April 27, 2025 • 58 mins
What's your financial "sleeping level"? According to investment counselor Mick Heyman, that's the amount of money you can comfortably keep in stocks without losing sleep during market turbulence. This insight represents the philosophy at the heart of Heyman's approach to wealth-building—one that prioritizes investor psychology alongside financial strategy.
In this enriching conversation, Heyman shares wisdom from his new book, "Mellow Your Money: How to Surf the Market and Build Wealth Without Stressing Yourself Out," explaining why understanding your personal risk tolerance is crucial before market downturns occur. Drawing from decades of experience guiding clients through everything from Black Monday to the pandemic crash, he offers a refreshingly nuanced perspective on diversification that goes beyond simplistic advice.
The discussion delves into fascinating territory when Heyman recounts stories of different investor personalities—from the conservative "hit it down the middle" golfer to the swing-for-the-fences gambler. Even when these approaches seem diametrically opposed, Heyman demonstrates how each investor type can find success by acknowledging their psychological relationship with risk. His surfing analogy proves particularly illuminating: just as surfers must look toward the shore rather than down at turbulent waters to stay upright, investors need to focus on long-term horizons instead of daily market fluctuations.
Perhaps most valuable is Heyman's candid assessment of day trading pitfalls, cautioning that amateur traders competing against full-time professionals face steep odds. Instead, he advocates a measured approach to investing that acknowledges market unpredictability while building resilience through proper asset allocation. Whether discussing recent tariff concerns, gold as a portfolio diversifier, or the peculiar psychology behind our reluctance to sell winning positions, Heyman's guidance remains grounded in both financial acumen and human understanding.
Ready to find your investment comfort zone? Discover how to surf financial waves without wiping out. Subscribe, leave a comment, and learn more about Mick's approach at mellowyourmoney.com.
Thanks for listening! Follow me on Instagram: benmaynardprogram
and subscribe to my YouTube channel: THE BEN MAYNARD PROGRAM
I also welcome your comments. email: pl8blocker@aol.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey there, welcome into the Ben Maynard program.
Thanks for being here.
A little something differentthis morning, a little something
special for you, especially foryou educated ones unlike me.
But before that, before we getstarted, a little housekeeping
to take care of.
As you know, this program isavailable wherever you get your
(00:31):
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Go with it.
If you could please subscribe tothat also, whatever service it
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Anytime there's a new episodepublished, you get notification
(00:51):
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Next, if you can't resist thisright here, or even some of that
right over there, and you'rewatching on YouTube, then thanks
, I greatly appreciate it.
Couple of things.
Please subscribe to the channelOnce again.
Anytime there's a new episode,you'll get notified.
(01:11):
Next, you have to give me athumbs up.
Come on, you gotta give me athumbs up.
I was actually yesterday, justby chance I wasn't trying to do
it going through some of myanalytics on the YouTube channel
and thankfully, I only have onethumbs down.
I don't have a ton of likes,but I only have one dislike.
(01:34):
So, anyway, you've got to giveme a thumbs up.
All right, those are important.
Why, I don't know, hassomething to do with an
algorithm and I don't reallycare.
But I do care that people watchthis or people listen to it.
So give me a thumbs up and thenyou have to leave a comment.
All right, comments are great.
I reply to all your comments,as you know.
(01:56):
Last but not least, follow meon Instagram.
Ben Maynard program, all oneword.
And again, I mentioned ityesterday, against my better
judgment, I opened up a TikTokaccount.
It's the Ben Maynard program.
Okay, I'll never make any moneyon this, as you know people,
(02:17):
and that's not my goal.
My goal is just to get eyes andears on this podcast.
So there you go, plenty of waysto take in this show for your
dancing and listening pleasure.
And, as you can see, we have aguest this morning.
My guest this morning is authorand investment counselor Mick
(02:42):
Heyman, and he's written a bookcalled.
You probably won't be able tosee it too well, I only have the
cover, mick, but it's called.
It is called Mellow your Moneyhow to Surf the Market and Build
Wealth Without StressingYourself Out.
I got that all right, didn't IMick?
Yeah, mick, perfect, that'sperfect, all right.
(03:04):
Well, that was a mouthful forme and you had to sit there and
listen to all that, but thanksagain for being here.
Well, thank you, ben, podcastor whatever.
(03:25):
I guess you just have to kind oflike talking.
Or my family says to me theysay, boy, you really like the
sound of your voice.
And I say no, I actually Idon't like the sound of my voice
, because most of us don't likehearing the sound of our
recorded voice.
I don't like the sound of myvoice, I just like to hear
myself talk.
So so yeah, this is my vehiclefor that and it works out pretty
(03:47):
well and I greatly appreciateyou taking a little bit of time
out of your day and your busyschedule to spend with me and my
audience.
So, before we get into things,just introduce yourself, mick,
and tell the audience a littlebit about you.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Sure, I started this journey of learning, I would say
, from the early 1980s, when Igot into this business and
realized it was not just alesson in learning about the
investment world, but about mylife and how things are always
interconnected.
(04:28):
You know, you grow up learning.
There's math class, there'sEnglish class and social studies
, and everything is divided, andthat's how we seem to learn
things when we're young, and itwas kind of through this, these
experiences in the 80s and 90sand even today, that you learn
that everything is connected.
(04:48):
And so this learning processwas is fascinating to me, and it
both got me intrigued with themarkets and how the markets work
and how people work within themarkets and how I, how I
interact with both my clients,the markets, and myself.
And so at some point I thought,you know, I always learn
(05:09):
through stories.
I always learn through, youknow, hearing about people's
experiences.
You know, like your podcast,like you're talking, this is how
you learn and grow and getexcited about things.
And so me, too, learn and growand get excited about things,
and so me too.
Anyway, that's why I wanted towrite this book.
That was a little bit more of astorytelling book about how to
(05:30):
learn about the markets asopposed to a textbook.
I never learned a whole lotfrom textbooks, so I thought
here's a chance for people tohopefully enjoy some of my
stories of life and, whilereading that, hopefully glean
some lessons about the market,and so that kind of led to
writing the book as well as kindof giving you a little bit of
(05:54):
insight into how I look atthings, even with the markets,
you know with, you know todaywhether it's today or five years
ago or whatever.
We're always stressed about themarket.
There's always something toworry about.
Anyway, my goal is to havepeople mellow out.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah yeah, I hear you on that.
Look, I mean for me, I'm one ofthe least educated people on
investing in finance.
So you answered the first partof my two-part question and that
was why you wrote the book.
But how can your book helppeople like me?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
What I hopefully will do is give you a background to
the approach to take to yourmoney and your long-term
objectives and goals, becauseit's pretty easy if you just
want to Google, you know whatshould I focus on in investing.
You'll get anywhere from five,the five pillars of investing,
(06:56):
or the 10, you know, main thingsto focus on.
It's not that, it's not brainsurgery Thankfully I don't have
the mind for that, so that partis easy.
How to pay yourself first, saveevery month, put things in
slowly, get diversified.
(07:16):
All these things are easy rulesto follow, but until something
weird happens and somethingstrange happens all the time.
Strange happens all the time,and so if you haven't dealt with
your emotions, then you throwthese rules out the window the
first time something untowardhappens.
And so that's where my book ishopefully helping people along,
(07:37):
and where I'd like to helppeople along is to have the
rules in place, but also to knowwhat's behind the rules and
what can throw you off and whatcould throw the markets off, and
not be so surprised by it.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Right, Because I'm a knucklehead.
Diversify, that just means toput money in multiple areas,
correct?
Speaker 2 (08:03):
That's correct and that's pretty important to
understand what the differentareas are.
You know, a lot of people don'twant to pay any attention to
the market or to investing, andthere's just a little bit of
insight that you need to go intoit, because if you look back in
history, you can see throughall the different ups and downs
(08:25):
that the markets have had duringall the different historical
experiences what happened in thedepression, what happened when
Pearl Harbor happened, whathappened in history.
And you can kind of see the upsand downs and say, okay, well,
if these type of things happen,the market could drop X percent.
Right, and we can't predictthose things.
I don't care how many videosyou watch or people, the experts
(08:49):
you listen to on TV, no onepredicts these things
consistently.
And so you have to be ready forthe surprise.
And so when you think about I'mgoing to invest in stocks, you
have to think about what am Iwilling to lose?
What could I lose in the shortterm that wouldn't get me scared
?
And so that's the firstquestion of diversification is
(09:11):
because there are things thatdon't move that much Money
market funds don't move a wholelot, bonds move a little bit,
but not as much as stockstypically, and so get a sense of
what things move and how theymove.
And if you're somebody whodoesn't like risk, who is a
little afraid, maybe you onlywant half your money in stocks.
(09:33):
Well, that's diversificationHalf the money in stocks, half
the money in safe things.
And let's say you're a guy thatdoesn't care that much.
Maybe you've got a long-termtime horizon, maybe you have the
kind of psychology that isn'tgoing to get scared out when
different things happen.
You might have three quartersof your money in stocks.
(09:55):
I have some clients who have100% of their money in stocks.
They don't care, they've got along-term time horizon and they
have experienced the pandemic.
During the first three weeks ofthe pandemic the market dropped
35%.
Imagine you got $100,000 all instocks and in three weeks it's
(10:18):
$65,000.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Is that work?
That 35% drop?
That's worse than 2008 as well,isn't it, I think, 2000.
Go ahead, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Sorry, in 2008, I think it dropped more, but not
as fast.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Okay, yeah.
I mean, it took some time,which I don't know which is
worse, you know it's right, andthen and then I think there was
a there was what do they callthat Black Monday back in 1987.
But none of that was nearly asbad right.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Well, in Black Monday , the market dropped 22% in one
day, one day, right.
So imagine, today you've got$100,000 and tomorrow you've got
78.
So there is a reason not to own100% stocks.
I don't care if you have a50-year time horizon, if that's
(11:16):
going to get you to be scared.
I have a client I actually oneof my early clients.
I talked to them about threeweeks before the 87 crash.
They were an older couple, theywere worried about the
depression and they said whathappens if we have a 1929
experience?
And I said well, let's look.
And instead of in hindsight, Isort of said oh my gosh, yeah,
(11:40):
let's sell everything.
But I didn't.
I said let's look at how manystocks you have, how much you
have in stocks.
This is how much you would loseif it dropped like 1929.
If that happened, would you beokay?
Well, they only had about athird of their money in stocks
and so when that happened, I hadto give them a call and they
said well, you showed us whatwould happen.
(12:02):
What's our value?
Well, it was right around thevalue we had talked about and I
said well, you said if thathappened, we should start buying
.
Well, that's exactly what wedid, and what a successful
long-term client that beganbecause they had strong hands.
They didn't get scared afterthe 22% drop because their
(12:23):
diversification allowed that tohappen without panicking.
Someone else fired us that day.
Oh my God, it was like howcould you put me in stocks?
Well, we said what could happen, but you didn't say it could
happen in a day, of course.
But that's the thing is, you'vegot to get comfortable, and
everyone's different.
(12:43):
Everyone has a unique riskthreshold.
But that's something that isyou've got to get comfortable
and everyone's different.
Everyone has a unique riskthreshold.
But that's something that Ireally encourage people to get
in touch with Know yourself,because if you don't, you're
going to automatically putyourself in some box and when
you know tariffs happen as oftoday, people are scared.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
I was going to bring that up, yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
The pandemic happened .
You know all these things, the?
I remember someone asking me,or, as the pandemic was ending
and and the things were gettingback to normal, he was saying uh
gosh, now that the slow downyou know pandemics ending things
are going to really go well,aren't't they?
And I said you know what?
(13:25):
I'm not going to predict what'sgoing to happen because I can't
, but I tell you this somethingwill.
And I didn't predict inflationwas going to get up to 9% and
the very next year the marketdropped 22% in a year that was
in 2022.
I don't know, maybe it was 20%,but whatever, you have to
(13:47):
realize that even though we wantto predict things people on TV
look like they are predictingthings it's better to say I
can't predict things, what'sbest over the long term and what
can I take, and then makelittle adjustments along the way
when you're not so emotionalbecause you have the right asset
mix.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
And maybe what's best for me may not be best for the
next guy as well.
So you kind of have to look atevery case.
I mean, you have to look at iton a case-by-case basis, right?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
to look at it in a case by case, on a case by case
basis, right, absolutely, andeven within couples I've had
where the husband wanted to bevery aggressive and the wife was
scared, yeah.
So we said, okay, well, we'llbe this way for him and this way
for you, and, and together it'slike you know, it's kind of in
between between the two of you,and it seems to work that way.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Now, would that be based on a couple that keeps
their finances separate?
They've got their own separate,whatever savings account or
checking account my paycheckgoes here and hers goes here,
that type of thing so then youcan have those separate
investments.
Is that what you're referringto?
Speaker 2 (15:02):
That's right.
She had her own investmentaccount and he had his and and
and of course, they were in thesame room talking and so they
said well, this compromise thing, even though we're together and
we, you know, we live togetherand we were right, we feel like
we're together.
This, you know, if we're youknow, 40 stocks here and 60%
(15:23):
here, this 50-50 is a nicecompromise.
And so that's kind of how theyboth saw it as separate and as
one.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah, so talk about.
I don't know if I heard it fromyou or where I heard it from,
but I wrote it down Money andmarriage.
Since we're talking couplesright now, Did that come from
(15:53):
you?
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Well.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Honestly, I don't remember man, there's definitely
different directions.
We could go with that statement.
Yeah, One thing that may not bewhere you're coming from, but I
have actually have a chapter inmy book about I got divorced
about seven years ago.
Okay, and right after thedivorce I'm walking through the
(16:17):
candy aisle looking forsomething sweet and a beautiful
woman is walking towards me andshe looks at me and she says I
think I know you.
Well, I didn't really recognizeher, but I am not stupid.
Of course we know each other.
Anyway, we figured out that wehad volunteered in this school
(16:37):
classroom about 10 years agotogether and, of course, it
seemed like heaven had lookeddown upon me and brought this
woman into my life.
She was divorced, I wasdivorced.
We end up together, we'reliving together, and this
illusion of this is just what'ssupposed to happen in life
colored a lot of things aboutthat relationship, and it took
(17:01):
about a year and a half torealize for both of us this
wasn't the right thing, thatthis would seem to be kismet
would seem to be the perfectthing.
We just got sucked into thisimmediate illusion of this is
perfect.
Well, that happens in themarkets all the time too, and so
I was kind of drawing thisparallel where we get mesmerized
(17:23):
by something, by whether it'sthe stock market or whether it's
a particular stock, and we fallin love with it because it's
made us a lot of money and wethink, oh my God, I can't ever
part ways with that.
Well, I've seen many, many timeswhere people get locked into
something that went way up.
You know where it started to bemaybe 3% or 4% of their
(17:46):
portfolio.
It triples and quadruples andgoes up more and all of a sudden
it's 15 or 20% of their assets.
One thing, that'sdiversification.
Now, if it keeps going up, theysay why should I ever sell it?
But how many examples do wehave?
You know, we thought Blackberrywas the answer to everything
(18:08):
back 25 years ago.
Now it's sitting somewhere inour closets and has disappeared.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, I think I have an old one in a drawer somewhere
.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
We all do, you know.
Yeah, yeah, apple continues togo up and maybe will continue,
but there isn't any companythat's invulnerable to potential
decline, and so what I tellpeople is don't fall in love
with any particular investment,because that emotional
attachment will sometimes coloryour eyes, and if something is
(18:40):
15% or 20% of your portfolio andbecomes BlackBerry, imagine the
loss on that.
Even as the market goes up, itcould bring everything down, and
so I know that's probably notwhere you're going with that
comment, but that I don't know,I just wrote it down.
That illusion of the thing thatcan happen is there are rules to
(19:01):
follow.
Keep kind of investments asenough of a portion that it's
not going to hurt you.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Well, to what you were speaking of.
With a particular stock justcontinuing to rise and a client
says well, why should I sell?
Look, it just keeps going upand up and up and sooner I mean
sooner or later inevitably, nomatter what, the bubble's going
(19:36):
to burst, you know, no matterwhat.
So, is it?
Is it for fear that?
For, for easy math, okay, is itis it.
Is it for fear that, okay, thisstock is?
It was at $20 when I startedbuying it.
It's now at $100 a share andyou know it's just been
continually going up.
I'm afraid that if I sell at$100 a share tomorrow, it's
(19:58):
going to be $105 a share and I'mgoing to lose a whole boatload
of money.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Well, that's the funny thing, because what I'll
tell people is exactly thatexample.
It goes from 20 to 100.
So instead of having 2% in thestock, maybe you've got 6 or 8%
in the stock.
I said, well, cut it back 2%.
You don't have to cut it allthe way back to your original
thing, but take 2% out.
You've taken your money out ofthe stock.
(20:24):
You still have 4% or 5% in thestock.
Root for it.
You want it to go to 105.
You want it to go to 200.
And we'll sell it again.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
So it's not a matter of selling all of it, it's just
selling a portion of it.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
And then you take that and maybe you invested in
something else correct, whichmight do wonderfully well and
may not do as well.
I can't tell you how many timesI've trimmed Apple along the
way to its increase.
And if you look back at thefirst one two, four times I've
sold it you say, well, thosewere pretty bad sales because
the stock kept going up.
The client still owned it, theyjust didn't have as much of it
(21:04):
it, you say well those werepretty bad sales because the
stock kept going up, the clientstill owned it, they just didn't
have as much of it and they didget spread around and did it do
as well as Apple?
Maybe, maybe not, but I know Iwill not predict the time when
Apple peaks out.
I don't know.
You know, and so I know, if Isell it along the way, I'll deal
(21:26):
with it when it starts actingpoorly and maybe peaks out.
Maybe that won't happen foranother 20 years, For all we
know.
You know, IBM went through someterrible times.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
It actually has been pretty good recently.
So sometimes stocks take a fiveor 10 year hiatus and then do
well again.
You don't know what.
You know what the path will be.
On the other hand, xerox wedon't use Xerox machines anymore
, or I'm from Dayton, ohio.
National cash register doesn't.
(21:57):
If it exists there's not cashregisters I don't know where it
would be.
Right, so things do disappearand you tend to not predict the
top of it.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yeah, so there's a big thing that's been going on,
I guess recently, at least forthe last year.
You see here on the radio, seeon television, about buying gold
(22:29):
.
Now to me, like I said, theknucklehead.
It seems not grow as quickly asa particular stock in the
(22:50):
market, but it seems to let'sput it this way when and if the
price of gold drops, it drops alittle bit, but when it goes up
it seems to go at a higher rate.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
But when it goes up, it goes.
It seems to go at a higher,higher uh rate.
Well, and gold has had over theyears, many ups, long-term up
and long-term downtrends.
Actually, when I get in thebusiness, gold was at 800 an
ounce and people thought thatwas crazy I'm sorry, how long
ago was that?
1980s yeah 1980.
(23:24):
Okay, yeah, okay, and so 800.
Well, that was the peak,because we have this long period
of disinflation.
That happened, and so gold fellto say 300 and 200, I think,
and then bounced around for many, many years.
But then at some pointinflation got so low, interest
rates got so low that it becameapparent to me that I didn't
(23:47):
think.
I thought gold was kind of likewhat you're talking about.
I didn't think it would make alot of money, but it made sense
to start diversifying into it alittle bit.
And the other thing thathappened, as a kind of a
coincidental thing, is it becameeasier to buy thing is it
became easier to buy In the1980s if you owned gold.
You actually owned gold.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
I mean, you had to buy little coins or whatever it
would be I wasn't buying a goldbar myself, but that's pretty
expensive.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
It looked pretty Back then.
It wouldn't have been asexpensive as today Today.
Expensive as today.
Today it's at $3,300 an ounce Agold bar.
My math isn't good so I can'ttell you.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
I don't know, but those look very, very impressive
.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
They look impressive.
But now you can buy theseexchange-traded funds that move
up and down with the price ofgold and it's an easy way for an
investor to diversify into it.
And I think having a little bitin in that those gold funds is
appropriate and it does make youfeel better when the when the
markets head down, typicallygold goes is a diversifier.
With the stock markets down,typically the gold price goes up
(25:01):
.
Not always.
Nothing is perfect, right.
There are several reasons forgold to do well.
One of them is inflationaryworries.
So you know, during 2022, wheninflation was rising, gold did
well.
The second thing is generalkind of geopolitical panics.
You, when we went into Iraq,gold went well, because now
(25:26):
you've got a war going on and orsometimes even if it's a
disinflationary or adeflationary worry, people buy
gold just because they're scared, and so it's a great
diversifier for people to kindof help balance the risk they
might be taking in stocks that'sjust something that I've, you
(25:46):
know.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Unfortunately I haven't pulled the trigger on,
but I I have considered,considered, you know, wanting to
make a, an investment in goldand see where that goes um.
You know, you know stocks.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I was thinking, like you're talking about starting to
think about it.
The one thing, and this is youknow everyone, as I've said,
everyone has a differentpersonality to it.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
But as I've gotten into whatever it is, I tend to
go slow.
So you buy a little bit, youbuy next month, you buy a little
more.
Or six months, you buy a littlemore.
So there's not that one day ofregret.
Say, someone has $5,000, theywant to plunk into something.
I would say, slowly, get intoit.
It might be a million dollars.
Someone inherited a bunch ofmoney.
(26:33):
Do you plunk a million dollarsin tomorrow or do you take a
slow approach to it?
I'm the slow guy.
I don't want to have thatregret of the next day going a
million to 950,000.
If you go slowly you have lessregret.
Of course you'll look back.
(26:54):
If the market goes up for thatwhole year that you're investing
, you're saying I should haveput it in all that first day.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
There's always coulda , woulda, shoulda, you know and
if you live your life that way,I mean you'll be messed up
Exactly.
You're going to questioneverything, no matter what it is
.
It doesn't have to be money.
You're going to question everydecision that you have made and
will make, moving forward.
(27:22):
You know.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
And your point is exactly right, because that's
what I've tried to make.
The point with investing is.
It's not we wanna segregatethings into different things,
but, like life, don't questionevery move you make.
Same thing with investingYou're gonna make mistakes.
You're gonna buy a crappy stockhere and there.
That's okay.
Get rid of it and move along.
(27:45):
Well, what if it goes up?
Well, too bad.
Well, I'll buy something else.
And it's a way to makedecisions and not have regret,
which can also sometimes teachyou about your life and help
somebody who has trouble makingdecisions.
They get into the market andthey think, oh, I can do this,
you know.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Right right Now.
Again, I'm an idiot.
So it just to me it seems thatyour mellow your money
philosophy would fit intosomebody with my mindset.
(28:26):
To me I'm a common sense,rational guy.
I like to analyze things andnot just impulsively dive right
into something, doesn't matterwhat it is.
But it seems that the mellow,your money philosophy is more
(28:46):
geared towards somebody of thatmindset, somebody who stops and
thinks and maybe approachesthings more on the conservative
side.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I would agree with that, and the only
differentiating feature Iactually point out in the book
is I am like you described andthat is my personality, and
typically the clients that cometoward me are those kind of
clients.
But I point out that, uh, whenI was growing up, there was uh,
(29:26):
we'd go and uh, once, once amonth to cincinnati and we'd
have this brunch and my grandpawould be there.
My uncle was there and mygrandpa more like what we're
talking about was theconservative.
He's a great golfer, but he wasthe.
Hit the ball down the middle ofthe fairway, don't veer, don't
hit it too hard.
Get the ball straight and andyou can make your pars, but
you're going to be consistent.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
My uncle was the opposite Swing for the fences
and they would get into thisfight and my grandpa would talk
about cutting stocks back.
You know, I've got this profit,I'm going to cut it.
You know, cut it in half andmove on to something else.
And my uncle would say that isthe dumbest thing I ever heard.
You either want to own it oryou want to sell it.
(30:10):
What are you talking about?
And that was his thought.
He was a gambler and he was.
Yeah, yeah, you're all in oryou're not.
And I remember 20 years later,maybe longer, it was at the end
of the tech cycle and he hadprobably 80% of his money in
tech stocks in the late 1990sand, if we recall, that was the
internet boom that became theinternet bust.
(30:33):
Well, at some point he lookedat me and he said, boy, I got to
start selling, or your aunt'sgoing to divorce me and I'm
going to have to go back to work.
And so he did, and he protectedhimself, but close to the
bottom, and what he realized washe said I am a gambler and I
(30:53):
wanna gamble, but I've gottahave some of this money in safe
money so that I can gamble withthe rest of it.
And he was a good gambler andhe made.
He wouldn't sell Apple to savehis life as the stock was taken
off after 2008.
And he ended up with a lot ofApple.
But it was balanced with thisconservative side that if Apple
(31:16):
had turned into BlackBerry, hewould have been OK, okay.
And so even if you're a gamblerand that and that kind of
gambling instinct is notsomebody who would come to me I
would still encourage you torealize have some safe money on
the side so you can takeadvantage of your.
If you have good gamblinginstincts, that's great.
Some people do.
(31:36):
I don't believe me.
I tried, I, I proved with whatI educated myself with.
You always say, when you losemoney in the market, it's kind
of like a tuition payment.
I paid my tuition in learning.
I'm not a trader, but somepeople are, and that's great.
But have that safe money on theside that allows you to be a
(31:58):
strong hand trader, if that'swhat you want to do if that's
what you want to do.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
I couldn't even play poker with my buddies when we
were in the seventh and eighthgrade.
I was so bad at it.
I'm just terrible at gambling.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
I'm the same with me.
Now I say, if you want my moneyhere, I'll give you the $20 and
the $50.
But don't make me play thisgame.
It's too much.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Yeah, it's the same for me.
I have nothing against Vegas orcasinos or anything like that.
I'm not a gambler.
I don't go play cards or crapsor anything like that.
I not that, I haven't before,but I'm just not very good at it
.
And, and I understand, peopledo it.
Okay, maybe they're good at it,maybe they're not, and they
(32:43):
still do it.
Maybe they're willing to paythat price for entertainment.
No, no, that's not for me.
I'm not that kind of guy.
So you go have your fun at yourprice and yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Exactly, we're very similar in that and yet I
respect the people that aredifferent.
And that again it gets back toknow yourself and the gambler
would not be happy having theirmoney with me, they'd be bored,
but watching paint drop, youknow.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Right, right.
But at the end of whatever theterm is that they're looking at,
you know, whatever that time ofinvestment is, when it's up
they are going to be prettyhappy, you know Well, and true
time of investment is when it'sup.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
They are going to be pretty happy.
You know well and true, and Idid have a client for a long
time and and he used to say hewas gambler kind of guy and he
was making money in business.
And he said, ok, I want, I'm theaggressive guy and I'm going to
do that with my side of things.
I want you to be the boring guy, nick.
And OK, I can be boring for youhopefully not on this show, but
(33:50):
but but at least that for thatinstant I was, you know, I was
comfortable filling that rolefor him because he he recognized
in himself he could do onething but the other thing.
He wanted that balance, and sothat is another way to play
things.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Let me do this real quick.
For those of you who can't readthe crawl on the screen, or
those of you who are listening,I'm going to reintroduce.
This is Mick Heyman that I'mspeaking to.
Mick Heyman is an author andhe's a finance or an investment
counselor.
Yeah, I want to.
I want to get that right.
I don't want to say finance,but say investment counselor and
(34:30):
um, so that's who we'respeaking to this morning.
Mick has written a book calledlet me get it again right here,
so I get all of it Correct.
It's called mellow your moneyhow to surf the market I don't
have my glasses on here how tosurf the market.
I don't have my glasses on herehow to surf the market and
build wealth without stressingyourself out.
So again, we're talking aboutgambling.
(34:53):
Would now, day traders arethose kind of like the guys that
are constantly on their phonesall the time looking at whatever
it is that they might beinvesting in?
Would that be considered a daytrader?
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Yes, although I've seen people that are long-term
investors.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
They're just like you and me.
They're putting their moneyaway, maybe in a retirement
account or whatever, and they'restill on their phones and
they're still worried about themarket day in and day out.
And I would tell you it doesn't.
You know, go listen to yourpodcast, do something else,
because all that does is stressyou out every day.
(35:38):
If you're a long-term person,looking at your phone every day
isn't helping, and and all itcan do is potentially cause you
to make poor decisions.
So that's one type of person,but there are people who
literally are trading off theirphones every day.
Now I actually, in the 80s, whenI got in the business, you know
, I our company was morelong-term oriented, but I
(36:01):
thought, thought well, I want tobe smarter than this, I want to
be a trader, and I knew somepeople who traded on the Chicago
Board of Trade.
They're trading sugar and goldand all kinds of soybeans, and
so I wanted to do that too, andI went to a couple of
conferences and I remember onein particular where the guy had
been the top trader on theChicago Board of Trade the
(36:24):
previous year.
Back then he had made $30million, which was, you know, in
80s dollars.
That was a lot of money, ofcourse.
And he stood up there and hesaid I'm going to tell you
exactly how I made my money andI guarantee you that after a
year, if you come back to thisconference, none of you will
have followed my strategy andwe're thinking nah, challenge,
(36:47):
accepted man.
And so, without going into allthe details, the basic thing was
there are four things thatcould happen.
When you invest in something, itgoes up a lot, up a little bit,
down, a little bit, down a lot.
What he does is take a lot ofstop losses Stop losses when
something goes down.
Say, you bought it at 10, at9.9, he's out.
(37:12):
So he draws a line in the sandthat basically sells something
whenever it went down a littlebit.
So he took a lot of littlelosses.
Imagine, 20 times in a rowsomething goes you bought it at
10, it goes 9.9, out, you go.
So he always eliminated the bigloss.
(37:33):
Sometimes it went from 10 to10.10, and he'd take the profit
because it was wiggling orwhatever, and occasionally it
went from 10 to 20.
Maybe that's one out of 20times, but that that, by
eliminating the little, the biglosses, the big gains, made him
tons of money.
(37:53):
Gotcha it makes intuitive senseright.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yeah, well, try it though.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Try losing 20 or 30 times in a row.
A little bit.
You just don't do it, and atsome point you say I'm going to
hold on to this one.
Well, invariably that's the onethat becomes the big loss.
And then you say oh, I want totake a gain.
Well, you take a little gainand that's the big gain.
And all of a sudden yourpsychology fools you, and so if
(38:23):
you're the kind of person thatcould do what that guy did,
great, you could make a lot ofmoney.
I can't, and I think mostpeople don't have that
discipline to actually be atrader.
I think trading is a full-timejob.
The other mistake people makeis oh, I could do this on the
side.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
I could have my job and occasionally do.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
No, trading is a full-time.
I mean, there are people thatare focused on this and you're
competing against them.
By the way, these people thatare full-time have four
computers going at one point.
Whatever you know, you knowpeople think for some reason,
they hit a long golf ball in thewind, with the wind behind you,
(39:07):
it hits a rock or something.
It goes 350 yards.
They think, oh, I'm hitting itlike Tiger Woods or you know
whoever it is today.
No, the pros are the pros andif you want to be one.
that's fine, but but don'tpretend you know.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
But you're not going to be a pro if you're a weekend
warrior.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
No.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
And that's I mean, whether it's in sports or in in
investment, right, this, theguys doing it on the side, quote
, unquote, you know are nothingcompared to the guys that
they're punching in at seveno'clock in the morning and
they're punching out at five inthe evening, and I guess the
(39:48):
similarity to golf isoccasionally you will hit a golf
shot from 50 yards off andit'll go in the hole and that's
as good as a pro can do, right?
Speaker 2 (40:00):
I mean, in golf, occasionally you're.
My uncle always said it wasn'this good shots that separated
from him from a pro, it was hisbad shots, you know.
And same thing.
We can get lucky in picking astock and occasionally look like
a pro, but we're not a pro.
We're not a pro, you know.
But but that that it isalluring to people because they
(40:24):
get something right.
I always think the person that,say, bought Bitcoin or whatever
it is and gets lucky the firsttime they do something, then
they think I am brilliant, it,it, it takes.
They don't have the humility.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
You use the golf analogy and I come from a
baseball background, so you knoweven a horrible pitcher in the
seventies may have struck outHank Aaron once Exactly, but if
he faced him another two orthree times, chances are Hank
yanked one or two of those outof the ballpark.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Just because he strikes him out once doesn't
make this guy a stud or anall-star or anything like that.
Yeah, there's that saying evena blind squirrel finds the nut.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
It's about the investment oftime and practicing your trade,
(41:22):
no matter what it is.
If you want to be good atsomething, you can't just do it
willy-nilly.
I guess that's why I don't makeany money on this podcast.
No, I joke.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
I joke, you never know though You've done a lot of
these podcasts and as we learnthrough doing, you know, and as
you're doing these things andacquiring and the next thing you
know, it doesn't mean that youcan't acquire skills along the
way Of course.
But when you get lucky first,say your first podcast would
(42:00):
have been, for whatever reason,got hit and went viral or
something Right.
And then you didn't learneverything you needed to become
a great podcaster.
That would have actuallysuffered you over the long term.
And I, on the other hand, gotlucky in a way, because my first
investments were horrible andso I had to learn.
(42:22):
What did I do wrong?
Here?
For a long-term investor, thereare things to learn and to kind
of figure out, and so, byhaving some failures along the
way, it actually can teach you.
And that's the other point Itry to make in this book is that
, you know, don't look at yourfailures as terrible things.
(42:43):
They're learning lessons, andthe market is great at teaching
us.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
So, in your opinion, how have the?
In your opinion, how have the?
Um, well, how, how, what isyour approach to what's been
going on, uh, in recent weeks orthe last couple of months,
since we've had?
We've had a new president inoffice now and he's implementing
(43:11):
tariffs on a certain uh,certain trade partners and that
type of thing.
It for me, I, me, I mean, I seereports going on people losing
their minds and that type ofthing, and I don't know if it's
just my personality trust inadministration or all of it, but
for me it's like I just try tosee the big picture, open my
(43:38):
eyes, and I'm one that is goingto ride the storm out.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
And I think that is like all storms.
People have to think about whatamount of money and stocks will
they be comfortable with ifit's a storm.
I don't think it's predictableyet whether it will be a storm
or not.
The funny thing is you talk toan investment guy who doesn't
(44:07):
know exactly what the market'sdone year to date, but it's
somewhere down, say, between 3%and 5%.
All this consternation, allthis worry, and maybe at the
worst it was down nine or 10percent, but of course it's come
back a little bit Now.
It's down three to five percent.
If somebody is upset about that, they have too much in stocks.
(44:28):
You know now there's an oldquote from a guy that said take
stocks down to your sleepinglevel.
This is a good test of what.
If you're waking up at nightworried about stocks and the
market's only off three to 5%,you've got too much in stocks
Because you want to be able toride through the storm, if there
is indeed one.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Yeah, I guess here's a way to think about it.
Like you said, three to 5%,that's like I mean.
Of course, when you're talking,you know a tremendous amount of
money.
For some people it's thousandsor hundreds of thousands of
dollars, For others it'smillions of dollars, but
nonetheless, 3% or 3 to 5% isstill three cents to a nickel on
(45:17):
a dollar.
Come on, and I think a lot ofpeople don't see it that way.
They just see that it's a lossand, oh my gosh, it's a loss and
I'm losing money here.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Well, and combine that with the headlines.
The market I've not yet seenthe market go down with good
headlines.
Oh, it's a wonderful time toget in because the market's down
.
The headlines are always nastywhen the market's at the bottom,
and so be prepared If you'rewatching whatever it is news
(45:51):
you're watching, it's going tobe some ugly headlines when the
bottom happens.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
I don't watch any financial news.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
Well, I don't get interviewed by those guys either
, because I tell people ignoreit and so I don't think they
want me on there either it'sbetter to talk to knuckleheads
like me.
You know I'm not a knucklehead,but I think that it's better
advice.
(46:19):
And yet, it doesn't sell, it'snot going to go viral with.
Typically go for the long term.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
Yeah, I heard this the other day and I'm sorry.
I don't mean to knock this guybecause I don't know him, I
don't watch him.
I heard his name and the guyhe's like on one of the cable
outlets, jim Cramer, I think, ishis name Big.
The guy he's like on one of thecable outlets, jim Kramer, I
think is his name big money guy.
There's a thing it's likewhatever Kramer says, do the
opposite and you're like A-okay.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
I've heard that, and the thing is I don't listen to
him very well and very often orwhatever, but he's not a dumb
guy, he's actually a smart guy.
He does his studies.
The trouble is and I don't know, I don't watch it enough to
know, but I don't think he eversays I told you to buy Apple
(47:10):
three weeks ago and now I'm alittle worried.
You got to sell it and Apple isonly for particular investors.
He's just talking, and so is hetalking to you or is he talking
to me, or is he talking to AuntFrida?
We don't know.
And so it's interesting forpeople who just like to hear
(47:32):
nuance about stocks, but it'snot helpful for your individual
thing, because he doesn't knowyou, and so that's my problem
with him is not the informationhe has.
I think sometimes, like anybody, if you you know who was it?
Roger Federer said that he won80% of his matches, but only 54%
(47:55):
of his points.
He only won a few more pointsthan the other guy did.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Same thing in the stock market.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Kramer might be right we don't know 48% of the time,
or 52, we don't know, but he'sright.
58% of the time not bad for astock guy.
But we don't know, if you'relistening to him, if you missed
Monday, when he happened to beright about a couple, and you
listened on Tuesday and he waswrong.
That you know too.
You know too bad.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
And right Right Right .
Speaker 2 (48:25):
So I don't want to defend them or throw them under
the bus.
The problem is.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
The problem with any of these things is they're not
talking to you or you the personyou know, and some people take
it that way, as he's speakingindividually to you, right,
exactly, yeah, well, see whenwe're.
You know you and I were havingthis conversation.
Yes, I want the listeners tofeel like we're speaking to them
, but, but, but, yeah, you know,um but at least we qualified.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
we said you know, this is you, you know
conservative people and this isthe style and if they're
gamblers they're going to have,you know, probably moved on to a
different station.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
Yeah, if they're gamblers, they probably turned
this thing off after fiveminutes, that's okay.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
You got another thumbs down.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
Oh my God, oh my God, and I'm responsible.
No, no, no no.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
I think, I do all that stuff on my own, but you
know you know, having writtenthe book, I they always told me
you gotta have a couple ofreviews that are, you know,
either negative or neutral, justbecause people think it's fake.
If you don't, so a thumbs downhere, and there is probably a
good thing.
It means someone's payingattention Only likes over here,
(49:44):
though, people okay.
Oh yeah, only likes.
From now on, you've already hadyour ones.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Yeah, that's right.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhat you like to do when you're
not being an investmentcounselor to the public.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Well, I enjoy all kinds of sports.
I have three kids enjoy golfing.
As you might have picked up, Itry to be more like my grandpa
with hitting it down the middle,but I'm not as good as him.
So I buy a lot of cheap golfballs for the ones that move
when I'm donating to the woodsor the ponds, and I actually I
(50:25):
moved out to San Diego about 20years ago and actually learned
how to surf a little bit with mykids, and so nowadays the water
has to be glassy and the wavesnot too big.
Sometimes the kids will say, dad, it's pretty flat out there,
it's your kind of waves, go onout there.
And so I enjoyed it.
(50:45):
And you know, I use the surfinganalogy in the book and
actually there was a moment whenI was learning how to surf.
I was going, you know, I waslooking down the water and
getting all kinds of, you know,falling down all the time, and
someone said, well, look to theshore, don't look.
If you look down, you're goingto go down.
(51:07):
And so look out to the shore,and when I did that, all of a
sudden I was up on the board, atleast for a little bit, and and
and kind of riding that waveand I thought to myself at some
point that's, that's long-terminvesting.
If you look at all the noisethat's beneath you you're going
down right look to the shore.
(51:29):
That's, that's your goal, youknow, and so um, anyway, that's
a small analogy.
But I do like surfing.
I'm not so good at it, but uh,that's where everything in life
can can teach us something.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
Yeah, but you never know what you can do unless you
try Exactly, exactly.
You know, and I love that line,I, I, you know, I.
I got that line from um, afriend of mine, many years ago.
We to coach baseball, uh,together, and he would tell all
the kids, you tell all theplayers, and and it's just stuck
(52:04):
with me and it and it, it, itgoes for anything and it's
anything in life.
You know, when you're doubtingyourself about doing anything,
well, you never know what youcould do unless you give it a
try.
You have to try and um, youknow it, maybe it's I, I don't,
I don't know.
(52:25):
I'm guessing I'm, I'm a littlebit of a pollyanna guy, but I
don't think that's a pollyannaway of looking at things either.
I think it's just I don'teither.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
It's a great philosophy, and and it allows
you to to fail a little bitalong the way, too, which can
teach us so many differentthings it allows you to fail a
little bit along the way, too,which can teach us so many
different things.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
It gives you permission to and where a lot of
times especially for those whocan be incredibly hard on
themselves for any amount offailure it does it does give you
permission to fail and you justget right back up, you dust
yourself off and do it again.
(53:01):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So how was, uh, how was your,how was your walk on the links
yesterday?
It was, it was fantastic it was.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Uh uh.
You know it's a little chillyat the end, but uh, yeah cold it
got cold yesterday it wasdefinitely a little.
Of course, I don't know.
We might be talking to peoplein Minnesota.
So cold, cold out here we'rewimps.
Sorry, but you know, 55 degreesthat's chilly, and I'll say
that to my sister and she said,yeah, it's warm here, it's 55
(53:34):
degrees.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
But yeah, it's warm here, it's 55 degrees.
Yeah, yeah, but yeah, it wasdefinitely.
You know, I had my share ofdonations to the, to the
wildlife beyond me, and, as myfriend always says, oh, someone
will turn that ball in at somepoint.
Speaker 1 (53:50):
Not really.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
But I love that.
For me it's almost a meditation.
You know, I'm walking along,occasionally I'm one with the
shot or whatever, andoccasionally I'm not.
But either way, it's beautifulto be out in nature and carrying
my clubs and just enjoying thestroll.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
Yeah, no, I think that's great.
So where can people find yourbook?
So where can people find yourbook?
Speaker 2 (54:18):
So the book is on Amazon and Barnes, noble and
most of the major major placesand then, if you want to contact
me, my website ismellowyourmoneycom.
I'm at mick atmellowyourmoneycom and I'm happy
to correspond with anybody andreally enjoy it.
(54:40):
And of course, it's on audiobook too, if you can, you know,
stay in my voice and want tolisten to it.
Speaker 1 (54:49):
It's available that way too.
Oh, you got a pleasant,pleasant voice there, mick.
Thank you.
Yeah, again, the book is calledMellow your Money, how to Surf
the Market.
And again, no glasses.
I need to put them on how toSurf the Market and Build Wealth
Without Stressing Yourself Out.
And I really wish the publisherwould have sent me a copy of
(55:12):
this book, because it would haveshowed up a lot better on
camera, but they didn't.
Speaker 2 (55:17):
Well, I'm going to have to get you one anyway, so
I'd appreciate that I'dappreciate that.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
Listen, so people can just reach out to you on your.
They can on your email, right?
Speaker 2 (55:31):
Yeah, that'd be perfect.
Speaker 1 (55:32):
Okay, and give that one out again.
Speaker 2 (55:36):
It's nick at melloryourmoneycom and
melloryour.
Again it's a Nick at Melloryour moneycom, and Mellor your
moneycom is the website.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:47):
Nick, this is.
This has been a lot of fun andI think my audience pretty much
knows.
I always I don't call it apre-interview, I just call it
I'll get to know yourconversation, and so everybody
knows that I talked to theguests before they come on here.
It makes me sound a little lessdumb and a little more prepared
(56:09):
.
Just the brief conversationsyou and I have had over the past
week have been great.
This is wonderful.
The brief conversations you andI have had over the past week
have been great.
This is wonderful.
It's been a pleasure getting toknow you and getting to have a
little bit better understandingon investment and finance and I
can't thank you for your time.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
Well, thank you, ben.
It's been a pleasure and funboth chatting beforehand and
also during the show.
It's great.
Speaker 1 (56:37):
And look, I told you I'm only like an hour and a half
away.
So if you want to taste somebarbecue and bourbon, you're
more than welcome to come on out, that sounds fun.
Thank you.
Yeah, hang with me for a second, okay.
Okay, that's great, everyone.
Look, this has been great.
I know there there's, I knowthere's something in this for
(56:58):
everyone.
All right, maybe not everything, but there's something.
Take a piece of this away foryourselves.
As you know, this program isavailable wherever you get your
podcasts.
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(57:18):
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(57:43):
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Last but not least, follow meon Instagram Ben Maynard Program
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Thank you for your time.
This is the Ben Maynard Program.
Tell a friend there.
Hey there, welcome into the Ben Maynard program.
Thanks for being here.
A little something differentthis morning, a little something
special for you, especially foryou educated ones unlike me.
But before that, before we getstarted, a little housekeeping
to take care of.
As you know, this program isavailable wherever you get your
(00:31):
podcasts.
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If you could please subscribe tothat also, whatever service it
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(00:51):
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Next, if you can't resist thisright here, or even some of that
right over there, and you'rewatching on YouTube, then thanks
, I greatly appreciate it.
Couple of things.
Please subscribe to the channelOnce again.
Anytime there's a new episode,you'll get notified.
(01:11):
Next, you have to give me athumbs up.
Come on, you gotta give me athumbs up.
I was actually yesterday, justby chance I wasn't trying to do
it going through some of myanalytics on the YouTube channel
and thankfully, I only have onethumbs down.
I don't have a ton of likes,but I only have one dislike.
(01:34):
So, anyway, you've got to giveme a thumbs up.
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Why, I don't know, hassomething to do with an
algorithm and I don't reallycare.
But I do care that people watchthis or people listen to it.
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All right, comments are great.
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(01:56):
Last but not least, follow meon Instagram.
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And again, I mentioned ityesterday, against my better
judgment, I opened up a TikTokaccount.
It's the Ben Maynard program.
Okay, I'll never make any moneyon this, as you know people,
(02:17):
and that's not my goal.
My goal is just to get eyes andears on this podcast.
So there you go, plenty of waysto take in this show for your
dancing and listening pleasure.
And, as you can see, we have aguest this morning.
My guest this morning is authorand investment counselor Mick
(02:42):
Heyman, and he's written a bookcalled.
You probably won't be able tosee it too well, I only have the
cover, mick, but it's called.
It is called Mellow your Moneyhow to Surf the Market and Build
Wealth Without StressingYourself Out.
I got that all right, didn't IMick?
Yeah, mick, perfect, that'sperfect, all right.
(03:04):
Well, that was a mouthful forme and you had to sit there and
listen to all that, but thanksagain for being here.
Well, thank you, ben, podcastor whatever.
(03:25):
I guess you just have to kind oflike talking.
Or my family says to me theysay, boy, you really like the
sound of your voice.
And I say no, I actually Idon't like the sound of my voice
, because most of us don't likehearing the sound of our
recorded voice.
I don't like the sound of myvoice, I just like to hear
myself talk.
So so yeah, this is my vehiclefor that and it works out pretty
(03:47):
well and I greatly appreciateyou taking a little bit of time
out of your day and your busyschedule to spend with me and my
audience.
So, before we get into things,just introduce yourself, mick,
and tell the audience a littlebit about you.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Sure, I started this journey of learning, I would say
, from the early 1980s, when Igot into this business and
realized it was not just alesson in learning about the
investment world, but about mylife and how things are always
interconnected.
(04:28):
You know, you grow up learning.
There's math class, there'sEnglish class and social studies
, and everything is divided, andthat's how we seem to learn
things when we're young, and itwas kind of through this, these
experiences in the 80s and 90sand even today, that you learn
that everything is connected.
(04:48):
And so this learning processwas is fascinating to me, and it
both got me intrigued with themarkets and how the markets work
and how people work within themarkets and how I, how I
interact with both my clients,the markets, and myself.
And so at some point I thought,you know, I always learn
(05:09):
through stories.
I always learn through, youknow, hearing about people's
experiences.
You know, like your podcast,like you're talking, this is how
you learn and grow and getexcited about things.
And so me, too, learn and growand get excited about things,
and so me too.
Anyway, that's why I wanted towrite this book.
That was a little bit more of astorytelling book about how to
(05:30):
learn about the markets asopposed to a textbook.
I never learned a whole lotfrom textbooks, so I thought
here's a chance for people tohopefully enjoy some of my
stories of life and, whilereading that, hopefully glean
some lessons about the market,and so that kind of led to
writing the book as well as kindof giving you a little bit of
(05:54):
insight into how I look atthings, even with the markets,
you know with, you know todaywhether it's today or five years
ago or whatever.
We're always stressed about themarket.
There's always something toworry about.
Anyway, my goal is to havepeople mellow out.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah yeah, I hear you on that.
Look, I mean for me, I'm one ofthe least educated people on
investing in finance.
So you answered the first partof my two-part question and that
was why you wrote the book.
But how can your book helppeople like me?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
What I hopefully will do is give you a background to
the approach to take to yourmoney and your long-term
objectives and goals, becauseit's pretty easy if you just
want to Google, you know whatshould I focus on in investing.
You'll get anywhere from five,the five pillars of investing,
(06:56):
or the 10, you know, main thingsto focus on.
It's not that, it's not brainsurgery Thankfully I don't have
the mind for that, so that partis easy.
How to pay yourself first, saveevery month, put things in
slowly, get diversified.
(07:16):
All these things are easy rulesto follow, but until something
weird happens and somethingstrange happens all the time.
Strange happens all the time,and so if you haven't dealt with
your emotions, then you throwthese rules out the window the
first time something untowardhappens.
And so that's where my book ishopefully helping people along,
(07:37):
and where I'd like to helppeople along is to have the
rules in place, but also to knowwhat's behind the rules and
what can throw you off and whatcould throw the markets off, and
not be so surprised by it.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Right, Because I'm a knucklehead.
Diversify, that just means toput money in multiple areas,
correct?
Speaker 2 (08:03):
That's correct and that's pretty important to
understand what the differentareas are.
You know, a lot of people don'twant to pay any attention to
the market or to investing, andthere's just a little bit of
insight that you need to go intoit, because if you look back in
history, you can see throughall the different ups and downs
(08:25):
that the markets have had duringall the different historical
experiences what happened in thedepression, what happened when
Pearl Harbor happened, whathappened in history.
And you can kind of see the upsand downs and say, okay, well,
if these type of things happen,the market could drop X percent.
Right, and we can't predictthose things.
I don't care how many videosyou watch or people, the experts
(08:49):
you listen to on TV, no onepredicts these things
consistently.
And so you have to be ready forthe surprise.
And so when you think about I'mgoing to invest in stocks, you
have to think about what am Iwilling to lose?
What could I lose in the shortterm that wouldn't get me scared
?
And so that's the firstquestion of diversification is
(09:11):
because there are things thatdon't move that much Money
market funds don't move a wholelot, bonds move a little bit,
but not as much as stockstypically, and so get a sense of
what things move and how theymove.
And if you're somebody whodoesn't like risk, who is a
little afraid, maybe you onlywant half your money in stocks.
(09:33):
Well, that's diversificationHalf the money in stocks, half
the money in safe things.
And let's say you're a guy thatdoesn't care that much.
Maybe you've got a long-termtime horizon, maybe you have the
kind of psychology that isn'tgoing to get scared out when
different things happen.
You might have three quartersof your money in stocks.
(09:55):
I have some clients who have100% of their money in stocks.
They don't care, they've got along-term time horizon and they
have experienced the pandemic.
During the first three weeks ofthe pandemic the market dropped
35%.
Imagine you got $100,000 all instocks and in three weeks it's
(10:18):
$65,000.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Is that work?
That 35% drop?
That's worse than 2008 as well,isn't it, I think, 2000.
Go ahead, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Sorry, in 2008, I think it dropped more, but not
as fast.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Okay, yeah.
I mean, it took some time,which I don't know which is
worse, you know it's right, andthen and then I think there was
a there was what do they callthat Black Monday back in 1987.
But none of that was nearly asbad right.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Well, in Black Monday , the market dropped 22% in one
day, one day, right.
So imagine, today you've got$100,000 and tomorrow you've got
78.
So there is a reason not to own100% stocks.
I don't care if you have a50-year time horizon, if that's
(11:16):
going to get you to be scared.
I have a client I actually oneof my early clients.
I talked to them about threeweeks before the 87 crash.
They were an older couple, theywere worried about the
depression and they said whathappens if we have a 1929
experience?
And I said well, let's look.
And instead of in hindsight, Isort of said oh my gosh, yeah,
(11:40):
let's sell everything.
But I didn't.
I said let's look at how manystocks you have, how much you
have in stocks.
This is how much you would loseif it dropped like 1929.
If that happened, would you beokay?
Well, they only had about athird of their money in stocks
and so when that happened, I hadto give them a call and they
said well, you showed us whatwould happen.
(12:02):
What's our value?
Well, it was right around thevalue we had talked about and I
said well, you said if thathappened, we should start buying
.
Well, that's exactly what wedid, and what a successful
long-term client that beganbecause they had strong hands.
They didn't get scared afterthe 22% drop because their
(12:23):
diversification allowed that tohappen without panicking.
Someone else fired us that day.
Oh my God, it was like howcould you put me in stocks?
Well, we said what could happen, but you didn't say it could
happen in a day, of course.
But that's the thing is, you'vegot to get comfortable, and
everyone's different.
(12:43):
Everyone has a unique riskthreshold.
But that's something that isyou've got to get comfortable
and everyone's different.
Everyone has a unique riskthreshold.
But that's something that Ireally encourage people to get
in touch with Know yourself,because if you don't, you're
going to automatically putyourself in some box and when
you know tariffs happen as oftoday, people are scared.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
I was going to bring that up, yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
The pandemic happened .
You know all these things, the?
I remember someone asking me,or, as the pandemic was ending
and and the things were gettingback to normal, he was saying uh
gosh, now that the slow downyou know pandemics ending things
are going to really go well,aren't't they?
And I said you know what?
(13:25):
I'm not going to predict what'sgoing to happen because I can't
, but I tell you this somethingwill.
And I didn't predict inflationwas going to get up to 9% and
the very next year the marketdropped 22% in a year that was
in 2022.
I don't know, maybe it was 20%,but whatever, you have to
(13:47):
realize that even though we wantto predict things people on TV
look like they are predictingthings it's better to say I
can't predict things, what'sbest over the long term and what
can I take, and then makelittle adjustments along the way
when you're not so emotionalbecause you have the right asset
mix.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
And maybe what's best for me may not be best for the
next guy as well.
So you kind of have to look atevery case.
I mean, you have to look at iton a case-by-case basis, right?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
to look at it in a case by case, on a case by case
basis, right, absolutely, andeven within couples I've had
where the husband wanted to bevery aggressive and the wife was
scared, yeah.
So we said, okay, well, we'llbe this way for him and this way
for you, and, and together it'slike you know, it's kind of in
between between the two of you,and it seems to work that way.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Now, would that be based on a couple that keeps
their finances separate?
They've got their own separate,whatever savings account or
checking account my paycheckgoes here and hers goes here,
that type of thing so then youcan have those separate
investments.
Is that what you're referringto?
Speaker 2 (15:02):
That's right.
She had her own investmentaccount and he had his and and
and of course, they were in thesame room talking and so they
said well, this compromise thing, even though we're together and
we, you know, we live togetherand we were right, we feel like
we're together.
This, you know, if we're youknow, 40 stocks here and 60%
(15:23):
here, this 50-50 is a nicecompromise.
And so that's kind of how theyboth saw it as separate and as
one.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah, so talk about.
I don't know if I heard it fromyou or where I heard it from,
but I wrote it down Money andmarriage.
Since we're talking couplesright now, Did that come from
(15:53):
you?
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Well.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Honestly, I don't remember man, there's definitely
different directions.
We could go with that statement.
Yeah, One thing that may not bewhere you're coming from, but I
have actually have a chapter inmy book about I got divorced
about seven years ago.
Okay, and right after thedivorce I'm walking through the
(16:17):
candy aisle looking forsomething sweet and a beautiful
woman is walking towards me andshe looks at me and she says I
think I know you.
Well, I didn't really recognizeher, but I am not stupid.
Of course we know each other.
Anyway, we figured out that wehad volunteered in this school
(16:37):
classroom about 10 years agotogether and, of course, it
seemed like heaven had lookeddown upon me and brought this
woman into my life.
She was divorced, I wasdivorced.
We end up together, we'reliving together, and this
illusion of this is just what'ssupposed to happen in life
colored a lot of things aboutthat relationship, and it took
(17:01):
about a year and a half torealize for both of us this
wasn't the right thing, thatthis would seem to be kismet
would seem to be the perfectthing.
We just got sucked into thisimmediate illusion of this is
perfect.
Well, that happens in themarkets all the time too, and so
I was kind of drawing thisparallel where we get mesmerized
(17:23):
by something, by whether it'sthe stock market or whether it's
a particular stock, and we fallin love with it because it's
made us a lot of money and wethink, oh my God, I can't ever
part ways with that.
Well, I've seen many, many timeswhere people get locked into
something that went way up.
You know where it started to bemaybe 3% or 4% of their
(17:46):
portfolio.
It triples and quadruples andgoes up more and all of a sudden
it's 15 or 20% of their assets.
One thing, that'sdiversification.
Now, if it keeps going up, theysay why should I ever sell it?
But how many examples do wehave?
You know, we thought Blackberrywas the answer to everything
(18:08):
back 25 years ago.
Now it's sitting somewhere inour closets and has disappeared.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, I think I have an old one in a drawer somewhere
.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
We all do, you know.
Yeah, yeah, apple continues togo up and maybe will continue,
but there isn't any companythat's invulnerable to potential
decline, and so what I tellpeople is don't fall in love
with any particular investment,because that emotional
attachment will sometimes coloryour eyes, and if something is
(18:40):
15% or 20% of your portfolio andbecomes BlackBerry, imagine the
loss on that.
Even as the market goes up, itcould bring everything down, and
so I know that's probably notwhere you're going with that
comment, but that I don't know,I just wrote it down.
That illusion of the thing thatcan happen is there are rules to
(19:01):
follow.
Keep kind of investments asenough of a portion that it's
not going to hurt you.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Well, to what you were speaking of.
With a particular stock justcontinuing to rise and a client
says well, why should I sell?
Look, it just keeps going upand up and up and sooner I mean
sooner or later inevitably, nomatter what, the bubble's going
(19:36):
to burst, you know, no matterwhat.
So, is it?
Is it for fear that?
For, for easy math, okay, is itis it.
Is it for fear that, okay, thisstock is?
It was at $20 when I startedbuying it.
It's now at $100 a share andyou know it's just been
continually going up.
I'm afraid that if I sell at$100 a share tomorrow, it's
(19:58):
going to be $105 a share and I'mgoing to lose a whole boatload
of money.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Well, that's the funny thing, because what I'll
tell people is exactly thatexample.
It goes from 20 to 100.
So instead of having 2% in thestock, maybe you've got 6 or 8%
in the stock.
I said, well, cut it back 2%.
You don't have to cut it allthe way back to your original
thing, but take 2% out.
You've taken your money out ofthe stock.
(20:24):
You still have 4% or 5% in thestock.
Root for it.
You want it to go to 105.
You want it to go to 200.
And we'll sell it again.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
So it's not a matter of selling all of it, it's just
selling a portion of it.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
And then you take that and maybe you invested in
something else correct, whichmight do wonderfully well and
may not do as well.
I can't tell you how many timesI've trimmed Apple along the
way to its increase.
And if you look back at thefirst one two, four times I've
sold it you say, well, thosewere pretty bad sales because
the stock kept going up.
The client still owned it, theyjust didn't have as much of it
(21:04):
it, you say well those werepretty bad sales because the
stock kept going up, the clientstill owned it, they just didn't
have as much of it and they didget spread around and did it do
as well as Apple?
Maybe, maybe not, but I know Iwill not predict the time when
Apple peaks out.
I don't know.
You know, and so I know, if Isell it along the way, I'll deal
(21:26):
with it when it starts actingpoorly and maybe peaks out.
Maybe that won't happen foranother 20 years, For all we
know.
You know, IBM went through someterrible times.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
It actually has been pretty good recently.
So sometimes stocks take a fiveor 10 year hiatus and then do
well again.
You don't know what.
You know what the path will be.
On the other hand, xerox wedon't use Xerox machines anymore
, or I'm from Dayton, ohio.
National cash register doesn't.
(21:57):
If it exists there's not cashregisters I don't know where it
would be.
Right, so things do disappearand you tend to not predict the
top of it.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yeah, so there's a big thing that's been going on,
I guess recently, at least forthe last year.
You see here on the radio, seeon television, about buying gold
(22:29):
.
Now to me, like I said, theknucklehead.
It seems not grow as quickly asa particular stock in the
(22:50):
market, but it seems to let'sput it this way when and if the
price of gold drops, it drops alittle bit, but when it goes up
it seems to go at a higher rate.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
But when it goes up, it goes.
It seems to go at a higher,higher uh rate.
Well, and gold has had over theyears, many ups, long-term up
and long-term downtrends.
Actually, when I get in thebusiness, gold was at 800 an
ounce and people thought thatwas crazy I'm sorry, how long
ago was that?
1980s yeah 1980.
(23:24):
Okay, yeah, okay, and so 800.
Well, that was the peak,because we have this long period
of disinflation.
That happened, and so gold fellto say 300 and 200, I think,
and then bounced around for many, many years.
But then at some pointinflation got so low, interest
rates got so low that it becameapparent to me that I didn't
(23:47):
think.
I thought gold was kind of likewhat you're talking about.
I didn't think it would make alot of money, but it made sense
to start diversifying into it alittle bit.
And the other thing thathappened, as a kind of a
coincidental thing, is it becameeasier to buy thing is it
became easier to buy In the1980s if you owned gold.
You actually owned gold.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
I mean, you had to buy little coins or whatever it
would be I wasn't buying a goldbar myself, but that's pretty
expensive.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
It looked pretty Back then.
It wouldn't have been asexpensive as today Today.
Expensive as today.
Today it's at $3,300 an ounce Agold bar.
My math isn't good so I can'ttell you.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
I don't know, but those look very, very impressive
.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
They look impressive.
But now you can buy theseexchange-traded funds that move
up and down with the price ofgold and it's an easy way for an
investor to diversify into it.
And I think having a little bitin in that those gold funds is
appropriate and it does make youfeel better when the when the
markets head down, typicallygold goes is a diversifier.
With the stock markets down,typically the gold price goes up
(25:01):
.
Not always.
Nothing is perfect, right.
There are several reasons forgold to do well.
One of them is inflationaryworries.
So you know, during 2022, wheninflation was rising, gold did
well.
The second thing is generalkind of geopolitical panics.
You, when we went into Iraq,gold went well, because now
(25:26):
you've got a war going on and orsometimes even if it's a
disinflationary or adeflationary worry, people buy
gold just because they're scared, and so it's a great
diversifier for people to kindof help balance the risk they
might be taking in stocks that'sjust something that I've, you
(25:46):
know.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Unfortunately I haven't pulled the trigger on,
but I I have considered,considered, you know, wanting to
make a, an investment in goldand see where that goes um.
You know, you know stocks.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I was thinking, like you're talking about starting to
think about it.
The one thing, and this is youknow everyone, as I've said,
everyone has a differentpersonality to it.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
But as I've gotten into whatever it is, I tend to
go slow.
So you buy a little bit, youbuy next month, you buy a little
more.
Or six months, you buy a littlemore.
So there's not that one day ofregret.
Say, someone has $5,000, theywant to plunk into something.
I would say, slowly, get intoit.
It might be a million dollars.
Someone inherited a bunch ofmoney.
(26:33):
Do you plunk a million dollarsin tomorrow or do you take a
slow approach to it?
I'm the slow guy.
I don't want to have thatregret of the next day going a
million to 950,000.
If you go slowly you have lessregret.
Of course you'll look back.
(26:54):
If the market goes up for thatwhole year that you're investing
, you're saying I should haveput it in all that first day.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
There's always coulda , woulda, shoulda, you know and
if you live your life that way,I mean you'll be messed up
Exactly.
You're going to questioneverything, no matter what it is
.
It doesn't have to be money.
You're going to question everydecision that you have made and
will make, moving forward.
(27:22):
You know.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
And your point is exactly right, because that's
what I've tried to make.
The point with investing is.
It's not we wanna segregatethings into different things,
but, like life, don't questionevery move you make.
Same thing with investingYou're gonna make mistakes.
You're gonna buy a crappy stockhere and there.
That's okay.
Get rid of it and move along.
(27:45):
Well, what if it goes up?
Well, too bad.
Well, I'll buy something else.
And it's a way to makedecisions and not have regret,
which can also sometimes teachyou about your life and help
somebody who has trouble makingdecisions.
They get into the market andthey think, oh, I can do this,
you know.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Right right Now.
Again, I'm an idiot.
So it just to me it seems thatyour mellow your money
philosophy would fit intosomebody with my mindset.
(28:26):
To me I'm a common sense,rational guy.
I like to analyze things andnot just impulsively dive right
into something, doesn't matterwhat it is.
But it seems that the mellow,your money philosophy is more
(28:46):
geared towards somebody of thatmindset, somebody who stops and
thinks and maybe approachesthings more on the conservative
side.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I would agree with that, and the only
differentiating feature Iactually point out in the book
is I am like you described andthat is my personality, and
typically the clients that cometoward me are those kind of
clients.
But I point out that, uh, whenI was growing up, there was uh,
(29:26):
we'd go and uh, once, once amonth to cincinnati and we'd
have this brunch and my grandpawould be there.
My uncle was there and mygrandpa more like what we're
talking about was theconservative.
He's a great golfer, but he wasthe.
Hit the ball down the middle ofthe fairway, don't veer, don't
hit it too hard.
Get the ball straight and andyou can make your pars, but
you're going to be consistent.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
My uncle was the opposite Swing for the fences
and they would get into thisfight and my grandpa would talk
about cutting stocks back.
You know, I've got this profit,I'm going to cut it.
You know, cut it in half andmove on to something else.
And my uncle would say that isthe dumbest thing I ever heard.
You either want to own it oryou want to sell it.
(30:10):
What are you talking about?
And that was his thought.
He was a gambler and he was.
Yeah, yeah, you're all in oryou're not.
And I remember 20 years later,maybe longer, it was at the end
of the tech cycle and he hadprobably 80% of his money in
tech stocks in the late 1990sand, if we recall, that was the
internet boom that became theinternet bust.
(30:33):
Well, at some point he lookedat me and he said, boy, I got to
start selling, or your aunt'sgoing to divorce me and I'm
going to have to go back to work.
And so he did, and he protectedhimself, but close to the
bottom, and what he realized washe said I am a gambler and I
(30:53):
wanna gamble, but I've gottahave some of this money in safe
money so that I can gamble withthe rest of it.
And he was a good gambler andhe made.
He wouldn't sell Apple to savehis life as the stock was taken
off after 2008.
And he ended up with a lot ofApple.
But it was balanced with thisconservative side that if Apple
(31:16):
had turned into BlackBerry, hewould have been OK, okay.
And so even if you're a gamblerand that and that kind of
gambling instinct is notsomebody who would come to me I
would still encourage you torealize have some safe money on
the side so you can takeadvantage of your.
If you have good gamblinginstincts, that's great.
Some people do.
(31:36):
I don't believe me.
I tried, I, I proved with whatI educated myself with.
You always say, when you losemoney in the market, it's kind
of like a tuition payment.
I paid my tuition in learning.
I'm not a trader, but somepeople are, and that's great.
But have that safe money on theside that allows you to be a
(31:58):
strong hand trader, if that'swhat you want to do if that's
what you want to do.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
I couldn't even play poker with my buddies when we
were in the seventh and eighthgrade.
I was so bad at it.
I'm just terrible at gambling.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
I'm the same with me.
Now I say, if you want my moneyhere, I'll give you the $20 and
the $50.
But don't make me play thisgame.
It's too much.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Yeah, it's the same for me.
I have nothing against Vegas orcasinos or anything like that.
I'm not a gambler.
I don't go play cards or crapsor anything like that.
I not that, I haven't before,but I'm just not very good at it
.
And, and I understand, peopledo it.
Okay, maybe they're good at it,maybe they're not, and they
(32:43):
still do it.
Maybe they're willing to paythat price for entertainment.
No, no, that's not for me.
I'm not that kind of guy.
So you go have your fun at yourprice and yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Exactly, we're very similar in that and yet I
respect the people that aredifferent.
And that again it gets back toknow yourself and the gambler
would not be happy having theirmoney with me, they'd be bored,
but watching paint drop, youknow.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Right, right.
But at the end of whatever theterm is that they're looking at,
you know, whatever that time ofinvestment is, when it's up
they are going to be prettyhappy, you know Well, and true
time of investment is when it'sup.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
They are going to be pretty happy.
You know well and true, and Idid have a client for a long
time and and he used to say hewas gambler kind of guy and he
was making money in business.
And he said, ok, I want, I'm theaggressive guy and I'm going to
do that with my side of things.
I want you to be the boring guy, nick.
And OK, I can be boring for youhopefully not on this show, but
(33:50):
but but at least that for thatinstant I was, you know, I was
comfortable filling that rolefor him because he he recognized
in himself he could do onething but the other thing.
He wanted that balance, and sothat is another way to play
things.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Let me do this real quick.
For those of you who can't readthe crawl on the screen, or
those of you who are listening,I'm going to reintroduce.
This is Mick Heyman that I'mspeaking to.
Mick Heyman is an author andhe's a finance or an investment
counselor.
Yeah, I want to.
I want to get that right.
I don't want to say finance,but say investment counselor and
(34:30):
um, so that's who we'respeaking to this morning.
Mick has written a book calledlet me get it again right here,
so I get all of it Correct.
It's called mellow your moneyhow to surf the market I don't
have my glasses on here how tosurf the market.
I don't have my glasses on herehow to surf the market and
build wealth without stressingyourself out.
So again, we're talking aboutgambling.
(34:53):
Would now, day traders arethose kind of like the guys that
are constantly on their phonesall the time looking at whatever
it is that they might beinvesting in?
Would that be considered a daytrader?
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Yes, although I've seen people that are long-term
investors.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
They're just like you and me.
They're putting their moneyaway, maybe in a retirement
account or whatever, and they'restill on their phones and
they're still worried about themarket day in and day out.
And I would tell you it doesn't.
You know, go listen to yourpodcast, do something else,
because all that does is stressyou out every day.
(35:38):
If you're a long-term person,looking at your phone every day
isn't helping, and and all itcan do is potentially cause you
to make poor decisions.
So that's one type of person,but there are people who
literally are trading off theirphones every day.
Now I actually, in the 80s, whenI got in the business, you know
, I our company was morelong-term oriented, but I
(36:01):
thought, thought well, I want tobe smarter than this, I want to
be a trader, and I knew somepeople who traded on the Chicago
Board of Trade.
They're trading sugar and goldand all kinds of soybeans, and
so I wanted to do that too, andI went to a couple of
conferences and I remember onein particular where the guy had
been the top trader on theChicago Board of Trade the
(36:24):
previous year.
Back then he had made $30million, which was, you know, in
80s dollars.
That was a lot of money, ofcourse.
And he stood up there and hesaid I'm going to tell you
exactly how I made my money andI guarantee you that after a
year, if you come back to thisconference, none of you will
have followed my strategy andwe're thinking nah, challenge,
(36:47):
accepted man.
And so, without going into allthe details, the basic thing was
there are four things thatcould happen.
When you invest in something, itgoes up a lot, up a little bit,
down, a little bit, down a lot.
What he does is take a lot ofstop losses Stop losses when
something goes down.
Say, you bought it at 10, at9.9, he's out.
(37:12):
So he draws a line in the sandthat basically sells something
whenever it went down a littlebit.
So he took a lot of littlelosses.
Imagine, 20 times in a rowsomething goes you bought it at
10, it goes 9.9, out, you go.
So he always eliminated the bigloss.
(37:33):
Sometimes it went from 10 to10.10, and he'd take the profit
because it was wiggling orwhatever, and occasionally it
went from 10 to 20.
Maybe that's one out of 20times, but that that, by
eliminating the little, the biglosses, the big gains, made him
tons of money.
(37:53):
Gotcha it makes intuitive senseright.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yeah, well, try it though.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Try losing 20 or 30 times in a row.
A little bit.
You just don't do it, and atsome point you say I'm going to
hold on to this one.
Well, invariably that's the onethat becomes the big loss.
And then you say oh, I want totake a gain.
Well, you take a little gainand that's the big gain.
And all of a sudden yourpsychology fools you, and so if
(38:23):
you're the kind of person thatcould do what that guy did,
great, you could make a lot ofmoney.
I can't, and I think mostpeople don't have that
discipline to actually be atrader.
I think trading is a full-timejob.
The other mistake people makeis oh, I could do this on the
side.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
I could have my job and occasionally do.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
No, trading is a full-time.
I mean, there are people thatare focused on this and you're
competing against them.
By the way, these people thatare full-time have four
computers going at one point.
Whatever you know, you knowpeople think for some reason,
they hit a long golf ball in thewind, with the wind behind you,
(39:07):
it hits a rock or something.
It goes 350 yards.
They think, oh, I'm hitting itlike Tiger Woods or you know
whoever it is today.
No, the pros are the pros andif you want to be one.
that's fine, but but don'tpretend you know.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
But you're not going to be a pro if you're a weekend
warrior.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
No.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
And that's I mean, whether it's in sports or in in
investment, right, this, theguys doing it on the side, quote
, unquote, you know are nothingcompared to the guys that
they're punching in at seveno'clock in the morning and
they're punching out at five inthe evening, and I guess the
(39:48):
similarity to golf isoccasionally you will hit a golf
shot from 50 yards off andit'll go in the hole and that's
as good as a pro can do, right?
Speaker 2 (40:00):
I mean, in golf, occasionally you're.
My uncle always said it wasn'this good shots that separated
from him from a pro, it was hisbad shots, you know.
And same thing.
We can get lucky in picking astock and occasionally look like
a pro, but we're not a pro.
We're not a pro, you know.
But but that that it isalluring to people because they
(40:24):
get something right.
I always think the person that,say, bought Bitcoin or whatever
it is and gets lucky the firsttime they do something, then
they think I am brilliant, it,it, it takes.
They don't have the humility.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
You use the golf analogy and I come from a
baseball background, so you knoweven a horrible pitcher in the
seventies may have struck outHank Aaron once Exactly, but if
he faced him another two orthree times, chances are Hank
yanked one or two of those outof the ballpark.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Just because he strikes him out once doesn't
make this guy a stud or anall-star or anything like that.
Yeah, there's that saying evena blind squirrel finds the nut.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
It's about the investment oftime and practicing your trade,
(41:22):
no matter what it is.
If you want to be good atsomething, you can't just do it
willy-nilly.
I guess that's why I don't makeany money on this podcast.
No, I joke.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
I joke, you never know though You've done a lot of
these podcasts and as we learnthrough doing, you know, and as
you're doing these things andacquiring and the next thing you
know, it doesn't mean that youcan't acquire skills along the
way Of course.
But when you get lucky first,say your first podcast would
(42:00):
have been, for whatever reason,got hit and went viral or
something Right.
And then you didn't learneverything you needed to become
a great podcaster.
That would have actuallysuffered you over the long term.
And I, on the other hand, gotlucky in a way, because my first
investments were horrible andso I had to learn.
(42:22):
What did I do wrong?
Here?
For a long-term investor, thereare things to learn and to kind
of figure out, and so, byhaving some failures along the
way, it actually can teach you.
And that's the other point Itry to make in this book is that
, you know, don't look at yourfailures as terrible things.
(42:43):
They're learning lessons, andthe market is great at teaching
us.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
So, in your opinion, how have the?
In your opinion, how have the?
Um, well, how, how, what isyour approach to what's been
going on, uh, in recent weeks orthe last couple of months,
since we've had?
We've had a new president inoffice now and he's implementing
(43:11):
tariffs on a certain uh,certain trade partners and that
type of thing.
It for me, I, me, I mean, I seereports going on people losing
their minds and that type ofthing, and I don't know if it's
just my personality trust inadministration or all of it, but
for me it's like I just try tosee the big picture, open my
(43:38):
eyes, and I'm one that is goingto ride the storm out.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
And I think that is like all storms.
People have to think about whatamount of money and stocks will
they be comfortable with ifit's a storm.
I don't think it's predictableyet whether it will be a storm
or not.
The funny thing is you talk toan investment guy who doesn't
(44:07):
know exactly what the market'sdone year to date, but it's
somewhere down, say, between 3%and 5%.
All this consternation, allthis worry, and maybe at the
worst it was down nine or 10percent, but of course it's come
back a little bit Now.
It's down three to five percent.
If somebody is upset about that, they have too much in stocks.
(44:28):
You know now there's an oldquote from a guy that said take
stocks down to your sleepinglevel.
This is a good test of what.
If you're waking up at nightworried about stocks and the
market's only off three to 5%,you've got too much in stocks
Because you want to be able toride through the storm, if there
is indeed one.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Yeah, I guess here's a way to think about it.
Like you said, three to 5%,that's like I mean.
Of course, when you're talking,you know a tremendous amount of
money.
For some people it's thousandsor hundreds of thousands of
dollars, For others it'smillions of dollars, but
nonetheless, 3% or 3 to 5% isstill three cents to a nickel on
(45:17):
a dollar.
Come on, and I think a lot ofpeople don't see it that way.
They just see that it's a lossand, oh my gosh, it's a loss and
I'm losing money here.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Well, and combine that with the headlines.
The market I've not yet seenthe market go down with good
headlines.
Oh, it's a wonderful time toget in because the market's down
.
The headlines are always nastywhen the market's at the bottom,
and so be prepared If you'rewatching whatever it is news
(45:51):
you're watching, it's going tobe some ugly headlines when the
bottom happens.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
I don't watch any financial news.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
Well, I don't get interviewed by those guys either
, because I tell people ignoreit and so I don't think they
want me on there either it'sbetter to talk to knuckleheads
like me.
You know I'm not a knucklehead,but I think that it's better
advice.
(46:19):
And yet, it doesn't sell, it'snot going to go viral with.
Typically go for the long term.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
Yeah, I heard this the other day and I'm sorry.
I don't mean to knock this guybecause I don't know him, I
don't watch him.
I heard his name and the guyhe's like on one of the cable
outlets, jim Cramer, I think, ishis name Big.
The guy he's like on one of thecable outlets, jim Kramer, I
think is his name big money guy.
There's a thing it's likewhatever Kramer says, do the
opposite and you're like A-okay.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
I've heard that, and the thing is I don't listen to
him very well and very often orwhatever, but he's not a dumb
guy, he's actually a smart guy.
He does his studies.
The trouble is and I don't know, I don't watch it enough to
know, but I don't think he eversays I told you to buy Apple
(47:10):
three weeks ago and now I'm alittle worried.
You got to sell it and Apple isonly for particular investors.
He's just talking, and so is hetalking to you or is he talking
to me, or is he talking to AuntFrida?
We don't know.
And so it's interesting forpeople who just like to hear
(47:32):
nuance about stocks, but it'snot helpful for your individual
thing, because he doesn't knowyou, and so that's my problem
with him is not the informationhe has.
I think sometimes, like anybody, if you you know who was it?
Roger Federer said that he won80% of his matches, but only 54%
(47:55):
of his points.
He only won a few more pointsthan the other guy did.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Same thing in the stock market.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Kramer might be right we don't know 48% of the time,
or 52, we don't know, but he'sright.
58% of the time not bad for astock guy.
But we don't know, if you'relistening to him, if you missed
Monday, when he happened to beright about a couple, and you
listened on Tuesday and he waswrong.
That you know too.
You know too bad.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
And right Right Right .
Speaker 2 (48:25):
So I don't want to defend them or throw them under
the bus.
The problem is.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
The problem with any of these things is they're not
talking to you or you the personyou know, and some people take
it that way, as he's speakingindividually to you, right,
exactly, yeah, well, see whenwe're.
You know you and I were havingthis conversation.
Yes, I want the listeners tofeel like we're speaking to them
, but, but, but, yeah, you know,um but at least we qualified.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
we said you know, this is you, you know
conservative people and this isthe style and if they're
gamblers they're going to have,you know, probably moved on to a
different station.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
Yeah, if they're gamblers, they probably turned
this thing off after fiveminutes, that's okay.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
You got another thumbs down.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
Oh my God, oh my God, and I'm responsible.
No, no, no no.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
I think, I do all that stuff on my own, but you
know you know, having writtenthe book, I they always told me
you gotta have a couple ofreviews that are, you know,
either negative or neutral, justbecause people think it's fake.
If you don't, so a thumbs downhere, and there is probably a
good thing.
It means someone's payingattention Only likes over here,
(49:44):
though, people okay.
Oh yeah, only likes.
From now on, you've already hadyour ones.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Yeah, that's right.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhat you like to do when you're
not being an investmentcounselor to the public.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Well, I enjoy all kinds of sports.
I have three kids enjoy golfing.
As you might have picked up, Itry to be more like my grandpa
with hitting it down the middle,but I'm not as good as him.
So I buy a lot of cheap golfballs for the ones that move
when I'm donating to the woodsor the ponds, and I actually I
(50:25):
moved out to San Diego about 20years ago and actually learned
how to surf a little bit with mykids, and so nowadays the water
has to be glassy and the wavesnot too big.
Sometimes the kids will say, dad, it's pretty flat out there,
it's your kind of waves, go onout there.
And so I enjoyed it.
(50:45):
And you know, I use the surfinganalogy in the book and
actually there was a moment whenI was learning how to surf.
I was going, you know, I waslooking down the water and
getting all kinds of, you know,falling down all the time, and
someone said, well, look to theshore, don't look.
If you look down, you're goingto go down.
(51:07):
And so look out to the shore,and when I did that, all of a
sudden I was up on the board, atleast for a little bit, and and
and kind of riding that waveand I thought to myself at some
point that's, that's long-terminvesting.
If you look at all the noisethat's beneath you you're going
down right look to the shore.
(51:29):
That's, that's your goal, youknow, and so um, anyway, that's
a small analogy.
But I do like surfing.
I'm not so good at it, but uh,that's where everything in life
can can teach us something.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
Yeah, but you never know what you can do unless you
try Exactly, exactly.
You know, and I love that line,I, I, you know, I.
I got that line from um, afriend of mine, many years ago.
We to coach baseball, uh,together, and he would tell all
the kids, you tell all theplayers, and and it's just stuck
(52:04):
with me and it and it, it, itgoes for anything and it's
anything in life.
You know, when you're doubtingyourself about doing anything,
well, you never know what youcould do unless you give it a
try.
You have to try and um, youknow it, maybe it's I, I don't,
I don't know.
(52:25):
I'm guessing I'm, I'm a littlebit of a pollyanna guy, but I
don't think that's a pollyannaway of looking at things either.
I think it's just I don'teither.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
It's a great philosophy, and and it allows
you to to fail a little bitalong the way, too, which can
teach us so many differentthings it allows you to fail a
little bit along the way, too,which can teach us so many
different things.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
It gives you permission to and where a lot of
times especially for those whocan be incredibly hard on
themselves for any amount offailure it does it does give you
permission to fail and you justget right back up, you dust
yourself off and do it again.
(53:01):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So how was, uh, how was your,how was your walk on the links
yesterday?
It was, it was fantastic it was.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Uh uh.
You know it's a little chillyat the end, but uh, yeah cold it
got cold yesterday it wasdefinitely a little.
Of course, I don't know.
We might be talking to peoplein Minnesota.
So cold, cold out here we'rewimps.
Sorry, but you know, 55 degreesthat's chilly, and I'll say
that to my sister and she said,yeah, it's warm here, it's 55
(53:34):
degrees.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
But yeah, it's warm here, it's 55 degrees.
Yeah, yeah, but yeah, it wasdefinitely.
You know, I had my share ofdonations to the, to the
wildlife beyond me, and, as myfriend always says, oh, someone
will turn that ball in at somepoint.
Speaker 1 (53:50):
Not really.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
But I love that.
For me it's almost a meditation.
You know, I'm walking along,occasionally I'm one with the
shot or whatever, andoccasionally I'm not.
But either way, it's beautifulto be out in nature and carrying
my clubs and just enjoying thestroll.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
Yeah, no, I think that's great.
So where can people find yourbook?
So where can people find yourbook?
Speaker 2 (54:18):
So the book is on Amazon and Barnes, noble and
most of the major major placesand then, if you want to contact
me, my website ismellowyourmoneycom.
I'm at mick atmellowyourmoneycom and I'm happy
to correspond with anybody andreally enjoy it.
(54:40):
And of course, it's on audiobook too, if you can, you know,
stay in my voice and want tolisten to it.
Speaker 1 (54:49):
It's available that way too.
Oh, you got a pleasant,pleasant voice there, mick.
Thank you.
Yeah, again, the book is calledMellow your Money, how to Surf
the Market.
And again, no glasses.
I need to put them on how toSurf the Market and Build Wealth
Without Stressing Yourself Out.
And I really wish the publisherwould have sent me a copy of
(55:12):
this book, because it would haveshowed up a lot better on
camera, but they didn't.
Speaker 2 (55:17):
Well, I'm going to have to get you one anyway, so
I'd appreciate that I'dappreciate that.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
Listen, so people can just reach out to you on your.
They can on your email, right?
Speaker 2 (55:31):
Yeah, that'd be perfect.
Speaker 1 (55:32):
Okay, and give that one out again.
Speaker 2 (55:36):
It's nick at melloryourmoneycom and
melloryour.
Again it's a Nick at Melloryour moneycom, and Mellor your
moneycom is the website.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:47):
Nick, this is.
This has been a lot of fun andI think my audience pretty much
knows.
I always I don't call it apre-interview, I just call it
I'll get to know yourconversation, and so everybody
knows that I talked to theguests before they come on here.
It makes me sound a little lessdumb and a little more prepared
(56:09):
.
Just the brief conversationsyou and I have had over the past
week have been great.
This is wonderful.
The brief conversations you andI have had over the past week
have been great.
This is wonderful.
It's been a pleasure getting toknow you and getting to have a
little bit better understandingon investment and finance and I
can't thank you for your time.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
Well, thank you, ben.
It's been a pleasure and funboth chatting beforehand and
also during the show.
It's great.
Speaker 1 (56:37):
And look, I told you I'm only like an hour and a half
away.
So if you want to taste somebarbecue and bourbon, you're
more than welcome to come on out, that sounds fun.
Thank you.
Yeah, hang with me for a second, okay.
Okay, that's great, everyone.
Look, this has been great.
I know there there's, I knowthere's something in this for
(56:58):
everyone.
All right, maybe not everything, but there's something.
Take a piece of this away foryourselves.
As you know, this program isavailable wherever you get your
podcasts.
It's on all of the streamingplatforms.
Just search, search the BenMaynard program and there it is.
Go with it, please.
(57:18):
Whatever service you're using,whatever streaming outlet you're
using, just subscribe to theshow and you'll get notification
every time there's a newepisode.
Again, if you're enjoying yourtime here on YouTube, I greatly
appreciate it, and I know Mickdoes as well.
So, please subscribe to thechannel, give me a thumbs up and
(57:43):
leave a comment.
Last but not least, follow meon Instagram Ben Maynard Program
, all one word.
And then again on TikTok theBen Maynard Program.
Okay, with that, we're done,we're out.
Thank you for your time.
This is the Ben Maynard Program.
Tell a friend there.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.