifically for  those reasons but but and to to think about what has to happen for us to get something as low  as five like just going through the building blocks of how you come up with five that means the  economy is screwed yeah for long periods of time Ray Doo's got a great 30-minute video that you  can get on his website or it's on YouTube or on the app his prin

cipal's app that kind of explain  how why this NeverEnding gravy train will pretty much keep on going it's also the thesis of why he  thinks that eventually it does stop but you borrow money you reinvest it you pay that money back you  borrow more money you reinvest it you know that's basically this kind of ongoing cycle of capital  creation but yeah from a mathematics standpoint Joe if you look at it of from the perspective  of I can put my money in us treasuries which are the basis for the saf

est investments in the  world you can put your money in treasuries and get four or five if I'm going to go buy a stock I  better get something north of five otherwise I'll just put my money in treasuries and it better be  a multiple of five right it's not it's I'm not going to take 5.2 for all of the potential of  the business going out out of business and all that other sort of stuff it needs to be a bigger  percent than that man you guys are smart I I I should listen to your show more often se

e Paul  I just think I think if you truly want something romantic today yeah just sit around this show with  Mrs Olinger and oh my God I'm afraid I'd lose her to you guys cuz you know yeah you guys are the  one you have you in the mirror lately Paul what's that do you know my wife dog you've been trolling  around Atlanta the suburbs of Atlanta Let's uh let's head on back uh to the end of the show  spot we call the back porch before we do that if you're somebody who's here not because you're  loo

king for the perfect aphrodesiac for your friend you're actually thinking you know what I  think I need better help in my corner OG and his team are taking clients so at to stacky bans.com  and that's the link to their calendar to it on their calendar and talk more about maybe 5% being  wrong and maybe that 12% guy being a little wrong as well I love the irony of it taking Joe three  tries to say a aiac I think there's some just say money because money is the greatest aphrodesiac  that's time fo

r us to walk out to the last section of the show which we call the back porch and Paul  you have been on the road a lot lately I want to ask you we asked Lisa Curry uh who you referred  us to by the way writer the show thank you very much but let's ask you some of the questions like  going out on stage before you go out on stage in front of an audience do you and dozens of people  I was just G to say several people a handful of people right at every PTA meeting you perform in  front of I'm not a

comedian but I think I'm pretty funny that's what people have said that about  this show so do you get nervous before you go out on stage depends depends I had a show at the  Hollywood improv last year on the show was Greg Fitz Simmons Melissa via Sor Taylor Tomlinson and  a few other people and I'm like and you this is a solid lineup and I want to do well and I my heart  rate was just racing before I went out and I went out and I had a great set but when it's really  you know a place that you

want to do well you could it's it's real easy to overthink it how do  you deal with hecklers I don't really have Heckler problems I mean I perform in pretty reasonably  run places so I don't get a lot of unruly people it's generally people that want to with all the  crowd workor videos that are on social media now a lot of what's happening is that crowds start to  think that their part of the show and so they're like talk to us and it's like it's more of people  talking back to you than it is he

ckling and so that's and you just kind of go now I know you  were hot in high school but you're not part of this show you know this isn't this isn't where  you have a voice this is where I have a voice and so you just have to sort of navigate around  people who this is the same conversation we have with Doug right Doug every week hype down bro  we're like this is where this is where Joe and I talk and you just you're just there we'll  let you Paul his favorite line is Doug the adults are talking

now oh I haven't said that in  a while but that's a good one that's painful that actually hurts me when you say that that that is  mean that's very very mean you haven't said that to anybody in the audience though have you Paul  the adults haven't said anything the the adults are talking I haven't said that but no I've said  that I mean you know it's I have said that the line about I know you were hot in high school  because a lot of times it's that person who's always felt entitled to particip

ate where they  don't belong and so that's one of the ways you can shut it down what's up with by the way all the  crowdwork videos on Instagram and Tik Tok lately because it seems like from comedians 80% of what  I see right now is just them talking to the crowd two reasons number one the algorithm seems to like  it and the most important gatekeeper in comedy and any art form today isn't isn't uh somebody at at  a talent agency it's the algorithm and so you give the algorithm What It Wants numb

er two crowd work  is renewable and it doesn't burn materials so you don't have to worry about putting all your jokes  online because it's this this supposedly organic thing but it's changing comedy because people  are doing more and more crowd work because they want to generate more and more Clips more Clips  generate more views more views more followers etc etc Paul uh Fly Me To Your show we can stage  some crowd work I'll be the guy in the in the audience plant me with a couple of comments is

it  public does the stacking Benjamin verse know where you live occasionally we have let out that I live  deep in the woods of Northern Michigan ah oh well I was actually just where the authorities like  to keep me yes and then he commutes to work in Texarcana Tex Arana uh I I was in Austin last  month nothing's planned for Michigan anytime soon but looking for excuses to go to Northern  Michigan during the summer because it's beautiful that's true also for the everything in Michigan  nothing i

s planned road work population growth the state of Michigan I think he's ever heard of  planning when it comes to that type of that type of planning if Michigan gets through this election  year without a revolution I'll go oh my goodness that's a whole different podcast yes welcome to  the uh we got Sidetrack podcast uh you are going to be by the way in some amazing place you're at  Cobbs Comedy Club in San Francisco on the 22nd Zan in Nashville on the 28th on April 19th to 20th  uh DC comedy Lo

ft you're in Denver on April May third and 4th May 3rd and fourth thank you and  in h Cary North Carolina at the Carri theater I love Cary North Carolina uh 517 by the way we  were thinking about moving to Carrie true story back in 20012 2002 right in the middle of the tech  wreck if I had bought a house in carry in 2002 I think I'd be a bajillionaire I think I'd be a  trillionaire could have what have should have gotta avoid that got to avoid that that's don't  take his example listeners live w

ith what you the decisions you've made and be happy with them  don't [ __ ] all over yourself Joe thank you in Texar can you guys are so uplifting it's fantastic  Paul thanks for joining us man thanks for having me I love you guys Happy Valentine's Day I wish  we could all get together and wrestle it's a I sorry did I say that out loud oh my God I'm just  trying to talk about love I'll wear my shirt I'll wear a shirt Doug what should we have learned  today let's get out of this well Joe here's w

hat's stacked up on our to-do list today first  take some advice from Diania Merriam looking for great relationships instead of trying to change  the people around you begin looking inside you can't change other people but you certainly can  focus on our Outlook and World second take some advice from today's headline your advisor it's not  about fancy it's about results no matter where you get them if you have an advisor meet with them to  revisit your process and outcomes if you aren't sure the

re's a great to-do for you but what's  the biggest to-do do not suggest to Joe's mom that she'd probably be alone on Valentine's  Day if it weren't for you oh God she does not like to be vulnerable and give credit to men for  being romantic at least that's the way I took it yeah thanks to Diania Merriam for joining us  today you can find tickets for econom me from our Link at economy.com and use code stacking  Benjamins all one word for 10% off we'll also include links in our show notes at stack

ing  benjamin.com please use it thanks also to Paul Ollinger for joining us today you can find his  podcast crazy money wherever you're listening right now also check out Paul's comedy shows  on February 22nd at cobs comedy club in San Francisco February 28th at Zanies in Nashville  aren't they all called Zanies uh April 19th and 20th at the DC comedy Loft May 3rd and 4th at  the Denver comedy lounge and May 17th at the Cary theater and carry North Carolina this show is the  property of SB podca

sts LLC copyright 2024 and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy our producer is Karen  repine this show is written by Lisa Curry who's also the host of the long story long podcast with  help from me Joe Kate yonan Karen repine and Doc G from the earn and invest podcast Kevin Bailey  helps us take a deeper dive into all the topics covered on each episode in our newsletter called  the 2011 you'll find the 411 on all things money at the 2 2011 just visit stacking benjamin.com  sl201 wonder how beautiful we

all are of course you do but you'll never know if you don't check  out our YouTube version of the show engineered by Tina Ichenberg then you'll see once and for all  that I'm the best thing going for this podcast once we bottle up all this goodness we ship it  to our engineer the amazing Steve Stewart Steve helps the rest of our team sound nearly as good as  I do right now want to chat with friends about the show later mom's friend Gertrude Stacy doe and  Julia garab are our social media coordin

ators and Gertrude is the room mother in our Facebook  group called the basement so say hello when you see us posting online to join all the basement  fun with other stackers type stacking benjamin.com basement for more interactive fun join us on  Instagram every Tuesday and Thursday for our Instagram live Kate yonen and Joe host those  weekly not only should you not take advice from these nerds don't take advice from people  you don't know this show is for entertainment purposes only before mak

ing any financial  decisions speak with a real financial advisor I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug and we'll see you  next time back here at the stacking Benjamin show