March 26, 2025 • 44 mins
Eric D. Brotman, CFP®, is the CEO of BFG Financial Advisors, President of Brotman Consulting Group, LLC, host of the Don’t Retire… Graduate! podcast, and author of the award-winning book, Don’t Retire… Graduate!
Use code "unhacked" for a 25% discount on Eric's book: https://dontretiregraduatebook.com/
In our pre-interview meeting, Eric said: “Very few things keep me up at night. Not stocks, not capital hill, but having my identity stolen and company infiltrated.” And he has a great reason for this. Several years ago his company was hit with a ransomware attack.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Justin (00:15):
Welcome everybody to episode 46 of Unhacked. Guys,
this is a show where we, welearn how to avoid Russian
hackers, government fines andpenalties, and greedy attorneys.
And, usually, we've got, two orthree cohosts with me. Today,
we're down to one. It's beenthat's been the theme lately.
And then we have a special guestand, you know, we're gonna do a
(00:38):
couple of quick intros here andthen I'm gonna talk about who
we've got with us today. Mario,I I'd like to tell people who
you are and where you where youlive, where you do your
business, but I always forget. Ijust know it's up in the
Northeast somewhere. So telleverybody who you are, what you
do, and who you do it for,Mario.
Mario (00:53):
At least you remember my name, so that's good. That's a
start.
Justin (00:56):
And I've started pronouncing it right, I think.
Mario (00:58):
Yes. Yes. Mario Zacchi, CEO of Mastech IT. We are
located in New Jersey, rightoutside of Manhattan. I've been
in business about twenty oneyears now, servicing small to
medium sized business, savingtheir computer IT network, you
know, one computer at a timefrom the Russian.
Justin (01:18):
I'm Justin from the yeah. Don't forget that. Yeah.
One day, you know, the Russiansare gonna come, like, find me
and track me down because I'malways bad mouthing them.
Listen, I say it because the theonly time I really dealt with an
actual breach, I swear to God,we're in, hand to hand combat
with Russians.
That's that's where they werefrom. So shouldn't generalize, I
(01:40):
guess.
Eric (01:40):
You know what? Correct.
Mario (01:42):
We all we keep saying it. It's Russian hackers. But, you
know, it's not just Russia. Youknow? It's so many
Justin (01:48):
different places
Mario (01:49):
around the world. You know?
Justin (01:51):
But Some of them look just like us. Anyway, so I'm
Justin Shelley, CEO of PhoenixIT Advisors, and I do work in
Texas, Utah, and Nevada. Andlike I said, I just try to keep
the bad guys away from yourmoney. And speaking of money, we
have a little bit differentguest today. We've been doing a
lot of kind of in the weeds techtalk about cybersecurity.
(02:14):
Today we are going to talk witha guy named Eric D. Brotman, CFP
and Eric in a minute, I'm goingto ask you what that means.
Because that's not an acronym Iknow showing my ignorance, but
you are the CEO. I know thatacronym of BFG Financial
Advisors. Don't know that one.
There's a lot of letters here.President of Brotman Consulting
Group LLC, host of the Don'tRetire Graduate podcast. I love
(02:36):
that concept by the way. Andauthor of an award winning book
also called Don't RetireGraduate, which I believe we're
going to give people a discountfor a little bit later on in the
show. So Eric, say hi and thankyou for being here.
Eric (02:49):
Justin, thanks for having me. Mario, great to be with you
today. We're gonna have some funand maybe learn a little
something and teach you a littlesomething while we're at it.
Justin (02:57):
That's always the hope. Always the hope. I do like to
point out that honestly the bestthe the main reason I continue
to do this podcast and insist ondoing it week after week is
because of how much I learned.It has shaped my business doing
this. So love having some of thegreater minds in the world join
us and just continue to elevateour game.
(03:18):
Now, Eric, we're gonna talk.This is something that kind of
caught my attention. I talk alot about what keeps me up at
night. Mario talks about helpingpeople sleep at night by
plugging filling some of thesegaps. When you and I chatted, it
was we're getting ready for thispodcast, you said very few
things keep me up at night.
Not stocks, not Capitol Hill,but having my identity stolen
(03:42):
and my company infiltrated. Doesthat sound right? Is that
something you might have No.
Eric (03:47):
Is there's certain things that that I've come to expect.
The stock market behaves acertain way and and we've come
to expect economies and marketsto do various things over the
decades we've been doing this.Capitol Hill, it's a given
they're gonna screw things up ahundred ways. So you already
know what's coming. But thethings that keep me up are the
things that either we can'tcontrol or that we feel we must
(04:11):
control and are struggling with.
And so one of the biggest onesfrankly, our reputation. Yes.
Our reputation risk is you youdon't get that back. And I know
we're in a world where I I gettwo letters a week from this
company or that company saying,hey, you were found on the dark
web and it's been this problemor that problem. And and people
have started to ignore them.
Like there've been so many ofthem that, oh, get free identity
(04:32):
theft protection for a year.Okay. Sure you do. And and so we
started ignoring it because ithappens so much. But if it
happens to your business, it'sit can be debilitating and so we
take that real serious.
Justin (04:43):
I mean, debilitating is the the preferable outcome.
Right? Because it's not always aguarantee that we come back from
it at all.
Eric (04:52):
Well, you know, part of it is having the right people. I
mean, I I am not an IT guy. It'sstrange for me to be with two IT
guys who aren't trying toexplain something to me that I
don't understand. I mean, it's alanguage of its own. And I, you
know, I am a nightmare for ITpeople and for the folks who
represent our company.
I apologize in advance foranything I say during this hour
(05:14):
together. But I break things andI break them in ways they've
never seen them broken. So Ilike to challenge. Like people
say, I have never ever seenthat. I've been doing this for
two decades.
I've never seen anything likethat before and that's my normal
Wednesday with IT.
Justin (05:29):
True. We call that job security.
Eric (05:31):
Yeah. Well, I I I provide a lot of that for the folks who
represent us. That's for sure.
Mario (05:36):
Well, the question is, do they fix it or are you are they
just like, ah, so they'rewriting it off as like, yeah,
this is one thing we can't fix.
Eric (05:44):
Alright. This is not a job application for you, man. No.
They do they do fix it and theydo a great job and they're in
Jersey no less. So they're rightin your backyard.
Oh. I can't even tell you whothey are because you folks in
Jersey handle things a differentway than the rest of it. But but
I I I at at the end of yes. Theytake great care of it, and then
we're we're fortunate to havethe team we get.
Justin (06:02):
Nice. I'm sure Mario's gonna be spamming you in the
future just to see if he can Winyou over. Probably.
Eric (06:08):
No. One IT company from Jersey is enough. I'll never do
that again. Never.
Justin (06:16):
Well, I won't say anything about the
Northeasterners or theCanadians. I can't say anything
about the Canadians becausethey're not here to represent
themselves today, but our othercohost is is from Canada and we
like to give him a little bit ofshit from time to time. Where in
Eric (06:30):
where in Canada?
Justin (06:31):
Niagara Falls area.
Eric (06:33):
I love Canada actually. And despite the fact that the
South Park movie had us going towar with them and now we're
trying that, I I actually am abig fan of Canada.
Justin (06:43):
Mean, same thing.
Mario (06:44):
State. Right?
Eric (06:45):
You gotta be kidding me. No more than we're gonna be
their next province. Come on.Stop it.
Justin (06:52):
I'm surprised they haven't thrown that one back at
us.
Eric (06:54):
Well, it's a matter of time. I mean, if bad enough,
they beat us at that hockeytournament and said you can't
have our sport, you can't haveour country and what else is
there? No. It's fine.
Justin (07:07):
Alright. So thirty years in the world of financial
advising. Right?
Eric (07:11):
Yeah. Yeah.
Justin (07:12):
And then somewhere somewhere in that journey, rumor
has it, you actually do have yousay you don't know anything
about IT, you're not an IT guy,but you have some in the
trenches time with a ransomwareattack. Is that correct?
Eric (07:24):
Yes. Yes. It's been a number of years, thankfully, but
we did have a a situation wherewe didn't lose data to an
outside party, but we did loseaccess to our own data, which
was a bizarre thing. I didn'tknow that that was a possible
outcome. And I was delightedthat we were able to be back up
and running within twelve hourslike nothing had happened and
(07:44):
we're able to tell these folksto pound sand.
But but it was scary. It wasscary because we wanted to make
sure everybody was protected,our employees, our clients, our
our our company, ourinfrastructure. But it was also
scary because you feel violated.It's like any other Right. You
know, it's no different than ifsomebody breaks your car window
and takes those those sunglassesyou've been covering coveting.
(08:05):
You feel violated by it. And soI I yeah. That's it it was a
scary thing.
Justin (08:11):
And How long ago was it? If you don't mind me asking.
Eric (08:14):
I I wanna say it was probably probably seven or eight
years ago at this point. And itwound up being no harm, no foul,
and no check to write. But itwas scary. I mean, really, you
can't imagine until it happens,you can't imagine what it's like
to to literally be out ofbusiness instantly. And that's
what it is.
It's not this isn't adisruption. This isn't a it's
(08:37):
not like the power went out andyou're waiting for battery
backup. This is like you've beenunplugged forever if you don't
solve it. And that's scary ashell.
Mario (08:44):
Yeah. And seventy eight years ago, it wasn't you know,
it was still in, like, thetransition to, you know, man
like, managed services,proactive maintenance, you know,
like this high end, you know,you know, protection, you know,
back then it was still like, youknow
Eric (09:01):
Break fix.
Mario (09:01):
Break fix. You know, and it was like even the backups and
the security back then was notand I'm saying back then, like,
this was like, you know, foreverago. This is, you know, seven,
eight years ago.
Eric (09:12):
But Well, in tech that is forever ago. Yeah. I mean, if
you think about it, it's movingso fast that the the the things
that we're gonna have on our atour disposal in five years that
don't exist now are gonna beinfinitely more powerful and
also have some pros and cons tothem compared to what we have
now. It's moving too fast forany lay person to keep up. Yeah.
There's no way for us to do it.
Mario (09:32):
Yeah. And unfortunately it's moving very fast in both
directions. Right? The hackersare implementing AI, you know,
they're getting more advancedwith some of that the stuff. And
we we gotta implement itourselves just to, you know,
level, you know, level theplaying ground.
Eric (09:50):
Yeah. I'm I'm glad I'm not in the business you're in
because frankly that that thatis not my skill set. It does
scare me to death though, andand it's happening super fast. I
mean, it's it's enough for us tokeep up on what's happening
financially, economically,politically in the world, but to
then also try and understandwhat's going on in the wires
themselves and even in thewireless. We're hopeless to do
(10:11):
that.
Justin (10:12):
You know, early in my career, I would say that I loved
the world of technology becauseI was never bored and self
diagnosed ADHD, know, I needthat new shiny penny to chase
and new things to think aboutand worry about and learn about.
But damn, I mean it isaccelerating like nobody's
business right now, risks, thevery thing that keeps you up at
(10:33):
night, we've got, I mean,technology is changing all the
time, the bad guys are gettingsmarter. But now we just
invented a new bad guy that wecall AI. What are your thoughts
on AI? Is the topic we've whathave we done?
Two or three episodes recentlyMario on AI? Yeah. Eric, just
tell me a little bit about whatyour thoughts are where AI is
(10:56):
concerned in both. I don't know,does it apply in the financial
world? Does it apply in thecybersecurity world?
Eric (11:01):
Tell me about that. It applies in the financial world
because everything fromartificial note taking to
artificial chat bots to all ofthis stuff exists already. Most
of it is not, is not passing theregulatory sniff test and the
compliance rules in theindustry. The industry is always
late to the party. I rememberwhen I was told we would never
(11:24):
have a website.
I remember when I was told wewould never be allowed to use
email. We're we're last of theparty because the regular the
regulatory environment is sosevere. So by the time we get
technology, it's generallyantiquated, but at least at
least we get it eventually.Where AI is concerned is it
feels like the wild west to me.It feels like you really don't
(11:46):
know what you're gonna getbecause like anything else, it's
garbage in garbage out.
Whatever the AI is programmed tobelieve, think, and do is what
it's gonna do and more and moreof it. So, you know, I I don't I
don't fear AI as a replacementfor what I do. I mean,
industries are afraid they'regonna lose their jobs. There
aren't gonna be any. Robots aregonna build things.
They're gonna do things. I don'tso much worry about that, at
(12:08):
least not today. Any more than Iworried that robo advisors would
put financial advisors out ofbusiness. I think there's a
human element to it that's veryvery tough to to create in a
synthetic environment. But Iknow AI is gonna push that
envelope.
I mean, people are havingconversations with AI. They're
people have AI girlfriends,gentlemen. I I don't for the
(12:29):
record, but that's terrifying tome. And and it just seems like
it seems like the futuristicpiece of this, AI is gonna be
something that could transformus all for the better. It can
save lives.
It can change everything for thebetter. It can also be used in
incredibly nefarious ways, andthat's true with all technology.
Justin (12:47):
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, going back to your breach
a little bit, can you tell us,do you know looking back on this
now, what happened? How how thebad guys got in?
Eric (13:01):
I don't. And I'm sure back in the day I could have, but
PTSD helps repress those kindsof life events. I really I don't
remember the details. Okay. Ibelieve it had to do with a
suspicious email that gotclicked by somebody and it
opened up some kind ofsomething.
But I don't remember all thedetails. I just know that we've
constantly upgraded the malwareand the cyber and the checks and
(13:25):
balances and, of course,policies and procedures, which
are only as good as the peoplewho do or don't follow them.
Justin (13:30):
Right.
Eric (13:31):
But we've also locked down certain things in our system.
We've got our IT companypreventing certain certain
things from accessing or beingaccessed even even legitimate
things that we don't want accessto your on-site just to try and
make it less likely. But like Itell anybody, if if you can hack
the Pentagon, you can hack anycompany, anytime, anywhere. It's
(13:52):
just a matter when your numbergets called. The key is to make
it a little bit more difficult.
So maybe there's lower hangingfruit than you. I mean, really,
you can't prevent it. You canjust make
Justin (14:01):
it
Eric (14:01):
more difficult so they choose someone else. And I know
that's that's kind of a sicktwisted way to look at it, I
think, but it's also true. Youdon't have to be faster than the
bear when you're with yourfriends. You only have to be
faster than one of your friends,and that's what that is.
Justin (14:15):
Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. I used to work
for Loomis Armored, I don'tthink it's even called that
anymore, but I delivered moneyand I carried a gun and that
meant that I was a target and Ihad to go get a fair amount of
training on who I could andcould not shoot and under what
circumstances. And the thingthat I remember most about that
(14:36):
training was make it happen tosomebody else. Bad guys aren't
going away, People aren't gonnaquit stealing money.
You gotta make it happen tosomebody else and it is
interesting because this is thecrime of yesterday. Right now
what we're dealing with theseransomware attacks, it's all
(14:56):
extortion. It's all aboutthey're they're getting money.
And the same rule applies. Thebest thing that we can do is
make it happen to somebody else.
Yeah. So
Eric (15:04):
Well, I And unfortunately, the next level of this just just
drains financial assets. Andwe've had we've had a number of
clients fall prey to variousschemes and and things that, of
course, we had nothing to dowith, but we've heard these
stories, whether it's them or afamily member, senior citizens
are getting preyed on. They'reterrified by this. I mean, you
get an email or a message thatlooks like it's from the IRS and
(15:27):
it's not or from your bank andit's not or and they look really
compelling.
Justin (15:32):
Well, yeah.
Eric (15:33):
And so it it, you know, you you really have to let you
can't necessarily tell the realone from the fake one. It's
like, you know, if you buy awallet or a purse on the street
in New York City, can assumeit's fake. But you can't really
tell the difference unlessthat's what you do. So you just
have to not click and you haveto say, hey, if if Chase Bank
needs me, I'm gonna go to Chaseoutside of this and not click
(15:53):
the email to find it. And thenwe'll know if it's real because
and I I yeah.
I'm not picking on themspecifically for any reason
other than that's the kind ofstuff that comes across. I mean,
constantly.
Mario (16:03):
Well, not only that. I mean, there, you know, you're
saying fake and real. Sometimesit's actually real because the
person that you're working with,like a customer or a vendor or a
partner or something, theirsecurity was not up to par. They
got breached and, you know, thehacker will get in between it,
you know, the man in the middleapproach and they will edit
(16:26):
something as simple as like arouting number and a a Yeah.
Account number just on a worddocument and send an email that
says, hey, you know, we changedour bank.
Here's, you know, here's our newrouting stuff. Now with that The
Eric (16:40):
good news is yeah. The good news is we we have very
heavy regulations around that.We can't take any kind of
instructions electronically. Wehave to, we have to have verbal
authorization. It has to beproactively verbal authorization
because you could have a spoofphone call come in.
That's, you know, it's verysophisticated now. So, we have
to begin that process and beahead of it by being the ones
(17:03):
who initiate the contact. And soif we get something saying, hey,
here's my new bank. First ofall, usually it's nonsense
because people don'tdeliberately do that. But
secondly, it's one where we'regonna we're gonna be placing
that phone call or sitting downwith them saying, hey.
Is this this true? Or didsomebody get your email address?
Mario (17:21):
Mhmm. Exactly. Yeah. It's it's actually pretty surprising
how how many people just don'tunderstand that. Like they need
to like do a two factorauthentication, you know, like
we're always talking about twofactor authentication, logging
into a website with your phoneor whatever.
(17:41):
But, you know, unfortunately,we're in the world right now
where people just prefer to textmessage, you know, send a quick
email, something like that.Nobody wants to pick up the
phone and actually call or talkto People
Eric (17:56):
are busy. And the problem with a phone call is both people
have to be availablesimultaneously on the spot.
Mhmm. And that rarely is thecase. And voicemail is where
messages go to die.
So no one should send I I mean,people might read them through
the email version of the voice,but nobody's listening to those
anymore. So, trying to figurethis out, it it is important and
(18:17):
people are busy. And becausethey're busy, they're
susceptible. Because people arebusy, they're task burden,
they're tired. And it's easy tosay, let me just get this off my
desk.
And you have to not bat thateye. You have to not do that.
Justin (18:31):
May I ask you a question in the, you know, being in the
financial industry for thirtyyears, know, where am
Eric (18:37):
I Stop saying that. You're making me feel really old.
Justin (18:40):
Eric, but
Eric (18:41):
I started when I was six. Alright.
Justin (18:43):
Okay. Well, that's fair. That's fair. Yeah. Listen, I've
been doing this for at leastthat long.
So that's why it doesn't feellike an insult because it's the
same. Yeah.
Eric (18:53):
Fair. No, no. Bring me my Now that's great.
Justin (18:56):
Now I'm gonna do the math because you're gonna point
it out. So 95.
Eric (18:59):
Please don't let's just let's just let's just talk what
what?
Justin (19:03):
Let's just say we're neck and neck.
Eric (19:05):
That's fine.
Justin (19:06):
And so we're in IT, at least like I got into IT
believing that I was going towork with technology and circuit
boards and, you know, modems andsound cards and and nonsense
like that. Right? It wasn't toolong before I realized I'm
actually in the business ofpreventing cybercrime and
preventing bank breaches, know,like bank fraud, wire fraud. You
(19:32):
live in this world, you got inthere by choice. What is it that
you do or how do you work withyour clients in helping them
understand this horrific worldthat we live in, not just where
technology is concerned, butwhere money is concerned.
Eric (19:47):
That's a that's a great question. And it's interesting
that you came into your, youknow, your industry believing it
was gonna be one thing and it'scompletely changed. I will tell
you that a lot of people enterour industry, myself included,
thinking they're gonna besolving portfolio and and doing
the the math, and it was goingto be quantitative, and it was
going to be analysis, and it'snot. It's mostly behavioral.
(20:08):
It's mostly relational.
And our highest and best value,frankly, is in the conversations
and the decision making and someof the ideation with folks. The
rest of it can be outsourced. Analgorithm can do it. A computer
can do it. You don't need ahuman to do some of those
things.
And so the role is completelydifferent than the one thirty
years ago, which was verytransactional partly because
(20:30):
thirty years ago, forty yearsago, financial advisors had
inside information. I don't meaninside like some nefarious way,
I
Justin (20:38):
mean Sure.
Eric (20:39):
There was there was knowledge and you couldn't just
look it up. Today, you don'thave to call a broker to say,
hey, what's what's the thisstock trading for? Like, all the
information is at everybody'sfingertips. So that's changed.
You know, when you you you askabout how we talk to our clients
about specifically these moneyissues, there's a couple things
we recommend to clients thatother financial advisors have
(21:02):
never said to them.
And I and I know that that'strue because I've seen other
financial plans and they don'tmention these things. So for
example, we'll often talk aboutwhether their credit should be
frozen, all three bureaus. Wewanna make sure that there is
credit monitoring happening. Itdoesn't necessarily have to be a
a something with a cost. I mean,LifeLock is probably the gold
(21:22):
standard for consumers, but noteverybody needs that.
But you have to take your familyinto consideration. Do you have
a a kid with a gambling issue ora drug problem who might try and
get into your bank account? Andnot because you don't love them,
but because that's just reality.So we talk about credit
monitoring. We wanna make sureidentity theft coverage is on
your homeowners insurance.
Because at the very least, itprovides some money and a case
(21:44):
manager in the event thatsomebody does in fact steal your
identity, and it's better thandoing nothing. These are things
consumers can do easily and veryinexpensively and across the
board. Beyond that, having theright secure portals and vaults.
Don't email me documents,please. Have a secure vault.
Don't, you know, certainly don'tput an account number in any
(22:06):
anything being transmitted. Someof it is is a learning pattern.
I think people are getting it.We don't have those issues very
much anymore. It's extreme tenyears ago it was it was not
impossible for somebody to say,hey, need $10,000 from my
account.
Would you send it to me? And forthat to be a legitimate email.
Now, wouldn't act upon it. Wehad to call anyway. But now
(22:26):
people don't even try that.
They're like, you call mebecause I need to do something
and we'll just do it. Or they'llpick up the phone and we'll have
a conversation. But I I I thinkI think consumers are getting
savvier, at least the ones werepresent. People who have money
to lose do things to protecttheir money. I mean If that
makes sense in lots of differentways and that, you know, the
(22:46):
people who don't have much don'thave a fireproof safe at home.
Yeah. Yeah. You know? But thepeople who do are the people who
need to hide it behind that onepainting in the dining room.
It's always the same spot.
But that kind of stuff
Justin (22:59):
Nobody will look there.
Eric (23:00):
If you have something to lose, you have something to
protect, and you're going to bemore vigilant about it. When you
have less to lose, sometimesyou're not thinking about that
because you don't think you're atarget.
Justin (23:10):
I mean, plays out in our world here. Right? We when we're
talking to businesses that aresmall struggling, they don't
care about cyber security. Youscale up, then all of a sudden
it becomes more and moreimportant. Is that Mario chime
in on that one because like yourclients, do you have a lot of
(23:32):
smaller clients?
Mario (23:33):
We have a handful, two, three, five users.
Justin (23:38):
Right.
Mario (23:38):
And they always feel like they're too small, nobody wants
what we have and stuff likethat. And unfortunately with
those small users as well,they're very price conscious.
They're like, well, I don't needto have my server be back up
(24:00):
within like twelve hours. We'reokay if it's something cheaper,
the second, like, well, we don'twanna sit there and piecemeal
cheaper options. Sometimes theyjust don't wanna pay the, you
know, the price of beingprotected, you know, because
(24:22):
they are smaller, you know.
Eric (24:26):
Well, it's like Maslow's hierarchy. Right? You you you
move up that hierarchy as youget more sophisticated and more
things are happening. I I thinkit's reasonable for a small
business to say, I can't do itall and I'm doing the best I can
with some of this. It alsodepends what business you're in.
If you're a florist, you mighthave a very different experience
than if you're a mortgagebanker. Just because of the
(24:49):
personal information that'sthere. Yes, a florist could be
hacked and you could be hackedand it could affect your credit
cards that you hold on file. I'mnot suggesting it's not a
problem. I'm suggesting that itit not likely to drain
somebody's account.
It's more likely to create acredit card breach of some type,
which is far less serious, in myopinion anyway, than than having
those accounts literallydrained. Right.
Justin (25:13):
Alright. So before we transition completely away from
technical speak, Mario, I'mgonna punt to you one more time
to see if you have any finalquestions for Eric as far as his
the breach that he went through,just just his experiences here.
Mario (25:30):
I mean, have you, you know, within the last like,
since the breach, are you guysconstantly, you know, not only
evolving internally, but also,you know, telling vendors or
clients that you're workingwith, like, listen, we're not
gonna work with you unless youfollow like these protocols
(25:52):
because we're we're For vendors,yes. We're pushing down For
Eric (25:56):
vendors, hundred percent.
Mario (25:57):
You know, we're telling them like, you know, if they're
gonna end me and Justin actuallytalked about this in a previous,
you know, episode. It's like,you know, working with a third
party vendor, we're like,listen, we're not just going to
integrate you, you know, youhave to follow these protocols
even if you're not governed by acertain compliance, you know,
we're gonna request that you,you know, you follow these
(26:20):
protocols. Have you guys donestuff for That's good.
Eric (26:25):
We now have a vendor approval process. We have to go
through due diligence on anyvendor we're using. I will say
for for clients, it's it's lessso because most of that is very
individual on their end. But ifwe're doing any kind of of data
transfer or or aggregation oranything like that, we need to
make sure that their security isat least as good as ours. And
ours is updated on a constantbasis.
(26:47):
I mean, I really do think we'vegot a great team and it's a
significant spend. I mean, youknow, as a percentage of
revenue, it's not terrible rightnow, but as a dollar figure,
it's kind of a a a an amazingthing. But when you consider the
alternative, and and it's notjust cyber stuff. It could be
that the building burns down andall of the computers are gone
and you need the servers to beup and running. You need
(27:08):
somebody who can send you 20computers in three days that are
ready to run on a differentlocation.
I mean, disaster recoveryhappens too. You're not just out
of business physically, you'reout of business electronically
if your servers are all here. Soeverything has to be has to be
backed up and mirrored in a waythat's not only safe and secure
(27:29):
but but accessible.
Justin (27:31):
Yeah. Alright. So here's here's here's the thing I've
been contemplating. While we'rein very different industries, we
actually are looking for acommon goal, a common outcome.
Right?
We're we're all in the businessof building wealth. That's, you
know, in the world of IT, we'retrying to protect your wealth,
(27:53):
we're trying to make yourbusiness more efficient, more
profitable, so that you can earnmore money. That's that's always
our goal as IT consultants, helpyou make more money, help you
keep that money. You you dosomething similar right, as you
help your clients build theirportfolio and correct me if I'm
using the wrong terminologyhere, and and to some extent to
(28:16):
hang on to it, know, we'retalking the the marriage and
cyber security here, butregardless there's just risk out
there all day long. One thingthat comes up a lot in my world
in is where we're all looking atthis exit strategy.
Alright. We've built this thingand now we wanna be able to
enjoy it. You have kind of aninteresting catchphrase. Right?
(28:42):
Don't retire, graduate.
And I wanna talk more aboutthat. That's that's that's the
title of your book. Right?
Eric (28:47):
Yeah. Sure is.
Justin (28:48):
Yeah. Okay. I thought so, but pressure here,
Eric (28:52):
the pressure of a podcast,
Justin (28:53):
you don't understand.
Eric (28:54):
Did great. You did great. Retirement's torture. No one
should do it. Okay.
Justin (28:59):
I know that
Eric (28:59):
sounds crazy. We spend our whole lives thinking about
retirement. Like you get yourfirst your first job at 21 and
they're like, much do wanna putin your retirement plan? I'm
like, retirement plan? I can'tpay rent right now.
Justin (29:10):
Right.
Eric (29:10):
But but people think about retirement they want and they
should. But to me, thedefinition of retirement is
terrible. Think about where whatretirement is. Retirement is
going from fifty or sixty hoursa week and being engaged in
something ideally that you loveand certainly something that
you're good at to suddenly beinghome, watching daytime TV and
(29:30):
playing shuffleboard and waitingto die.
Justin (29:34):
Right. Yeah.
Eric (29:35):
It's awful. No one should retire that way. Now I I I
redefine retirement as theabsence of needing to work. If
you've reached financialindependence so that you're free
to choose, I wanna work thismuch or in this capacity or I
only wanna do volunteer work,but I wanna be active and
engaged. You have to havesomething to move towards.
When we graduate from something,anything, when you graduate from
(29:57):
elementary school, you're yes,it's the end of elementary
school, but it's also thespringboard to the next big
thing. Retirement, historically,there's only one life milestone
after retirement and it's a dirtnap.
Justin (30:11):
Yeah.
Eric (30:12):
So why would anyone sign up for that? I mean, I I really
think it's great to befinancially independent, but
you've gotta have a reason. Andso I discovered what what I, you
know, anecdotally referred to asthe secrets of the happiest
retirees.
Justin (30:26):
Okay.
Eric (30:26):
And and having done this now for not gonna tell you how
long because you keep remindingme. But having done this for a
long darn time, what I would sayis that that there are three
things that that retirees whoretire really well successfully,
and I don't mean justfinancially, but successful
retirement have in common. Thefirst is they're debt free. They
(30:46):
don't owe anybody anything. It'sa big deal.
Psychologically, even iffinancially you say, yes, but my
mortgage is at two and fiveeighths percent. Correct. Could
you make more money elsewhere?Absolutely. Is there a
psychological benefit when yourpaycheck stops or changes to not
owing anybody anything?
Most definitely. So debt free isone. Second one is they have
(31:08):
their health. They've taken careof themselves. And that's all
different kinds of wellness.
But you you don't wake up oneday at 63 and go, I think I'll
get fit now. I mean, some peoplemight, but most people don't.
You have to have decent habitsalong the way. Just like you
don't wake up at 63 and go, nowI think I'll get wealthy. It's
like, well Sure.
It's a it's a continuum. Youbegin early. You work towards
(31:30):
something. So, I think you'vemaintained your health. You've
taken care of yourself enoughthat that you have a shot at
having a reasonably long time ofgood living, good years left,
whatever that is.
And then the third and the thingthat probably is even more
important, if you can imagineanything more important than
your health, or or your yourbeing debt free, it's a, it's
(31:52):
your purpose. It's a reason toget out of bed every morning.
Because if you don't have areason to get out of bed every
morning, you will stop gettingout of bed every morning. You
literally there there are peoplewho are in their pajamas till
01:00 in the afternoon and thendecide whether they even want to
get dressed just because theyhad nothing to do that day. And
while I acknowledge thatsometimes a day off, it's lovely
to not care.
If that's your life, that's sad.And so I I think it's important
(32:17):
to to think about money as atool for freedom and choice and
opportunity, And it becomes lessof an albatross when you've when
you've reached that level andyou've got your independence and
it's a it's a big deal. And soI'm looking to graduate myself.
I mean, all of us do at somepoint from various things and
(32:38):
and I'm looking to graduate inin January of twenty twenty six.
Graduating to my next role inthe company.
Yeah. And and, you know, I'vebeen CEO for a long time, and
I'm gonna be handing the reinsoff. We've got a full succession
plan. You talked about that.
Justin (32:53):
We've got
Eric (32:53):
a full succession plan in every way, which has been
implemented and which is goinggreat. I am not retiring. I'm
they can't get rid of me untilthey buy me out and that's gonna
take a while. So I'll be here.But I'll be here in a very
different capacity doing thingsthat bring me joy.
Justin (33:07):
Right. I love that. What It's
Eric (33:09):
a pretty good next chapter.
Justin (33:11):
Well, and I I now I wanna ask what Yeah. What is
your purpose to get out of bedas as you look at this next
chapter?
Eric (33:18):
Yeah. No. It's it's great. Right now, I I can tell you for
the last thirty plus years, mypurpose for getting out of bed
has been growing an enterprisethat took great care of me. It's
been changing lives for thebetter.
It's been impacting communitiesand and that means our employees
and their families, it means ourclients, it means it means our
community. It means they'redoing a lot of philanthropy. As
(33:39):
I move into this next chapter,it it's really gonna be less one
to one and more one to many.
Justin (33:45):
Okay.
Eric (33:45):
Doing a lot of consulting with financial advisors who want
to figure out how to get hereand just aren't yet. And I can
help them get here so that theycan amplify not only their reach
and their impact, but the joy intheir careers. So I'll be doing
a lot more consulting andspeaking and writing and
podcasting and all the thingsthat are that are fun and trying
(34:06):
to communicate and make adifference in the world every
day.
Justin (34:09):
That sounds amazing. That's yeah. That would be a
great retirement if if the wordis is the accurate fit for it.
Eric (34:16):
And I can do it from the beach. Yes. Know, I don't I
you're not punching a clock thesame way at that point. You can,
you know, know, so I I'm acouple of years away from empty
nesting in our home, and my wifeand I are trying to figure out
where we're gonna be, and theworld's our oyster.
Justin (34:33):
Tell me a little bit about the book. First of all,
who's it written to? Who's youraudience there?
Eric (34:38):
It it it's written to anyone who would like to try and
build some some personal wealth.So it's it's not for the high
net worth, ultra wealthy. It'swritten to be available to lay
persons. It is not a textbook.It is not complicated.
In fact, I wrote it in the firstperson so that it was very
accessible. Each chapter of thebook is a course like it was
(34:59):
college syllabus. And we talkabout the freshman, sophomore,
junior and senior years of yourfinancial life and the various
things that you face. And sosome people might pick it up and
say, well, I've already gottenthat stuff out of the way. Like,
you know, your freshman year isabout choosing your right
employee benefits and how todeal with student loans and how
to handle your first budget andhow to handle some basic cash
(35:21):
flow and some basic riskmanagement.
Sophomore year is about, youknow, do I get married? Do I buy
my first home? Do do we havechildren? What are the financial
implications of those things?How do I start building a
portfolio and building some somenet worth?
Junior year's about, hey, nowI'm in the swing of things. I'm
making the most money I'll evermake in my life. Now I've got a
tax problem and some otherthings to think about. So how do
(35:43):
I handle that stage of my life?And oh, by the way, paying for
college and dealing with parentsgetting older and all that
simultaneously.
And then senior year is really acombination of your, your estate
planning and your long term careand your elder planning, but
also your visioning. What, whatdo you want to move toward? What
do you want to do? Whatdecisions do you have to make?
And how do you position yourselfto have lots of choice?
(36:05):
And so every chapter has anextra credit assignment at the
end because I don't likehomework, but everybody does
extra credit. So there's anextra credit assignment. And if
you do all the extra creditassignments, you will have a
financial
Justin (36:16):
plan. Okay.
Eric (36:17):
And it it and so we created not only the book, but
there's a workbook thataccompanies it that is the extra
credit assignments withworksheets and ways to go
through it, and you can buildyour own financial plan. Does
that mean you don't need afinancial adviser? Well, you
might, you might not. But noteverybody does and if you were
to start taking some of thehabits from this book, think it
would create a better outcomefor you.
Justin (36:41):
Rumor has it again, a lot of rumors flying around here
that you might have a discountcode or a way that those who
maybe haven't built up theirwealth enough Yeah. Could get
your book for a little bitcheaper. What How do they get
the book? First of all, where isit for sale?
Eric (36:56):
It well, it's for sale at Amazon, but we also have a site
at don'tretiregraduatebook.com.
Justin (37:03):
Okay.
Eric (37:04):
The word book is very important because if you don't
hit book, you'll be at thepodcast, which we're happy to
have ears for that too, butdon't retire graduate book Com.
And if you would like, I wasgonna actually charge your
listeners a premium rather thangive them a discount, but I this
has been kind of fun. So we'lldo it. The discount, if you put
in the code unhacked, you willget a discount on the book and
(37:26):
work. Love it.
Don't don't tell anyone else.
Justin (37:30):
Okay. We will will keep that top secret.
Eric (37:32):
That's yeah. That is just for your listeners and no one
else.
Justin (37:36):
I'll just put that out. And by the way, Google's
listening to us and somehow Ialerted her that she thought
anyway.
Eric (37:43):
Yeah. She thought you were shopping. She was gonna send me
some recommendations.
Justin (37:47):
I guess.
Eric (37:48):
Terrifying. Yeah. Yeah. Mean You're gonna My book is
gonna pop up on your feed.
Justin (37:53):
Oh, I'm sure it
Mario (37:53):
will.
Eric (37:54):
Which is great. Yeah. Know it. There so there are two Eric
D. Brotman's on Amazon who writeThis is true.
And I I know you can't make thisup and I did not expect this,
but when I this is now my thirdbook, but when I wrote my first
book, had to create an authorpage on Amazon and I went on and
there was already an Eric D.Brotman and so help me, this is
true. He's a PhD who writesbooks on how to toilet train
(38:16):
cats. What? No joke.
I can't tell I've gotten a dozenof those in the mail from smart
Alex, you know, fraternitybrothers who think it's
hysterical or like, hey, wouldyou sign this? It is a picture
book of cats on toilets. I'm notkidding. Don't buy that one.
That's not mine.
And there's no discount on thatone available to unhacked or
(38:36):
anyone else.
Justin (38:37):
I'm fact checking you right now. I'm not I didn't find
that, Jeff.
Eric (38:40):
Why lie? You can't I think it's called the education of
Mongo or something crazy likethat. It it the taming of Mongo.
People have
Mario (38:48):
way too much time on their hands.
Justin (38:50):
Oh my a PhD.
Eric (38:53):
Oh my get a doctorate degree in in Shit. Cat bathroom?
I like, I don't know. I don'tknow. I don't know.
But that one is in fact notmine.
Justin (39:04):
Okay. Don't go to that one. Don't put Jesus don't put
unhacked as any connection tothat at all.
Eric (39:10):
No. No. That that will destroy whatever reputation you
have left Justin. And I and Idon't want to do that to you. So
if you go todon'tretiregraduatebook.com, put
in unhacked, you'll get adiscount on the book and
workbook.
And I hope it, I hope it'shelpful. We've had folks read
this and then give it to theirgrown kids to read, you know,
their college age or or, youknow, 20 kids to say, hey, start
(39:31):
early, you know, look at this.You know, we've used it for
financial literacy courses withwith companies. We do financial
wellness for for profit andnonprofit companies and we teach
from it. And it's it's reallyit's it's definitely not a
textbook.
There's no Aristotle in here,although I did quote Chris Rock.
So you can you can tell there'sa different vibe. I wanted it to
(39:53):
be fun. It is not a boring read.It might be a chapter or two
that are a little heavy, but butit's generally speaking very
accessible.
Justin (40:00):
Okay. Perfect. Yeah. Mario, any final questions for
Eric?
Mario (40:04):
No. I'm good. This was awesome.
Eric (40:07):
Alright. Well I'm glad. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Wait. Are you the genius of themonth?
Mario (40:14):
I am. Actually I actually was the genius of two months.
Eric (40:19):
Which which was this recent? You recently the genius
of the month or was this a whileago?
Mario (40:25):
Well, I was the the latest one was April because I
won a car for being thespokesman of the year.
Eric (40:35):
Congratulations. That's awesome.
Mario (40:36):
Thank you. Thank you.
Eric (40:38):
That's awesome. Good for you. Now I just I saw that I was
like, that is the genius of themonth. I like that a lot.
Justin (40:44):
So we're a member of an just a peer group of IT owners,
group and the owner, founder,CEO or whatever of this group
has a competition every year.That's probably what about a
thousand, maybe 1,500 of us areworldwide. It's a great big
organization. That's and everyyear those she tries to get
(41:04):
everybody to apply for it.Right?
But they whittle it down to fivefinalists. And Mario was in the
top five last year. And then hejumped up on the stage. I should
get you not dressed in a Mariosuit. That was
Eric (41:17):
mushrooms at the crowd? No.
Justin (41:19):
I mean, kind of. No. Not at the crowd, but it was he had
the the visuals and stuff.Knocked it out of the park. His
presentation was justphenomenal.
Mario truly is the smartest ITguy in the country, at least for
this year.
Eric (41:34):
Wow. Congratulations. This is really Losing the last three
weeks.
Justin (41:37):
You you lose your title here pretty soon, but he's been
reigning champion king, whateveryou wanna call him. And
Eric (41:43):
Don't give the belt up lightly. I gotta keep kicking
and Go kicking and screaminginto the night with the trophy.
Mario (41:51):
I got to keep the car that that nobody's taking that
from me.
Eric (41:55):
There you go. That's good stuff.
Justin (41:57):
Alright, guys. We're gonna go ahead and wrap this one
up. Unhacked live is ourwebsite. And guys, if you can't
remember Eric's, use the onethat you always hear week after
week. Unhacked.live, we'll haveall your information up there,
Eric, including the link and thecode, the discount code for your
book.
And I'm gonna go ahead and graba discounted copy of that myself
because that that does seem likea good read. I I've gotta throw
(42:18):
out there though, you keepsaying start young, start young
and as we may or may not havepointed out, not all of us in
this room and not all of us inthe audience are young. Is your
book gonna help us old timers aswell?
Eric (42:30):
It is. It is. Okay. Particularly because it's a
continuum. And what I will tellyou is that there is it is
always better to start todaythan yesterday.
I I sorry. Let me try thatagain. It's better to start
today than tomorrow.
Justin (42:43):
Right.
Eric (42:43):
You'd have been better off yesterday but it's past. See, I
blew that entirely.
Justin (42:47):
You did. Do the tree analogy. What's the best day to
plant a tree? I Twenty yearsago. Twenty years ago.
What's the second best time toto plant a tree? Right now.
Eric (42:57):
Okay.
Justin (42:57):
That's the one I've always heard anyways.
Eric (43:00):
Alright. Well, listen. I butchered that wildly. But the
point was, yes, it is alwaysbetter to start sooner rather
than later. And and so, yes, itcan help you at any stage.
Justin (43:10):
But don't make it later or or
Eric (43:12):
Right. I mean, do something. You know, you start
with you start with inventory.It's like any journey in this
life. You start with the stickeron the kiosk map that says you
are here.
Yep. Then you can figure outwhere you're going. But first,
you gotta be darn honest withyourself about where you are.
Justin (43:28):
Well, Eric, thank you for being here. What I love, I
really do love this abouttoday's episode is, you know,
we're always talking to businessowners, but there's value here
in everybody, like foreverybody. Right? Your your
target, you said, is anybodytrying to build wealth? I do
believe that that is pretty muchall of us are trying to build
wealth in our industry.
We do help business owners buildtheir business and we try to
(43:49):
help them keep that wealth. Andin your industry, you know, you
can, it's just similar. There's,there's some overlap just minus
the technology. Anyway, so thankyou, for being here, Eric.
Mario, as always, thanks forbeing here.
And, guys, that's a wrap. We'regonna take off, and we'll see
you all next week.
Mario (44:09):
Bye, guys. Thanks, guys.
Welcome everybody to episode 46 of Unhacked. Guys,
this is a show where we, welearn how to avoid Russian
hackers, government fines andpenalties, and greedy attorneys.
And, usually, we've got, two orthree cohosts with me. Today,
we're down to one. It's beenthat's been the theme lately.
And then we have a special guestand, you know, we're gonna do a
(00:38):
couple of quick intros here andthen I'm gonna talk about who
we've got with us today. Mario,I I'd like to tell people who
you are and where you where youlive, where you do your
business, but I always forget. Ijust know it's up in the
Northeast somewhere. So telleverybody who you are, what you
do, and who you do it for,Mario.
Mario (00:53):
At least you remember my name, so that's good. That's a
start.
Justin (00:56):
And I've started pronouncing it right, I think.
Mario (00:58):
Yes. Yes. Mario Zacchi, CEO of Mastech IT. We are
located in New Jersey, rightoutside of Manhattan. I've been
in business about twenty oneyears now, servicing small to
medium sized business, savingtheir computer IT network, you
know, one computer at a timefrom the Russian.
Justin (01:18):
I'm Justin from the yeah. Don't forget that. Yeah.
One day, you know, the Russiansare gonna come, like, find me
and track me down because I'malways bad mouthing them.
Listen, I say it because the theonly time I really dealt with an
actual breach, I swear to God,we're in, hand to hand combat
with Russians.
That's that's where they werefrom. So shouldn't generalize, I
(01:40):
guess.
Eric (01:40):
You know what? Correct.
Mario (01:42):
We all we keep saying it. It's Russian hackers. But, you
know, it's not just Russia. Youknow? It's so many
Justin (01:48):
different places
Mario (01:49):
around the world. You know?
Justin (01:51):
But Some of them look just like us. Anyway, so I'm
Justin Shelley, CEO of PhoenixIT Advisors, and I do work in
Texas, Utah, and Nevada. Andlike I said, I just try to keep
the bad guys away from yourmoney. And speaking of money, we
have a little bit differentguest today. We've been doing a
lot of kind of in the weeds techtalk about cybersecurity.
(02:14):
Today we are going to talk witha guy named Eric D. Brotman, CFP
and Eric in a minute, I'm goingto ask you what that means.
Because that's not an acronym Iknow showing my ignorance, but
you are the CEO. I know thatacronym of BFG Financial
Advisors. Don't know that one.
There's a lot of letters here.President of Brotman Consulting
Group LLC, host of the Don'tRetire Graduate podcast. I love
(02:36):
that concept by the way. Andauthor of an award winning book
also called Don't RetireGraduate, which I believe we're
going to give people a discountfor a little bit later on in the
show. So Eric, say hi and thankyou for being here.
Eric (02:49):
Justin, thanks for having me. Mario, great to be with you
today. We're gonna have some funand maybe learn a little
something and teach you a littlesomething while we're at it.
Justin (02:57):
That's always the hope. Always the hope. I do like to
point out that honestly the bestthe the main reason I continue
to do this podcast and insist ondoing it week after week is
because of how much I learned.It has shaped my business doing
this. So love having some of thegreater minds in the world join
us and just continue to elevateour game.
(03:18):
Now, Eric, we're gonna talk.This is something that kind of
caught my attention. I talk alot about what keeps me up at
night. Mario talks about helpingpeople sleep at night by
plugging filling some of thesegaps. When you and I chatted, it
was we're getting ready for thispodcast, you said very few
things keep me up at night.
Not stocks, not Capitol Hill,but having my identity stolen
(03:42):
and my company infiltrated. Doesthat sound right? Is that
something you might have No.
Eric (03:47):
Is there's certain things that that I've come to expect.
The stock market behaves acertain way and and we've come
to expect economies and marketsto do various things over the
decades we've been doing this.Capitol Hill, it's a given
they're gonna screw things up ahundred ways. So you already
know what's coming. But thethings that keep me up are the
things that either we can'tcontrol or that we feel we must
(04:11):
control and are struggling with.
And so one of the biggest onesfrankly, our reputation. Yes.
Our reputation risk is you youdon't get that back. And I know
we're in a world where I I gettwo letters a week from this
company or that company saying,hey, you were found on the dark
web and it's been this problemor that problem. And and people
have started to ignore them.
Like there've been so many ofthem that, oh, get free identity
(04:32):
theft protection for a year.Okay. Sure you do. And and so we
started ignoring it because ithappens so much. But if it
happens to your business, it'sit can be debilitating and so we
take that real serious.
Justin (04:43):
I mean, debilitating is the the preferable outcome.
Right? Because it's not always aguarantee that we come back from
it at all.
Eric (04:52):
Well, you know, part of it is having the right people. I
mean, I I am not an IT guy. It'sstrange for me to be with two IT
guys who aren't trying toexplain something to me that I
don't understand. I mean, it's alanguage of its own. And I, you
know, I am a nightmare for ITpeople and for the folks who
represent our company.
I apologize in advance foranything I say during this hour
(05:14):
together. But I break things andI break them in ways they've
never seen them broken. So Ilike to challenge. Like people
say, I have never ever seenthat. I've been doing this for
two decades.
I've never seen anything likethat before and that's my normal
Wednesday with IT.
Justin (05:29):
True. We call that job security.
Eric (05:31):
Yeah. Well, I I I provide a lot of that for the folks who
represent us. That's for sure.
Mario (05:36):
Well, the question is, do they fix it or are you are they
just like, ah, so they'rewriting it off as like, yeah,
this is one thing we can't fix.
Eric (05:44):
Alright. This is not a job application for you, man. No.
They do they do fix it and theydo a great job and they're in
Jersey no less. So they're rightin your backyard.
Oh. I can't even tell you whothey are because you folks in
Jersey handle things a differentway than the rest of it. But but
I I I at at the end of yes. Theytake great care of it, and then
we're we're fortunate to havethe team we get.
Justin (06:02):
Nice. I'm sure Mario's gonna be spamming you in the
future just to see if he can Winyou over. Probably.
Eric (06:08):
No. One IT company from Jersey is enough. I'll never do
that again. Never.
Justin (06:16):
Well, I won't say anything about the
Northeasterners or theCanadians. I can't say anything
about the Canadians becausethey're not here to represent
themselves today, but our othercohost is is from Canada and we
like to give him a little bit ofshit from time to time. Where in
Eric (06:30):
where in Canada?
Justin (06:31):
Niagara Falls area.
Eric (06:33):
I love Canada actually. And despite the fact that the
South Park movie had us going towar with them and now we're
trying that, I I actually am abig fan of Canada.
Justin (06:43):
Mean, same thing.
Mario (06:44):
State. Right?
Eric (06:45):
You gotta be kidding me. No more than we're gonna be
their next province. Come on.Stop it.
Justin (06:52):
I'm surprised they haven't thrown that one back at
us.
Eric (06:54):
Well, it's a matter of time. I mean, if bad enough,
they beat us at that hockeytournament and said you can't
have our sport, you can't haveour country and what else is
there? No. It's fine.
Justin (07:07):
Alright. So thirty years in the world of financial
advising. Right?
Eric (07:11):
Yeah. Yeah.
Justin (07:12):
And then somewhere somewhere in that journey, rumor
has it, you actually do have yousay you don't know anything
about IT, you're not an IT guy,but you have some in the
trenches time with a ransomwareattack. Is that correct?
Eric (07:24):
Yes. Yes. It's been a number of years, thankfully, but
we did have a a situation wherewe didn't lose data to an
outside party, but we did loseaccess to our own data, which
was a bizarre thing. I didn'tknow that that was a possible
outcome. And I was delightedthat we were able to be back up
and running within twelve hourslike nothing had happened and
(07:44):
we're able to tell these folksto pound sand.
But but it was scary. It wasscary because we wanted to make
sure everybody was protected,our employees, our clients, our
our our company, ourinfrastructure. But it was also
scary because you feel violated.It's like any other Right. You
know, it's no different than ifsomebody breaks your car window
and takes those those sunglassesyou've been covering coveting.
(08:05):
You feel violated by it. And soI I yeah. That's it it was a
scary thing.
Justin (08:11):
And How long ago was it? If you don't mind me asking.
Eric (08:14):
I I wanna say it was probably probably seven or eight
years ago at this point. And itwound up being no harm, no foul,
and no check to write. But itwas scary. I mean, really, you
can't imagine until it happens,you can't imagine what it's like
to to literally be out ofbusiness instantly. And that's
what it is.
It's not this isn't adisruption. This isn't a it's
(08:37):
not like the power went out andyou're waiting for battery
backup. This is like you've beenunplugged forever if you don't
solve it. And that's scary ashell.
Mario (08:44):
Yeah. And seventy eight years ago, it wasn't you know,
it was still in, like, thetransition to, you know, man
like, managed services,proactive maintenance, you know,
like this high end, you know,you know, protection, you know,
back then it was still like, youknow
Eric (09:01):
Break fix.
Mario (09:01):
Break fix. You know, and it was like even the backups and
the security back then was notand I'm saying back then, like,
this was like, you know, foreverago. This is, you know, seven,
eight years ago.
Eric (09:12):
But Well, in tech that is forever ago. Yeah. I mean, if
you think about it, it's movingso fast that the the the things
that we're gonna have on our atour disposal in five years that
don't exist now are gonna beinfinitely more powerful and
also have some pros and cons tothem compared to what we have
now. It's moving too fast forany lay person to keep up. Yeah.
There's no way for us to do it.
Mario (09:32):
Yeah. And unfortunately it's moving very fast in both
directions. Right? The hackersare implementing AI, you know,
they're getting more advancedwith some of that the stuff. And
we we gotta implement itourselves just to, you know,
level, you know, level theplaying ground.
Eric (09:50):
Yeah. I'm I'm glad I'm not in the business you're in
because frankly that that thatis not my skill set. It does
scare me to death though, andand it's happening super fast. I
mean, it's it's enough for us tokeep up on what's happening
financially, economically,politically in the world, but to
then also try and understandwhat's going on in the wires
themselves and even in thewireless. We're hopeless to do
(10:11):
that.
Justin (10:12):
You know, early in my career, I would say that I loved
the world of technology becauseI was never bored and self
diagnosed ADHD, know, I needthat new shiny penny to chase
and new things to think aboutand worry about and learn about.
But damn, I mean it isaccelerating like nobody's
business right now, risks, thevery thing that keeps you up at
(10:33):
night, we've got, I mean,technology is changing all the
time, the bad guys are gettingsmarter. But now we just
invented a new bad guy that wecall AI. What are your thoughts
on AI? Is the topic we've whathave we done?
Two or three episodes recentlyMario on AI? Yeah. Eric, just
tell me a little bit about whatyour thoughts are where AI is
(10:56):
concerned in both. I don't know,does it apply in the financial
world? Does it apply in thecybersecurity world?
Eric (11:01):
Tell me about that. It applies in the financial world
because everything fromartificial note taking to
artificial chat bots to all ofthis stuff exists already. Most
of it is not, is not passing theregulatory sniff test and the
compliance rules in theindustry. The industry is always
late to the party. I rememberwhen I was told we would never
(11:24):
have a website.
I remember when I was told wewould never be allowed to use
email. We're we're last of theparty because the regular the
regulatory environment is sosevere. So by the time we get
technology, it's generallyantiquated, but at least at
least we get it eventually.Where AI is concerned is it
feels like the wild west to me.It feels like you really don't
(11:46):
know what you're gonna getbecause like anything else, it's
garbage in garbage out.
Whatever the AI is programmed tobelieve, think, and do is what
it's gonna do and more and moreof it. So, you know, I I don't I
don't fear AI as a replacementfor what I do. I mean,
industries are afraid they'regonna lose their jobs. There
aren't gonna be any. Robots aregonna build things.
They're gonna do things. I don'tso much worry about that, at
(12:08):
least not today. Any more than Iworried that robo advisors would
put financial advisors out ofbusiness. I think there's a
human element to it that's veryvery tough to to create in a
synthetic environment. But Iknow AI is gonna push that
envelope.
I mean, people are havingconversations with AI. They're
people have AI girlfriends,gentlemen. I I don't for the
(12:29):
record, but that's terrifying tome. And and it just seems like
it seems like the futuristicpiece of this, AI is gonna be
something that could transformus all for the better. It can
save lives.
It can change everything for thebetter. It can also be used in
incredibly nefarious ways, andthat's true with all technology.
Justin (12:47):
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, going back to your breach
a little bit, can you tell us,do you know looking back on this
now, what happened? How how thebad guys got in?
Eric (13:01):
I don't. And I'm sure back in the day I could have, but
PTSD helps repress those kindsof life events. I really I don't
remember the details. Okay. Ibelieve it had to do with a
suspicious email that gotclicked by somebody and it
opened up some kind ofsomething.
But I don't remember all thedetails. I just know that we've
constantly upgraded the malwareand the cyber and the checks and
(13:25):
balances and, of course,policies and procedures, which
are only as good as the peoplewho do or don't follow them.
Justin (13:30):
Right.
Eric (13:31):
But we've also locked down certain things in our system.
We've got our IT companypreventing certain certain
things from accessing or beingaccessed even even legitimate
things that we don't want accessto your on-site just to try and
make it less likely. But like Itell anybody, if if you can hack
the Pentagon, you can hack anycompany, anytime, anywhere. It's
(13:52):
just a matter when your numbergets called. The key is to make
it a little bit more difficult.
So maybe there's lower hangingfruit than you. I mean, really,
you can't prevent it. You canjust make
Justin (14:01):
it
Eric (14:01):
more difficult so they choose someone else. And I know
that's that's kind of a sicktwisted way to look at it, I
think, but it's also true. Youdon't have to be faster than the
bear when you're with yourfriends. You only have to be
faster than one of your friends,and that's what that is.
Justin (14:15):
Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. I used to work
for Loomis Armored, I don'tthink it's even called that
anymore, but I delivered moneyand I carried a gun and that
meant that I was a target and Ihad to go get a fair amount of
training on who I could andcould not shoot and under what
circumstances. And the thingthat I remember most about that
(14:36):
training was make it happen tosomebody else. Bad guys aren't
going away, People aren't gonnaquit stealing money.
You gotta make it happen tosomebody else and it is
interesting because this is thecrime of yesterday. Right now
what we're dealing with theseransomware attacks, it's all
(14:56):
extortion. It's all aboutthey're they're getting money.
And the same rule applies. Thebest thing that we can do is
make it happen to somebody else.
Yeah. So
Eric (15:04):
Well, I And unfortunately, the next level of this just just
drains financial assets. Andwe've had we've had a number of
clients fall prey to variousschemes and and things that, of
course, we had nothing to dowith, but we've heard these
stories, whether it's them or afamily member, senior citizens
are getting preyed on. They'reterrified by this. I mean, you
get an email or a message thatlooks like it's from the IRS and
(15:27):
it's not or from your bank andit's not or and they look really
compelling.
Justin (15:32):
Well, yeah.
Eric (15:33):
And so it it, you know, you you really have to let you
can't necessarily tell the realone from the fake one. It's
like, you know, if you buy awallet or a purse on the street
in New York City, can assumeit's fake. But you can't really
tell the difference unlessthat's what you do. So you just
have to not click and you haveto say, hey, if if Chase Bank
needs me, I'm gonna go to Chaseoutside of this and not click
(15:53):
the email to find it. And thenwe'll know if it's real because
and I I yeah.
I'm not picking on themspecifically for any reason
other than that's the kind ofstuff that comes across. I mean,
constantly.
Mario (16:03):
Well, not only that. I mean, there, you know, you're
saying fake and real. Sometimesit's actually real because the
person that you're working with,like a customer or a vendor or a
partner or something, theirsecurity was not up to par. They
got breached and, you know, thehacker will get in between it,
you know, the man in the middleapproach and they will edit
(16:26):
something as simple as like arouting number and a a Yeah.
Account number just on a worddocument and send an email that
says, hey, you know, we changedour bank.
Here's, you know, here's our newrouting stuff. Now with that The
Eric (16:40):
good news is yeah. The good news is we we have very
heavy regulations around that.We can't take any kind of
instructions electronically. Wehave to, we have to have verbal
authorization. It has to beproactively verbal authorization
because you could have a spoofphone call come in.
That's, you know, it's verysophisticated now. So, we have
to begin that process and beahead of it by being the ones
(17:03):
who initiate the contact. And soif we get something saying, hey,
here's my new bank. First ofall, usually it's nonsense
because people don'tdeliberately do that. But
secondly, it's one where we'regonna we're gonna be placing
that phone call or sitting downwith them saying, hey.
Is this this true? Or didsomebody get your email address?
Mario (17:21):
Mhmm. Exactly. Yeah. It's it's actually pretty surprising
how how many people just don'tunderstand that. Like they need
to like do a two factorauthentication, you know, like
we're always talking about twofactor authentication, logging
into a website with your phoneor whatever.
(17:41):
But, you know, unfortunately,we're in the world right now
where people just prefer to textmessage, you know, send a quick
email, something like that.Nobody wants to pick up the
phone and actually call or talkto People
Eric (17:56):
are busy. And the problem with a phone call is both people
have to be availablesimultaneously on the spot.
Mhmm. And that rarely is thecase. And voicemail is where
messages go to die.
So no one should send I I mean,people might read them through
the email version of the voice,but nobody's listening to those
anymore. So, trying to figurethis out, it it is important and
(18:17):
people are busy. And becausethey're busy, they're
susceptible. Because people arebusy, they're task burden,
they're tired. And it's easy tosay, let me just get this off my
desk.
And you have to not bat thateye. You have to not do that.
Justin (18:31):
May I ask you a question in the, you know, being in the
financial industry for thirtyyears, know, where am
Eric (18:37):
I Stop saying that. You're making me feel really old.
Justin (18:40):
Eric, but
Eric (18:41):
I started when I was six. Alright.
Justin (18:43):
Okay. Well, that's fair. That's fair. Yeah. Listen, I've
been doing this for at leastthat long.
So that's why it doesn't feellike an insult because it's the
same. Yeah.
Eric (18:53):
Fair. No, no. Bring me my Now that's great.
Justin (18:56):
Now I'm gonna do the math because you're gonna point
it out. So 95.
Eric (18:59):
Please don't let's just let's just let's just talk what
what?
Justin (19:03):
Let's just say we're neck and neck.
Eric (19:05):
That's fine.
Justin (19:06):
And so we're in IT, at least like I got into IT
believing that I was going towork with technology and circuit
boards and, you know, modems andsound cards and and nonsense
like that. Right? It wasn't toolong before I realized I'm
actually in the business ofpreventing cybercrime and
preventing bank breaches, know,like bank fraud, wire fraud. You
(19:32):
live in this world, you got inthere by choice. What is it that
you do or how do you work withyour clients in helping them
understand this horrific worldthat we live in, not just where
technology is concerned, butwhere money is concerned.
Eric (19:47):
That's a that's a great question. And it's interesting
that you came into your, youknow, your industry believing it
was gonna be one thing and it'scompletely changed. I will tell
you that a lot of people enterour industry, myself included,
thinking they're gonna besolving portfolio and and doing
the the math, and it was goingto be quantitative, and it was
going to be analysis, and it'snot. It's mostly behavioral.
(20:08):
It's mostly relational.
And our highest and best value,frankly, is in the conversations
and the decision making and someof the ideation with folks. The
rest of it can be outsourced. Analgorithm can do it. A computer
can do it. You don't need ahuman to do some of those
things.
And so the role is completelydifferent than the one thirty
years ago, which was verytransactional partly because
(20:30):
thirty years ago, forty yearsago, financial advisors had
inside information. I don't meaninside like some nefarious way,
I
Justin (20:38):
mean Sure.
Eric (20:39):
There was there was knowledge and you couldn't just
look it up. Today, you don'thave to call a broker to say,
hey, what's what's the thisstock trading for? Like, all the
information is at everybody'sfingertips. So that's changed.
You know, when you you you askabout how we talk to our clients
about specifically these moneyissues, there's a couple things
we recommend to clients thatother financial advisors have
(21:02):
never said to them.
And I and I know that that'strue because I've seen other
financial plans and they don'tmention these things. So for
example, we'll often talk aboutwhether their credit should be
frozen, all three bureaus. Wewanna make sure that there is
credit monitoring happening. Itdoesn't necessarily have to be a
a something with a cost. I mean,LifeLock is probably the gold
(21:22):
standard for consumers, but noteverybody needs that.
But you have to take your familyinto consideration. Do you have
a a kid with a gambling issue ora drug problem who might try and
get into your bank account? Andnot because you don't love them,
but because that's just reality.So we talk about credit
monitoring. We wanna make sureidentity theft coverage is on
your homeowners insurance.
Because at the very least, itprovides some money and a case
(21:44):
manager in the event thatsomebody does in fact steal your
identity, and it's better thandoing nothing. These are things
consumers can do easily and veryinexpensively and across the
board. Beyond that, having theright secure portals and vaults.
Don't email me documents,please. Have a secure vault.
Don't, you know, certainly don'tput an account number in any
(22:06):
anything being transmitted. Someof it is is a learning pattern.
I think people are getting it.We don't have those issues very
much anymore. It's extreme tenyears ago it was it was not
impossible for somebody to say,hey, need $10,000 from my
account.
Would you send it to me? And forthat to be a legitimate email.
Now, wouldn't act upon it. Wehad to call anyway. But now
(22:26):
people don't even try that.
They're like, you call mebecause I need to do something
and we'll just do it. Or they'llpick up the phone and we'll have
a conversation. But I I I thinkI think consumers are getting
savvier, at least the ones werepresent. People who have money
to lose do things to protecttheir money. I mean If that
makes sense in lots of differentways and that, you know, the
(22:46):
people who don't have much don'thave a fireproof safe at home.
Yeah. Yeah. You know? But thepeople who do are the people who
need to hide it behind that onepainting in the dining room.
It's always the same spot.
But that kind of stuff
Justin (22:59):
Nobody will look there.
Eric (23:00):
If you have something to lose, you have something to
protect, and you're going to bemore vigilant about it. When you
have less to lose, sometimesyou're not thinking about that
because you don't think you're atarget.
Justin (23:10):
I mean, plays out in our world here. Right? We when we're
talking to businesses that aresmall struggling, they don't
care about cyber security. Youscale up, then all of a sudden
it becomes more and moreimportant. Is that Mario chime
in on that one because like yourclients, do you have a lot of
(23:32):
smaller clients?
Mario (23:33):
We have a handful, two, three, five users.
Justin (23:38):
Right.
Mario (23:38):
And they always feel like they're too small, nobody wants
what we have and stuff likethat. And unfortunately with
those small users as well,they're very price conscious.
They're like, well, I don't needto have my server be back up
(24:00):
within like twelve hours. We'reokay if it's something cheaper,
the second, like, well, we don'twanna sit there and piecemeal
cheaper options. Sometimes theyjust don't wanna pay the, you
know, the price of beingprotected, you know, because
(24:22):
they are smaller, you know.
Eric (24:26):
Well, it's like Maslow's hierarchy. Right? You you you
move up that hierarchy as youget more sophisticated and more
things are happening. I I thinkit's reasonable for a small
business to say, I can't do itall and I'm doing the best I can
with some of this. It alsodepends what business you're in.
If you're a florist, you mighthave a very different experience
than if you're a mortgagebanker. Just because of the
(24:49):
personal information that'sthere. Yes, a florist could be
hacked and you could be hackedand it could affect your credit
cards that you hold on file. I'mnot suggesting it's not a
problem. I'm suggesting that itit not likely to drain
somebody's account.
It's more likely to create acredit card breach of some type,
which is far less serious, in myopinion anyway, than than having
those accounts literallydrained. Right.
Justin (25:13):
Alright. So before we transition completely away from
technical speak, Mario, I'mgonna punt to you one more time
to see if you have any finalquestions for Eric as far as his
the breach that he went through,just just his experiences here.
Mario (25:30):
I mean, have you, you know, within the last like,
since the breach, are you guysconstantly, you know, not only
evolving internally, but also,you know, telling vendors or
clients that you're workingwith, like, listen, we're not
gonna work with you unless youfollow like these protocols
(25:52):
because we're we're For vendors,yes. We're pushing down For
Eric (25:56):
vendors, hundred percent.
Mario (25:57):
You know, we're telling them like, you know, if they're
gonna end me and Justin actuallytalked about this in a previous,
you know, episode. It's like,you know, working with a third
party vendor, we're like,listen, we're not just going to
integrate you, you know, youhave to follow these protocols
even if you're not governed by acertain compliance, you know,
we're gonna request that you,you know, you follow these
(26:20):
protocols. Have you guys donestuff for That's good.
Eric (26:25):
We now have a vendor approval process. We have to go
through due diligence on anyvendor we're using. I will say
for for clients, it's it's lessso because most of that is very
individual on their end. But ifwe're doing any kind of of data
transfer or or aggregation oranything like that, we need to
make sure that their security isat least as good as ours. And
ours is updated on a constantbasis.
(26:47):
I mean, I really do think we'vegot a great team and it's a
significant spend. I mean, youknow, as a percentage of
revenue, it's not terrible rightnow, but as a dollar figure,
it's kind of a a a an amazingthing. But when you consider the
alternative, and and it's notjust cyber stuff. It could be
that the building burns down andall of the computers are gone
and you need the servers to beup and running. You need
(27:08):
somebody who can send you 20computers in three days that are
ready to run on a differentlocation.
I mean, disaster recoveryhappens too. You're not just out
of business physically, you'reout of business electronically
if your servers are all here. Soeverything has to be has to be
backed up and mirrored in a waythat's not only safe and secure
(27:29):
but but accessible.
Justin (27:31):
Yeah. Alright. So here's here's here's the thing I've
been contemplating. While we'rein very different industries, we
actually are looking for acommon goal, a common outcome.
Right?
We're we're all in the businessof building wealth. That's, you
know, in the world of IT, we'retrying to protect your wealth,
(27:53):
we're trying to make yourbusiness more efficient, more
profitable, so that you can earnmore money. That's that's always
our goal as IT consultants, helpyou make more money, help you
keep that money. You you dosomething similar right, as you
help your clients build theirportfolio and correct me if I'm
using the wrong terminologyhere, and and to some extent to
(28:16):
hang on to it, know, we'retalking the the marriage and
cyber security here, butregardless there's just risk out
there all day long. One thingthat comes up a lot in my world
in is where we're all looking atthis exit strategy.
Alright. We've built this thingand now we wanna be able to
enjoy it. You have kind of aninteresting catchphrase. Right?
(28:42):
Don't retire, graduate.
And I wanna talk more aboutthat. That's that's that's the
title of your book. Right?
Eric (28:47):
Yeah. Sure is.
Justin (28:48):
Yeah. Okay. I thought so, but pressure here,
Eric (28:52):
the pressure of a podcast,
Justin (28:53):
you don't understand.
Eric (28:54):
Did great. You did great. Retirement's torture. No one
should do it. Okay.
Justin (28:59):
I know that
Eric (28:59):
sounds crazy. We spend our whole lives thinking about
retirement. Like you get yourfirst your first job at 21 and
they're like, much do wanna putin your retirement plan? I'm
like, retirement plan? I can'tpay rent right now.
Justin (29:10):
Right.
Eric (29:10):
But but people think about retirement they want and they
should. But to me, thedefinition of retirement is
terrible. Think about where whatretirement is. Retirement is
going from fifty or sixty hoursa week and being engaged in
something ideally that you loveand certainly something that
you're good at to suddenly beinghome, watching daytime TV and
(29:30):
playing shuffleboard and waitingto die.
Justin (29:34):
Right. Yeah.
Eric (29:35):
It's awful. No one should retire that way. Now I I I
redefine retirement as theabsence of needing to work. If
you've reached financialindependence so that you're free
to choose, I wanna work thismuch or in this capacity or I
only wanna do volunteer work,but I wanna be active and
engaged. You have to havesomething to move towards.
When we graduate from something,anything, when you graduate from
(29:57):
elementary school, you're yes,it's the end of elementary
school, but it's also thespringboard to the next big
thing. Retirement, historically,there's only one life milestone
after retirement and it's a dirtnap.
Justin (30:11):
Yeah.
Eric (30:12):
So why would anyone sign up for that? I mean, I I really
think it's great to befinancially independent, but
you've gotta have a reason. Andso I discovered what what I, you
know, anecdotally referred to asthe secrets of the happiest
retirees.
Justin (30:26):
Okay.
Eric (30:26):
And and having done this now for not gonna tell you how
long because you keep remindingme. But having done this for a
long darn time, what I would sayis that that there are three
things that that retirees whoretire really well successfully,
and I don't mean justfinancially, but successful
retirement have in common. Thefirst is they're debt free. They
(30:46):
don't owe anybody anything. It'sa big deal.
Psychologically, even iffinancially you say, yes, but my
mortgage is at two and fiveeighths percent. Correct. Could
you make more money elsewhere?Absolutely. Is there a
psychological benefit when yourpaycheck stops or changes to not
owing anybody anything?
Most definitely. So debt free isone. Second one is they have
(31:08):
their health. They've taken careof themselves. And that's all
different kinds of wellness.
But you you don't wake up oneday at 63 and go, I think I'll
get fit now. I mean, some peoplemight, but most people don't.
You have to have decent habitsalong the way. Just like you
don't wake up at 63 and go, nowI think I'll get wealthy. It's
like, well Sure.
It's a it's a continuum. Youbegin early. You work towards
(31:30):
something. So, I think you'vemaintained your health. You've
taken care of yourself enoughthat that you have a shot at
having a reasonably long time ofgood living, good years left,
whatever that is.
And then the third and the thingthat probably is even more
important, if you can imagineanything more important than
your health, or or your yourbeing debt free, it's a, it's
(31:52):
your purpose. It's a reason toget out of bed every morning.
Because if you don't have areason to get out of bed every
morning, you will stop gettingout of bed every morning. You
literally there there are peoplewho are in their pajamas till
01:00 in the afternoon and thendecide whether they even want to
get dressed just because theyhad nothing to do that day. And
while I acknowledge thatsometimes a day off, it's lovely
to not care.
If that's your life, that's sad.And so I I think it's important
(32:17):
to to think about money as atool for freedom and choice and
opportunity, And it becomes lessof an albatross when you've when
you've reached that level andyou've got your independence and
it's a it's a big deal. And soI'm looking to graduate myself.
I mean, all of us do at somepoint from various things and
(32:38):
and I'm looking to graduate inin January of twenty twenty six.
Graduating to my next role inthe company.
Yeah. And and, you know, I'vebeen CEO for a long time, and
I'm gonna be handing the reinsoff. We've got a full succession
plan. You talked about that.
Justin (32:53):
We've got
Eric (32:53):
a full succession plan in every way, which has been
implemented and which is goinggreat. I am not retiring. I'm
they can't get rid of me untilthey buy me out and that's gonna
take a while. So I'll be here.But I'll be here in a very
different capacity doing thingsthat bring me joy.
Justin (33:07):
Right. I love that. What It's
Eric (33:09):
a pretty good next chapter.
Justin (33:11):
Well, and I I now I wanna ask what Yeah. What is
your purpose to get out of bedas as you look at this next
chapter?
Eric (33:18):
Yeah. No. It's it's great. Right now, I I can tell you for
the last thirty plus years, mypurpose for getting out of bed
has been growing an enterprisethat took great care of me. It's
been changing lives for thebetter.
It's been impacting communitiesand and that means our employees
and their families, it means ourclients, it means it means our
community. It means they'redoing a lot of philanthropy. As
(33:39):
I move into this next chapter,it it's really gonna be less one
to one and more one to many.
Justin (33:45):
Okay.
Eric (33:45):
Doing a lot of consulting with financial advisors who want
to figure out how to get hereand just aren't yet. And I can
help them get here so that theycan amplify not only their reach
and their impact, but the joy intheir careers. So I'll be doing
a lot more consulting andspeaking and writing and
podcasting and all the thingsthat are that are fun and trying
(34:06):
to communicate and make adifference in the world every
day.
Justin (34:09):
That sounds amazing. That's yeah. That would be a
great retirement if if the wordis is the accurate fit for it.
Eric (34:16):
And I can do it from the beach. Yes. Know, I don't I
you're not punching a clock thesame way at that point. You can,
you know, know, so I I'm acouple of years away from empty
nesting in our home, and my wifeand I are trying to figure out
where we're gonna be, and theworld's our oyster.
Justin (34:33):
Tell me a little bit about the book. First of all,
who's it written to? Who's youraudience there?
Eric (34:38):
It it it's written to anyone who would like to try and
build some some personal wealth.So it's it's not for the high
net worth, ultra wealthy. It'swritten to be available to lay
persons. It is not a textbook.It is not complicated.
In fact, I wrote it in the firstperson so that it was very
accessible. Each chapter of thebook is a course like it was
(34:59):
college syllabus. And we talkabout the freshman, sophomore,
junior and senior years of yourfinancial life and the various
things that you face. And sosome people might pick it up and
say, well, I've already gottenthat stuff out of the way. Like,
you know, your freshman year isabout choosing your right
employee benefits and how todeal with student loans and how
to handle your first budget andhow to handle some basic cash
(35:21):
flow and some basic riskmanagement.
Sophomore year is about, youknow, do I get married? Do I buy
my first home? Do do we havechildren? What are the financial
implications of those things?How do I start building a
portfolio and building some somenet worth?
Junior year's about, hey, nowI'm in the swing of things. I'm
making the most money I'll evermake in my life. Now I've got a
tax problem and some otherthings to think about. So how do
(35:43):
I handle that stage of my life?And oh, by the way, paying for
college and dealing with parentsgetting older and all that
simultaneously.
And then senior year is really acombination of your, your estate
planning and your long term careand your elder planning, but
also your visioning. What, whatdo you want to move toward? What
do you want to do? Whatdecisions do you have to make?
And how do you position yourselfto have lots of choice?
(36:05):
And so every chapter has anextra credit assignment at the
end because I don't likehomework, but everybody does
extra credit. So there's anextra credit assignment. And if
you do all the extra creditassignments, you will have a
financial
Justin (36:16):
plan. Okay.
Eric (36:17):
And it it and so we created not only the book, but
there's a workbook thataccompanies it that is the extra
credit assignments withworksheets and ways to go
through it, and you can buildyour own financial plan. Does
that mean you don't need afinancial adviser? Well, you
might, you might not. But noteverybody does and if you were
to start taking some of thehabits from this book, think it
would create a better outcomefor you.
Justin (36:41):
Rumor has it again, a lot of rumors flying around here
that you might have a discountcode or a way that those who
maybe haven't built up theirwealth enough Yeah. Could get
your book for a little bitcheaper. What How do they get
the book? First of all, where isit for sale?
Eric (36:56):
It well, it's for sale at Amazon, but we also have a site
at don'tretiregraduatebook.com.
Justin (37:03):
Okay.
Eric (37:04):
The word book is very important because if you don't
hit book, you'll be at thepodcast, which we're happy to
have ears for that too, butdon't retire graduate book Com.
And if you would like, I wasgonna actually charge your
listeners a premium rather thangive them a discount, but I this
has been kind of fun. So we'lldo it. The discount, if you put
in the code unhacked, you willget a discount on the book and
(37:26):
work. Love it.
Don't don't tell anyone else.
Justin (37:30):
Okay. We will will keep that top secret.
Eric (37:32):
That's yeah. That is just for your listeners and no one
else.
Justin (37:36):
I'll just put that out. And by the way, Google's
listening to us and somehow Ialerted her that she thought
anyway.
Eric (37:43):
Yeah. She thought you were shopping. She was gonna send me
some recommendations.
Justin (37:47):
I guess.
Eric (37:48):
Terrifying. Yeah. Yeah. Mean You're gonna My book is
gonna pop up on your feed.
Justin (37:53):
Oh, I'm sure it
Mario (37:53):
will.
Eric (37:54):
Which is great. Yeah. Know it. There so there are two Eric
D. Brotman's on Amazon who writeThis is true.
And I I know you can't make thisup and I did not expect this,
but when I this is now my thirdbook, but when I wrote my first
book, had to create an authorpage on Amazon and I went on and
there was already an Eric D.Brotman and so help me, this is
true. He's a PhD who writesbooks on how to toilet train
(38:16):
cats. What? No joke.
I can't tell I've gotten a dozenof those in the mail from smart
Alex, you know, fraternitybrothers who think it's
hysterical or like, hey, wouldyou sign this? It is a picture
book of cats on toilets. I'm notkidding. Don't buy that one.
That's not mine.
And there's no discount on thatone available to unhacked or
(38:36):
anyone else.
Justin (38:37):
I'm fact checking you right now. I'm not I didn't find
that, Jeff.
Eric (38:40):
Why lie? You can't I think it's called the education of
Mongo or something crazy likethat. It it the taming of Mongo.
People have
Mario (38:48):
way too much time on their hands.
Justin (38:50):
Oh my a PhD.
Eric (38:53):
Oh my get a doctorate degree in in Shit. Cat bathroom?
I like, I don't know. I don'tknow. I don't know.
But that one is in fact notmine.
Justin (39:04):
Okay. Don't go to that one. Don't put Jesus don't put
unhacked as any connection tothat at all.
Eric (39:10):
No. No. That that will destroy whatever reputation you
have left Justin. And I and Idon't want to do that to you. So
if you go todon'tretiregraduatebook.com, put
in unhacked, you'll get adiscount on the book and
workbook.
And I hope it, I hope it'shelpful. We've had folks read
this and then give it to theirgrown kids to read, you know,
their college age or or, youknow, 20 kids to say, hey, start
(39:31):
early, you know, look at this.You know, we've used it for
financial literacy courses withwith companies. We do financial
wellness for for profit andnonprofit companies and we teach
from it. And it's it's reallyit's it's definitely not a
textbook.
There's no Aristotle in here,although I did quote Chris Rock.
So you can you can tell there'sa different vibe. I wanted it to
(39:53):
be fun. It is not a boring read.It might be a chapter or two
that are a little heavy, but butit's generally speaking very
accessible.
Justin (40:00):
Okay. Perfect. Yeah. Mario, any final questions for
Eric?
Mario (40:04):
No. I'm good. This was awesome.
Eric (40:07):
Alright. Well I'm glad. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Wait. Are you the genius of themonth?
Mario (40:14):
I am. Actually I actually was the genius of two months.
Eric (40:19):
Which which was this recent? You recently the genius
of the month or was this a whileago?
Mario (40:25):
Well, I was the the latest one was April because I
won a car for being thespokesman of the year.
Eric (40:35):
Congratulations. That's awesome.
Mario (40:36):
Thank you. Thank you.
Eric (40:38):
That's awesome. Good for you. Now I just I saw that I was
like, that is the genius of themonth. I like that a lot.
Justin (40:44):
So we're a member of an just a peer group of IT owners,
group and the owner, founder,CEO or whatever of this group
has a competition every year.That's probably what about a
thousand, maybe 1,500 of us areworldwide. It's a great big
organization. That's and everyyear those she tries to get
(41:04):
everybody to apply for it.Right?
But they whittle it down to fivefinalists. And Mario was in the
top five last year. And then hejumped up on the stage. I should
get you not dressed in a Mariosuit. That was
Eric (41:17):
mushrooms at the crowd? No.
Justin (41:19):
I mean, kind of. No. Not at the crowd, but it was he had
the the visuals and stuff.Knocked it out of the park. His
presentation was justphenomenal.
Mario truly is the smartest ITguy in the country, at least for
this year.
Eric (41:34):
Wow. Congratulations. This is really Losing the last three
weeks.
Justin (41:37):
You you lose your title here pretty soon, but he's been
reigning champion king, whateveryou wanna call him. And
Eric (41:43):
Don't give the belt up lightly. I gotta keep kicking
and Go kicking and screaminginto the night with the trophy.
Mario (41:51):
I got to keep the car that that nobody's taking that
from me.
Eric (41:55):
There you go. That's good stuff.
Justin (41:57):
Alright, guys. We're gonna go ahead and wrap this one
up. Unhacked live is ourwebsite. And guys, if you can't
remember Eric's, use the onethat you always hear week after
week. Unhacked.live, we'll haveall your information up there,
Eric, including the link and thecode, the discount code for your
book.
And I'm gonna go ahead and graba discounted copy of that myself
because that that does seem likea good read. I I've gotta throw
(42:18):
out there though, you keepsaying start young, start young
and as we may or may not havepointed out, not all of us in
this room and not all of us inthe audience are young. Is your
book gonna help us old timers aswell?
Eric (42:30):
It is. It is. Okay. Particularly because it's a
continuum. And what I will tellyou is that there is it is
always better to start todaythan yesterday.
I I sorry. Let me try thatagain. It's better to start
today than tomorrow.
Justin (42:43):
Right.
Eric (42:43):
You'd have been better off yesterday but it's past. See, I
blew that entirely.
Justin (42:47):
You did. Do the tree analogy. What's the best day to
plant a tree? I Twenty yearsago. Twenty years ago.
What's the second best time toto plant a tree? Right now.
Eric (42:57):
Okay.
Justin (42:57):
That's the one I've always heard anyways.
Eric (43:00):
Alright. Well, listen. I butchered that wildly. But the
point was, yes, it is alwaysbetter to start sooner rather
than later. And and so, yes, itcan help you at any stage.
Justin (43:10):
But don't make it later or or
Eric (43:12):
Right. I mean, do something. You know, you start
with you start with inventory.It's like any journey in this
life. You start with the stickeron the kiosk map that says you
are here.
Yep. Then you can figure outwhere you're going. But first,
you gotta be darn honest withyourself about where you are.
Justin (43:28):
Well, Eric, thank you for being here. What I love, I
really do love this abouttoday's episode is, you know,
we're always talking to businessowners, but there's value here
in everybody, like foreverybody. Right? Your your
target, you said, is anybodytrying to build wealth? I do
believe that that is pretty muchall of us are trying to build
wealth in our industry.
We do help business owners buildtheir business and we try to
(43:49):
help them keep that wealth. Andin your industry, you know, you
can, it's just similar. There's,there's some overlap just minus
the technology. Anyway, so thankyou, for being here, Eric.
Mario, as always, thanks forbeing here.
And, guys, that's a wrap. We'regonna take off, and we'll see
you all next week.
Mario (44:09):
Bye, guys. Thanks, guys.
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