March 25, 2025 • 35 mins
Would you like your investments to have more good days than bad days? Are you tired of logging in and seeing your investment account balances dropping? Why does the stock market feel like an emotional teenager throwing tantrums and making drama? Well, that's what we're diving into today!
We’re breaking down how the ups and downs of your investments mirror the wild mood swings of adolescence—think mood swings but with dollar signs. Between the media's sensational headlines and our natural urge to know “why,” we often find ourselves spiraling into panic mode.
We’re here to dish out some wisdom on how to remain calm and steadfast amidst the chaos and why, sometimes, sticking to the boring, steady path is the real way to win the investment game.
Takeaways:
- The stock market behaves like an emotional teenager, having temper tantrums that leave investors questioning their choices.
- Investing isn't about quick gains; it's a long-term journey requiring discipline and patience, much like mastering a new skill.
- People often panic during market volatility due to the fear of losing money, missing the fact that markets naturally fluctuate over time.
- Understanding what you're invested in can help alleviate anxiety; many investors don't even know the details of their own portfolios.
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About Your Co-Hosts:
Travis Maus has been in financial services for over fifteen years. He is a Senior Wealth Manager and Chief Executive Officer at S.E.E.D. Planning Group. Travis also hosts the Unleashing Leadership Podcast, where he dissects some of his favorite books on leadership and how you can apply it to your business or life.
Steve Campbell has over a decade of industry experience and is a Senior Marketing Director at S.E.E.D. Planning Group. Steve also hosts the One Big Thing Podcast, an interview-style show meant to inspire and encourage 30 and 40-year-olds going through difficult seasons of navigating marriage, raising kids, and growing personally.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Foreign.
Welcome to Ditch the Suitspodcast, where we share insights
nobody in the financialservices industry wants you to know
about.
We're here to help you get themost from your money in life.
So buckle up and welcome toDitch the Suits.
(00:20):
What are we talking abouttoday, Steve?
Why the stock market is likean emotional teenager.
Oh, yeah.
And maybe why real investingis really just kind of boring.
Interesting.
So I think a lot of peoplewould like to know why their investments
seem to have less good days.
(00:42):
You know, why there's so manybad days.
And I think most people wouldlike to have more good days and less
bad days.
Sure, but how do you actuallydo that?
I think people are tired oflogging in and seeing their investments,
especially early this year so far.
You know, it's newadministration, everything going
on, lots of changes.
You kind of expect to go inand hopefully see the investments
going up, and then all of asudden they're going down.
(01:04):
And what's happening with that?
I think a lot of people areconcerned for their investments when
they talk to their friends orthe news and all the changes that
are going on.
And regardless of if peoplethink the changes are good or bad,
it's causing volatility in the market.
It's causing your investmentaccounts to do things that, you know,
is a little bit.
(01:24):
A little bit normal, it's alittle bit volatile.
I kind of feel like the stockmarket is an emotional teenager.
And if we go back, if we turnback the clock four years, that's
pretty much what it's beendoing for a long time now, actually,
if you go back eight years and.
And it's.
It's.
Or even further, it's just.
(01:45):
It's an emotional teenager.
Every now and then it froze.
A hissy fit or a tantrum, andyou're like, what's your problem?
And, you know, somebody didn'tgive them something they wanted or
something like that.
So the.
The kids are kind of being brats.
And that's kind of exactly howthe market's acting or has been acting
now for quite a while.
And so over the next threeepisodes, we wanted to talk about
(02:06):
what you can actually do about that.
You know, just like inparenting, there's things you can
do so that you're, you know,your emotional teenager doesn't wreck
your day.
We want to kind of do that forour investments, too.
And we've got a couple ofsyndromes just to kind of make this
a little bit playful or reallymake it kind of hit home.
In the first syndrome thatwe're going to talk about is the
YYY syndrome.
(02:28):
So this is like the spoiledperson out there going, why, why,
why, why?
No matter what answer you givethem, it's like, why?
I need to know why?
I need all the answers right now.
Sounds like kids.
Okay, maybe not quiteteenagers, but, you know, so this
could be like the emotionalpre teenager.
Yeah, but so we have the YYYsyndrome and how the financial market
(02:49):
and really the.
The media machine.
So the financial marketingmachine and the media, which, you
know it, we pick on the mediaa lot, but it's not really the media's
fault.
People react to investmentsgoing up and down very emotionally,
and so they'll turn in and themedia can.
Can run news shows that reallydon't even understand the principles
(03:10):
of investing.
I'm sure they understand itbehind the scenes, but they dummy
them so far down for theaverage viewer that the average viewer
is thinking certain principlesexist that aren't real, where they're
not getting the whole picture.
And so.
And they're trying to give youthe why.
So every time, if you'venoticed, when you go to the news,
they tell you why the marketwent up or down today.
(03:31):
And it's just not.
I mean, that's like you tryingto placate a child who's saying,
why is the sky blue?
And you have to come up with areason, you know, why.
Why is dad mad?
Or why is mom mad?
You got to come up with areason and give it to them.
Right.
And sometimes the answer isn'tquite as clear as you're actually
giving, but you feel kind ofobligated to give an answer.
(03:51):
So we're going to unpack themarketing machines a little bit.
They really get you addictedto some of this vicious cycle and
what I would call theemotional roller coaster.
We wrote a piece a couple ofyears ago about the emotional roller
coaster of the market.
I think back during COVID andjust that ride and what the market
feels like to people.
And you know, you're on, you're.
You're in the seat of a roller coaster.
(04:13):
You're strapped in and you'regoing up this big incline, you know
it's going to come back down.
So do you go up to the top ofthe incline and just jump off or
when it starts to go down andstarts to pick up speed, you go,
okay, I guess I better get off now.
Or do you go, I can't believethis roller coaster would do this
to me?
No, you signed up for the ride.
Yep.
So we want to maybe talk abouthow to Put this in context and how
(04:35):
to simmer down a little bitand maybe even take advantage of
it.
Well, and even just to help people.
I mean, it's now been four anda half years since we started Ditch
the Suits.
I'm going to refer to you asUncle Travis and I'm Uncle Steve.
Our emotional teenagers arelike the nieces and nephews.
It's been four and a halfyears of us recording.
We've done multiple series onthe stock market and what happens,
We've talked people off the ledge.
(04:56):
We've talked through marketcycles and through these four and
a half years of doing this,we've seen that over time, you know,
you have market corrections,things happen.
And so you can go back throughthe litany of Ditch the Suits and
hear all the different seriesthat you and I have done on the stock
market and how Covid and Chinaand all these things of it.
So this isn't just our firstconversation talking about the markets,
(05:17):
right?
So to try to, it's likelooking at people's kids and say
you're going to get throughit, right?
Because they're justexperiencing the pain of the unruliness.
But we're coming at it from anuncle viewpoint to be like, hey,
we've seen this before withthe kids.
Don't forget last time.
This is what happened.
So this is Ditch the Suits.
He's really not Uncle Travis.
I'm not Uncle Steve.
I am Steve Campbell, yoursenior marketing director at Seed
Planning Group.
(05:37):
Travis co hosts the Ditch theSuits is our CEO and Seed is a fee
only financial planning firmwhere we have a fiduciary obligation
to put our clients bestinterest first.
And Ditch the Suits is allabout us bringing our collective
experience working withclients to help you and them get
the most from your money in life.
And so this is going to be agreat conversation as we talk about
why the stock market feelslike an emotional teenager.
(05:59):
Let's take a quick break tohear a word from your sponsor.
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If your goal is financialfreedom and independence without
(06:21):
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(06:43):
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Notes where we got links toour channel.
(07:03):
Yes.
Think about for a quick second.
You have a teenager and theyhave their first love.
They come home and they're inlove with this other person.
And you as a parent, you'reexcited for them, but you're also
a little bit nervous.
And then a couple weeks later,their first love has a new boy or
girlfriend and has decided todump your child or whatever.
(07:25):
Somebody is moving on.
What do you tell your childwhen their heart is broken?
It's going to be okay.
You're going to have lots ofloves in your life.
Your life is going to continue.
This is not the end, right?
Yep.
Life will go on.
There will be better daysahead of you.
But for some reason, when wesee the financial news, you know,
(07:46):
we, we give that advice tokids, but we don't take that advice
for ourselves.
It's like, this time is different.
We're ruined.
There'll never be another goodday over and over and over again.
And it always shocks me, too.
I would think that investorswho have been around the block a
while, those who have beeninvesting for 30, 40, 50 years, would
be a lot more confident andcomfortable with the fact that what
(08:09):
goes up comes down and whatgoes down goes up.
And it's like this giant cycle.
But.
And they've seen the newscycles over and over again about,
okay, we're all doomed.
But still we keep falling forthis cycle.
We keep thinking this is thelast great relationship and our life
is forever going to be dullafter this and it's never going to
(08:30):
be okay.
And that gets us to that YYY syndrome.
And, you know, let's thinkabout it from a perspective of investing
everything.
For some reason, we have tohave the answer to why.
Why does it hurt like this?
Why does it feel like this?
Why did the market go down?
Right?
Why?
You know, why?
(08:52):
This is where you just get towhy, why, why?
Like, everything's a why.
We have to, for some reason,have an answer for everything.
And you know what?
Frankly, sometimes you justwon't get the answer or you won't
know the answer.
Or sometimes the answer comeswell down the road, or sometimes,
you know, there's things that move.
Everybody thinks that themarket just moves on, just simply
based on supply and demand,and that there's other people out
(09:15):
there going, good investmentor bad investment.
They don't take into accountthe fact that there's also algorithms
and other things that arebuying and selling investments, not
on the merit of theinvestment, but just on price movements
and just trying to takeadvantage of a price movement, not
because they think the priceis good or bad, but they think it's
going to go the other way.
They can make a couple pennieson it, and if they trade enough shares,
(09:36):
they make a lot of pennies.
And so we're going in thereand we're like, why the market go
down?
Oh, because, you know, Trumpsaid this on tv or because the treasury
did this with interest rates,or because this happened or that
happened.
And sometimes the real answeris much, much either much, much more
complicated or much, muchsimpler than what's actually being
said.
Yeah.
And for you as a listener,we're not necessarily saying that
(09:58):
this is your mindset, so we'retrying to give you a course correction.
This could be colleagues that.
That wear you out withnegativity every day.
This could be family members.
Why do you even invest?
The market is some of thestuff we talked about.
But you and I have also talkedabout how our lives.
It's very hard for us todisconnect all the moving pieces
in our life.
So everything seems to have acause and effect.
(10:19):
We're blending social andmoral issues with the stock market,
when sometimes those thingshave nothing to do with each other.
So you read a headline on thenews, that's a moral issue of the
day, and you go check your401k balance.
But it's.
It's like our addiction togambling as a country.
You know, gambling's everywhere.
And I would say, you know,we've done episodes in crypto, too.
Crypto's a lot like gambling.
It's this dream that I can getrich overnight, that I'm going to
(10:40):
win big over overnight.
We're so addicted to needingan answer and needing to win immediately.
Like, that's.
Gambling's all about the short term.
If you're buying aninvestment, I think Warren Buffett
says it, if you're buying aninvestment, you can't hold it for
(11:01):
10 years.
You can't stomach holding thisinvestment for 10 years.
You have no business buyingthe investment in the first place
because you are gambling, youare betting on a price movement.
Yep.
And that's part of the problem.
Our, our whole financialmarketing machine has kind of turned
into this.
Like when you watch E Tradecommercials and all that kind of
stuff and they talk aboutoptions and how you can do all this
(11:22):
stuff yourself and things.
They're talking about shortterm purchases, they're talking about
short term trades, which isakin to gambling.
I'm just going to make a beton where the price movement's going
to be.
It's not about investingbecause you understand the company
that you're buying.
And I think that that's whereit gets to kind of what you're talk
is, it's just, you know, whenyou gamble, you don't look long term,
(11:46):
you look short term.
And that's where people arekind of sitting right now with investing.
Well, and even as a parent, Ithink we all love some sense of control.
You don't want to becontrolling over your kids, but you
want to have a sense of control.
You want to know where theygo, who they hang out with, who they
talk to so that you can parentthem correctly.
I think it's the same thingwhen it comes to our investments.
We all as human beings like toknow that we're in control.
(12:08):
And so I guess, you know, youtalked about this yyy but Travis,
where does the need forcontrol, stability and having all
of our question answers comefrom or what does it seem to do for
people?
Well, it gives peopleconfidence, right?
Most people are just runningaround in this world and they're
trying to figure out how theybelong and what they should be doing
(12:29):
next.
That's deep.
And so when you don't haveanswered questions, when things seem
like they're chaotic aroundyou, and let's face it, money is
one of those things that werely on.
So, you know, we like to knowwhat we have.
And a lot of people identifyhow they're doing based on how much
money they have.
And so if that money is movingall over the place, we want to know
why we want to control it.
(12:50):
We want to know, you know, ifyour kids are sad, you want to know
why they're sad, and you wantto know what you could do to help
them.
So if the investments aredown, we want to know why they're
down and should we bepanicking, should we be doing something
different, that type of thing.
So first and foremost, I thinkit's for confidence so that we can
feel like we're doing theright things.
Most people want to do the Right.
(13:11):
Things.
And when something doesn'twork or doesn't appear to be working,
you know, and that's aparadigm issue because when we look
at investments, if you'remaking an investment for 10 years
and you look at what it'sdoing in year one, if it's down,
that doesn't mean it's not working.
Right.
That means that there could bea system kind of if you, if you get
(13:32):
injured and you start to healas you're healing, that doesn't mean
you don't have any pain.
Right.
There's still a progressionthat you're going through.
The body is healing.
If you go and have surgery tohave something fixed, Right.
You may not have pain withthat thing that you had fixed, but
now you have pain, a differentkind of pain, because you know, your
muscles were cut and boneswere shaved and stuff like that,
(13:54):
right.
So when you think about the,how the body recovers, you know,
it's a long term thing.
It's like, okay, we went inand we fixed it, but now we have
to recover and we're stillgoing to have pain as we go.
So I think, I think withinvesting, we're looking at it sometimes
and we're thinking, you know,it's going to give me confidence
if I know why this thing isnot working.
(14:15):
And the typical answer tosomething that's not working is just
to get rid of it.
If you can get rid of it, right.
Like if you broke your arm andyou could just chop it off and grow
a new one, you wouldn't haveto, you know, worry about healing
and intended damage and allthat kind of stuff.
That'd be a good answer, right.
But you can't.
But with your investments, youcan go in and you can just chop it
off.
You can say, get rid of thatone and it's gone.
(14:36):
And now that source ofdiscontent or anxiety is gone.
It's not on there.
When you log into your accounton Monday, you won't see something
in the red and so you'll feelbetter about it.
Yep.
So you're doing it based onyour feelings, which is based on
your desire to control something.
And you're not controlling anything.
What you're doing ismisunderstanding what you're, you're
(14:57):
doing.
You're actually hurting yourself.
It's like overdoingpainkillers to heal, you know, like,
like hiding pain doesn't meanthat you're healing, you know, and
being afraid of pain doesn'tmean that you're strong.
You know what I mean?
Or covering it up and you needto deal with it.
You need to face it sometimes.
And so, you know, and I thinkit hurts people.
(15:19):
I think, I think people,because they don't understand the
fact that they can't controleverything, the fact that they can't
have an answer to everything.
Have you ever had with yourkids where you're like, jesus, no
answer to this questionthey're asking, or you don't know,
you're like, hey, dad, why arethere waves in the ocean?
(15:43):
Or not even that.
Just as a parent, theparallels to investing, you try to
gather enough information tobe a good parent.
We're going to do certainthings a certain way, raise our kids
a certain way, and you can putall those practices into play and
then life just, it doesn't gothe way you thought.
And so your question is, am Ia bad parent?
When it's like you did all theright things.
Sometimes there are thingsthat are beyond your control and
(16:04):
you're dealing with humanbeings when you're dealing with children
who are not going to respondthe way that I think every parent
wants their kids to respondthe way they are at their current
age.
And sometimes we have thisdissonance where it's like, man,
my kid's 8 years old, he's 9years old, he's not me.
Same thing with investing.
It's like, I did my duediligence, I thought I made a good
investment.
Why is this thing, quoteunquote, losing me money or not doing
(16:27):
what it's supposed to do andfear sets in and so do you kind of
want to talk about.
We've talked about the why.
Why, why, Right.
Maybe being a symptom.
But before, before we go towhere you're going, though.
But I think what the financialindustry is doing to people and what
the media is doing to peopleis they're putting really fancy people
out in front of them.
Well spoken people, nicesuits, good pedigrees, PhDs, and
(16:51):
that kind of stuff.
And they're saying, thisperson is going to give you a well
articulated why or why from aplace of authority, right?
You get people running some ofthese afternoon or early evening
shows talking about theeconomy and they sound very convincing.
And that's a major, majorissue because they're feeding you
a bunch of bull.
(17:12):
Most of the time they don'tknow why something's happening.
Right?
There could be some volatilityin one area.
So they pass a bill and itcauses a disruption in a particular
industry and then that causesa disruption in other industries
and then something elsehappens over here that causes a sell
(17:34):
off of certain of a portfolioand that causes an upset and then
it's a compounding effect.
So it's not the one, the firstthing that happened that caused the
market to go down by X.
It's the combination of thefirst thing plus the second thing
plus the third thing, youknow, and then kind of multiplied
because of, you know, theamplification of everything happening
at the same time and you'renot getting that much information.
(17:56):
And a lot of times that theycame out and said this is just a
price hit, this isn't a valuehit, meaning companies haven't lost
value on this.
We're not seeing deflation.
What we're really seeing isthat, you know, a bunch of money
left the market today becauseXYZ went bankrupt and they had to
liquidate portfolios orwhatever and then that caused this
(18:19):
sell off over here.
But there should be an ebb andflow with that where that's likely
to recover because now there'sincredible value.
I mean, bonds are one of thebest places you can look at that.
Bonds have a finite life to them.
They're going to mature at acertain date.
So when there's a sell off inthe bond market and you can buy $1,000
bond for 900 bucks or $950,instead of the media and the financial
(18:41):
machine coming out and saying,oh my gosh, bonds are down so bad,
it's horrible.
Run for your lives.
If they turned that and said,oh my gosh, you could buy a thousand
dollar bond for $900 or $950today, you'd be like, oh this is
great versus oh my gosh, I'mso afraid of what's happening.
The financial companies do itbecause they want you to think that
they have all the answers.
(19:02):
So you're gonna go to thefinancial company with the Ph.D.
and with and the CFAs and allthis other stuff because they will
provide the answers to youabout what you should be doing next.
And then when you look attheir performance, it's like, well,
there's consistentlyunderperformance here.
So how are they?
And the real answer is you'retrying to tell the future and what's
(19:24):
going to happen in the future.
You're talking about investinglike you're gambling and you're trying
to give short answers on verycomplicated things without putting
any research into it, withoutreally overanalyzing the situation.
Like just simply what was thebiggest headline today?
That's the reason.
(19:44):
Well, and you think about ittoo, right?
When you turn on the news atnight, you've had a full day of work.
Now you're turning on the newsand you hear an anchor say, another
bad day in the market.
What does that mean?
Right.
If your wife goes to thegrocery store and you go, how's the
grocery store?
It's a bad day in the market.
Well, why was it a rotten.
The cost of eggs were reallyhigh today.
Okay, so there was one thing, but.
Did you get a discount on.
Did you get a sale on other stuff?
(20:05):
When you hear stuff like this,we don't always apply that same,
and that's a very elementary analogy.
But when you're putting intime, you're building your career,
and you hear it's a bad day inthe market, the assumption is that
everything is bad, whichcreates a lot of fear.
So.
So talk about, if I createfear, you're going to take action.
Fear sells.
If I want to get you to callme, if I want to get you to buy the
(20:27):
book, if I want to get you totune into my radio station or my
TV channel, what am I going to do?
I'm going to make you afraid,and then I'm going to make you think
that I have the answer.
That's what I'm going to do.
But this is like you werealluding to where you wanted to go
with this.
I think is this is a symptom, right?
(20:48):
The root cause of all this isfear and uncertainty.
And that's human nature.
Human nature is to survive.
Right.
And what do you do?
The basic instinct of survivalis when you don't know something,
it's a danger.
And so you should be cautiousabout it or you should.
It's fight or flight, right?
(21:09):
And so everybody's got apersonality profile.
Some of us, you know, ifthere's something we don't know or
something that, that, that'sdangerous, we'll put our heads down
and barrel right into it.
And some of us will say, nope,I'm going to avoid that at all costs.
But it's going to trigger thistype of emotional reaction to it
that then is behavioral.
And, you know, we'reconditioned to try to control everything.
(21:31):
We're convinced we can control everything.
There's an answer to everything.
You go online, you web.
I mean, talk to a doctor.
I, I know for a fact I cannotstand it when people WebMD, everybody's
got cancer.
No, you don't.
Right?
Everybody's got this problem.
No, you don't go in, gothrough the task, get it done.
Don't convince yourself youhave something and then you make
yourself sick and actuallymanifest real disease into yourself
(21:52):
because of stress.
But we're so conditionedbecause we can get the answers.
I can just Google it and getthe artificial intelligence.
I'm telling you what, I'mstill, I still look up stuff on,
you know, I'll go on Googlenow and you know, because of Microsoft,
they've built it and Google,they've all built AI into your search
browser.
I'm still finding incorrectstuff all the time.
(22:12):
Travis is a huge fan of AI.
Well, I think AI, it serves a.
Purpose but there's an overreliance on it.
But we're ignorant to the factthat it's still reliant on information
man has already created andput out there.
And the problem is that wecreated so much information, which
information is actually theright information.
(22:33):
That's the hard part.
And you're telling a computerto figure that out.
Well, the computer doesn'thave real life experiences.
So we're so conditioned thatwe can just go out there and get
the answers and we can blindlyfollow whatever somebody tells us
because it's easier.
And then what do we do?
We panic.
Yep.
Because it doesn't happen theway that these experts or the way
(22:54):
artificial intelligence orsomebody else tells us it's supposed
to happen.
Well, was supposed to happenlike this because that's what the
suit said.
And then it doesn't happen.
We go, oh my gosh, it is, thisis it.
This is the end.
I mean I go on YouTube and Ifollowed all spectrum of people.
The end has, has come and goneabout 50 times in the last two years.
(23:14):
Like the complete collapse ofChina has happened 15 times over.
According to them, Europe hasalready clapped 5 times, the United
States has clapped 10 times.
The markets are gone.
Like, like it's over and overand over again.
And it, you know, if you'rebuying into this stuff, you're, that's
kind of like the stress thatis going into your life has got to
(23:35):
be horrible.
Why?
Well, and also just the, thecompeting agendas.
Right.
For you.
You're, you're trying to buildyour career, you're trying to raise
your family, you're trying tomake good decisions, you're trying
to put yourself in the best position.
You have all these competing,not agendas, but things competing
for your time and yourattention that the AI, the Google,
sometimes that seems like inthe easier want an instant answer
(23:55):
to a problem.
But like we've talked about,sometimes we ask very simple questions
in the financial world thathave very complex answers.
And then because we don'tunderstand, we say, well, screw it,
this is too hard.
Nobody can figure out thiswhole thing is rigged, and we push
it away.
So there is a balance between.
You've survived more than youeven thought you could because of
everything that's happened inthe news and taking place.
(24:16):
But again, then how.
For the need for control,panic sets in.
And this is one of the thingsthat I know we were talking about
too.
When it comes to finances,investments, financial planning,
it's kind of boring.
Yeah.
Right.
And so, like, how do you alsohelp bring some light, especially
from your work with clientsover the years?
The boring things are thethings we don't want to pay attention
(24:37):
to, and the sensational thingsare the things that we're drawn to
but actually cause some of themost pain.
That's one of the hardestthings with.
With financial planning andworking with people.
90% of the noise out there isjust no ways.
And so everybody comes inwith, like, a baggage full of what
people have told them.
Yep.
Right.
Or what they've seen on TV orsomething like that.
And even clients we've beenworking with for a long time, they
get very worked up with thepolitics and the social issues.
(24:59):
Not understanding thedifference between politics and social
issues and how a company ismaking money someplace.
Right.
Like, you can.
You can literally have thesocial issues and the politics falling
all apart all around you.
You can have it burning down.
But Company XYZ is stillmaking a ton of money.
Yeah.
Your job as an investor is tofind company XYZ that's making a
ton of money and figure outhow to get a cut of that money for
(25:21):
a good price.
That's your goal, you know, be damned.
About the social and thepolitical issues, that's a whole
separate issue.
But people come in with thatbaggage because it's been pushed
on them and it's beencommingled and it's been dishonestly
put, put forth as though it'sall the same issue.
And they're really separate issues.
So the first thing that we tryto do or that we really have to do
(25:42):
is we have to look atknowledge level.
And this happens with peoplecoming with investments that don't.
I mean, we worked withincredibly brilliant engineers and
educators and people like thatthat come in and don't know what
mutual funds are and how they work.
So somewhere along the line inthe education system, our financial
literacy system is broken.
(26:03):
And it does promote gambling.
I mean, a lot of the.
A lot of the kids that come inthat we interview about financial
planning and investments.
Their experience has been astock picking contest at college,
you know, over a very limitedamount of time where they were rated
for results over that limitedamount of time.
That's again pushing the kindof this gambling aspect of it.
(26:25):
Not that necessarily makinglong term investments because the
long term return is going tobe there.
When you look at most greatcompanies, they were long term in
the making.
They didn't just become great overnight.
It took them 10 or 20 years toget there.
Well, that means it takes yourinvestment time to mature.
I mean, even small companieslike local restaurants and things
like that, a lot of times taketime to get going.
(26:47):
So 90% of whatever everybody'scoming in with is just noise.
And it's just, it's there tofill your head because we need entertainment
and something to do when weget home at night.
You know, it used to be in theold days, you'd get home and you'd
go out and work in your gardenand you know, do stuff outside with
the family.
And you had a lot more.
You got to split wood andcarry the coal in and all that.
(27:07):
I mean, that's how I grew up.
You had to do all that kind of stuff.
Now you go in and you watchthe news and you watch, you know,
whoever your favorite talkinghead is.
Either every.
And you know, the issue isthat, that either, either no one
knows and you're.
So you're going to be helpless.
Basically.
This is the polarization thatyou have wherever you tune in.
(27:31):
No one knows anything, soyou're helpless.
So you should come to me andI'll save you from being helpless.
Or everyone knows everythingand all the answers, all the questions
have already been answered.
So you're basically, there'snothing you can do about it and you
just need to just trust us,we'll just run it for you.
(27:52):
Or you could do it yourselfand the answer really is, is somewhere
in between.
And I, and I preface it kindof like this.
If you track the price ofevery single house in every single
neighborhood across thecountry, right?
So you got millions andmillions of houses, but you're going
to track it literally everysingle day.
How the price moves on thathouse would kind of like Wazilla
does.
(28:13):
Yep.
Right.
You're just going to trackthat price moving, but of every single
house.
You could not consume thatdata in any way that makes sense.
If I went down millions ofhouses and told you exactly how the
price moved yesterday, itwould mean nothing to you.
You could not comprehend whatthat means.
Your brain cannot handle It.
It won't be able to createpatterns or anything.
(28:33):
So what do you do?
You plot it out in the spreadsheet.
And I say to you somethinglike, hey, the price of housing across
the country is up 5% or down 5%.
And you go, okay, well, that sucks.
It's up 5%, and I wanted tobuy a house, or it's down 5% and
I wanted to sell a house.
And I'm really worried aboutthe price of housing.
But that's generally what you do.
But the reality is, is that itshould be something more.
(28:54):
Like, if you're consideredconcerned about the price of housing,
what did the price of thehouses in your neighborhood do?
Not all the houses, the housesthat are make mean something to you?
What did those.
The price of those houses do?
And remember, price goes upand down.
So the price is down this weekbecause there's no buyers trying
(29:17):
to move to your street.
Next week, the price goes upbecause buyers are trying to move
to your street.
I mean, that's.
That's how that works.
So you want to look at thatand say, oh, my gosh, you know, the
price of houses is down acrossthe country, but on my street, the
prices are up because there'speople that want to move to my street.
I guess I should panic becausethe price of housing is down.
You know, it's just kind oflike this weird.
(29:38):
We're getting macro data andwe're making micro decisions with
it.
You know, like, we're makingvery personal decisions with it,
which are.
It's just really kind of silliness.
Average means that when I sayaverage, if somebody says the average
price of housing is down 5%and you should be very worried.
(29:58):
Well, remember, average meansthat there's a bunch above the line
and a bunch below the line.
If I say that, the market isdown 5%, but there's Nvidia, which
happens to be one of thelargest companies in the world right
now, is down 20%.
Nvidia has pulled the averageway down.
So you could own a whole bunchof other investments that might be
(30:19):
doing just fine.
But that one investment, ifyou own everything, that one investment
pulled your average way down.
So the question there is, didyou even have that on your street?
Right.
Or didn't you?
And so if that went down andyou didn't own it, yes, you might
have gone down a little bit,but you certainly didn't do as bad
as everything else.
That's just the average.
Right?
(30:40):
So I would just look at itlike that.
If you have to ask what thereason is, Realize that there might
be more than one reason, andit might be nuanced.
It's almost always nuanced.
And if housing is down in yourneighborhood, it could be that the
(31:01):
houses on your street aren'tbeing kept very nice.
It could be that people aren'tmoving into your neighborhood.
It could be that propertytaxes are high.
It could be that there's aspecial tax because they're going
to have to put in, you know,new sewage lines on your street.
And it could be a combinationof all those issues.
If one of those issues wasfixed, prices would be coming back
(31:22):
up.
But if you just look at it asprices are down because nobody likes
living here.
Well, where does that go?
Well, and, you know, we'veworked with new people, we've done
speaking engagements incommunities, and I think sometimes
you hear people that are concerned.
Concerned about the stockmarket, but the irony is that they
(31:42):
don't even know what they'reactually invested in.
Yeah, right.
So when we speak more times,they're like, what should I do with
my investments?
And then you say, well, let'stalk about your investments.
And they pull out their statements.
And if this is you, you'rejust like everybody else.
People don't actually knowwhat they're invested in, whether
it's mutual funds, whetherit's stocks, whether it's their or
what the.
Mutual funds invested in.
They'll say, this great mutualfund, you'll say, well, what kind
(32:04):
of mutual fund is it?
I don't know.
So you'll have people that'llsay, I'm very concerned, but yet
they don't know what they ownand how it works.
And so that's also, I think,some of the things that we've noticed
just over the years and youguys have.
And I'm excited for the nexttwo episodes that we're going to
do.
And I'll let you close herebecause I think you and the planners
do a really nice job of.
Of helping our peopleunderstand the importance of understanding
(32:25):
what you own, why you own it,and how your investment fits into
the larger story that isconstantly taking place around you
so that you really do have afiltering system, too.
Is this crap or do I need toactually understand this information?
If that's you get fromlistening to Ditch the Suits is a
mindset and a filter thatallows you to know, does this information
I'm receiving today from themedia that clearly has an agenda
(32:46):
and a story to tell.
When I hear things, how do Iknow if this is really applicable
to My life to my family's lifeto our money, to our, our well being.
Or is this just what Travisand Steve talked about?
I can let this go so I can go.
What did you say?
Go carry more coal.
Was that part of split some wood?
Split some wood and carry coal.
Our goal for you folks.
Let's go split some coal dirtyUncle Travis and Uncle Steve.
(33:09):
Carry some coal.
So any final thoughts?
Yeah.
Good investing is likeanything else if you want to get
good at any.
What would you tell your kidsif your kids want to, want to be,
you know, so you have adaughter in dance or son who's playing
baseball or something likethat and you want them to and they
really want to be.
Well, what you going to say?
You're going to say practiceand have discipline.
Right.
And so good investing is likeanything else.
You have to have a lot ofdiscipline and that means you don't
(33:32):
easily get distracted and makeknee jerk reactions to things you
can't do.
Control.
So 90% of that noise out thereis designed to get you to take action.
That does not benefit you, itbenefits somebody else.
So you have to have thediscipline to say that's entertaining,
but it's not for me.
Or you know what, I'm going togo down that rabbit hole, but I'm
(33:52):
not going to take action on it.
Right.
I want to see where it goesand why people are talking like that.
But it doesn't mean that I'mgoing to take action or panic myself.
Yep.
And so for this, this is athree part series.
We got two more episodes as alittle teaser to get you ready.
So this first one was talkingabout how investing is kind of like
an emotional teenager.
But next you might beinterested in this if you're somebody
(34:13):
who does it yourself or youhave curiosity.
The next episode we're goingto talk about a guide to buying investments.
Travis is going to give youinsights as to how he sees things
over his profession, how youcan actually look at buying investments.
And then the last episode twoweeks from now, are the markets rigged?
You might be saying this toyourself, you might hear others saying
it.
So these are the two thingsthat we're going to help address
in the next two episodes.
But until then, thanks forstopping by.
(34:35):
Ditch the Suits.
Thanks for checking out Ditchthe Suits.
Be sure to write a review ordrop a comment about this episode.
And if you want more likethis, head over to ditchesuits.com
you can send us a message andget in touch.
Let us know how we can helpand be sure to share any topics you'd
be interested in having uscover on the show.
We're here to help you get themost from your money in life.
(34:56):
Thanks for being our guest andchecking out.
Ditch the suits.
Foreign.
Welcome to Ditch the Suitspodcast, where we share insights
nobody in the financialservices industry wants you to know
about.
We're here to help you get themost from your money in life.
So buckle up and welcome toDitch the Suits.
(00:20):
What are we talking abouttoday, Steve?
Why the stock market is likean emotional teenager.
Oh, yeah.
And maybe why real investingis really just kind of boring.
Interesting.
So I think a lot of peoplewould like to know why their investments
seem to have less good days.
(00:42):
You know, why there's so manybad days.
And I think most people wouldlike to have more good days and less
bad days.
Sure, but how do you actuallydo that?
I think people are tired oflogging in and seeing their investments,
especially early this year so far.
You know, it's newadministration, everything going
on, lots of changes.
You kind of expect to go inand hopefully see the investments
going up, and then all of asudden they're going down.
(01:04):
And what's happening with that?
I think a lot of people areconcerned for their investments when
they talk to their friends orthe news and all the changes that
are going on.
And regardless of if peoplethink the changes are good or bad,
it's causing volatility in the market.
It's causing your investmentaccounts to do things that, you know,
is a little bit.
(01:24):
A little bit normal, it's alittle bit volatile.
I kind of feel like the stockmarket is an emotional teenager.
And if we go back, if we turnback the clock four years, that's
pretty much what it's beendoing for a long time now, actually,
if you go back eight years and.
And it's.
It's.
Or even further, it's just.
(01:45):
It's an emotional teenager.
Every now and then it froze.
A hissy fit or a tantrum, andyou're like, what's your problem?
And, you know, somebody didn'tgive them something they wanted or
something like that.
So the.
The kids are kind of being brats.
And that's kind of exactly howthe market's acting or has been acting
now for quite a while.
And so over the next threeepisodes, we wanted to talk about
(02:06):
what you can actually do about that.
You know, just like inparenting, there's things you can
do so that you're, you know,your emotional teenager doesn't wreck
your day.
We want to kind of do that forour investments, too.
And we've got a couple ofsyndromes just to kind of make this
a little bit playful or reallymake it kind of hit home.
In the first syndrome thatwe're going to talk about is the
YYY syndrome.
(02:28):
So this is like the spoiledperson out there going, why, why,
why, why?
No matter what answer you givethem, it's like, why?
I need to know why?
I need all the answers right now.
Sounds like kids.
Okay, maybe not quiteteenagers, but, you know, so this
could be like the emotionalpre teenager.
Yeah, but so we have the YYYsyndrome and how the financial market
(02:49):
and really the.
The media machine.
So the financial marketingmachine and the media, which, you
know it, we pick on the mediaa lot, but it's not really the media's
fault.
People react to investmentsgoing up and down very emotionally,
and so they'll turn in and themedia can.
Can run news shows that reallydon't even understand the principles
(03:10):
of investing.
I'm sure they understand itbehind the scenes, but they dummy
them so far down for theaverage viewer that the average viewer
is thinking certain principlesexist that aren't real, where they're
not getting the whole picture.
And so.
And they're trying to give youthe why.
So every time, if you'venoticed, when you go to the news,
they tell you why the marketwent up or down today.
(03:31):
And it's just not.
I mean, that's like you tryingto placate a child who's saying,
why is the sky blue?
And you have to come up with areason, you know, why.
Why is dad mad?
Or why is mom mad?
You got to come up with areason and give it to them.
Right.
And sometimes the answer isn'tquite as clear as you're actually
giving, but you feel kind ofobligated to give an answer.
(03:51):
So we're going to unpack themarketing machines a little bit.
They really get you addictedto some of this vicious cycle and
what I would call theemotional roller coaster.
We wrote a piece a couple ofyears ago about the emotional roller
coaster of the market.
I think back during COVID andjust that ride and what the market
feels like to people.
And you know, you're on, you're.
You're in the seat of a roller coaster.
(04:13):
You're strapped in and you'regoing up this big incline, you know
it's going to come back down.
So do you go up to the top ofthe incline and just jump off or
when it starts to go down andstarts to pick up speed, you go,
okay, I guess I better get off now.
Or do you go, I can't believethis roller coaster would do this
to me?
No, you signed up for the ride.
Yep.
So we want to maybe talk abouthow to Put this in context and how
(04:35):
to simmer down a little bitand maybe even take advantage of
it.
Well, and even just to help people.
I mean, it's now been four anda half years since we started Ditch
the Suits.
I'm going to refer to you asUncle Travis and I'm Uncle Steve.
Our emotional teenagers arelike the nieces and nephews.
It's been four and a halfyears of us recording.
We've done multiple series onthe stock market and what happens,
We've talked people off the ledge.
(04:56):
We've talked through marketcycles and through these four and
a half years of doing this,we've seen that over time, you know,
you have market corrections,things happen.
And so you can go back throughthe litany of Ditch the Suits and
hear all the different seriesthat you and I have done on the stock
market and how Covid and Chinaand all these things of it.
So this isn't just our firstconversation talking about the markets,
(05:17):
right?
So to try to, it's likelooking at people's kids and say
you're going to get throughit, right?
Because they're justexperiencing the pain of the unruliness.
But we're coming at it from anuncle viewpoint to be like, hey,
we've seen this before withthe kids.
Don't forget last time.
This is what happened.
So this is Ditch the Suits.
He's really not Uncle Travis.
I'm not Uncle Steve.
I am Steve Campbell, yoursenior marketing director at Seed
Planning Group.
(05:37):
Travis co hosts the Ditch theSuits is our CEO and Seed is a fee
only financial planning firmwhere we have a fiduciary obligation
to put our clients bestinterest first.
And Ditch the Suits is allabout us bringing our collective
experience working withclients to help you and them get
the most from your money in life.
And so this is going to be agreat conversation as we talk about
why the stock market feelslike an emotional teenager.
(05:59):
Let's take a quick break tohear a word from your sponsor.
This episode is brought to youby Seed Planning Group.
If you're looking for a lifegiving experience working with a
financial planner, then Seedis here for you.
Seed is a fee only financialplanning firm with a fiduciary obligation
to put your best interests first.
If your goal is financialfreedom and independence without
(06:21):
sales products or reallyglorified salespeople, then check
out Seed Planning Group todayyou can visit www.seedpg.com.
that's www.seedpg.com.
and the best part, you canschedule a free consultation to find
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(06:43):
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You'll get notifications ofall episodes right in your inbox.
So visit patreon.com searchditch the suits or head to our show
Notes where we got links toour channel.
(07:03):
Yes.
Think about for a quick second.
You have a teenager and theyhave their first love.
They come home and they're inlove with this other person.
And you as a parent, you'reexcited for them, but you're also
a little bit nervous.
And then a couple weeks later,their first love has a new boy or
girlfriend and has decided todump your child or whatever.
(07:25):
Somebody is moving on.
What do you tell your childwhen their heart is broken?
It's going to be okay.
You're going to have lots ofloves in your life.
Your life is going to continue.
This is not the end, right?
Yep.
Life will go on.
There will be better daysahead of you.
But for some reason, when wesee the financial news, you know,
(07:46):
we, we give that advice tokids, but we don't take that advice
for ourselves.
It's like, this time is different.
We're ruined.
There'll never be another goodday over and over and over again.
And it always shocks me, too.
I would think that investorswho have been around the block a
while, those who have beeninvesting for 30, 40, 50 years, would
be a lot more confident andcomfortable with the fact that what
(08:09):
goes up comes down and whatgoes down goes up.
And it's like this giant cycle.
But.
And they've seen the newscycles over and over again about,
okay, we're all doomed.
But still we keep falling forthis cycle.
We keep thinking this is thelast great relationship and our life
is forever going to be dullafter this and it's never going to
(08:30):
be okay.
And that gets us to that YYY syndrome.
And, you know, let's thinkabout it from a perspective of investing
everything.
For some reason, we have tohave the answer to why.
Why does it hurt like this?
Why does it feel like this?
Why did the market go down?
Right?
Why?
You know, why?
(08:52):
This is where you just get towhy, why, why?
Like, everything's a why.
We have to, for some reason,have an answer for everything.
And you know what?
Frankly, sometimes you justwon't get the answer or you won't
know the answer.
Or sometimes the answer comeswell down the road, or sometimes,
you know, there's things that move.
Everybody thinks that themarket just moves on, just simply
based on supply and demand,and that there's other people out
(09:15):
there going, good investmentor bad investment.
They don't take into accountthe fact that there's also algorithms
and other things that arebuying and selling investments, not
on the merit of theinvestment, but just on price movements
and just trying to takeadvantage of a price movement, not
because they think the priceis good or bad, but they think it's
going to go the other way.
They can make a couple pennieson it, and if they trade enough shares,
(09:36):
they make a lot of pennies.
And so we're going in thereand we're like, why the market go
down?
Oh, because, you know, Trumpsaid this on tv or because the treasury
did this with interest rates,or because this happened or that
happened.
And sometimes the real answeris much, much either much, much more
complicated or much, muchsimpler than what's actually being
said.
Yeah.
And for you as a listener,we're not necessarily saying that
(09:58):
this is your mindset, so we'retrying to give you a course correction.
This could be colleagues that.
That wear you out withnegativity every day.
This could be family members.
Why do you even invest?
The market is some of thestuff we talked about.
But you and I have also talkedabout how our lives.
It's very hard for us todisconnect all the moving pieces
in our life.
So everything seems to have acause and effect.
(10:19):
We're blending social andmoral issues with the stock market,
when sometimes those thingshave nothing to do with each other.
So you read a headline on thenews, that's a moral issue of the
day, and you go check your401k balance.
But it's.
It's like our addiction togambling as a country.
You know, gambling's everywhere.
And I would say, you know,we've done episodes in crypto, too.
Crypto's a lot like gambling.
It's this dream that I can getrich overnight, that I'm going to
(10:40):
win big over overnight.
We're so addicted to needingan answer and needing to win immediately.
Like, that's.
Gambling's all about the short term.
If you're buying aninvestment, I think Warren Buffett
says it, if you're buying aninvestment, you can't hold it for
(11:01):
10 years.
You can't stomach holding thisinvestment for 10 years.
You have no business buyingthe investment in the first place
because you are gambling, youare betting on a price movement.
Yep.
And that's part of the problem.
Our, our whole financialmarketing machine has kind of turned
into this.
Like when you watch E Tradecommercials and all that kind of
stuff and they talk aboutoptions and how you can do all this
(11:22):
stuff yourself and things.
They're talking about shortterm purchases, they're talking about
short term trades, which isakin to gambling.
I'm just going to make a beton where the price movement's going
to be.
It's not about investingbecause you understand the company
that you're buying.
And I think that that's whereit gets to kind of what you're talk
is, it's just, you know, whenyou gamble, you don't look long term,
(11:46):
you look short term.
And that's where people arekind of sitting right now with investing.
Well, and even as a parent, Ithink we all love some sense of control.
You don't want to becontrolling over your kids, but you
want to have a sense of control.
You want to know where theygo, who they hang out with, who they
talk to so that you can parentthem correctly.
I think it's the same thingwhen it comes to our investments.
We all as human beings like toknow that we're in control.
(12:08):
And so I guess, you know, youtalked about this yyy but Travis,
where does the need forcontrol, stability and having all
of our question answers comefrom or what does it seem to do for
people?
Well, it gives peopleconfidence, right?
Most people are just runningaround in this world and they're
trying to figure out how theybelong and what they should be doing
(12:29):
next.
That's deep.
And so when you don't haveanswered questions, when things seem
like they're chaotic aroundyou, and let's face it, money is
one of those things that werely on.
So, you know, we like to knowwhat we have.
And a lot of people identifyhow they're doing based on how much
money they have.
And so if that money is movingall over the place, we want to know
why we want to control it.
(12:50):
We want to know, you know, ifyour kids are sad, you want to know
why they're sad, and you wantto know what you could do to help
them.
So if the investments aredown, we want to know why they're
down and should we bepanicking, should we be doing something
different, that type of thing.
So first and foremost, I thinkit's for confidence so that we can
feel like we're doing theright things.
Most people want to do the Right.
(13:11):
Things.
And when something doesn'twork or doesn't appear to be working,
you know, and that's aparadigm issue because when we look
at investments, if you'remaking an investment for 10 years
and you look at what it'sdoing in year one, if it's down,
that doesn't mean it's not working.
Right.
That means that there could bea system kind of if you, if you get
(13:32):
injured and you start to healas you're healing, that doesn't mean
you don't have any pain.
Right.
There's still a progressionthat you're going through.
The body is healing.
If you go and have surgery tohave something fixed, Right.
You may not have pain withthat thing that you had fixed, but
now you have pain, a differentkind of pain, because you know, your
muscles were cut and boneswere shaved and stuff like that,
(13:54):
right.
So when you think about the,how the body recovers, you know,
it's a long term thing.
It's like, okay, we went inand we fixed it, but now we have
to recover and we're stillgoing to have pain as we go.
So I think, I think withinvesting, we're looking at it sometimes
and we're thinking, you know,it's going to give me confidence
if I know why this thing isnot working.
(14:15):
And the typical answer tosomething that's not working is just
to get rid of it.
If you can get rid of it, right.
Like if you broke your arm andyou could just chop it off and grow
a new one, you wouldn't haveto, you know, worry about healing
and intended damage and allthat kind of stuff.
That'd be a good answer, right.
But you can't.
But with your investments, youcan go in and you can just chop it
off.
You can say, get rid of thatone and it's gone.
(14:36):
And now that source ofdiscontent or anxiety is gone.
It's not on there.
When you log into your accounton Monday, you won't see something
in the red and so you'll feelbetter about it.
Yep.
So you're doing it based onyour feelings, which is based on
your desire to control something.
And you're not controlling anything.
What you're doing ismisunderstanding what you're, you're
(14:57):
doing.
You're actually hurting yourself.
It's like overdoingpainkillers to heal, you know, like,
like hiding pain doesn't meanthat you're healing, you know, and
being afraid of pain doesn'tmean that you're strong.
You know what I mean?
Or covering it up and you needto deal with it.
You need to face it sometimes.
And so, you know, and I thinkit hurts people.
(15:19):
I think, I think people,because they don't understand the
fact that they can't controleverything, the fact that they can't
have an answer to everything.
Have you ever had with yourkids where you're like, jesus, no
answer to this questionthey're asking, or you don't know,
you're like, hey, dad, why arethere waves in the ocean?
(15:43):
Or not even that.
Just as a parent, theparallels to investing, you try to
gather enough information tobe a good parent.
We're going to do certainthings a certain way, raise our kids
a certain way, and you can putall those practices into play and
then life just, it doesn't gothe way you thought.
And so your question is, am Ia bad parent?
When it's like you did all theright things.
Sometimes there are thingsthat are beyond your control and
(16:04):
you're dealing with humanbeings when you're dealing with children
who are not going to respondthe way that I think every parent
wants their kids to respondthe way they are at their current
age.
And sometimes we have thisdissonance where it's like, man,
my kid's 8 years old, he's 9years old, he's not me.
Same thing with investing.
It's like, I did my duediligence, I thought I made a good
investment.
Why is this thing, quoteunquote, losing me money or not doing
(16:27):
what it's supposed to do andfear sets in and so do you kind of
want to talk about.
We've talked about the why.
Why, why, Right.
Maybe being a symptom.
But before, before we go towhere you're going, though.
But I think what the financialindustry is doing to people and what
the media is doing to peopleis they're putting really fancy people
out in front of them.
Well spoken people, nicesuits, good pedigrees, PhDs, and
(16:51):
that kind of stuff.
And they're saying, thisperson is going to give you a well
articulated why or why from aplace of authority, right?
You get people running some ofthese afternoon or early evening
shows talking about theeconomy and they sound very convincing.
And that's a major, majorissue because they're feeding you
a bunch of bull.
(17:12):
Most of the time they don'tknow why something's happening.
Right?
There could be some volatilityin one area.
So they pass a bill and itcauses a disruption in a particular
industry and then that causesa disruption in other industries
and then something elsehappens over here that causes a sell
(17:34):
off of certain of a portfolioand that causes an upset and then
it's a compounding effect.
So it's not the one, the firstthing that happened that caused the
market to go down by X.
It's the combination of thefirst thing plus the second thing
plus the third thing, youknow, and then kind of multiplied
because of, you know, theamplification of everything happening
at the same time and you'renot getting that much information.
(17:56):
And a lot of times that theycame out and said this is just a
price hit, this isn't a valuehit, meaning companies haven't lost
value on this.
We're not seeing deflation.
What we're really seeing isthat, you know, a bunch of money
left the market today becauseXYZ went bankrupt and they had to
liquidate portfolios orwhatever and then that caused this
(18:19):
sell off over here.
But there should be an ebb andflow with that where that's likely
to recover because now there'sincredible value.
I mean, bonds are one of thebest places you can look at that.
Bonds have a finite life to them.
They're going to mature at acertain date.
So when there's a sell off inthe bond market and you can buy $1,000
bond for 900 bucks or $950,instead of the media and the financial
(18:41):
machine coming out and saying,oh my gosh, bonds are down so bad,
it's horrible.
Run for your lives.
If they turned that and said,oh my gosh, you could buy a thousand
dollar bond for $900 or $950today, you'd be like, oh this is
great versus oh my gosh, I'mso afraid of what's happening.
The financial companies do itbecause they want you to think that
they have all the answers.
(19:02):
So you're gonna go to thefinancial company with the Ph.D.
and with and the CFAs and allthis other stuff because they will
provide the answers to youabout what you should be doing next.
And then when you look attheir performance, it's like, well,
there's consistentlyunderperformance here.
So how are they?
And the real answer is you'retrying to tell the future and what's
(19:24):
going to happen in the future.
You're talking about investinglike you're gambling and you're trying
to give short answers on verycomplicated things without putting
any research into it, withoutreally overanalyzing the situation.
Like just simply what was thebiggest headline today?
That's the reason.
(19:44):
Well, and you think about ittoo, right?
When you turn on the news atnight, you've had a full day of work.
Now you're turning on the newsand you hear an anchor say, another
bad day in the market.
What does that mean?
Right.
If your wife goes to thegrocery store and you go, how's the
grocery store?
It's a bad day in the market.
Well, why was it a rotten.
The cost of eggs were reallyhigh today.
Okay, so there was one thing, but.
Did you get a discount on.
Did you get a sale on other stuff?
(20:05):
When you hear stuff like this,we don't always apply that same,
and that's a very elementary analogy.
But when you're putting intime, you're building your career,
and you hear it's a bad day inthe market, the assumption is that
everything is bad, whichcreates a lot of fear.
So.
So talk about, if I createfear, you're going to take action.
Fear sells.
If I want to get you to callme, if I want to get you to buy the
(20:27):
book, if I want to get you totune into my radio station or my
TV channel, what am I going to do?
I'm going to make you afraid,and then I'm going to make you think
that I have the answer.
That's what I'm going to do.
But this is like you werealluding to where you wanted to go
with this.
I think is this is a symptom, right?
(20:48):
The root cause of all this isfear and uncertainty.
And that's human nature.
Human nature is to survive.
Right.
And what do you do?
The basic instinct of survivalis when you don't know something,
it's a danger.
And so you should be cautiousabout it or you should.
It's fight or flight, right?
(21:09):
And so everybody's got apersonality profile.
Some of us, you know, ifthere's something we don't know or
something that, that, that'sdangerous, we'll put our heads down
and barrel right into it.
And some of us will say, nope,I'm going to avoid that at all costs.
But it's going to trigger thistype of emotional reaction to it
that then is behavioral.
And, you know, we'reconditioned to try to control everything.
(21:31):
We're convinced we can control everything.
There's an answer to everything.
You go online, you web.
I mean, talk to a doctor.
I, I know for a fact I cannotstand it when people WebMD, everybody's
got cancer.
No, you don't.
Right?
Everybody's got this problem.
No, you don't go in, gothrough the task, get it done.
Don't convince yourself youhave something and then you make
yourself sick and actuallymanifest real disease into yourself
(21:52):
because of stress.
But we're so conditionedbecause we can get the answers.
I can just Google it and getthe artificial intelligence.
I'm telling you what, I'mstill, I still look up stuff on,
you know, I'll go on Googlenow and you know, because of Microsoft,
they've built it and Google,they've all built AI into your search
browser.
I'm still finding incorrectstuff all the time.
(22:12):
Travis is a huge fan of AI.
Well, I think AI, it serves a.
Purpose but there's an overreliance on it.
But we're ignorant to the factthat it's still reliant on information
man has already created andput out there.
And the problem is that wecreated so much information, which
information is actually theright information.
(22:33):
That's the hard part.
And you're telling a computerto figure that out.
Well, the computer doesn'thave real life experiences.
So we're so conditioned thatwe can just go out there and get
the answers and we can blindlyfollow whatever somebody tells us
because it's easier.
And then what do we do?
We panic.
Yep.
Because it doesn't happen theway that these experts or the way
(22:54):
artificial intelligence orsomebody else tells us it's supposed
to happen.
Well, was supposed to happenlike this because that's what the
suit said.
And then it doesn't happen.
We go, oh my gosh, it is, thisis it.
This is the end.
I mean I go on YouTube and Ifollowed all spectrum of people.
The end has, has come and goneabout 50 times in the last two years.
(23:14):
Like the complete collapse ofChina has happened 15 times over.
According to them, Europe hasalready clapped 5 times, the United
States has clapped 10 times.
The markets are gone.
Like, like it's over and overand over again.
And it, you know, if you'rebuying into this stuff, you're, that's
kind of like the stress thatis going into your life has got to
(23:35):
be horrible.
Why?
Well, and also just the, thecompeting agendas.
Right.
For you.
You're, you're trying to buildyour career, you're trying to raise
your family, you're trying tomake good decisions, you're trying
to put yourself in the best position.
You have all these competing,not agendas, but things competing
for your time and yourattention that the AI, the Google,
sometimes that seems like inthe easier want an instant answer
(23:55):
to a problem.
But like we've talked about,sometimes we ask very simple questions
in the financial world thathave very complex answers.
And then because we don'tunderstand, we say, well, screw it,
this is too hard.
Nobody can figure out thiswhole thing is rigged, and we push
it away.
So there is a balance between.
You've survived more than youeven thought you could because of
everything that's happened inthe news and taking place.
(24:16):
But again, then how.
For the need for control,panic sets in.
And this is one of the thingsthat I know we were talking about
too.
When it comes to finances,investments, financial planning,
it's kind of boring.
Yeah.
Right.
And so, like, how do you alsohelp bring some light, especially
from your work with clientsover the years?
The boring things are thethings we don't want to pay attention
(24:37):
to, and the sensational thingsare the things that we're drawn to
but actually cause some of themost pain.
That's one of the hardestthings with.
With financial planning andworking with people.
90% of the noise out there isjust no ways.
And so everybody comes inwith, like, a baggage full of what
people have told them.
Yep.
Right.
Or what they've seen on TV orsomething like that.
And even clients we've beenworking with for a long time, they
get very worked up with thepolitics and the social issues.
(24:59):
Not understanding thedifference between politics and social
issues and how a company ismaking money someplace.
Right.
Like, you can.
You can literally have thesocial issues and the politics falling
all apart all around you.
You can have it burning down.
But Company XYZ is stillmaking a ton of money.
Yeah.
Your job as an investor is tofind company XYZ that's making a
ton of money and figure outhow to get a cut of that money for
(25:21):
a good price.
That's your goal, you know, be damned.
About the social and thepolitical issues, that's a whole
separate issue.
But people come in with thatbaggage because it's been pushed
on them and it's beencommingled and it's been dishonestly
put, put forth as though it'sall the same issue.
And they're really separate issues.
So the first thing that we tryto do or that we really have to do
(25:42):
is we have to look atknowledge level.
And this happens with peoplecoming with investments that don't.
I mean, we worked withincredibly brilliant engineers and
educators and people like thatthat come in and don't know what
mutual funds are and how they work.
So somewhere along the line inthe education system, our financial
literacy system is broken.
(26:03):
And it does promote gambling.
I mean, a lot of the.
A lot of the kids that come inthat we interview about financial
planning and investments.
Their experience has been astock picking contest at college,
you know, over a very limitedamount of time where they were rated
for results over that limitedamount of time.
That's again pushing the kindof this gambling aspect of it.
(26:25):
Not that necessarily makinglong term investments because the
long term return is going tobe there.
When you look at most greatcompanies, they were long term in
the making.
They didn't just become great overnight.
It took them 10 or 20 years toget there.
Well, that means it takes yourinvestment time to mature.
I mean, even small companieslike local restaurants and things
like that, a lot of times taketime to get going.
(26:47):
So 90% of whatever everybody'scoming in with is just noise.
And it's just, it's there tofill your head because we need entertainment
and something to do when weget home at night.
You know, it used to be in theold days, you'd get home and you'd
go out and work in your gardenand you know, do stuff outside with
the family.
And you had a lot more.
You got to split wood andcarry the coal in and all that.
(27:07):
I mean, that's how I grew up.
You had to do all that kind of stuff.
Now you go in and you watchthe news and you watch, you know,
whoever your favorite talkinghead is.
Either every.
And you know, the issue isthat, that either, either no one
knows and you're.
So you're going to be helpless.
Basically.
This is the polarization thatyou have wherever you tune in.
(27:31):
No one knows anything, soyou're helpless.
So you should come to me andI'll save you from being helpless.
Or everyone knows everythingand all the answers, all the questions
have already been answered.
So you're basically, there'snothing you can do about it and you
just need to just trust us,we'll just run it for you.
(27:52):
Or you could do it yourselfand the answer really is, is somewhere
in between.
And I, and I preface it kindof like this.
If you track the price ofevery single house in every single
neighborhood across thecountry, right?
So you got millions andmillions of houses, but you're going
to track it literally everysingle day.
How the price moves on thathouse would kind of like Wazilla
does.
(28:13):
Yep.
Right.
You're just going to trackthat price moving, but of every single
house.
You could not consume thatdata in any way that makes sense.
If I went down millions ofhouses and told you exactly how the
price moved yesterday, itwould mean nothing to you.
You could not comprehend whatthat means.
Your brain cannot handle It.
It won't be able to createpatterns or anything.
(28:33):
So what do you do?
You plot it out in the spreadsheet.
And I say to you somethinglike, hey, the price of housing across
the country is up 5% or down 5%.
And you go, okay, well, that sucks.
It's up 5%, and I wanted tobuy a house, or it's down 5% and
I wanted to sell a house.
And I'm really worried aboutthe price of housing.
But that's generally what you do.
But the reality is, is that itshould be something more.
(28:54):
Like, if you're consideredconcerned about the price of housing,
what did the price of thehouses in your neighborhood do?
Not all the houses, the housesthat are make mean something to you?
What did those.
The price of those houses do?
And remember, price goes upand down.
So the price is down this weekbecause there's no buyers trying
(29:17):
to move to your street.
Next week, the price goes upbecause buyers are trying to move
to your street.
I mean, that's.
That's how that works.
So you want to look at thatand say, oh, my gosh, you know, the
price of houses is down acrossthe country, but on my street, the
prices are up because there'speople that want to move to my street.
I guess I should panic becausethe price of housing is down.
You know, it's just kind oflike this weird.
(29:38):
We're getting macro data andwe're making micro decisions with
it.
You know, like, we're makingvery personal decisions with it,
which are.
It's just really kind of silliness.
Average means that when I sayaverage, if somebody says the average
price of housing is down 5%and you should be very worried.
(29:58):
Well, remember, average meansthat there's a bunch above the line
and a bunch below the line.
If I say that, the market isdown 5%, but there's Nvidia, which
happens to be one of thelargest companies in the world right
now, is down 20%.
Nvidia has pulled the averageway down.
So you could own a whole bunchof other investments that might be
(30:19):
doing just fine.
But that one investment, ifyou own everything, that one investment
pulled your average way down.
So the question there is, didyou even have that on your street?
Right.
Or didn't you?
And so if that went down andyou didn't own it, yes, you might
have gone down a little bit,but you certainly didn't do as bad
as everything else.
That's just the average.
Right?
(30:40):
So I would just look at itlike that.
If you have to ask what thereason is, Realize that there might
be more than one reason, andit might be nuanced.
It's almost always nuanced.
And if housing is down in yourneighborhood, it could be that the
(31:01):
houses on your street aren'tbeing kept very nice.
It could be that people aren'tmoving into your neighborhood.
It could be that propertytaxes are high.
It could be that there's aspecial tax because they're going
to have to put in, you know,new sewage lines on your street.
And it could be a combinationof all those issues.
If one of those issues wasfixed, prices would be coming back
(31:22):
up.
But if you just look at it asprices are down because nobody likes
living here.
Well, where does that go?
Well, and, you know, we'veworked with new people, we've done
speaking engagements incommunities, and I think sometimes
you hear people that are concerned.
Concerned about the stockmarket, but the irony is that they
(31:42):
don't even know what they'reactually invested in.
Yeah, right.
So when we speak more times,they're like, what should I do with
my investments?
And then you say, well, let'stalk about your investments.
And they pull out their statements.
And if this is you, you'rejust like everybody else.
People don't actually knowwhat they're invested in, whether
it's mutual funds, whetherit's stocks, whether it's their or
what the.
Mutual funds invested in.
They'll say, this great mutualfund, you'll say, well, what kind
(32:04):
of mutual fund is it?
I don't know.
So you'll have people that'llsay, I'm very concerned, but yet
they don't know what they ownand how it works.
And so that's also, I think,some of the things that we've noticed
just over the years and youguys have.
And I'm excited for the nexttwo episodes that we're going to
do.
And I'll let you close herebecause I think you and the planners
do a really nice job of.
Of helping our peopleunderstand the importance of understanding
(32:25):
what you own, why you own it,and how your investment fits into
the larger story that isconstantly taking place around you
so that you really do have afiltering system, too.
Is this crap or do I need toactually understand this information?
If that's you get fromlistening to Ditch the Suits is a
mindset and a filter thatallows you to know, does this information
I'm receiving today from themedia that clearly has an agenda
(32:46):
and a story to tell.
When I hear things, how do Iknow if this is really applicable
to My life to my family's lifeto our money, to our, our well being.
Or is this just what Travisand Steve talked about?
I can let this go so I can go.
What did you say?
Go carry more coal.
Was that part of split some wood?
Split some wood and carry coal.
Our goal for you folks.
Let's go split some coal dirtyUncle Travis and Uncle Steve.
(33:09):
Carry some coal.
So any final thoughts?
Yeah.
Good investing is likeanything else if you want to get
good at any.
What would you tell your kidsif your kids want to, want to be,
you know, so you have adaughter in dance or son who's playing
baseball or something likethat and you want them to and they
really want to be.
Well, what you going to say?
You're going to say practiceand have discipline.
Right.
And so good investing is likeanything else.
You have to have a lot ofdiscipline and that means you don't
(33:32):
easily get distracted and makeknee jerk reactions to things you
can't do.
Control.
So 90% of that noise out thereis designed to get you to take action.
That does not benefit you, itbenefits somebody else.
So you have to have thediscipline to say that's entertaining,
but it's not for me.
Or you know what, I'm going togo down that rabbit hole, but I'm
(33:52):
not going to take action on it.
Right.
I want to see where it goesand why people are talking like that.
But it doesn't mean that I'mgoing to take action or panic myself.
Yep.
And so for this, this is athree part series.
We got two more episodes as alittle teaser to get you ready.
So this first one was talkingabout how investing is kind of like
an emotional teenager.
But next you might beinterested in this if you're somebody
(34:13):
who does it yourself or youhave curiosity.
The next episode we're goingto talk about a guide to buying investments.
Travis is going to give youinsights as to how he sees things
over his profession, how youcan actually look at buying investments.
And then the last episode twoweeks from now, are the markets rigged?
You might be saying this toyourself, you might hear others saying
it.
So these are the two thingsthat we're going to help address
in the next two episodes.
But until then, thanks forstopping by.
(34:35):
Ditch the Suits.
Thanks for checking out Ditchthe Suits.
Be sure to write a review ordrop a comment about this episode.
And if you want more likethis, head over to ditchesuits.com
you can send us a message andget in touch.
Let us know how we can helpand be sure to share any topics you'd
be interested in having uscover on the show.
We're here to help you get themost from your money in life.
(34:56):
Thanks for being our guest andchecking out.
Ditch the suits.
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