February 17, 2025 • 53 mins
What if your financial knowledge could transform not just your bank account, but your entire life? Join us as we welcome Tim Smith from Aurora Private Wealth, a pioneer in the investment world since 1985, who shares his inspiring journey from overcoming personal financial challenges to leading a nationwide advisory firm. Delve into Tim’s insights on investment strategies, with a focus on ETFs and the impact of groundbreaking technologies like DeepSeek AI in China.
With financial literacy as a recurring theme, we question why such a vital life skill isn't prioritized in education, and address the broader implications this has on economic well-being. Tune in for insights, inspiration, and the potential for collaboration as we explore the intersection of finance, technology, and education.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Everyday Millionaire Show with
Ryan Greenberg and Nick Kalfas.
Hi guys, welcome back toanother episode of the Everyday
Millionaire Show.
We're here with Tim Smith.
Tim, your company's calledAurora Financial Advisory, or
what?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
was it Aurora?
Private Wealth Aurora.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Private Wealth yes, awesome wealth.
Private Aurora, private wealthUm, awesome.
So give us a little uh, alittle background on who you are
and kind of what got youstarted in finance.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, sure, um, I got started in finance because my
parents had no ability withfinance and, uh, I so I really
wanted to live a life where, um,I you know, there weren't
constant financial questions andproblems.
So I went into the investmentworld right out of college in
1985.
(00:52):
So I've been at it for a littlewhile and I'm a certified
financial planner, spent 10years as a frontline financial
planner with another firm in NewJersey, then I started my own
firm in 1995, an investmentadvisory firm, and ultimately I
started this firm a few yearslater when some friends of mine
wanted to join with me, and itis now a firm of 100 some odd
(01:18):
financial advisors that wesupport around the country.
It's a broker dealer investmentadvisory operation.
We have about 60 offices, Iguess something like that, and I
operate it day-to-day while Ialso do a few other things that
you're familiar with, like thefinancial dad and financial
literacy concerns andeducational things of this
(01:40):
nature.
So that's a quick, quick, downand dirty background check on me
.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Nice.
So you said before you're heavyon in like stocks and
securities and that kind ofinvestment.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, I mean, the type of investment that we
primarily do is for people whowant their money managed by a
third party.
So it typically involves aclearing firm account like a
Schwab or a Fidelity, and mostlythings like ETFs of various
kinds, and that can.
That includes real estate, butyou know, stocks, bonds,
(02:22):
international, just the typicalkind of things you might imagine
.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Awesome.
So I got a quick question, astock question, because the last
day my NVIDIA shares gotcrushed by this new deep seek AI
that China apparently came outwith.
Do you have any insight on that?
(02:47):
I did buy more NVIDIA today,blindly, kind of just bought
more, but what's your take onthat?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Well, so DeepSeek is a software, not a chip
manufacturer.
I think the critical issue thatI've seen a little bit about
this, but not much is doesDeepSeek take less computing
capacity than all of the otherAI folks out there, such that
(03:19):
NVIDIA's extra capacity to theirchips that makes them so
special for AI, not as necessary, potentially?
So if that's the case, then youcould see where this could be a
threat to NVIDIA's market share.
But I think there's just a lotof unknowns still with the whole
(03:43):
thing.
A lot of unknowns still withthe whole thing.
Um and uh, deep seek certainlyhas some serious issues from the
standpoint of chinese controlof information.
Yeah, chase.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
How do you?
Because chase is our chieftechnology officer over here.
He's the technology guy and heworked for the air force doing
technology stuff.
So what's your take on that?
Because I heard about they dida test where they they didn't.
They put in like a questionabout communism into the deep
sea thing and it wouldn't answerit.
They put in a question aboutthe tiananmen square issue and
(04:20):
they wouldn't answer it.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
So yeah, well, I think, first of all, you know
when, when the chinesegovernment is manufacturing
something right like, there'ssome type of alternative motive.
Um, I mean, that's the way wehave always looked at it.
So I I think the united statesis going to be more cautious on
how they handle that.
And just allowing that on anycomputer and the open source of
(04:41):
it is good.
Um, it'll help, you know,manufacture competition through
the AI space.
However, like you were saying,tim, they were able to figure
out a way to use that andbasically have the same software
as ChatGPT, but on a fractionof the computing power that
(05:02):
ChatGPT uses, which, like Timwas saying, would cut N nvidia's
market share.
So, um, yeah, I think it's.
It's interesting.
We'll see, like, if elon oranybody else like dives into,
like the open source script andlike bounces off that.
I mean, elon had the same typeof business model where, with
electric cars, he did like anopen open source to it.
(05:25):
So I think it'll be interesting, but you got to be careful with
it.
You know anything coming fromthe chinese?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
it could end up being another tiktok situation,
exactly you know so what's yourprice target?
Speaker 1 (05:36):
your price target for nvidia?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I, I, I don't, I don't do price targets of stocks
.
I, I'm afraid I'm more of atraditional, very vanilla,
boring asset allocator.
So I hold NVIDIA through ETFs.
Primarily, that would becybersecurity related or AI
related ETFs, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, I like living life a little bit on the edge
with a very, very heavy nvidiaportfolio.
So, um, when you are doingthese sectors and these etfs,
how like we just had like achange in government, for
example, did you have a changein your investment strategy when
we had the new government comein?
(06:20):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So the way that I choose things people call it a
core and satellite approachprimarily, the core of most of
it is the S&P 500.
So there's always some kind ofpositions that are oriented to
what would be called large capblend or large cap growth, the
(06:44):
S&P 500 index, and then Ithematically look to apply some
things around that that have thepotential to outperform the S&P
500.
So I have personally talked topeople about what I see in the
(07:05):
last really 10 years as a changein technology to the point
where you know it's a revolution.
We had an agrarian society,then we had an industrial
society and now we have atechnological society, and now
(07:25):
we have a technological society.
And so I, going back before theelection, I had moved
(07:46):
significantly into technology asan additional hold for most
people, beyond just generallarge cap or small cap type
holdings.
With the election, one of thethings that I started doing
before the election wasfollowing a series of sectors
that you might think would bemost impacted by either a Biden
or a Trump I'm sorry, a Harrisor a Trump administration.
So, for example, on the Harrisside, it was things like
biotechnology andpharmaceuticals, cybersecurity,
(08:11):
generally those types ofholdings, and it has been,
(08:33):
obviously since Trump won.
It's those stocks that havedone pretty well.
So, for example, I follow anETF called it's ICLN.
It's a green energy ETF andthat one has been absolutely
pummeled since Harris lost theelection, whereas cybersecurity
(08:57):
and the symbol escapes me, butcybersecurity there's a very
nice ETF for it is sort of thetop of the pack since the
election.
It's performed better thanfinancials, defense and security
, even AI stuff since theelection.
So the answer is yes, andthat's sort of how I did it.
(09:21):
So I moved some things thatwere not as high performing out
and moved, you know, took acouple of positions in those
types of sectors where you wouldexpect under a Trump
administration they should dowell.
So you did that shortly afterthe election and yeah over the
(09:42):
last, you know, over the lasttwo months, depending upon the
client and how aggressive theyare.
Some of it was done in Novemberwith some people that are more
aggressive, and some of it wasdone under my discretionary
powers in December with somereviews that I did of client
accounts, stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
That's interesting.
So from your experience you'vebeen at this for several
different presidencies have youfound that one side or the other
has made investments better orworse, as far as like,
republicans versus?
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Democrats to answer that question without losing
half of my friends.
But I'll just tell you that, ingeneral, no, because of this,
of what I really just described,under any given administration,
some sectors will tend to dowell because more money tends to
(10:41):
flow to them from whicheveradministration, whichever party
the administration is from.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
So how much time would you have after the
election to kind of move thatmoney out of one sector into
another before you would losetoo much of it?
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Well, the idea is that it's not to catch a pop of
5% and then, you know, sell itright.
The idea is, over the next fouryears you're expecting the
earnings of those companies inthat sector to do well, and so
you would position relativelyearly and hope to ride up the
(11:17):
next four years in the marketwith that.
So whether it's three days orthree weeks or a month after the
election, I mean unless therewas some meteoric change in a
very short period of time, youknow I'm investing for years,
not for short term windows, withpeople, so you know it
(11:39):
typically doesn't matter verymuch to me very much to me.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Okay, so the one that we had a financial advisor on
here a couple, maybe a month orso ago and they said, um, that
they've found the bestinvestment time I guess
throughout history with,statistically speaking, is when
the government is split, Likeright now.
I guess Republicans they havethe house, the Senate they have
a whole side, the whole thing,yeah, and he said that remember
that guy, I forget his name, buthe.
He said that remember that guy,I forget his name, but he
basically said that he's foundit best when it's a split
(12:08):
government.
Do you have to track that orhave any idea if he's?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I can't tell you empirically whether that's the
case.
Uh, I I think there's a certainlogic to it in the sense that
we have the most compromise inour government.
When that is the case right bydefinition, because either they
get something done or they don't.
Either they compromise or theydon't, and you know when there's
(12:35):
compromise and when Washingtonis working.
Smoothly is typically a goodthing for the country and for
the economy, for the country andfor the economy.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
But I can't tell you from experience or what I have
sensed, or you know from havinglooked at data, I can't tell if
that's the case or not.
Okay, so the overall marketwhat's your kind of, what's your
take on it right now?
(13:04):
Do you think we're overvalued?
Do you think we're in a goodposition?
Are we setting up for a?
And that includes, like, realestate and everything.
I don't know how much insightyou have about that, but, like,
are you bullish on the nextcouple of years, are you?
What are you thinking?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
In general, I'm bullish.
I think we've had a pretty goodrun up and I think a correction
was due.
I didn't expect it to be a oneday thing, like NVIDIA.
I mean, it's normal after a 25%market move to get a 10 or 15%
pullback and for prices toreadjust to reality and then to
move forward from there.
(13:37):
So in that sense, I wouldexpect something.
I think there are still someinterest rate issues out there
that are going to hold back themarket somewhat.
We have a lot of debt that hasto be refinanced in the very
near future and there areprobably some bond market
turmoil with all of that coming.
(13:59):
But in terms of the next two tothree years, I think the big
issue will be whether there is areal doge pullback in spending
by the government.
So if you think of it as a $23trillion economy, something
(14:22):
along those lines in the UnitedStates alone, if they cut $2
trillion in spending if theywere able to, I don't think they
are, frankly, but if they wereable to, you're talking about a
you know, I don't know 6%reduction, 7% reduction in GDP.
So by definition, that would bea recession if it were to
(14:48):
happen in a quick period of time.
So I think, if they basicallygo as we've been going, I would
expect the stock market at leastthose sectors we're talking
about to rise and do well overthe next few years.
If we really are able to cutfrom the federal budget and if
(15:12):
that does really reduce spendingin the economy barring some
other spending which there'd beno point to it, which there'd be
no point to it thentheoretically you should have a
recession from that much of acut in spending by the
government, and as to where itwould impact the most, you'd
(15:35):
have to look at what gets cutright.
Part of the reason I don't thinkmuch is going to happen with
this at all is because so muchof the government spending is
entitlement programs.
Those are sacred cows.
The next chunk is defensespending and if anything, I
would expect this administrationto put more money into defense.
(15:57):
So you're left with, you know,some oddball sorts of areas of
the government you know, like ifwe get rid of a department here
or there, you know, maybe yousave hundreds of billions of
dollars, something like that.
But I don't think you're goingto see two trillion certainly
not two trillion dollars a yearof spending.
(16:19):
Now, maybe they're when they'reusing these terms.
Maybe they're thinking 200billion a year over 10 years.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Well, that's that has a nominal impact on the economy
, but wouldn't have a positivewouldn't have a positive impact
when they stop spending thatmuch money because we're our
debt to other countries and theyou know the debt ceiling that
we have is is an issue.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Obviously wouldn't it be better.
What it should do is helpinterest rates fall, and that
should be stimulative to theeconomy, right, and interest
rates should fall because wewould be issuing less debt, so
less demand or less supply ofdebt, um, lower interest rates
(17:01):
in the marketplace, and thatshould be stimulative to the
economy.
But whether it stimulates it tothe tune of another $200
billion or not, that's anybody'sguess, right?
So, listen, I'm a conservativeand I'd love to see some fat cut
(17:26):
out of the federal budget.
I'd love to see a smallerfederal government, but I would
certainly want to see it done ina way that is as unimpactful as
possible to GDP and the overalleconomy.
So, yeah, there areconsequences of spending less
money that are positive, butwherever that money was going,
(17:49):
whoever those employees are thatare now not spending or have to
move out of their housesbecause they don't have enough,
money or have to find a job inthe economy.
you know, all of that is, on thespending side, reduced, even
though we borrow less.
I mean, right now we'reborrowing a trillion dollars a
year, so we're nowhere close tocutting enough.
(18:11):
To get to fiscal solvency isthe wrong word, getting to a
flat budget and so we're goingto be issuing debt one way or
the other.
It's just a matter of how much.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
I got two questions, two questions for you.
So why?
Why do you think financialliteracy is so important?
And if it's important, as weall know it is, why is it not
taught or seen as much in school?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, great questions .
Can I tell you a little bit ofthe story of how I started
getting into financial literacyfor young people in particular?
Is that okay if I go there?
right now seven or eight yearsago, seven years ago, and as he
was graduating and mind you, hewas, he was actually doing a
(19:06):
combined bachelor's, master's incomputer science and his
friends were all doing a similarthing.
They were all headed off toDARPA and Amazon and Microsoft
and you know tremendouscompanies where they need
computer scientists and terrificcareers and everything else.
He called me about a monthbefore he was going to graduate
(19:29):
and he said hey, dad, my friendsand I were all talking and
we've come to this realizationthat we've just gotten through
all this years of schooling andwe're about to join all these
companies and these companieshave company benefits and 401k
plans and all these things andwe don't understand anything
about all of this stuff Nothing.
(19:50):
Would you mind coming in andgiving us kind of like a
personal personal financeseminar and just teach us some
stuff, because we really reallycould use it?
My father was a collegeprofessor for 57 years, so I I
think I have a little bit ofteacher in my genes and if I
don't have teacher, I'm Irish, Ican talk forever, so I'm very
(20:10):
good at standing up and just youknow going.
So I went in and I did theseminar and I covered topics
like income taxes and, you know,buying a car, buying a house
and buying a car, buying a house, renter's insurance, 401k plans
, company medical benefits,company disability benefits just
(20:31):
a wide range of things theywere all about to get involved
in and they loved it.
And my son said to me afterwards, and my daughters as well you
really should do something withthis for young people, because
we are not getting it in theschools and it's critical to our
(20:51):
lives, and so my belief systemabout it is that young people
need it as badly as anybody else.
Most of them don't get it athome because their parents don't
know either.
And as to schools, there areabout 20 states that do require
some kind of financial literacycoursework to graduate high
(21:14):
school.
My own youngest child wentthrough that with pardon me, one
second, went through that withher own high school, and she
said to me several years lateroh, was that what that was?
I didn't get anything out ofthat.
So I don't think that, evenwhere it is being taught, I'm
(21:38):
not sure it's being taught wellor in a way that it sticks with
kids.
I'm not sure high school is theright place.
I really think college is amuch better time for kids to
learn it because there's a kindof a clock ticking in their
minds that they're going to needall of this shortly, you know,
three years, two years, one year, six months, when they know
(22:01):
they're getting out of collegeand they have to do this thing
called adulting, and so I thinkcollege is really a better time,
but I think it's not taughtbecause it's not the arts or
culture or literature or youknow sort of.
We come from a society that atfirst loved classical education.
(22:22):
Personal finance was justsomething that you had to either
get at home or, you know, learnon your own, and I think it's.
It's just been an overlookedarea and it hasn't been well
done even when it's been done,and that's why I've gotten
involved in it at this point.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
I would like to chime in cause.
I'm probably the youngest here.
Yeah, no, Tim, that actually isfunny.
Hey there, young man yeahexactly, I'm 27, just turned 27.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
It does resonate with me, though, because I come from
a low to middle income familyand your parents don't really
just sit you down and say, hey,we got to have a talk.
It's usually about other stuff,and you have to be inspired to
learn something of that natureand in bigger pockets.
(23:15):
That's where majority of realestate investors come and they
find their passion, and for me,it was like my grandparents had
always been.
My grandfather and mygrandmother were from the
trailer parks in Roanoke,believe it or not, and my
grandfather started a mufflerbusiness in his 30s and he ran
that business and my grandma ranit alongside of him.
(23:37):
And then, you know, as I wasgrowing up, like they were
always going on vacations anddifferent things and I always
wondered like, wondered, likenanny, how did you like get to
where you are in life?
And she was like she had a verylike dave ramsey approach to
life.
Like they paid everything offvery fast, they invested into
the business as if it was their401k, and so I was.
(23:58):
It like intrigued me as a kidand that's why I got into like
investing in real estate and thefinancial side of it, but like
if I never had that, like mywife, for example, is 23 and I
handle all of our business, orall of our bills, and I have to
teach her things and I'm likethis is nuts, like you should
know this out of college.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Well, the other thing too.
I mean, Chase, you didn't go tocollege?
Right, I didn't go to, yeah, Iwent to community college.
So, Tim, I guess to like argueyour point a little bit, what
about the people that don't goto college?
Because, I'm finding so, I owna general contracting company as
well as multiple real estatecompanies.
But the plumbers that I have,the HVAC techs that I have,
(24:41):
they're making way more moneythan my high school teachers
made.
They all went to college.
My wife went to college for sixyears.
She has a master's plus 30.
Full disclosure I actually usedto be a public school teacher.
That's how I started my careerand then realized that I was
going to be poor if I did that.
So I started investing in realestate and, long story short, I
(25:02):
shortly then after quit my joband went full time in real
estate.
But the time I feel like toteach the kids is gotta be
before college, because somepeople college doesn't make
sense, like it doesn't makesense to go to college if you're
going to be a plumber or anHVAC guy.
And I'm telling you right now,the guys that I have doing my
(25:23):
plumbing work are making a wholelot more money than the people
that I know that went.
Even my peers and friends thatwent to college for five, six
years have masters, have this,have doctorate degrees for God's
sakes.
I know one of my buddies has adoctorate degree from Hopkins
and I make way more money thanhim and I didn't have to go to
college for any of the stuffthat I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Yeah yeah.
By the way, I went to collegefor communications and film and
television production, so youknow my degree is other than a
nice piece of paper on the wall.
I didn't get an awful lot ofbusiness, you know.
I took a few courses.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
And the difference, I think too, when you went to
college versus when we went tocollege.
Nick and I are 33, about to be34.
Like, college was a lot moreexpensive for us.
Luckily, my parents paid for meto like my parents covered that
bill.
But I did the math and like, ifI had not had them covered the
bill, I would have graduatedwith like $200,000 worth of debt
(26:17):
.
And me I was my first teachingjob was making like 36 or
something thousand a year.
I wouldn't.
It would have been my wholelife to pay off just the college
debt.
It doesn't make sense for somepeople.
So if you didn't have yourparents to pay for your school
and you went to trade school,then where is that time where
you're going to learn thisfinancial literacy?
Speaker 2 (26:36):
So, by the way, I agree with your point and I
hadn't thought about that thatfor those who don't go to
college, they don't that wouldnot be something that they would
be getting, so maybe I'llrethink the idea of whether it
belongs in college or highschool, or both for that matter,
I do feel like most, a lot of,not most, I see.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
I feel like people now in our generation, because
my parents generation theyalways pushed college, college.
You need to go to college, youneed that piece of paper.
But I do feel like the pendulumis starting to swing, where
people are realizing especiallywith like YouTube and just
different forms of information,I feel like people are realizing
, hey, maybe college isn't theright move, if I don't know
(27:16):
exactly.
Or maybe you go to communitycollege for a year and just
figure it out and then yourealize you know, chase went to
the military instead.
Maybe that's the path for somepeople, maybe it's trade school,
maybe it's something starting abusiness.
That I feel like needs to betalked about in the early high
school years so they can, thatthey could be set up to make
that plan.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
I'll jump in real quick and I'll say that the Air
Force does an absolutely amazingjob at teaching you financial
literacy, like they put youthrough classes.
They teach you how to buyhouses, they teach you
everything.
I think the biggest thing isthey don't want you going to
debt because you have like a topsecret clearance or something.
And then all of a sudden anadversary is is asking you hey,
you want a hundred thousand togive us the secrets you know.
(27:58):
So they're they're very, Iguess, motivated to teach their
members how to be financiallyliterate and not go into a
massive amount of debt.
So I would say the militarydoes a good job of that.
But you know, if you don't goto college or the military, kind
of SOL unless you wanted tolearn it yourself.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
I personally think it should start in elementary
school and I think it shouldstart with a game such as
Monopoly or something similar,that the kids can interact,
because, as you mentioned, youknow when you get to high school
you may not be interested in it, but if you're just like, if
they're slowly chipping at themand feeding them that
information for 12 whole years,eventually part of it at least
is going to stick to them whenthey do get out there in the
(28:36):
real world.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
There is actually an app that is for young kids.
It's more focused on savingmoney and, you know, putting
money in the bank kind ofconcept, and, uh, understanding
what that means and, um, and thename of the um the app escapes
me.
But, uh, they market to schoolswith the app and I know
(29:01):
somebody who knows the owner Ican't remember you who it is.
It's out of texas, I think.
Um, so you know there arethings for this, but it's not,
you know, sort of nationallysolidified or standardized or
uniform in any way.
Certainly yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
So I have a funny story about financial literacy.
So this was like my last yearof teaching.
I was asked I was teaching in areally rough school, really
tough kids, tough families, andI was asked to teach.
I was a PE teacher.
So the kids like liked me andrespected me.
But the fifth grade teacher quitbecause the kids were so crazy.
(29:42):
And then the substitute thatthey had while they were trying
to hire somebody else quitbecause the kids were so crazy.
So then they asked me.
They were like, hey, it'sreally much easier for me to
find somebody to put in the gymand you can handle these kids.
Like you go in there and teachfifth grade.
And I was like I don't knowanything about teaching fifth
(30:03):
grade besides, you know PE stuff.
So I I at that time I was likeheavily invested in real estate.
I was pretty much it was mylast year teaching because I
knew I was getting out of it togo full time with my businesses.
I taught them it was fifthgraders.
I taught them compound interestand how to calculate it.
That was our math.
And then I literally had themon Zillow.
(30:25):
I had them looking at.
This is true story.
So I had them figure out whatthey wanted to do.
I called it life, that was myunit and I actually had to get.
It's funny because I had to getobserved, which was a moot
point because they knew I wasleaving.
But to check off the box, theprincipal had to observe me and
you're supposed to teach thecurriculum.
I was not teaching, I wasteaching my own made up
(30:46):
curriculum and the principallike loved it so much that she
wanted she started like tellingthe other teachers to integrate
it.
But I had them find a job,research how much it made that
job.
Then I had them research whatdegrees they needed to get that
job.
And then I had them look for ahouse that they wanted in the
neighborhoods that they wereliving in or wanted to live in
(31:07):
right around us in Annapolis.
And then I had them look for acar and they had to figure out
how much car insurance was.
And if they wanted a dog, I putin a stipend, you know, $50 a
month dog food bill.
And I had them do all thisstuff and people were like the
kids were super, super engagedand they loved it, but nobody
(31:30):
really.
I mean, that's not in the realcurriculum, but I feel like
that's something that should be.
In my opinion, and I think partof the problem is the teachers,
for the most part most part arebroke unless they married.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Well, they're not the ones to teach it, they're not
the ones to teach it Right.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
You're not going to take, like, health advice from a
fat person.
You're not going to takefinancial advice from a poor
person and teachers are all nowvery low income compared to what
you know.
With inflation and all thisstuff, like it would be tough to
be a teacher and starting outwith any kind of student debt,
trying to buy a house right now.
I mean it.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Just it doesn't happen, especially not where we
live well, I applaud you forwhat you did because, instead of
teaching theoretical math, youtaught practical math right you
gave them practical skills andthat's what engages everybody.
you know it's something they canrelate to and understand and
see how it's actually going toimpact them in their lives.
(32:30):
You know, you learn algebra inwhat?
Eighth grade or something?
And most people will say whenthe hell am I ever going to use
this going forward?
And calculus, you know, incollege, when am I going to use
that?
If I'm not planning to go intophysics or the sciences or math
or something like that, when amI going to use this?
So, um, but things like whatyou did, I think the kids
(32:54):
understand that they can use it.
They.
They see their parents have,you know, bought houses and done
things like that, um, and youbought houses and done things
like that, um, and you, so you,you really related.
You gave them somethingrelatable, a real life skill and
learned math.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
I think that's missing.
I think that's missing rightnow, like in, and if you don't
have, like, parents that arereally educated in it, it's not,
uh, it's not really evergetting taught to kids.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Yeah, well, to back to my point about the cycle, if
you will, of um, children notlearning from parents, because
the parents don't know either,and so they grow up, they don't
have skill, they have childrenand they can't teach their
children, um, so, yeah, I, Imean, however we do it, we
certainly need a morestandardized focus on financial
(33:43):
literacy, financial educationfor young people.
That is a requirement becauseeverybody needs it, everybody's
going to use it.
If you want to have theAmerican dream and buy a home,
you need to know what a mortgageis.
Most people are not going to buyfor cash, right?
So got to understand what amortgage is and how it works.
(34:06):
And what does it mean?
And, and um, I mean real estateinvesting itself.
Most people would have no ideahow to do, even if, um, you know
, even if they understand theconcept that you buy a piece of
real estate, somebody pays rentto you and you know it goes up
in value over time, but theadditional equity you gain by
(34:26):
having them pay down themortgage with the rent over time
, and those concepts are justforeign to people.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
So I guess back to my question as to why they don't
teach that.
Do you think it weighs heavieron the side of that?
They try, but then the teachersjust aren't financially
literate themselves to be ableto teach it.
Or do you think there'ssomething higher up, like the
government, that says, look, ifwe have too many people that are
financially literate, it's notgoing to make our world go
around how they want it to.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
And the tinfoil hats come on.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I think the issue gets back to.
What are the pressures onschool systems?
Okay, so in the school systemsthey are trying to get kids to
be able to read and do math andget the best possible scores at
the high school level to getthem into colleges.
That's what most school systemsare focused on.
(35:25):
So their time, their allocationof resources, their allocation
of monies you know the money canonly go so far and most of them
are struggling to do that wellin our society.
And look at the test scores forreading, for math, ap test
(35:47):
scores, everything.
So we we have a generaleducation problem in the country
, in addition to the fact thatwe're teaching some stuff that
is standardized.
That's why they call themstandardized tests, right?
Um, it's standardized that wethink everybody should be
learning this to progress inlife.
(36:10):
And the bottom line is noteverybody needs to learn those
things.
To progress in life, you needbasic arithmetic skills to do
virtually anything as an adult,unless you're in a highly
skilled area that requireshigher level math.
The average, you know, 95%probably of Americans only need
(36:34):
to know how to add, multiply,divide, subtract.
So it's sort of like we'reelective classes.
(37:06):
I guess it was like junior highschool or high school and you
know, this was sort of anattempt at giving people some
life skills and I applaud it.
But at the end of the day, if,if everybody had been taught
financial literacy with thattime you know, the 90% of the um
(37:30):
guys that took a woodshop, whoare not going to ever use a band
saw in their life, would havehad financial literacy instead,
which they would use every monthof their life, you know, to to
balance a checkbook or to paytheir bills or, you know, get a
car or whatever.
Um, so I, I, I see it asmisplaced priorities.
(37:53):
And uh, to your point, ryan,earlier, about college in
general, uh, that emphasis oncollege, getting kids into
college, getting them intobetter colleges, therefore the
emphasis on standardized testing, therefore the emphasis on
those topics that are only thereis no AP exam on personal
(38:18):
financial literacy.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
There should be.
Yeah, right, there should beyeah.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
The thing, the one thing that we basically know
every one of these kids is goingto use for the rest of their
life money, we don't teach ityeah, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
That is actually part of the reason that we started
the.
The podcast in general was tojust kind of like spread that
word and I got started learningabout real estate investing
through podcasts, through thebigger pockets podcast, and then
, um, I had, I was, I found aprivate money lender through
another job that I had in thesummertime and he's the one that
(38:58):
held my hand and loaned memoney to start real estate
investing in general and taughtme how to do the refinance
process and all that stuff.
Um, because he had interest init, like I was paying him
interest on the loans and, uh,if I didn't have him, I wouldn't
be, I wouldn't have done any ofit.
So, yeah, yeah, it wasn'tpublic.
Well, I mean, I guess it waspublic knowledge, but it wasn't,
(39:20):
uh, taught in any kind of youknow, traditional way.
It was.
It was all done kind of by luckand by choice.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, if you think of it, everylittle building, every building
is its own unique littlebusiness in a sense.
Right, you have costs to carryit.
You have revenue for it that'sattributable solely to it.
It's almost like a smallentrepreneurial thing.
It just happens to involve realestate and financing and
(39:48):
renting and leases and thingslike that, but it's a terrific
way to accumulate wealth forthose people who are inclined to
spend the time and effort at it.
And yet again, what's amortgage?
You know how does refinancingwork and how does real estate
(40:13):
grow in value over time, or howdoes the equity grow through the
amortization of the loanbalance.
You know those kinds of thoseare all things that we just
nobody's teaching anybody, thiskind of stuff.
So you know we're certainly onthe same page, we're.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
we're compatriots in the financial literacy problem.
What if the responsibility wasput on big companies who hire
these employees?
Because when they're in college, they're just learning about
and they're focusing on whattheir job's going to be and
being good at their job, butthey're not learning anything
about financial literacy.
So, like, what if the bigger?
What if they made it like amandate for the bigger companies
(40:53):
?
Speaker 1 (40:54):
I think that's that would de-incentivize,
de-incentivize, de-centivizepeople to like.
Think about it If the bigcompany taught you about real
estate investing right, if Itaught, if my school-.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
No, it's not about like let's just say just how to
manage your money and what'snext if you're coming out of,
you know, college, you don'thave a house yet you don't have.
You know things that you'regoing to run into as your
general financial education yeah, I just feel like by then it's
one too late.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
And two, those companies then wouldn't be
incentivized to teach you thatbecause they want you to be
living off their teeth, theywant you to be be, you know,
relying on that paycheck, wheremost people that work for
companies big companies, smallcompanies, that are living
paycheck to paycheck nowadays.
So why would I?
Why?
Speaker 4 (41:37):
would I think what you mean Cause if you became?
Too, financial literate, thenyou're not.
You might not work for them aslong as they need you to.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
I mean I quit my job.
Why would you?
Speaker 4 (41:44):
not quit.
You know, maybe that's why it'snot taught in the school system
.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Then it's too small a sector Chase?
That would be my answer to you.
In other words, first of all,there are 30 million
self-employed entrepreneurs inthe United States.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
How many did you say?
Speaker 2 (42:03):
30 million.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Damn, that's actually not that many.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
But all of those people would not have access
through that.
Then there are all of thepeople who are employed by small
companies rather than, ormidsize companies rather than
very large companies.
So you just have a very largeswath of the population.
I think you'd be missing withthat.
I think you'd be missing withthat.
(42:29):
Now, on the other hand, thereare some large companies that
provide financial literacytraining.
I actually had a client oncewho had a large construction
company, you know, like the kindthat builds airports and
highways and things like that,and he would have us come in
(42:52):
twice a year and do seminars forhis employees on personal
finance, because he thought itwas that important to you know
that his people be educated.
And his argument was if they'renot worried about their
personal finances, they're morefocused on their work.
You know, so you know.
I think that's fine.
But back to the point, ifthere's just a very large
portion of the population, Ithink we'd be missing if we left
(43:15):
it to the large corporations.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
Business owners definitely have the advantage.
So I'm just talking about theeveryday employee Business
owners.
They grind to where they needto know it, or else the business
is going to fail and they'regoing to be that employee and
then they'll learn it.
So I feel like, as a businessowner, if you don't learn it on
your own which a lot of us dothen you're not going to be in
business anyway, and then you'llgo work for that company that's
going to teach you but yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
So there's only 30 million people out of what we
have 300 million people so yeah,it's not going to work for
everyone, but that's just youknow and then the other people
that work for smaller companies,like I think I think, too,
something that we're notthinking about is you could lead
a horse to water doesn't meanthey're gonna drink that's so I
mean true as well yeah, we couldtell people not to eat
mcdonald's, and they're stillgonna eat mcdonald's, you know I
(43:57):
mean.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
So, at the end of the day, it is what it is that's
yeah, that's 100 true, like youhave to be in the mindset and
willing to learn thatinformation.
A lot of people, even likefriends that I have, who want to
get better, and then you try toexplain things to them how they
should do things and they justdon't listen and don't take the
advice.
Then it's not much more.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Do you ever have this type of clients where you're
like advising and they're justnot cohesive to it?
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Sure, they don't necessarily stay clients forever
, right, you know there has tobe a good match between styles,
right?
So, or I'll call it chemistry.
Chemistry can mean that you gelwith the person on a personal
level, but it can also mean thatyou are uh, I'll call it
culturally aligned.
(44:44):
Uh, what I really mean by it isthat my approach to things
matches how they're looking forsomeone to operate.
So, as an example, if somebodywants to call me every day and
talk about the market andwhether they should buy more
NVIDIA stock, that's not what Ido, I wouldn't have time for it.
I spend probably 80 or 90percent of my day in scheduled
(45:08):
meetings, appointments, phonecalls, et cetera, as a corporate
executive, in effect.
So you know, I'm not astockbroker who just pounds the
phone and is ready to talk topeople all the time.
Number one.
Number two I encourage peopleto think more long term than to
(45:28):
be watching every daily move ofthe stock market.
Quite frankly, I don't payattention every single day to
the stock market.
I pay attention to trends andhow they're changing over time.
Somebody, a friend of mine, oncesaid you got to watch the tides
, not the waves.
With the stock market or,frankly, with any investment
vehicle, you know, um, if youhave a real estate market and it
(45:51):
takes a short-term downturn forsome reason, okay, you know, is
that really material or is itjust going to pick up again when
whatever caused the downturn uh, turns around?
Um, so you, you, you can'tjudge things based upon very
short events.
And you know, even when COVIDfirst hit, the stock market
(46:14):
dropped like 37% in three weeks.
But there's a history of thesetypes of shock events turning
around almost as quickly as theyhappen.
And that's basically whathappened.
The stock market was back up inlike four to six months and you
know it moved back up afterthat, even as a million people
died in the United States.
It still, you know, went overwell.
(46:35):
So you know some people aremore active.
They want something more thanwhat I can give or more than
what I think they should have.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
I would say Got it, or more than what I think they
should have, I would say Got it.
So before we wrap this up, Iknow you have your own podcast,
so a couple of things.
If you want to plug theFinancial, dad is the name of
your podcast.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
That's what it's called yep.
So my children told me thatthey want me to become the
financial dad and be like a dadwho gives advice and education
and help to their children.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
And your daughter is a co-host, is that right?
Speaker 2 (47:16):
I have two daughters and they're both co-hosts Sweet.
They both are on their own inthe working world.
One runs a PR organization andthe other one is an actress in
LA and has a kind of a side gigthing as well.
So they they really have beenwonderful running this with me,
(47:37):
and we started with 22 videos onpersonal financial topics for
people aged about 16 to 30.
That was the sort of the targetzone for that.
That morphed into the idea of apodcast instead, or in addition
to, as more of the deliveryvehicle for it all, rather than
(48:00):
just having this bunch of videossitting there and the podcast.
So the Financial Dad podcast,which is available on YouTube.
The handle is atthefinancialdad underscore.
I don't know why, but there'san underscore.
The podcast is aboutconversations with young
(48:21):
entrepreneurs about personalfinancial topics and how they
can manage their companiesbetter.
We've been interviewing somereally successful friends of
ours who are business owners,having them tell their stories
and having them tell what workedand what didn't work over their
(48:43):
careers in terms of thedecisions they made and the
challenges they faced, and sothe podcast is really pretty
cool from that standpoint, andI'm trying to get to the point
where we've combined theavailability of the videos with
the podcast episodes.
We launched the podcastepisodes earlier this month.
(49:04):
I think we've put up eight orsomething like that.
We have like another 12 in thecan or something like that.
But you guys know, editing andfinalizing the actual podcast is
work in and of itself.
That, um, quite frankly, Ididn't appreciate all that.
When you know when the idea,when the idea came up, I was
like oh yeah, I can sit and talkfor 40 minutes about anything
(49:25):
you know.
So, um, but yeah, that's whatwe're doing and um and um, you
know, starting to try to getsubscribers just like anybody
else, and hopefully we'll help alot of people with it are you
only posting on youtube rightnow?
No, they're.
I think they're posting oninstagram also what about like
apple podcasts and spotify ohyeah, I don't know the reach
(49:46):
from the uh in terms of thepodcast platforms.
Um, that's a that's a goodquestion.
I should.
That's something I should know,isn't it?
Um?
Speaker 1 (49:57):
probably, yeah, probably.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
Yeah, I think isn't there a?
There's like a software thatallows you to post it to
multiple ones at a time?
I somebody's one of mydaughters spoke about that
software.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
Yeah, there's a couple of them.
We use Buzzsprout, it's called.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
That sounds familiar actually.
So I think I think we're usingthat, I think you could.
It would be fair to say weexpect.
I expect that we'll be on themajor podcast platforms in
addition to YouTube, like Apple,etc.
Speaker 3 (50:26):
What are your thoughts on posting on like
TikTok and like social mediapages like that?
Speaker 2 (50:31):
On posting on TikTok.
Speaker 3 (50:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Oh, setting aside all the political stuff going on
with TikTok, you know TikTok isa very short form.
I'm not a real TikTok user inany way, but as I understand it
it's a very short form.
I'm not a real tiktok user inany way, but as I understand it
it's a pretty short form thing.
I would view it more as anadvertising medium than an
(50:59):
actual information provisionplatform.
Does that make any sense to you?
Do you know what I'm sayinglike?
Speaker 3 (51:05):
yeah, yeah, I see your outlook.
I mean I'm a little biased justbecause I got 150,000 TikTok
followers TikTok and thentranslate them over to Instagram
just by having like the littleInstagram logo thing in your
(51:31):
TikTok account.
So they would click over toInstagram and then go follow you
on Instagram and then you, fromthere you have your you know
your YouTube link, your podcastlink, and then they go to watch.
You know the long form contenton YouTube.
So I think you could reach alot of young kids on TikTok
maybe just like and this is justan idea of me spitballing here-
no, no, it's great info.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (51:51):
I love the financial dad thing.
I think that's super cool, likeyou're like just one-on-one
talking to like this kid on thephone and he's like you're like
hey and you know whatever youradvice is and it pops up on his
screen.
I think that'd be super cool.
There's a, there's a mortgagelender, her, uh, her handle.
Her handle is not your daddy'slender or something like that.
(52:11):
She does amazing.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
So Tim, you are in fact on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 4 (52:18):
So for our listeners, you are on there, it's a green
background.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
Thank you for telling me.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
Yes, I figure you got a couple of 30-year-old
daughters.
I imagine they're probably theones that are spearheading the
effort, oh yeah, oh yeah.
But yeah, so yeah for thelisteners out there.
The Financial Dad Podcast is onApple Podcasts, it's on YouTube
.
I'm sure it's on otherplatforms if it's there.
So make sure you check out.
Tim, and what are yourdaughters' names?
(52:46):
Bridget and Hallie Okay.
So, uh, bridget and hallie okay.
So, tim, bridget and hallie um,check them out.
And uh, tim, we appreciate youcoming on the show today and
sharing that insight and we'llhave this episode edited and out
and you know, we'll uh,hopefully, uh be able to
collaborate on some stuff that'dbe awesome.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
Thank you guys very, very much.
It was a pleasure to talk toyou yes, you too.
Speaker 1 (53:09):
Thank you thanks.
Welcome to the Everyday Millionaire Show with
Ryan Greenberg and Nick Kalfas.
Hi guys, welcome back toanother episode of the Everyday
Millionaire Show.
We're here with Tim Smith.
Tim, your company's calledAurora Financial Advisory, or
what?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
was it Aurora?
Private Wealth Aurora.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Private Wealth yes, awesome wealth.
Private Aurora, private wealthUm, awesome.
So give us a little uh, alittle background on who you are
and kind of what got youstarted in finance.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, sure, um, I got started in finance because my
parents had no ability withfinance and, uh, I so I really
wanted to live a life where, um,I you know, there weren't
constant financial questions andproblems.
So I went into the investmentworld right out of college in
1985.
(00:52):
So I've been at it for a littlewhile and I'm a certified
financial planner, spent 10years as a frontline financial
planner with another firm in NewJersey, then I started my own
firm in 1995, an investmentadvisory firm, and ultimately I
started this firm a few yearslater when some friends of mine
wanted to join with me, and itis now a firm of 100 some odd
(01:18):
financial advisors that wesupport around the country.
It's a broker dealer investmentadvisory operation.
We have about 60 offices, Iguess something like that, and I
operate it day-to-day while Ialso do a few other things that
you're familiar with, like thefinancial dad and financial
literacy concerns andeducational things of this
(01:40):
nature.
So that's a quick, quick, downand dirty background check on me
.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Nice.
So you said before you're heavyon in like stocks and
securities and that kind ofinvestment.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, I mean, the type of investment that we
primarily do is for people whowant their money managed by a
third party.
So it typically involves aclearing firm account like a
Schwab or a Fidelity, and mostlythings like ETFs of various
kinds, and that can.
That includes real estate, butyou know, stocks, bonds,
(02:22):
international, just the typicalkind of things you might imagine
.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Awesome.
So I got a quick question, astock question, because the last
day my NVIDIA shares gotcrushed by this new deep seek AI
that China apparently came outwith.
Do you have any insight on that?
(02:47):
I did buy more NVIDIA today,blindly, kind of just bought
more, but what's your take onthat?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Well, so DeepSeek is a software, not a chip
manufacturer.
I think the critical issue thatI've seen a little bit about
this, but not much is doesDeepSeek take less computing
capacity than all of the otherAI folks out there, such that
(03:19):
NVIDIA's extra capacity to theirchips that makes them so
special for AI, not as necessary, potentially?
So if that's the case, then youcould see where this could be a
threat to NVIDIA's market share.
But I think there's just a lotof unknowns still with the whole
(03:43):
thing.
A lot of unknowns still withthe whole thing.
Um and uh, deep seek certainlyhas some serious issues from the
standpoint of chinese controlof information.
Yeah, chase.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
How do you?
Because chase is our chieftechnology officer over here.
He's the technology guy and heworked for the air force doing
technology stuff.
So what's your take on that?
Because I heard about they dida test where they they didn't.
They put in like a questionabout communism into the deep
sea thing and it wouldn't answerit.
They put in a question aboutthe tiananmen square issue and
(04:20):
they wouldn't answer it.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
So yeah, well, I think, first of all, you know
when, when the chinesegovernment is manufacturing
something right like, there'ssome type of alternative motive.
Um, I mean, that's the way wehave always looked at it.
So I I think the united statesis going to be more cautious on
how they handle that.
And just allowing that on anycomputer and the open source of
(04:41):
it is good.
Um, it'll help, you know,manufacture competition through
the AI space.
However, like you were saying,tim, they were able to figure
out a way to use that andbasically have the same software
as ChatGPT, but on a fractionof the computing power that
(05:02):
ChatGPT uses, which, like Timwas saying, would cut N nvidia's
market share.
So, um, yeah, I think it's.
It's interesting.
We'll see, like, if elon oranybody else like dives into,
like the open source script andlike bounces off that.
I mean, elon had the same typeof business model where, with
electric cars, he did like anopen open source to it.
(05:25):
So I think it'll be interesting, but you got to be careful with
it.
You know anything coming fromthe chinese?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
it could end up being another tiktok situation,
exactly you know so what's yourprice target?
Speaker 1 (05:36):
your price target for nvidia?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I, I, I don't, I don't do price targets of stocks
.
I, I'm afraid I'm more of atraditional, very vanilla,
boring asset allocator.
So I hold NVIDIA through ETFs.
Primarily, that would becybersecurity related or AI
related ETFs, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, I like living life a little bit on the edge
with a very, very heavy nvidiaportfolio.
So, um, when you are doingthese sectors and these etfs,
how like we just had like achange in government, for
example, did you have a changein your investment strategy when
we had the new government comein?
(06:20):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So the way that I choose things people call it a
core and satellite approachprimarily, the core of most of
it is the S&P 500.
So there's always some kind ofpositions that are oriented to
what would be called large capblend or large cap growth, the
(06:44):
S&P 500 index, and then Ithematically look to apply some
things around that that have thepotential to outperform the S&P
500.
So I have personally talked topeople about what I see in the
(07:05):
last really 10 years as a changein technology to the point
where you know it's a revolution.
We had an agrarian society,then we had an industrial
society and now we have atechnological society, and now
(07:25):
we have a technological society.
And so I, going back before theelection, I had moved
(07:46):
significantly into technology asan additional hold for most
people, beyond just generallarge cap or small cap type
holdings.
With the election, one of thethings that I started doing
before the election wasfollowing a series of sectors
that you might think would bemost impacted by either a Biden
or a Trump I'm sorry, a Harrisor a Trump administration.
So, for example, on the Harrisside, it was things like
biotechnology andpharmaceuticals, cybersecurity,
(08:11):
generally those types ofholdings, and it has been,
(08:33):
obviously since Trump won.
It's those stocks that havedone pretty well.
So, for example, I follow anETF called it's ICLN.
It's a green energy ETF andthat one has been absolutely
pummeled since Harris lost theelection, whereas cybersecurity
(08:57):
and the symbol escapes me, butcybersecurity there's a very
nice ETF for it is sort of thetop of the pack since the
election.
It's performed better thanfinancials, defense and security
, even AI stuff since theelection.
So the answer is yes, andthat's sort of how I did it.
(09:21):
So I moved some things thatwere not as high performing out
and moved, you know, took acouple of positions in those
types of sectors where you wouldexpect under a Trump
administration they should dowell.
So you did that shortly afterthe election and yeah over the
(09:42):
last, you know, over the lasttwo months, depending upon the
client and how aggressive theyare.
Some of it was done in Novemberwith some people that are more
aggressive, and some of it wasdone under my discretionary
powers in December with somereviews that I did of client
accounts, stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
That's interesting.
So from your experience you'vebeen at this for several
different presidencies have youfound that one side or the other
has made investments better orworse, as far as like,
republicans versus?
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Democrats to answer that question without losing
half of my friends.
But I'll just tell you that, ingeneral, no, because of this,
of what I really just described,under any given administration,
some sectors will tend to dowell because more money tends to
(10:41):
flow to them from whicheveradministration, whichever party
the administration is from.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
So how much time would you have after the
election to kind of move thatmoney out of one sector into
another before you would losetoo much of it?
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Well, the idea is that it's not to catch a pop of
5% and then, you know, sell itright.
The idea is, over the next fouryears you're expecting the
earnings of those companies inthat sector to do well, and so
you would position relativelyearly and hope to ride up the
(11:17):
next four years in the marketwith that.
So whether it's three days orthree weeks or a month after the
election, I mean unless therewas some meteoric change in a
very short period of time, youknow I'm investing for years,
not for short term windows, withpeople, so you know it
(11:39):
typically doesn't matter verymuch to me very much to me.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Okay, so the one that we had a financial advisor on
here a couple, maybe a month orso ago and they said, um, that
they've found the bestinvestment time I guess
throughout history with,statistically speaking, is when
the government is split, Likeright now.
I guess Republicans they havethe house, the Senate they have
a whole side, the whole thing,yeah, and he said that remember
that guy, I forget his name, buthe.
He said that remember that guy,I forget his name, but he
basically said that he's foundit best when it's a split
(12:08):
government.
Do you have to track that orhave any idea if he's?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I can't tell you empirically whether that's the
case.
Uh, I I think there's a certainlogic to it in the sense that
we have the most compromise inour government.
When that is the case right bydefinition, because either they
get something done or they don't.
Either they compromise or theydon't, and you know when there's
(12:35):
compromise and when Washingtonis working.
Smoothly is typically a goodthing for the country and for
the economy, for the country andfor the economy.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
But I can't tell you from experience or what I have
sensed, or you know from havinglooked at data, I can't tell if
that's the case or not.
Okay, so the overall marketwhat's your kind of, what's your
take on it right now?
(13:04):
Do you think we're overvalued?
Do you think we're in a goodposition?
Are we setting up for a?
And that includes, like, realestate and everything.
I don't know how much insightyou have about that, but, like,
are you bullish on the nextcouple of years, are you?
What are you thinking?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
In general, I'm bullish.
I think we've had a pretty goodrun up and I think a correction
was due.
I didn't expect it to be a oneday thing, like NVIDIA.
I mean, it's normal after a 25%market move to get a 10 or 15%
pullback and for prices toreadjust to reality and then to
move forward from there.
(13:37):
So in that sense, I wouldexpect something.
I think there are still someinterest rate issues out there
that are going to hold back themarket somewhat.
We have a lot of debt that hasto be refinanced in the very
near future and there areprobably some bond market
turmoil with all of that coming.
(13:59):
But in terms of the next two tothree years, I think the big
issue will be whether there is areal doge pullback in spending
by the government.
So if you think of it as a $23trillion economy, something
(14:22):
along those lines in the UnitedStates alone, if they cut $2
trillion in spending if theywere able to, I don't think they
are, frankly, but if they wereable to, you're talking about a
you know, I don't know 6%reduction, 7% reduction in GDP.
So by definition, that would bea recession if it were to
(14:48):
happen in a quick period of time.
So I think, if they basicallygo as we've been going, I would
expect the stock market at leastthose sectors we're talking
about to rise and do well overthe next few years.
If we really are able to cutfrom the federal budget and if
(15:12):
that does really reduce spendingin the economy barring some
other spending which there'd beno point to it, which there'd be
no point to it thentheoretically you should have a
recession from that much of acut in spending by the
government, and as to where itwould impact the most, you'd
(15:35):
have to look at what gets cutright.
Part of the reason I don't thinkmuch is going to happen with
this at all is because so muchof the government spending is
entitlement programs.
Those are sacred cows.
The next chunk is defensespending and if anything, I
would expect this administrationto put more money into defense.
(15:57):
So you're left with, you know,some oddball sorts of areas of
the government you know, like ifwe get rid of a department here
or there, you know, maybe yousave hundreds of billions of
dollars, something like that.
But I don't think you're goingto see two trillion certainly
not two trillion dollars a yearof spending.
(16:19):
Now, maybe they're when they'reusing these terms.
Maybe they're thinking 200billion a year over 10 years.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Well, that's that has a nominal impact on the economy
, but wouldn't have a positivewouldn't have a positive impact
when they stop spending thatmuch money because we're our
debt to other countries and theyou know the debt ceiling that
we have is is an issue.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Obviously wouldn't it be better.
What it should do is helpinterest rates fall, and that
should be stimulative to theeconomy, right, and interest
rates should fall because wewould be issuing less debt, so
less demand or less supply ofdebt, um, lower interest rates
(17:01):
in the marketplace, and thatshould be stimulative to the
economy.
But whether it stimulates it tothe tune of another $200
billion or not, that's anybody'sguess, right?
So, listen, I'm a conservativeand I'd love to see some fat cut
(17:26):
out of the federal budget.
I'd love to see a smallerfederal government, but I would
certainly want to see it done ina way that is as unimpactful as
possible to GDP and the overalleconomy.
So, yeah, there areconsequences of spending less
money that are positive, butwherever that money was going,
(17:49):
whoever those employees are thatare now not spending or have to
move out of their housesbecause they don't have enough,
money or have to find a job inthe economy.
you know, all of that is, on thespending side, reduced, even
though we borrow less.
I mean, right now we'reborrowing a trillion dollars a
year, so we're nowhere close tocutting enough.
(18:11):
To get to fiscal solvency isthe wrong word, getting to a
flat budget and so we're goingto be issuing debt one way or
the other.
It's just a matter of how much.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
I got two questions, two questions for you.
So why?
Why do you think financialliteracy is so important?
And if it's important, as weall know it is, why is it not
taught or seen as much in school?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, great questions .
Can I tell you a little bit ofthe story of how I started
getting into financial literacyfor young people in particular?
Is that okay if I go there?
right now seven or eight yearsago, seven years ago, and as he
was graduating and mind you, hewas, he was actually doing a
(19:06):
combined bachelor's, master's incomputer science and his
friends were all doing a similarthing.
They were all headed off toDARPA and Amazon and Microsoft
and you know tremendouscompanies where they need
computer scientists and terrificcareers and everything else.
He called me about a monthbefore he was going to graduate
(19:29):
and he said hey, dad, my friendsand I were all talking and
we've come to this realizationthat we've just gotten through
all this years of schooling andwe're about to join all these
companies and these companieshave company benefits and 401k
plans and all these things andwe don't understand anything
about all of this stuff Nothing.
(19:50):
Would you mind coming in andgiving us kind of like a
personal personal financeseminar and just teach us some
stuff, because we really reallycould use it?
My father was a collegeprofessor for 57 years, so I I
think I have a little bit ofteacher in my genes and if I
don't have teacher, I'm Irish, Ican talk forever, so I'm very
(20:10):
good at standing up and just youknow going.
So I went in and I did theseminar and I covered topics
like income taxes and, you know,buying a car, buying a house
and buying a car, buying a house, renter's insurance, 401k plans
, company medical benefits,company disability benefits just
(20:31):
a wide range of things theywere all about to get involved
in and they loved it.
And my son said to me afterwards, and my daughters as well you
really should do something withthis for young people, because
we are not getting it in theschools and it's critical to our
(20:51):
lives, and so my belief systemabout it is that young people
need it as badly as anybody else.
Most of them don't get it athome because their parents don't
know either.
And as to schools, there areabout 20 states that do require
some kind of financial literacycoursework to graduate high
(21:14):
school.
My own youngest child wentthrough that with pardon me, one
second, went through that withher own high school, and she
said to me several years lateroh, was that what that was?
I didn't get anything out ofthat.
So I don't think that, evenwhere it is being taught, I'm
(21:38):
not sure it's being taught wellor in a way that it sticks with
kids.
I'm not sure high school is theright place.
I really think college is amuch better time for kids to
learn it because there's a kindof a clock ticking in their
minds that they're going to needall of this shortly, you know,
three years, two years, one year, six months, when they know
(22:01):
they're getting out of collegeand they have to do this thing
called adulting, and so I thinkcollege is really a better time,
but I think it's not taughtbecause it's not the arts or
culture or literature or youknow sort of.
We come from a society that atfirst loved classical education.
(22:22):
Personal finance was justsomething that you had to either
get at home or, you know, learnon your own, and I think it's.
It's just been an overlookedarea and it hasn't been well
done even when it's been done,and that's why I've gotten
involved in it at this point.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
I would like to chime in cause.
I'm probably the youngest here.
Yeah, no, Tim, that actually isfunny.
Hey there, young man yeahexactly, I'm 27, just turned 27.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
It does resonate with me, though, because I come from
a low to middle income familyand your parents don't really
just sit you down and say, hey,we got to have a talk.
It's usually about other stuff,and you have to be inspired to
learn something of that natureand in bigger pockets.
(23:15):
That's where majority of realestate investors come and they
find their passion, and for me,it was like my grandparents had
always been.
My grandfather and mygrandmother were from the
trailer parks in Roanoke,believe it or not, and my
grandfather started a mufflerbusiness in his 30s and he ran
that business and my grandma ranit alongside of him.
(23:37):
And then, you know, as I wasgrowing up, like they were
always going on vacations anddifferent things and I always
wondered like, wondered, likenanny, how did you like get to
where you are in life?
And she was like she had a verylike dave ramsey approach to
life.
Like they paid everything offvery fast, they invested into
the business as if it was their401k, and so I was.
(23:58):
It like intrigued me as a kidand that's why I got into like
investing in real estate and thefinancial side of it, but like
if I never had that, like mywife, for example, is 23 and I
handle all of our business, orall of our bills, and I have to
teach her things and I'm likethis is nuts, like you should
know this out of college.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Well, the other thing too.
I mean, Chase, you didn't go tocollege?
Right, I didn't go to, yeah, Iwent to community college.
So, Tim, I guess to like argueyour point a little bit, what
about the people that don't goto college?
Because, I'm finding so, I owna general contracting company as
well as multiple real estatecompanies.
But the plumbers that I have,the HVAC techs that I have,
(24:41):
they're making way more moneythan my high school teachers
made.
They all went to college.
My wife went to college for sixyears.
She has a master's plus 30.
Full disclosure I actually usedto be a public school teacher.
That's how I started my careerand then realized that I was
going to be poor if I did that.
So I started investing in realestate and, long story short, I
(25:02):
shortly then after quit my joband went full time in real
estate.
But the time I feel like toteach the kids is gotta be
before college, because somepeople college doesn't make
sense, like it doesn't makesense to go to college if you're
going to be a plumber or anHVAC guy.
And I'm telling you right now,the guys that I have doing my
(25:23):
plumbing work are making a wholelot more money than the people
that I know that went.
Even my peers and friends thatwent to college for five, six
years have masters, have this,have doctorate degrees for God's
sakes.
I know one of my buddies has adoctorate degree from Hopkins
and I make way more money thanhim and I didn't have to go to
college for any of the stuffthat I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Yeah yeah.
By the way, I went to collegefor communications and film and
television production, so youknow my degree is other than a
nice piece of paper on the wall.
I didn't get an awful lot ofbusiness, you know.
I took a few courses.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
And the difference, I think too, when you went to
college versus when we went tocollege.
Nick and I are 33, about to be34.
Like, college was a lot moreexpensive for us.
Luckily, my parents paid for meto like my parents covered that
bill.
But I did the math and like, ifI had not had them covered the
bill, I would have graduatedwith like $200,000 worth of debt
(26:17):
.
And me I was my first teachingjob was making like 36 or
something thousand a year.
I wouldn't.
It would have been my wholelife to pay off just the college
debt.
It doesn't make sense for somepeople.
So if you didn't have yourparents to pay for your school
and you went to trade school,then where is that time where
you're going to learn thisfinancial literacy?
Speaker 2 (26:36):
So, by the way, I agree with your point and I
hadn't thought about that thatfor those who don't go to
college, they don't that wouldnot be something that they would
be getting, so maybe I'llrethink the idea of whether it
belongs in college or highschool, or both for that matter,
I do feel like most, a lot of,not most, I see.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
I feel like people now in our generation, because
my parents generation theyalways pushed college, college.
You need to go to college, youneed that piece of paper.
But I do feel like the pendulumis starting to swing, where
people are realizing especiallywith like YouTube and just
different forms of information,I feel like people are realizing
, hey, maybe college isn't theright move, if I don't know
(27:16):
exactly.
Or maybe you go to communitycollege for a year and just
figure it out and then yourealize you know, chase went to
the military instead.
Maybe that's the path for somepeople, maybe it's trade school,
maybe it's something starting abusiness.
That I feel like needs to betalked about in the early high
school years so they can, thatthey could be set up to make
that plan.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
I'll jump in real quick and I'll say that the Air
Force does an absolutely amazingjob at teaching you financial
literacy, like they put youthrough classes.
They teach you how to buyhouses, they teach you
everything.
I think the biggest thing isthey don't want you going to
debt because you have like a topsecret clearance or something.
And then all of a sudden anadversary is is asking you hey,
you want a hundred thousand togive us the secrets you know.
(27:58):
So they're they're very, Iguess, motivated to teach their
members how to be financiallyliterate and not go into a
massive amount of debt.
So I would say the militarydoes a good job of that.
But you know, if you don't goto college or the military, kind
of SOL unless you wanted tolearn it yourself.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
I personally think it should start in elementary
school and I think it shouldstart with a game such as
Monopoly or something similar,that the kids can interact,
because, as you mentioned, youknow when you get to high school
you may not be interested in it, but if you're just like, if
they're slowly chipping at themand feeding them that
information for 12 whole years,eventually part of it at least
is going to stick to them whenthey do get out there in the
(28:36):
real world.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
There is actually an app that is for young kids.
It's more focused on savingmoney and, you know, putting
money in the bank kind ofconcept, and, uh, understanding
what that means and, um, and thename of the um the app escapes
me.
But, uh, they market to schoolswith the app and I know
(29:01):
somebody who knows the owner Ican't remember you who it is.
It's out of texas, I think.
Um, so you know there arethings for this, but it's not,
you know, sort of nationallysolidified or standardized or
uniform in any way.
Certainly yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
So I have a funny story about financial literacy.
So this was like my last yearof teaching.
I was asked I was teaching in areally rough school, really
tough kids, tough families, andI was asked to teach.
I was a PE teacher.
So the kids like liked me andrespected me.
But the fifth grade teacher quitbecause the kids were so crazy.
(29:42):
And then the substitute thatthey had while they were trying
to hire somebody else quitbecause the kids were so crazy.
So then they asked me.
They were like, hey, it'sreally much easier for me to
find somebody to put in the gymand you can handle these kids.
Like you go in there and teachfifth grade.
And I was like I don't knowanything about teaching fifth
(30:03):
grade besides, you know PE stuff.
So I I at that time I was likeheavily invested in real estate.
I was pretty much it was mylast year teaching because I
knew I was getting out of it togo full time with my businesses.
I taught them it was fifthgraders.
I taught them compound interestand how to calculate it.
That was our math.
And then I literally had themon Zillow.
(30:25):
I had them looking at.
This is true story.
So I had them figure out whatthey wanted to do.
I called it life, that was myunit and I actually had to get.
It's funny because I had to getobserved, which was a moot
point because they knew I wasleaving.
But to check off the box, theprincipal had to observe me and
you're supposed to teach thecurriculum.
I was not teaching, I wasteaching my own made up
(30:46):
curriculum and the principallike loved it so much that she
wanted she started like tellingthe other teachers to integrate
it.
But I had them find a job,research how much it made that
job.
Then I had them research whatdegrees they needed to get that
job.
And then I had them look for ahouse that they wanted in the
neighborhoods that they wereliving in or wanted to live in
(31:07):
right around us in Annapolis.
And then I had them look for acar and they had to figure out
how much car insurance was.
And if they wanted a dog, I putin a stipend, you know, $50 a
month dog food bill.
And I had them do all thisstuff and people were like the
kids were super, super engagedand they loved it, but nobody
(31:30):
really.
I mean, that's not in the realcurriculum, but I feel like
that's something that should be.
In my opinion, and I think partof the problem is the teachers,
for the most part most part arebroke unless they married.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Well, they're not the ones to teach it, they're not
the ones to teach it Right.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
You're not going to take, like, health advice from a
fat person.
You're not going to takefinancial advice from a poor
person and teachers are all nowvery low income compared to what
you know.
With inflation and all thisstuff, like it would be tough to
be a teacher and starting outwith any kind of student debt,
trying to buy a house right now.
I mean it.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Just it doesn't happen, especially not where we
live well, I applaud you forwhat you did because, instead of
teaching theoretical math, youtaught practical math right you
gave them practical skills andthat's what engages everybody.
you know it's something they canrelate to and understand and
see how it's actually going toimpact them in their lives.
(32:30):
You know, you learn algebra inwhat?
Eighth grade or something?
And most people will say whenthe hell am I ever going to use
this going forward?
And calculus, you know, incollege, when am I going to use
that?
If I'm not planning to go intophysics or the sciences or math
or something like that, when amI going to use this?
So, um, but things like whatyou did, I think the kids
(32:54):
understand that they can use it.
They.
They see their parents have,you know, bought houses and done
things like that, um, and youbought houses and done things
like that, um, and you, so you,you really related.
You gave them somethingrelatable, a real life skill and
learned math.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
I think that's missing.
I think that's missing rightnow, like in, and if you don't
have, like, parents that arereally educated in it, it's not,
uh, it's not really evergetting taught to kids.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Yeah, well, to back to my point about the cycle, if
you will, of um, children notlearning from parents, because
the parents don't know either,and so they grow up, they don't
have skill, they have childrenand they can't teach their
children, um, so, yeah, I, Imean, however we do it, we
certainly need a morestandardized focus on financial
(33:43):
literacy, financial educationfor young people.
That is a requirement becauseeverybody needs it, everybody's
going to use it.
If you want to have theAmerican dream and buy a home,
you need to know what a mortgageis.
Most people are not going to buyfor cash, right?
So got to understand what amortgage is and how it works.
(34:06):
And what does it mean?
And, and um, I mean real estateinvesting itself.
Most people would have no ideahow to do, even if, um, you know
, even if they understand theconcept that you buy a piece of
real estate, somebody pays rentto you and you know it goes up
in value over time, but theadditional equity you gain by
(34:26):
having them pay down themortgage with the rent over time
, and those concepts are justforeign to people.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
So I guess back to my question as to why they don't
teach that.
Do you think it weighs heavieron the side of that?
They try, but then the teachersjust aren't financially
literate themselves to be ableto teach it.
Or do you think there'ssomething higher up, like the
government, that says, look, ifwe have too many people that are
financially literate, it's notgoing to make our world go
around how they want it to.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
And the tinfoil hats come on.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I think the issue gets back to.
What are the pressures onschool systems?
Okay, so in the school systemsthey are trying to get kids to
be able to read and do math andget the best possible scores at
the high school level to getthem into colleges.
That's what most school systemsare focused on.
(35:25):
So their time, their allocationof resources, their allocation
of monies you know the money canonly go so far and most of them
are struggling to do that wellin our society.
And look at the test scores forreading, for math, ap test
(35:47):
scores, everything.
So we we have a generaleducation problem in the country
, in addition to the fact thatwe're teaching some stuff that
is standardized.
That's why they call themstandardized tests, right?
Um, it's standardized that wethink everybody should be
learning this to progress inlife.
(36:10):
And the bottom line is noteverybody needs to learn those
things.
To progress in life, you needbasic arithmetic skills to do
virtually anything as an adult,unless you're in a highly
skilled area that requireshigher level math.
The average, you know, 95%probably of Americans only need
(36:34):
to know how to add, multiply,divide, subtract.
So it's sort of like we'reelective classes.
(37:06):
I guess it was like junior highschool or high school and you
know, this was sort of anattempt at giving people some
life skills and I applaud it.
But at the end of the day, if,if everybody had been taught
financial literacy with thattime you know, the 90% of the um
(37:30):
guys that took a woodshop, whoare not going to ever use a band
saw in their life, would havehad financial literacy instead,
which they would use every monthof their life, you know, to to
balance a checkbook or to paytheir bills or, you know, get a
car or whatever.
Um, so I, I, I see it asmisplaced priorities.
(37:53):
And uh, to your point, ryan,earlier, about college in
general, uh, that emphasis oncollege, getting kids into
college, getting them intobetter colleges, therefore the
emphasis on standardized testing, therefore the emphasis on
those topics that are only thereis no AP exam on personal
(38:18):
financial literacy.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
There should be.
Yeah, right, there should beyeah.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
The thing, the one thing that we basically know
every one of these kids is goingto use for the rest of their
life money, we don't teach ityeah, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
That is actually part of the reason that we started
the.
The podcast in general was tojust kind of like spread that
word and I got started learningabout real estate investing
through podcasts, through thebigger pockets podcast, and then
, um, I had, I was, I found aprivate money lender through
another job that I had in thesummertime and he's the one that
(38:58):
held my hand and loaned memoney to start real estate
investing in general and taughtme how to do the refinance
process and all that stuff.
Um, because he had interest init, like I was paying him
interest on the loans and, uh,if I didn't have him, I wouldn't
be, I wouldn't have done any ofit.
So, yeah, yeah, it wasn'tpublic.
Well, I mean, I guess it waspublic knowledge, but it wasn't,
(39:20):
uh, taught in any kind of youknow, traditional way.
It was.
It was all done kind of by luckand by choice.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, if you think of it, everylittle building, every building
is its own unique littlebusiness in a sense.
Right, you have costs to carryit.
You have revenue for it that'sattributable solely to it.
It's almost like a smallentrepreneurial thing.
It just happens to involve realestate and financing and
(39:48):
renting and leases and thingslike that, but it's a terrific
way to accumulate wealth forthose people who are inclined to
spend the time and effort at it.
And yet again, what's amortgage?
You know how does refinancingwork and how does real estate
(40:13):
grow in value over time, or howdoes the equity grow through the
amortization of the loanbalance.
You know those kinds of thoseare all things that we just
nobody's teaching anybody, thiskind of stuff.
So you know we're certainly onthe same page, we're.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
we're compatriots in the financial literacy problem.
What if the responsibility wasput on big companies who hire
these employees?
Because when they're in college, they're just learning about
and they're focusing on whattheir job's going to be and
being good at their job, butthey're not learning anything
about financial literacy.
So, like, what if the bigger?
What if they made it like amandate for the bigger companies
(40:53):
?
Speaker 1 (40:54):
I think that's that would de-incentivize,
de-incentivize, de-centivizepeople to like.
Think about it If the bigcompany taught you about real
estate investing right, if Itaught, if my school-.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
No, it's not about like let's just say just how to
manage your money and what'snext if you're coming out of,
you know, college, you don'thave a house yet you don't have.
You know things that you'regoing to run into as your
general financial education yeah, I just feel like by then it's
one too late.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
And two, those companies then wouldn't be
incentivized to teach you thatbecause they want you to be
living off their teeth, theywant you to be be, you know,
relying on that paycheck, wheremost people that work for
companies big companies, smallcompanies, that are living
paycheck to paycheck nowadays.
So why would I?
Why?
Speaker 4 (41:37):
would I think what you mean Cause if you became?
Too, financial literate, thenyou're not.
You might not work for them aslong as they need you to.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
I mean I quit my job.
Why would you?
Speaker 4 (41:44):
not quit.
You know, maybe that's why it'snot taught in the school system
.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Then it's too small a sector Chase?
That would be my answer to you.
In other words, first of all,there are 30 million
self-employed entrepreneurs inthe United States.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
How many did you say?
Speaker 2 (42:03):
30 million.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Damn, that's actually not that many.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
But all of those people would not have access
through that.
Then there are all of thepeople who are employed by small
companies rather than, ormidsize companies rather than
very large companies.
So you just have a very largeswath of the population.
I think you'd be missing withthat.
I think you'd be missing withthat.
(42:29):
Now, on the other hand, thereare some large companies that
provide financial literacytraining.
I actually had a client oncewho had a large construction
company, you know, like the kindthat builds airports and
highways and things like that,and he would have us come in
(42:52):
twice a year and do seminars forhis employees on personal
finance, because he thought itwas that important to you know
that his people be educated.
And his argument was if they'renot worried about their
personal finances, they're morefocused on their work.
You know, so you know.
I think that's fine.
But back to the point, ifthere's just a very large
portion of the population, Ithink we'd be missing if we left
(43:15):
it to the large corporations.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
Business owners definitely have the advantage.
So I'm just talking about theeveryday employee Business
owners.
They grind to where they needto know it, or else the business
is going to fail and they'regoing to be that employee and
then they'll learn it.
So I feel like, as a businessowner, if you don't learn it on
your own which a lot of us dothen you're not going to be in
business anyway, and then you'llgo work for that company that's
going to teach you but yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
So there's only 30 million people out of what we
have 300 million people so yeah,it's not going to work for
everyone, but that's just youknow and then the other people
that work for smaller companies,like I think I think, too,
something that we're notthinking about is you could lead
a horse to water doesn't meanthey're gonna drink that's so I
mean true as well yeah, we couldtell people not to eat
mcdonald's, and they're stillgonna eat mcdonald's, you know I
(43:57):
mean.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
So, at the end of the day, it is what it is that's
yeah, that's 100 true, like youhave to be in the mindset and
willing to learn thatinformation.
A lot of people, even likefriends that I have, who want to
get better, and then you try toexplain things to them how they
should do things and they justdon't listen and don't take the
advice.
Then it's not much more.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Do you ever have this type of clients where you're
like advising and they're justnot cohesive to it?
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Sure, they don't necessarily stay clients forever
, right, you know there has tobe a good match between styles,
right?
So, or I'll call it chemistry.
Chemistry can mean that you gelwith the person on a personal
level, but it can also mean thatyou are uh, I'll call it
culturally aligned.
(44:44):
Uh, what I really mean by it isthat my approach to things
matches how they're looking forsomeone to operate.
So, as an example, if somebodywants to call me every day and
talk about the market andwhether they should buy more
NVIDIA stock, that's not what Ido, I wouldn't have time for it.
I spend probably 80 or 90percent of my day in scheduled
(45:08):
meetings, appointments, phonecalls, et cetera, as a corporate
executive, in effect.
So you know, I'm not astockbroker who just pounds the
phone and is ready to talk topeople all the time.
Number one.
Number two I encourage peopleto think more long term than to
(45:28):
be watching every daily move ofthe stock market.
Quite frankly, I don't payattention every single day to
the stock market.
I pay attention to trends andhow they're changing over time.
Somebody, a friend of mine, oncesaid you got to watch the tides
, not the waves.
With the stock market or,frankly, with any investment
vehicle, you know, um, if youhave a real estate market and it
(45:51):
takes a short-term downturn forsome reason, okay, you know, is
that really material or is itjust going to pick up again when
whatever caused the downturn uh, turns around?
Um, so you, you, you can'tjudge things based upon very
short events.
And you know, even when COVIDfirst hit, the stock market
(46:14):
dropped like 37% in three weeks.
But there's a history of thesetypes of shock events turning
around almost as quickly as theyhappen.
And that's basically whathappened.
The stock market was back up inlike four to six months and you
know it moved back up afterthat, even as a million people
died in the United States.
It still, you know, went overwell.
(46:35):
So you know some people aremore active.
They want something more thanwhat I can give or more than
what I think they should have.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
I would say Got it, or more than what I think they
should have, I would say Got it.
So before we wrap this up, Iknow you have your own podcast,
so a couple of things.
If you want to plug theFinancial, dad is the name of
your podcast.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
That's what it's called yep.
So my children told me thatthey want me to become the
financial dad and be like a dadwho gives advice and education
and help to their children.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
And your daughter is a co-host, is that right?
Speaker 2 (47:16):
I have two daughters and they're both co-hosts Sweet.
They both are on their own inthe working world.
One runs a PR organization andthe other one is an actress in
LA and has a kind of a side gigthing as well.
So they they really have beenwonderful running this with me,
(47:37):
and we started with 22 videos onpersonal financial topics for
people aged about 16 to 30.
That was the sort of the targetzone for that.
That morphed into the idea of apodcast instead, or in addition
to, as more of the deliveryvehicle for it all, rather than
(48:00):
just having this bunch of videossitting there and the podcast.
So the Financial Dad podcast,which is available on YouTube.
The handle is atthefinancialdad underscore.
I don't know why, but there'san underscore.
The podcast is aboutconversations with young
(48:21):
entrepreneurs about personalfinancial topics and how they
can manage their companiesbetter.
We've been interviewing somereally successful friends of
ours who are business owners,having them tell their stories
and having them tell what workedand what didn't work over their
(48:43):
careers in terms of thedecisions they made and the
challenges they faced, and sothe podcast is really pretty
cool from that standpoint, andI'm trying to get to the point
where we've combined theavailability of the videos with
the podcast episodes.
We launched the podcastepisodes earlier this month.
(49:04):
I think we've put up eight orsomething like that.
We have like another 12 in thecan or something like that.
But you guys know, editing andfinalizing the actual podcast is
work in and of itself.
That, um, quite frankly, Ididn't appreciate all that.
When you know when the idea,when the idea came up, I was
like oh yeah, I can sit and talkfor 40 minutes about anything
(49:25):
you know.
So, um, but yeah, that's whatwe're doing and um and um, you
know, starting to try to getsubscribers just like anybody
else, and hopefully we'll help alot of people with it are you
only posting on youtube rightnow?
No, they're.
I think they're posting oninstagram also what about like
apple podcasts and spotify ohyeah, I don't know the reach
(49:46):
from the uh in terms of thepodcast platforms.
Um, that's a that's a goodquestion.
I should.
That's something I should know,isn't it?
Um?
Speaker 1 (49:57):
probably, yeah, probably.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
Yeah, I think isn't there a?
There's like a software thatallows you to post it to
multiple ones at a time?
I somebody's one of mydaughters spoke about that
software.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
Yeah, there's a couple of them.
We use Buzzsprout, it's called.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
That sounds familiar actually.
So I think I think we're usingthat, I think you could.
It would be fair to say weexpect.
I expect that we'll be on themajor podcast platforms in
addition to YouTube, like Apple,etc.
Speaker 3 (50:26):
What are your thoughts on posting on like
TikTok and like social mediapages like that?
Speaker 2 (50:31):
On posting on TikTok.
Speaker 3 (50:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Oh, setting aside all the political stuff going on
with TikTok, you know TikTok isa very short form.
I'm not a real TikTok user inany way, but as I understand it
it's a very short form.
I'm not a real tiktok user inany way, but as I understand it
it's a pretty short form thing.
I would view it more as anadvertising medium than an
(50:59):
actual information provisionplatform.
Does that make any sense to you?
Do you know what I'm sayinglike?
Speaker 3 (51:05):
yeah, yeah, I see your outlook.
I mean I'm a little biased justbecause I got 150,000 TikTok
followers TikTok and thentranslate them over to Instagram
just by having like the littleInstagram logo thing in your
(51:31):
TikTok account.
So they would click over toInstagram and then go follow you
on Instagram and then you, fromthere you have your you know
your YouTube link, your podcastlink, and then they go to watch.
You know the long form contenton YouTube.
So I think you could reach alot of young kids on TikTok
maybe just like and this is justan idea of me spitballing here-
no, no, it's great info.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (51:51):
I love the financial dad thing.
I think that's super cool, likeyou're like just one-on-one
talking to like this kid on thephone and he's like you're like
hey and you know whatever youradvice is and it pops up on his
screen.
I think that'd be super cool.
There's a, there's a mortgagelender, her, uh, her handle.
Her handle is not your daddy'slender or something like that.
(52:11):
She does amazing.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
So Tim, you are in fact on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 4 (52:18):
So for our listeners, you are on there, it's a green
background.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
Thank you for telling me.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
Yes, I figure you got a couple of 30-year-old
daughters.
I imagine they're probably theones that are spearheading the
effort, oh yeah, oh yeah.
But yeah, so yeah for thelisteners out there.
The Financial Dad Podcast is onApple Podcasts, it's on YouTube
.
I'm sure it's on otherplatforms if it's there.
So make sure you check out.
Tim, and what are yourdaughters' names?
(52:46):
Bridget and Hallie Okay.
So, uh, bridget and hallie okay.
So, tim, bridget and hallie um,check them out.
And uh, tim, we appreciate youcoming on the show today and
sharing that insight and we'llhave this episode edited and out
and you know, we'll uh,hopefully, uh be able to
collaborate on some stuff that'dbe awesome.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
Thank you guys very, very much.
It was a pleasure to talk toyou yes, you too.
Speaker 1 (53:09):
Thank you thanks.
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