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GoldenGate 23ai takes security seriously, and this episode unpacks everything you need to know. GoldenGate expert Nick Wagner breaks down how authentication, access roles, and encryption protect your data.   Learn how GoldenGate integrates with identity providers, secures communication, and keeps passwords out of storage. Understand how trail files work, why they only store committed data, and how recovery processes prevent data loss.   Whether you manage replication or just want to tighten security, this episode gives you the details to lock things down without slowing operations.   Oracle GoldenGate 23ai: Fundamentals: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/oracle-goldengate-23ai-fundamentals/145884/237273 Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/ X: https://x.com/Oracle_Edu   Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, Kris-Ann Nansen, Radhika Banka, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode.   --------------------------------------------------------------   Episode Transcript: 00:00 Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we'll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let's get started! 00:25 Lois: Hello and welcome to the Oracle University Podcast! I'm Lois Houston, Director of Innovation Programs with Oracle University, and with me is Nikita Abraham, Team Lead: Editorial Services.  Nikita: Welcome, everyone! This is our fourth episode on Oracle GoldenGate 23ai. Last week, we discussed the terminology, different processes and what they do, and the architecture of the product at a high level. Today, we have Nick Wagner back with us to talk about the security strategies of GoldenGate. 00:56 Lois: As you know by now, Nick is a Senior Director of Product Management for GoldenGate at Oracle. He's played a key role as one of the product designers behind the latest version of GoldenGate. Hi Nick! Thank you for joining us again. Can you tell us how GoldenGate takes care of data security? Nick: So GoldenGate authentication and authorization is done in a couple of different ways. First, we have user credentials for GoldenGate for not only the source and target databases, but also for GoldenGate itself. We have integration with third-party identity management products, and everything that GoldenGate does can be secured. 01:32 Nikita: And we must have some access roles, right? Nick: There's four roles built into the GoldenGate product. You have your security role, administrator, operator, and user. They're all hierarchical. The most important one is the security user. This user is going to be the one that provides the administrative tasks. This user is able to actually create additional users and assign roles within the product. So do not lose this password and this user is extremely important. You probably don't want to use this security user as your everyday user. That would be your administrator. The administrator role is able to perform all administrative tasks within GoldenGate. So not only can they go in and create new extracts, create new replicats, create new distribution services, but they can also start and stop them. And that's where the operator role is and the user role. So the operator role allows you to go in and start/stop processes, but you can't create any new ones, which is kind of important. So this user would be the one that could go in and suspend activity. They could restart activity. But they can't actually add objects to replication. The user role is really a read-only role. They can come in. They can see what's going on. They can look at the log files. They can look at the alerts. They can look at all the watches and see exactly what GoldenGate is doing. But they're unable to make any changes to the product itself. 02:54 Lois: You mentioned the roles are hierarchical in nature. What does that mean? Nick: So anything that the user role does can be done by the operator. Anything that the operator and user roles can do can be done by the administrator. And anything that the user, operator, and administrator roles do can be done by the security role. 03:11 Lois: Ok. So, is there a single sign-on available for GoldenGate? Nick: We also have a password plugin for GoldenGate Connections. A lot of customers have asked for integration with whatever their single sign-on utility is, and so GoldenGate now has that with GoldenGate 23ai. So these are customer-created entities. So, we have some examples that you can use in our documentation on how to set up an identity provider or a third-party identity provider with GoldenGate. And this allows you to ensure that your corporate standards are met. As we started looking into this, as we started designing it, every single customer wanted something different. And so instead of trying to meet the needs for every customer and every possible combination of security credentials, we want you to be able to design it the way you need it. The passwords are never stored. They're only retrieved from the identity provider by the plugin itself. 04:05 Nikita: That's a pretty important security aspect…that when it's time to authenticate a user, we go to the identity provider. Nick: We're going to connect in and see if that password is matching. And only then do we use it. And as soon as we detect that it's matched, that password is removed. And then for the extract and replicats themselves, you can also use it for the database, data source, and data target connections, as well as for the GoldenGate users. So, it is a full-featured plugin. So, our identity provider plugin works with IAM as well as OAM. These are your standard identity manager authentication methods. The standard one is OAuth 2, as well as OIDC. And any Identity Manager that uses that is able to integrate with GoldenGate. 04:52 Lois: And how does this work? Nick: The way that it works is pretty straightforward. Once the user logs into the database, we're going to hand off authentication to the identity provider. Once the identity provider has validated that user's identity and their credentials, then it comes back to GoldenGate and says that user is able to log in to either GoldenGate or the application or the database. Once the user is logged in, we get that confirmation that's been sent out and they can continue working through GoldenGate. So, it's very straightforward on how it works. There's also a nice little UI that will help set up each additional user within those systems. All the communication is also secured as well. So any communication done through any of the GoldenGate services is encrypted using HTTPS. All the REST calls themselves are all done using HTTPS as well. All the data protection calls and all the communication across the network when we send data across a distribution service is encrypted using a secure WebSocket. And there's also trail file encryption at the operating system level for data at REST. So, this really gives you the full level of encryption for customers that need that high-end security. GoldenGate does have an option for FIPS 140-2 compliance as well. So that's even a further step for most of those customers. 06:12 Nikita: That's impressive! Because we want to maintain the highest security standards, right? Especially when dealing with sensitive information. I now want to move on to trail files. In our last episode, we briefly spoke about how they serve as logs that record and track changes made to data. But what more can you tell us about them, Nick? Nick: There's two different processes that write to the trail files. The extract process will write to the trail file and the receiver service will write to the trail file. The extract process is going to write to the trail file as it's pulling data out of that source database. Now, the extract process is controlled by a parameter file, that says, hey, here's the exact changes that I'm going to be pulling out. Here's the tables. Here's the rows that I want. As it's pulling that data out and writing it to the trail files, it's ensuring that those trail files have enough information so that the replicat process can actually construct a SQL statement and apply that change to that target platform. And so there's a lot of ways to change what's actually stored in those trail files and how it's handled. The trail files can also be used for initial loads. So when we do the initial load through GoldenGate, we can grab and write out the data for those tables, and that excludes the change data. So initial loads is pulling the data directly from the tables themselves, whereas ongoing replication is pulling it from the transaction logs. 07:38 Lois: But do we need to worry about rollbacks? Nick: Our trail files contain committed data only and all data is sequential. So this is two important things. Because it contains committed data only, we don't need to worry about rollbacks. We also don't need to worry about position within that trail file because we know all data is sequential. And so as we're reading through the trail file, we know that anything that's written in a prior location in that trial file was committed prior to something else. And as we get into the recovery aspects of GoldenGate, this will all make a lot more sense. 08:13 Lois: Before we do that, can you tell us about the naming of trail files? Nick: The trail files as far as naming, because these do reside on the operating system, you start with a two-letter trail file abbreviation and then a nine-digit sequential value. So, you almost look at it as like an archive log from Oracle, where we have a prefix and then an affix, which is numeric. Same kind of thing. So, we have our two-letter, in this case, an ab, and then we have a nine-digit number. 08:47 Transform the way you work with Oracle Database 23ai! This cutting-edge technology brings the power of AI directly to your data, making it easier to build powerful applications and manage critical workloads. Want to learn more about Database 23ai? Visit mylearn.oracle.com to pick from our range of courses and enroll today! 09:12 Nikita: Welcome back! Ok, Nick. Let's get into the GoldenGate recovery process. Nick: When we start looking at the GoldenGate recovery process, it essentially makes GoldenGate kind of point-in-time like. So on that source database, you have your extract process that's going to be capturing data from the transaction logs. In the case of Oracle, the Oracle Database is actually going to be reading those transaction logs from us and passing the change records directly to GoldenGate. We call them an LCR, Logical Change Record. And so the integrated extract and GoldenGate, the extract portion tells the database, hey, I'm now going to be interested in the following list of tables. And it gives a list of tables to that internal component, the log mining engine within the database. And it says, OK, I'm now pulling data for those tables and I'm going to send you those table changes. And so as the extract process gets sent those changes, it's going to have checkpoint information. So not only does it know where it was pulling data from out of that source database, but what it's also writing to the trail file. The trail files themselves are all sequential and they have only committed data, as we talked about earlier. The distribution service has checkpoint information that says, hey, I know where I'm reading from in the previous trail file, and I know what I've sent across the network. The receiver service is the same thing. It knows what it's receiving, as well as what it's written to the trail file and the target system. The replicat also has a checkpoint. It knows where it's reading from in the trail file, and then it knows what it's been applying into that target database.  This is where things start to become a little complicated. Our replicat process in most cases are parallel, so it'll have multiple threads applying data into that target database. Each of those threads is applying different transactions. And because of the way that the parallelism works in the replicat process, you can actually get situations where one replicat thread might be applying a transaction higher than another thread. And so you can eliminate that sequential or serial aspect of it, and we can get very high throughput speeds to the replicat. But it means that the checkpoint needs to be kind of smart enough to know how to rebuild itself if something fails. 11:32 Lois: Ok, sorry Nick, but can you go through that again? Maybe we can work backwards this time?  Nick: If the replicat process fails, when it comes back up, it's going to look to its checkpoint tables inside that target database. These checkpoint tables keep track of where each thread was at when it crashed. And so when the replicat process restarts, it goes, oh, I was applying these threads at this location in these SCNs. It'll then go and read from the trail file and say, hey, let me rebuild that data and it only applies transactions that it hasn't applied yet to that target system. There is a synchronized replicat command as well that will tell a crashed replicat to say, hey, bring all your threads up to the same high watermark. It does that process automatically as it restarts and continues normal replication. But there is an option to do it just by itself too. So that's how the replicat kind of repairs and recovers itself. It'll simply look at the trail files. Now, let's say that the replicat crashed, and it goes to read from the trail files when it restarts and that trail profile is missing. It'll actually communicate to the distribution, or excuse me, to the receiver service and say, hey, receiver service, I don't have this trail file. Can you bring it back for me? And the receiver service will communicate downstream and say, hey, distribution service, I need you to resend me trail find number 6. And so the distribution service will resend that trail file so that the replicat can reprocess it. So it's often nice to have redundant environments with GoldenGate so we can have those trail files kind of around for availability. 13:13 Nikita: What if one of these files gets corrupted? Nick: If one of those trail files is corrupt, let's say that a trail file on the target site became corrupt and the replicat can't read from it for one reason or another. Simply stop the replicat process, delete the corrupt trail file, restart the replicat process, and now it's going to rebuild that trail file from scratch based on the information from the source GoldenGate environment. And so it's very recoverable. Handles it all very well. 13:40 Nikita: And can the extract process bounce back in the same way? Nick: The extract process can also recover in a similar way. So if the extract process crashes, when it restarts itself, there's a number of things that it does. The first thing is it has to rebuild any open transactions. So it keeps all sorts of checkpoint information about the oldest transaction that it's keeping track of, any open transactions that haven't been committed, and any other transactions that have been committed that it's already written to the trail file. So as it's reprocessing that data, it knows exactly what it's committed to trail and what hasn't been committed. And there's a number of ways that it does this.  There's two main components here. One of them is called bounded recovery. Bounded recovery will allow you to set a time limit on transactions that span a certain length of time that they'll actually get flushed out to disk on that GoldenGate Hub. And that way it'll reduce the amount of time it takes GoldenGate to restart the extract process. And the other component is cache manager. Cache manager stores uncommitted transactions. And so it's a very elegant way of rebuilding itself from any kind of failure. You can also set up restart profiles so that if any process does crash, the GoldenGate service manager can automatically restart that service an x number of times across y time span. So if I say, hey, if my extract crashes, then attempt to restart it 100 times every 5 seconds. So there's a lot of things that you can do there to make it really nice and automatic repair itself and automatically resilient.  15:18 Lois: Well, that brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you, Nick, for going through the security strategies and recovery processes in such detail. Next week, we'll look at the installation of GoldenGate. Nikita: And if you want to learn more about the topics we discussed today, head over to mylearn.oracle.com and take a look at the Oracle GoldenGate 23ai Fundamentals course. Until next time, this is Nikita Abraham… Lois: And Lois Houston signing off! 15:44 That's all for this episode of the Oracle University Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please click Subscribe to get all the latest episodes. We'd also love it if you would take a moment to rate and review us on your podcast app. See you again on the next episode of the Oracle University Podcast.

In this episode, Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham, along with Nick Wagner, focus on GoldenGate's terminology and architectural evolution.   Nick defines source and target systems, which are crucial for data replication, and then moves on to explain the data extraction and replication processes.   He also talks about the new microservices architecture, which replaces the classic architecture, offering benefits like simplified management, enhanced security, and a user-friendly interface. Nick highlights how this architecture facilitates easy upgrades and provides a streamlined experience for administrators.   Oracle GoldenGate 23ai: Fundamentals: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/oracle-goldengate-23ai-fundamentals/145884/237273 Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/ X: https://x.com/Oracle_Edu   Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, Kris-Ann Nansen, Radhika Banka, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode.   ---------------------------------------------------------------   Episode Transcript:   00:00 Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we'll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let's get started! 00:25 Nikita: Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast! I'm Nikita Abraham, Team Lead of Editorial Services with Oracle University, and with me is Lois Houston: Director of Innovation Programs. Lois: Hi there! Thanks for joining us again as we make our way through Oracle GoldenGate 23ai. Last week, we discussed all the new features introduced in 23ai and today, we'll move on to the terminology, the different processes and what they do, and the architecture of the product at a high level. 00:56 Nikita: Back with us is Nick Wagner, Senior Director of Product Management for Oracle GoldenGate. Hi Nick! Let's get into some of the terminology. What do we actually call stuff in GoldenGate? Nick: Within GoldenGate, we have our source systems and our target systems. The source is where we're going to be capturing data from, the targets, where we're going to be applying data into. And when we start talking about things like active-active or setting up GoldenGate for high availability, where your source can also be your target, it does become a little bit more complex. And so in some of those cases, we might refer to things as East and West, or America and Europe, or different versions of that. We also have a couple of different things within the product itself. We have what we call our Extract and our Replicat. The Extract is going to be the process that pulls the data out of the database, our capture technology. Our Replicat's going to be the one that applies the data into the target system, or you can also look at it as a push technology. We have what we call our Distribution Path. Our Distribution Path is going to be how we're sending the data across the network. A lot of times when customers run GoldenGate, they don't have the luxury of just having a single server of GoldenGate that can pull data from one database and push data into another one. They need to set up multiple hops of that data. And so in that case, we would use what we call a Distribution Path to send that data from one system to the next. We also have what we call a Target Initiated Path. It's kind of a subset of your Distribution Path, but it allows you to communicate from a less secure environment into a more secure environment.  02:33 Lois: Nick, what about parameter names. I've seen them in uppercase…title case…does that matter?  Nick: GoldenGate has a lot of parameters. This is something you'll see all over the place within GoldenGate itself.  These parameters are in your Extract and Replicat parameter files during your distribution path parameter files. Parameters for GoldenGate are case insensitive.  Within your own environments, you can set it up to have lowercase, mixed case, whatever you want, but just be aware that they are case insensitive. GoldenGate doesn't care, it's just for readability. And then we also have something called trail files. Trail files is where GoldenGate stores all the data before we're able to apply it into that target system. Think about it as our queuing mechanism, and we're queuing everything outside the database so that we're not overloading those database environments. And that's some of the terminology for the product itself. We also have microservices within GoldenGate. 03:31 Nikita: And at the heart of everything is the Service Manager, right? Talk to us about what it is and what it does. Nick: The service manager is responsible for making sure that everything else is up and running. If you are familiar with GoldenGate classic architecture, this is kind of similar to a GoldenGate manager where that process was there to make sure that processes were running the trail files, or excuse me, that certain error logs were getting written out. If a process went down, the manager would restart that process. The service manager is performing a lot of those same functions. Now attached to the service manager, we have our configuration service. This is new in GoldenGate 23ai. This configuration service is going to allow you to set up GoldenGate for highly available environments. So you can build HA into GoldenGate itself using the configuration service. 04:22 Lois: And what does this configuration service do? Nick: This configuration service essentially moves the checkpoint files that used to be on disk into a database so that everything can be stored inside of a database.  Also attached to the service manager, we have the performance metric service. This is a service that is going to be gathering all the performance metrics of GoldenGate. So it's going to tell you how fast things are going, what the latencies are, how many bytes per second we're reading from, the transaction logs or writing to our trail files. How quickly a distribution path is sending data across a network. If you want to know any of your lag information, you'll get it from the performance metrics server. We also have the receiver service and the distribution service. These two work hand in hand to establish network communication between two GoldenGate environments. So on what we call our source system, we have a distribution service that's going to send the data to our target system. On the target system, a receiver service is going to receive that data and then rewrite the trail files. We also have the administration service that's responsible for authentication and authorization of the users, as well as making sure that people have access to the right information. 05:33 Nikita: Ok. Moving on the deployment, how is GoldenGate actually deployed, Nick? Nick: GoldenGate is kinda nice. So the way that the product is installed is you install the GoldenGate environment and that's what we call our service manager deployment under a specific GoldenGate home. So the software binaries themselves get installed under a home, we'll say U01/OGG23AI. Now once I've installed GoldenGate once, that's my OGG home. I can now have any number of service managers and deployments tied to that same home.  06:11 Lois: Ok, let's work with an example to make this simpler. Let's say I've got a service manager that's going be responsible for three different deployments: Accounting, Finance, and Sales. Nick: Each of these deployments is going to reside in its own directory. Each of these deployments is going to have its own set of microservices. And so this also means that each of these deployments can have their own set of users. So the people that access the GoldenGate accounting deployment can be different than the ones that access the sales deployment. This means with this distribution of roles that I can have somebody come in and administer the sales database, but they wouldn't have any information or any access to accounting or finance. And this is very important, it allows you to really pull that information apart and separate it. Each of these environments also has their own set of parameter files, Extract process, Replicat process, distribution services, and everything. So it's a very nice way of splitting things up, but all having them tied to the same GoldenGate home system. And this home is very important. So I can take a deployment, let's say my finance deployment, and if I want to move it to a new GoldenGate home and that GoldenGate home is a different version, like let's say that my original home is 23.4, my new GoldenGate home is 23.7, I simply stop that GoldenGate deployment. I stopped at a finance deployment. I changed its OGG home from 23.4 to 23.7. I restart the deployment, that deployment is automatically upgraded to the new environment and attached to the new system. So it makes upgrading very, very simple, very easy, very elegant. 07:53 Nikita: Ok. So, we've spoken about the services…some of the terminology. Let's get into the architecture next. Nick: So when we talk about the architecture for GoldenGate, we used to have two different architectures. We had a classic architecture and a microservices architecture. Classic architecture was something that's been around since the very beginning of GoldenGate in the late '90s. We announced that, that architecture was deprecated in 19c. And Oracle deprecated means that feature is no longer going to be enhanced and it'll be patched selectively. And at some point in the future, it'll be entirely desupported. Well, GoldenGate 23ai is that future. And so in 23ai, the classic architecture is desupported, that means that it's no longer in the build at all. And so it's just microservices architecture. 08:41 Lois: Is there a tool to assist with this migration?  Nick: We do have a migration utility that will convert an old classic architecture into the new microservices architecture. But there is quite a bit of learning curve to the new microservices architecture. So it's important that we go through how it works in the changes. 09:04 Are you looking to optimize your implementation strategies and improve efficiency? We have a solution for you! Our new Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Foundations training and certification program. You'll learn to leverage Oracle Modern Best Practice (OMBP) to re-imagine business processes using advanced technologies in Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications such as AI, mobile, analytics, and more. Visit mylearn.oracle.com to get started today.  09:37 Nikita: Welcome back! Nick, what are the benefits of this microservices architecture?  Nick: It's got that simplified lifecycle for patching and upgrading. A lot of the GoldenGate patches that you get, especially these bundle patches, are complete installs as well. So you can go into My Oracle Support and download a complete install of a patch and that way, you don't have to use old patch to apply them. The only time you'll be using old patch is for one-off patches or smaller patches that need to be applied to your GoldenGate system. The microservices product has the same trusted Capture and Apply process that Classic did. There's almost no changes between the two except on how they communicate with their parent processes. And so the same logic that you use to pull data from Oracle or to apply data into Oracle is all the same. 10:25 Lois: And has the interface been upgraded as well? Nick: We've added a really nice, easy to use web interface for the microservices version of GoldenGate. Not only is this web interface work with all your standard browsers, but it's also mobile friendly too. So I can actually control and administer GoldenGate right through my mobile device. It also has new secure remote administration. This is something that the classic architecture was really missing. And so in the classic architecture, to use the command line interface, you had to log into the database server where GoldenGate was installed. Now, the command line interface, as well as the web interface and the REST API, all use remote administration and authentication. So that means that I can install the new command line interface or what we call admin client on my laptop locally and I can connect to any GoldenGate deployment as long as I have the username and password for that deployment. It's also more secure. GoldenGate microservices can also be deployed on premise or in OCI as a service and now also on these third-party clouds like Azure and Google Cloud. And it's also easier for developers to integrate in with the APIs themselves. Everything that GoldenGate does through the admin client as well as the web UI can all be traced. The REST API calls for GoldenGate are all fully published so you can get them right directly from the documentation, you can build your own web interface if you want to. So it makes it very easy. The REST APIs are also streamlined. With a single REST API call, I can do something like add an Extract process, create it, set up my parameter file, and set up the trail files all with a single API command. Whereas in the past, it would require multiple command line interface commands to do that same thing. So it's extremely elegant, very advanced. 12:16 Nikita: What does the microservices architecture look like? I know it's a bit complicated when we're not actually looking at a diagram of it, but just a high level, can you explain the different parts of it? Nick: It's pretty straightforward. But essentially what you've got on each system is a service manager. That service manager is then going to have a number of processes or services beneath it. It'll have the configuration service that stores the checkpoint information for GoldenGate. It'll have the administrative service for the authentication and users, the distribution service to send the data across a network, a receiver service to receive that information, performance metrics to get the performance statistics out of GoldenGate. And then of course, you also have your Extracts and Replicats that capture and apply technology. Each of those Extracts and Replicats will then connect to a database on the Extract side of things. That Extract is going to write to trail files. Those trail files are then going to be sent across the network where they're rebuilt on the target system and the Replicat's going to consume them and apply them into the target database. So the Replicat behaves almost like an end user. So it's taking that trail file data and simply converting it to DML operations, insert, update, delete, or a DDL operation in the case of Oracle, alter table, create table, et cetera, to go into that target database.   13:39 Lois: To look at a diagram of this architecture and learn about it in more detail, check out the Oracle GoldenGate 23ai Fundamentals course on mylearn.oracle.com. So, Nick, if I'm looking to deploy GoldenGate, what should I primarily keep in mind? Nick: So as you go to install GoldenGate and you look at a deployment, there's a couple of important environment variables that you want to make sure you're aware of. So one of the first ones is your OGG_Home. This environment variable is extremely important. This is the location of the GoldenGate software itself. And I want to stress how important it is to always use version numbers when you're setting up your GoldenGate home. When you go to install the software, if you're installing GoldenGate 23.5, use 23.5 within the home directory structure. If you're installing GoldenGate 23.7, use 23.7 inside that directory structure. 14:33 Nikita: Right… that way I'll always know which versions are which, and it'll make it really easy to upgrade and move from one version to the next. Ok, got it. What else, Nick? Nick: There's a couple other important directories. You have your OGG_ETC_HOME. This is where things like the configuration files are going to reside, parameter files, all your certificates for security, including the wallets where we store the credentials for not only the database accounts, but also for the GoldenGate user accounts as well. We have our GoldenGate variable home directory or VAR home. This is where all the GoldenGate log files are residing. And these are the log files that allow you to see what's going on in GoldenGate for auditing purposes. Anytime anybody makes a change to GoldenGate, you're going to see information go into the log files on what was happening and how it was working and what they did, what time they did, what command they issued. Another big important feature about these log files is it also gives you error information and troubleshooting details. So if you ever need to find out what happened in GoldenGate, what went wrong, you would look at these log files to find out that information. And then you also have your OGG_DATA_HOME. This is where those trail files are going to go. Essentially, this is kind of the queuing or overflow for GoldenGate. There's a couple of other additional components. We've got the admin client. This is our command line utility. If you don't want to use a web browser or prefer a command line utility, you can use the admin client. The admin client is also fully scriptable. So if you wanted to write scripts that would go off and automate things in GoldenGate, you can do that. A lot of customers did that with GGSCI in the classic architecture. You can do the same thing now with the admin client. The other component is the microservices security authentication and authorization services. These handle communication security, especially making sure that any passwords or usernames and everything like that is all encrypted. And instead of using an actual username and password, everything through the product is going to be done through an alias. And then it also handles all the authorization authentication, permissions, user accountability, and roles within GoldenGate. 16:39 Lois: Anything else you'd like to talk about before we wrap up for today, Nick? Nick: I also wanted to take a minute to talk about the REST API. All the microservices provide REST APIs to administer them and all of these are fully documented. They can be used by any client that can make REST API calls. So if you wanted to use Python, cURL, a web browser, you can do that as well. They're all just HTTP or HTTPS calls, get, put, patch, the standard REST API standards. And then GoldenGate does provide our admin client as well as a WebUI that use these REST APIs under the covers if you ever wanted to get a more advanced look at how it works. 17:18 Nikita: Well, that's all the time we have for today. Thanks for joining us, Nick.  Lois: Yes, thanks Nick. We look forward to having you back next week to talk with us about security strategies and data recovery. Nikita: And if you want to learn more about the topics we discussed today, head over to mylearn.oracle.com and take a look at the Oracle GoldenGate 23ai Fundamentals course. Until next time, this is Nikita Abraham… Lois: And Lois Houston, signing off!  17:43 That's all for this episode of the Oracle University Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please click Subscribe to get all the latest episodes. We'd also love it if you would take a moment to rate and review us on your podcast app. See you again on the next episode of the Oracle University Podcast.

In this episode, Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham continue their deep dive into Oracle GoldenGate 23ai, focusing on its evolution and the extensive features it offers. They are joined once again by Nick Wagner, who provides valuable insights into the product's journey.   Nick talks about the various iterations of Oracle GoldenGate, highlighting the significant advancements from version 12c to the latest 23ai release. The discussion then shifts to the extensive new features in 23ai, including AI-related capabilities, UI enhancements, and database function integration.   Oracle GoldenGate 23ai: Fundamentals: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/oracle-goldengate-23ai-fundamentals/145884/237273 Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/ X: https://x.com/Oracle_Edu   Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, Kris-Ann Nansen, Radhika Banka, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode.   -----------------------------------------------------------------   Episode Transcript: 00:00 Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we'll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let's get started! 00:25 Lois: Hello and welcome to the Oracle University Podcast! I'm Lois Houston, Director of Innovation Programs with Oracle University, and with me is Nikita Abraham, Team Lead: Editorial Services.  Nikita: Hi everyone! Last week, we introduced Oracle GoldenGate and its capabilities, and also spoke about GoldenGate 23ai. In today's episode, we'll talk about the various iterations of Oracle GoldenGate since its inception. And we'll also take a look at some new features and the Oracle GoldenGate product family. 00:57 Lois: And we have Nick Wagner back with us. Nick is a Senior Director of Product Management for GoldenGate at Oracle. Hi Nick! I think the last time we had an Oracle University course was when Oracle GoldenGate 12c was out. I'm sure there's been a lot of advancements since then. Can you walk us through those? Nick: GoldenGate 12.3 introduced the microservices architecture. GoldenGate 18c introduced support for Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse and Autonomous Transaction Processing Databases. In GoldenGate 19c, we added the ability to do cross endian remote capture for Oracle, making it easier to set up the GoldenGate OCI service to capture from environments like Solaris, Spark, and HP-UX and replicate into the Cloud. Also, GoldenGate 19c introduced a simpler process for upgrades and installation of GoldenGate where we released something called a unified build. This means that when you install GoldenGate for a particular database, you don't need to worry about the database version when you install GoldenGate. Prior to this, you would have to install a version-specific and database-specific version of GoldenGate. So this really simplified that whole process. In GoldenGate 23ai, which is where we are now, this really is a huge release.  02:16 Nikita: Yeah, we covered some of the distributed AI features and high availability environments in our last episode. But can you give us an overview of everything that's in the 23ai release? I know there's a lot to get into but maybe you could highlight just the major ones? Nick: Within the AI and streaming environments, we've got interoperability for database vector types, heterogeneous capture and apply as well. Again, this is not just replication between Oracle-to-Oracle vector or Postgres to Postgres vector, it is heterogeneous just like the rest of GoldenGate. The entire UI has been redesigned and optimized for high speed. And so we have a lot of customers that have dozens and dozens of extracts and replicats and processes running and it was taking a long time for the UI to refresh those and to show what's going on within those systems. So the UI has been optimized to be able to handle those environments much better. We now have the ability to call database functions directly from call map. And so when you do transformation with GoldenGate, we have about 50 or 60 built-in transformation routines for string conversion, arithmetic operation, date manipulation. But we never had the ability to directly call a database function. 03:28 Lois: And now we do? Nick: So now you can actually call that database function, database stored procedure, database package, return a value and that can be used for transformation within GoldenGate. We have integration with identity providers, being able to use token-based authentication and integrate in with things like Azure Active Directory and your other single sign-on for the GoldenGate product itself. Within Oracle 23ai, there's a number of new features. One of those cool features is something called lock-free reservation columns. So this allows you to have a row, a single row within a table and you can identify a column within that row that's like an inventory column. And you can have multiple different users and multiple different transactions all updating that column within that same exact row at that same time. So you no longer have row-level locking for these reservation columns. And it allows you to do things like shopping carts very easily. If I have 500 widgets to sell, I'm going to let any number of transactions come in and subtract from that inventory column. And then once it gets below a certain point, then I'll start enforcing that row-level locking. 04:43 Lois: That's really cool… Nick: The one key thing that I wanted to mention here is that because of the way that the lock-free reservations work, you can have multiple transactions open on the same row. This is only supported for Oracle to Oracle. You need to have that same lock-free reservation data type and availability on that target system if GoldenGate is going to replicate into it. 05:05 Nikita: Are there any new features related to the diagnosability and observability of GoldenGate?  Nick: We've improved the AWR reports in Oracle 23ai. There's now seven sections that are specific to Oracle GoldenGate to allow you to really go in and see exactly what the GoldenGate processes are doing and how they're behaving inside the database itself. And there's a Replication Performance Advisor package inside that database, and that's been integrated into the Web UI as well. So now you can actually get information out of the replication advisor package in Oracle directly from the UI without having to log into the database and try to run any database procedures to get it. We've also added the ability to support a per-PDB Extract.  So in the past, when GoldenGate would run on a multitenant database, a multitenant database in Oracle, all the redo data from any pluggable database gets sent to that one redo stream. And so you would have to configure GoldenGate at the container or root level and it would be able to access anything at any PDB. Now, there's better security and better performance by doing what we call per-PDB Extract. And this means that for a single pluggable database, I can have an extract that runs at that database level that's going to capture information just from that pluggable database. 06:22 Lois And what about non-Oracle environments, Nick? Nick: We've also enhanced the non-Oracle environments as well. For example, in Postgres, we've added support for precise instantiation using Postgres snapshots. This eliminates the need to handle collisions when you're doing Postgres to Postgres replication and initial instantiation. On the GoldenGate for big data side, we've renamed that product more aptly to distributed applications in analytics, which is really what it does, and we've added a whole bunch of new features here too. The ability to move data into Databricks, doing Google Pub/Sub delivery. We now have support for XAG within the GoldenGate for distributed applications and analytics. What that means is that now you can follow all of our MAA best practices for GoldenGate for Oracle, but it also works for the DAA product as well, meaning that if it's running on one node of a cluster and that node fails, it'll restart itself on another node in the cluster. We've also added the ability to deliver data to Redis, Google BigQuery, stage and merge functionality for better performance into the BigQuery product. And then we've added a completely new feature, and this is something called streaming data and apps and we're calling it AsyncAPI and CloudEvent data streaming. It's a long name, but what that means is that we now have the ability to publish changes from a GoldenGate trail file out to end users. And so this allows through the Web UI or through the REST API, you can now come into GoldenGate and through the distributed applications and analytics product, actually set up a subscription to a GoldenGate trail file. And so this allows us to push data into messaging environments, or you can simply subscribe to changes and it doesn't have to be the whole trail file, it can just be a subset. You can specify exactly which tables and you can put filters on that. You can also set up your topologies as well. So, it's a really cool feature that we've added here. 08:26 Nikita: Ok, you've given us a lot of updates about what GoldenGate can support. But can we also get some specifics? Nick: So as far as what we have, on the Oracle Database side, there's a ton of different Oracle databases we support, including the Autonomous Databases and all the different flavors of them, your Oracle Database Appliance, your Base Database Service within OCI, your of course, Standard and Enterprise Edition, as well as all the different flavors of Exadata, are all supported with GoldenGate. This is all for capture and delivery. And this is all versions as well. GoldenGate supports Oracle 23ai and below. We also have a ton of non-Oracle databases in different Cloud stores. On an non-Oracle side, we support everything from application-specific databases like FairCom DB, all the way to more advanced applications like Snowflake, which there's a vast user base for that. We also support a lot of different cloud stores and these again, are non-Oracle, nonrelational systems, or they can be relational databases. We also support a lot of big data platforms and this is part of the distributed applications and analytics side of things where you have the ability to replicate to different Apache environments, different Cloudera environments. We also support a number of open-source systems, including things like Apache Cassandra, MySQL Community Edition, a lot of different Postgres open source databases along with MariaDB. And then we have a bunch of streaming event products, NoSQL data stores, and even Oracle applications that we support. So there's absolutely a ton of different environments that GoldenGate supports. There are additional Oracle databases that we support and this includes the Oracle Metadata Service, as well as Oracle MySQL, including MySQL HeatWave. Oracle also has Oracle NoSQL Spatial and Graph and times 10 products, which again are all supported by GoldenGate. 10:23 Lois: Wow, that's a lot of information! Nick: One of the things that we didn't really cover was the different SaaS applications, which we've got like Cerner, Fusion Cloud, Hospitality, Retail, MICROS, Oracle Transportation, JD Edwards, Siebel, and on and on and on.  And again, because of the nature of GoldenGate, it's heterogeneous. Any source can talk to any target. And so it doesn't have to be, oh, I'm pulling from Oracle Fusion Cloud, that means I have to go to an Oracle Database on the target, not necessarily.  10:51 Lois: So, there's really a massive amount of flexibility built into the system.  11:00 Unlock the power of AI Vector Search with our new course and certification. Get more accurate search results, handle complex datasets easily, and supercharge your data-driven decisions. From now through May 15, 2025, we are waiving the certification exam fee (valued at $245). Visit mylearn.oracle.com to enroll. 11:26 Nikita: Welcome back! Now that we've gone through the base product, what other features or products are in the GoldenGate family itself, Nick? Nick: So we have quite a few. We've kind of touched already on GoldenGate for Oracle databases and non-Oracle databases. We also have something called GoldenGate for Mainframe, which right now is covered under the GoldenGate for non-Oracle, but there is a licensing difference there. So that's something to be aware of. We also have the OCI GoldenGate product. We are announcing and we have announced that OCI GoldenGate will also be made available as part of the Oracle Database@Azure and Oracle Database@ Google Cloud partnerships.  And then you'll be able to use that vendor's cloud credits to actually pay for the OCI GoldenGate product. One of the cool things about this is it will have full feature parity with OCI GoldenGate running in OCI. So all the same features, all the same sources and targets, all the same topologies be able to migrate data in and out of those clouds at will, just like you do with OCI GoldenGate today running in OCI.  We have Oracle GoldenGate Free.  This is a completely free edition of GoldenGate to use. It is limited on the number of platforms that it supports as far as sources and targets and the size of the database.  12:45 Lois: But it's a great way for developers to really experience GoldenGate without worrying about a license, right? What's next, Nick? Nick: We have GoldenGate for Distributed Applications and Analytics, which was formerly called GoldenGate for big data, and that allows us to do all the streaming. That's also where the GoldenGate AsyncAPI integration is done. So in order to publish the GoldenGate trail files or allow people to subscribe to them, it would be covered under the Oracle GoldenGate Distributed Applications and Analytics license. We also have OCI GoldenGate Marketplace, which allows you to run essentially the on-premises version of GoldenGate but within OCI. So a little bit more flexibility there. It also has a hub architecture. So if you need that 99.99% availability, you can get it within the OCI Marketplace environment. We have GoldenGate for Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control, which used to be called Oracle Enterprise Manager. And this allows you to use Enterprise Manager Cloud Control to get all the statistics and details about GoldenGate. So all the reporting information, all the analytics, all the statistics, how fast GoldenGate is replicating, what's the lag, what's the performance of each of the processes, how much data am I sending across a network. All that's available within the plug-in. We also have Oracle GoldenGate Veridata. This is a nice utility and tool that allows you to compare two databases, whether or not GoldenGate is running between them and actually tell you, hey, these two systems are out of sync. And if they are out of sync, it actually allows you to repair the data too. 14:25 Nikita: That's really valuable…. Nick: And it does this comparison without locking the source or the target tables. The other really cool thing about Veridata is it does this while there's data in flight. So let's say that the GoldenGate lag is 15 or 20 seconds and I want to compare this table that has 10 million rows in it. The Veridata product will go out, run its comparison once. Once that comparison is done the first time, it's then going to have a list of rows that are potentially out of sync. Well, some of those rows could have been moved over or could have been modified during that 10 to 15 second window. And so the next time you run Veridata, it's actually going to go through. It's going to check just those rows that were potentially out of sync to see if they're really out of sync or not. And if it comes back and says, hey, out of those potential rows, there's two out of sync, it'll actually produce a script that allows you to resynchronize those systems and repair them. So it's a very cool product.  15:19 Nikita: What about GoldenGate Stream Analytics? I know you mentioned it in the last episode, but in the context of this discussion, can you tell us a little more about it?  Nick: This is the ability to essentially stream data from a GoldenGate trail file, and they do a real time analytics on it. And also things like geofencing or real-time series analysis of it.  15:40 Lois: Could you give us an example of this? Nick: If I'm working in tracking stock market information and stocks, it's not really that important on how much or how far down a stock goes. What's really important is how quickly did that stock rise or how quickly did that stock fall. And that's something that GoldenGate Stream Analytics product can do. Another thing that it's very valuable for is the geofencing. I can have an application on my phone and I can track where the user is based on that application and all that information goes into a database. I can then use the geofencing tool to say that, hey, if one of those users on that app gets within a certain distance of one of my brick-and-mortar stores, I can actually send them a push notification to say, hey, come on in and you can order your favorite drink just by clicking Yes, and we'll have it ready for you. And so there's a lot of things that you can do there to help upsell your customers and to get more revenue just through GoldenGate itself. And then we also have a GoldenGate Migration Utility, which allows customers to migrate from the classic architecture into the microservices architecture. 16:44 Nikita: Thanks Nick for that comprehensive overview.  Lois: In our next episode, we'll have Nick back with us to talk about commonly used terminology and the GoldenGate architecture. And if you want to learn more about what we discussed today, visit mylearn.oracle.com and take a look at the Oracle GoldenGate 23ai Fundamentals course. Until next time, this is Lois Houston… Nikita: And Nikita Abraham, signing off! 17:10 That's all for this episode of the Oracle University Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please click Subscribe to get all the latest episodes. We'd also love it if you would take a moment to rate and review us on your podcast app. See you again on the next episode of the Oracle University Podcast.

In a new season of the Oracle University Podcast, Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham dive into the world of Oracle GoldenGate 23ai, a cutting-edge software solution for data management. They are joined by Nick Wagner, a seasoned expert in database replication, who provides a comprehensive overview of this powerful tool.   Nick highlights GoldenGate's ability to ensure continuous operations by efficiently moving data between databases and platforms with minimal overhead. He emphasizes its role in enabling real-time analytics, enhancing data security, and reducing costs by offloading data to low-cost hardware. The discussion also covers GoldenGate's role in facilitating data sharing, improving operational efficiency, and reducing downtime during outages.   Oracle GoldenGate 23ai: Fundamentals: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/oracle-goldengate-23ai-fundamentals/145884/237273 Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/ X: https://x.com/Oracle_Edu   Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, Kris-Ann Nansen, Radhika Banka, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode. ---------------------------------------------------------------   Episode Transcript: 00:00 Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we'll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let's get started! 00:25 Nikita: Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast! I'm Nikita Abraham, Team Lead: Editorial Services with Oracle University, and with me is Lois Houston: Director of Innovation Programs. Lois: Hi everyone! Welcome to a new season of the podcast. This time, we're focusing on the fundamentals of Oracle GoldenGate. Oracle GoldenGate helps organizations manage and synchronize their data across diverse systems and databases in real time.  And with the new Oracle GoldenGate 23ai release, we'll uncover the latest innovations and features that empower businesses to make the most of their data. Nikita: Taking us through this is Nick Wagner, Senior Director of Product Management for Oracle GoldenGate. He's been doing database replication for about 25 years and has been focused on GoldenGate on and off for about 20 of those years.  01:18 Lois: In today's episode, we'll ask Nick to give us a general overview of the product, along with some use cases and benefits. Hi Nick! To start with, why do customers need GoldenGate? Nick: Well, it delivers continuous operations, being able to continuously move data from one database to another database or data platform in efficiently and a high-speed manner, and it does this with very low overhead. Almost all the GoldenGate environments use transaction logs to pull the data out of the system, so we're not creating any additional triggers or very little overhead on that source system. GoldenGate can also enable real-time analytics, being able to pull data from all these different databases and move them into your analytics system in real time can improve the value that those analytics systems provide. Being able to do real-time statistics and analysis of that data within those high-performance custom environments is really important. 02:13 Nikita: Does it offer any benefits in terms of cost?  Nick: GoldenGate can also lower IT costs. A lot of times people run these massive OLTP databases, and they are running reporting in those same systems. With GoldenGate, you can offload some of the data or all the data to a low-cost commodity hardware where you can then run the reports on that other system. So, this way, you can get back that performance on the OLTP system, while at the same time optimizing your reporting environment for those long running reports. You can improve efficiencies and reduce risks. Being able to reduce the amount of downtime during planned and unplanned outages can really make a big benefit to the overall operational efficiencies of your company.  02:54 Nikita: What about when it comes to data sharing and data security? Nick: You can also reduce barriers to data sharing. Being able to pull subsets of data, or just specific pieces of data out of a production database and move it to the team or to the group that needs that information in real time is very important. And it also protects the security of your data by only moving in the information that they need and not the entire database. It also provides extensibility and flexibility, being able to support multiple different replication topologies and architectures. 03:24 Lois: Can you tell us about some of the use cases of GoldenGate? Where does GoldenGate truly shine?  Nick: Some of the more traditional use cases of GoldenGate include use within the multicloud fabric. Within a multicloud fabric, this essentially means that GoldenGate can replicate data between on-premise environments, within cloud environments, or hybrid, cloud to on-premise, on-premise to cloud, or even within multiple clouds. So, you can move data from AWS to Azure to OCI. You can also move between the systems themselves, so you don't have to use the same database in all the different clouds. For example, if you wanted to move data from AWS Postgres into Oracle running in OCI, you can do that using Oracle GoldenGate. We also support maximum availability architectures. And so, there's a lot of different use cases here, but primarily geared around reducing your recovery point objective and recovery time objective. 04:20 Lois: Ah, reducing RPO and RTO. That must have a significant advantage for the customer, right? Nick: So, reducing your RPO and RTO allows you to take advantage of some of the benefits of GoldenGate, being able to do active-active replication, being able to set up GoldenGate for high availability, real-time failover, and it can augment your active Data Guard and Data Guard configuration. So, a lot of times GoldenGate is used within Oracle's maximum availability architecture platinum tier level of replication, which means that at that point you've got lots of different capabilities within the Oracle Database itself. But to help eke out that last little bit of high availability, you want to set up an active-active environment with GoldenGate to really get true zero RPO and RTO. GoldenGate can also be used for data offloading and data hubs. Being able to pull data from one or more source systems and move it into a data hub, or into a data warehouse for your operational reporting. This could also be your analytics environment too. 05:22 Nikita: Does GoldenGate support online migrations? Nick: In fact, a lot of companies actually get started in GoldenGate by doing a migration from one platform to another. Now, these don't even have to be something as complex as going from one database like a DB2 on-premise into an Oracle on OCI, it could even be simple migrations. A lot of times doing something like a major application or a major database version upgrade is going to take downtime on that production system. You can use GoldenGate to eliminate that downtime. So this could be going from Oracle 19c to Oracle 23ai, or going from application version 1.0 to application version 2.0, because GoldenGate can do the transformation between the different application schemas. You can use GoldenGate to migrate your database from on premise into the cloud with no downtime as well. We also support real-time analytic feeds, being able to go from multiple databases, not only those on premise, but being able to pull information from different SaaS applications inside of OCI and move it to your different analytic systems. And then, of course, we also have the ability to stream events and analytics within GoldenGate itself.  06:34 Lois: Let's move on to the various topologies supported by GoldenGate. I know GoldenGate supports many different platforms and can be used with just about any database. Nick: This first layer of topologies is what we usually consider relational database topologies. And so this would be moving data from Oracle to Oracle, Postgres to Oracle, Sybase to SQL Server, a lot of different types of databases. So the first architecture would be unidirectional. This is replicating from one source to one target. You can do this for reporting. If I wanted to offload some reports into another server, I can go ahead and do that using GoldenGate. I can replicate the entire database or just a subset of tables. I can also set up GoldenGate for bidirectional, and this is what I want to set up GoldenGate for something like high availability. So in the event that one of the servers crashes, I can almost immediately reconnect my users to the other system. And that almost immediately depends on the amount of latency that GoldenGate has at that time. So a typical latency is anywhere from 3 to 6 seconds. So after that primary system fails, I can reconnect my users to the other system in 3 to 6 seconds. And I can do that because as GoldenGate's applying data into that target database, that target system is already open for read and write activity. GoldenGate is just another user connecting in issuing DML operations, and so it makes that failover time very low. 07:59 Nikita: Ok…If you can get it down to 3 to 6 seconds, can you bring it down to zero? Like zero failover time?   Nick: That's the next topology, which is active-active. And in this scenario, all servers are read/write all at the same time and all available for user activity. And you can do multiple topologies with this as well. You can do a mesh architecture, which is where every server talks to every other server. This works really well for 2, 3, 4, maybe even 5 environments, but when you get beyond that, having every server communicate with every other server can get a little complex. And so at that point we start looking at doing what we call a hub and spoke architecture, where we have lots of different spokes. At the end of each spoke is a read/write database, and then those communicate with a hub. So any change that happens on one spoke gets sent into the hub, and then from the hub it gets sent out to all the other spokes. And through that architecture, it allows you to really scale up your environments. We have customers that are doing up to 150 spokes within that hub architecture. Within active-active replication as well, we can do conflict detection and resolution, which means that if two users modify the same row on two different systems, GoldenGate can actually determine that there was an issue with that and determine what user wins or which row change wins, which is extremely important when doing active-active replication. And this means that if one of those systems fails, there is no downtime when you switch your users to another active system because it's already available for activity and ready to go. 09:35 Lois: Wow, that's fantastic. Ok, tell us more about the topologies. Nick: GoldenGate can do other things like broadcast, sending data from one system to multiple systems, or many to one as far as consolidation. We can also do cascading replication, so when data moves from one environment that GoldenGate is replicating into another environment that GoldenGate is replicating. By default, we ignore all of our own transactions. But there's actually a toggle switch that you can flip that says, hey, GoldenGate, even though you wrote that data into that database, still push it on to the next system. And then of course, we can also do distribution of data, and this is more like moving data from a relational database into something like a Kafka topic or a JMS queue or into some messaging service. 10:24 Raise your game with the Oracle Cloud Applications skills challenge. Get free training on Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications, Oracle Modern Best Practice, and Oracle Cloud Success Navigator. Pass the free Oracle Fusion Cloud Foundations Associate exam to earn a Foundations Associate certification. Plus, there's a chance to win awards and prizes throughout the challenge! What are you waiting for? Join the challenge today by visiting visit oracle.com/education. 10:58 Nikita: Welcome back! Nick, does GoldenGate also have nonrelational capabilities?  Nick: We have a number of nonrelational replication events in topologies as well. This includes things like data lake ingestion and streaming ingestion, being able to move data and data objects from these different relational database platforms into data lakes and into these streaming systems where you can run analytics on them and run reports. We can also do cloud ingestion, being able to move data from these databases into different cloud environments. And this is not only just moving it into relational databases with those clouds, but also their data lakes and data fabrics. 11:38 Lois: You mentioned a messaging service earlier. Can you tell us more about that? Nick: Messaging replication is also possible. So we can actually capture from things like messaging systems like Kafka Connect and JMS, replicate that into a relational data, or simply stream it into another environment. We also support NoSQL replication, being able to capture from MongoDB and replicate it onto another MongoDB for high availability or disaster recovery, or simply into any other system. 12:06 Nikita: I see. And is there any integration with a customer's SaaS applications? Nick: GoldenGate also supports a number of different OCI SaaS applications. And so a lot of these different applications like Oracle Financials Fusion, Oracle Transportation Management, they all have GoldenGate built under the covers and can be enabled with a flag that you can actually have that data sent out to your other GoldenGate environment. So you can actually subscribe to changes that are happening in these other systems with very little overhead. And then of course, we have event processing and analytics, and this is the final topology or flexibility within GoldenGate itself. And this is being able to push data through data pipelines, doing data transformations. GoldenGate is not an ETL tool, but it can do row-level transformation and row-level filtering.  12:55 Lois: Are there integrations offered by Oracle GoldenGate in automation and artificial intelligence? Nick: We can do time series analysis and geofencing using the GoldenGate Stream Analytics product. It allows you to actually do real time analysis and time series analysis on data as it flows through the GoldenGate trails. And then that same product, the GoldenGate Stream Analytics, can then take the data and move it to predictive analytics, where you can run MML on it, or ONNX or other Spark-type technologies and do real-time analysis and AI on that information as it's flowing through.  13:29 Nikita: So, GoldenGate is extremely flexible. And given Oracle's focus on integrating AI into its product portfolio, what about GoldenGate? Does it offer any AI-related features, especially since the product name has “23ai” in it? Nick: With the advent of Oracle GoldenGate 23ai, it's one of the two products at this point that has the AI moniker at Oracle. Oracle Database 23ai also has it, and that means that we actually do stuff with AI. So the Oracle GoldenGate product can actually capture vectors from databases like MySQL HeatWave, Postgres using pgvector, which includes things like AlloyDB, Amazon RDS Postgres, Aurora Postgres. We can also replicate data into Elasticsearch and OpenSearch, or if the data is using vectors within OCI or the Oracle Database itself. So GoldenGate can be used for a number of things here. The first one is being able to migrate vectors into the Oracle Database. So if you're using something like Postgres, MySQL, and you want to migrate the vector information into the Oracle Database, you can. Now one thing to keep in mind here is a vector is oftentimes like a GPS coordinate. So if I need to know the GPS coordinates of Austin, Texas, I can put in a latitude and longitude and it will give me the GPS coordinates of a building within that city. But if I also need to know the altitude of that same building, well, that's going to be a different algorithm. And GoldenGate and replicating vectors is the same way. When you create a vector, it's essentially just creating a bunch of numbers under the screen, kind of like those same GPS coordinates. The dimension and the algorithm that you use to generate that vector can be different across different databases, but the actual meaning of that data will change. And so GoldenGate can replicate the vector data as long as the algorithm and the dimensions are the same. If the algorithm and the dimensions are not the same between the source and the target, then you'll actually want GoldenGate to replicate the base data that created that vector. And then once GoldenGate replicates the base data, it'll actually call the vector embedding technology to re-embed that data and produce that numerical formatting for you.  15:42 Lois: So, there are some nuances there… Nick: GoldenGate can also replicate and consolidate vector changes or even do the embedding API calls itself. This is really nice because it means that we can take changes from multiple systems and consolidate them into a single one. We can also do the reverse of that too. A lot of customers are still trying to find out which algorithms work best for them. How many dimensions? What's the optimal use? Well, you can now run those in different servers without impacting your actual AI system. Once you've identified which algorithm and dimension is going to be best for your data, you can then have GoldenGate replicate that into your production system and we'll start using that instead. So it's a nice way to switch algorithms without taking extensive downtime. 16:29 Nikita: What about in multicloud environments?  Nick: GoldenGate can also do multicloud and N-way active-active Oracle replication between vectors. So if there's vectors in Oracle databases, in multiple clouds, or multiple on-premise databases, GoldenGate can synchronize them all up. And of course we can also stream changes from vector information, including text as well into different search engines. And that's where the integration with Elasticsearch and OpenSearch comes in. And then we can use things like NVIDIA and Cohere to actually do the AI on that data.  17:01 Lois: Using GoldenGate with AI in the database unlocks so many possibilities. Thanks for that detailed introduction to Oracle GoldenGate 23ai and its capabilities, Nick.  Nikita: We've run out of time for today, but Nick will be back next week to talk about how GoldenGate has evolved over time and its latest features. And if you liked what you heard today, head over to mylearn.oracle.com and take a look at the Oracle GoldenGate 23ai Fundamentals course to learn more. Until next time, this is Nikita Abraham… Lois: And Lois Houston, signing off! 17:33 That's all for this episode of the Oracle University Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please click Subscribe to get all the latest episodes. We'd also love it if you would take a moment to rate and review us on your podcast app. See you again on the next episode of the Oracle University Podcast.

Ever wonder what other people talk about with their financial advisors? A new survey of nearly 400 experienced advisors reveals the biggest concerns, challenges, and financial goals their clients are facing today. From retirement planning to healthcare costs to working longer than expected, we're breaking down the key takeaways and how they compare to what we see in our own client conversations.   Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com   Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. The topics and information discussed during this podcast are not intended to provide tax or legal advice. Investments involve risk, and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial advisor and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed on this podcast. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Insurance products and services are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed insurance agents.     Marc: Ever wonder what people are talking about with their financial advisors? Well this week on the show we're going to discuss a new survey of nearly 400 experienced advisors revealing the biggest concerns, challenges, and financial goals that their clients are facing. We'll see how that compares with what the guys see here on the show. Let's get into it this week on Retirement Planning - Redefined.   Welcome to the podcast, everybody. Thanks for hanging out with John and Nick and myself as we talk investing, finance and retirement. And guys, we're going to share this survey. We'll put a link into the show descriptions as well for folks that want to check it out, but want to run some of this information past you guys and see does that correlate with what you're seeing, do you think it's accurate, not accurate, and just spitball and talk a little bit about some of the stuff out here.   The survey was done of nearly 400 experienced advisors all with around 20 years or more of a business, practicing business, so interesting. They didn't really say exactly the age bracket of all the people they were talking to, so there could be some folks that are not necessarily retirement age. They could be younger as well as older, but I want to run down some of this stuff and just get your guys' take on it.   How you doing this week, John?   John: I'm doing well. Daylight savings is messing with me a little bit, but I'm adjusting pretty well. And one of my kids, actually both my kids, they're testing for an honor belt in karate.   Marc: Oh, nice.   John: So they're excited.   Marc: They're going to whoop on you. Be careful.   John: It's funny you say that. They're running around the house kicking me now. It's like I wanted to get them into some self-defense stuff, but now I'm getting kicked.   Marc: So now you got to walk around with some pads on.   John: Pretty much.   Marc: Make sure you're not getting beat up too much. Very cool. Well watch the shins, man. They'll get you in the shins.   Nick, how you doing, buddy?   Nick: Good. We're staying busy.   Marc: He's like, "Good." Well, let's break this down a little bit, guys.   John: That's the sound of a guy that's in the middle of planning a wedding.   Marc: Right? That's what I was just thinking. He's like, "I got to make another decision. I don't want to make a decision." Let's jump into this and we'll see if we can make this easy for you this week, Nick.   So seeking out a financial advisor, the first part of this survey, advisors in the survey said 52% of their clients have sought out financial advisors to help with the retirement planning. About 34% surveyed were just looking for somebody to build wealth with. And in an era where everybody can call themselves a financial advisor, does that strike you as interesting? What do you guys think about that, 52% looking for retirement planning versus 34 just looking for some sort of wealth building, whoever wants to start?   John: Yeah, those numbers seem accurate to me. Well, I guess I'm a little surprised it's not more looking for help with retirement planning.   Marc: Okay.   John: I'd say the majority of our clients are retirement planning based, "Hey, I want to make sure my plan's good. I want to make sure I don't outlive my money." As far as building wealth, that does come up quite a bit, and Nick will jump in as well, but I'd say most of our clients are looking for retirement planning and just making sure they're on track and making sure that they're making the right decisions.   Marc: And it's two different mindsets too, right, Nick? I mean, so you need to decide what it is that you're looking for. I mean, not to say that you couldn't work with a retirement planner who also can help you with some of the wealth building, but it is a different skillset as well. If you're just looking for someone only to help you build the wealth, that's a little bit easier, I would think.   Nick: Yeah, and I would almost, if I were to say maybe put that in other words, we talk with people at the three phases of money as far as their life goes are accumulation or growth, distribution, taking their money in retirement and then transfer when they leave money. And so I would say from that initial, that wealth building, that's most likely accumulation focused. And because so many people accumulate their money while working in their 401(k)s and that kind of thing, I think it tends to be a little bit of a different conversation and it's those people that as you get closer to retirement. So without having ages, it does make it, the numbers are interesting, and I agree with John, I would've thought maybe it'd be a little bit higher from the standpoint of the retirement planning side, but-   Marc: Well, I mean, if you're just trying to grow the money, again the market's been, obviously we haven't had a prolonged downturn, and it's been choppy here lately, but we haven't had a prolonged downturn since '08, '09, so there's a lot of information out there about saying it's a little bit easier to build the wealth. But the preservation stage, which retirement is a little bit more complicated. There's more things going on than just the portfolio.   But with that in mind, check this out. Over half of the survey of financial advisors said the average client asset minimum was 760,000. I found that to be good. I know different areas are going to be more or less depending on the economic state of the area, but when you often hear that people aren't doing a very good job saving for their retirement future, three quarters of a million dollars is not bad.   Nick: It's definitely interesting to see the numbers and how they've changed over the last five to seven years where, and you mentioned it earlier where we've had a long prolonged period of time with the market going up, and so there's quite a bit of people meeting with us or ending up with more money than they had thought that they would or that sort of thing. There's a little bit of concern with that that only lasts for so long and that there's some correction and all that kind of stuff to happen. But absolutely, definitely that puts most people in the wheelhouse of where they need to be to have a successful retirement.   Marc: I mean, it's not bad. John, do you guys have a minimum? I mean, I know different advisor firms do different things. You can't service everybody. There's only so many hours in a day. So you'll hear something where somebody says, "Well, we work with people with 250,000 who have saved or more in assets," or some or a million or whatever. Do you guys have a breakdown?   Nick: We don't have a set minimum that we advertise or market.   Marc: Okay.   Nick: I would say that the majority of the people that meet with us tend to have what many institutions have as their minimum. So in other words, a lot of places will tell people, like you referred to that, they're looking to work with clients that have 250,000 or more just from an efficiency standpoint of trying to make sure that they can service their clients and that sort of thing, and so we end up above that with most clients. But the reality is, is that the conversations that we have with clients are really we don't keep that rule set in stone because for us, it's more of a relationship-based.   Marc: Individually based kind of thing? Okay.   Nick: Yeah, and really it's something we're looking for people that are serious about planning. I would say if you were to draw a line between what we were talking about earlier where a growth or retirement planning in a more broadly focused strategy, so they're focused on that. They're serious about it. We reference like, "Hey, we don't want to convince you that you needed an advisor. We want you to know that you need one and we want to interview for the job," kind of concept.   Marc: No, that makes sense because I mean if you're giving suggestions and someone's not willing to take them, you're just wasting each other's time versus... Yeah.   Nick: Exactly, and we found that that'll waste more time than in theory working with somebody that maybe isn't where they're going to be yet. And also-   Marc: It needs to be a reciprocal relationship.   Nick: For sure. Communication's super important for us because we've also found that we've had people come in that maybe are under that 250, but their parents are wealthy and they ended up being a teacher or something that maybe didn't allow them to save as much money as some sorts of jobs, and they're going to inherit money and they need assistance that way. So I'd say we're pretty comfortable with our process and how we approach that sort of thing and really look for it on a relationship basis, communication basis, and how we all get along.   Marc: That makes sense. And it's got to be a two-way street. I mean, when we do the podcast, it's not designed to turn every listener into a client if they're not already a client, but it is designed to say, "Hey, if it's the right relationship field going both ways, then we're happy to help if we can." That's pretty cool. So that's a good way of looking at that.   John, check out some of these top concerns. Let me know what you think here. So no surprise, number one, outliving their assets, 38% of the people surveyed. That's pretty much always number one, right? Outliving your money.   John: Yeah.   Marc: 31%, generating reliable income streams, a pretty high number as well.   John: Yes.   Marc: Okay. Then it drops off to a pretty stark, down to 12% for a future stock market crash. Now with some context here, this survey was completed at the end of last year, so it was December of '24. Do you think that number's gone up recently?   John: I would willing to bet that number's gone up. I think we were talking about the market, the last real big downturn was '08, and I think in the last 10 years, we've only had two years of the market being down, the S&P 500. I think it was, what, '22 and 2014, I believe.   Nick: I'd almost say that's a leading indicator that there's going to be, it's one of those things. Once people get that comfortable, that's usually when it comes.   Marc: I mean, it's been a while, right? So because nobody's worried about it whenever it's riding high. We only seem to worry about it whenever we're in the middle of it falling a little bit. But the one that really surprises me is all the way down to 8% for healthcare costs. Now if you guys are focused more on helping people with retirement planning and strategies, that to me, again depending on the ages of the people that answered this survey, healthcare costs at 8% seems awfully low because it's pretty costly, and we need to be having those conversations when we're, especially as we're getting older.   John: Yeah, for sure. This one, it is very important, and I think it's same thing we're talking about the stock market where it's been doing well. And when you're healthy-   Marc: It's great.   John: ...you think you're going to be healthy for a long time.   Marc: You don't think about it. Right, exactly.   John: You don't think about it all. It's back of your mind. I'll tell you where we see a lot of people concerned about it is if they had to do some care for their parents. Then it becomes top of mind of like, "Hey, this was a lot that I just went through." And taking care of them or seeing, whatever, if they have to go into a facility, and then in turn that's where we see the most of our clients that are concerned about healthcare costs is if they had to take care of a loved one.   Marc: Nick, according to the survey on that topic, advisors that were surveyed in this, were saying that clients should be more concerned about healthcare costs at around 54% unanticipated healthcare cost. Will you agree with that as well? Because I mean, obviously it comes out of the blue, it can totally derail the whole strategy.   Nick: Yeah, I think part of that is, from an advisor perspective, the whole concept of long-term care, obviously I'd say many advisors have a good grasp on long-term care, but I think it's become increasingly difficult for advisors to help clients plan for that with insurance or certain products that are out there. If we went back 10 years and from, let's just call it 2015 back through maybe 2005, that was the golden era per se for clients to be able to secure a reasonably priced policy from a long-term care perspective. So I think maybe that ties into the concern that advisors have is that at the end of the day it's a really expensive problem that clients can have, but it's also an expensive solution that a lot of clients are reticent to spend on something that may not be an issue, especially in a state like Florida where all of the insurance, people have serious insurance fatigue here.   Marc: Oh, I'm sure.   Nick: So it's a funny thing. The one time I actually answered a soliciting call earlier this morning was from State Farm calling me to, and they asked me if they could shop my car insurance for me, and I said, "Sure, let's try it." And sure enough, it was going to be $1,400 a year more than what I'm currently paying.   Marc: Thanks for the help.   Nick: And she laughed too, and she's like, "Well, can I call you in six months?" I was like, "You can try."   Marc: You can try.   Nick: I don't think you guys are going to come down that much. And so it's just crazy with what people are paying here. And so I think, long story short, I think that really ties into it as well for advisors.   Marc: And I'll hit you with this last one, John. I'll let you start and then I'll let Nick jump in if he wants to. And again, this survey was completed at the end of last year, so you can't take the current market downturn into this conversation. But according to the survey, an average of 63% of clients age 55 or older intended to work to 65 and beyond. 63% of people wanted to continue working up to 65 or beyond, yet only 30% of those clients are actually still doing it. So I guess my question is, does this surprise you that people want to keep working longer? And if so, what are some of the main reasons why you guys are seeing people want to work into their older ages?   John: It doesn't surprise me. I think with the shift really since COVID of being able to work remote, I've seen a lot of people that sit there now thinking like, hey, I work from home. I can travel still and log in. And it's given them a comfort of just saying, yeah, I'm making good money. I can continue to do this.   Marc: Feather than nest some more, right?   John: Yeah, so it's just building up the nest egg and allows them maybe to feel comfortable doing some more travel that they otherwise maybe wouldn't have felt so comfortable doing. We talked about the fears of outliving your assets, so I've seen a lot of that. And then there's a lot of studies out there saying, just keeping sharp of mind. So I've seen that where people are like, "Hey, I don't want to retire because I want to stay active. I want to have a purpose and continue to do things." So I think I'm not surprised by that number.   Marc: Interesting.   John: Because we're having more conversations of people wanting to work longer because they enjoy what they're doing. And with Zoom, it's become very easy to continue to work longer.   Marc: Well Nick, I'll give you this last piece here. 48% of those people feel like they don't have enough saved to live on through retirement. I mean, you're talking about half. So half of the people surveyed don't think they have enough, so that sounds like it just comes back to just not truly having a plan or even really knowing what it is that you've got. They've probably never sat down and really pulled this stuff together so they don't feel confident.   Nick: Correct. I think you nailed it there. The uncertainty of not having a plan and not knowing and understanding what things look like really oftentimes causes procrastination, and then all of a sudden it's 5, 7, 10 years later and there could have been a couple of small tweaks or a couple of small adjustments. I mean, in reality, there's been so many times when within 30 minutes if John and I meeting with somebody the initial time, we can tell three to five things that they could do that wouldn't have a significant impact on their life, but would have a significant impact from a positive perspective on their overall planning. And so whether it's informing themselves and holding themselves accountable or working with an advisor, which we have found, and there's been a ton of studies that have found that having that partner to help guide them through the decision-making process, that there's significant value there and the average rates of return and all that kind of stuff show that because of the decision-making.   Marc: Well, think about what you're going through with the wedding planning stuff. So there was a thing a couple years ago we were talking about, some of the most stressful events we can do in life, one of them was planning for a wedding. One of them was planning for retirement, right?   Nick: Yeah.   Marc: There's a lot of decisions to be made. And so having somebody to lean on I think goes a long way into removing some of that stress because it does get overwhelming. And at some points you're just like, ah, screw it. I don't even know what to do anymore. So being able to talk with guys like yourselves and say, "Okay, look. Here's some thoughts we had," or, "Here's what we were afraid of," or whatever the case is, it gives you that sounding board to bounce some ideas off of and maybe get some reassurance.   Nick: Yep, fully agree.   Marc: Yeah, and so are you having that same problem from the wedding standpoint?   Nick: Right now we're interviewing planners-   Marc: There you go.   Nick: ...and the prices have gone up, so it's-   Marc: But you're looking for help, right, because it's a lot.   Nick: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.   Marc: John, you don't want to be the wedding planner?   John: No, no. I did that 12 years ago-   Marc: I got you.   John: ...and I want no part of that.   Marc: I got you. Well, all right, guys, good conversation as always. Thanks so much for hanging out. So at the end of the day, I mean you find these surveys are pretty interesting. And I think a lot of this stuff comes back fairly similar each time, is that people are looking for some assurance. They're looking for some clarity in some of these situations, so that's the point of running through the planning process is finding out what do you got, where do you stand and how's it working for you, and do you need to make some changes?   Often people feel like we're going to have to do some major overhaul, and it scares them. But a lot of times when you run through the planning process, many people are in better shape than they realize. You just need some tweaks here and there. So if you want to have those conversations for yourself, reach out to John and Nick and get started today at pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com. Get yourself onto the calendar for a consultation and a conversation.   And don't forget to subscribe to us on Apple or Spotify, whatever podcasting app you like using. Retirement Planning - Redefined is the name of the show with John and Nick, and we'll see you next time here on the program. Thanks, guys. Take care of yourself.

April Fool's Day is all about jokes and pranks, but when it comes to retirement planning, getting fooled can cost you real money. Today, we're uncovering the beliefs that fool retirees and pre-retirees into making bad financial moves.   Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com   Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. The topics and information discussed during this podcast are not intended to provide tax or legal advice. Investments involve risk, and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial advisor and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed on this podcast. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Insurance products and services are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed insurance agents.     Host: April Fool's Day is all about jokes and pranks, but when it comes to retirement planning, getting fooled can cost you some real money. So we're going to talk about that. A little early for April Fool's, maybe, but we're going to still talk about it this week here on the podcast. So let's get into it.   Hey, everybody, welcome to the show. Thanks for hanging out with us here on Retirement Planning Redefined, with John, and Nick, and myself, as we talk investing, finance, and retirement. And we're taping this a couple of weeks before April Fool's Day. It should drop right around there, but we'll have a conversation with the guys. What's going on, Nick, buddy, how are you?   Nick: Good, good. Staying busy.   Host: Yeah. Well, that's always good. Good stuff. John, I know you and I were just chatting before we got rolling, we're worn out. But you hanging in there?   John: Yeah, doing all right. And don't let Nick fool you, he's got a lot going on.   Host: He's got a lot going on.   John: You tell him the news.   Host: He did. Yeah.   Nick: John's favorite topic. Got engaged a little over a month ago.   Host: Awesome, awesome.   Nick: Yeah, in the full throws of wedding planning, which is, of course, extremely exciting.   Host: That you're doing a little of, or a lot of, or zero of?   Nick: I would say some impact. My fiance is originally from Columbia, and the way that they do things for weddings there is a lot different than here.   Host: Okay, cool.   Nick: So yeah, so there's a little bit of translation from that perspective.   Host: Nice, nice.   Nick: Yeah, that's interesting. But it'll be good.   Host: Very cool. Nice.   Nick: It'll be good.   Host: Well, congratulations. Very, very cool.   Nick: Thank you. Appreciate it.   Host: All the best to the newlyweds. Very good stuff. We won't pull any April Fool's Day pranks on you then, in that regard. We'll just take to the financial stuff here this week.   So the idea, guys, being that, look, the media is nonstop, the onslaught of social media, internet, whatever. There's always something out there. And you just want to make sure you're vetting some stuff before you... Fool's gold, right? Before you just jump into something and maybe make a mistake.   So we'll start with tax conversation. So as at this time that we're taping the podcast, we don't know if the TCJA will get extended or not. Odds are fairly good, we'll see how the year plays out. But if they don't, they expire at the end of the year, the current tax code that we're under.   So are you taking that information and maybe thinking, hey, I don't have to do any tax planning for the future, because maybe the taxes are going to stay really low like they have been historically? Or are you being proactive and saying, "Well, there's a chance that taxes could still go up, because we owe a lot of money"? So whoever wants to jump in, get started on that. But what do you think about the tax situation and not fooling yourself into just thinking everything's going to stay exactly the same?   Nick: Yeah, I can start with this one. So one of the things that we really emphasize with clients and people that we work with is, especially when it comes to taxes, that the best thing that you can do is to expect change. So whether it's something changing at the end of this year, a couple years from now, whatever it is, the goal is to allow yourself to be adaptable to whatever's happening.   So the easiest way to do that is to have different types of accounts. So to have Roth accounts, pre-tax accounts, and more of a traditional brokerage account where we can factor in capital gains instead.   But even more specific, when it comes to the whole concept of potentially underestimating taxes, there's still a lot of confusion for people on how much of their social security is going to be taxable, or include-able in their taxable income. I had a conversation with my parents about it, and I had to convince them that I was correct and knew what I was talking about after 20 years, because of a way that something that they heard on the radio or saw on TV was phrased, made it very confusing to them. So just-   Host: Sure, I mean, there's the conversation that they might get rid of it, but they haven't done it yet. So you still got to be planning for stuff.   Nick: Yeah. But even outside of that, the way... It was interesting, and I do want to bring it up now that I remember it.   Host: Sure.   Nick: The way that it was being marketed was that the concept of, "Hey, most people don't know that your social security, how much you pay in taxes on your social security will go up at age 73." And so, really, the concept of that was, "Hey, when required minimum distributions kick in, and you have more taxable income, there's a chance that more of your social security income will be include-able in your tax and how much you pay in taxes." So it was kind of a roundabout way to scare people. So it allowed us to have the conversation about, for a huge chunk of people, 85% of their social security is going to be include-able in their taxable income, at least how the law is now, and just how other types of income may impact that.   Host: Oh, and that's a great point though. That really highlights exactly the point of this conversation, is that depending on how you phrase things, it's very easy to get misled by stuff. And so that's a great illustration of that, Nick. So thank you for sharing that.   And it definitely walks that... And that's what all these are going to do. John, like the next one around Medicare misunderstandings. So my mom's forever, she's 83, she's forever going... And my brother's now, he's over 65, so she's educating him. She's schooling him on the stuff she's been doing for a while with Medicare. And it's like, it doesn't cover everything. And people still sometimes think that, "Hey, at least I've got to 65. Now I've got this Medicare thing. I'm in good shape." And it is a great program, in a lot of ways, but it doesn't cover everything.   John: Yeah, that's accurate. And a lot of people, unfortunately, don't realize that. And a big thing that, when you get Medicare age, age 65, Medicare has a lot of moving parts to it, and there's a lot of different options.   Host: Oh, yeah.   John: So depending on whether you go, let's say, on an Advantage Plan, if you're on Plan F, or G, you get the supplement, it's going to determine what is covered. And then, also, you want to look at, do your current providers even take Medicare? So you might be looking at it and think that you're going to be all set-   Host: Great point.   John: ... And then you come to find out that your provider who you like doesn't even take it. So yeah, it definitely does not cover everything. So when you're doing your planning, when we do it, we always try to make sure, "Hey, this is our set price for Medicare." Then we adjust as we determine what plan the client's going to go with or help them determine what's their best option. But also, you want to plan for some out-of-pocket medical expenses for what it doesn't cover.   Host: Yeah, I think she's changed her dentist a couple of times just because they don't take it anymore. They changed or whatever. And of course, dental being one of those things that people often don't realize is, a lot of stuff's not covered there.   John: And prescriptions.   Host: Yeah, and eye. The eye stuff is really interesting. Some of the eyeglass stuff, like going to the eye doctor for just basic optometry stuff is not covered. But then the cataract stuff, some of it was. So it's very strange. So you want to make sure you're understanding what is and what isn't taken care of there with Medicare. So that's certainly a good one as well.   Nick, what about the set it and forget it retirement plan strategy. When you're talking about things getting kind of mis-sold or kind of mislabeled out there, some people will be like, "Hey look, you got to get a plan together. You put stuff in there. You let it ride and you roll from there." Right? Well, some things can set it and forget it, but some things can't either.   Nick: Yeah. So kind of a good example of maybe the set it and forget it concept, saw come up a little bit more in the last couple of years, where had some clients that were moving towards retirement, and they had done a good job of saving and building up the nest egg, and they were somewhat familiar with, maybe take 4% a year and I can live off of 4% a year.   But with rates being in that point of time where we clicked up, where they could get four to five, five and a half percent in money market CDs, et cetera, they had kind of just said, "Hey, want to shift to the sidelines, want to avoid the market. I'm just going to take my 4-5% and live off the interest." And the conversations that we had to really have were, conceptually, that'll be good for now, for the next year or two. But most likely, there's going to be a point in time within the next three to five years that rates are going to change, and that 5% might turn into 3%, or two and a half percent.   And even on, let's just use 2 million bucks. So maybe they could do 5% on 2 million is a hundred grand a year, good to go. Now if we shift to two and a half, 50 grand a year off of the portfolio, with their intention of trying to maintain principle, that starts to rewind a little bit.   And so, it's a good example of realizing how the dynamics of a plan change, and that if you're only factoring in what's happening now, or in the next short term, next couple years, that not understanding updating and adjusting your plan to current circumstances, or maybe a broader sense of what could happen, could really put somebody in a difficult position.   Host: Yeah, that's a great point as well. So there's so much stuff you got to think about when you're factoring all these things in. And John, the market's been choppy. The time we're taping this, it's been a little choppy out there. So some of the tariff conversations-   John: Just a little bit.   Host: A little bit, or whatever is kind of making the market uneasy. But chasing and obsessing, not necessarily just over the market highs, but also high dividend stocks. So sometimes people will say, "Well, a good alternative to doing X or Y is to get high dividend stocks." What's some thoughts there?   John: There's different strategies for what you're trying to accomplish. And one of the problems with this one, especially if you're going to retirement and you're thinking of, "Hey, I'm just going to have high dividend paying stocks," is that those things can change. If all of a sudden we have a recession, or the economy's not doing well, or that particular company's not doing well, guess what they could do? They could just change your dividend.   So if you had a plan, going back to what Nick's example, they're like, "Hey, I've got this stock. It's giving me 4- 5%," and you think you're okay. And all of a sudden some news comes out and that dividend drops, and now your whole plan just slightly changed. So with dividend paying stocks, they're not guaranteed. And depending on how high of a dividend paying stock it is, the higher sometimes could be correlated with a little bit being more aggressive and more risk.   So I've seen, this actually reminds me of a meeting I just had this week, where someone was in talking to a friend of theirs, and they were trying to say, "Hey, just put all your stuff in these high dividend paying rates," and all these things. And I'm looking at it like, "Hey, this is pretty aggressive. You're getting a good yield. But if we have some type of pullback, not only will your dividend potentially go down, but the value of this stock could also drop."   Host: Sure. Yeah.   John: So it's just important to understand what you're in and what could change.   Nick: I think I'd also like to jump in on that.   Host: Sure.   Nick: Because I've had this conversation with some clients quite a bit. And one of the things that I tried to emphasize is that if we look over, because a lot of times the generation that's been drilled with dividend paying stocks is a generation now that's kind of entered into retirement, where they were really starting to invest in coming up through the period of higher interest rates, when dividend paying stocks perform better.   And frankly, if you look over the last 10, really post recession, post '09 and 2010 recession, in an environment with lower rates, if somebody was invested the last 15 years in only dividend paying stocks, then the returns that they have gotten are pennies compared to being involved in-   Host: Wow.   Nick: ... growth related investments. Think of tech, think of the Magnificent Seven now, think of all the areas of the massive growth over the last 10 or 15 years, and there was significant opportunity cost. So the environment that we're in, where those companies were really rewarded for, the cost of borrowing was low, the ability to reinvest and grow was high. Even when you factor in stock buybacks, I mean, you had companies that were making more money in stock buybacks than they were in producing their own products. So the environment of what's happening has a significant impact on that as well.   Host: That's great points, guys. So it's easy to get lulled into whatever kind of marketing, or whatever kind of news headline, or whatever the case is. So just make sure that you're not falling for it. Or at least not without vetting some things out and talking with your financial professionals.   So if you've got some questions, as always, you need some help, you should always run anything you hear by on our podcast, or really any other, even the big talking head shows, talk with someone local in your area about your unique situation so that you're getting some hands-on advice and conversation. And if you need some help, John, and Nick, and the team are available at pfgprivatewealth.com, that's pfgprivatewealth.com. So you can subscribe to the podcast. You can find it there. Of course, you can get some time on the calendar through the website, lots of good tools, tips, and resources. And of course, you can subscribe to us on Apple, or Spotify, or whatever podcasting app you like using.   So again, pfgprivatewealth.com. That's going to do it this week. Guys, thanks for hanging out, as always, and breaking it down. Congratulations once again, Nick, on the upcoming nuptials. And John, buddy, have a great week. We'll see you next time here on Retirement Planning Redefined.  

Savvy property management entrepreneurs are always on the lookout for new ways to expand their services and better serve their clients and residents. In this episode, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull chat with Nick Friedman, founder of College Hunks Hauling Junk and Trash Butler. You'll Learn [02:08] Becoming an entrepreneur [09:14] Daily trash removal for multifamily communities [16:45] A butler service for trash? How does it work? [19:47] Vetting team members [27:50] Junk removal services for property managers Tweetables “Property managers are that front-line resource for all things community.” “We've got to have urgency of effort, patience for the results.” “Culture drives behavior. Behavior drives results.” “Execution is a differentiator if you can out-execute everybody else.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Nick: I have come to realize, because we're in a blue collar industry ourselves, moving furniture and picking up trash at residents' doorsteps. Execution is a differentiator if you can out execute everybody else.  [00:00:14] Jason: All right. Welcome DoorGrowers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing a business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrower. DoorGrower property managers, love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges and freedom that property management brings. [00:00:39] Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not, because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. [00:00:56] We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management growth experts, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow and Sarah Hull, the co owner and COO of DoorGrow. [00:01:12] Now let's get into the show. All right. And our guest today is Nick Friedman. Did I say your name right?  [00:01:20] You got it right.  [00:01:21] Cool. And Nick has two different businesses. And why don't you introduce the two businesses and then I'd love to get into your background of how you got into entrepreneurship. [00:01:30] Nick: Absolutely. So two businesses that are relevant to property management, one is a doorstep amenity for apartment complexes called Trash Butler. It helps increase revenue and net operating income for the communities while also providing an amenity for the residents and that kind of incubated out of our first company that we launched, which is a company called College Hunks Hauling Junk and Moving. I'm a little more widely known for that business that I started back in college. It's a moving and bulk removal service that now has over 300 franchises across the U.S. So it's been a fun journey and a very entrepreneurial journey to say the least. [00:02:08] Jason: Awesome. So Nick, when did you first realize you were an entrepreneur that you were a little bit weird?  [00:02:13] Nick: I would have to say in retrospect, it was all the way into my early days of childhood. My sister had a lemonade stand in front of our house. She wanted to charge 25 cents for lemonade. I went out and started a competing lemonade next to hers and I wanted to charge a dollar for my lemonade because I thought my lemonade was better and I think we probably sold the same amount of cups, but I made four times the amount of money than she did because I was charging a dollar then she was charging 25 cents. So in hindsight, I think I would always do some out of the box things. My teachers would call me a little bit restless. But really our business innovation took place when we were in college. Because we had always been brought up and told to follow the more traditional career path, work hard in school, get good grades, get a job after you graduate, climb up that ladder. [00:02:56] And the summer before my senior year of college. My buddy's mom had a beat up cargo van from her furniture store and she said, "why don't you guys go do something with the van? You guys could move furniture, haul trash, you guys could be like college hunks who haul junk," and we just started laughing about it decided to put that on flyers and the phone started ringing so we were in business and realized that the name was catchy. [00:03:18] People appreciated quality service and and that was the light bulb moment for us to pursue a career of entrepreneurship and not the traditional path.  [00:03:26] Jason: There you go. So thank goodness for that truck, right? That's right. Changed your life.  [00:03:31] Nick: Totally changed our life. We credit her with the name. Yeah. [00:03:34] Jason: Competing with the sister. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think for me, it was my entrepreneurial mom who was a real estate agent. She just, she was always hustling, trying to figure out how to make money. And she would have us fold flyers for her and canvas neighborhoods.  [00:03:50] Nick: And that's really when we realized the niche for us is very much so within property management, right? [00:03:56] Because. A homeowner or business might move every couple of years, might have junk to be removed every so often, but property managers are that front line resource for all things community, whether that's residents who are moving in and out, whether that's bulk trash is being left behind and needs to get turned around for the next move in. And then that ultimately, as I mentioned, incubated our Trash Butler business, which is more of a recurring revenue model, but it produces income for the apartment complexes that we partner with. It was an evolution for us. I always tell the story when we 1st started, we were doing all the work ourselves. [00:04:29] So we went out and we bought an 800 number. And we slapped it on the back of our truck, trying to make ourselves look bigger, but it was still routed to our cell phone. And so people would call to complain about erratic driving and we'd be in the driver's seat answering the phone, pretending like we weren't, saying, "Oh yeah, we'll fire those guys when they get back on the road, yeah, they're the worst." Yeah. Yeah. "We don't condone that driving in our company." So we probably fired ourselves at least three or four times. And I'm sure, your property manager listeners can relate to that. When they first started their business, you're doing all the work yourself. [00:04:59] You're fixing the doorknobs, you're changing out the light bulbs and everything in between. And one of our mentors recommended to us that we read a book called the E Myth Revisited, it's by a guy named Michael Gerber. And in it really emphasizes the notion of working on your business, not just in your business, creating systems and processes for the business to scale, which is obviously what you're doing for folks. [00:05:20] And so I think that was the next light bulb moment for us is if we're ever going to have another truck. Let alone another location, let alone eventually a second business. We've got to start documenting how we do everything.  [00:05:31] Jason: Yeah. And is that what kind of helped it take off? [00:05:34] Nick: I describe ourselves as a 20 year overnight success because it feels like it took that long for us to get to where we are. [00:05:40] It really did. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of business owners and leaders have a level of impatience, which is good. But I always preach to our team, we've got to have urgency of effort, patience for the results, because if we get up every day, grind it out, and then we look a year from now, two years from now, three years from now, based on that consistent grind, we're going to see long term results start to manifest. [00:06:03] And so none of it happened overnight but it was a process and it was putting systems in place, aligning ourselves with great people and just being committed to our purpose and our vision.  [00:06:14] Jason: Yeah, I love it. I think I love that. Urgency of effort, patience for the result. [00:06:18] I think as entrepreneurs, nothing's ever fast enough for us.  [00:06:22] Nick: No, and that's a good and a bad thing as a business leader and an entrepreneur is, if we weren't optimistic, we would never start the business in the first place because we believe that the business is going to be successful. [00:06:34] We may minimize how hard it's going to be. We may minimize some of the challenges that we're going to encounter along the way. And that sort of maybe, cognitive dissonance or whatever you want to call it, getting into business, I think is a good thing, but you then have to then have the grit and the resilience and the sophistication to muscle through the challenging times. [00:06:56] But I don't think I've ever met an entrepreneur that says, "I made more money faster than I expected to." It's usually longer. "I didn't make as much as I had hoped for when I first started out." And when reality sinks in, some people give up and go back to their corporate grind and other people just stick it out and keep pushing forward. [00:07:13] Jason: Yeah, I call that the fantasy stage of entrepreneurship. That's the beginning. We only see upside. It's all upside. It's going to be a success. I get property managers coming to me, potential property managers are like, I'm going to start a property management business. I'm like, "Oh yeah, how are you going to do this?" [00:07:28] And they're like, "it's going to be amazing because all the other companies in my market suck. And I'm like, "okay, what are you going to do different?" "We're going to charge less. And we're going to provide better service." I'm like, "okay, good luck with that."  [00:07:38] Nick: So yeah, that's a tough recipe. Look, I have come to realize, because we're in a blue collar industry ourselves, moving furniture and picking up trash at residents' doorsteps. And execution is a differentiator if you can out execute everybody else. It's not easy. It's not the flashy, shiny objects that entrepreneurs like to chase, but we, coming through this past year, obviously, the market has shifted its leads aren't falling from the sky like they used to, we've had to assess are we doing everything that we're supposed to with every client touch point? [00:08:09] Are we consistently delivering the service that we preach in all of our markets across all the apartment communities that we service? And that I think is something that that takes reinforcement and repetition. And sometimes it can be a little bit boring, but it matters because that does make a difference. [00:08:25] I wouldn't charge less than everybody. That's not a sustainable business strategy. But if you can consistently out execute everybody else, that is an advantage.  [00:08:34] Jason: Yeah, if you can out execute everybody else, then you can probably out price everybody else, too, the leader gets to dictate the price, I think. [00:08:41] Nick: That's right, and usually it's going to cost us more to be able to out execute everybody else, unless you've got just, these magic employees that are willing to take less money to provide a better experience for the customer so that you can charge less it becomes a difficult equation. [00:08:56] Jason: Yeah. It's not too difficult to close the deal when somebody comes to you and says, "I want the other company's price, but I want your level of service." [00:09:03] Nick: That's right. That's right. And that is hard to explain in the sales process. If they, having, don't have the relationship or don't have the trust built that, that takes time. [00:09:14] Jason: Cool. Explain how Trash Butler works for people that have multifamily communities.  [00:09:19] Nick: Yeah, so as I mentioned, it incubated out of our college hunks business. We recognize this opportunity in the apartment space, particularly in a multifamily communities where there's a long walk for the residents to take the trash out. [00:09:31] If you think about the garden style apartments, even mid rise or raps, where there's a long walk to the trash room or trash shoot. And so this industry has emerged doorstep trash service, where we've signed a contract with the apartment complex and then 5 nights a week, the resident can simply put the trash in front of their door and recyclables in some markets, and then our Butler will come by and take the trash and the recyclables to the onsite compactor, which is provided by the 3rd party hauler. So it saves the resident a trip to the dumpster or the compactor each night or every other night. There's a safety component for the residents, an amenity component for the communities and looking to try to enhance the their quality of life for the residents. [00:10:10] And then it actually becomes an income producer for the apartment complex. I know that there's some, skepticism about upcharging services in the industry right now. We're staying very close to that legislation, but let's say we charge $10 a month per door to the apartment community. [00:10:24] They have the ability to, charge anywhere from $20 to in some cases, $30, $40 a month per door to the residents. So it becomes an NOI. Producer, net operating income producer for the community, and it's an amenity for the resident, many times an expected amenity for the resident. So currently, we're the second largest provider in that industry. [00:10:41] We service about 300, 000 doors nightly. We're the national partner with Graystar, of course, the big 800 pound gorilla of property management. And we started out as a side venture has all of a sudden, blossomed into a meaningful business that we've actually brought in some private equity money to help sustain that growth. [00:10:58] Jason: Yeah, brilliant. So yeah, I've lived at a complex for a while, and I had to walk forever to go drop my trash off. I hated it. It was super annoying. So I had to have some sort of stupid cart or something just to carry all my trash and like...  [00:11:12] Nick: I used to live in an apartment complex that did not have this service, and I would put the trash either on the hood of my car or in my trunk at times to drive it to the compactor, and one day, I actually forgot that I put it in my trunk, and so I passed by the compactor and this was a hot day in Florida in the summertime. [00:11:30] So of course, when I came back to my car at the end of a long work day and realized that I had failed to take the trash bag out of the trunk, it was a direct trip to the trash compactor and then the the car dealership. Oh yeah.  [00:11:42] Sarah: And then this is a service that the tenants pay for. Yes?  [00:11:46] Nick: It is. [00:11:47] So we contract directly with the community, but the tenants pay for it through their lease. So what we do when we sign up a community is we have a what we call phase in pricing where it steps up over the 1st year of the service. And so the community is never out of pocket. It's never a cost to the community. [00:12:03] The residents are either just paying a pass through, or even an upcharge to the community so that it becomes a profit center for the community. Yes, it does become an ancillary income stream for the apartment complexes. The resident is paying for it. It's part of their lease. It's not something that's opt in, opt out, but if they haven't had it before, it'll wait till the lease renews for it to be added in. [00:12:24] And so we're not charging full rate during the first year. We're stepping it up during month one, month two, month three in order to ensure that the residents are all paying for it by the time we're fully phased.  [00:12:34] Sarah: Oh, very nice. And then is this nationwide? If someone were like, "Hey, I think that's a great idea. Can I?" [00:12:40] Nick: It is. Yeah. So we're in about 30 states right now. Usually when you have a national partnership with a company like Graystar, they point to that direction and we run in that direction. So we opened up in the Northeast, we opened up in California. Our biggest presence is in the Southeast, Florida, Texas, Georgia, Carolinas. We've got a pretty big presence in Arizona. I know that's where you guys are. We're all over. We got boots on the ground. That business is not franchised. Our college hunks business is a franchise model that we have independent operators, but our Trash Butler business is all corporately operated. [00:13:12] So we have managers and and sort of area supervisors in each market that we service.  [00:13:17] Sarah: Oh, very cool.  [00:13:18] Jason: Got it. Yeah. All right. And is there a lot of competition for Trash Butler?  [00:13:22] Nick: Trash Butler and College Hunts has a lot of competition. What I always like to say, there's low barriers to entry, but high barriers to scale. [00:13:29] So there's probably a lot of similarities with the property management business as well, right? Any mom and pop can go out, hang a sign out or get a truck and say, "I'm in business." and you can do that with one or two communities or maybe one market. But when it comes to scaling out that infrastructure and providing a consistent level of service nationwide there's only a small handful that have done it and that's because it costs a lot of money to get to that scale. You've got to have software. You've got to have great people in every market. You've got to have accountabilities in every market. And that's been good and bad. There's always the people that will come in and try to undercut what we're charging or what their competitors are charging, but they can do that on a one off community or two communities. [00:14:09] But at some point their systems are going to break because they're doing all the work themselves. Like we did when we first started.  [00:14:15] Jason: Yeah. And I'm sure occasionally you see the cheap, dumb property manager that wants to like, "Oh I'll just do this myself. And I'll just make my team members, I'll make my gal at the front office desk go haul garbage." [00:14:26] Nick: And, we all know that employee retention is one of the hardest things right now to keeping good people. And you want your good people doing high value activities. At the property management level, you don't want your good people picking up trash from, 100, 200, 300 units every single night. [00:14:42] That's a surefire way to lose your good people. We think of us as an outsourced arm of property management. We pride ourselves on being an extra set of eyes and ears because we're walking the communities in the night. Night walks and when we're doing our patrol, so we're able to report back if we see a safety hazard or we see anything, suspicious activity, we can report that back in our reporting tools. [00:15:03] And so it becomes an extension for property management, not a cost center. And that's, I think, the most important piece. And there's redundancy. We've got backup butlers if a butler misses because he's sick or, has a wedding or something, I don't know. And so we send people in their place and that redundancy is important because, the residents will let you hear it if the trash gets missed. [00:15:22] That's for sure. Yeah. And they're paying for it. So they expect it to get picked up every night that they put it out there.  [00:15:28] Jason: Yeah. If trash day gets missed, there's going to be some pretty unhappy people. It's just sitting on their porch for a week. "Do I bring this back inside? Where do I have to walk it over myself?" [00:15:37] So how small of a complex do you guys take on? Like what are your sort of limits here?  [00:15:42] Nick: To be honest with you, the sweet spot for a trash butler is really a hundred units and greater. So I know there's a lot of property managers that manage smaller facilities or single family properties. [00:15:52] Usually communities like that it's smaller communities, it's more difficult to create a scalable model for the nightly doorstep trash pickup service. But we do see a lot of partnerships with our College Hunks business and the single family rentals the smaller apartment complexes where there's tenant leave behinds, or they want to have a move in special, so they'll contract with our College Hunks location in their market to move the resident in or move the resident out because the move in and the move out are two very critical touch points of the overall living experience as it relates to a community. And so I think the property manager may, in some cases, undervalue the importance of that high touch experience, especially on the move in when they're moving out, unless they're moving to another 1 of your properties. "Have a great day. Sorry to see you go." But when they're moving in, you really want to make that a special, memorable, positive experience so that then it reinforces the positive experience they have while living there.  [00:16:45] Jason: Now, normally trash pickup by the garbage companies is weekly, but you get, you mentioned nightly that you're doing this. [00:16:52] Nick: So we're doing the butler service nightly. We're not taking the trash off property. We're taking it from the doorstep of each resident to the onsite compactor. So if you think about it, the compactor pickups are still going to be weekly but the trash can be picked up from the residents doorstep on a nightly basis, typically 5 nights a week. [00:17:09] This kind of industry standard is Sunday to Thursday night. And so that's where this is becomes a very attractive amenity because if your trash fills up, you got to take it out and you want to wait until the trash day or whatever. You can put it out five nights a week and the butler's gonna take it to the onsite compactor. [00:17:24] Jason: Nice. . Yeah, that makes it really convenient. Okay. Got it. Cool. What do property managers typically. Ask about this service that I haven't asked yet? [00:17:35] Nick: Ah, so what we like to do is we boil it down to three very simple things. What's most important in this service, the doorstep amenity is the trash going to be picked up on time? [00:17:45] Is it going to be consistent? And is it going to be clean? In other words, is the trash butler not going to leave a mess or loose trash and all those sorts of things. And so we actually have what we call A 3x guarantee of Trash Butler, where we guarantee that those 3 things are going to be 100 percent consistent. [00:18:02] If not, we're going to make it right financially by reimbursing for the night, or in some cases, the week. And so I think that's really important. Another question that we actually make sure we emphasize is that there are some companies that do this that will use independent contractors and we recommend steering away from that because there's a level of liability and also accountability that's missing if you've got independent contractors picking up the trash five nights a week on your community. And so having a W 2, uniform, background check butler that's walking the hallways, walking the breezeways, picking up the items is really critical as well. So those are usually the most consistent questions. [00:18:41] I think not a lot of not all property managers really know how to charge the residents back for the service. So we try to pride ourselves on being revenue consultants and sustainability consultants as well. Not just the doorstep vendor for picking up the trash. And so I think, creating that partnership with any of the vendors is really critical, for your listeners not just our category but anybody who they're working with is having that trust and go to relationship. [00:19:04] That they can, rely on. It's not just an invoice, it's not just a contract, but there's actually a relationship there to ensure that, stuff is getting done when it needs to get done. And again, that goes with maintenance, that goes with roofing, that goes with insurance which I know is a huge issue, with properties these days. [00:19:21] And I think that we want to be a piece of that overall equation.  [00:19:24] Jason: Yeah. One bad independent contractor story could probably destroy a property management company. It certainly could destroy a relationship with one particular multi family complex or with that particular owner, but it could destroy a business if it were serious enough. [00:19:41] So that's right. That's right. Yeah. So related to that, how do you vet your butlers?  [00:19:47] Nick: So we prided ourselves both in our college hunts hauling junk business and our trash butler business on really being a culture first team member driven organization. And what I mean by that is we want to get great people. [00:20:01] It's a blue collar industry, but we want to get people to have pride of ownership of the work that they're doing. So it starts with the recruiting, our job posting, our recruiting machine, our interview process, our background checks, our reference checks, and then our onboarding. Our onboarding and retention is all about, we say, enrolling our team members in either the Trash Butler way or the College Hunks way of doing business. [00:20:24] And so I think it's important anytime you're hiring employees that you've got a system and a process. For identifying who are the type of people you want to bring into the organization because that's going to help define the culture and we always say culture drives behavior. Behavior drives results. [00:20:38] And so if you're just picking up any body off the street to fill a hole, you might get somebody good, but chances are, they're not going to be. Aligned with the core values of the company, the purpose of the company. And so we've viewed ourselves as our secret sauce as being able to recruit a widespread labor team decentralized across the country, train them, onboard them and retain them to go out and provide a good service on a consistent basis. And so I think again, relevant to your listeners and their businesses as they think about who they're hiring or teams that they're developing having a set of core values that you would abide by having a long term vision of what you're trying to become as an organization, what you want to be recognized for as an organization. [00:21:21] And then and then work to the present, the action items that you're going to take to, to ensure that those values are upheld and that the vision is becoming a reality.  [00:21:30] Jason: Yeah, that's that's so in alignment with the stuff that we teach, you mentioned culture, behavior results. [00:21:35] And when we focus on helping clients figure out their hiring systems, we focus on what I call the three fits, which is culture first personality fit, which relates to behavior and then skill. And skill's the only one that you really can move the needle hugely on. Usually it's about finding people that match your culture, that share your values, and then finding somebody that is the right personality fit to succeed in the role, and then you can train them. [00:22:01] But most business owners do the opposite. They're like, let's just find somebody with the skill.  [00:22:05] Nick: Somebody who knows how to do it. Yeah you're 100 percent right. There's a mantra. I'm sure you've said it probably is, you hire for attitude, you train for skill. And if you can hold true to that now, look, obviously they have to be capable and competent of learning the skill. If you're providing them the tools to do the work and they still can't do it, then there's a competency gap there that's missing. And you, you have to have, we like to say results based, performance based objectives, but you also have to have good people who align with your values because, if you've got somebody who's not good at the job, but a really good person, ideally, you could train them or find a seat for them to fill. If they're a bad person, but good at their job, then you feel handcuffed and it becomes this poison seed and an apple pie that ends up making the whole thing rotten. [00:22:56] Yeah, I want a team that can perform on the field, but you've got to have a good dynamic locker room. You can't have somebody in there that's upsetting the team dynamics, and that's where leadership comes in. That's where the leader of the organization has to champion the values, has to champion the vision, has to champion the culture, has to hold people accountable, especially their fellow leaders about, what are the behaviors that we value in our organization that matter to us? [00:23:24] Jason: Yeah, love it. It's got to be pretty daunting task to run a large empire, especially in a blue collar industry of people to make sure you've got good leadership. Managing good people and a good hiring process.  [00:23:38] Nick: Yeah. It's like I said it was a 20 year overnight success for us and it never gets easier. [00:23:43] Maybe, new level kind of different devil, but it's it's a lot of fun growing a business and embracing those challenges along the way. But, you hit it on the head, having the right leadership team to help support the founder of the entrepreneur in the journey. [00:23:58] And another thing that I think your listeners probably can relate to is along the way as their business grows is sometimes you're going to outgrow your leadership team, which we've gone through, multiple layers of that. And it's not easy because somebody who helps you get from, 0 to 20 properties may not be able to take you from 20 to 100 properties or somebody who took, in our business that took us from, 0 to 50 franchises or or what have you. [00:24:22] And there's a lot of parallels between our trash Butler business and property management. And so I'm sure we're facing the same sort of things and, making sure that you've got folks that... that's probably the hardest part is when they fit the culture, but the business starts to outgrow them. [00:24:33] And so that's why leadership development is very critical and also identifying the skill sets to make sure they're built for the longterm.  [00:24:41] Jason: Yeah. It said that the number one indicator of success is actually intelligence. And if somebody has enough intelligence, they can rise to different levels of competency and improve. [00:24:53] For example, like somebody might have a good executive assistant and maybe someday they're CEO, but I've had some assistants in the past that were not capable of that. They just weren't right. And then I've had some that were able to rise to different levels of, management. [00:25:06] And I think being able to, I think it's a knack or a talent to be able to identify that light because you can't just give people intelligent tests.  [00:25:14] Nick: Although they, they do have some different tests out there. Now there's the wonder liquid, which I think is what the NFL uses. [00:25:18] We use predictive index, which has a cognitive test and then also a personality profile matching, it's not an exact science, but it definitely provides another data point. Because hiring is probably the toughest thing. Even the sports teams get it wrong half the time, they can actually see the person playing on the field and they know from the other coaches, what type of person that individual is. [00:25:40] And yet they still draft the wrong player or sign the wrong position. And we got to give us, give ourselves a little bit of a break too, because our managers and our franchise owners who view the leadership role as a blessing rather than a burden, I think are the ones that are going to see the most success because they embrace the challenges of turnover. [00:26:01] They embrace the challenge, teaching their team members or empowering their team members to tackle new obstacles. They embrace the fact that maybe certain individuals on their team might have to be layered underneath the next layer of leadership. And so I think that's I think that's something that we got to keep reminding ourselves also as entrepreneurs. [00:26:17] Jason: We've, we partnered here at DoorGrow for DoorGrow Hiring with an AI assessment company before AI was big. And it's pretty spot on and amazing at identifying people that are the right culture, personality, and intelligence level. I used to use Myers Briggs, human design, Wonderlic DISC, and I would get a pretty decent picture of a person incorporating all of these things, but I had to know all these different systems and and I can hire with pretty good accuracy. [00:26:46] And so we started testing against this AI tool and it got the right candidate every time. And it was pretty obvious in the tool. We now use it with clients and it does a really good job. So it's pretty awesome. Very cool. That's how I got my current assistant, Mar, who's awesome. And I think all of our last several team members. [00:27:03] Nick: So yeah, it's pretty cool. Are you able to share the AI tool or is that proprietary to you guys now?  [00:27:08] Jason: So we've partnered with a company called BRYQ, B R Y Q. And yeah, it's super cool. So it's usually not affordable for the small business owner.  [00:27:17] Nick: Got it. So you guys have like an enterprise platform for, because you do recruiting as well? [00:27:22] Jason: Yeah, we help property managers with the hiring and recruit recruiting piece. 'cause if you get that wrong, that's a $10,000 minimum mistake. Minimum. And plus the opportunity cost of the money that you're just not going to get because they didn't do as good of a job. And I've seen it at the multimillion dollar level, most business owners just doing Russian roulette in hiring until they finally get a good team after a decade,  [00:27:41] Nick: I've been guilty of that myself.  [00:27:42] Jason: So me too. Yeah we're the summation of our mistakes when it comes to success. Super cool to have you here on the show. What should property managers know about the College Hunks Hauling Junk? How could that benefit  [00:27:54] Nick: them? [00:27:54] Yeah. A lot of people don't realize that our college hunks business is nationwide. We have almost 300 franchise owners in that business. We're in about 40 States. And so that business is local moving as well as we call bulk trash removal. So it's not just homeowners that we're moving. [00:28:10] It's not college campuses that we're moving, but we're moving anybody that's moving from point A to point B, whether that's a business, an apartment, a resident, a homeowner. And everything in between and we also do junk removal or bulk trash removal. So we're really the only one stop solution that can do both the move and the bulk removal as one brand, one company. [00:28:30] And I think it's important for apartments and multifamily in general, because you want to know that the individuals and the companies that are coming onto your property are insured, have a reputable, accountable brand behind them. And so we've started to see a lot of traction with apartment partnerships where we've become this preferred mover for them to recommend to the residents in the moving leasing packets. So they know that, the trucks are going to be branded. The property is going to be protected. The elevators or stairways are going to be, wraps that are not damaged. The individuals are going to be properly insured, so there's no injury, no injuries, properly trained. [00:29:09] We're not going to be blocking resident cars with the moving van, which, makes everybody upset. We've got a whole national platform and local platform for partnering with property managers. To be their go to solution for moving the residents in and out as well as the tenant leave behind the bulk trash removal, clearing out, for the turns. [00:29:28] And whether that's, corporate removal or just furniture removal, we have a partnership with goodwill where we can donate anything it's reusable. So I think that's something that maybe a lot of property managers don't realize is our College Hunks Hauling Junk and moving business is a great resource for property management in general. [00:29:44] Sarah: That's awesome. That was one of the things that was so frustrating is just waiting on the junk removal. Like it's finally vacant. Go! And sometimes they're like, "yeah, I'm a week out."  [00:29:55] Nick: Yeah. And we can do same day, next day. And look, there's going to be a wide range of prices on junk removal. I know that, there's a budget consciousness and property management. [00:30:03] I get that. Anyone with the truck can come and claim to do junk removal, but he might not answer the phone the next time you call him, or he might be a week out or he might say he's coming and not come. We've got a national call center, a national booking platform, a national accounts program. [00:30:18] So we've got responsiveness and that's something else again for your listeners. Nine out of 10 service companies don't even answer the phone. And so it's something as simple as just making sure the phone gets answered when people call if you've got a property management company, making sure your phone, you have somebody, even if it's an outsourced third party, answers the phone when your residents call or answers the ticket when, the client calls. That goes a long way. It's simple and often overlooked, but it gets back to what we talked about earlier about just being able to out execute what other people aren't doing.  [00:30:48] Jason: Yeah. That's the foundation of decent customer service is accuracy and availability, according to the Gallup polls customer satisfaction pyramid that they had in one of their books. [00:30:59] And if you're perfectly accurate and perfectly available. They don't notice you like that's just default. They just assume that should be done. So it's a math that it's partnership and then advice. And so when you get to that level where you're giving advice, like you had mentioned, like helping them with their fees and helping them figure out how to make money off of this and get the NOI, that's where you're at an exceptional level is when you get to that peak of partnership and then advice. [00:31:25] Nick, this has been a really cool, appreciate you coming here on the show. How can people get connected to College Hunks Hauling Junk and a Trash Butler?  [00:31:36] Nick: So the best way for Trash Butler, really simple, TrashButler. com and for our College Hunks hauling junk and moving business, really simple, CollegeHunks. com. So TrashButler. com, CollegeHunks. com, that's for the doorstep trash and recycling amenity as well as the moving and junk removal partnership opportunity and and look, I appreciate you having me on. I think it's awesome what you're doing to help, empower and motivate and inspire and elevate the property management industry because it's a great industry. And it's one that is right for people to continue to elevate and improve upon.  [00:32:07] Jason: Awesome. Thanks, Nick. Appreciate you being here on the DoorGrow show.  [00:32:10] Nick: Thank you.  [00:32:12] Jason: Thanks for being here. All right. So if you're a property management business owner, you're wanting to grow and scale your business. [00:32:18] Reach out to us. You can check us out at DoorGrow. com or go to join our community and hang out with a bunch of property management entrepreneurs and find out if we're legit and see what everybody else is doing. Go to DoorGrow club. com, and hopefully we're talking and working together soon. Bye everyone. [00:32:36] you just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:33:03] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

On this episode, we will continue our conversation on what expenses may change when you enter into retirement. Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Mark: Back here for another episode of the podcast with John and Nick from PFG Private Wealth. On Retirement Planning Redefined, we're going to get back into our conversation from the prior episode about cashflow. We went through some categories, housing, work stuff, healthcare, taxes, so on and so forth, on how those expenses will change either to the plus or the minus, depending on our setup. Well, this is the time to talk about the setup. So as we are assessing our retirement expenses, we'll break these down into a couple of categories. So we're going to talk about those with the guys. John, welcome in buddy. How you doing this week? John: Hey, I'm doing all right. How are you? Mark: Hanging in there. Doing pretty well. How about you, Nick? Nick: Pretty good. Staying busy. Mark: Staying busy and enjoying. So we're taping this before the fourth, but we're dropping this after the fourth, so hopefully you guys had a good fourth? Nick, you probably went up and saw family, yeah? Nick: Heading up north to just, yeah, extended family and friends. That fourth week makes it an easier week to get away because everyone's doing stuff anyways. Mark: Yeah, yeah. It's always funny when we have the holidays and we're kind of taping the podcast ahead of time because then drop it because we're not around, so sometimes I get confused on my dates. So yeah, again, we're talking about this before the fourth about what we'll probably will be doing on the fourth. So John, are you on grill duty? Because I know I am. I'm stuck on it. John: No, no. My brother's forcing me to have a cookout at my house, so I told him if I'm providing the house, he's the one on grill duty. Mark: Okay, that'll work.   John: He's visiting from Boston, so he's excited because my other brother's down here and my sister, cousin, and actually the best man in his wedding is married to my sister, so he decided to come down.   Mark: So Marketing 101. So the second you said Boston, all I hear is these Sam Adams commercials right now, "Your cousin from Boston." Every freaking time I hear Boston, that's the first thing I think of. Or Sam Adams beer, I go right there. All through the hockey playoffs and NBA playoffs, I kept seeing those commercials so it's embedded in my brain. But hey, that's the point of marketing, right, is to be those little earworms, so you go out and buy whatever it is that you go out and buy. And speaking of that, that's my transition into the must haves versus the nice to haves. So if we're talking about those accounts, those different categories that we went through on the prior episode, guys, how do those things now play into for our cashflow? Again, cashflow is the conversation wraparound, it's the wrapper of this whole endeavor. We need to break this down. And do you guys do this with clients? Is it something you encourage them to do, because everybody's individual needs and wants are going to be a little bit differently, but do you break things up in the must-haves versus the nice to haves? Nick: I would say to a certain extent, we do. We kind of list basic expenses and discretionary expenses. Mark: So give us some musts. What's the musts? Nick: So obviously housing, healthcare, food and groceries, some form of transportation, whether it's one vehicle, two vehicles. Getting rid of debt. Those are all things that are obviously needs. [inaudible 00:03:02] Mark: Life essentials, right? Nick: Yeah, for sure, for sure. Depending upon the people, some things are discretionary. I would say most of the people that we work for can't afford to have some sort of traveling in retirement. Mark: Yeah, so is two trips a year or is it five trips a year? That's kinds how it starts to change? Nick: Yeah, exactly. Or even a big trip every X amount of years. So like a baseline travel budget of X, and then let's add one of the things that we commonly do is, let's say the travel budget is $6,000 a year from a baseline standpoint, and then every three years they want to do an additional trip of another 6,000, that's one trip. And so we can scatter that in throughout the plan and show them what it looks like and toggle that on and off. And with how we do planning, we can show them the impact of doing something like that and what it does to their plan. So for the higher tier, nice to have. For discretionary expenses, we will use our planning software and kind of show them, Hey, here's the impact on your plan if you want to do that. Because we always preface everything, it's telling people that it's your money, we're not telling you how to spend your money or what to do with your money, our job is to show you the impact of the decisions that you make. Mark: That makes sense, yeah. Nick: So let's arm you with that information so that you understand if you do these things, then let's make an adjustment accordingly. And for sometimes it helps them put into perspective where not everything is a yes or a no. And what I mean by that is, well, let's just say that there's two lifetime trips that they wanted to really do, and so they like to have a bigger travel budget, but really when you boil it down, it's like, okay, I want to make sure I go to these two places. So we make sure that we can accomplish those and make adjustments elsewhere. [inaudible 00:04:58] Mark: Yeah, because the must ... I'm sorry to cut you off, but I was thinking about this as you were saying it. The must-haves, like the housing, the health, food, you're not going to have any kind of discretionary wiggle room. Well, you don't want to. Now you could say, okay, we'll eat less food, or something like that, but that's not the goal in retirement, you don't want to go backwards. So the place typically we do make some adjustments in the cuts are in the nice to have categories. Nick: Yeah, and usually it's almost more of a toggle where even to a certain extent of, we've had conversations where, hey, if things are going really well in the markets and we're able to take advantage and take a little extra money out in years where things have gone well, that's kind of the impetus to do this sort of thing. Mark: Kind of pad the numbers a little bit.   Nick: Yeah. Mark: John, let me get you on here for, besides the expenses we covered, some of the things we went through, what are some contributing factors that will affect cashflow problems that you guys see in retirement? So all these different things, whether it's healthcare, housing, whether it's whatever, give me some bullet points here for folks to think about on things that can, not in a category per se, but like outside effectors, outside influencers, that can really cause us cashflow problems in retirement. John: The number one I'd say, concern for most people going through retirement is longevity. How long does my money need to last? Mark: And that's the great multiplier, right? Because if you live longer, it makes everything else go up. John: Correct. Yeah. So that's one thing we look at, and we do plans. We're planning for age 100, and we'll always get people like, well, I'm not living that long. But the thing is, that's always ... Mark: What if you do? John: Exactly. So it's like, Hey, listen, if you live to 100, guess what? Mark: You're covered. John: Your plan looks good. You could live to 90 and the plan looks good. So we always plan for, we again, overestimate the expenses, overestimate the life expectancy, Mark: And then you don't have to live with your cousin in Boston, right? John: Exactly. That's right. Mark: All right. What else besides longevity? John: Another big one we're seeing right now is inflation. Because with retirement, you're not getting a paycheck anymore, so your ability to earn is now gone. So your nest egg is providing that income for you and social security. And keeping up with inflation, especially the last few years has been a challenge for quite a few people. And mostly I would say for me, I've noticed my food bill has gone up drastically in the last couple of years, more than anything else is really. Because we talked about musts and nice to have, if trips go up, you could say, all right, I'm going to go on a little bit lesser trip, or not go as much, but you know, you got to eat and you got to have healthcare. So those things there are big ones to really consider going into retirement and to be aware of, is the plan [inaudible 00:07:42] Mark: Yeah, a friend of mine, for Memorial Day, we were talking about cookouts earlier, so we got July 4th, you're probably hearing this after July 4th, but how much did it cost you to buy this stuff? So a friend of mine posted a picture around Memorial Day that he bought three steaks, and he lived in the New York area, Nick, actually. And the tag on the thing was like 60 bucks for three steaks. It was like, holy moly. And I know different parts of the country are more expensive than others, but it was just where I'm at, it was like, wow. And they weren't like that impressive of a steak. So to your point, you got to eat. Nick: To be honest with you, I think there's a little bit of ... Mark: Price gouging. Nick: ... ridiculousness and price gouging going on right now from the perspective of a lot of different areas. I just got my six months notice on my car insurance, I've been complaining to everybody about it. One vehicle, no accidents [inaudible 00:08:34] John: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Nick, this isn't a therapy session, right? Mark: Well remembered, well remembered, John, from the prior episode. Very good. Nick: Yes. I drive probably 7,000 miles a year at the most and paying almost $2,500 a year for car insurance. But the crazy part is that, so okay, if it's always been high, that's one thing, but two years ago when I had switched companies, it was about 1,700. So again, we take ... Mark: Inflation. Nick: Do the math on that. I'm sorry, but 50% is not inflation, there's some 50% in two years and it's kind of wild. And then even just going, the area that we're in has been massive growth in this area, but even what the restaurants are charging, and it's just inflation impacts different areas differently. Mark: It's an excuse. I mean, just like anything, we've turned it into excuse, just like the supply chain problem issue. A friend of mine was trying to get his RV worked on and they were like, well, we're still having supply chain issues for a valve. And it's like, really, a valve on an RV, it's been three years. I don't know if supply chain issue really holds in that argument, but if companies are dragging their feet or employers, somebody's just taking long, that's just an excuse. And I think that's the same thing with the inflation. Is it real? Yes. But to your point, are some of these numbers really truly justified? But they can use that, well, inflation's bad. That's the excuse they use in order to hit you with a 50% increase. Nick: Yeah, and I'd say from a planning perspective, because people get concerned about that from a planning perspective, and saying, well, hey, we had much higher inflation last year than we did in our plan moving forward, and [inaudible 00:10:27] Mark: Are we going to be okay to survive it, yeah. Nick: Yeah, and the easiest way that we mitigate that from a planning perspective is we reprice current expenses. So in other words, repricing the current expenses allows us to take that into consideration, the increases that we've had, and then use more normal rates moving forward, which is how you more accurately display that from a planning side of things. Mark: Gotcha. All right, John, so you hit us with longevity and inflation as a couple of areas that can contribute to cashflow problems. Give me a couple more before we wrap up this week. John: Investment returns is another spot, depending on what type of plan you do or type of planning, if some people will really have their income depend on what their portfolio is returning for them. Mark: So we're talking about sequence of return risk, kind of thing? John: Yeah. So if you having a down year and there's not as much income coming in from your portfolio, well that could ultimately affect your cashflow. Or if it's a down year, and we go back to longevity of, Hey, how long is my portfolio going to last, just have a 20% dip in the market, you're going to be a little concerned about pulling out in that period of time, because once you pull out, you know, you realize those losses, and there's no more recovering [inaudible 00:11:41] Mark: Yeah, it's a double way, it's the market's down and you're pulling money out. So the truth that makes the longevity factor interesting. Okay. John: So one more thing on this. This is really important, and especially what we're seeing in the last couple of years where you have some type of plan where if you are dependent on that, you have almost like a different bucket to pull from in a time like this. So you really want to position yourself to be able to adapt to downturns in the market which could affect your income. Nick: One of the things, and I've been having this conversation quite a bit lately, is that previous to last year, for the dozen years leading up to that, rates in return on fixed or cash and cash equivalence was so low, you couldn't get any return on that money, that really people shifted predominantly, or at least in a large way, to take more risks, meaning more upside, so more heavily on the [inaudible 00:12:39] Mark: Well, because the market was going up too. We get addicted to that, so it's very easy to go, well, it does nothing but climb, it's done it for 12 years in a row, so let's keep going, right? Nick: Yeah. And a little bit of that's a circle where it's part of the reason it kept climbing, is because people were saying, well, and not just, but it's just a contributing factor where it's like, well, hey, I'm literally getting zero return here. So inflation's eating away at my money anyways, I might as well take a little bit more risk. And so earlier this year in the majority of our client portfolios, we took some money off the table because now we can get four to 5% in something that has no risk, and that lets us kind of at least take a deep breath, see what's going on, get some sort of return, where most of our plans, we use five to 6% in retirement anyways. Mark: Yeah, that's a good point. You just got to be careful, right? Because we don't know how long those rates will last either, so you don't want to lock yourself into anything too hefty either, without making sure it's the correct move for you. Especially, I'm thinking more like CDs for example. Nick: Yeah. We still target things that are short term, that sort of thing. But for a retiree, even from the perspective of, let's just use the million dollar number, there's a huge difference between five years ago, where if you wanted to do a one year CD and you could get 0.8%, that's $8,000 on a million bucks versus 5%, even just for a year, now it's 50,000 of income. I mean, one is you can't pay your bills, another one is going to be much more comfortable. So for a retiree, one of the sunny side or glass half full part of what we've been dealing with from an inflation perspective, is that at least there's a little bit more return on safer money as we try to re-plan and readjust. Mark: Yeah. No, that makes sense. So one more category here that I want to hit for just cashflow problems in retirement, John, you did longevity inflation and investment returns. I'm going to assume the fourth one's probably just the emergencies, the things that life throws at you in retirement years? John: Yeah, a hundred percent. Emergency funds, it's [inaudible 00:14:44] Mark: Got to have one. John: ... for that, because you just don't know what's going to happen. Mark: Murphy's Law's going to happen, right? John: Murphy's Law's been happening for the last three years. So basically a big one is healthcare expenses, which we touched on as a must have. So big health event could really dip into your emergency funds. Or again, especially here in Florida with the roofs, have talked to some clients and friends who basically were having homeowners insurance issues here, and then carriers are basically saying, Hey, for you to get renewed, you need a new roof. And all of a sudden it's like, what? I just go, my roof's fine. It's like, well, it's outdated, you know, you need a new one, or else [inaudible 00:15:24] Mark: And so they're not covering maybe the full cost or some of the cost, I guess, but they won't insure you. John: I had some friends actually get notices saying, your roof's too old. If you don't replace it, we're dropping coverage. Mark: Oh geez. Okay, yeah. John: So that's an emergency expense. Mark: Definitely. John: Roofs aren't necessarily cheap, so important to have an emergency fund because like you said, Murphy's Law, you have no idea what's going to come up and you want to be prepared for that. Mark: Yeah. No, that's a good point. Nick: The roof thing is pretty wild here too, because a lot of people have tile roofs down here. And depending upon the size of the house, a tile roof is going to cost you, what John? Between 50 and a hundred thousand dollars? John: Yeah, 50 to a hundred grand. Mark: Really? Holy moly. Nick: And so, yeah, and then if you're in a neighborhood that has association rules and all these other things, it can get a little squirrely. So just understanding even little basic things like that, where especially people that came maybe from up north where it's just shingle roofs and 10, 12 grand, 15 maybe, and then [inaudible 00:16:25] Mark: Yeah, I was going to say, my metal roof was like 20, and that was like eight years ago. Nick: Yeah. So there's just things like that where we always very much emphasize having an emergency fund. Mark: Yeah, definitely. All right, good stuff. Talking just cashflow issues, things to consider here on the podcast the last couple of weeks. So if you're worried about the cashflow or you're just worried about making sure your plan is accurate for the time of life you're in, especially if you're one of these folks that maybe got a plan, you're like, ah, I got a plan put together like a decade ago, or whatever. Well, it's not a set it and forget it, it shouldn't be a set it and forget it, anyway. Even insurance policies, sometimes it's very easy to get one and throw it in the drawer for 20 years and forget about it, but all those things can be looked at and reviewed and see if there's a better way to put a strategy together. So if you need a first opinion or second opinion, reach out to John and Nick and the team at PFG Private Wealth. Find them online at pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, whatever the case might be. Whichever podcasting platform app you like, just type in retirement planning redefine in the search box. Or again, find it all online, pfgprivatewealth.com. For John, Nick, I'm your host, Mark. We'll catch you next time here on the podcast. This has been Retirement Planning Redefined.

Join Nick as he chats with the SRB summer intern, Cade Cambell, while Dave is on vacation. Watch it on YouTube HERE Cade is a senior at Michigan State studying finance and minoring in insurance and risk management with a second minor in financial planning and wealth management. He grew up in a little town in the middle of Wyoming called Riverton, in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.  Cade is a big outdoorsman who loves to hunt, fish, hike, and just about anything outside. He found himself at Michigan State through a scholarship program and he loves it out here. Nick: So tell us a little bit about the wealth management program at Michigan State and how you got interested in pursuing that. Cade: "The wealth management program is really cool. So Professor Steve started that program. I don't know what it's been four or five years now. I think and it's and it's really cool because it's aligned with the CFP. So the certified financial planning standards for their education requirement. As you progress throughout the program if you pass all the classes it satisfies those education requirements. So it's really a good way to get a jump start on a financial planning career. There are not a lot of schools that offer that." Check episodes with two of our past interns. Ashley Sajor now works for of full time. https://srbadvisors.com/why-ashley-sajor-became-a-financial-planner/ https://srbadvisors.com/learning-about-financial-planning-with-our-intern-joel/ About Shotwell Rutter Baer Shotwell Rutter Baer is proud to be an independent, fee-only registered investment advisory firm. This means that we are only compensated by our clients for our knowledge and guidance — not from commissions by selling financial products. Our only motivation is to help you achieve financial freedom and peace of mind. By structuring our business this way we believe that many of the conflicts of interest that plague the financial services industry are eliminated. We work for our clients, period. Click here to learn about the Strategic Reliable Blueprint, our financial plan process for your future. Call us at 517-321-4832 for financial and retirement investing advice.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could sleep at night knowing that you don't have to worry about pests in the properties you manage? In this episode, property management growth expert, Jason Hull interviews Nick Drzayich from Cover Pests to learn about dealing with pests in property management. You'll Learn… [02:00] Cover Pest… It's like Insurance for Pest Control [03:59] Dealing with Pests as a Property Manager [07:48] Dealing with the Different Kinds of Pests [13:13] How Partnering with Something Like Cover Pest Works [16:02] Eliminating Having to Figure Out Who is Gonna Pay the Bill [17:15] Using Pest Coverage as a Selling Point for Property Management Tweetables “We want the tenants to feel good about where they live and have it clean. We also want the owners to understand that their property's being taken care of when it's needed.” “It's nice for the property manager to have someone else get some eyes on the property every once in a while.” “It's increasing the visibility. It's decreasing some of the potential costs for the owners. It's protecting the owners.” “We go out, and we take care of it.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Nick: We want the tenants to feel good about where they live and have it clean. We also want the owners to understand that their property's being taken care of when it's needed and then obviously the property management companies, they don't have to hassle with the back and forth and who's paying the bill.    [00:00:14] Jason: Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently. Then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income.   [00:00:53] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry. Eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow.    [00:01:13] Now, let's get into the show and my guest today, I am hanging out here with Nick, and Nick, you got to tell me your last name. I should have asked you before the show.    [00:01:25] Nick: No, that's okay. I tell everybody to just say "does your eye itch?" And that'll about cover it. Okay. It's pronounced (dur zye ich) Drzayich. It's a Serbian name, and it's way too many consonants in a row.    [00:01:37] Jason: Nick Drzayich. All right. From Cover Pest. Cool. And is it Cover Pest or just "Cover?" Website says "cover."    [00:01:45] Nick: Yeah. Cover Pest. Yeah.   [00:01:47] Jason: Cover Pest. Okay, cool. Well Nick, glad to have you on the show. So tell me-- give us a little bit of background. How did you-- and I'll just say for those listening, it says, "pest control solution for property managers," like on your website. So tell me a little bit about Cover Pest, and how did you get into this?    [00:02:04] Nick: Come from an insurance background actually. 13 years or so ago, I started and grew a independent life insurance agency, and so that's kind of been my background. Right. And so within insurance, you're obviously taking a big cost in life insurance. There's a death benefit with other insurances. There's big expenses that come at some point throughout the life of a policy and you're taking the cost of that and you're spreading it out among all the policy owners.    [00:02:34] Jason: Mm-hmm.   [00:02:34] Nick: So kind of with that mindset. I was chatting with my business partner who lives north of me, and he actually runs a pest control company and has for several years. We kind of got to chatting about this combination of life insurance and kind of sharing this cost, spreading the cost out and how you could potentially do that with pest control. And that's how we kind of landed on this idea of using that model to help property management companies take care of their pest control issues, which we know are just a hassle whenever they happen. Yeah. And solve that issue for them and allow them to take that off their plate and add a little bit of revenue in the meantime. Got it. And what areas do you guys cover? Is this a national business? Or is this local? How does this work? Yep. So this is a national business.   [00:03:21] We obviously have the ability to go anywhere in the country. We have, we started it here in our home state of Idaho, which is where we have the bulk of our clients. But ultimately, yeah, we we work with vendors across the country to be able to help take care of the issues that, that property managers are seeing.   [00:03:37] Jason: Cool. So help me understand how this works. Like why would a property manager decide, Hey, I should work with Cover Pest instead of just use some pest control vendors locally and connect with and have these people in as a feather in my cap. What advantages do they have with working with Cover Pest and why would a property manager choose? Or why do they choose to work with you?    [00:03:59] Nick: Yeah. Great question. So. As soon as you mention pest control to a property manager, you're probably going to get just a lot of heartache right there. Whenever an issue comes up, it's technically it's a tenant responsibility. Yeah, but ultimately it's going to come back to the maintenance manager. It's going to come back to the property management company or owner every once in a while. And so they're having to deal with finding a vendor. Vendors got to contact the tenant, get the service done, and then you got to figure out where you're sending the bill, and there's always going to be a fight there. The tenant's not going to want to pay it, the owner doesn't want to pay it, and you, as the property manager, you don't want to pay it either. And the benefit here is that, we work best with companies that have some kind of resident benefit package. So what our service does is it kind of slides right into that resident benefit package, and for a very nominal fee compared to what you would normally pay for pest control, your tenants are able to have all their pest issues covered, and when they need service, they put the request in online-- goes to call. We send a technician out and take care of it. There's no additional cost on top of what that monthly fee is.   [00:05:03] So like I mentioned, we kind of slide in the benefit packages. We also work as a standalone amenity for those that either don't want to put us in a benefit package or don't offer a benefit package.    [00:05:13] Jason: Got it. So what are what are property managers typically bundling in along with Cover Pest in, you know, in addition to Cover Pest in their resident benefits packages that you're seeing?   [00:05:26] Nick: Yeah, so oftentimes we'll see-- a big one is filter service, so furnace filters that are shipped--   [00:05:31] Jason: mm-hmm    [00:05:32] Nick: --every few months. There's a lot of times some kind of a credit building aspect to the benefit package. There's usually some kind of a maintenance, a 24 or seven maintenance benefit that's inside of that package. And then a lot of times there'll be some kind of perks. You get a free maintenance request once a year on something that would normally be charged to you, or you have late fee, late payment protection. Once per year, you can make a late payment and not have to worry about any kind of fees. So those are just some of the things that we're seeing inside of benefit packages along with our service.    [00:06:03] Jason: Got it. And what are you typically seeing property managers charge for this resident benefit package? And I would assume this is something that they're convincing the tenants to buy as a product.   [00:06:15] Nick: Yeah, so ultimately, what we've seen is that the benefit package just rolls right along with the lease agreement. There's not an option there for the tenant to either pay for or not. It just is what it is and you get it. Yep. And they range across the board, right? From, you know, 20 bucks all the way up to 75 plus dollars per month, depending on what's in the package.   [00:06:41] So when we were designing our service to be able to slide into a benefit package, we wanted to be super conscious of increasing that at all right because any increase in a benefit package cost is going to come with some kickback initially. And so there's got to be some good value there. So we had that in mind for sure, but they definitely range. They kind of run the gamut of, you know, pretty cheap all the way up to some pretty expensive packages, depending on what's offered.    [00:07:08] Jason: Got it. Now you said kickback, but I think you mean push back, right?    [00:07:13] Nick: Yeah.   [00:07:13] Jason: Okay. All right. Just making sure. People are like, "is there an affiliate thing going on here?" right. Okay. Yeah. Right. The tenants are going to be a little frustrated if it's too expensive and they're going to say, "Well, why am I being forced to do this? I don't know that I need all that stuff." Okay. So then, can you give us an idea of what this would cost? How do you price this with companies? Is this like on a per unit basis that you work out a deal with the property managers? Are there certain rates? Is this something that they just can do on certain properties that they can convince the owners to buy into? How does that typically work?    [00:07:48] Nick: Yeah. So when we onboard a company. It's pretty much an all or nothing deal. Right. We want to make sure we cover all of their properties regardless of where they're at and if they have current pest issues. We do work individually on a customized basis with each property management company to decide: "all right, what are you seeing typically pest issue wise? What package makes the most sense, and do we need to customize a package to best fit?" So, at a broad level, we have a couple of different packages. One of 'them is more of a basic package that covers the things that don't typically happen a lot, but when they do happen, it's a real hassle.   [00:08:25] So a good example of that would be bed bugs, for example. They don't happen a ton, but when they do, it's a pretty severe cost.   [00:08:32] Jason: Right.   [00:08:33] Nick: Yep. And and then going up from there, our upper package is a little bit more of the common stuff that people call on a regular basis. Your spiders, your ants, wasps, bees, that sort of thing. And so we do have a couple of packages that we work off of, but we do customize with each company and make sure that we're covering what they want and making it specific to them.    [00:08:56] Jason: Got it. I'm sure it differs. Like here in Texas, we have some big bugs and a lot of mosquitoes here in Austin, but yeah, in some markets, I would imagine you've got certain issues that are just typical to that market and then other markets you don't, and it might also have to do with sometimes-- unfortunately might have to do with the class of the property or the area of the property that it's in, how well it's maintained, stuff like that.   [00:09:21] Nick: Yeah, for sure. And I mean, ultimately we don't want the tenants to hesitate to call because that's what normally happens, right? They know that they're responsible for it.    [00:09:30] Jason: Yeah.    [00:09:30] Nick: And so, they don't call and they just kind of sweep it under the rug either literally or figuratively and the pest issue goes untreated and it can get out of hand, and so we want to eliminate that from happening. We want the tenants to feel good about where they live and have it clean. We also want the owners to understand that their property's being taken care of when it's needed and then obviously the property management companies, they don't have to hassle with the back and forth and who's paying the bill.   [00:09:57] Jason: So let's make this a little bit real. So let's say you've got a tenant. They've got some pests. I don't know what kind of pests would be a serious issue, but they decide not to call. Give me an example you've heard of, and then it's incurring additional damages that then the owner's going to have to pay for. Can you think of something like that?    [00:10:17] Nick: Well, I can tell you that, for example, like an average bed bug cost to remediate is going to be anywhere between 800 and a thousand bucks.    [00:10:25] Jason: Okay.    [00:10:25] Nick: So right there, you know, our average package is probably around 10 to 12 bucks a month. So if a tenant is paying 10 to 12 bucks a month, they have a bed bug issue, they're paying substantially less than what they would have to pay to have that remediated through just a general pest control company. Those obviously become much bigger issues when you're looking at multi-family situations where units are connected and those bugs can travel. So I've seen that stuff get pretty out of hand, but ultimately we want to get it controlled as, as quickly as we can so that doesn't happen.    [00:11:00] Jason: Yeah. I hate roaches. Really don't like those things like yeah. I remember being in some houses, like some just not really nice areas, like visiting some houses and stuff in upstate New York and high humidity, and there were some units that I went in that had some really nasty infestations with cockroaches and some of them are really freaking tiny. They're just running around all over, so. Yeah, I hate those things.    [00:11:27] Nick: It's rough. It is nice. Yeah. It's nice for the property manager to have someone else get some eyes on the property every once in a while because typically if you're seeing a lot of bugs, there's a reason. The bugs want to eat. And so there's some cleanliness issues there. So it's nice to be able for us to be able to report on what we're seeing and if we're seeing multiple calls on the same property that's a little bit of a red flag to maybe send someone out there to take a look at the property and have a chat with the tenant.   [00:11:52] Jason: Got it. Yeah. So one of the key benefits then is it's giving you greater visibility into some of the problem properties as to what's going on.    [00:12:02] Nick: Yeah, absolutely because we're going to track every time we get a service call, and you're going to see that report as well. So we can both kind of keep eyes on it.   [00:12:09] Jason: Got it. Okay, cool. So this is something they can build into, you know, along with their leases as part of their resident benefit package. It's not going to increase their costs. Does this become a profit center in any way for property managers or is this just mitigating costs?    [00:12:26] Nick: Yeah, we've had property managers use it just to kind of mitigate those costs. No additional revenue.    [00:12:32] Jason: Mm-hmm.    [00:12:32] Nick: Most of the companies we work with as with everything in their benefit package, they're going to add some kind of a mark up there or an admin fee just for them for kind of doing the work and yeah and setting up the relationship. So it makes perfect sense, so that's what most of them will do. And it's kind of up to them, how much they mark it up, but yeah, there's definitely an additional kind of profit stream there that can be created through using Cover.    [00:12:54] Jason: Got it. And certainly some advantages to taking greater care of the property. Cool. So what are the big questions besides the ones you've already touched on that when people come to you, they're really curious to know because I'm sure some of our listeners are probably thinking, "Hey, maybe this is a good idea."    [00:13:13] Nick: Yeah. Yeah. So one of the main questions I get is how do we roll it out? Yeah. And a couple different ways. Typically what we'll do is it's a kind of a slow rollout and it's upon lease renewal or a new lease creation. So as you're working with a property management company, they have new leases come up. They'll send us that batch for the month. That's renewing and we'll get them added into the service catalog. We have had companies that have gone in and asked their tenants, "Hey, do you want to opt into this right now in the middle of your lease?" and that option is there as well.    [00:13:44] Jason: Have you seen much success with that, with them doing that? What percentage do you see typically? I don't know if you have that data, but...   [00:13:52] Nick: that are opting in?   [00:13:54] Jason: Yeah. If they put it out to all of their residents for opt in, I'm just curious what the typical response rate is that people are like, "yeah. I'll go ahead and do that." Maybe 10%?   [00:14:05] Nick: Yeah. It's not high. Not high--   [00:14:07] Jason: yeah   [00:14:07] Nick: because--    [00:14:08] Jason: I would imagine it's like, "Hey spend more money. Do you want to?" And they're like, " yeah."    [00:14:11] Nick: exactly. Yep.    [00:14:13] Jason: Okay.    [00:14:13] Nick: So most frequently, most commonly, it'll be rolled out as leases are renewed and as new properties or leases are assigned, that's the most common way that it's done.    [00:14:23] Jason: Okay. Got it. So they sign up with you. You've worked out the pricing based on what sort of package they need, you implement, consult them and help them figure out how they're going to roll this out, and they're probably building this into their lease with some verbiage. You typically provide some verbiage for them to add to their lease as part of this.    [00:14:41] Nick: Yep, absolutely. We have some stuff that you can throw in.    [00:14:44] Jason: And then they get this rolled out. So then they've got this new maybe profit center, but at least it's being paid for by somebody. It's increasing the visibility. It's decreasing some of the potential costs for the owners. It's protecting the owners. If something gets really bad it could cause a lot of damage. And I'm curious, like, you've mentioned bed bugs, and I mentioned roaches, but what else are you typically seeing causes a lot of damage? I mean, termites, we hear a lot about. Is this something that is checked for or like relevant?   [00:15:13] Nick: Yeah. wood destroying bugs like termites are a completely different animal.    [00:15:18] Jason: Yeah.   [00:15:18] Nick: That's not honestly a part of what we do. It's another specialty altogether. As far as damage is concerned, mice and rats are another one that are--   [00:15:28] Jason: oh yeah.   [00:15:28] Nick: --they're out there, and we hear about them and we treat for those. Those ones will come in and cause some real issues. If nothing else, just scaring the crap out of people.   [00:15:37] Jason: Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And then, you know, safely doing the cleanup because--   [00:15:42] Nick: right.    [00:15:43] Jason: --You know, some issues with some of that stuff, so yeah.    [00:15:46] Nick: Yeah.    [00:15:47] Jason: And so no on termites, but yes, on bed bugs, roaches and mice and and rats. Okay. Got it. Any other questions that property managers might ask that would be curious about your service or that you'd like them to understand or know?   [00:16:02] Nick: Yeah, maybe just to, again point out that sometimes when we go out to do a service the property management company will expect another bill from us or think that there'll be another bill coming, but it's all taken care of. Just in that monthly subscription that's paid for by the tenant. There's no additional fee, no additional cost. We go out and we take care of it. And so that's a common question, common concern. One other one that comes to mind is sometimes they'll be rehabbing a property or making some significant changes to one of their properties and they'll want to stop the service or pause the service. We're definitely open to doing that and have done that. So pausing service during a rehab or big remodel is definitely something we can do. That's one question that has come up in the past as well.    [00:16:44] Jason: Unless they potentially could uncover something in the walls during that room.   [00:16:49] Nick: Right. Right. Yeah. And that's another thing to mention. Yeah. Another thing to mention is the service kind of runs with the address, not necessarily the tenant, so--    [00:16:59] Jason: okay.   [00:16:59] Nick: --if you have a property that maybe sat vacant for a couple months, and you had a maintenance manager out there to check on something and he notice a pest issue. He can just give us a call and we'll go take care of it. Even though there's not a tenant in there, because it kind of runs with the address.    [00:17:15] Jason: Got it. And that justifies including it as part of the rent as well. So if you're saying, "Hey, this. This property, in some instances like in California, like you have to usually pay for lawn care if you want the lawn to be maintained because some people just won't do it sometimes, right? So there's certain things you would include. So this would be included. You could then-- that could be a selling point to the tenants. Like this comes with a resident benefit package where it includes this and this, you won't have to worry about pest control. You won't, and these other things.   [00:17:46] Nick: Yep, exactly.   [00:17:47] Jason: Okay. So potentially as the benefit of helping, sweeten the deal a little bit on a potential rental property for a potential resident, so.   [00:17:55] Nick: For sure. Yeah.    [00:17:57] Jason: Cool. Well, I think we've covered most of the highlights. This sounds like-- it sounds like a no brainer. It sounds like a good service. Let's tell everybody how to get in touch with you and how to find you.   [00:18:10] Nick: Yeah, super easy. Our website is CoverPest.com and you can call me anytime. My number's (208) 477-1330. That's my cell. And you can go on to CoverPest.com, submit a form, and we're happy to chat about creating kind of a custom pricing model for your property management company.    [00:18:29] Jason: Cool. So I want to ask one more question. So when they hear you say, "you'll call my cell" and "here's my number," they might be thinking, is this a scalable business? What if somebody has 10,000 doors or they're a big conglomerate, you know, or they're a small property manager. Is this a scalable model for you? Can you handle different size property management companies?   [00:18:50] Nick: Yeah, what's nice is that our portal, our backend portal that's a part of our website makes it really easy for property management companies to go in and add their properties to their list. So every time they have a backed upload of lease renewals. They go to the service portal, they put it in there and they're added and they can see exactly which properties are covered in that month. And then, yeah, we work with a network of pest control companies that we use as vendors to service accounts that we get with property management companies in different states, if that makes.    [00:19:23] Jason: Got it. So you've got this all figured out really well. I appreciate you coming the show, Nick, and it's been great hearing about Cover Pest. So thanks. Thanks for coming on.    [00:19:33] Nick: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.    [00:19:36] Jason: All right. Cool. So check them out at coverpest.com sounds like a good service. And as always give me your feedback. I want to hear... those of you that work with Cover Pest, let me know how it goes. And those of you that are tuning in for the first time, and you got some value from this episode, or if you're not tuning in for the first time, give us some feedback. If you find us on YouTube, The Google play store, or you find us on Spotify or iTunes, give us some feedback. We'd love to hear what you think of the show. And we may even give you a shout out on a future episode. So we appreciate that. And if you're interested in growing your business, check us out at doorgrow.com, and if you want to join our free community of property management entrepreneurs, you can go to doorgrowclub.com and that will get you to our Facebook group.    [00:20:23] Join that community. We've got some great people in there and you know, a rising tide raises all ships, as they say this will allow you to connect with some other property managers and have a resource you can go to to ask questions. And we'd love to hear from any of you inside there, so make sure you join. And until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye everyone.   [00:20:49] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!    [00:21:16] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

There are plenty of decisions that you'll make in the retirement planning process that can't be undone, so you want to make sure that you make the right call. On this episode, we'll explain why these decisions are so important and can't be undone. Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Speaker 1: Back here for another edition of Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick once again, joining me to talk about getting things right the first time. There are some irreversible financial decisions or close to it in retirement and there's plenty of things we've got to deal with. So we want to make sure we get it right as often as possible, right out of the gate, because some of these things just cannot be undone. So you guys being in Florida, mulligans, everybody plays golf. Mulligans are a thing, for sure. You didn't see that? Some mulligan, its a give me. Let me do it again, kind of thing. But there's things in retirements that you just got to get right the first time. So that's going to be the topic this week. Nick, what's going on, buddy? How you doing?   Nick: Good. Good. Staying busy.   Speaker 1: Yeah. Keeping rocking and a rolling. John, how you feeling my friend?   John : I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good. I'm looking forward to this topic. I'm actually a couple of weeks out from finish some construction in my house and I wish that the original builds and plumbers got it right and knew how to glue some pipes that wouldn't have caused a leak down the road. But anyhow,   Speaker 1: Yes.   John : Looking forward to getting that construction done, so.   Speaker 1: Yeah, I tell you what, that's a great point. Right. So we all want people to do their job right the first time. Certainly when you hire someone, that's what you expect. But these are some decisions that many people do to themselves because so many people DIY retirement. Right. One of the benefits to turning to financial professionals like yourselves is to get these things right so that you don't have to worry about having these issues that can't be undone. So let's walk through a few of these. We're going to start with a biggie. Again, there's a little caveat here, but for the most part, once you turn on social security, it is what it is. So you have to be sure that you're, especially if you're activating it early, that this is what you want to do. There technically is a do over, but most people don't really go through it. So kind of explain if you will guys.   John : Yeah. So this is a big one because social security equates to roughly 30 to 40% of kind of average households retirement income going into retirement. So it's important. And Nick and I, everything we kind of say goes back to the planning and this can't be stressed enough because once you start taking it, let's do over for the first year out of it, that is what it is. And I'll kind of use an example of a client that we had where she was a survivor and she wasn't fully aware of her options and the strategies she could use. And just luckily she was referred to us right before she started taking social security. And I don't want to go too much into details, but basically the strategy that she was just going to take initially, I mean would've cost her a lot of money down the road. So we simply had to basically call social security, stop the payment and redo the strategy. But again, by not really having a game plan, she could have cost herself a lot of money down the road. And this doesn't happen just for survivors. It's anybody, whether it's your taking your own benefit or divorced, things like that. So there's a lot of things to evaluate when you're taking social security and when's the best time to take it.   Speaker 1: Okay. So and again I mentioned the fact that you can pull it back. Right. You have what one year. Nick is that right, correct? You have one year.   Nick: Yeah. So essentially the rule is that if you begin your social security benefits, you have 12 months to essentially reverse your decision that you started receiving benefits. You have to pay the benefits that you received back and then you can defer it again as if you never took it. So years ago, you used to be able to do that over a much longer period of time. And then the Social Security Administration caught onto that and they restricted it to a 12 month period.   Speaker 1: And let's be honest. Most people, the reason doesn't get really used very often is who wants to do it. Most people don't want to, as soon as they hear, well, you got to pay the money back. They're kind of like, eh, so I don't want to do that. Right. So,   Nick: Yeah.   Speaker 1: [inaudible 00:03:57].   Nick: Yeah, it's a tricky thing.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Nick: It's like we've had some clients inquire about this recently and their sub full retirement age, so sub 66 or 67 or somewhere in between there and in instances where, because where the confusion lies for a lot of people is they want to continue to work maybe, but shift to part-time.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Nick: And they don't realize that the part-time income is still in excess of the amount that they can earn without any sort of penalty, which for most people is around $20,000 for the year.   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Nick: And when you start to factor in the fact that you're permanently locking in a lower benefit plus running the risk of having a penalty on top of it for the rest of your life, it's not ideal. So,   Speaker 1: Right.   Nick: That's definitely a major decision and something that we like to model out and test out for people.   Speaker 1: And again, so technically there's a caveat to undo in a very limited window, but it's just best to get this right the first time, because for all intents and purposes, it's irreversible. You just don't want to go down that path. Same with the spousal benefit situation here on a pension, should you be lucky enough to have one. Once you select this, I don't believe there is any do-overs on this. It is what it is.   Nick: Yeah, that's correct. This is definitely a topic that we go through in the classes pretty in detail. Years ago, it was a lot easier for people to mess this decision up. It still happens sometimes, but it's less common because oftentimes the spouse has to sign off on it. But the reality is that having a really good understanding of what sort of survivor benefit you're going to choose, if you are eligible for a pension through your employer is a major, major decision and something to take into consideration. And one thing to throw in here too, for those that live in the state of Florida, oftentimes the projections that they send you or that you can access easily online, I should say are options like one and two or A and B. And there are two other options that are oftentimes better options and you usually have to request those. So we've seen that be a mistake that people have made only thinking that they had two options when there's actually four.   Speaker 1: Gotcha.   Nick: So that's something and it's important to know.   Speaker 1: Okay.   John : And what Nick's referencing there is the Florida pension plan, the state pension plan.   Speaker 1: The state. Okay. Got it. Thank you. So John, what about life insurance? What is the kind of the impact here? Irreversible financial decision, somebody might say, well, can I just cancel it or whatever, right, kind of deal, but what are some important points to know when it comes to this?   John : Yeah. So when you're doing planning, one of the things we look at is we start with the need for life insurance. And that really depends on dependence and some other factors, but it's easier to get when your younger. So that's one thing we take a look at and there's different types of policies that allow you to convert. And not to get too much into the weeds, but the older you get, some health issues might come up where you can no longer get it. So that's where it becomes very important to understand, Hey, is this something I really want to have down the road and does it work in my financial plan? And if it does, the sooner you can get it the better because things come up as we all know. As you get older, health issues come up. So you want to get it right the first time.   Speaker 1: And that's where you could run into a problem, right, especially if you wait too long and then a diagnosis happens, then it could either make it impossible or certainly incredibly costly.   Nick: Yeah. Especially, we joked a little bit in the last podcast about John and I hitting 40 this year. And the reality is, is that I know, I know. Everybody I'm sure is shedding a lot of tears.   Speaker 1: A lot of our listeners are like 40. I would trade with you in a minute.   John : Let's see, 40 back surgery this year. It's a good year.   Nick: Yeah. All of a sudden I got tendonitis in my arm and my shoulders all messed up.   Speaker 1: And right now you have listeners going, I'm going to go in and slap him.   Nick: I know, I know. But the key, the point with this whole thing is that some of these things, maybe not some of the things that John and I talked about, but maybe a type two diabetes or some sort of health issue that pops up where it doesn't in reality, necessarily in most people's mind affect what your life is going to be like. It could have an impact on what life insurance is going to cost for you.   Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.   Nick: And so you pay for it out of your bank account, but you qualify with your health. And so usually the sooner you can lock in any sort of coverage, the less expensive it is and that'll pay off over time.   Speaker 1: No, you're exactly right. I mean, we're coming up, we were joking about this, but to really drive home your point, we're coming up on the 10th anniversary for me of my open heart surgery. I was 41 years old. I didn't think anything of it. And so it made it really difficult to get life insurance or get some different kinds of insurance once I had that happen. So I monkeyed around and waited too long. Right. And then I was like, well, I didn't know this was coming. Now luckily it was more lifestyle and things. So after enough of a time period, I started to eventually get some offers, but it is more expensive. So it is important to definitely have this stuff in place if you can, sooner than later, because again, it makes the financial impacts pretty great. So definitely keep that in mind as well. And then finally, choosing a retirement date. We debated on this one, about throwing this on the list because people would definitely can argue and say, well, sure you could change your decision on this. If you pencil in a date to actually retire, you can just move it around as you need to. But if you want to take it that a step further, depending on how you want to go, if you've given notice at a position, maybe not, right, it may be something you can't undo that. So just talk to me about the impacts of just either penciling in, choosing a retirement date to actually walk away just from different pros and cons.   Nick: Yeah. I can jump in on this a little bit. This is something where in reality, I think what we found is maybe a specific date is necessarily the key or the thought process, but understanding the range that you're looking at and understanding what sort of cost you might be incurring if you do retire early. So for example, if your somebody that has saved and done a good job of that and is looking to retire early, call it maybe 62, understanding the impact of how much lower your social security benefit is, understanding what sort of costs you're going to have when it comes to premiums for your health insurance. So as an example, we've got clients that are paying, some clients that are paying between eight and $10,000 a year for health insurance premiums per person, when they were used to while they were working, paying closer to three to $4,000 for the household. So that's something that can have an impact on that retirement date, where maybe you've been thinking in the back of your mind, Hey, I've got a good nest egg. I'm just going to plan to go a little bit early, but didn't quite realize the expenses associated with it. On top of that, from a planning perspective, we do have other clients that they knew that they were going to retire early. And so we put strategies together for leading up to retiring early. They were able to save some extra money into non-qualified or non-retirement accounts. And by taking their income in the first few years of retirement, out of those accounts, it allows them to qualify for certain subsidies for health insurance, which brings their costs down. So again, when we have clarity on what the goals and the objectives are in the financial world, there's usually ways that we can plan around it and try to optimize it. And so having a good idea of what that looks like and the impact of the fallout from that goal and then planning around that, it allows us to be more strategic.   Speaker 1: All right. So obviously there's lots of little things in there where again, you could make the argument that you could move some of these things around, but ideally we want to get it right the first time. And often, as I mentioned earlier, excuse me, when we're doing it ourselves, we don't know a lot of these little things, a lot of a little caveats and whatnot. So we want to get it right the first time. And that's where working with a professional really comes into play. So if you got questions, you need some help as always make sure you're checking with a qualified pro before you take any action on something here on this podcast or any other, you want to make sure that you're seeing how it reflects and affects your specific situation. So stop by the website, pfgprivatewealth.com. That's the home for the team, pfgprivatewealth.com. You can subscribe to us on Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Stitcher, all that good stuff. Retirement Planning Redefined is the name of the show. You can look it up on those apps if you'd like, or just stop by the website again, pfgprivatewealth.com. We appreciate your time here on this week's podcast. We'll see you soon for another edition of Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick from PFG Private Wealth.

We've assembled a list of priorities to keep in mind as you count down the days to retirement. Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Mark: Hey everybody. Welcome to the podcast. It's retirement planning, redefined with John and Nick and myself talking about the countdown to retirement. What to do on those days, as we're getting closer, working our way towards it. We've assembled a list of priorities to keep in mind, as you are counting down those days to retirement. And we were getting ready to get this podcast started and we were kind of laughing at some of the things that we seem to run out of in this whole supply chain issue, had ourselves a good giggle along the way. So hopefully we'll have a good podcast for you to tune into as we talk about these things, because there's some good stuff on here. And guys at the time we're dropping this, I think we're going to drop this right after Memorial Day if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, it's right around it.   Mark: And Memorial Day is kind of the unofficial kickoff to summer. It's not technically summer yet, right? I think it's what June 20th or something like that. But when we get to 50 and a lot of times, if you want to think about this countdown 50 plus, it's kind of the unofficial kickoff to retirement. We're not actually retired yet, but we start thinking about it, paying more attention to it. So on and so forth. So John, the first one on my list is getting healthy and staying healthy. Many of us develop chronic issues in our 50s. So it's a good time to put some thought onto this so that you can actually enjoy those golden years.   John: Yeah, 100%. I would even because I'm sure, I don't know in the previous podcast I talk about my health issues, but I think it's important for everyone at any age, especially though I will say 50.   Mark: True.   John: Focusing on health and getting to the gym and just do whatever makes you feel good. But when you have an health issue and you can't do the things you were doing, I'll tell you it's quite a, it's a challenge. It's quite upsetting. And I'll say from the clients that we work with, we see a big difference in those that actively in retirement are working out, maybe seeing a trainer a couple of days a week to those that are not. And as you age, I think it's more, it's very important just to stay active because you're not recovering like you were in your 20s.   Mark: No, I think that's a great point. I like that too. Yeah, we should start sooner. Right. But if you kind of want to put a, some sort of a time table or something to it when we get, and it kind of works with our conversation for retirement, just get there, start making some of these changes. So you can really enjoy what we call the go go years. Right. So when we first get to that early days of retirement. And then this is a really big one, we could kind of merge two and three together, but we'll do them a little bit separately, but two Nick, is the free time. Now there's a lot of it. And maybe silver lining in the pandemic has been the fact that many couples got to realize life together, 24/7 working from home, being at home.   Mark: Because that's what retirement is. That's a big shift that we don't often talk about. We put a lot of focus on saying, yeah, we want a big travel and we want to go out and play a ton of golf or whatever. But like there's a lot of free time and you're spending it with that significant other that maybe you guys didn't see each other for eight, 10, 12 hours a day. Now you're together all the time. I don't know how many advisors I talk to where they're like, they have funny stories about one spouse or the other saying get them out of my house. They're driving me nuts.   Nick: Yeah. The time challenge can be significant. I can tell you two things that I would recommend against. And those things would be watching a lot more news and,   Mark: Right.   Nick: Deciding that social media is going to be your new hobby.   Mark: It's not your friend. Right.   Nick: If anything, there's a pretty good documentary on Netflix. I forget what it's called, but it's about social media and really kind of the big data side of things and how the algorithms work and really kind of feed into things. And in general, there's been a lot to handle for people over the last few years with the pandemic and everything else going on. So can not underestimate the importance of having constructive hobbies, doing things that kind of keep you sharp or engaged. And even from the standpoint of being social, things that you can do both alone and with others. The relief that people get from a psychological standpoint of being engaged with others and doing different things, kind of being out and about is really, really important and it's going to help keep you fresh. It's going to help you be able to focus on the things that are important versus the things that aren't, and that you don't have control over. And so, making sure that you're developing hobbies, and we would say that that's even separate from things like travel and that type of thing where,   Mark: Right, right.   Nick: Being inquisitive, doing things that have your brain still working are really important.   Mark: That's a great point. And John, I mentioned blending two and three together. So two was determining what you want to do with your free time. Three, we put post retirement career, maybe career is too heavy of a term, but a post retirement something. Right. Retire away, like if you hate your job, let's just say you despise it and you can't wait to retire and you're leaving with nothing else to go to. Like, I get that frustration, but I think people tend to be happier if they're retiring to something. And maybe that's not necessarily another career, but something like, even if you took a year off and literally did nothing, I'm sure you guys have story upon story of retirees who first enjoy doing nothing. But as humans, I think we crave some sort of structure, something to help us kind of fill the time and fill the days.   John: That's 100%. It's important to really start thinking about that. And I can't tell you how many times we've been in meetings and it's when do you want to retire? And the response is, well, I don't know if I'm ever going to retire, but I want to leave this job at this age.   Mark: Right. Right.   John: So it turns into what am I going to do next? And I think kind of what you said there. My mother watches my kids and that's kind of a level of importance to her and she watches them two or three days a week, and there's actually a study where grandparents that kind of are helping out their children, watch their grandchildren actually live a little bit longer. And I think it's all about that level, feeling important.   Mark: Yeah.   John: So whether that's watching grandkids, my clients had started to be a realtor and they actually end up making more money than they were at their previous job. So whatever it is, it's just making some type of level of importance. Whether it's making money, helping out family, volunteering is just feeling like you got to get up and do something in the morning.   Nick: And a good way to kind of sum that up as purpose.   Mark: Purpose. There you go.   Nick: Purpose. When people feel like they have a purpose for both themselves and those around them, they tend to do a lot better.   Mark: Yeah. No I'm with you there. And we used to retire at let's say 65 and you probably were passing away at 67, right? So sitting on the porch for a year or two and doing nothing felt great because we were tired. We were worn out. The concept of retirement is a little less than a 100 years old. So a lot of stuff is actually changed quite a bit. So a post retirement, something or another post retirement purpose instead of career. I like that. Thanks, Nick. We'll use that. And going forward is a great way to think about that on this countdown days to retirement list. Let's go to number four, Nick. So why don't you throw us some things to think about in the opportunity to save more. Again, I mentioned 50, right? So at 50 plus, some stuff starts to change and there's actually some good time to catch up a little bit or just cycle a bit more away if you need to.   Nick: Yeah. Oftentimes whether it's in their 50s or early 60s, people have, maybe they have children coming off the payroll and they don't necessarily plan to figure out how are they going to be able to recapture some of those dollars that they're used to spending on the kids and kind of help them really build up their retirement and maybe catch up from all those years of taking care of the kids. That can be something that's a big deal. One thing that's come up multiple times in the last, I'd say three to four weeks with what's been going on in the market is, we have clients emailing or calling us asking, Hey, the market's down, should we stop saving? And, the way that we try to kind of explain to people is that markets are cyclical.   Nick: We have had this period of time, 10, 12 years, where the markets have generally gone up and people's conception of what, or I should say, perception of what, typically happens in normal cycles, one to three to four year cycles is a little bit thrown off, but an easy way to think about this is that this is why we have a plan in place. You want to continue to save. And if anything the thought process is that you're buying at a discount from what things were previously. So in a lot of ways, the market's on sale. And so continuing to average in and chipping away and taking advantage of the benefits of being able to save money pre-tax, or those sorts of things is an important thing.   Mark: Yeah. It can make a huge dent, right? We're hopefully making the most money we've ever made and all that good kind of stuff. So 50 plus there's should be some good opportunities to sock a bit more away. And that might help John with number five, which is reducing down the debt. So even if you're not necessarily putting more away into a retirement account, because you've done a good job or whatever, maybe the focus is take some of that extra money with the kids being off the payroll and get rid of some of that, especially bad debt.   John: Yeah. 100%. I mean, with rates being as low as they have been, we have seen a lot of people go into retirement with mortgages, but you're at 2.6%, that's nothing crazy, but let's take mortgage out of it. Other debt definitely recommend trying to get that down and off completely, but get it off your books because when you go to retire, it's a big cash flow, where's your income coming from? Social security, pension, investments. The last thing you want at that point where there's no longer a paycheck coming in is debt. What that's doing at that point, it's really eating into kind of things you want to do, which we talked about for hobbies or enjoyment. And then on top of it, it actually adds some stress level to Hey, I need more income coming in to pay out all these bills and all this debt. So definitely before you hit retirement, it's good to be debt free. It's easier to pay off the debt in your working years than when you're not working.   Mark: Yeah. And on the concept of the house, right, there's always the arguments back and forth there, the different things. So certainly, that can also still be on the get debt free list if you'd like. I don't think it's a bad idea to necessarily get rid of it, but just make sure that you're doing that smartly and not being house rich cash poor as the saying goes or whatever the case is. So just kind of bear that in mind.   Mark: But yeah eliminating, if bought an RV or the big plans where the RV in retirement, maybe getting that paid down, if you bought it a little early or whatever, or boat, or I don't know, muscle car, whatever it might be. Right. Just get rid of the stuff that you've got some debt on. And then Nick, the final one here, number six on the list on just counting down stuff is the risk conversation. So if we're reducing our debt, maybe we ought to also think about reducing our risk. Now last year, people would've said, I'm not reducing my risk, the market's on fire, but right now they're like, okay, well let's maybe reduce the risk. Point being at 58 should we be investing like we're 38?   Nick: Yeah. So risk is an interesting word. And we wanted to take a little bit of time to kind of chat about this because there are different types of risk, and depending upon who you talk to, how they rank the different types of risk via priority is different. So for example, inflationary risk, which is something that we're dealing with right now, that's a risk. So in other words, losing the spending power of our money via inflation is something that we need to keep and take into consideration. However, we're in this kind of perfect storm where taking too much risk, if you're shifting money out of cash per se and moving substantial amounts of money into the market, you're dealing with a significant amount of market risk. And then we have interest rate risk from the perspective of, as they've increased interest rates, that's really pushed down the prices of bonds and bond funds.   Nick: And one conversation that we've been having with people is them not necessarily realizing that the bond market and even if you look at the most general bond index is down almost 10% year to date. And so we've been trying to take a lot of time in one-on-one meetings with people to try to explain how this has an impact and really this is a, with what we're dealing with right now is probably the best case in the last 15 years or so to show people why it's important to be diversified and understand that trying to fully time the market, whether it's from the stock side to the bond side, to the cash side, real estate, et cetera, it can be really tricky. And when things are going great, it's hard to remember that, but right now it's showing us that it's really important to make sure that when we think about our risk, that we're taking into consideration poor times, not just great times and understanding that just because maybe throughout the majority of your investing career, taking less risk has meant, Hey, let's reduce our stock exposure and increase our bond exposure.   Nick: It doesn't mean that that's always going to stay flat or go up, there's risks along with that too. So, diversification, understanding that sometimes we do run across periods of time where we just kind of have to take our medicine where all markets have been up for the most part over the last 12 years. There's going to be times where we run into corrections, which is kind of what we're dealing with now. And we have to be patient and try not to go overboard with overreacting to the short period of time. Sometimes looking at the lens through the last, even one year, two year, three year period of time and realizing that in the scheme of things we need to just kind of stay steady.   Nick: But yeah, in general, I would say that making sure that you kind of do an update on what you feel comfortable with from a risk parameter. Now is a good time to reevaluate that. Because what we have seen is that people have been comfortable with a certain amount of risk over the last 10 years, because things have just been going up. And so now that things aren't just going up, what they thought of risk and how they feel comfortable managing it is substantially different than it has been.   Mark: Yeah. Oh definitely. Our risk tolerance level's been like, yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine with the risk. I'm fine. Whoa, wait a minute. I'm not so fine now, right?   Nick: Yeah. The risk over the last 10 years has been okay. I'm okay getting 8% instead of 15%,   Mark: Right.   Nick: Not oh, I'm okay being down negative 11 versus negative 20.   Mark: Yeah. Yeah.   Nick: Everything's been more on the positive side of things and even with COVID, we had the fastest bear market in history where it boomeranged right back up. And so even though that only happened a couple years ago, people have already forgotten about that.   Mark: Oh yeah. Yeah.   Nick: So, yeah. And I can't emphasize enough the importance that this sheds on having a plan and thinking longer term.   Mark: Well, there you go. So that's some countdown items to think about for the days towards retirement, sixth list, list of six things there, excuse me, that you can think about and address towards your retirement strategy. And those are the things that you'll go through when you have a plan put in place when you're working with a team like the team at PFG Private Wealth. So if you're not, then reach out to them and have a conversation, set up some time to get that started, pfgprivatewealth.com, that's pfgprivatewealth.com. That's got all the tools, tips, and resources there. You can schedule some time. You can reach out to John and Nick and the team and get started that way. Of course, you can also find the podcast, subscribe to us on whatever platform you like to use there. So you can catch future episodes as well as check out past episodes. Again, pfgprivatewealth.com. That's going to do it this week for the podcast for John and Nick. I'm your host Mark. We'll see you next time on Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick from PFG Private Wealth.

There are some important terms you're going to come across as you prepare for retirement. Having a basic understanding of these will help you achieve financial success, so we'll cover what they mean and what you should know on today's episode. And don't worry. We won't go quite so far down the rabbit hole where we expect you to be able to explain how a company's P/E ratio meshes with it's Alpha and Beta ratings to determine how much stock you should buy. Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Mark: Hey everybody welcome into the podcast. Thanks for hanging out with John and Nick and I, as we talk about Retirement Planning Redefined here on the podcast. As always, don't forget to subscribe to us on whatever platform you like to use. Find all the information you need at pfgprivatewealth.com. That's the guys website pfgprivatewealth.com. Lot of good tools, tips, and resources to be found there. We're going to have another conversation today about some financial jargon. This is more kind of investment terms you might want to know or have heard and maybe you want to get a better understanding on, especially if you're sitting down and you're shopping for a professional or something like that. You want to kind of understand some of these things that you're talking about. Now we're not going to go super deep. We're not going to get into PE ratios and alphas and betas and all that kind of stuff, but we're going to keep it kind of high level. So we'll jump into that this week on the podcast, Nick, what's going on, buddy? How you doing?   Nick: Pretty good. Pretty good. Staying busy. We're recording this, just kind of closing up tax season. So happy that that is over for-   Mark: I bet.   Nick: Everybody that is at least not filing an extension.   Mark: Yeah.   Nick: But yeah, it's obviously a lot going on in the world. So it's been keeping us pretty busy.   Mark: Yeah that's true. Very true. John, what about you buddy? You glad tax season's over?   John: Yeah. Yeah. It's a fun kind of hump to get over.   Mark: I like that little pause. It's fun. Yeah.   John: Yeah. So, no, it's good. It's kind of a mark that people have on their calendar, so that's over with, and really we start to kind of get busy afterwards.   Mark: Yeah.   John: Because a lot of people kind of delay meetings until after tax season, so excited to get back at it. And then also excited that NBA playoffs started. So Boston Celtics are playing the Nets right now.   Mark: Alright now, there you go.   John: Gearing up for that, so-   Mark: There you go. Very good. Well we probably should have done a show really on tax planning versus tax preps right after tax season because really tax planning is something you should be doing all year long with your retirement professional anyway, but we're not going to do that this week. Maybe we'll do that here in the next couple of weeks, we'll come up and do something.   Mark: But for now let's talk about some terms that people hear and probably should know. Maybe you know, maybe you have that kind of cursory high level view, whatever the case might be. Maybe you don't. So let's talk about a few of these. Let's kind of start with fiduciary guys. And this is a term that I think people should know. They should know what it is. I kind of wish, and I was thinking about this before we started that our politicians had to do what fiduciaries have to do, right? They have that legal, moral, ethical responsibility to do what's right for their client AKA us as American citizens. I wish our politicians had to be fiduciaries, but either way explain what it is and maybe a little bit of the difference between that and like suitability.   John: Yeah. So fiduciary, especially in our world's investment advisor, it's where the fiduciary is obligated to put the client's best interests ahead of their own. So really looking to do what's best for the client, regardless of any other factors. And what you mentioned there with as far as, how does that compare to suitability, where kind of like a broker has to recommend something that's suitable for the client, so there's a big difference when you start to kind of analyze that is something might be suitable for you, but it might not be the best thing for your situation.   Mark: Right.   John: Or maybe there's other things out there that are better. So fiduciary has the due diligence and say, "Hey, I'm making this recommendation. And based on my expertise, my knowledge, everything I've compared it to this is what I believe is the best for you." And also if there's any conflict of interests for the advisor as a fiduciary, they must disclose that to you upfront.   Mark: Yeah.   John: So one thing, what people really need to do when they're interviewing advisors or kind of taking that step to try to find someone to work with, it's really one of the first questions should be asking. I'd say the good thing is the industry is really going in this direction-   Mark: Mm-hmm (affirmative).   John: Over the last, decade or so. It's really been kind of going, fiduciary, fiduciary, so that's.   Mark: Making that the standard, making it more the standard?   John: Yeah. Yeah, no, I think that's a great point. So if I'm getting this right, then maybe to kind of break this down for people, and Nick feel free to chime in, but so if there's three options available, suitability would say, "Hey, any of these three technically work for my client, but this one actually pays me better or there's a reward of a trip or something like that attached to it." You're not doing the wrong thing by picking that. It's still suitable. Whereas a fiduciary has to go with the absolute best thing for the client period. Is that a fair way to break that down in layman's terms?   Nick: Yeah, I think that's a pretty fair way to kind of break it down and it can get tricky because when you really get into the nitty gritty in theory, people can argue about what's better now versus what might be better down the road and that sort of thing.   Mark: Right.   Nick: But if anything, I think what's important for people to understand is the conflicts of interests, the potential conflicts of interest and where they come from. So, if you're working with an advisor that is tied in with a parent company that has proprietary products, then they're probably not able to function as a fiduciary. So-   Mark: Gotcha.   Nick: Understanding that there's a conflict of interest, a potential conflict of interest, there is just something that people should ask about so that they understand it. It can be from experience just kind of chatting with people. It can get a little overwhelming for people to kind of really drill down understanding the difference between fiduciary and standard versus a suitability standard. But people oftentimes understand conflict of interest. And just to kind of piggyback a little bit on your short little rant earlier about politicians, many people would be shocked to know that many politicians are able to invest in companies even though there may be conflicts of interests.   Mark: Yeah.   Nick: And the fact that's able to happen. And there's some websites that track those sort of things, but oftentimes they're privy to information that will impact a company in the marketplace and they're able to take advantage of it even though, the rest of the country can't do that, so-   Mark: Yeah, I was just even talking financially. In just their basic decision making when they pass laws.   Nick: For sure. For sure. But that's a good example of them not passing laws that-   Mark: True.   Nick: Aren't good for everybody.   Mark: Well and to John's point, so there's nothing wrong with asking, right? When you go in and sit down with someone, you just say, "Hey, are, are you a fiduciary?" Right? That's a fair question, and there's nothing wrong with asking that.   Nick: Agreed.   Mark: Yeah. Okay. All right. So let's move on to the other big term right now that everybody's getting hit over the head with, on a regular basis, and that's inflation. At the time we're doing this podcast guys, the CPI numbers came out a couple of weeks ago for March, pretty ugly. Gross is a term that has been thrown around quite a bit some of these numbers, 8.5% on the inflation, we're talking what 48% on gas, 35% up on used cars, food 13 to 17% up. So inflation break it down a little bit.   Nick: Yeah. So inflation has to do with spending power of money. And so one of the easiest ways for people to kind of think about it is, you mentioned food for example, one of the things that we kind of joke around with people is they were able to a couple years ago, do you remember when you could walk out of Publix and get everything you needed for 70, 80 bucks versus it now costing 100, $120 for the same amount of stuff. And the tricky thing with inflation is that it's there on a consistent basis year to year, but every 10 to 15 years, it kind of creeps up on us. And then we realize, Hey, this is kind of annoying.   Nick: And then obviously we have times we're in right now where there's some hyper inflation and kind of pocket books are getting hit. The one thing that I would say just to kind of pour some water on it is that although there are some real substantial issues that people are dealing with, there are some kind of, I guess, what we would almost call acute factors that are having an impact on it, that we would hope subside to a certain extent within the next year or two. But also there are going to be ramifications that we're already starting to see where the FED is doing things to try to combat inflation, like increasing interest rates, which we're kind of already on the docket, but has been getting pushed down. The cans been getting kicked down the road for a while.   Nick: And so things like mortgages, mortgage rates are now I think mid fives I read, whereas a year ago, closer to three. And I was just having a conversation with somebody to kind of put that in real world numbers. A half a million dollar mortgage at rates a year ago, a half a million dollar financed amount is from a monthly payment standpoint is equivalent to around 370,000 now, or if you look at it inverse half a million dollar mortgage at current rates is going to cost you around $700 a month more than it was a year ago. So that's going to have a real impact on housing prices and a lot of other things as well. So those are some real world examples of how inflation kind of impacts our life.   Mark: All right. So yeah, obviously we're hyper aware, we've talked about it before a little bit, but inflation we always kind of think of, at least I do it anyway, like calories, right? We know it exists and we don't often put a lot of thought into it until it's slapping us in the face, so to speak. And it's definitely doing that right now, so a lot people very concerned about that. So when we are talking about that, what happens is you start thinking, well maybe I should take a little more risk or whatever the case is with my portfolio to try to outpace inflation or keep up with it or whatever the case is, especially in these crazy times. So that leads us into risk tolerance guys. So what is your risk tolerance? And is that a wise move to try to take on more risk to combat something? Usually it's not.   John: No, it's not. And this is one of the most probably important things in building a portfolio that someone should really take a look at, and it's often overlooked. So risk tolerance is, to kind of bring it down to the simplest form is how much loss is an investor willing to take in their portfolio? How much volatility can they tolerate? So one of the things that we do when we are building a portfolio for our clients, the first thing actually is we have them go through a risk tolerance questionnaire to determine, are they conservative, moderate, aggressive? And from there we really help us design the portfolio so that way we can kind of match up the expected volatility of the portfolio with kind of what they could bear.   John: Because one of the worst things you could do investing is jumping around. And I hate to say it seeing a little bit right now I've already kind of feel a few phone calls I'm like, hey what should we do with the market? And if this volatility's already got you nervous and it hasn't really, it's been a pullback but it hasn't been anything too significant.   Mark: Right.   John: You really need to take a look at am I invested correctly because as we all know, as you shift to conservative or to cash, and then the next week the market just rally up and all of a sudden you just lost all. You realized your losses and didn't get to recover from it.   Mark: Yeah, knee jerk reaction is not the best right now. Right?   Nick: Yeah. And I would even jump in with that too going along with what John said where I think we have hit that point where people have forgotten what it's like to have bad markets, or even a normal market cycle of having a negative year. Even during COVID when the markets pulled back, 35, 40%, they bounced back by the end of the year. So it was never really realized. There was a short period of panic, but the recovery was quick, but.   Mark: Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Nick: There's a lot of people that don't remember that hey, there are going to be years where the market is down 10% for the year, the whole year. 12 whole months, so that's something that's interesting that's happening right now that we're seeing. Plus, historically where people would shift would be to fixed income or bonds. And that's not necessarily a safe place right now, either. So we're kind of in this, almost unicorn phase that only comes along every 50 or 60 years where there's not a lot of opportunities in many places. And so there's going to definitely have to be some patience involved-   Mark: I like that.   Nick: In the next 12 to 18 months.   Mark: Yeah. I like the unicorn phase. That's a good way of putting it. It's definitely been interesting, that's for sure. So do you guys kind of with the risk tolerance, is it kind of that number kind of system? Do you guys do that risk tolerance kind of thing where you kind of give someone almost like sleep number, if you will. If you're 100 or if you're a 20, how does that work?   John: Yeah. So how we do it and I've used actually some programs that do that. They give you a risk number based on how you answer questions. We have a set of some pretty good questions that give us an idea of what that person can kind of stomach.   Mark: Okay.   John: And what their expected return is. It's really, when you start to break it down, it's a lot of the same questions just asked differently to really kind of understand how the person ticks.   Mark: Yeah.   John: So we do a real good job of figuring that out. And then as advisors, part of our job is to make sure we put them in the appropriate portfolio based on how they answer.   Mark: Yeah. Because it's pretty easy to say conservative, and you go, what does that even mean? Right? Or I'm moderate.   John: Yeah.   Mark: Well what does that mean? That's probably a wide window, right?   John: It is.   Nick: Yeah. And then I would say one of the things that without it sounding like a commercial for ourselves, one of the things that we do that's a little bit different than some places that we do have what's called like a tactical tilt to how we manage money, where if we do have significant concerns, we will tamp down the risk. So maybe if somebody's normally in a portfolio that's a 50/50 mix stock to bond and what we would consider a moderate portfolio, if we have significant concerns in the market, we may drop them down to 30% on the stock side of things in certain cycles where we have high concerns. So sometimes what we found is that helps allay some fears for some people that there's some proactive potential changes, where if we really feel like it's going to hit the fan, we will make that change.   Mark: Right. Okay. So risk tolerance, another big one then definitely making sure that you're having that proper risk tolerance for yourself, especially in these inflationary times. When it becomes, it's hard to not feel, I think as humans, we feel like if we don't do something, we're doing something wrong or we have to take action or therefore we've made a mistake. And sometimes doing nothing can be a smart move. Especially in volatile times when it comes to a financial standpoint, if you don't know the correct answer, making no move might be a good place to start at least. That way you're not having that knee jerk reaction. And then of course, talk with a professional. Get some advice, and get a good strategy in place so that you know the right moves to make at the right time. Let's do another one here, guys, another technical one, dollar cost averaging, what is that?   Nick: So dollar cost averaging is the easiest example that most people have exposure to on a regular basis. And they don't probably realize that they're doing it is when people are contributing to their 401k. So every two weeks, a certain amount of your paycheck goes into your 401k and you have a set allocation and you are buying in to that allocation at whatever price it's at that point in time. So the thought process with dollar cost averaging is that you are balancing, you're investing over a period of time. Where sometimes you'll be buying at a premium, sometimes you'll be buying at a discount, but the objective is to continually invest and make sure that you are not trying to time the market.   John: And part of that is also what we're finding with the current market where it's at, with people with money on the sidelines, it could be a good way to kind of take some of the risk of putting all your money into the market and all of a sudden it dropping. So there's a strategy to basically say every, if I have 100,000 I want to put into the market every month or so, I'm going to be putting in 10 grand into it. That way, if it does dip down immediately, I only have $10,000 at risk. So dollar cost averaging, as Nick mentioned, most people are doing the 401k, not knowing it, but if you have money on the sideline in a volatile market, or if you're nervous, it is a good way to kind of get money that was on the sideline into the market.   Mark: Okay. All right. Well let's do one more guys and we'll wrap it up this week. Asset allocation, another big term we hear. We probably get that tossed around a little bit. Give us the kind of high level view of what that is. And because often I think people wind up feeling like they have a whole bunch of one thing and they're diversified because they've, I don't know, for example, I've got a whole bunch of mutual funds, so therefore I'm good. So explain what asset allocation is and is that correct? What I just said, is that really diversified or not?   John: Yeah. So asset allocation's kind of taken diversification to a different level. You could have seven different mutual funds, but if it's all the same type of funds, for example, like a large cap growth fund, they're going to do the same thing in reality when the market goes up or down. So when you do asset allocation, you're spreading your money, your portfolio within different asset classes, such as large cap stocks, small stocks that Nick mentioned, fixed income earlier, cash, some alternatives.   John: So what you do there is when you're building a portfolio and again, starting with your risk tolerance and your goals, you determine, hey my risk tolerance is X, here's my goals. I should be in a, let's just call it in income in growth portfolio. Well, what's the right mix of asset classes to make that work and to kind of bring it down to layman's terms here? Imagine kind of cooking, you're making recipe for a pie. The pie has certain ingredients to make it work and make it taste good. And that's basically what you're doing in your investments. It could be 20% large cap, 5% small cap, 20% fixed income, and our job as advisors and wealth management is we build that portfolio for the client if they hire us to do so.   Mark: Gotcha. Okay. All right. That's a good way of breaking that down. You just think about like a pie. So, and who doesn't love pie? So there you go. All right guys, thanks so much for the conversation this week. Good stuff talking about these technical terms, some jargon here. Hopefully we kept that pretty high level and it helped out with some of the things that you might be thinking or hearing. And if you've got questions, definitely reach out to the guys.   Mark: As always, before you take any action sit down. If you're already working with them, maybe share this podcast with someone who might benefit from it. If not, if you've been listening for a while, just reach out to them, have a conversation, and chat with them for yourself. You can find all of it at pfgprivatewealth.com. That's their website pfgprivatewealth.com. They're financial advisors at PFG Private Wealth, which makes a lot of sense. So make sure you subscribe on Apple, Google, Spotify, all that good kind of stuff. That way you can catch past episodes as well as future episodes. For John and Nick I'm your host, Mark. We'll catch you next time here on Retirement Planning Redefined.

Earlier this week, my colleague Adam Mastroianni published an essay on what he called "cultural oligopoly." An increasingly smaller number of artists create an increasingly larger percentage of what we watch, read, and listen to. Mastroianni presents data showing that through the year 2000 only about twenty-five percent of a single year's highest grossing movies were spinoffs, franchises, or sequels. Now it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 75%. He has similar data for hit TV shows, books, and music. Why is this happening?My guest today is Nick Seaver, who is a cultural anthropologist at Tufts University. And for the last decade or so, Nick has studied the social processes underlying the creation of music recommender systems, which form the algorithmic basis for companies like Spotify and Pandora. I've admired Nick's work for a long time. And as an anthropologist, he is interested not necessarily in the nitty gritty details of how these algorithms are constructed, but rather in who is constructing them and what these people believe they are doing when they make decisions about how the algorithms ought to work.The core of Nick's work centers around taste, and how these companies and their algorithms subtly shape not only what we consume, but what we like. When Nick started this line of work in the early 2010s, it really wasn't clear how big of an impact these recommender systems would have on our society. Now, his expertise gives an evermore incisive look at the central themes of many large societal conversations around the content we consume and our everyday digital existence. But I came into this conversation with Mastroianni's question at the top of my mind, and I think Nick's research can give a crucial insight, at least into one piece of the puzzle.One of Nick's papers relates an ethnographic study of music recommender system engineers. In the interest of protecting the identity of his informants, he gives the company a fictional name, but it bears conspicuous resemblance to Spotify. As a naive observer, one might think that the way these engineers think about their audience is in terms of demography: this kind of person likes this kind of music. If they can figure out the kind of person you are, they can recommend music that you'll probably like. But that turns out not to be the dimension of largest variance.Instead, Nick introduces the concept of “avidity.” Essentially, how much effort is a listener willing to put in to find new music? This turns out to be the first distinction that these engineers make between listeners. And it forms a pyramid. On the bottom you have what one of his informants called the “musically indifferent.” This makes up the majority of listeners. Their ideal listening experience is “lean-back.” They want to press play, then leave the whole thing alone. It is a passive listening experience — no skipping songs, no wondering what other tracks might be on the album. From there, it goes from “casual” and “engaged” listeners to the top of the pyramid, which is “musical savant.” These are “lean-in” listeners who are taking an active role in discovering new and different kinds of music.“The challenge,” Nick writes, “is that all of these listeners wanted different things out of a recommender system.” Quoting one of his informants, codename Peter, he says: “in any of these four sectors, it's a different ball game in how you want to engage them.” As Nick summarizes it: “what worked for one group might fail for another.”Nick continues here: "as Peter explained to me, lean-back listeners represented the bulk of the potential market for music recommendation in spite of their relatively low status in the pyramid. There were more of them. They were more in need of the kind of assistance recommenders could offer and successfully capturing them could make 'the big bucks' for a company."Nick relates the slightly more forthcoming perspective of another engineer, codename Oliver: "it's hard to recommend shitty music to people who want shitty music," he said, expressing the burden of a music recommendation developer caught between two competing evaluative schemes: his own idea about what makes good music and what he recognizes as the proper criteria for evaluating a recommender system.In the course of our conversation, Nick and I cover not only his studies of music recommender systems, but also his more recent studies taking an anthropological approach to attention. We tend to think of attention as this highly individualized process. For example, of gazing into the screen of your phone or turning your head to identify the source of an unexpected noise. But attention is also a social and cultural process. We attend collectively to certain stories, certain memes, certain ideas. What exactly the connection is between these two forms of attention is not obvious. And Nick's current line of work is an attempt to draw it out.But the larger theme here is that music recommender systems are one battle in the larger war for our collective attention. What Spotify, Netflix, and Twitter all have in common is that their success is proportional to the extent to which they can dominate our attention. This is known in Silicon Valley as the idea of "persuasive technology." And one way to begin to understand the origins of cultural oligopolies starts with Nick's observation about avidity. The vast majority of listeners or viewers tend to go with the default option with which they're presented. Another way of putting it is that their preferred mode is habitual autopilot.While recommender systems make up just one part of this content ecosystem. This principle remains stable across its many different layers. The more we go with our habitual default options, the more control these platforms have over us. The more we rely on these companies to define our tastes for us, the more homogenous our tastes will become.Nick's forthcoming book is “Computing Taste.” It comes out in December 2022. Keep an eye out for it. And if you enjoy this episode, you can subscribe to my Substack newsletter at againsthabit.com or leave a five star review on iTunes.Thank you for listening. Here is Nick Seaver.Cody: One of your current areas of interest is attention. And while I think this is a topic that is a pillar of how we understand our own modern lives and definitely has a long history of study in fields like psychology, it's not really something that anthropologists have covered as much in a direct way. So I'm curious to get your current perspective on why people talk about attention so much, what this word might really mean, and what an anthropological take on it might show us.[00:07:46] Nick: Yeah. My interest in attention stemmed from the earlier work that I did, sort of my PhD dissertation project and first book, which was about the developers of music recommender systems. And one of the things you realize if you, you know, study recommender systems at all, is that people are really interested in attention.They're interested in ways that you measure — how you measure if someone is listening to some music, what they like on the basis of their listening habits, your interest in trying to encourage them to listen more, to do all this stuff with their attention. And that was going to lurking in the background for me for a long time.So when I had a chance to design a new seminar to teach at Tufts for our anthropology undergraduates I thought, you know, okay, I want to learn more about attention and try to find stuff about it. So I proposed a course, which I called "how to pay attention," uh, which was a little bit of a click baity title. We don't really do attention hacks or anything. And it was a chance for me to read really broadly across media studies about across history, across psychology, cognitive science, uh, and some anthropology art history and so on to think about like, what is this thing? Like, what's this, this concept that seems so important for the way that people describe anything in the world now.And as an anthropologist, I was, uh, struck by that because, you know, when you find a concept that does so much work for people, it's — I would argue it's hard to find one that is doing more work in the present moment than attention — you know you've got something culturally rich. But a lot of the ways we talk about attention in public, the kind of popular discourse around attention is very narrow. It's very individualizing. It's very sort of a thing that happens in individual brains.So the line I like to give, uh, is that, you know, the question is: what would it look like to take an anthropological approach to attention? Well, it would look like putting attention in a social context and in a cultural context.And my thumbnail definitions of those are, you know, society is this sort of world of relationships and roles in which people live. It's where you have bosses and spouses and professors and students and pets and doctors and sheriffs and all these other kinds of roles that people occupy. And we clearly pay attention within those social structures, right? We pay attention to the same things as each other. If I'm sitting in a classroom with students, they're paying attention to me and each other in certain ways that are governed by our social roles and relationships. And we also pay attention in a cultural context, which means we pay attention in a world where we value certain things, sort of arbitrarily where we make associations between certain kinds of entities and other entities.So we might say, oh, let's, you know, focus our attention over here. And we talk about our attention as though it's a kind of lens or an optical instrument, or we'll talk about attention as being like a filter, right? We have information overload because there's not enough filtering happening between information and the world in our heads.So these are all cultural phenomenon. There's nothing intrinsically attention-like about them. And to my mind studying how people make sense of attention in the present moment in these cultural contexts, uh, is just a fascinating question. So that's the sort of how I got into it and where I think an anthropological approach is different from the sort of stereotypical psychological approach.Not that all psychologists are like this, um, but you know, the stereotypical psychology approach would be, let's do experiments with reaction times and individual people, you know, in a lab setting. And that's not really what I'm interested in. I'm really interested in the fact that people talk about attention all the time and they use it to explain all sorts of things and they think that it's really important.[00:11:12] Cody: There's definitely a trope in psychology that whatever you are studying. Whether it's memory or visual search or whatever it is, you can kind of at always some point just boil it down to, you know, some explanation: Oh, well this is what the person is attending to. This is, this is what their attention is focused on. But it's not actually — it's often kind of just a hand-waving way of, of saying, oh, well, yeah, it's what they're concentrating on without having, having any specific idea of what that really means. So I'm kind of curious what, what does putting the idea of attention in a social and cultural context — what do you think we've misunderstood about attention by individualizing and overlooking those social and cultural contexts?[00:12:01] Nick: I would say one thing is to note that there are lots of folks working in the sort of intersection of philosophy and cognitive science who are very interested in that kind of circularity of, uh, of explanation that you just described. Right. That are like: wait a minute, what does attention mean then? One of the ones that I am familiar with her work — Carolyn Dicey Jennings is one such philosopher who works in close collaboration with cognitive scientists and is sort of interested in offering a philosophically rigorous account of attention that isn't just like the thing that you point to when you've given up on giving explanations.But one reason I love reading and cognitive science around this is that you've started to realize that it seems really obvious what attention is. And of course, the famous line that everyone has to quote in all of their articles and books seems to be from William James, the godfather of American psychology who says everyone knows what attention is.And then gives you the sort of basic definition of, you know, it's when you, uh, focus on something and sort of don't focus on other things. But of course, when you push on attention, it's not really clear what it is. And it's sort of a grab bag concept that pulls together all sorts of stuff, right? It includes your ability to focus for a long time or so your sort of endurance. It includes vigilance, right? It includes the sheer sort of, uh, arousal state. Like if you're really sleepy, you're maybe not as attentive. It also includes that basic filtering capacity, the ability to, you know, in a crowded room, to listen to the person who's talking to me, instead of hearing all of the other stuff that's happening. There's all these things that you may not necessarily want to, or need to combine into a single concept.But there's not really internal coherence there. But while that's sort of a problem for psychologists, they right. They say we want to be studying one thing. We don't want to be accidentally mixing a bunch of different references. It's really normal in a cultural context, right? For any given symbol, say attention as a symbol here, to mean lots of different things and to be specifically a way to sort of draw together a bunch of different discourses in one place.So to my mind, that got me thinking, well, you know, attention just is a cultural phenomenon, just like as a defined thing. Like the fact that we think of, uh, you know, a first grader's ability to sit in their chair in the classroom for a long time, we think of that as being the same thing as my ability to, you know, listen to you and not just have my mind wander off to some other thing, while we're talking — those don't have to be the same as each other. And yet we think of them as being totally connected to each other.Another example I like to give often to talk about the sort of various layers at which attention works — in the way that, you know, in sort of common usage — has to do with Donald Trump, which is not the most fun example but there was a lot of attentional discourse around Trump, which ranged from when he was elected this sense of like, oh, you know, the press was not paying attention to the right people. This was a surprise to some people because there was not collective attention to the right parts of society. There was not an awareness that was happening.So there's an attention that's not an individual's attention, right? That's like everybody's attention. But what is that? That's not the same thing as what happens in the brain.All of those things tangled together through this weirdo concept that nobody seems to really question. We really take it for granted as like an obvious, important thing.[00:15:10] Cody: You mentioned in one of your papers, this metaphor that I'm really interested in. And it's that the way we usually talk about attention is in terms of "paying" attention, which is based in an economic metaphor. and certainly I hear a lot of people talking about like, "okay, well your most valuable asset is your time. No, no, no. Actually wait, that's just the convention. Really, your most valuable asset is your attention, which is kind of this cycle, psychological function of time." But anyway, that's kind of how we normally talk about attention, but you propose this idea that actually the sort of verb there should be "doing" attention as in some sort of action forward notion of what it means to attend.So can you say a little bit more about what that means?[00:16:00] Nick: Clearly the economic metaphor is in many ways the dominant attentional metaphor at the moment. Of course, there's a sense of paying attention. And there's also this idea that we live in an attention economy, right. And the classic explanation for what that means is from Herbert Simon, who is a sort of cognitive scientist, political scientist, economist, et cetera, working in the sort of late post-war period in the United States where he says, you know, you might say we live in an information economy. But that's not really true because we have tons of information. Information is not scarce, but information consumes attention. And therefore attention is the scarce resource. And if economics is the study of how to allocate scarce resources, that means that attention is the thing that is being economized.That's not an argument we have to agree with necessarily, but that's the sort of groundwork for thinking about how attention itself might be an economic kind of thing and how it's become really, really natural I think for lots of people across all sorts of political orientations and disciplinary affiliations to think of their attention as being really like naturally economic, right? We might question all sorts of applications of economic logics to other domains, but attention is a hard nut to crack. It really feels like, you know, sure, we don't like this way that people like try to economize every last part of our lives, but attention isn't that just, you know, you have a limited amount of it. You have a limited amount of time. What else can you, can you have? And so I think one of the things you're pointing to in your, in your question, is this history in the social sciences have a real skepticism around the role of money in society.So the classic spot for this is Georg Simmel, the sociologist writing around the turn of the 20th century, who gives what my PhD advisor used to call the money as acid hypothesis, which was this argument that when you introduce sort of money and, and, you know, uh, assigning prices to things into domains where it didn't exist before, it tends to reduce everything to the monetary as like a lowest common denominator. Right?You start to think of everything in terms of how much it's worth. And that feels not great in a lot of domains. It allows some people to do some things very strategically. Um, but generally we, we take that as a sort of sad, sad thing that money has to sort of dissolve some of the richness of social interaction.Um, and it becomes sort of the, you know, the basis for everything. It's the source of the phrase, you know, time is money, right? This idea of time is money. That's why it's important. But when you're pointing at is now we've got a kind of shift in the way that that discourse happens, right? It's not really the case that time is money. It's more, that money lets you buy time. And some people are suggesting that the basic thing, the sort of most fundamental value thing is your time or maybe your attention.And that is so interesting to me because now we've got the attention as acid hypothesis, which is that attention and this sort of an accountant, any kind of social life in terms of how much attention we're paying to what, um, it becomes the, the framework in which basically anything, uh, can be, can be expressed — in an almost, it feels more fundamental than money to some people, right? It feels more essential. If money is an arbitrary and position, attention is just the real thing.And as anthropologist, my interest is not so much in deciding whether that's true or not. But in cataloging and noting the way that that works, the way that people talk about it, because it's something that's pretty emergent at the moment. But it's not quite obvious to folks like what, what it's going to mean. Like what's going to happen, as people take this more and more seriously.[00:19:32] Cody: So, as you alluded to at the beginning, attention is kind of this big, big topic that we all understand is this governing force in our lives. We're not really sure what it is in either a colloquial sense or a professional academic sense. But it's definitely, whatever it is, it's critical to whatever we're doing over here in psychology.And you began to understand that through your research in music recommender systems. And that has been your main area of study for the past 10 years or so the kind of recommender systems and algorithms used by platforms like Spotify and Pandora and all that sort of stuff. So you've done a series of in-depth ethnographic studies, which will come together in your book, Computing Taste, which I'm really looking forward to reading when it's out this December. Um, but I want to get into some of that material now.[00:20:28] Nick: Sure.[00:20:29] Cody: So one of my favorite papers of yours is called "Seeing Like an Infrastructure: avidity and difference in algorithmic recommendation." So can you tell me a little bit about this concept of avidity and how it plays out in the way engineers think about musical recommenders systems.[00:20:48] Nick: So that piece, seeing like an infrastructure, came about — it's going to be partly in this book, but the basic gist of it was this: I wanted to know how the people building recommender systems for music in particular thought about their users. This is sort of basic stuff. But it's very important, right?The way you build your technology, uh, is going to be shaped by the people that you think use it. Um, a side question that sort of rose to great public prominence during the time that I was working on this project, you know, over the past, like you said, 10 or 12 years was the question of diversity within these fields.So it is, you know, a well-known problem, certainly by now, um, that there is a lot of demographic homogeneity in tech companies and among the people who build these software systems. And many people suggest that the shortcomings are some of the shortcomings of these systems, um, or, you know, biased outputs, some of the racist outcomes we get from some machine learning systems, maybe directly traceable to that lack of diversity on the teams of the people who, who build them.Uh, so aside question here for me was how did the people building these systems understand diversity, uh, because there's more than one way to think about what diversity means and what kind of effect it might have on the technologies that you build. So one of the things I realized was that when people talked about music listeners, as you know, developers of recommender systems, they were very well aware that the people who used a recommender system were not really like the people who built the recommender system.And that's a kind of realization that doesn't always happen. It's been the subject of critique in lots of domains. Some people call the absence of that the iMethodology, which is what we use to say, you know, someone builds a system because it meets their own needs and they assume that they are, uh, like their users.So you get this class of startup ideas, you know, like, um, laundry delivery, uh, which is because, you know, you've got a bunch of dudes who have just graduated from college and they don't want to do their own laundry, and they're trying to solve their own problems, right. This kind of sector and, uh, style of development.But the people working on music recommendation seems pretty aware, uh, that they, they're not like the people who are using this. So the question then is in how — and well, the main thing that people would talk about when they talked about how they were different from their users and in how their users might be different from each other was what I ended up calling avidity, which is sort of my term, um, for a collection of ideas that you could sum up basically as how into music are people, right?How, how avidly do they seek out new music? How much do they care about music? How much should they want to listen to music? You know, how much work do they want to put into, uh, finding things to listen to and a recommender system, as you might guess, uh, is generally, uh, geared, especially these days toward less avid listeners, right? They're intended for people who don't really want to put that much effort into deciding what to listen to. If you knew what you wanted to listen to, you would not need an algorithmic recommendation.But on the other hand, the people who worked in these companies, they generally were very, very enthusiastic about music. And so when they were building recommender systems, they understood themselves as having to build those for someone that was not like them, which poses this question: how do you know what your users are like then? If they're not like you, what are you going to do?And so in short, the argument and the pieces that they come to understand their users primarily through the infrastructures that they build. So they learn things about their users, through the data collection apparatus or through the infrastructure that they create. An infrastructure is designed to capture things like how much you listen, at where you click, you know, the frequency of your listening to certain artists and so on. And in that data collection, what's most obvious? Avidity.How much you listen, how much clicking you do, because here's a database that's, you know, full of click events, listening events and so on. And so I argue in that piece that avidity is both a kind of cultural theory about how people are different from each other, but also something that's very closely tied to the specific infrastructure that they work on.So they want to try to be rational. They want to try to be objective. They don't want to try to build from their own personal experience. They're aware of that shortcoming. But the solution for that is in this sort of circular solution of using the actual data collection infrastructure that they've been building on. So they kind of reinforce this vision of avidity at the center, in the place of, you know, other kinds of variety that some of their critics might care about such as, uh, demographic homogeneity and so on.[00:25:22] Cody: Yeah, so that to me is such a fascinating insight. It's like, okay, if you're someone who doesn't have any preconceptions about what this might be like, you might come in and think, okay, well, if I were going to segment people up to recommend music to them, I would look for demographic qualities. I might look for things that I think would correspond to interest in certain genres, all of that, all of that sort of thing. But, based off of what you're saying, this dominant way of understanding people is through the amount of effort they're willing to put in to find something that they do not already know about.And you give an account from one of your informants who says they kind of have this pyramid : at the bottom is the musically indifferent than you have casual and engaged listeners and then musical savant at the top. And then in each of these four sectors, you have a totally different way of how you're trying to engage them and what it might mean to have a successful recommendation for them. And that to me just seems, uh, like a very interesting way of conceptualizing what it means to, to be engaged with music and to understand the different kinds of, of ways in which people are listening to a combination of what they like and what they might potentially like.[00:26:43] Nick: Yeah, absolutely. I think that, uh, maybe one thing that will help put us in some context is to think a bit about the history of algorithmic recommendation. Because you might think, yeah, like you said, that, uh, the first place you would go to sort of segment listeners to music would be demography because that's of course in the dominant mode of, of segmenting audiences for music, uh, ever since, you know, the origin of the recorded music industry. It's been a very, very dominant frame in the production of certain genres, you know, radio stations, stores, labels, charts, all the rest of it.There's a bunch of rich history of essentially race, uh, in the categorizing of, of music. And I'm talking here specifically at the United States, but you have similar dynamics globally. Um, but a very central sort of point of concern within the overall recommender systems world — and this includes things beyond music — is that using demographic categories for personalization is bad, right? That it's biased at best, that it's racist at worst. And that what recommender systems do — and this is an argument people are making in this field from its very origins in the mid 1990s — is provide a way for people to sort of escape from the bounds of demographic profiling. So it's very important to people in this field that they don't use demography, uh, the sort of recommender systems as the anti demographic thing are — it's a trope that's through, you know, it exists all the way through this, through this field from, from back then until, until the present.Um, what's striking about it, of course, is that, uh, in a world where people have race and they have gender and they have class. Those features do emerge in sort of proxy form in the data, right? So you, it is not always hard to guess someone's demographic qualities, uh, from what they listen to. You know, it's not deterministic relationship, but there's certainly a correlation there.So it is possible for demographics to re-emerge in this data, right. For them to think, oh, you know, they, these look like sort of feminine listening habits and so on. Um, there's a lot of work in, in, in how those categories emerge and how they can shift around over time. Um, but it's very important that people are working in this field that they don't take demography into account.In part because they're worried about doing what they describe as racial profiling. But even if that would be a sensible way to start, right — to think, well, there is certainly a racial pattern in production of music and, and listening patterns. They really hold that off limits intentionally.[00:29:11] Cody: One of the things that I've heard you talk about before in other podcasts interviews is that your job as an anthropologist is not simply to infiltrate these companies and collect secret facts about how the algorithms work. Your job is something closer to trying to describe the cultural processes, underlying their creation and figure out how the people who build these recommender systems understand what it is they're doing.So as you say, the more detailed you get on describing the algorithm itself, the more transient data information is. for example, how Facebook is, is weighting one aspect of the newsfeed on any given day — that could change tomorrow, but the underlying cultural and social constructs are more stable and in a way more fundamental to what it means for our society in our, in a larger sense.So I kind of want to bring in another paper that you've written in this sort of line, which is "Captivating Algorithms: recommender systems as traps" in which you compare the way Silicon valley engineers talk about their products and anthropological studies of literal animal traps. And so most tellingly, you have this quote, which I love, it's from a paper from near 1900 by an anthropologist named Otis Mason, I believe, which reads: the trap itself is an invention in which are embodied most careful studies in animal mentation and habits. The hunter must know for each species it's food it's likes and dislikes its weaknesses and foibles. A trap in this connection is an ambuscade, a temptation, irresistible, allurement. It is a strategy."So he's describing how the people he's studied think" about trapping animals. And in a sense, uh, you know, you're saying that you're leveraging the animal's own psychology against itself.Your point in this paper is that this is essentially the same language, or at least a very similar language, to what many people use in describing the quote "persuasive technologies" being built today. So can you expand on that idea a little bit and say what the anthropologist's perspective on studying these kinds of technologies looks like?[00:31:29] Nick: I love that line from, from Mason. I think it's very rich, uh, in helping us think about what we might be doing with technology from an anthropological point of view. Like I've been talking about one of the central concerns I have is how the people building these systems think about the, the, their users, uh, and one of the common things that they do then when they talk about what they're, what they're up to, is they talk about trying to capture them, right.They try to talk about capturing their attention, to bring attention back in. They talk about capturing market share. There's all of these captivation metaphors. And of course they don't literally mean that they're trying to, you know, cat trap you in a box or drop you in a hole through a layer of leaves or something like that.But one of the things that anthropologists get to do, which is fun and I think useful, uh, is draw broader comparisons in the people that we are talking to and talking about than they draw, to sort of put things in comparison, across cultural contexts. And so comparing these, you know, machine learning systems that are imagined to be high tech, the reason for the high valuation of all of these big tech companies, uh, thinking about them, not as being some brand new thing, that's never been seen before and requires a whole new theory of technology to understand, but thinking of them as being part of a continuum of technologies, that includes digging a hole in the ground and putting some sharp sticks in it. That I find really, uh, enticing, because it's going to help us think about these systems as just technologies, right? They're ordinary in a lot of ways, despite some of their weird qualities. So the basic argument of the traps paper is that we have this anthropology of trapping that suggests, okay, well, what is a trap? It's a weird kind of technology that really foregrounds, uh, the psychological, uh, involvement of the entities that's trying to trap, right? A mouse trap doesn't work. If the mouse doesn't do what it's supposed to do, uh, in the same way that your, you know, iPhone won't work, if you don't use the iPhone in the way you're supposed to. And this is in some ways a now classic argument within science and technology studies that you really have to configure a user for a technology in order for technology to work. There's no such thing as a technology that just works in isolation from a context of use. And so reminding ourselves of that fact, uh, is really handy in this domain because there's a lot of work on algorithms and AI that falls prey to this idea that, you know, oh, they're brand new, we never used to, we didn't want to go to technologies as being, you know, really determining of our situations and of advancing according to their own, their own logics before, but now it's true. Now algorithms are truly autonomous. And that's not really true, right. There are people who work on them who build them, who changed them over time. And they're doing that with a model of prey in mind.So I'm drawing on a little bit of an expansion of that anthropology of trapping tradition by an anthropologist named Alfred Gell, who has a very famous article in anthropology, where he talks about artwork as being a kind of trap. Also a similar, you know, the idea of like a good, a good work of art is going to produce a psychological effect on its viewers.But it's going to do that using technical means, right? So, and, uh, really intricately carved statue could cause someone to sort of stand still and look at it. And we don't want to forget that that statue, in addition to being quote unquote, art, uh, is also technology, right? It's also an artifact that's been created by people using tools.And it is in some sense, a tool in its own right for producing an effect in a viewer. And so I like to use this anthropology of trapping literature to think a little bit more expansively about questions that have really been coming up lately around ethics and persuasion in digital media. So we have documentaries, organizations, and so on, like I'm thinking "The Social Dilemma" from the center for humane technology is the sort of most prominent one, that suggests that, you know, Facebook is like a slot machine. It is trying to get you addicted to it and is trying to produce bad effects in your mind. YouTube is doing this as well.They're incentivizing people to make outrageous content because they're trying to maximize the amount of time that people spend on their sites. Now, these are all stories about digital technology that really fairly explicitly figure them as trap-like in the sense that I've been describing . Facebook is designed to make you do things against your will, uh, which are also against your best interest. So they have the trick you using them. And so we see that kind of trap metaphor out in the wild there, um, in critiques that people will make of these systems. So it was really striking to me to see that in both critiques, but also just in the self descriptions of people working in this space.It was not weird for people working in music in particular to say: yeah, of course, I want to get people addicted to listening to music. And it maybe didn't even seem that bad. But is it really bad if you listen to more music than you used to listen to, is that worthy of being called an addiction? Is that really a problem?But thinking about trapping in this sort of broad anthropological way, I hope, um, steps us back from this binary question. You know, are these things harmful? Are they coercive or not? And into a gray or a space where we say, you know, sort of all technologies have a bit of persuasion and coercion mixed into them.They all sort of demand certain things of their users, but they can't really demand them entirely. And so if we step back, we can start to think of, um, technologies as existing, within a broader field of psychological effects of people trying to get other people to do what they want them to do. And it sort of field of persuasion, um, where we don't have to say, okay, well, you know what the problem is, recommender systems is they really, you know, deny you agency, which they can't. They can't ultimately deny you agency entirely. But they do depend on you playing a certain role in relation to them.[00:37:22] Cody: Cody here. Thanks for listening to the show. I'd love to get your thoughts on this episode. One of the challenges, as you might imagine, as a writer and podcast producer, is that it's hard to get direct feedback from your readers and listeners, what they like or don't like what's working well or needs to be rethought.You can tell a little bit about this from metrics like views or downloads, but it isn't very nuanced. So I've created an avenue for getting that kind of feedback: a listener survey available with every podcast episode. If you have feedback on what you found most interesting or what you thought could be improved, I'd love to hear it.You can find the link in the show notes or at survey.Againsthabit.com. That's survey.againsthabit.com. Now back to the show.What do you think the role of habits are in everything that we're talking about here? Because it seems largely that the psychology that engineers are relying on when they're building their products, when they're thinking about persuasive technologies, when they're trying to trap a user, it's largely the psychology of habits and habit formation.So I don't know. What do you, what do you make of that? And, you know, what's what does that sort of suggest to you about how we should think about these technologies and the way they're exploiting our habitual psychology?[00:38:47] Nick: That's a very nice connection. There is a historian of science named Henry Cowell who is working on some of this history of the psychology of habit in relation to attention , which might be interesting. But from my point of view, in sort of anthropology side of things, when I think of habit, I think of what we often talk about in the social sciences as a, as habitus, which sounds a fancy way of saying the sort of collection of habits that you acquire as part of becoming an inculturated person.So as you grow up, you learn a bunch of habitual things. It's not the sort of small-scale habits of like, you know, self-help books where they say, oh, if you remember to, uh, you know, put your toothbrush out in a certain spot in the morning, it'll trigger you to brush your teeth on time, but rather it's something broader than that, right? Which is that we have a bunch of tendencies in the ways that we behave in the ways that we respond to the outside world and the way we use our bodies that are those, those are all solidified in us over time. And so if you ever have the experience of culture shock of going to a place where people don't have quite the same habits as you do, it becomes very obvious that what seems totally natural and comfortable and regular to you, it doesn't seem that way to, to other people.And so technologies are part of that broader field of habits or habitus in that a lot of the kind of habits that we have are sort of organized around technological implements, right? So very explicitly people working in this field, um, folks like Nir Eyal who's book, Hooked, is plainly about this, about how companies can learn to sort of incite habits and their users, they suggest that, you know, what, what you want to do, if you want your company to become really successful is you want to make users use it habitually. Something like, you know, users will open up Facebook, um, before they've even consciously thought about what they're doing. And I'm sure plenty of people have had the same experience of, you know, being on Twitter or on Facebook, closing the window on their browser, opening a new window on their browser and going immediately back to that website before realizing, wait, what am I doing?That kind of unthinking habitual behavior is where that intersection of persuasion and coercion sort of happens. Right. If someone's making me do that, um, that's probably not quite what I want. It takes place within the sort of broader field of overall habits. And arguably, and this is something that people in the social sciences have argued for a while now, your taste is also part of this, right? So you learn to like certain things. It's very easy for people to learn, to, you know, uh, to dislike a style of music, for instance, such that when it comes on the radio, you'll turn the radio off immediately and be like, that's horrible. You know, I can't imagine that anyone else would like this, but of course other people do like it. Which just gives lie to the idea that there's something objective going on under there.But technology and recommender systems in particular and the way that I try to think about them in my book and through my, uh, articles, uh, I want to try to think about recommender systems as really occupying that in-between space between technology and taste, or as you know, the title of my book, computing and taste. Cause we often talk about those domains as though they're really separate from each other, right? Computers are rational, they're quantitative, they're logical. Whereas taste is subjective. It's individual, it's expressive, it's inexpressible through numbers. Those two ideas, you know, we think of them as being really opposed. There's no accounting for taste and so on.And yet they come together in recommender systems, uh, in a way that some people fault because they think that you shouldn't do that. You shouldn't cross the streams from these two, these two different domains. Um, but which I think of as not being that weird, if we think of taste as being a sort of set of habits as being part of this kind of, you know, apparatus through which we live our lives, and we think of technology as also being part of this broader scene of habits and habituation, right? Technologies are not, uh, separate from, from the human world. Computers did not invent themselves and they do not program themselves. So actually all of this is getting played with together, uh, in a way that's not that weird if you think about it. Now, it may be done in ways that we don't like, and it may have effects that we don't want. But it's important. It was important for me to try to give an anthropological account of recommenders systems that didn't start from the premise that, oh, this is impossible. Like you can't do this. Everybody knows that human expression and feeling cannot be worked on through the computer. Because it's pretty clear that it can be worked on through the computer. What's not clear is what that means for how we understand computers and for how we understand taste.[00:43:24] Cody: Okay. Here is an easy question then. What is your theory of taste?[00:43:32] Nick: Ooh. Okay. This is a fun question. So my theory of taste, I have to start with the, with the, the sort of default social science theory of taste. The default social science theory of taste is what we would call the homology thesis, which is that there is a homology or a sort of structural similarity between class and taste. So fancy people like fancy things and less fancy people like less fancy things. If you like the opera, or if you like country music that tells me something about who you are. That's the sort of canonical, a social scientific argument.And in that case taste is really not the thing that most people think it is where it's like, oh, this is just my personal preferences. It's actually something that sort of determined by your social status. Now that's a fairly vulgar account of that theory, but I think it's fairly widely shared among lots of people that taste is effectively arbitrary. And at the end of the day, it really just reflects your sort of social position, maybe also, you know, your race. But certainly essentially like how fancy you are in a sort of class based system.My thinking on taste is largely informed by a tradition in sociology that is usually called the pragmatics of taste, which suggests that sure, maybe that happens, that homology thing. But the problem with that homology thesis is that it doesn't tell you how or why fancy people come to like fancy things or why people in any social group come to acquire the tastes that are associated with that group. And so what these folks do, um, usually through fairly rich ethnographic observation, which is maybe why I like them, um, is they try to describe all of the conditions by which people come to acquire taste. And so they have these studies of, you know, uh, opera fans. There's a book by Claudio Benzecry about how opera fans learn to become opera fans, um, or how, you know, people who listen to, uh, vinyl records set up their little listening stations in their home. There's a lot of stuff that people do to try to, uh, instrument their taste, to, to orchestrate encounters with music in particular.And so I'm really invested in that idea of taste as something that you do rather than something that you just sort of have. Uh, and as something that's very much entangled with technology, a favorite example of mine is, you know, we have a sense of what it means to have taste right now, right? What music do you pick on Spotify or something like that. But if we go back, you know, 50 years, uh, what it meant to have tasted in music might have to do with what radio stations you listen to, uh, what records you bought at the record store records. You know, they're all the same shape. They're all the same color. Basically the more or less cost the same so when you're picking among them all you're doing is expressing yourself, right? You're just making a cultural claim. But what it meant to have tasted that moment was really entangled with technologies, the radio, the LP. Go back a hundred years before that you don't have recorded music. So can anyone have a taste in music then? Certainly not in the way we can now. At the very least taste would mean something different. And so I'm really interested in the idea that what tastes even is is totally entangled with these techniques by which we come to acquire and encounter, uh, cultural objects.So that is a very long-winded way of saying that I think of taste as being this kind of emergent thing that people do in particular settings with particular tools. And one of the tools that they use nowadays is recommender systems.[00:46:47] Cody: One of the things I'm interested in along this line is whether or not our tastes are becoming more monolithic. So my colleague, Adam Mastroianni has a recent essay on this. He puts together these data showing that through the year 2000, about 25% of a year's highest grossing movies were spinoffs, franchises, or sequels. But now, uh, closer to 2020, it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 75%. And he has similar data for TV shows, books, and music as well.So what role do you think recommender systems might be playing in this and in particular, are platforms like Spotify, Netflix, and the like funneling us into these kind of genre enclaves, where they find it legitimately difficult to point us towards something that is at the same time, both new and something that we'll like. What do you make of that, and is that a function of recommender systems as you've come to understand them?[00:47:51] Nick: Well, it's a great question because you're pointing out that the basic tension at the heart of recommender systems . Which is that they're about helping people find a music that they don't know about yet. So there's an assumption that you're, that you like more than, you know. but they're based on this idea that you won't like everything, right?So it has something to do with what you are already know. There's this tension between the constraints, profiling someone and saying, okay, what do you like? And that idea that what you might do with that profiling is broaden people's horizons. And that's a real tension. It's something that I think a lot of critics don't appreciate, that there is a commitment to broadening horizons in this field. Whether or not they achieve them is another question.But that's something that people in the field are really concerned with and trying to figure out: wait a minute, we're sort of pigeonholing people, but we don't want to pigeon hole them. We want to help them. And forever, we've always been saying that recommender systems are about, you know, like, like we were talking about earlier about, you know, cracking you out of a given categories to help you find new things. Or they used to say, you know, 20 years ago that recommender systems would help you go down the "long tail." They would help you find more obscure things that you would never find otherwise, because there were too many things, you just wouldn't have a way to know about these less popular objects.Of course, now we have a lot of concern — this is not a new concern — but the continuing concern about monoculture, about a kind of similarity. And algorithms have emerged as one of the kinds of entities we might blame for why that is, of course, because you know, oh, you like that, you want more like that. There's this kind of valorization of the similar in recommender systems that maybe seems like a cause for this problem more globally.I think it's certainly part of an overall apparatus of cultural production, which is very risk averse now. So one of the things you see in this context of, you know, every movie occurring within the Marvel cinematic universe or whatever. I think you can't really say a recommender system did that. Because certainly a recommender system didn't get to decide what was happening there. But you do have, you know, industries that are organized around trying to maximize their, their successes, and clearly are finding, you know, success, uh, in doing what they're doing and doing what, uh, Mastroianni calls that oligopoly of production.So I think one thing that points us to is the importance of looking at the overall system, you know, recommender systems are a more and more prominent part of cultural circulation now, but they're not everything. And so we don't want to say, oh, it was the algorithm. So it points us to that. But it also points us to this other really interesting, like philosophical question, is you mentioned this idea of genre enclaves, which is a lovely way to put what other people would describe as like filter bubbles. And one funny thing about recommender systems is that if I know enough to recognize a filter bubble, to put you into one, to recognize similarities, such that I can put you there, that means that I have enough data, if I'm a recommender system, to take you out of it. I know what similar is. That means that I know what different is also. And so within that very same system, in theory, I should be able to use the recommender system in a different way, not to give you exactly the same thing, but rather to very on-purpose, um, give you something else to give you something that is different. That's already entailed in the idea that I know enough to put you in a filter bubble in the first place.So in some sense, the, the problem may not be with the technology itself, but with this particular style of implementation, right. We could be implementing recommender systems that more aggressively are about spreading people away from the similar, and that's something you would do with more or less the same system you have now just tuned in a, in a slightly different way.Why is it not tuned in a different way? Well, that's not an algorithm thing, right? That's a business decision. Uh, the algorithm could go either way. It doesn't really care.[00:51:34] Cody: That seems like it comes back to the distinction that your engineering interviewee was talking about where you have the pyramid, with the sort of least engaged, they want to, as he says, lean back, put the music on and then just not really have to do anything to have to make any decisions, find new stuff, skip songs.And then you have the lean in musical savant and more engaged listeners. And clearly the vast majority of listeners and our viewers are going to be in that bottom chunk of the pyramid. And you have the highest probability of reaching the largest number of people by catering to that listener or viewer as your default option, rather than saying, oh, I'm going to try and shape the musical tastes of the youth in a way that exposes them to the meritorious histories of, of jazz and the, you know, unexpected sides of hip hop and all that sort of stuff. So it seems to me like that's a big current in all that's happening here.[00:52:38] Nick: Yeah, I would say one of the sort of stories that emerges over the course of my whole book is this transformation of music recommendation from the sort of first contemporary recommender system named as such in the mid 1990s, um, to the present. Where in the beginning, those early recommender systems were designed around the idea that the user was a really enthusiastic or avid listener, right? You were like really into music. You were going to put in some effort, you were going to open up a recommender system and try to use it specifically to find new stuff, right? You are almost by definition, a kind of crate digger, uh, in that context. Cause it was like more work to use a recommender system than to just turn on the radio. So you already had a way to not put a lot of effort. And uh, so you were in. You know, contemporary industry terms would, would put it, uh, you were a lean forward listener, right? You were someone who was sort of, uh, enthusiastically pursuing a new music.And then over time, since then, just what you described has happened, right? This sort of default assumption of what a user for these systems should be like, um, became something different, right? It became this lean-back listener. It became this person who like, eh, they might not even listen to music at all. So we need to find some way to, you know, entice them into doing it. And a recommended system was maybe a way of doing that. So you open up your Spotify or whatever, and you see, as long as you see something that you're like, sure, I'll listen to that. Then that would catch that person who otherwise may not listen at all. And that's a big change and it comes along alongside a change in data practices, to sort of loop back to this, uh, seeing like an infrastructure question, because those early recommender systems, what data did they have? They had data that you proactively gave them about what you liked, right? You would have to go in and explicitly rate artists, or if it was movies, uh, you know, you know, five stars on Netflix or whatever. And over time, those explicit ratings really get mostly replaced by what they would call implicit ratings. So the idea that listening to a song means that you like it a little bit. You listen to it a lot that becomes more of a sign that you like it. And this is the kind of logic we're very familiar with now in this sort of big data moment, right? This is what big data is all about. This idea that these behavioral traces are, uh, more real. They're easier for people to do. I don't have to explicitly rate something you to sort of know on the basis of what I'm doing. Or you think, you know, uh, what I like, and you might suggest that's a better account of what I like, you know. I might go on Netflix and, you know, give five stars to all of the fancy, classy people movies, but I never watched them. And if you kept recommending them to me, I wouldn't really use Netflix as much, but what I really want is, you know, 1990s action movies. And if you saw what I actually watched, you would know that that's a common argument that they'll make. So we have that transition in sort of three different things at the same time. The change in the kind of data that's available to recommender systems, right? This sort of like trace data of user behavior. We have this change in the economics of, uh, the online media industry right where everything's sort of become streaming and it's not, you know, Netflix used to be a DVD rental company, and then now it becomes something else, right, where they want you to spend more time on it. And that will feed back into getting more data. And then the third thing that comes around is this changing how we know things are, how the people building these systems, know things about their users, which are all entangled together in this sort of emergence of, uh, sort of modern data collection apparatus. And they're all mutually reinforcing cycles.So that's a really big change, I think in the way those, those systems work. And if people are looking for ways out of it, I think that one way that an anthropology of this can be useful is to really foreground and describe what exactly the situation is that we're in.And so one thing I tend to argue is that if we want to get out of some of this really aggressive data collection situation, which happens obviously in domains beyond music and in many other domains where it's much more significant. One thing we might want to think about then is how to intervene in these imaginations of users, right? In the vision of the user, as someone who doesn't really want to get involved, who we sort of tricked into listening, and therefore we have to capture as much data about them as possible because they're not going to give the data to us on purpose. If we change that model, if we change the way that we think about people, then I think that's a key part of the overall edifice of data collection and why data is seen as so valuable now.[00:57:08] Cody: I see that as, as tying into what we were talking about earlier with the model of the individual that the engineers are using is based off of basically the psychology of habits. And so data are most valuable in understanding how to exploit habitual systems and how to essentially, to go back to your metaphor use products as traps for habits and attention, whatever attention may be.And so it seems like part of what you're saying or another, a rephrasing of, of what you're saying an implication may be, is that the more we're able to put in to achieve that higher effort level of avidity, to engage more in a direct and meaningful and thoughtful way with whatever content we're consuming, the less we rely on habit, the less we can be exploited by an understanding of what we habitually do. And the more we can kind of be liberated from the cycle of collect data, exploit it, go further down the rabbit hole of social media and digital content consuming our attention and our lifestyles.[00:58:31] Nick: Yeah. And I think just to like loop back to what we talked about earlier this is one reason why I think having a kind of cultural understanding of the logics behind these systems and how people think is really useful, because a lot of the critiques of these systems we've seen now are couched in the sort of same habits science, behaviorist framework as the systems they're criticizing. So people who say, oh, you know, Facebook's a slot machine or whatever really believe that the best way to model human behavior is still that same behaviorist habit model, that same, you know, press a lever, give you a treat, rat in a cage kind of model. And I think that that model is really constraining in what kinds of futures we can imagine for what humans are going to do. And it really limits us to a certain narrow set of technical interventions. And so by trying to name that by trying to step back and say, what is this, what is this model of the human that's involved in these systems? I want to try, and this is something I'm trying to do with in my newer work on attention, to think about the sort of arbitrariness of those models, and how, if we want to imagine different futures, we might need to think about some of these foundational assumptions differently as well. I'm not sure that we're going to lever press our way out of a sort of behaviorist hellscape that we find ourselves in now.[00:59:54] Cody: Nick. It's been a great pleasure to talk, and I appreciate your perspective on all these things. I could probably go on asking you questions about this space of topics for the next two hours, but you've been really generous with your time. So thanks for taking the time to talk.[01:00:09] Nick: Thanks so much. It was a pleasure.[01:00:11] Cody: That was my conversation with Nick Seaver.I hope you enjoyed it. One of the topics that we didn't get around to is the connection between avidity and anthropological field work itself. It's a topic I know Nick has thought about in his work on attention, and it is also one of the things that I personally most admire about anthropology.My own field, psychology suffers from a historical lack of attention dedicated toward Western people. We study American college students. We assume that whatever we find there will apply to the rest of the world. The field has started to correct this in recent years, but I believe it's an assumption that's built into the psychological worldview in ways that are important and difficult to eradicate.But the premise of the field of anthropology, starting with historical figures like Tylor and Malinowski, is that attending to what other people are up to is actually a lot of work. It's not just enough to be vaguely interested in what other people are doing, especially far away people, but you actively have to search out the best possible vantage from which to observe and make sense of their behavior. To me, that's an application of this basic idea of attention as effort.So in this case, avidity — the amount of effort we're willing to put into acquire new information or seek new experiences — is not only crucial when it comes to the kind of content we consume, but crucial to our ability to understand people with different perspectives.This nods toward one of the foundations of our polarized society. We tend to be, especially as Americans, intuitive psychologists. We assume that the minds of people far away from us mostly look like the minds of people who are in our immediate vicinity. Then we're shocked to find that people who don't occupy our same cultural milieu think in a way that's totally foreign to us.Maybe we need to operate less in our default mode as intuitive psychologists and instead explore what it might mean to operate as intuitive anthropologists.I'd love to know what you thought of this episode. If you want to give me some feedback, you can go to survey.againsthabit.com. If you'd like to subscribe to my Substack newsletter for more content, you can go straight to againsthabit.com.This episode was edited and produced by Emily Chen. I'm Cody Kommers, and thanks for listening to Against Habit. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com/subscribe

This week Randall Jacobs sits down with Fort Bragg, CA Sculptor and trail builder Nick Taylor to discuss the intersection of cycling and art.  Episode Sponsor: The Feed Support the Podcast Join The Ridership  Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: Nick Taylor [00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist. This week, I'm going to kick it back over to my co-host Randall Jacobs for a little something different for ya. Randall's interviewing sculptor trail builder and Mendocino cycling stalwart, Nick Taylor in an exploration on how the bike became interwoven in one artist's life Before I pass the mic over to Randall. I need to thank this. Week's sponsor the feed. The feed is the largest online marketplace for sports nutrition. They've got all your favorite sports, nutrition brands in one place. If you've developed an affinity like I have for certain brands. You can hop on over to the feed and mix and match. So you get everything you need in one delivery. I was just visiting the feed.com before recording this intro and I remembered in addition to all the nutritional brands that they carry, they also carry a wide variety of training gear. You might remember a couple episodes back when we were focusing on recovery. We talked about foam rollers. We talked about Sarah guns. We talked about pneumatic leg compression tools. I think we talked about the power dot, actually all these things are available@thefeed.com. So in addition to getting your nutrition handled, You can work on your recovery. Like I've been doing. And finally I wanted to mention again, the feed formulas. The feed formulas are the world's first daily supplement pouch for athletes created in conjunction with Dr. Kevin Sprouse from the ETF pro cycling team. They feature best in class, branded supplements, never generics. You get personalized recommendation based on your needs as an athlete, and they're all delivered in a convenient daily pouch. We've got a limited time special offer of 50% off on your first order of the feed formula by simply going to the feed.com/the gravel ride. Remember that's the feed.com/the gravel ride With that said, I'm going to hand it over to my co-host Randall Jacobs and his interview with Nick Taylor. [00:02:26] Randall: Nick, I've been looking forward to this conversation for some time welcome to the podcast. [00:02:31] Nick: Well, thank you. Thanks for having me on Randall. [00:02:34] Randall: So before we dive in, let's give listeners a bit of background. Who are you, where are you from? What matters to you? [00:02:40] Nick: My name's Nick Taylor. I'm up here in Fort Bragg, California. That's about 180 miles north of San Francisco along the coast, fairly remote area. I'm a sculptor and a big bike bicycle advocate, as well as running a trail crew building trails out here in the Mendocino coast. [00:03:00] Randall: Yeah. And as somebody who has been to your workshop, I can say well, one, the area is quite beautiful and to the space in which you create some of the things that we'll be talking about and linking to in the notes. So it's a pretty special place. So tell us a bit about your, relationship to the bicycle. How did it get started? How has it evolved over time? [00:03:20] Nick: Well, you know, I think we all probably started riding Pikes when we were kids. And I certainly did that on a gravel road and in rural Ohio. So I had some experience as a kid and there was a big lapse and it wasn't until I was in my early twenties that I picked the bicycle back up and started to use it again. And that was a. I had, I don't know what really, what the impetus was for getting back on a bike, but I wanted to do some exploring and I guess that just seemed like a good way to go about it. And I bought myself a an old Schwinn Latour for 80 bucks and a. I was staying with my grandmother at that point up in Ohio. And I started doing some riding in the rides, you know, slowly became longer and longer. And I, I decided, well, you know what, I want to go do some tour. And so that led to a bit, a little, a little bit of touring on that the tour prior to graduate school, back in the early eighties. [00:04:15] Randall: So tell us about some of the early tours. What was that like? [00:04:18] Nick: Well, it was prepping to go to graduate school and really wanted to get out in between visiting one school and another, and I bought a gray ham pass. It was good for 30 days and pulled the map of the U S out and closed my eyes. And. Put my finger down on wherever it game. And, and the first place was I got out in south Kadoka, South Dakota at a midnight at a gas station and you know, road the next day through, you know, from Kadoka through the Badlands and into a rapid city. And I didn't have a particularly good experience in rapid city. So I pulled the map out again, close my eyes and finger another place on the map. Got out and Shelby Montana and had a great time from there. So, you know, a ride from Shelby across the Rocky mountains and through glacier national park, which was just extraordinary. And then down to Spokane Washington, at which point I had to create my bike up and had had to Davis, California to go look at the school there. [00:05:23] Randall: Oh, wow. So that was essentially coming off after a month of kind of dirt bagging camping out, or what were your, what were your accommodations along the route? [00:05:33] Nick: I mean, everything. Everything I needed was on the bike, [00:05:37] Randall: so, you found a shower before you had your interview. [00:05:40] Nick: Yup. Knock some of the stink off. [00:05:43] Randall: So now you're in Davis and this is a program in what area? [00:05:48] Nick: So it was a MFA program, for a master of fine arts graduate school. It was back in the early eighties and I don't know where it is now, but, it was a leading school for the arts. It rivaled Dal our graduate department. And so it was, I got there and they had a very open format, which I much enjoyed everything I was looking at on the east coast was a very structured format. And I was done with that. I'd had five years of that at the university of Tennessee. And I was mostly just looking for studio. And that's what I got in Davis. And I also got to be around people that were pretty well renowned, you know, which was a new experience for me. I mean, I had people like manual Neary and Robert artisan and Wayne Tebow and Roy deforest were all teaching there. So I got exposure to all these professional artists that I had experienced before. [00:06:43] Randall: And was the writing community as developed then as it is now, right now, Davis is very much known as having great bike infrastructure. And UC Davis has a top cycling team and so on. [00:06:54] Nick: It was definitely a big thing there. Vibe culture was big and Davis and. And that was a new thing too. I mean, most people, certainly all the students. And I think back then there were 16,000 students, they were getting around and bikes. And that was very cool. And there was a lot of road biking going on out there too, which I participated in, you know, I got myself a Miata. I forget what model it was. It was there a touring bike, which is a pretty nice bike though. When I was buying it, it was the first new bike I'd ever had. And the guys kept telling me it was too big. A frame is too big, a frame it's like, I, I didn't listen to them. Should have, but you know, I wrote it for a number, number of years Anthony. Okay. But I realized in hindsight it was, it was too big. From there. I moved to the east bay and lived in Oakland and point Richmond primarily. I mean, there were the little stints in San Francisco and Berkeley, but primary residents were in point Richmond and Oakland. [00:07:52] Randall: what was it like back then versus what it's like at this time, [00:07:56] Nick: Well, there weren't as many people and it was a little cheaper to live, you know, and as an artist, you're always trying to live on the cheap, right. So, I mean, your goal is to, to be in your studio as much as you can and work as you have to, to cover your bills. So it was cheaper, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't as a fluid as it is now. You know, riding, riding, you know, it was entirely different than it was. And in Davis, everything out in Davis is flat land. The only thing you really had to contend with there was the wind which could be quite daunting at times though. Anytime you had the wind at your back If the conditions were just right, you'd be in this little envelope, this little bubble with the windier bath, where there was absolutely no resistance. And it was a remarkable thing to experience because the only thing you would hear is the pedaling, the chain moving through the cracks and across the cassette. And, and other than that, and there was no, no resistance. It just like you just flew across the landscape. And that was pretty extreme. didn't get to experience that when you were in Oakland, I mean, you had the Hills contend with and climbing up to, to a skyline drive and running her, riding the Ridge along through there, and certainly more traffic. [00:09:05] Randall: So, I recall you mentioning like over a decade in the bay area, [00:09:10] Nick: 20 years. Yeah. Was in the, in the, in the bay area for 20 years, it was a good experience. We had, when I was in point Richmond, we had a wonderful studio out there that was a live works situation. It was a, it was an illegal live in, you know, it. We're it was, it was such a stunning location. I mean, you were a seven acre parcel, surrounded by park on the San Francisco bay. That it was pretty extraordinary. It's just the kind of place you don't typically see in this day and age, you know, everything's been developed now, [00:09:44] Randall: Yeah. Hi, high end condos and lofts, [00:09:47] Nick: Yup. And so, you know, we, we lived there. It was one of my last places to stay. And the property was sold. The park system bought the property that we were living in and they wanted to incorporate it to the rest of the park. So we all got the boot and I didn't want it to be a renter anymore. I wanted to buy something. So threw a bit of searching. We found this place up here in Fort Bragg and made the move, even though we didn't know anybody. Yeah. [00:10:12] Randall: And that was just a parcel of land at the time, right? [00:10:15] Nick: That's true. It's it was small parcel, just over two and a half acres, fully wooded, which is what I really wanted to avoid. I really wanted to buy something I could remodel and at least have utilities in, you know, water and power, but we had nothing. It was a fully wooded property lot. And so amy, my wife and I, we spent a year of weekends coming up to the property from the bay area and logging the property ourself cleared about 200 trees. And some of these are pretty good sized trees. And we did that with an old forklift that I bought in an old international harvester that I had with a big PTO winch on the front. So we spent a year clearing clearing the land Then it's then it went idle for a little bit of the work. What idle for a little bit, as I was involved in a project down in the bay area that kept me, kept me tied up for a number of years. [00:11:05] Randall: Well, and that that's not just any project. So maybe give listeners a little bit of a background on that, on what that project was and your involvement with it. [00:11:13] Nick: This was this was a cloud gate. It's more commonly known as the bean. It's a big piece of sculpture in the city of Chicago. Which is now part of, part of their landscape icon to the city. It's a, it's a 60 foot long, roughly 35 foot high, 45 foot wide, perfectly smooth mirror finish sculpture that's in the shape of a bean or something like a beam. And that's, it's a pretty remarkable thing. So. I was involved with that for four and a half years first working on that on equipment we had to build for fabricating it and then doing some of the prototyping and then a lot of the fabrication of it. And then eventually back in Chicago for almost a year to see its installation and finish. [00:11:59] Randall: And for anyone who hasn't seen it, I strongly recommend that you use. Look it up. For me, it's just this really surreal thing, just plopped in this park in Chicago, reflecting the skyline. It almost looks like CGI because it's too perfect. Given the scale of the thing. And you and I have talked about the tolerances involved and so on and like, think about just the weight of it and how that dis wants to distort the structure and the material. What was your role specifically? You were the crew lead or the project lead? [00:12:27] Nick: Onsite, I would have been the supervisor overseeing all of its installation and it was working in Chicago with the local iron workers ironworker 63, local 63, which is great group of fellows. I very much enjoyed working with them. And you know, this, the bean was, was a prototype. It was like nobody had ever had ever built anything like that. And it was a combination of old world in hands-on kind of technology and computer generated. Imagery, you know, it's just like, you couldn't do it without being able to work with the hands, but you couldn't have done it without a computer because of all the tolerances that were involved. I mean, we had to have a computer set up a piece of equipment that would scan each piece and make sure it was. tolerance of what the computer model was and the tolerance for each piece is like a 32nd vintage. So, you know, and then you have 168 of those to put together and, the tolerances are, are no less stringent. [00:13:24] Randall: Well, and you have this thing that's mirror polished. So It doesn't just have to look good on its own. This mirror Polish is going to reveal any sort of imperfection in the surface whatsoever and distort the image. [00:13:35] Nick: It absolutely does, and reflecting the skyline the city scape, you know, with all the structures that are running plumbing, horizontal that grid work shows up shows any sort of mistake in the reflection on the piece. [00:13:50] Randall: I hope to make it out there in person at some point before, too long to, to check it out, but just seeing the imagery in some videos of it, it's it's quite an achievement, I mean, it's one thing to design such a thing and imagine such a thing, but, this So. much about the execution of that, that is really a wonder, so well done there. And that's not the only large scale sculpture you've been involved with. That is a, probably a pretty well-known there's, there's another one that was outside the mountain bike hall of fame for some time. You know, I talk about that and how that came about. [00:14:20] Nick: Sure. So that's still there and that's, that's something that's sort of. You know, back in 2011, up here on the coast, we were trying to have a little put together a little fat tire festival to sort of open up the area to people from surrounding areas. Let them know that we have some trail riding up here. There was some stuff happening in the way of mountain biking and. Someone asked me to build some signage for this, for, you know, to put out there to advertise this. And you know, I'm a sculptor, right. I don't do flat stuff. So I've sort of scratched my head for a few days and wandered around the property. And, you know, I realized I had these two big tractor tires sitting here off of a John Deere tractor. And I thought, you know what? I'll just make a big bike. I mean, that, that works is advertising as well as anything. And at that point, I was riding, riding, riding Ibis mojo when their carbon full suspension bikes. And I thought I just modeled well model the big one after that. So, you know, I, I I took a photo of the bike and put it on an opaque projector. Proper scale on the walls here and to lay out of the frame and transferred that to a piece of plywood and cut that out and started building to that frame. And slowly went at it. So, and it was through working on this thing, you know, and I got to know many of the people over at Ibis and my wife, again, Amy, my wife, she contacted Scott nickel. And send him some photos, which I knew he was like, great. I got some bone heads out here in the woods that think they're making sort of an Ibis bike. Right. And because a photo shows two big tractor tires will apply with cutout out the frame and it's like, okay, what are these knuckle heads up to? And but she continued to communicate with them and, you know, send them photos as updates and, and you know, as I. Nearing completion in this thing, he thought, okay, maybe this is actually going to turn out to be something kind of cool and tail end of me working on. And it's called Ibis Maximus tail end of working on IVIS Maximus. Scott asked me one day, it's like, so Nick, what's your day job that, you know, you're able to do this. And at that point I just sent him a photo of the bean and he's like, oh, Okay, carry on. So anyhow, it was through making this big bike that I got to know Scott, and then then many of the other partners down there in Ibis, in Santa Cruz. So all of which are a great bunch of people. So I've been very fortunate to get to know them. [00:17:03] Randall: And how did it end up at the mountain bike hall of fame in fairfax, California. [00:17:07] Nick: were trying to figure out where to put it. It must've been Scott cause IVIS eventually bought it, cause it was sitting up here, not really doing anything. It was sort of lawn art and I believe it was probably Scott that was looking to place it. And, of course he knows all the old guard down there and, and Fairfax and. Joe breeze who runs the place is, you know, he, I believe he mentored Scott for a little while, early on, so they, they know one another. And so I think Scott set this up and, then segwayed over to Joe breeze. [00:17:41] Randall: So, as somebody who runs a small bicycle brand, I can just say like what a cool, that must be to actually have one of your bikes, especially something very iconic. Like that's a very distinctive looking frame. If some bozo in the woods, up in Mendocino county ever wants to make a, make a giant version of one of our bikes. I'd be happy to oblige, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, [00:18:04] Nick: Okay. I'll keep that mind. [00:18:06] Randall: So, all right, so now you're, you're in Mendocino. You've come back from doing the bean. You've cleared your lands. What'd you end up doing from there? [00:18:14] Nick: So back from Chicago foundations in, from the house by then, I mean, it'd been in maybe a couple of years by that point, came back and, and started building our house and studio and earnest. And our house and studio are actually two old temper frame barns that we dismantled back in Ohio. There were a hundred plus years old. They're all Morrison, tenon, wooden pegs, holding them together. Something we had. Going back in 2000 and dismantled in Ohio. [00:18:43] Randall: And when you say we, you mean like you and your family? Yeah. [00:18:46] Nick: yeah, Amy and my kids who were 12 and 14 at that point. And, and then Amy's parents and her brother came out for a week and I had a good friend of mine. That came out with his new girlfriend from Manhattan to kind a hand for a week. And then I had a buddy that, that we paid to come out there for the three weeks that it actually took us to dismantle this. So that was a great project. I had a lot of fun and for my kids, it was the first time for them being back in the Midwest and it's sort of familiar stomping grounds to me, you know, I'm not from that particular. We, where we dismantled the Barnes, but I am from Northeast Ohio and the lightening bugs were all off familiar. My kids got to see that sort of stuff and they got to play with fireworks for the first time. [00:19:29] Randall: And again you know, the space up there is one of the more special spaces I've ever visited. You have me up there, I think three, four years ago. And. The home is beautiful and that's one of the bonds. Right. And then the back section of the workshop it makes me think of Craig Cathy's. South of Santa Cruz or in the Santa Cruz area it's another one of these places where you just have tools and projects everywhere and it has a certain degree of organization, but a sufficient amount of, of, of chaos. And you can tell it's, it's like a place where a lot of experimentation happens. A lot of creativity happens. And just the number of specialized tools that you have many of which you've made, it's really, really cool to see. And you occasionally hold exhibits up there too, right? [00:20:10] Nick: Open studio from time to time. And I'm hoping to do that again this year. If COVID actually is settling down, you're going to open the place back up again. So got lots of new work going on and it's good to invite people in, let them see the work that I'm working on, but also let them see the space that it's actually created in too, because I think that that puts a different spin on things and it gives people a little more insight to what's going on. [00:20:34] Randall: Yeah. And in fact, there's a, you have a video on. your website now, remind me the URL for your. [00:20:40] Nick: So website is jnicktaylor.com. Instagram is a good place to see what's what's current and it's the same, same J Nick Taylor. [00:20:49] Randall: Well, the website does have this really nice video that shows you and your studio working on some of your pieces. And then there's a number of your pieces. Put on a. Pan so that you can get a 3d view of it and you work in different various materials, metal, and wood. You work on things that can fit. What are your smaller pieces and what are your bigger pieces and talk actually, lets you do that. Talk a bit about like the type of work that you do and the inspiration for it. [00:21:17] Nick: So I'm working in metal or wood. I rarely combined the two materials. So my studio is kind of divided up in half. One, ended up doing metalwork on the other end. I'm doing woodwork in all the pieces. These days are pretty much inspired by nature. You know, my act or environment, they don't necessarily make reference to any one, given any one given thing. But probably a lot of different elements of what one might experience if they were out in nature. So the work is pretty organic. The metal work I'm, I'm doing a lot of welding forging grinding to get the shapes. Their scale can range anywhere from about two feet in height to I'm working on something right now it's about seven feet. So some, you know, some stuff's tabletop and size. So other pieces are certainly floor standing pieces. Larger, you know, largest wood pieces. I mean, what pieces. I'll tend to be a little larger. You know, they stand for, you know, maybe four feet up to about nine feet. They also are very organic, but some of them are carved from single pieces of wood. And other pieces are a composite of pieces that are glued up and then carved back into. So all of them are very in a hands-on very labor intensive. I'm getting three to four pieces done a year, a larger piece, whether it be metal or wood can take me 10 months to a year alone to work on so that a lot of hand work. And I've just, haven't figured out a way to expedite that. You know, I keep looking, keep trying to figure out ways to move faster, but it always seems to come back to hand work. [00:22:56] Randall: Well, And just looking on some of the imagery, I've seen a few of these pieces in person, and there are pieces that are very clearly flowing with the contours of the wood that you're working with, but then there's also some vision that's imposed on it to some degree as well. Some of your metalwork, there's pieces that for me, looked like, contorted musical instruments and every angle tells a different story and evokes a different set of feelings and images . It's very abstract. And very interesting. Looking at your work, it really draws one in to explore it from different angles. [00:23:30] Nick: And that's really important. You know, when I was a kid and in school art school, one of the things that was hammered into me was, any given piece of sculpture should invite you to walk all the way around it and explore it. You shouldn't be able to stand on one side of it and know what's happening on the other side. So it should shift and change and draw you in and draw you around the given piece. [00:23:53] Randall: So let's bring the bike back into the conversation. How does the bike fit into your process or your day to day or week to week routine? [00:24:04] Nick: So, these days unfortunate enough to be in the studio four days a week, full time on interrupted. But I can only be in the studio for those four days. And then I'm like maxed out, I can't put any more time in, I've got to put my head in a different space. And so I spent two days on the bike, out in the woods. So here in Fort Bragg Mendocino area, we've got, we've got really nice trail system. And then we also have unlimited number of gravel roads. I mean, much of our mountain biking is in Jackson demonstration, state forest. If I'm not mistaken, they have a minimum of 300 miles of gravel road in there. Right. And then there are all these entities that bought up against Jackson's demonstration state forest. You have big river state park, you've got conservation fund. And then north of Jackson, you have lime timber now, lime timber and conservation fund land. You have to have permission to be on their property. But I think, conservation fund certainly gives that pretty readily and I've never heard of anybody having an issue on online timber and lime timber is 150,000 acres. Right? Jackson demonstrations state forest is, is just under 50,000 acres, big river state park is like 7,500 acres and conservation fund. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I think there are 30 to 40,000 acres. In all of these places have gravel roads running around on them. Right. I'm sure you could chain this stuff all together and, and get up into use hall, which is about an hour north of here. And, and, you've got unlimited resource up there for variety and gravel roads as well. [00:25:43] Randall: And you're involved in a lot of the trail building up there as well. [00:25:46] Nick: That's my, the form of sculpting. Sculpting the landscape since I've been a little kid was a little kid and working out doors it's part of my core as part of what I really love doing. So I it's like I run a trail crew up here work in, and we're building, maintaining and building trails and Jackson demonstration, state forest. And we're doing that in conjunction with Cal fire and Cal fire are the Stewart's the managers of the forest. So we've got a 10 year relationship that we've developed with them and And it's going strong. You know, we've currently got some projects going. Everything these days is being hand dug though. Two years ago we had had a new experience with getting some trails machine belt and we got to two and a quarter mile trail machine built that we were able to lay out and, and. Through a sponsor, a one track mind, better known as OTM who funded it. We were able to build this new trail that connected a bunch of other stuff together and made for a better trail system. [00:26:46] Randall: So, for listeners, you want to explore this area, want to learn more about it and get a toe in the water, what resources are available, what clubs are available to get a handle on what you're describing, which is this massive amount of space that you could very easily get lost in and not necessarily find the best trails [00:27:05] Nick: So the trail work that I'm doing is, is under or with Mendocino coast, cyclists, where the local cycle group. I could be contacted through them or the club president, Dan sweet could be contacted and we can set you up, we can be found on Facebook under Mendocino coast, cyclists. That's probably the easiest way. I'm sort of thinking this through. I'm thinking out loud. And we have group rides, so that have been closed during COVID, but I think they're beginning to open those back up and people can join these group rides and they typically are happening three times a week, Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. But we also, there's a list serve if you're a club member, this is probably the best way to get any sort of information is if you join the club you can get on a listserv and you can get all the chatter that's going on and you get notifications of rides. You can ask questions if you're trying to find, find your way around for the first time. [00:27:58] Randall: Very cool. so before we finish up, you've mentioned your wife, Amy and, you know, sounds like a pretty extraordinary woman to have supported, everything from buying a plot of land in the middle of nowhere, well, not the middle of nowhere in a very beautiful area, but, a good distance from the city to going out with you and the kids and, tearing down some barns and so on. Tell us about that dynamic. [00:28:21] Nick: Well, Amy's a pretty extraordinary person and she's been game to go on a lot of adventures, and are adventures that we've developed together. She's a brilliant person. She's very capable. She tolerates me. She has her own business, a land use permit agent up here on the coast. She's the go-to person. If you wanted to develop anything in the coastal zone [00:28:43] Randall: Clearly cares about the work that you do in doing things like, reaching out to people like Scott Nichols over at IBUs to get attention on your projects and so on. [00:28:51] Nick: Yep. [00:28:52] Randall: Well, is there anything else that you'd like to discuss while we're on the pod today? [00:28:55] Nick: I think that pretty well, does it, I mean, please, please visit the website and Instagram and let me know what you think. And if you happen to be up this way and Mendocino Fort Bragg area, give a shout out. So we love showing people around and the riding up here is pretty extraordinary. And if you want to, you know, if you like being out in the woods, doing mountain biking, you can, you can go for all day rides and not see anybody up here at all. You know, if you're riding during the week, which is pretty extraordinary to have the woods to yourself. [00:29:25] Randall: Yeah, I can definitely relate to that. Well, we will be sure to get some links in the show notes for this episode, for anyone looking to connect with you or to learn more about the Mendocino trail network. Nick, it's been great catching up with you. It's been some time and as I mentioned, I had been looking forward to it for quite a while and really appreciate you joining us. [00:29:45] Nick: Well, thank you very much for having me on Randall. And it says really nice and it's good to spend a little time with you as well. Don't see you often enough these days. [00:29:54] Randall: we'll try to rectify that later on this year, make a trip up the coast. [00:29:58] Nick: Alrighty you take care of man. [00:30:00] Randall: Be well be well [00:30:01] Craig Dalton: That's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. Thank you for joining us. I hope you enjoyed that interview. Between Randall and Nick Taylor. Be sure to check out Nick's extraordinary work@jnicktaylor.com. Or on Instagram at Jane, Nick Taylor. We'll have links for these as well as the IVIS Maximus and cloud gate in the show notes. If you're interested in connecting with myself or Randall, please visit us@theridership.com. That's www.theridership.com. Join our global cycling community. Everything's free. And I'm sure you'll get a lot out of the interactions with your fellow gravel athletes and also your hosts here at the gravel ride podcast. If you're interested in supporting the podcast, you can visit us@buymeacoffee.com slash the gravel ride. Additionally ratings and reviews are hugely helpful. And with that until next time here's to finding some dirt onto your wheels

There are certain age milestones where you should really pay attention to your retirement planning progress. On this episode, we'll look at the most important birthdays as you approach retirement and cover the exact things you should be checking off your to-do list at each age. Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Mark: Hey, everybody. Welcome into another addition of the podcast. This is Retirement Planning Redefined, with John and Nick and myself, talking investing, finance, retirement, and birthdays.   Mark: We're going to get into important birthdays in the retirement planning process. As we get older, I don't think any of us really want birthdays, but these are some things we need to know. They're pretty useful. Some of this is pretty basic. Some of this stuff's got some interesting caveats in it as well. So you might learn something along the way. It can go a long way towards that retirement planning process.   Mark: We're going to get into that and take an email question as well. If you've got some questions of your own, stop by the website, pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com.   Mark: John, what's going on, buddy? How you doing?   John: A little tired. Got woken up at 2:00 in the morning with two cranky kids.   Mark: Oh yeah.   John: So if I'm a little off today, I apologize.   Mark: There you go. No, no worries. You get the whole, they climb the bed, and then you're on the tiniest sliver?   John: I got one climb into bed, I think kicked me in the face at one point.   Mark: Oh, nice.   John: Another one climbed into bed missing out on the other one, because they share a room. Then I had the sliver. I woke up almost falling off the bed.   Mark: There you go. And usually freezing because you have no blankets.   John: Yeah, yeah.   Mark: That's usually the way it goes. Nick's sitting there going, "I don't know what you guys are talking about."   Mark: What's going on, buddy. How you doing?   Nick: Yep. No. Pretty low maintenance over here.   Mark: Well, that's good. Hey, don't you have a birthday coming up?   Nick: I got a couple months still.   Mark: Okay, a couple months.   Nick: Yeah, I just got back from a trip a few weeks ago. Some buddies that I grew up with, a group of us have been friends for a really long time, I guess, going back to middle school. We're all turning 40 this year, so we rented a house in Charleston, and all survived.   Mark: Nice. There you go.   Nick: Yeah. It was good.   John: This is how you know Nick's turning 40. He came back with neck pain.   Mark: Exactly.   Nick: Yeah.   Mark: Hey, when you start to get a certain age, you start going, "When did I hurt that?" It's like, "I didn't even do anything." Yeah. You don't have to do anything.   Mark: Well, you know what? That's a good segue. Let's jump into this.   Mark: We're going to start with age 50. I turned 50 last year. First of all, the thing that sucks is you get the AARP card. I don't know about all that. That's annoying as a reminder that you're 50.   Mark: But the government does say, "Hey, let me help you out a little bit here if you need to catch up on some of the retirement accounts, help building those up." Talk to me about catch up contributions, guys.   Nick: Yeah. Essentially what happens is when you hit 50, there's two types of accounts that allow you to start contributing a little bit more money. The most basic one is an IRA or a Roth IRA, where the typical maximum contribution for somebody under 50 is 6,000 a year. You can add an additional thousand to do a total of 7,000 a year. The bigger one is in a 401(k) or 403(b) account, where you're able to contribute, I believe it's an extra 6,500 per year.   Nick: This is also a good flag for people to think about where, hey, once that catch up contribution is available, it's probably a good time, if you haven't done any sort of planning before, to really start to dial in and understand your financial picture a little bit more. Because if you talk to anybody that's 60, they'll tell you that 50 didn't seem too far back. So that's a good reminder to dig into that a little bit.   Mark: Yeah. It adds up. It's not necessarily chicken feed. You might hear it and think, "Well, a thousand dollars on this type of account over a year, or 6,500 on the other type of account, whoopedidoo." But if you're 50 and you're going to 67, let say, for full retirement age, and we'll get to that in a little bit, that's 17 years of an extra seven grand. It's not exactly chicken feed, right?   Nick: No. It's going to be big money down the road.   Mark: Yeah, exactly. So that's 50.   Mark: John, talk to me about 55. This one's really similar to 59 and a half, which most of us are familiar with, but most people don't understand the rule at 55. So can you break that down a little bit?   John: Yeah. We don't see people utilize this too often, but an example would be let's say you're 50, 55, 56, and for whatever reason, you leave your current job. You have an opportunity, at that point...   John: Let's give a bad scenario. You get laid off. If you didn't have a nest egg saved up in savings, there's an opportunity to actually access some money from your 401(k) plan without penalty. What you'll do is, basically, you take the money directly from the plan, and you just have it go to your bank account, and the 10% penalty's waived.   John: Now, some people need to be careful with this. Once you roll it out to an IRA, this 55 rule here, where the 10%'s waived, ceases to exist. It has to go from the employer plan to you directly in that situation. It's a nice feature if someone finds themselves in a bad situation, or they need access to money, and the 10% penalty's gone, but you still have to pay your income tax on that money [crosstalk 00:05:03]   Mark: Of course. Yeah. That caveat being, it's only from the job that you've just left, right? It can't be from two jobs ago kind of thing. It's got to be that one that you've just walked away from, or been asked to leave, or whatever the case is. That's that caveat.   John: Correct.   Mark: It's basically the same rules, Nick, as the 59 and a half. It's just is attached to that prior job. But 59 and a half is the more normal one. What's the breakdown there?   Nick: Yeah. Essentially what happens is, at 59 and a half, you are able to take out money from your qualified accounts while avoiding that penalty without any sort of caveats. One thing to keep in mind is that usually you're taking it out from accounts that...   Nick: For example, if you're currently employed, the process of taking it out of the plan where you're employed can be a little bit different, but it's pretty smooth and easy if you have an IRA or something like that outside of the employer plan.   Nick: One other thing that happens in most plans, for people at 59 and a half, is, and we've seen it a bunch lately, where a lot of 401(k) plans have very restricted options in fixed income and those sorts of things, where most or many plans allow people to take inservice rollovers, where they're able to still work at their employer, but roll their money out of the plan to open up some options for investments outside of the plan.   Nick: That's not always the best thing for people. Sometimes the plans are great. Fees are really low. Options are great. So it may not make sense, but oftentimes people do like having the option to be able to shift the money out without any sort of issue.   Mark: Okay. All right. So that's the norm there. You got to love that half thing. You always wonder what the senators or whoever was thinking when [crosstalk 00:06:56]   John: Finally, they got rid of the 70 and a half [crosstalk 00:06:58]   Mark: Yeah. They get rid of that one. Yeah. We'll get to that in just a minute as well.   Mark: John, 62, nothing too groundbreaking here, but we are eligible finally for Social Security. So that becomes... I guess the biggest thing here is people just go, "Let me turn it on ASAP versus is it the right move?"   John: Yeah. So 62, you're now eligible. Like you said, a lot of people are excited to finally get access to that extra income. You can start taking on Social Security.   John: Couple of things to just be aware of is, any time you take Social Security before your full retirement age, you will get a reduction of benefit. At 62, it's anywhere, depending on your full retirement age, roughly 25 to 30% reduction of what you would've gotten had you waited till 66 or 67.   Mark: They penalize you, basically.   John: Yeah.   Nick: Yeah. Actually, if you do the math, it ends up breaking down to almost a half a percent per month reduced.   Mark: Oh wow.   Nick: Yeah. It really starts to add up when you think about it that way.   John: Yeah. We always harp on planning, so important if you are thinking about taking it early, once you make that decision, and after a year of doing that, you're locked into that decision. So it's important to really understand is that best for your situation.   John: Other things to consider at this age, if you do take early, Social Security does have what they call a earnings penalty slash recapture. If you're still working and taking at 62, a portion of your Social Security could be subject to go back to them in lieu of, for a better term, [crosstalk 00:08:27]   Mark: It's 19,000 and some change, I think, this year, if you make more than that.   John: Yeah.   Mark: Yeah.   John: Yeah. Anything above 19,000 that you're earning, 50% goes back to Social Security. [crosstalk 00:08:36]   Mark: Yeah. For every two bucks you make-   John: 5,000 goes back to Social Security. So that's really important.   John: Something that I just want to make, last point on this, is that earnings threshold is based on someone's earned income, and it's based on their own earned income, not household. That comes up quite a bit, while people say, "Well, I want to retire and take at 62, but my husband's still working. Am I going to have a penalty if I take it?" The answer is no. It's based on your own earnings record.   Mark: That's where the strategy comes into play too. Because if you are married, then looking at who's making more, do we leave one person's to grow, as we're going to get into those in just a second, to grow towards that more full number.   Mark: Again, that's all the strategy. It may make sense for one person to turn it on early, and the other person to delay it. That's, again, part of the strategy of sitting down and talking with a professional, and looking at all the other assets that you have, and figuring out a good move there.   Mark: Nick, let's go to Medicare. 65 magic age.   Nick: Yeah. Actually, my dad turns 65 this year. So we've been planning this out for him. He is a retired fireman, so he has some benefits that tie in with his pension.   Nick: One of the things that came up, and just something that people should think about or remember, even if they are continuing to work past 65, is it oftentimes makes sense to at least enroll in Medicare Part A. You can usually enroll as early as three months before your birthday. The Medicare website has gotten a lot easier to work with over the last year or two.   Nick: Part A, the tricky thing is that you want to check with your employer, because usually what happens for the areas that Part A covers, which is usually hospital care, if you were to have to be admitted or certain procedures, it's figuring out who's the primary payer, who pays first, who pays second. So making sure that you coordinate your benefits. Check in with HR, if you're going to continue to work.   Nick: If you are retired and are coming up on that Medicare age, make sure that you get your ducks in a row so that you do enroll. Most likely you're going to start saving some money on some healthcare premiums.   Mark: Technically, this starts about, what, three months early? It's a little actually before 65. I think it's three months when you got to start this process, and three months before and after.   Nick: Yep. Yeah. You can typically enroll three months before your birthday, and then through three months afterwards. There can be some issues if you don't enroll and you don't have other healthcare, at least for Part A. There can be penalties and that sort of thing.   Nick: Frankly, with Medicare and healthcare in retirement, this is a space that we typically delegate out. We've got some good resources for clients that we refer them to, because there are a lot of moving parts, and it can be overwhelming, especially when you start to move into the supplements and Advantage plans, and all these different things.   Mark: Oh yeah. And it's crucial. You want to make sure you get it right. A lot of advisors will definitely work with some specialists, if you will, in that kind of arena. So definitely checking that out when we turn 65.   Mark: Again, some of these, pretty high level stuff, some of this stuff we definitely know. But we wanted to go over some of those more interesting caveats.   Mark: Let's keep moving along here, guys. Full retirement age, 66 or 67. John, just what? It's your birthday, right?   John: It is your birthday. That's the time that you can actually take your full Social Security benefit without any reduction, which is a great thing to do. Then also that earnings penalty we discussed earlier at age 62, that no longer exists. Once you hit your full retirement age, 66 or 67, you can earn as much as you want and collect your Social Security. There's no penalty slash recapture.   John: When that happens, people have some decisions to make. If they're still working, they can decide to take their Social Security. I've had some clients that take it, and they use that as vacation money. I've had some other ones take it, and they take advantage of maxing out their 401(k) with the extra income. Or you can delay it. You don't have to take it. You get 8% simple interest on your benefit up until age 70.   John: So full retirement age, you got a lot of big decisions to make, depending on your situation. But you want to make sure you're making the best for what you want.   Mark: Definitely.   Nick: Just as a reminder to people that that 8%, and you had mentioned it, but it does cap out at age 70. So there's no point in waiting past 70, because it doesn't increase any more.   Mark: Right. Thanks for doing that. It wasn't on my list, but I was going to bring it up real fast. So yeah. People will sometimes email and they'll say, "Hey, I want to keep working past 70. How's that affect Social Security." It's like, "Well, you're maxed out, so you got to just go ahead and get it done." You can still work if you're feeling like it. Your earnings potential is unlimited, but it's just a matter of you're not going to add any more to it. So I'm glad you brought that up.   Mark: John, you mentioned earlier, they got rid of the other half. Thank God. The 70 and a half thing, just because it was confusing as all get out. They moved it to 72.   Nick: Yeah. Required minimum distributions, as a reminder for people, are for accounts that are pre-tax, where you were able to defer taxation. 401(k), traditional IRA, that sort of thing. At 72, you have to start taking out minimum distributions. It starts at around 3.6, 3.7% of the balance. It's based on the prior year's ending balance. It has to be taken out by the end of the year.   Nick: An important thing for people to understand is that, many times, people are taking those withdrawals out to live on anyways. So for a lot of people, it's not an issue at all. However, there are a good amount of people that it's going to be excess income.   Nick: Earlier mentioned, hey, at age 50, really time to check in and start making sure that you're planning. One of the benefits of planning and looking forward is to project out and see, hey, are these withdrawal going to cause you to have excess income at 72, where maybe we're entering into a time that tax rates could be higher, tax rates could be going up, which is fairly likely in the next five to 10 years. So if we know and we can project that, then we can make some adjustments to how we save, should you be putting more money into a Roth versus a traditional, and how we make adjustments on the overall planning.   Nick: So making sure that you understand how those work, and then the impact that it has on other decisions to take into account for that situation, is a huge part of planning.   Mark: Definitely. Those are some important birthdays along the way. You got to make sure you get this stuff done. 72, there's the hefty penalties involved if you don't do that. Plus you still got to pay the taxes. All this stuff has some crucial moments in that retirement planning process, so definitely make sure that you are not only celebrating your birthday, but you're also doing the right things from that financial and that retirement planning standpoint along the way.   Mark: Again, if you got questions, stop by the website, pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com. You can drop us an email question as well, if you'd like. That's what we're going to do to wrap up the show right now.   Mark: We got a question that's sent in from Jack. He says, "Hey, guys. I've thought about meeting with a financial advisor to plan my retirement, but I've never used a budget or anything like that before. So I'm wondering, should I budget myself for a couple of months before I meet with a professional?"   Nick: Based upon experience, putting expense numbers down on paper is one of the biggest hurdles for people to get into planning. But with how this question is phrased, I would be concerned, because it's kind of like the situation of starting a diet. You start a diet. You're going to eat really good for two to three weeks. You're trying to hold yourself accountable. You're functioning in a way that isn't necessarily your normal life.   Nick: One of the things, as advisors, that we want to make sure that we understand are what are you really spending. It's great to use a budget, but if you're budgeting to try to look good in the meeting, which we've seen happen, you're painting a false picture, and you're not letting us know what the finances actually look like.   Nick: So I would actually say to put down the real expense numbers in place, let's see what it really looks like, and then if we need to create a budget after we've created a plan, then that's something that we can dig into.   Mark: Yeah. John, let me ask you, as we wrap this up, sometimes people associate seeing a professional financial advisor with a budget. Also, people have a cringe to the B word. They think, "Well, I don't want to live on a fixed budget," or something like that.   Mark: That's not necessarily what we're talking about, right? That's not probably what Jack is referring to. He's just trying to figure out, I guess, more income versus expenses, right?   John: Yeah, yeah. The first step is to analyze your expenses. That could be what he's referring to as far as, "Hey, should I take a look? Should I get my expenses down before I meet with someone?"   John: I'd agree with Nick, even if that's what you're looking at, versus the budgeting, I would say no. I think the first step is sit down with an advisor, because they can assist in categorizing the expenses correctly based on today's expenses, versus what expenses are going to be at retirement.   John: I think it's important just to get going rather than trying to prep. Because we've seen a lot of people that have taken ... They've been prepping for years to meet. That's years where they haven't done anything, and they've, unfortunately, lost out on some good opportunities, otherwise, if they just said, "Hey, I'm going to sit down first, see what's going on."   Mark: Yeah. It gives you that built-in excuse.   John: [crosstalk 00:18:26]   Mark: It gives you that built in, "Well, I'm not quite ready." Well, you might never be ready if you play that game. Especially a lot of times when it's complimentary to sit down with professionals, have a conversation. Most advisors will talk to you, no cost or obligations. So why not right? Find out. Just get the ball rolling. That's the first step. It's usually the hardest part too.   Nick: Yeah. One thing that we typically tell people is that we are not the money police. We are not here to tell you that you can't use your money the way that you want to use it.   Nick: The way that we view ourselves, and what our role is as an advisor, is to help you understand the impact of decisions. Whether those decisions have to do with spending money, saving money, whatever, it's to make sure that you understand the impact of your decisions so that you make better decisions. That's it.   Mark: There you go. Yeah. It's your money, at the end of the day, your call, but certainly having some good, well, coaches in your corner, if you will, advisors to help advise, that's the whole point. But I like that. Not the money police.   Mark: All right. That's going to do it this week, guys. Thanks for hanging out. As always, we appreciate your time here on Retirement Planning Redefined. Don't forget. Stop by the website.   Mark: If you need help before you take any action, we always talk in generalities, and try to share some good nuggets of information, but you always want to see how those things are going to affect your specific situation.   Mark: If you're already working with John and Nick and the team at PFG Private Wealth, fantastic. Then you already have a lot of this stuff in place. But if you have questions, or you're not working with them, or you've come across this podcast in whatever way, or maybe a friend shared it with you, definitely reach out and have a chat. pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com. Don't forget to subscribe on whatever podcasting platform app you like to use.   Mark: We'll see you next time here on the show. For John and Nick, I'm your host, Mark. We'll catch you later here on Retirement Planning Redefined.

There are certain things in life we just can't predict. If we knew the answers to some of these questions, planning for retirement would sure be a lot easier. So let's see how you go about constructing a plan that addresses the kinds of questions to which you can't possibly know the answers. Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Speaker 1: Hey everybody. Welcome into another edition of Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick from PFG Private Wealth. Find them online at pfgprivatewealth.com. That's p-f-g-private wealth.com, where you can check out a lot of good tools, tips, and resources, schedule some time with the team or subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you like to use. And on the podcast us this week, we're going to talk about planning for things that we cannot predict. There's many things in life that are just out of our control, and we can't predict. Yet, we somehow have to figure out a way to bring these things into the fold when it comes to our retirement strategies. And if we knew the answers, these things would be a lot easier to do, right? Just like saying, if we knew when we were going to pass away, you guys could build the greatest plan anybody's ever seen, but we don't come with a timestamp on us. So we have to figure out a way around some of these complicated questions and construct a plan that handles these, but also works with the unknown. So we'll get into that in just a second, but what's going on, Nick? How are you doing?   Nick: Doing pretty good. Thanks.   Speaker 1: Yeah, how's the old puppy doing? I've got mine next to me right now while we're taping.   Nick: Unfortunately she passed like a month ago.   Speaker 1: Oh, I'm sorry, buddy. I didn't mean to do that.   Nick: It's all right. Oh yeah, no, I don't take it like that. I was going to say something earlier and then I just kinda left it, but yeah, it's been a bit of a crazy month.   Speaker 1: I gotcha. I'm sorry to hear about that. It's always rough when we lose our little furry friends there as well, but hopefully things will get better for you. And we'll talk about something, you can't predict that kind of stuff. Right? We'll get into that kind of conversation here in a second. John, what's going on with you?   John: Today's topic is pretty fitting. I couldn't predict that the house I bought had a loose AC drain and currently all the floors in my master bedroom and hallway ripped up. It's going well, as well as can be. So we're adapting to the renovations in our house currently. I just send Nick some pictures of it and he's like, whoa.   Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Well, I put my foot in my mouth already to start the show, so we'll get into it. But I guess that fits really well though with the over conversation is, because there's a lot of things. I mean, life is unpredictable, right? Murphy's law, whatever you want to subscribe to. And so we still have to somehow plan for some things, look at the state of the world, right? Who would've predicted 7.9% inflation rate, who would've predicted. What we're seeing in the Ukraine and so on and so forth. So it all affects the financial side. So we'll turn our attention there as we typically do. And a lot of times guys with what you do for a living, I imagine, and I talk to advisors all across the country when they meet people that do what you guys do for the first time, almost inevitably somebody goes, Hey, so when's the next market crash, right? They kind of like you guys, somehow some know this magical information that when the next it crash is going to be, well, you can't predict for that, John, but you still got to plan for being able to retire in any economy regardless of what the market's doing.   John: Yeah. And this point I'm going to say, probably goes for all of these things we're discussing today. Is you really want the flexibility to adapt for any, I don't say any, a lot of situations that come up in retirement and one of those are, a market pullback or a crash, so things to put yourself in a pretty good position is, we kind of stress this, is having a decent cash savings. So if the market is crashing, you can rely on your cash savings for income during that period of time. So you don't sell any of your losers and realize those losses. So there's a lot of things you can, you can't predict it, but you could definitely set yourself up in a situation where you can adapt to it, to put yourself in a good situation moving forward.   Speaker 1: Yeah. And as I mentioned on the last podcast, we were talking about the fact that we were dealing with overconfidence as one of the money biases. And the last several years, it's been easy to get confident in the market, but when we start to see these downturns or corrections, like we're going through right now, people get nervous and they tend to do the wrong thing. So you can't predict when it's going to happen, but you want to make sure that you're setting yourself up in a way to work through that. And Nick, similarly, we could talk about healthcare costs, right? I mean, who knows what they're going to look like in 20 years? Now a good bet is probably that they're going up more than likely, right? Unlike the market crash, where there is some historical data, I mean, healthcare costs, the reality is we're living longer. So more than likely these costs are going up, but how can you plan for that? If you don't really know, you just have to start, kind of chipping away at this. Maybe.   Nick: Yeah. It's interesting because this is one thing that we can probably lock in that it will go up and will continue to go up. But from a practical sense, in a practical standpoint, the things that we can do are from a planning perspective, make sure that when we're planning for them, for these healthcare related expenses that we understand what's involved. So as an example, a lot of people think about, well, Hey, I know that my healthcare expenses are going to get higher later on down the road, but many times they don't understand. And when we see this all the time that even their cost for Medicare, when they switch to Medicare in retirement, there's a decent chance it's going to cost more than what they're currently paying for their health benefits through their work.   Nick: And because a lot of people have that concept that it goes down versus most likely going up from a premium perspective for a lot of people. Using a higher inflation number for those healthcare premiums and healthcare related expenses, which is something that we make sure that we do with clients where we'll use a three and a half to 4% inflation number on healthcare related expenses in the plan, which tends to be, one to two points higher than the rest of the categories in for inflation.   Nick: So, things like that where we can't predict it, but at least from a modeling standpoint, we can kind of, use a prudent person rule of, making sure that we at least model those things to be a little bit higher and faster, increasing costs, especially when we look at how those plans are being financed by the government, which is not great.   Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's a great point because even in normal inflationary times, right? What is it the two industries that outpace even regular inflation on the regular is college tuition, right? And healthcare. So while college tuition may not be affecting as many of retirees or as maybe pre-retirees the healthcare certainly is going to affect them. So you got to take that into account and definitely start strategizing for those healthcare costs. Putting your head in the sand is not going to help you out 20 years later when you need it. And John, you could kind of make that same argument really about the tax rates. Right? The Smart bet, the money is probably on the fact that yeah, they're going up, but God willing, you're going to live through multiple administrations in retirement. So, to say, well, what are tax rates going to look like three presidents from now who knows, right? Administrations are going to do what they got to do.   John: Yeah. And that's where, again, it's important to flexibility to adapt to the situation and how you get flexible is diversifying your assets from a tax standpoint. So, and you might want to look at, increasing your Roth contributions, if you have a Roth 401k at work or eligible to contribute to a Roth IRA. So that could be a really good strategy. So that way, if tax rates are up, when you're taking your income, you could say, Hey, you know what, I'm going to take some of my tax free income this year or for these next couple of years. And you can really adjust to that situation. And not just only with Roths, but you could go outside of retirement accounts and kind of deal with capital gains. But then you got the same issue there with what are the rates going to be?   John: What Nick and I have been seeing quite a bit lately is clients really over funding their HSAs and not using them, just letting them build up for retirement. Cause that would be a nice tax free distribution, if qualified for healthcare costs, which also piggybacks what Nick was talking about. About healthcare costs, not knowing what they're going to be. So there are definitely different things you can do to allow yourself some flexibility. And one thing that we typically do when we're doing planning is we do stress test these things for certain clients. Where we'll look at some kind of market pull backs. How does your plan look like if there's a 20% pull back? What if healthcare costs go up? What if inflation goes up? So there's definitely things you can do to prepare.   Speaker 1: Now. Those are some great points right there because we, again, we don't know what's going to happen. The smart money is taxes are probably going up, we've got 30 trillion dollars in debt. There's almost 40 plus trillion dollars in retirement money sitting out there, the taxes haven't been collected on. So if that doesn't have a bullseye on it, you're probably kidding yourself. So trying to be as tax efficient as we can today could be beneficial. Because again, we have no idea what it would look like three presidencies from now.   Speaker 1: So these are, again, things we cannot predict, but we certainly got to still plan for some of the options that are out there. And Nick, I joked earlier that if we had an expiration date stamped on us, like a gallon of milk, you guys could build the greatest, retirement plan for each individual that they've ever seen, but we have no idea how long we're going to live. And I could use my own self as an example for the listeners. My brother died at 50, I'm 50. My brother died at 57, my father at 63, my grandfather at 60, be easy for me to say, Hey, I'm going to spend all my money between now and the age of 65, because I'm not going to be here. So I'm going to party. But yet that's not responsible, because what if I'm wrong? Technology has changed. And of course, what am I doing to my spouse?   Nick: Yeah, this is always an interesting one. It's probably the source of the most quote unquote jokes from people. Whether it's clients or people that attend our classes, that sort of thing. And really from a practical sense where this comes in is, how long do we plan for? So when we're building a plan 99% of the time, we plan to age 100. And when we plan to age 100 for clients, we can see what, how much money's there at age 85 and age 90 and all those sorts of things. And the thought process is that if the plan works until age 100, then the probability of it being successful up into, 80, 85, etcetera, is much higher. And the plan, what it will also help us do is for those people that do want to make sure that they spend their time early on in retirement, really doing the things that they want to do, no matter how much bluster there can be about, because again, usually it's some sort of internal insecurity or internal bias that has them talking about passing away early.   Nick: But sometimes what we found is that, really they're just saying that because they don't want to deal with the concern of running out of money. It's almost in a weird sense, comforting that, Hey, if I pass away early, then I don't have to worry about money. This planning thing isn't important. I don't have to stress about it. No big deal. So in actuality, when you go through the planning process and you do see where you sit and you do see, Hey, maybe I can do the things that I want to do and I can still, make sure that there's money down the road for a spouse, all these sorts of things. It actually really kind of tick up the confidence and they will enjoy those things much more than having that uncertainty because, and I've seen it across the board because what ends up happening. I mean, and again, just seeing it being in this business, people that had that thought process 60 today, used to feel like 50 70 today feels like it. when people were 60, 15 years ago, nobody realizes how old they are, or they have this perception of that they're going to feel a certain way. And usually that's not the case. So, planning for all scenarios is really important.   Speaker 1: No, definitely. I mean, my mom's always joking. She's 80 and she's forever saying, I don't feel it. when I, if I'm not moving or if I'm not doing anything, I don't feel like I'm 80. She's like in my mind I still feel like I'm 30 or 40. She's like until I look in the mirror or I try to move a certain way.   Nick: Yeah. And unfortunately I had to go up to New York for a funeral this past month and my dad and I flew up and we walked into the room with some family members and stuff like that. And after the initial reminder that we're no longer in the south due to how loud it was and all of the swearing. Somebody said something about because that side of the family, I was always one of the younger and I'm like, how old are you going to be? And I was like, I'm going to be 40 this year. And everyone looked and they're like, and I was like, you know what? That means you guys are really old now. So, again, it's that whole concept of people just don't realize it. And the concept when you're younger of what you're going to feel like or what it's going to feel like when you're older, it never tends to be that way. So it's important to really plan.   Speaker 1: Yeah. It definitely. So you got to plan for these things, even though we can't predict them, how long we're going to be around tax rates, healthcare costs, market crashes, whatever the case is, these things are again, probably going to happen throughout your retirement. And if you have a nice long retirement, which you certainly hope that you do, you might be retired 20, 25, 30 years. You're going to experience multiple things with some of this stuff that you can't necessarily predict for, but you still have to strategize to hopefully have the retirement that you want in any economy and any circumstance. So that's where planning comes into place. And that's what you got to reach out to the guys for here on Retirement Planning, Redefined with John and Nick at pfgprivatewealth.com. That's where you can find them online, pfgprivatewealth.com. Don't forget to subscribe to us on whatever platform you like to use. Apple, Google, Spotify, so on and so forth. And we'll be back with more episodes coming up in a couple of weeks. Nick, thanks for hanging out as always. John Good luck with those floors, man.   John: Thanks. I definitely need and appreciate it.   Speaker 1: Absolutely. Nick, we'll see you next time here on the podcast. This has been Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick from PFG Private Wealth.

On this episode, we'll breakdown a recent CNBC article that analyzes a recent Morningstar study. The study found that most of us have at least one money bias, some of us more than one, and that those biases are very possibly costing us money in our checking, savings, investing and retirement accounts. Listen to see if you might be impacted by a specific money bias and for strategies to get it back under control. Helpful Information: CNBC Article: https://cnb.cx/3KKXSHf PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Mark: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. It's another addition of Retirement Planning - Redefined with John and Nick from PFG Private Wealth. We got to fun and interesting podcast this week to talk about, money biases and what those are, and are they costing you a little bit? If you have a money bias and you're going to be probably surprised to find out that you indeed do most people, I think do have biases about a lot of things. So, that's going to be on the podcast this go around. And of course, if you've got questions you need some help, always reach out to theguys@pfgprivatewealth.com. That's p-f-g, private wealth.com. John, what's going on, buddy? How you doing?   John: Hey, doing good. How are you?   Mark: Hanging in there. Doing pretty well. We were chatting a little bit off air and just talking about life, moaning and groaning a little bit, but overall you're doing okay? Hanging in there?   John: Yeah. Yeah. We, we just wrapped up a golf tournament that we hosted with Bern's Steakhouse. It's our second one.   Mark: Nice.   John: Yeah. Finalizing the numbers, but looking like a pretty decent donation to a couple of local Tampa charities here, which are Blue Star Families and then Jackson In Action, 83 Foundation, both a military base. So, so we're excited. It was a great event and we look forward to delivering the check soon.   Mark: That's fantastic. Awesome. Nick, how you doing my friend?   Nick: Doing pretty good. It's been a little bit of a crazy month, but have some vacation coming up, which will be nice, although I'm going to Key West and it'll be my first time going there, so...   Mark: Okay.   Nick: I'm looking forward to seeing what that's like.   Mark: Well, I don't know how you're getting there, but I filled up my truck yesterday and it cost me triple digits for the first time. It was over a hundred bucks.   Nick: Yeah. Luckily I'm flying. So...   Mark: All right.   Nick: We're good to go.   Mark: Well, the inflation numbers came in for February 7.9%. I don't know if you guys saw that at the time we're taping that they just came out this morning, so yay. Right? So people are definitely frustrated and we're kind of concerned. There's a lot going on, obviously the stuff in the world and the market's been reacting to that inflation is up. And so I thought it would be interesting to kind of have this chat. And we were talking about these money biases and how we feel about some of the different things. And I thought maybe it'd be a good idea to share some of this stuff with the listeners. So what we'll do is we'll also put a link to the article. This was a CNBC article guys, that was based off a Morningstar study. And I'll let you guys talk about Morningstar if you'd like to, just to explain that to the folks in a second.   Mark: But the study found that most of us have at least one money bias, some of us more than others, and that biases are very possibly costing us additional money in our checking, savings, or investing in retirement accounts. So, we'll see how this kind of impacts you and you'll kind of learn a little bit about this along the way. So a couple of key points before we dive in is that everybody has different attitudes about money. No real shock there, right? We know that, but that new behavioral financial study from Morningstar found that 98% of the respondents exhibited one or more. So when we say just about everybody has one, that's pretty true and that they are likely costing them some money. So we'll jump right in and get going here and with take away number one. Nick, what are the four main biases that they talked about and that you guys see?   Nick: Yeah, we really wanted to kind of focus on this with this chaotic as the beginning of the year has been. we think that people taking a little self inventory on, on how they might make some decisions would be beneficial. So right. The first bias is called a present bias or really kind of like present time. So really what this focus is on is kind of the tendency to go for immediate rewards over long term goals, or, the good old instant gratification. I would say that, what's interesting is, this can definitely be different for different age bands. So for people that, kind of like in that baby boomer era, they have their toes in this, for sure, whereas younger clients definitely. I would say it's a little bit more dominant just because of the things that they're used to and convenience and instant gratification.   Mark: Sure. The world we have. Yeah.   Nick: Yeah, for sure. And I think this is something that's real important because this become a stronger and stronger bias just with things that we're used to like news cycles and stuff like that. So, so that's, that's the first one.   Mark: Well, let, let me ask you a follow up on that real quick, Nick, before you move on. So with that present bias basically like it's that idea of, I feel like I need to do something now. Right? So like we'll use the market falling as an example. Right this minute we're down about 10% I think in the S&P or into a correction, I guess officially. So I must... I must need to do something now, so I can see the response, the immediate response. That way I feel like I've done something that's really what a present bias is.   Nick: Yep. Very much reactionary.   Mark: Okay.   Nick: Typically, and usually for most people, taking action at something like this, it's oftentimes too late. So that can really turn into this kind of yo-yo effect of, waiting where this is one of the things that lead people to buy high in sell low, which is kind of the opposite.   Mark: Which is the wrong. Yeah. Okay.   Nick: Yeah.   Mark: So that's the first one.   Nick: Yep. And then second one, is what's called base rate neglect. So really what happens is, this is kind of focused on how you judge the probability of something happening based upon new information, while you essentially ignore your original assumptions. So this is something where, for example, the whole concept of best laid plans. So this is where planning can really come into play, where might get a call from a client that, maybe it's a certain sector of the market. Hey, I want, I really want to jump into this certain sector of the market and they're not taking into consideration that maybe they already have exposure to that.   Nick: Or again, maybe it's a little bit too late and they're forgetting all of the effort and all the time that has been put into kind of creating the overall plan and then overreacting to good or bad news. And, this is definitely something like, for example, for myself, right. That I have to have, people remind me, I know that this is something that happens to me where it's like, because I do try to consume a lot of information and process, a lot of information and news where, dependent upon what's going on. This can kind of throw me a little bit for it.   Mark: I gotcha. So let, let me, John, let me of get you in here on this for a quick second. So for example, what I'm hearing then, so the NASDAQ for example, is technically into bear territory now, cause it's down 20 plus percent. So people calling up and saying, Hey, I need to get out of tech might be an example of this base rate neglect because they're seeing the current situation and they're reacting to the news versus does it make sense for their overall long term strategy?   John: Yeah. A hundred percent. It's the whole, kind of going into behavioral finance where it's, you're selling out when, when you shouldn't be, in reality, now's the time you know, if, as Nick mentioned, it's probably too late at this point.   Mark: Sure. Right.   John: It may be best just to stay of the course and stay in it, but a hundred percent that's kind of what we typically see.   Mark: Okay. All right. Go ahead Nick, what the third one for us?   Nick: Sure. So third one is overconfidence. This is an interesting one. Also, one that I know that I have a bias, where it's the whole concept of putting too much weight in your own abilities to make good financial decisions.   Mark: Sure. Yeah.   Nick: So, another way to think about this can be, is wanting to be right. And we tend to all want to be right. But then sometimes we will, double down or not take into consideration a concept of like a sunk cost where Hey, we're not always going to be right. And sometimes it's okay to make mistakes. You just want to learn from that. Oh definitely. And not double down, triple down, that sort of thing. So understanding that there's law of large numbers and there's efficiencies in different areas of the market and or planning. So being over confident, and again, this is something where if you look at the pie, you want to have your plan, your investment strategy, all that you want that pie to be, around 90% or so of the very strong part of your fundamental long term plan.   Nick: So sometimes having some of these biases on a small portion will help you really learn, usually people don't, they try to do it on a much larger portion. So that's a little bit of a takeaway too, is in moderation. Some of these things can be good because there are places where you can have a lot of upside that if you do it with the right amount of money and you take a little bit of risk with a smaller amount of money can help you kind of work through some of these biases without over overacting over correcting.   Mark: Oh, definitely. And if you think about the overconfidence bias here, Nick, I mean, we've basically been on a 12 year run, 12 plus year run with the market. So everybody's been feeling pretty confident. I mean, 1920 and 21 all finished up with double digit years.   Nick: Right.   Mark: So it's easy to feel confident when, when everything's going up, everybody's a genius, right?   Nick: Oh yeah.   Mark: So it's when it's going down that you start to get a little more concerned and maybe that overconfidence comes into play. And since we mentioned down, go ahead and go to the fourth one, which is the final one.   Nick: Sure. So the fourth one is going to be loss aversion. So a classic case of this is, because there's different types of risk as well. And one of the risks that we talk about sometimes are inflationary risks, which we're seeing now. So in other words, for people that might be way too heavy in cash over prolonged period of time, or they're afraid to take any sort of risk, they don't necessarily think about the trade off. So they, again, this is the concept of having a plan and having balanced, not only in your investments, but in your strategies and your overall planning is really important because as we see, sometimes people's thought processes, well, hey cash, if I'm in cash, it's okay. I just don't want to lose my money while, in times of massive inflation or just compared to other areas of the market, there can be significant downside to, the concept of what some people may think is no risk can actually have quite a bit.   Mark: Okay. So those are the four biases then. So you've got the present bias, the base rate neglect of the overconfidence bias and the loss aversion. So John here's the interesting part to me about this whole thing is take away number two, is that 98% of people are exhibiting at least one of these, what they found was the lower, the level of bias, the better your overall financial health. So if you only have one let's say of these four, then you're probably in better shape than someone that has two, which again, it kind of makes perfect sense, but there was some interesting statistics and information in this. So why don't you talk to me a little bit about that?   John: Yeah, yeah. That is pretty interesting. Basically the lower level of bias you have, the better financial health you end up having. And it's one of the ones here is like the present bias where basically research showed, if you have a low level of present bias, you were three times as likely to spend less than the money you that you make. So basically you're going to be saving more money. So again, it's kind of... You kind of look at this in life. You don't have that instant gratification. You're kind of looking at the long term of, Hey, I don't need this today. You know, if you go to the store and buy something, do I really need that now? No, I don't. I can hold off on it. You know, just making better financial decisions all around when you kind of break it down. Another one that was interesting with, with that, with the present bias was there's seven times more likely to plan for the future.   Mark: Yeah.   John: So, so I get... [crosstalk 00:11:36] go ahead.   Mark: I was trying to say, so what I'm hearing there is then, is if they don't re... If you don't react, if you don't give into the instant gratification bias, you typically were a better saver. Sounds like.   John: Better saver, better planner, just not reactionary to what's going on. So it's really the long term goal seems to be in mind with these type of people.   Mark: Seven times more likely. That's pretty good.   John: Yeah. It makes me think I need to... I need to be a little less into gratification for myself.   Mark: There you go.   John: You know, it's, I'm getting off topic here, but it's funny. I was talking to my wife the other day with, we got Disney plus for the kids.   Mark: Sure.   John: And it's like, oh, I want to watch this. And I started thinking, I'm like, man, I just remember just sitting there looking at the guide until, a TV show would finally pop on or a move I wanted to watch because you couldn't watch things right away. You back in the late eighties.   Mark: And in those places, it's great. Right. We enjoy that kind of stuff. But then what happens to this kind of this point is next thing you know, you've got 12 subscription services and you're not using them all. So yeah.   John: Yeah. So anyhow, starting off on a tangent.   Mark: No, you're fine.   John: But yeah, another one would be, overconfidence, lower level bias there. They found that people would have basically more savings. So again, back when Nick was staying with overconfidence in and I fall into this quite a bit, it's like, ah I have some time I can build that up or whatever. And I've seen this quite a bit with some retirees. So, if you're not over, you tend to save a little bit more and last one is the loss aversion of having lower 401k balance, the less bias you have towards that, the more apt you are to take a little more risk and save more into your 401k. And just as Nick mentioned here, not sit in cash and try to outpace inflation.   Mark: I gotcha. So yeah, if you, if you're a bit more overconfident, you feel like you can kind of well, I'll take some chances, right. Because I can get it back. So therefore I can build that savings back up or whatever the case is. So really interesting takeaways from that standpoint, when you think about it, because we all fall into one of these, whatever it might be. And so the lower level of money bias, typically the better financial health. Nick, so talk to me about some of the solutions Morningstar offered because they called it build a money life that fits your priorities, which makes a lot of sense for what you guys do as advisors to kind of find that right mold or fit for the individual.   Nick: Yeah. So it's pretty interesting in... We joke a decent amount of time with clients and among each other that, our business is probably 20 to 30% finance and 70 to 80% therapist. And really it's helping people with these sorts of things. So some of the things they talked about as far as what they call building a money life is kind of put some speed bumps or have a process in place for your decision making. So, one of the things that we try to get our clients to do as an example is that we have the... Because we are a planning focus firm and we use planning tools and software to help people model out different scenarios, we try to get them to start thinking through that realm because a lot... People have often like the quite, well, what about this?   Nick: Or what about that? Or should you know, one of the most common is, do I put extra money towards the mortgage or do I save some money? And the answer for everybody is different based upon what they've done up until that point. And so, for those that work with us, what we try to get them to do for those speed bumps is to say, number one, number two; number one, if there's something that you're concerned about, walk us through, what is the scenario that you're concerned about? So for example, if you're concerned about, the cost of fuel, cost of inflation, those sorts of things, in what way are you concerned about how that applies to you specifically? So not just the world and everybody on the news and all that kind of stuff, but how does it involve you specifically?   Nick: And so, okay. So, sometimes what people realize is that it's not going to impact their life in a dramatic way. It could have some sort of impact on, the economy and those sorts of things. But most of the times it's not going to have a massive impact on their life. And then we take it. So maybe, we figure that it could have some sort of impact. So then we can kind of go to the planning software and kind of model it and say, okay, well, if these things happen, let's take a look and see what it looks like. And okay, so now that you see what it looks like, here are some of the decisions that you can make to bring that sort of risk down and have a little bit of clarity. And then we can go ahead and try to implement those decisions.   Nick: So instead of just these open-ended concerns of things that are not in anybody's control, let's look at the things that we do have in control. And those decisions that we can make to impact and make it easier. And kind of referring back to what we talked about earlier, where that kind of high level of base rate, and then the overconfidence for lower savings and checking, sometimes what ends up happening is that, and we try to remind people of this is, having a solid base of savings, cash savings is your permission slip for a lot of different things. So when people look at and realize like, Hey, that this is... These are exactly the times that we emphasize having this cash handy because we can deal with these fluctuations in the market. We don't have to make irrational decisions because you've built this buffer and you've given yourself this permission slip to deal with these different sorts of circumstances.   Mark: That's a great point. Yeah.   Nick: Yeah. So that can be interesting. And then if, you're doing it on your own, maybe making some sort of process where, hey, you've got a couple of rules that you take into consideration where once you get to certain gains on an underlying investment, you're okay selling, or you sell with half and maybe you let the rest of it ride. Or you just kind of give yourself a buffer time. You know, sometimes people will joke that they have rules for emails, like when they're mad. So, give it an overnight, you're ready to fire off an email, maybe it's to a coworker it's to a family member, whatever.   Mark: Right. Yeah.   Nick: Or text message.   Mark: Wait till you cool down.   Nick: Yeah, wait to cool down. And, or maybe haven't had an adult beverage and give it a little bit of time because oftentimes, when we sit on it, we see that maybe even though we didn't think we were, maybe we were a little over confident in what our thought process was previously.   Mark: So yeah. I like that idea, John, what do you think? Like one of the things they had on there, and I think this is a good idea was the whole, wait three days to make an important decision. I'll use an exam... I mean, you've got the little ones there. That's great advice to try to, raise kids on as well. My dad used to do that with me. Hey man, if it's a good idea, on Monday, it's still going to be a good idea on Friday. Right. But if something changed or you don't feel like it's a good idea, then it's good that you waited before you took action. I've been thinking about buying a muscle car here recently. And of course, gas prices have got me second guessing that. So I went and looked at one last Friday and I still haven't made a decision because I wanted to take that time to make sure I was making that right choice. Right. Don't... That's that instant gratification, I guess, take a few days... [crosstalk 00:18:48]   John: [crosstalk 00:18:48] A hundred percent.   Nick: [crosstalk 00:18:49] Or you might be getting a really good price right now. I mean...   Mark: Well, that's true too, but.   Nick: So if you really want it...   Mark: What do you think, John?   John: I think it's always best to wait a couple of days to see if that's something you really want. I think, like you said there, it's going to be there, and the price could jump up in three days in this environment. But I think it's always best kind of way it a little bit before you make financial decisions. So you ultimately feel comfortable with decisions that you made. That it wasn't kind of an impulse buy or decision...   Mark: Right. [crosstalk 00:19:20].   John: That could affect the rest of your life.   Mark: So, well, the speed bump idea was really good, right? The Morningstar, they called it speed bumps to place your... Slow down your decision making as Nick alluded to. And if you think about the stock market, right, they've got those circuit breakers in place. We saw that with COVID right. When the circuit breakers would kick in to prevent any more trading because it was falling so fast. So if you want to kind of use that same analogy, have some speed bumps or some circuit breakers in place for your decision making process. So lots of different ways we can look at it.   John: Yeah, another one in the article I was reading through is really, and it goes back to what we're saying here, and what we always say is having a plan, a sense of direction and to tune out the news and really stop taking advice from your friends where it's basically, "hey, I did this", or "I'm buying this." And especially with, we don't advise on crypto, but you know, "I'm buying some crypto" and stuff like that. It's really, have your plan and stick to what your plan is for versus listening to what other people are doing. That was also in the article, which I thought was an interesting point.   Mark: Yeah. Very good points. Well, I tell you what, like I said, we're going to link this into the, to the show notes and information there. So if you'd like to check that out, you can. And as always, if you've got some questions, we'll wrap this up this week about a money bias, your own money bias, which one you may be affected by. You should be able to tell if you suffer from the present bias that give me now thing, that base rate and neglect where you just react to the news, the overconfidence of feeling like you've got it all figured out, you've mastered it all. Or maybe just the loss of version where that fear of losing money, just really kind of cripples you either way, it could be costing you money. So reach out to the guys, if you've got questions on how to control this.   Mark: And I think that's some of the value that an advisor brings to the table is they're not going to have those biases about your portfolio plan because it's not their money, right? So they're there to help guide you and be that sounding board and be that coach. So reach out to John and Nick, if you some questions at PFGprivatewealth.com, that's PFGprivatewealth.com. Before you take any action, you should always check with a qualified professional, like the guys, they are financial advisors at PFG Private Wealth. Don't forget to subscribe to us on Apple, Google, Spotify, or whatever platform you'd like to listen to. And if you'd like to learn more about some of those charities that they were... John was talking about earlier in the show, or maybe attend the next time they do one of those events, again, reach out to them at PFG Private Wealth. For John and Nick, I'm Mark, thanks for hanging out with us. We'll see you next time here on the podcast, Retirement Planning - Redefined.

Droves of workers are retiring early or taking a break from work as they change career paths. It's become known as The Great Resignation. On this episode, we'll highlight some of the key takeaways of a recent Forbes article and explore a lot of the impacts on retirement planning from across different age groups in the wake of this massive workplace shift that's underway. Forbes Article: https://bit.ly/3JtbbeQ Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Mark: Hey everybody, welcome in to the podcast. Thanks for tuning in to another edition of Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick, as we talk investing, finance, and retirement. And we are going to discuss the Great Resignation on this podcast. And if you're not familiar with that, well, that's been all the mass exodus of people leaving work over the last three to four to five months. And we've got some interesting key takeaways here to talk a little bit about this. Droves of workers retiring early, or taking a break as they consider this career path, that's been called now the Great Resignation, and there's a Forbes article, we'll probably take a link and put that in the show notes as well. But guys, what's going on? How you doing Nick?   Nick: Good, good. Staying busy, kind of getting rocking and rolling to start off the new year. So, you know, I think a month or two ago we had hoped that maybe it'd be a little less chaotic from the standpoint of the whole pandemic thing, but I think everybody's just kind of plugging away and recovering from the holidays.   Mark: Yeah, definitely. John, how you doing my friend?   John: I'm good. I'm good. Doing good.   Mark: Yeah. Nothing, nothing too crazy going on. Into the new year all right?   John: Yeah. Yeah, it was quiet. So just hung out with family locally here and in Tampa area. So it was just a nice little break and like Nick said kind of excited to be back to doing some work here and the holidays it's always nice, but at the same time, I'm kind of ready to get back at it.   Mark: Yeah, exactly. So have you guys heard this term, the Great Resignation, are you guys a little bit aware of this and what's your thoughts? We'll get into it here, some data here in just a second, but just have curious if you've heard it or not.   Nick: Yeah, I definitely have. I think it's interesting. I think depending upon who you talk to, their interpretation of it is a little bit different, but in my mind it's really, it's kind of, to kind of think about it from the perspective as almost like a real estate market, there's a buyer's market and there's a seller's market. And I think that really what's happened is not all, but many companies have been slow to kind of improve wages and pay and benefits and things like that and so this has kind of put things into kind of the worker's hands a little bit more and given them a little bit of leverage from the perspective of competitiveness from a company standpoint. And that obviously, that doesn't deal with the people that are in between or are waiting to kind of figure out what they want to do with their whole life, that sort of thing, but more specifically, the people changing jobs and how difficult it's been for employers to keep employees.   Mark: Yeah. I mean, it's definitely all over the map and John, we're going to talk a little bit about it from the different age groups, but for the most part, we're going to look at it as it affects retirees and pre-retirees, but have you seen some of this stuff? Are you familiar with it?   John: Not necessarily the term itself, but yeah, we've seen a lot of this with our own clients that are basically doing some job changes or just outright, just retiring early which I know we're going to get into. But yeah, we're seeing quite a bit of this. And then we see it when we're trying to personally and work wise trying to get service work done. It feels like-   Mark: Big time.   John: Feels like no one's working anymore. My local Dunkin' Donuts here, I can't go in to get a coffee because they don't have enough workers, so everything's drive through. But it just [crosstalk 00:03:23] seen across the board.   Mark: And that's part of it. Yeah. And that's part of it. So a lot of times, I think, when we think about this what's happened in the pandemic, we automatically go to the lower paying scale jobs, the fast food type jobs, and that's definitely a big piece, but for an example, 4.2 million people quit their job in October of 2021. So just a couple of months ago and there's been a lot of other people quitting. So there's been, I think somewhere now around six, six and a half million, I think over the last four to four and a half months. And it's not just the lower end stuff. And of course it's also unknown how long these people will stay out of work. Some of it could be retirees or pre-retirees that are just like, you know what, I'm not going back.   Mark: I'll use my brother as an example, he's 63 and he's like, as long as they keep me working from home, I'm going to stay. But the minute they tell me, I have to go back to the office. I think I'm going to pull the trigger and retire early, even though his plan calls for him to wait till 60, his full retirement age, which I think is 66 and seven months or something like that. So let's talk about it from that's kind of standpoint, guys.   Mark: I've got three takeaway categories here, or actually four. I'm going to kind of give you guys the headline and let you guys roll from there a little bit on this. Okay. So we'll dive into it, hit it however you'd like, not just the lower income scale, but also the upper end, or people just closer to retirement things that you might be seeing or hearing. So number one, if you are going to step away early, taking a break from Social Security, whether it's short term, long term or whatever, don't sell short that, the impact that, that can have to your long term benefits.   Nick: So, depending upon how long you are out of work, it's important to keep into consideration that when you're not earning an income, you're not building up your Social Security credits and so that's something that can impact you down the line. And I've actually had this come up a little bit lately where people don't quite grasp the impact, the positive impact of Social Security, or how much, or how important it is to their overall plan. So it is a big deal and you want to make sure you still have your 10 year minimum work history. It's important to remember that, really the benefit that you receive is a cumulative kind of record of your highest 35 years of income.   Mark: Right.   Nick: So every year that you have a higher year than a previous year, adjusted for inflation, that's going to knock out the other years and you really kind of help bump that benefit up.   Mark: Right. And if you're stepping away in your fifties because of this Great Resignation type of thing here, that's some prime earning years. So that's where I say you could be putting a big dent in that.   Nick: Yeah, absolutely. And realistically it always does kind of go back to the whole plan concept of that we really try to harp on people about, is we have had some people retire early because we have had a bull market for the last 10 years and they've done a good job with saving and those sorts of things, but we kind of verified it through the planning, the whole retire really early on a whim or not really looking at it from an analytical standpoint can definitely be pretty, pretty dangerous.   Mark: Yeah, for sure. So you definitely want to make sure that if you are stepping away from Social Security, you're looking at what it could do to your long term strategy, six months, a year, retiring early, whatever the case might be. Just make sure you're strategizing that with your advisor.   Mark: John, talk to me a little bit about takeaway number two, the 401k isn't a rainy day fund, is kind of the category I had. Because over the last two years, and even the last six months, there's some pretty interesting stats about what people are doing with their 401ks.   John: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, during COVID 2020, there was some ability to actually access for 401k funds or retirement funds without any penalty.   Mark: Right.   John: And not even have to do a loan and that's gone away. So now, not that... Fortunately for our clients, and I think we do a great job educating them, we haven't really seen too much of this where clients are taking out 401k loans. But I have had conversations with some individuals that have done that. And it's just kind of like, "Hey, how much can I pull from my fund? I did this, what are the impacts of it?" So it's just important to fall back to the plan. And we do a... One of our biggest recommendation's to make sure that people have an emergency fund and whether it's three to six months or a year of emergency savings, because, as you know the pandemic hit in 2020 and no one saw that coming and you just don't know what's going to happen in the future. So it's important to have an emergency fund to help out in certain situations like this, so you avoid pulling from the 401k loan because you really want to let those assets grow for your retirement and not access it for rainy day funds- [crosstalk 00:08:10].   Mark: Kind of a stop gap.   John: .... on things like that.   Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's some negative impacts of doing that though, John? I think one of the things people get lost on is just the compounding of it over time, right?   John: Yeah. So you take out 40 grand out of it, basically, especially, let's say you did that in 2020, let's say you took out $40,000 there, you just lost the compounding over the next year and a half, two years of which has been really excellent in reality [crosstalk 00:08:33] with what the market's done. So not... You're just not losing that $40,000, you're losing what that $40,000 could have grown to, which is the importance of having, again, the rainy day fund, so you can let that money in there, let that money grow for you and earn and work for you.   Mark: Yeah.   John: And then nevermind then you're paying money back into it that are after tax dollar. So there's a lot that goes into it that you really need to evaluate it. Sometimes it's you have to because you have nothing else to pull from.   Mark: Right.   John: But it's always important to plan and make sure that you... This is the last resort.   Mark: I hear a lot of advisors say taking that loan against it is usually the later, like if it's kind of like the last in the line, if you really need it, okay, here's where we can go. But let's try not to. Just simply from a multitude of reasons, especially with the resignation, right? If you take a loan against your 401k and you leave the job, you have to pay that back. Correct?   John: Yeah. That's a great point that you bring up. Most companies will give you 30 days to pay it back. So example, you take out that $40,000 and all of a sudden it's, "Hey, we're downsizing," and you get a pink slip, and not only you got, now you all of a sudden you got to pay 40 grand back to your 401k within, a 30 day period, maybe 60 day period. And if you do not pay it back, you're going to be paying taxes and penalty on that, on those dollars.   Mark: Pretty stiff. Yeah.   John: Yeah.   Mark: Yeah. So that's another takeaway for that. And Nick, let's stick with the 401k for a minute for the next one. If you are in this kind of nomad thing where you're jumping out of one job, you're waiting a bit, maybe going into another, looking for a better option for yourself, seeing who's hiring, whatever the scenario is, take that 401k with you, right? Don't just leave it back behind at the old place.   Nick: Yeah. It can be, realistically the more accounts people have, the more places, the more often things are overlooked, not checked up on, not taken care of, so we definitely are fans of consolidating. Whether it's rolling it into the plan at your new employer or rolling it into an IRA where you can control the assets yourself or work with an advisor to manage them for you. Just like so many other things, it's one of the things that former or past employer 401k plans are oftentimes one of the most overlooked and non-adjusted things that we've seen people kind of not take care of.   Mark: Yeah.   Nick: And then they lose a lot of long term money on it because of that.   Mark: Well, you got to think about the vested portion too. Right? So if it's, let's say you're 50 or something like that, and you're pondering this, make sure you under... that you're getting the fully vested part before you jump on. There are some people that could say, well, all right, maybe I'd better stick this out a little longer or whatever the case is.   Nick: Yeah, absolutely. There are some people that... It's much more common for people to move from one employer to the next these days. Especially in certain industries where they can be almost more of a tech role or consultant role, things like that. And sometimes, because of that, their employer has put in a decent amount of money, so an employee's contributions are always vested, it's always their money, but they could have substantial employer matching that vests over three to five years. Or some other sorts of benefits, even if it's not exactly the 401k, but maybe there's a stock plan that has vesting. It's important to take those things into consideration because we've seen people leave tens of thousands of dollars on the table.   Mark: Right.   Nick: Not realizing that it was a factor they should have taken into consideration before they switched employers.   Mark: Yeah. Don't leave that behind. Right? So definitely take it with you, whether you're rolling it from the old one into the new one. And if you do it properly, it's not going to, it's not an issue, right, Nick? So if you've got it in the old one and you roll it to the new one, you just go through the proper channels and there's no taxable event and so on and so forth. Same thing if you move it to an IRA, correct?   Nick: Correct. Yeah. The goal is always to make sure that it's rollover, it's not taken as a lump sum distribution-   Mark: To yourself.   Nick: Yeah. So you always want to make sure that when the rollover happens, it gets paid directly to the new custodian. So it's not written out to you. It's written to the new custodian, whether that's a Fidelity or a Vanguard or whoever it may be, it's paid directly to them, the funds go over and that avoids there being any sort of tax liability or penalty if somebody's under the age of 59 and a half.   Mark: All right. So let's go to the fourth takeaway here, guys. I'll let you both kind of jump in and out on this. John, I'll start with you. It seems like this whole resignation thing is kind of tailor made for those early retirement dreamers. Kind of go back to my brother's conversation there about, Well, if they... I'll retire a couple years early, if they make me go back to the office kind of thing, but I'll work from home." So it's enticing for sure, but point out some challenges to just ponder if you are retiring early, ahead of what you originally planned, you guys kind of divide up a few of these, if you would, but John go ahead and start with a couple of bullet points to think about.   John: Yeah. One of the things that I think about is qualifying for Social Security. The earliest you can draw Social Security is age 62. So, if you're retiring at let's just call 57, you got a decent gap of where you can't take any Social Security. So you really have to evaluate are there any other income sources coming in like a pension or maybe some real estate income or whatever it might be. And then if there isn't, is your nest egg able to sustain your plans. [crosstalk 00:14:06].   Mark: Five years, yeah.   John: Yeah. Is it able to work if you're using your nest egg to basically live off of for that period of time. So those are one of the things. And then you always want to of look at as one, we've had situations where one spouse might retire early and the other one's still work and they say, "Hey, we could live off of just one income for the time being. And if we need any extra money, we have the nest egg that we can pull from as needed." So that would be a big one to really look at.   John: Another one that we come across quite often is healthcare coverage. I'd say one of the main reasons that people don't retire. From our standpoint, what we see is really healthcare. So they wait till they're 65, so they can draw on Medicare. And prior to that, they just kind of look at the cost of going to the Marketplace and say, you know what, this is probably a little too rich for my blood, so [crosstalk 00:14:55] kind of hold off.   Mark: And if you use your example of 57, I mean, you're talking eight years, what are you doing in that gap? Right.   John: Yeah. And we've seen everyone's situations different in what their premium is, but I've seen some premiums for individual at that age at $10-11,000 per year. Nevermind, the coverage isn't as good. So that's [crosstalk 00:15:12]-   Mark: And that's not per person too. Right. So if you and the spouse.   John: Yeah, yeah. Yep. That's per person.   Mark: Can your retirement accounts handle that for that setup that we just talked about or whatever the case might be and then realizing that that's also, that your retirement is now going to be longer, right, because you've retired early, so it's the kind of great multiplier. So those things just kind of compound and go up from there. Nick, do you agree with that and what's some things you see?   Nick: Yeah. For sure. It's definitely a slippery slope when you start to factor in. We've got some clients who work for large employers, their total health premiums for the households can run $2-3,000 a year for both of them. So when you go and you take... You go from $2-3000 for both of you while you're working to somewhere between $8-20,000 a year before Medicare age, it can be pretty substantial. And oftentimes, for many people, there's going to be a price increase, even when they're on Medicare from if you were working for a company that was a larger employer and had pretty inexpensive health benefits. So that makes a huge, huge difference.   Nick: And one way that some people have managed things from that perspective are with some of the Marketplace options out there will kind of connect people with specialists that can help on the medical insurance side of things. And you may be able to take money from taxable accounts that don't have large gains to put your income lower so that you don't pay as much, but in reality, to be frank, usually the only people that can do that are ones that have saved substantial amount of money into a non-qualified account, which usually means they have a lot of money. So, it's less of an issue. So really looking at that, looking at the different types of accounts, when you create your withdrawal rate, and figuring out, hey, how can we keep your income taxes low, not a only for a short period of time when you're in retirement, but kind of building flexibility throughout your retirement, where you're not just letting this tax bomb grow, or you're not using all of your Roth money first or leaving it all for the end.   Nick: It's usually kind of a bit of a balance. So we harp on it a lot, but this is really where there's so many factors and things like this. That this is where kind of software and the tech tools that we have today really help us tailor make a plan, come up with a really good income and liquidation strategy, help us figure out what kind of gaps are we going to have between the time that you retire and when things like Social Security are going to kick in to help supplement the income, and then when Medicare's going to kick in to help reduce expenses. So, it's definitely a puzzle and fortunately we enjoy putting the pieces together.   Mark: Right. Well, look, if you're on the fence, well, if you already did the resigned and walked away, hopefully you had a plan in place, but if you're not, if you're among some of those folks that are still considering, I've heard some interesting stats that they think that's going to happen. Again, early on the first half of 2022, make sure you're talking with an advisor about all the different things that could happen if you do step away early. Most people, hopefully do, but sometimes you just get frustrated or whatever the case is. And a lot of it does have to do with this kind of going back to work, staying working from home, it got good to us, we really kind of, in some ways, very much so enjoy being able to work from home, in other ways we kind of missed the camaraderie. So there's a lot of different things to just kind of take into account before you pull the Great Resignation.   Mark: And with that, we're going to wrap it up this week. We're going to knock out an email question here real fast. Whichever one of you guys want to tackle this, but we've got one from Rebecca who said, "Guys, every six months or so I tell myself, I need to start saving more for retirement and I pretend like I'm going to get serious and actually do it. But then I can't stay motivated to increase my savings. I'm putting a decent amount in the 401k and I have a pretty nice balance there, but it feels like I could be doing more. It's the beginning of the year, I want to be more motivated. How do I do it?"   John: This comes up quite a bit. And I'd say the easiest way to save is probably the 401k, because it's done through payroll and you really, once you start saving in to it, you really don't miss the money coming out into it and you can always adjust it. And we've had some people where they say, "Hey, I'm putting enough into my 401k, what else should I do?" And the first step is just really just setting up an account and you can start with as little as $25 a month, or $50 a month, but once that account's open, it's much easier just to say, hey, let me up this. So I would say the first step is look at the 401k and if you don't want to continue contributing to that, just open up an account somewhere with your advisor or on your own and just set it up monthly, and then you can always adjust it as needed.   Mark: Yeah. Or maybe a Roth, right? If she wants to look at a tax, something more tax efficient. So...   John: Yep.   Mark: That's another way to look at it. But yeah, I think if you automate it and you just put it in play, Rebecca, that should hopefully get you... You just, if you don't see it and you don't think about it and it's just happening in the background, then that's the beauty of it, so then you don't have to worry about necessarily getting motivated. But another way might be to sit down with a professional and start getting some advice. It doesn't matter really on your age, the sooner, the better. So if you got questions, need some help, reach out to John and Nick, go to the website, pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com.   Mark: Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you like to use, Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Stitcher, just type in Retirement Planning Redefined, or again, just find it all at their website, pfgprivatewealth.com. If you got questions, need some help, John and Nick are here for you.   Mark: Guys, thanks for hanging out. I appreciate it. Talking to me about the Great Resignation and we'll talk about it in a couple of weeks here, we'll see what's going on.   Nick: Thanks, Mark   John: Thanks.   Mark: I appreciate your time as always. Guys, thanks for hanging out with me. We'll see you next time here on the podcast, with John and Nick, this is Retirement Planning Redefined.

Even if you have a solid financial plan in place, things can quickly get out of tune if you don't make adjustments from time to time. Let's talk about some of the areas where we often see people get out of tune in their financial plan. Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. Welcome into another edition of the podcast. Thanks for hanging out with John and Nick and myself as we're going to talk about Retirement Planning Redefined once again. This week, we are going to chat about getting in tune. No, not instruments, and we're not going to sing, because that might be bad, but we're going to talk about getting our retirement plans into tune, especially because we all want to have that good solid piece in there that we know we're going to be comfortable and happy and get the things we need out of it, but we also can drift off from time to time. So, we want to pull those back in, get the reins if you will. So, that's going to be our topic this week is getting in tune. What's going on guys? What's shaking? How you doing? John: All good. Nick: Staying busy. Speaker 1: Yeah, staying busy. How's the dog? I know you got that dog that's really old. Is she doing okay? Nick: Depending upon your definition of okay, she's doing great. Speaker 1: Well, good. Nick: Yeah, she definitely keeps me on my toes. I think she had to go out five times before 11:30 today, so that was fun. Speaker 1: Holy cow. Nick: Yeah. Speaker 1: My mine's 15 and she's going deaf and going partly blind, but she's still okay in that department. How's yours doing? Is she having some hearing or vision? Nick: Oh yeah. No, she can't hear and her vision is not great, and so it's fun stuff. I'm on the third floor of my building, so I carry her down every time to go out. She's not a big dog, so it's easy, but- Speaker 1: It's cute and it's sad sometimes that she's losing her hearing. I'll be calling for her and she can't figure out exactly where it's coming from, because she's not completely deaf. So, she looks around in different angles and I'm like, 'I'm right next to you, you ding dong.' Nick: Oh yeah, I know that look well. Speaker 1: Pretty funny stuff. John, what's going on with you buddy? I know you don't have these exciting dog stories, but what's happening? John: Not too much. Just staying busy and I think as you're aware, becoming a school parent, so that's fun and then started my little one in gymnastics, so I have to head there tonight. Speaker 1: Oh, nice. Yeah. You're getting to that phase now where you got hobbies and activities all the time, right? John: Yeah, play dates are starting to get formed now. I pick her up from school and it's like, "Hey, I want to do a play date with my friend." It's like, "All right." Speaker 1: Yep, go, go, go. That's all right, hey, at least we're getting back to some of that stuff. So kids and stuff. I mean, everybody needs interaction, so it's good that we're here getting some of that stuff going on. Getting our life back in tune, so to speak. That'll be my segue back into the topic here. So, let's talk about how to get our financial plans or our retirement plan back in tune in case we've got out. We talked a couple weeks ago guys, and we're waiting to see what the fine details are going to be, we'll probably do a podcast on it, but tax considerations, future tax considerations. Speaker 1: A lot of the stuff that's right now at the time we're taping this that's before the house, it may go through, there's quite a bit to the corporate tax change, there is bumping up. They're trying to make it sound like it's all going to be for the higher net worth folks, but $400,000, $500,000 is not that hard to get to for some of these things. So depending on where you're at, tax considerations needs to be on everybody's radar no matter what you're making. Nick: Yeah, tax considerations are definitely something that we try to focus on with clients. I think in our minds, the number one, the rule of thumb when it comes to tax considerations in regards to investments and retirement accounts is to have options. So, what we mean by that is not only a diversification in the types of investments, underlying investments that you have, but also in the types of accounts that you have. Nick: You want to have accounts are going to be tax free down the road, accounts that will be taxed down the road and then maybe some accounts that are subject to income or capital gains taxes versus just ordinary income. So, the having options, building a personal moat and being able to have the ability to adapt and adjust, I think and staying nimble is the number one priority when it comes to planning. Speaker 1: Having a personal moat, I like that. John, you've been getting so much rain, you might have your own moat, right? John: Yeah, that's funny. I do feel like it's been raining every day. It's just new house, it's like we have this big yard and I walk back there and it's constantly soaked and the pool's always overflowing. So yes, I do have a personal moat keeping Nick out. Speaker 1: Nice, I like that. Okay, so tax considerations. Again, lots of things happening there, so that could even be changing and that's why it's definitely important to make sure. It's always important really, no matter what time we're in, but I mean certainly when we get to retirement, tax considerations and what we're paying is a big deal. So it's not what you make, it's what you keep, all that stuff. Speaker 1: Life insurance. Fellas, having the right amount, well, 'Hey, I'm retired, I don't need it.' That's what most people say, or at least that's the general consensus or rule of thought, but is that correct? John: Sometimes it is. It really comes down to when you're looking at, do I have the right amount? So, is there a need for it? If there is a need for it, then it becomes income replacement. So example, I go to retire and let's say I do have a pension that's life only. We talked about that a couple weeks ago and if I pass away, that pension's gone, does my spouse need that money for her money to last at that point or for her to hit her goals? John: If the answer's yes, she needs that pension replaced, then yes, there is a need for life insurance. There're other things that go into it, but that's just looking at it from a retirement standpoint. It's really replacing someone's income or assets that are needed to generate income for the surviving spouse. Nick: Yeah, and I would say just on top of that, I think probably the reason that we mentioned this in this conversation is just to not absentmindedly push it off the side. I think there's a perception for people that no matter what, they're not going to need any sort of coverage approach in retirement or into retirement. Just like anything else, we think it's important to take inventory, and when you're building your plan, to make sure that you vet out the different situations and scenarios. Nick: Because when you were originally planning, you may have not expected to have a mortgage, you may not have expected to help out your kids with education costs or maybe at the level that you did, or a myriad of other things. So life comes at you quick, we think it's important that... because so many people automatically assume that it's just no longer a part of the conversation for them, that you make sure that it is or is and take a good inventory to see if it makes sense for you. John: Yeah, definitely. Let me jump in here real quick. Speaker 1: Sure. John: This is really important for big business owners to look at as their near retirement, because a lot of small businesses, they are in essence the business, and if they don't have any life insurance and something happens to them, sometimes we've seen businesses have to fire sale and stuff like that. Nick: Yeah, if something happens to the owner, the business is relying upon the owner, the family expected to be able to sell the business and cash out and be profitable and sail into the sunset that can get derailed pretty quickly. So that's another good example. Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. And you mentioned cash, just cashing out, but that was actually, cash is on my next one who doesn't love cash. I mean, everybody loves cash. We want to keep a nice amount around. We feel like most people kind of have this, the higher the number the better. My kid, she's 24 now she's working, making good money for a change. Speaker 1: Now she's learning how to play this game with herself about, Ooh, how much can I get my savings account to grow? I'll be chatting with her and she'll be like, 'Yeah, I'm trying to hit this number. And I'm adding a little bit more.' And it's nice to see her kind of start to play that game with herself where she's trying to grow those accounts. And she enjoys always the fact they're growing and that only happens more as we get older. So people sometimes want these pretty large amounts sitting around. So what's the right amount to actually have, because I mean, at some point, we start talking about emergency funds and so on and so forth. I mean, what are you going to do with $100,000 sitting in the banking cash? Is that really too much? Is that the right amount? I mean, how do you figure that out? Nick: Well, this is where our very effective, but also annoying answer of it depends comes into play. So, this answer possibly more than almost anything else is I think hyper dependent upon the people or the person that we're talking about. Obviously there's kind of the rule of thumb of, six to 12 months of expenses in cash. But really when we drill down further, one of the things that I like to run by people is to have them think of cash in a way of it's the ultimate permission slip. What I mean by that is what amount of cash allows them to feel comfortable enough to not make irrational decisions with the rest of their money? So if having a year or 18 months, 24 months, even 36 months of cash allows them to be invested in a way that they should be with the rest of their money. Nick: Then in my mind that the opportunity cost of that money, getting more upside, that cash getting more upside is worth it because it prevents them for them overreacting to things like market corrections like we're having this week or these different sorts of scenarios and circumstances where one of the best techniques that has worked for us is going through and saying 'Yes, the market just pulled back over the last three months. Let's just say it did 10%.' But if we can go to the client's accounts and say, 'Look at, you've got your next 18 months of expenses without ever touching your investment accounts is sitting there in cash for you.' Plus remember that we've got somewhere between 30% and 50% of your actual investment and fixed income automatically their blood pressure, their heart rate, and their amount of emails and phone calls to us go down, which are all things that are positive. Speaker 1: Really that's the talk, starting talking about risk as well. And that's my final bit on getting the plan in tune is having the right amount of risk for the time that you're in and for the situation that you're in. Maybe those two things go hand in hand, well, they all really go hand in hand, if you think about a retirement plan in general, but getting the right amount of risk is certainly important. Speaker 1: And we touched on this a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about couples and how they sometimes they're opposites in that regard. So you still have to find that that happy place that's working for the plan. I think I saw an email for somebody in a couple of weeks back guys, and it was something like, my account haven't done as well as the market this year and maybe I should change advisors. And it was like, well, wait a minute. You know, don't just assume that it's the advisor's fault because it didn't keep up with the market. How are you set up from risk? Are you exactly... Are you taking all as much risk as possible in that, which case the market return should be closer? Or are you very conservative and just don't really know what you have and that's why you didn't perform as well. There's lots of ways in variables to look at this correct? John: Yeah. It's definitely one of the most important things to look at when your overall portfolio is what is your or risk tolerance and how are you invested in? And what you just said is on point, we find that a lot where people are trying to compare not only to us, but other advisors like, 'Well, the S&P did this, what did I do?;' And then when you start diving into it, it's, well, you're a 50, 50 mix and that's the S&P all 100% equities. It's not going to be the same. John: But definitely from a planning standpoint, we try to make sure people are invested correctly based on their risk tolerance. Because if you are more aggressive in your portfolio than you actually are, when you start to see a dip, chances are you're going to panic and chances are if the dip is fast enough or goes down enough like in the COVID period, there March, April 2020, some people change courses and went from what they were, and then went to very conservative. John: And then three weeks later, the market just rallied back and all the gains were lost if you were, are seeing on the sidelines. It's important to really pick your risk tolerance, pick your portfolio and stay at the course based on the plan. Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can't panic. That's usually the worst time to do it. It's definitely one of those cases where we tend to do that. And that's, again, the value I think of an advisor, because somebody can call up and say, like the pandemic crash or whatever, and say, 'Hey, I'm panicking. What do I do?' And you can walk through those scenarios without just locking necessarily locking in those gains by panic selling or whatever that case might be. Speaker 1: So something to look out for, make sure you have your plan in tune, and they require a tune note, folks, these they're not a set and forget it kind of thing, it's not. Even life insurance, if you bought life insurance 25 years ago, and you hadn't looked at it 25 years, it's one of those things where we buy it, we think we're never going to need it to look at it again, but no, that's not the case. Speaker 1: Stuff changes. Life happens. So make sure you're making little tweaks, your plans should change and ebb and flow just like your life's going to. And that was our topic this week on the podcast. And as always, we're going to try to take at least an email question or two, if we can, if you'd like to submit your own, go to the website at pfgprivatewealth.com, that's pfgprivatewealth.com drop us a line there and subscribe to the podcast while you're there as well. Speaker 1: We'll see if we can get these two in at least one, we got a question for Nick, from Jamie. He says, 'Nick, I've looked forward to retirement for many years and I enjoy the podcast. And now that I'm actually retired, I can't shake the feeling that I'm going to run out money. So you got any solutions for fighting the feelings, or should I just go back to work?' That's one of these things where people get into that situation. It's like they maybe don't have a good plan or they're just not comfortable. So they're not really sure what it's doing for them. Nick: Yeah. So this is interesting because I would say that realistically, the majority of the people that work with us, their plans are pretty solid and we have a high level of comfort of them retiring. In those scenarios where, where we have a high level of confidence in their plan and what we've done, especially, because we use a lot of pretty of variables. We try to up the cadence of meetings or the amount of times that we talk and get them to start trying to view things maybe a little bit more like us. Nick: So using things like the client portal that we have, where they can view their cashflow or their lifetime and see the different parts start to become more familiar with how the planning software works and get some of that comfort and affirmation that they're online and on target is really, really important. Nick: And then from the perspective of things that maybe aren't quite as static, in our regular reviews, really trying to drill down and dig into what are the things that are concerning them the most? For example, for some people, the things that are concerning them the most might be taxes. We can work, show them and illustrate a scenario of a significant bump in taxes and show them how that impacts them specifically. Nick: When I realized that I should ask clients that have serious concerns about how these specific things that they're concerned about impact them specifically, because one of the things we've seen is that, it's like, 'Okay, I'm watching the news and the news says this is going to happen and freak out in twos. Nick: They're thinking in large terms maybe from societal standpoint and that's understandable, but take that one step further and say, 'Okay, well how does this impacting me? How impact my plan? How does this impact me? And then when we start to drill down, when they start to learn to do that, the amount of stress that they have starts to go away pretty significantly. 'Okay, well I'm concerned about these taxes.' All right, well, Hey, let's take a look at the amount of income you're in. Let's take a look at sort of bracket you're in. Nick: Historically, even if we go back the last 20 years, how much that bracket has fluctuated and you see throughout 9/11, throughout the great recession, throughout the bounce back, throughout... Year bracket that you're in has gone plus, or minus 3%, that's not going to really have a huge packed on you or let's even just let's bump it up an extra 10%, those sorts of things or using that same sort of situational awareness with markets or, whatever else it is, health, those sorts of things. When people start to really think about how to impact them, it's usually kind of a calming factor for them. Speaker 1: Yeah, I think at the end of the day, if you don't have a good strategy in place that makes sense to you and that you understand you're going to have a hard time shaking that feeling and not feeling calm and feeling nervous about it. And that's really where the right advisor and also the right plan comes in place. If you're working with somebody and you feel like things maybe aren't totally there, it's okay to get a second opinion. Whether it's Jamie or anybody else that checking out the podcast, find out if you're working with somebody and you're not sure that that's the right fit, then get a second opinion and you may find that it is. It's everything's working swimmingly well, and that's fantastic. Or you may find that you might need to make a change. Speaker 1: And if you do, just reach out to John and Nick and schedule some time, have a conversation with them. Second opinions is part of the industry. So give them a jingle, have a conversation, pfgprivatewealth.com, that's pfgprivatewealth.com and time wise, guys, I think that's going to wrap it up for this week. So we'll, we'll take that next email question next time on the show. Speaker 1: So reach out folks, let them know, to give them a cell, 8132867776 is the number to call. It's just easier to go to the website, pfgprivatewealth.com, subscribe to the show and all that good stuff on Apple, Google, Spotify. And we'll see you next time here on Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick and you guys have a great week. We'll see soon. Nick: [inaudible 00:18:25] John: Have a good one.

Getting husbands and wives on the same page with their retirement plan can often be a challenge. Let's talk about some of the things that couples often mess up. Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Mark: Everybody welcome to the podcast. Thanks for tuning into the show. As we talk about investing, finance and retirement here on Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick. And we're going to talk about couples this go around and some financial mistakes couples often get into. Because John, I don't know about you, buddy, but my wife and I are on the same page about everything all the time. John: Yeah. Sounds like you go by the motto happy wife, happy life. Mark: Yeah. Not so much. No. She would disagree with that. Something fear. She's like, "If I could ever get you to agree with me on anything for happy wife, that'd be good." But no, this is a joke people make all the time. Couples that definitely do not see eye to eye on a lot of things, and finances is certainly one of those. John: Finances and kitchen remodels, definitely. So... Mark: Kitchen remodels, Nick, what's going on with you, buddy. How you doing? We don't want to leave you out. Nick: Pretty good, just staying busy, happy that football seasons here, NFL season is here. I'm looking forward to fall weather in Florida. Mark: Yeah. Well it's on its way, hopefully. So we're into September when we're taping this. So let's get into it and talk about some stuff. I imagine you guys see a lot of different things when couples come in, and you see a lot of different people on, whether they're on the same page or different pages or whatever the case might be. And many times as much as couples might think they've talked about this stuff, I imagine you guys probably see that they didn't talk about it as much as they should have, or maybe as a depth or they just really glossed over the subject. Mark: So let's dive into a few things and see if we can highlight stuff for folks. So when they do come in and sit down, maybe they're a little further along in this conversation, and you guys don't have to wear your marriage counselor hats along with your financial advisor hat. So number one, making the wrong choice on how to handle the spousal benefit option, if you're lucky enough to have a pension, I talked to a bunch of guys advisors and stuff, fellows over the years that have said, "It's amazing how many times somebody will take that without even talking to their spouse about it, just because they see that higher number." Nick: Yeah, it's interesting that a lot of places have put some restrictions from the perspective of the paperwork where they'll have to be a notary sign off or things like that, but we've seen them without, and there's definitely a misconception or misunderstanding on how these pension payouts will work. And so this could be a mistake that it's typically a one-time decision. So for anybody that has substantial income, that will be coming in from a pension, this could ultimately be the most important decision that they make, and it's something not to overlook. And just to be a little bit more direct, oftentimes they will see the single life option, which you would referred to as the highest payout, and not realize that if something happens to them, then nobody gets any remaining benefit. Nick: One of the ways that we'll try to phrase that to people is, no matter what, I've never met anybody that wants to have worked for a company for a long time, and even if there's a divorce situation or something where if something happens to them that nobody gets any of the benefits that they would have been due for the rest of their life. So on making sure that those options are understood and making sure that they're correlated and tied into the rest of the decisions that they've made for their planning it's super important. John: Yeah. And a big thing to that, Nick mentioned single life, is understand the different joint survivor lives. You can have a joint survivor where one passes away, they still get a 100% of the benefit. And then there's a couple of different options where you get 75 and 50%, and it's always good to reference the plan to make sure if one person passes away that the plan basically is still intact and that surviving spouse can still hit all their goals. Mark: Absolutely. On those conversations, if it does happen, I can't imagine that the other person's too happy about, "Hey, wait a minute, why did you take the wrong one and leave me out?" So, you want to make sure that you're doing those for sure. Number two is the coordination on the social security strategy, social security is that horse that we're going to beat constantly, because it's a big component of people's retirement plans, and the money that's out there. But we can't get into this rush to just go turn it on without really thinking about a strategy, especially if you're married, because there's a lot of strategy involved. John: Yeah, there is. You hit it perfectly when you said it's a big decision. I believe social security equate for like 30 to 40% of someone's household income in retirement. So you want to coordinate it right, and the biggest mistake we typically see is once one person retires maybe early at like 62, 63 64, they're just going to go ahead and turn it on, while the other spouse is working, but there's definitely a lot of different strategies that you can implement. Nick and I focus heavily on planning, and it really all does come back to the planning cause everyone's situation is different, but you really want to look at what's best for your situation. Does it make sense to defer the higher amount for survivor plan down the road? We just talked about pensions. Is there a current pension in place? Which will make the social security decision even more important to really coordinate that with any pension or any other guaranteed income stream. Mark: Strategy is key, and so many things for retirement planning, but certainly in social security. And again, that's why the podcast this week is really about mistakes for couples. Because again, we can kind of talk through this stuff in generalities and sometimes we just kind of barely touch on it, but there's a lot of minutia to dive into, and that's where an advisor really comes into play. And here's a simple one guys, and I don't know how often you guys encounter this, but I talked to many advisors who say, "It's pretty surprising. People will come in for the first time. And they really haven't truly talked about what they want to do with their actual time in retirement, what they want to actually do with retirement. And yeah, they say the general things, well, we want to travel, well, he wants to play golf or whatever, but it's like, well, what does that actually look like? How much golf, how much travel? Where to? So on and so forth." So that stuff really is important in what you guys do to help them design a plan for that. Nick: Yeah. This is something that I've been really trying to focus on with people, with clients. And one of the things that I've found is that, for so many people that are retiring recently or very soon, looking back, one of the things that I've found is that many of them, even if we were to rewind five, six years ago, we've had this huge run-up in the market. So now you have people that have a lot more money in retirement than many of them thought that they would. And so some of the options that they have in some of the thought processes that they can have is less of a scarcity mindset and more of a thriving mindset and really trying to focus on things that they really want to do. Nick: An example recently is a plan with clients that had retired within the last year. And so they're plugging along and the plan looks really, really solid. And so, I really tried to start drilling down. It's like "Now that you've been retired for a little while, now that you have a feeling of what it feels like, what are the things that you really want to do?" And then using planning to help them figure out if we can do it from a financial standpoint. So, one client wanted a larger property for their primary residence to be able to work on cars, that was the kind of hobby. And so it goes. We've kind of talked about the fact that the sharper they stay, the more engaged they stay, whether it's hobbies, whether it's volunteering, no matter what it is, as long as you're staying engaged and sharp, their life is going to be probably longer realistically. And the brain's not going to really rot away. Nick: And so helping people dial into those things that they want to do, I think is probably one of the most enjoyable things on our side of the business, but it takes a while and quite a bit of repetition to really get them to visualize it and see it. Mark: Yeah, indeed, because again, you might talk about some basic things you want to do, but you really start to have to dive in and dissect more because you got all this free time now. And of course you hear all of the funny stories, maybe the Mrs. Will say, "Find something else for him to do get him out of my house." John: One thing we've noticed is that when we do the planning, we'll ask that question and one spouse will say something and the other one just gives a look like "What? I didn't know that." Mark: First I've heard about it. And that's the point of really even though they think maybe they've communicated this. And again, I think that's really where great value comes into play from what you guys do, because you get to be this... Maybe that's not always the most fun thing to be in the middle, but you get to be this mediator a little bit, or this sounding board where to that point, John, when somebody is like, "Wait a minute, this is the first time we're talking about it." Now they're going to hash it out and you guys can help them walk through it. So hopefully it's good in the end because they're getting through to the details they really got to get to. So these are, again, are mistakes that couples can get themselves into when planning for retirement. Number four, not coordinating other accounts. So how important is it guys to include or incorporate coordination amongst his 401k and her IRA and so on and so forth? John: So this is a really important one. And again, we sound like broken records, but this is important to the plan itself, as far as once both people are retired, and you're looking at how much income is needed from the nest eggs, where is that money coming from? Whose accounts? And once that's determined, that will dictate how that money should be invested. So this is really important and often overlooked if someone has not gone through a comprehensive plan, whether they've done it themselves or working with an advisor, but this could be a really big mistake if you haven't coordinated this correctly. Mark: And coordination is the key, getting on the same page is the key. I started off this podcast by joking about my wife and I are always in agreement because that's how spouses are. Yeah. Right. So, at the end of the day, we tend to see differently in a couple of ways, opposites attract kind of thing. Right. So how often, and how much do you guys deal with managing the opposites in their personalities with risk? For example, that's a big one, obviously. Because many, many times I think we're going to see people where one person is like, "Hey, let's take some risks, let's take some chances." And the other, one's not so comfortable with that. And maybe they haven't even been as honest as they might be in front of you guys saying, "You know what, now that we're sitting here, I don't want to take that much risk." So you guys have to figure out a way to get them in a neutral, workable ground. Nick: I think one of the ways to do that, that we found to be the most effective, is to try to double down on embracing the differences and letting them know that. And even if we go back through the plan and say, "Hey, look at these two decisions that you made, really help the plan in this way." And then, these two decisions that the other spouse made really helped the plan in this way. So they compliment each other. Nick: So, let's focus on moving forward. What are the things that we do to earn the next step? And what I mean by that is, so there's a couple of things, we try to continuously emphasize the fact that we don't really care what their brother, sister, neighbor, dog walker/former coworker does. And then we'll rattle off four or five things that are immediately different about their life then all of those people. And so they start to get that. And then as we further drill down and we'll say, "Okay," we'll look it, "Hey, I know that you're feeling a little bit concerned about the market, but remember that we've got two years of cash in the bank. So that's your pass to be able to do X, Y, and Z." And so almost just walking them through and helping them understand, like, "Hey, we've done this, and so we graduate to this level. We've done this, we graduate to this level." And so we keep moving up the ladder and that all of these decisions are tied together and correlated. Nick: And we try to emphasize the fact that, when we make these recommendations, it's not like we make these recommendations for every single person that we work with, these recommendations are specific to them. And so I think that helping them understand that, to embrace those differences and to make sure that we've done things, we've put things in place. So maybe the spouse sets a little bit more aggressive, we point out, "Well, Hey, look it, we've got 15 to 20% of your assets in this Roth IRA. And this is where we're taking the majority of the risk in your portfolio, because the upside is tax-free." And then maybe the other spouse is more conservative and we say, "Hey, remember that you have your social security, you got a small pension. And we put this annuity in place with guaranteed income to satisfy that risk that we perceived." And so all of these things are working together to try to balance it out. And usually it's just kind of rehashing that over time. And then people start to get it. Mark: Yes. The multiple pieces of the pie. So you're going to have these different things in there that are going to hopefully help address multiple concerns. That's why there's a lot of financial products and vehicles out there to be used. And it's not any one thing is the right fit, any one thing is the wrong fit. It's a matter of finding the right vehicles for the right situation and then plugging and playing those in for the different person and their scenario. So that's some places financial mistakes couples can get into. Of course you want to make sure you don't get into those by working with a good advisor or a qualified team, like John and Nick and their team at PFG Private Wealth. So if you'd like to drop by the website and send us an email as well, pfgprivatewealth.com. Mark: If you've got a question, we take those from time to time pfgprivatewealth.com is where you can go. All questions get answered, not all get asked on the podcast, but we do have one this week. So let's see what we got for you guys, Christopher, he sent this one and he says, "Hey, John," but I'm sure he means either one of you, but he says, "Hey, John, I'll be turning 70 at the beginning of next year. And I'm getting annoyed about having to think about taking money out of my IRA, because I'm not going to need it. I'm sure you have some tips for circumventing this rule. What are they?" John: Christopher, good question. So just to update you, the new RMD Required Minimum Distribution age is now 72 versus 70. So that was just seven and a half, that was just changed a couple of years back. But now that this comes up often, one of the things that we currently do for our clients is we'll actually set up a individual taxable account where we'll basically just, if there's a 15, $20,000 RMD, that's unneeded, we'll just transfer that right into it. And go ahead and invest in exactly what they're invested in before, because it really just needs to come out of the IRA, it can go right back into the market. Another strategy we've done is if a client is doing some charitable contributions, you can actually make charitable contributions from your IRA to your selected charity. And that will avoid taxation of that. And again, we always have our disclaimer, talk to your tax advisor if you look for tax advice, we're not tax professionals, but that's a really good strategy to use when you're trying to avoid the RMD taxation. Mark: Got you. Well. So the good news, Christopher, is you got a little bit more time. It's 72 now. I love when people say, "There's got to be ways around this," there really isn't, either don't have an IRA or there's not really a way around it. You're going to have to give the government their share, which is why people have been doing things like conversions. There've been converting money out and doing so on and so forth so they can reduce the amount in there to avoid having to pay that by not having the account. But that's really about the only way, correct? Nick: Yeah. The conversions can be helpful to reduce the amount that's going to have to be required to come out. But at the same time when the window is short and they realize that, "Hey, I'm just going to have to pay. I'm going to have to pay taxes on that money now when I convert versus, a portion of the amount that I would take out down the road." Or that, it's like, "Hey, well, you are going to pay tax on it, but still our plan's recognizing the taxation and you could see here in the planning software, this is what your total tax obligation is going to be. And we can reinvest some of that money. So it may have less of an impact on, on you that you think." Nick: I think one of the things that we've seen is that obviously taxes are a hot button and nobody likes paying them. But I would say that probably 90% of the people that we interact with overestimate, or assume that they pay a lot more in taxes than they actually do. So that's always a good exercise for us to remind people that in the scheme of things, many of them are paying a lot less than they realize anyway. So it's one of those things where in theory sometimes the move can be good, but oftentimes in their mind it's better than in actuality. And of course, just like anything else, we try to test that out through the planning. Mark: Well, Christopher, so there's some good news in there, like I said, there's some more information for you. Obviously they showed a couple of ideas, but hang onto your hat. Because as of right now, stuff's going through that we're tying at the time we're taping this. There's more things to possibly be passed. So there could be some changes again, coming as well. So we'll do an updated podcast on that once they go through or as we have more information, but for now, that's going to wrap it up this week here on the podcast, Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick. Guys, thanks for hanging out as always. Appreciate your time. And folks, if you need some help, reach out to them at pfgprivatewealth.com, that's pfgprivatewealth.com. Don't forget to subscribe on Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Stitcher, any of those platforms. You can certainly find it that way. You can find all that information at the website and subscribe from there, again, pfgprivatewealth.com, for John and Nick. I'm Mark. We'll see you next time here on the podcast.

Nick deWilde is a Product Marketing Principal at Guild Education. Guild is a fast-growing startup that partners with Fortune 500 employers. Guild unlocks opportunities for America's workforce via education and upskilling.Nick also runs his newsletter, The Jungle Gym. The Jungle Gym helps readers build a more fulfilling career that integrates work and life. Before working at Guild, Nick earned his MBA from Stanford Business School, and was a Managing Partner at Tradecraft.Nick and I talk about his relationship with Twitter, and how social media can both serve you, and be a challenge. We talk about individual brands and growing a platform. Nick also shares his thoughts about marketing yourself as an individual, and we discuss how growing an audience plays into your career.In this episode, you'll learn: Building an audience while working full-time Three reasons people start newsletters What to do when your follower count hits a plateau Links & Resources Morning Brew Fastly Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success Julian Shapiro Sahil Bloom Dickie Bush Medium Tiago Forte Building a Second Brain David Perell Write of Passage Tradecraft Guild Hacker news John Lee Dumas Packy McCormick Mario Gabriele Seth Godin Rachel Carlson On Deck Gong Matt Ragland Charli Prangley The Nathan Barry Show, featuring Kimberly Brooks Harry Stebbings The Twenty Minute VC Isa Adney Liz Fosslien, No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work Discord Reddit Pallet Craft + Commerce ConvertKit Enough Ryan Holiday James Clear Marie Forleo Ramit Sethi Nick deWilde's Links Follow Nick on Twitter Nick's newsletter, The Jungle Gym To tweet, or not to tweet Episode Transcript[00:00:00] Nick:I've tried to do things in my writing where my employer benefits from them. I talk about work a lot, and whenever I talk about hiring, I mention Gild is hiring. There are things I do to just try to make sure that it still feels worth the company's while.[00:00:25] Nathan:In this episode, I talk to Nick deWilde, who writes a popular newsletter called The Jungle Gym. He's got a background in product and growth, and all these things from the startup world. I just love the approach that he's taken to writing these days.We talk about growing as newsletter. We talk about his interesting relationship with Twitter and social media. How it can really serve you and be this great thing, and then it can also be challenging. Maybe you're spending too much time on it, or time on it in a way that's not actually serving you or benefiting you.We talk about the rise of individual brands being used to grow a platform. It's something I've been thinking a lot about, watching Morning Brew and Fastly, and some of these other companies do it. It's just interesting whether you're marketing as a company or an individual. It's just a good conversation. We also talk about audience, and just how that plays into your career.He recently made the switch from a full-time role, to doing more audience-based business stuff. He was just in the middle of that journey. So, it's a fun place and time to catch up in the conversation.Nick, welcome to the show.[00:01:33] Nick:Hey, thanks for having me, Nathan.[00:01:35] Nathan:I want to start on this article you have, that I like a lot, called, “To tweet, or not to tweet,” That got you ahead. I also happened to go to the Shakespeare festival recently, and watched them do “The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Abridged.”So, you know, I could probably pull off a good, to[00:01:50] Nick:Nice.[00:01:51] Nathan:Be or not to be speech right now. It's in my head because I think about all the wonderful things that Twitter and an audience beyond that does for me. Then also the negative sides of it. So maybe we dive into that, but I'd also love to hear what sparked you diving in and building an audience.[00:02:11] Nick:Yeah, I'm so conflicted on Twitter, and audience building in general. Like anything, I imagine there's a fair number of people who you talked to, who are in the writing community, who feel that way. On the one hand, Twitter does so many things for me. Especially over the past couple of years.As we've been in lockdown, lives have moved online. I have met and made friends with so many amazing people through Twitter that I wouldn't have met otherwise. Same with the newsletter, but Twitter is a little bit easier to build those relationships.Twitter has definitely helped grow my bank account. So, there are clearly things that being online and participating in the online world really does for you that are valuable.I think, building an audience is super valuable.When I think about the future of work, and what will be automated and what won't be, I really think that human beings, our greatest strength that is the hardest to copy is our ability to influence other people. This really comes from some of the thinking of author Joseph Heinrich, who looked at what is the secret of human success.It's cultural learning. It's our ability to essentially watch what other people do, and mimic them. We're really good at detecting what is a real human and what's not, and who's someone prestigious that we should learn from, and who isn't.I think that audience building is super valuable. So, even though I don't love the activity of building an audience, I have gotten a lot of value out of it, and I see the value in it. So, I very much come from a conflicted spot in this. I'm very impressed by people like Julian, and Sahil, and Dickie Bush, who have grown amazing audiences.Some days I aspire to 10X my audience, and some days I'm just like, please let me be a monk and live in seclusion.[00:04:20] Nathan:Well? Okay. So I had a Twitter thread last week that I did It was on company culture for remote teams, and I've had some that like take off and do well before, but this was like 1300 retweets, like almost a million impressions, a level of taking off. And on one hand I was like, this is amazing.And the other, I like checked the notifications and the replies so many times, and it was fascinating watching it go from like my circle to the next circle, out to the next circle out. And like, we're still in like positive replies, happy. Oh, build on it, refine it. And then like the one circle past that, which it took about, let's say 12 to 18 hours to get to[00:05:06] Nick:Yeah[00:05:06] Nathan:And that was the. This guy's an idiot. I'd never want to work at that company. you know, like all like the, the haters and the non from there, and then it like dies out and this is weird arc of his, we should graph it, but it just made me think of, is this something that I want to do and want, had I added thousands of Twitter followers?I think I could recreate it. Like maybe one in five attempts would like hit that big. Who knows. but I wrestle with the exact question of like, do I want this?[00:05:36] Nick:You and you're, you're just, you're like jacked up on dopamine. You're like, you're, you're sort of you're you, you, you start just imagining all the good things that will come from this. I should be doing this all the time. Like, you know, I, I mean, I think it's, it's sort of pre progressive problems, right?Like, like there's, there's the problem of like having a smaller audience and like putting something out into the ether and then, this, this kind of, getting no response, right. That, that, that's the first thing that, that actually like most people kind of deal with. Right. And, and, and that's, that's a weird thing because it's like, it's like, you're, you're then judging the quality of your ideas based on the ability of, based on basically your, your audience's response and, and realizing like, you're not actually talking to your audience, you're talking to.Subsection that Twitter has decided that you can talk to at that specific point in time. And so, and then you're basically judging your own ideas based off that. And if, if your idea is like, I think, I think when you hit a certain bar of audience, like you can, you can share ideas that are, pretty complex and nuanced and like you'll, you'll find some, some sort of interest for it and it has a potential to take off, but like there there's stuff where if it's kind of interesting and nuanced there, isn't really kind of a built in audience for it.And people don't really have the time to like always dig in and kind of engage and try to like, find what's at the kernel of, it's why I like newsletters a lot more than I like tweeting. But, but, but, but I think, I think what you're, you know, then there's, there's, there's the problem where once you get big enough, like you're now being your ideas are being put in front of a bunch of people who like you didn't intend them for.And those people for some reason have decided to invite into their lives, like conflict with strangers on the internet, because[00:07:19] Nathan:That's like a primary goal,[00:07:21] Nick:Right, right. It's like, it's it. It's what gives them a great day. Right. And, and, and so, so yeah, it's, it's such a weird thing. And so I, like, I mean, I, I think about this with like, I equate Twitter, often to, to kind of, like refined sugar, right.With refined sugar, right. It's it's, it's what we call supernormal stimuli. Right. It, it, it, or super, super normal stimulus. and, and what that is, is basically something that like replaces some natural, like evolutionary desire you have with something kind of artificial that just sends your brain on like overdrive seeking that thing, seeking that thing over and over.And, and that is. That's what Twitter is. It's, it's, it's refined status instead of refined sugar. And that refined status is like, it just, it takes this thing that you normally do, which is like seek, prestige from your, your tribal group, which was a really good thing to do to make sure that you, you know, ate a good meal.And it, and it puts that into, into this crazy overdrive and it like, it centers your brain around it, and it's, it's such a, it's a really powerful thing. And so I, you know, again, right, it's like, there's all these great gifts that come from Twitter and then there's, then there are all these drawbacks and it's, it's almost like perfect equilibrium of, should you do it or should you not?And I don't begrudge anyone either way for their decision.[00:08:46] Nathan:What I always wonder is if I could only have the benefits, like, is there a way let's say that you don't doom scroll Twitter with the latest news and whatever's going wrong, or whatever, latest Twitter fight there is. Maybe you do in a separate app publish these like smart tweets or brilliant threads that are going to get all this attention.And you do one of those every day, but then like you jump in an hour later and respond to a bunch of comments and then like the next day you do it again for 30 minutes and then like, that's it. And you just bat, like, there is this world where you could own Twitter rather than Twitter owning you, but like, are you capable of it?Do you have the self-discipline to pull that off?[00:09:33] Nick:Totally. And, and I, and I think, I think like, you know, I I've talked, I think Julian about this and I think he uses like tweet deck for it. And I think, I think there are ways you can do it. Right. I like for awhile, I was good at like, I would tweet in the morning and then I would like uninstalled the app off my phone.So I wouldn't look at it. and like, there are things that you can do. it's just, it's just really hard because I think to some degree what Twitter, rewards, especially when, when you're on the audience building path. Right. I think when you're like, tens of thousand or hundreds of thousands of followers, you, you actually have a lot more leeway to do what you want.Because, because like, you're just, it's likely that your tweets will work, but like when you're building your ions, there's, there's something that like, it's sort of like, there's a Turing test that's happening, right. People are sort of looking, are you an engaged human being? Cause I I've I've I knew some people who sort of, they, they schedule and preplan all their tweets and like, and to some degree they, they just, they don't hit, they don't work because it doesn't feel real time.They're responding in real time. So like[00:10:35] Nathan:Out of pace. You're out of touch with what's happening with.[00:10:38] Nick:Exactly And so, and so it's, it's sort of, Twitter's kind of like looking for these weird signs of life. So I think it's, I think it's doable. There, there must be some way to do this, but, it's tough. I think the, the other, the other thing that Twitter did to me, that I, disliked is, it makes me feel like my relationships are very transactional because you have these likes retweets, and like these, these, Very clear, like signals of engagement.You, you start to like, or I start to like, to like keep score. Right. And, and I, and I don't, I like, I don't do that anywhere else in life. I think a good, like obviously good relationships tend to start out transactional and then like, they, you kind of forget what the transactions are and like that, that's what creates a close friendship where like, look like you may have paid from the last time I paid for you this time.It doesn't really matter anymore because we transacted so many times, but, but Twitter, for some reason, the score always feels out there. And, and so that was, that's really been like a little bit of a red flag to me. And I, I I try to keep a generous mindset and a generous spirit on Twitter, but I find it harder than in real life.[00:11:52] Nathan:That makes sense to me. So maybe taking a step back, and maybe we'll wrestle with some of these, like to grow an audience or not to grow an audience questions[00:12:00] Nick:Sure[00:12:02] Nathan:What was the thing that, sparked for you? I'm like, I'm going to go start a sub stack. I'm going to actively work to build an audience.[00:12:10] Nick:Yeah, I, so I was writing on, on medium starting in like 2013, maybe. Um and and really got a lot out of it. I, I started my career out as a, as a screenwriter, so I was planning to go into the TV industry and like, and, and for, you know, for, for many reasons, found that to be, a path where like, you didn't really control your destiny.I saw I met lots of, you know, mid thirties, you know, production assistants who were slightly bitter. And then, so I just kind of realized like, this, this wasn't exactly a good path, for me. And so, but I, I wanted to kind of keep that like, that creativity, that like interaction with an audience, I think, you know, it, it was.And found that in writing. And so And so started publishing on medium. Um we was a great experience in terms of how quick it was to publish, but like the distribution of publishing a medium sucks, right? Like, you're you you, you publish ones and then like you spam all your friends and like, you're, you're just, you're working super hard to like push this thing and promote it.And I was like, there's gotta be some way that's a little bit easier. and so I actually ended up in, I think I took, I took Tiago Forte is building a second brain course that kind of like, magically grandfathered me in somehow to like David Pearl's first um uh cohort or Write of Passage, which was awesome And like, I would say, like, I took a lot out of that, but like the biggest thing was, was like start a newsletter. and so basically I started out, I think I started out with a review even. but but anyway like started publishing. Opted in when I knew onto the email list, which I'm sure they, they may or may not appreciate it, but this is before there were tons of sales tax out.And so I felt like it wasn't, it wasn't that crazy. I probably wouldn't have done that in like 20, 20, but, but w really wanted like a way to like, continually kind of interact with my audience without having to worry about like, you know, just, just kind of constantly doing the heavy promotion work.Um now that's because I now you know posts just as a part of medium but but at least there's those sort of a built in audience that kind of grows over time that you kind of keep with you. and, and so. doing that, it was kind of it's kind of a mix of for work and for life.I, I was, at the time, the managing partner of a, of a, uh immersive education program called Tradecraft. And like we, we would help people make sort of complex career transitions into the startup world. And and so a lot of what I was writing was kind of about that. It was about careers. but it also tied in with, with kind of deep interests.It was sort of why I took the role in the first place. and, and what I found when I, when I moved from Tradecraft over to Guild was like that kind of nicely traveled with me. and, and I think there's, there's something, something really nice about a newsletter, being a kind of an appendage to your career, where, like it expands your professional identity to a certain degree.You, you can become a little bit more than just your job, especially working for, like, like a single individual company, especially if you're, if, if the company is larger you, have to deal with a lot of like coordination challenges. there there's a lot of bureaucracy that happens at a company And one of the nice things about having a newsletter is you are in charge of it. It's like you're the CEO of it. the product ships, when you choose to ship it and you have complete editorial say over it, and the distribution that you put into it is what you get out of it. And and there's something really nice about that.It helped me kind of identify as a person who who, ships a lot, even when, sometimes, you know, you know, you you have to work on something at at work that takes a long time.[00:16:12] Nathan:Have you found a dress core even a strong correlation between the effort that you put in to your newsletter and your audience growth and the results that you get out, or does it feel like a more tenuous connection?[00:16:24] Nick:I think, I think there is a pretty good, like w w when I think a post is going to really hit it usually does and so I would say like, like when I put effort into, into writing something really good, I think usually it meets it meets or exceeds my expectations. And when, and when I feel like something is, I'm kind of honing in on, on a, on a post, like usually I get that too.So I think what, what can also happen. You know, sometimes you post something to hacker news and it turns out it's somehow on the front page and like that your audience growth spikes, or like you get featured in someone else's newsletter and your audience grows spikes. And like, there there's a lot of activities that like, you know, I'm not doing directly to promote it, but but it just sort of, um you know, happens in a nice way.And so that's happened, you know, more than a few times and like, that's a pretty neat thing, but like, I think to some degree that comes from just trying a lot of different things and then like, there's sort of like a, a second order effect of some of those things really, you know, hitting it off.[00:17:28] Nathan:Yeah, I think that's that's right. I knew in the early days of starting my newsletter, I felt a strong correlation between what I was working on and like the effort that I put in and the results that I got out, been been interested well at the time I do like a really epic blog post where I put of effort, you know, we're kind of the, for, you know, off and on for weeks or months and like really a hundred and get friends to read it, all of that.Those pretty much always do really well. But what I'm surprised by is sometimes the throwaway posts really, throwing it. Like, it's a simple idea that you flushed out into a post and you were. Hey, it's Tuesday. I got to get something out. Like it's sort of in that[00:18:09] Nick:Totally[00:18:09] Nathan:Sometimes those really hit.Sometimes they actually resonate. Have you had some of those that were like easy easy ones ones that hit?[00:18:18] Nick:So the, publishing cadence is I do, I do two, two posts a month and one a and it used to be, it used to be one post a month. And then I basically separated out into two. Cause I realized like it was too much to kind of condense into, into one post. And like, I wasn't getting the. The, as many eyeballs on like the second half, so decide to pull them apart.One is kind of one big essay. And the second is a, is is of like a, a But I think of it as like, as like I do pretty deep them. So it's actually of like a, here's what this is about. And a little bit more like, here's what this made me think about.And And, the, the essay is, I always spend a good amount of time on them. or at least this year I've spent a good amount time[00:19:05] Nathan:On all of them two hours, 20 hours, 200 hours?[00:19:11] Nick:2020 is probably probably closest. a really slow writer. And so, and so, like, I, I do, I mean, I like like write and like re-edit the first paragraph, 20 onto the next And likeI don't either Yeah The the the the the, the, top of the like, it's like a then like the last paragraph gets like one glance and I'm like, God, get this thing from Um don't and I I that is the wrong thing to do, yet, somehow I do that anyway. but, but, so, so those, those posts, they tend to get, of. You know, time and care. and then what'll happen is sometimes the, the ones that are like the link roundups, like will, will be very spiky.And I I'll spend, you know, that's, that's a little bit more like a three hour thing, um or four hours or something like that. and yeah, so, and then, and then I had, I had a, a, something that I was doing when I was interviewing folks, I call it the key ring where it was like a pretty structured interview that I would do where I asked the same questions over and over again.That was, that was fun. It, it, it started taking a long time to like do the back and forth. And so I'm putting that on pause for the moment. I may pick it back up again. those are fun just cause you can, you can feature someone that, that you like and get a chance to just and hang out It's kinda like[00:20:40] Nathan:Yeah. Those are always interesting to me. Cause I, I think about that on this podcast of asking the same questions, which I know New, I riff on the questions too or elementBut if you did, in theory, if you're like, did you grow from a hundred subscribers to a thousand subscribers in your newsletter?And you asked that to every single person, then you could compile that over 40 episodes or 40 newsletters or whatever. like, Hey, here's a guide on how to do it. And like, I pulled it from a whole bunch of sources. So that part of like standardized questions intrigues me. don't love it the live, know, version of a or newsletter where it's like, okay, it's too formulaic.People have done super well with us formulaic, like, John Lee Dumas, who did the Podcast entrepreneur on fire. Like he went all out. He was like, this will be 20 minute episodes, we're going to of release one a day, seven days a week and like works for him. I have no desire to do that, you[00:21:36] Nick:Totally[00:21:38] Nathan:Yeah, I don't know. you think about the repurposing side of content like that, or is it more just about the, the upfront.[00:21:45] Nick:I'm at repurposing and, and I, it's something that I, have like a psychological hangup about it. Like I always kind of feel like I need to be just like moving on to the next thing. The next thing, like I've, I've tried like going back and like, be like, oh, I should mind this thing for some, some tweets.And it always feels weird to do. And like, I want to write my Roundup, but I think, I think what I've just recognized as. Another reason why I write the newsletter is like, I want an excuse to have interesting new thoughts each month. I want essentially a performance, right. Where like, we're like, there is a moment where like, if I, if I hadn't been like reading and thinking each month, like, there is a moment that it will, that I will be embarrassed if I don't do that.And like that, that's the way I think about the newsletter. And so, and so repurposing content would be something it's almost like an admission of defeat. which, which I don't is is other people should think but that's an area of my head. And so, and so I think it just like, I need to be onto doing the next thing.There's a bunch of stuff where like, I would love to, I love ways to use the archives, my newsletter better. I think actually like stuff like this is a fun way to do it. Like through a articles and I was like, oh, there's there's stuff I can, I can reference from those. Um but it's it's, it's tough.[00:23:05] Nathan:That makes sense. Okay. So let's talk cadence for a second because this is one of the most popular, common, I don't know, questions that I get from people starting newsletters. Is there, like it should be daily right now, weekly, monthly, twice a month. Can I just do quarterly? Can I grow an audience for the quarterly newsletter?You've settled on twice a month? What was the thought that went into that? And, and what's your present cons on, on that particular.[00:23:33] Nick:I think. I mean, one of the weird things, which I'm like, I don't think it's just me, but like, like, it was like, when you, when you release a newsletter issue, like you naturally lose subscribers, but like, like, like people are reminded that like, they're like, know you have yeah You have keys to their inbox and they're like, like, why why did I let this And so and so like and so ideally like that, you know what I mean, then that's gonna have a rude awakening for, I think, I think people who are like, oh, this, this thing just goes on autopilot. but, but you need something that like is going to generate more new subscribers than it will lose subscribers because I'm a slow writer, like my, my ability to write something that I think is going to generate new subscribers is like twice a month. And like, and, and, if, and if I was, you know, Paki and Mario there, I don't know how fast they are, but like they are, they're dedicated.They can crank out some ungodly number of words, you know, once a week, twice a week, which is super impressive. And I think if I was them, I would do that. And like, you know, I, I love still like Seth Godin writes, like, you know, I feel like he writes every day. And I think so I think if you're, if you're capable of doing that, like, and, and, and doesn't lose subscribers, then like do it and set an appointment.And I think all those things are really nice, but for me, it's like, how do I make sure that like, one it's kinda, it's kinda manageable with a, with like a full-time job, which is the way I've been doing it for a long time. Right. and need to, I think, um you know, there, there are, there are weirdnesses of having a newsletter, any full-time job at the same time.And one of those is like, You are publishing, like if your hobby was sea kayaking, right? Like, like you could do that with no one knowing that you were doing it. Right. And like, and, and there's, there's nothing weird about that. Or like running a marathon or something like that. like it's clearly the thing you're doing on the side, writing a newsletter is like, it's it's knowledge work that is like akin to, to, type of work that you might do in an office Right Coding[00:25:41] Nathan:Marketing copywriting, whatever your your day job[00:25:44] Nick:A hundred percent. And like, and like, if you're putting that out on LinkedIn, like, you know, your managers managers are seeing it and like, and so there's, there's just like, like doing that every day would be, a weird would feel weird to me even if, even if no one else felt weird about and so, and so I feel like twice a month it feels, feels good to me.It's also, it also just like keeps me excited to keep, to keep at it versus making feel like it's like a daily or weekly chore. And I have like a day off, I have a week off in between so that I can like, you know, spend the weekend, not writing if I want to, which is nice.[00:26:23] Nathan:Yeah. I like the idea of timing it to your, like your cadence as a writer. What advice would you have to someone who's in that position of, building audience on the side there, maybe they're doing it secretly at first where they're like awkward about it's this may maybe self promotional, but, but at some point, if you get to any scale right. will either you'll tell people at work about it or they'll find out about it in some way, hopefully be supportive, but I don't know. What advice do you give to someone who's in that[00:26:54] Nick:First, acknowledge that there is weirdness to it. Like there, are, like there are inherent trade-offs to everything and like, and like there is there's weirdness and if, and if you're your, like the, the company I've been working for Guild, like they, like everyone has been more than supportive at it, but, of the, the work and like, but I still have a weird complex about it.You know, I think part of the reason I ended up getting the job was because of, because of the newsletter, some of the stuff I publish of like, you know, shaped our marketing strategy. So there were things where like, I've tried to do things in my writing where my employer benefits from them.Like, you know, whenever I talk about work a lot and whenever I talk about hiring, I mentioned Guild's hiring, Like there, there are, there are things that I do to just try to like, make sure that it still feels worth the company's Weill. And also, like, I think, I think I try to bring in ID.Like I try to have ideas that are useful to what I do at work. so I I wrote this, this piece on, platform branding, which was all about, companies that essentially used their employees to build audiences that, also benefit the companyAnd like, you know, we, ended up using that strategy at Guild which, which was, which was cool.And like that ended up being the strategy doc to some degree, around it, which was cool. And so so so, there's there, there's like ways that you can. think um you bring that in that that are, that valuable. And so I try to sort of look for those things. I, but I think, you know, acknowledged right.That there's, good writing is vulnerable and sometimes it's weird to be vulnerable in front of your colleagues. and, and like it's naturally an attention seeking activity. And if like, if like there's someone at work feels weird about you, like, will be, you know, something that they can talk about, the proverbial water cooler about like, you know, why, why you're not doing your job and you're, you're off writing these letters So so there's there there's weirdness, but like, I think if you can make, if you can allow your company to benefit from the audience you are growing, I think that tends to be a pretty good fit[00:29:12] Nathan:What that made me think of is basically it's going to accelerate or, magnify, whatever someone already thinks of you. So for example, if someone already thinks, like, I don't know, next kind of. he just doesn't contribute that much. Like is he even working half the time then if they publishing once a week, then they're like, see proof of what I already thought. if like the executive at the company is like, Nick is one of the best hires we've ever made. Oh. And look now he's like publishing and rhinos. Like he's a thought leader as well. Like whatever they think is just going to accelerate more. And so maybe it's looking what reputation you already have.[00:29:51] Nick:A hundred percent and it's like, it's like, I mean, the way I see it, and this is kind of what I wrote about in the platform, branding thing is like, I actually think that, having a bunch of employees who are, in a creator type role, um it's like underdeveloped marketing channel. Like you essentially, you have these people who have.Hey, like, I'm going to, going to take my scarcest asset my time give it to this company. and and and now I'm going to build relationships with, with all of these thousands of people who, who listen to these ideas and like, and like that sort of just gives positive energy to the company. So, so actually, like when you compare it, even to like a, a side project that you're coding nights and weekends, I actually think, I think companies should be really supportive of, of, of kind of audience building on the side because it really can benefit them but, but people naturally have a, there's there's a weird feeling about it. And so, and so you have to like, especially as a company, You know, like our, our CEO is, is, is really good at building her own audience on LinkedIn. And I think that gives everyone else some permission to like, you know write vulnerable and things like that.So I think, but I think it, it is, it is a really important thing to be able to have this kind of a group of people who are increasing the company's sort of surface area in Serendip.[00:31:23] Nathan:Yep. I like that. I've wondered about doing something like that for ConvertKit. We have a handful of people on the team who are very prolific creators, for the two myself and then, our creative director, Charlie, frankly, she has like followers on YouTube and a popular channel and all of that.There's a handful of other people who have podcasts and are, are active on Twitter. Our product managers are quite active when you talk to them about things related to ConvertKit, you know, they're like active with customers, but I haven't, or we haven't taken this approach like fast or on deck, or I'm trying to think who else does it, but, but these companies where they're like, okay, there's 15 of us and we're all going to.Become Twitter famous, you know, or start our thing and we'll all drive back. Is it a strategy that you think works well?[00:32:17] Nick:The, the best example of this actually think is, I think on-deck did it, did it really has done it really well on Twitter Um I think gong is actually probably my favorite example. Um especially from a B2B what they do is like is all of their salespeople are out there, like posting content on LinkedIn, but it's not like how great gong is.Almost has nothing to do with gum. It's like you know, an a I'm I'm I'm grinding today. Can't wait to get off for the weekend. It's like, it's like, it, it, it sort of, embodying kind of this, this, like this, the sales lifestyle. Right. And, and, and the, the engagement they get is, is crazy.Right. And like, and that, the thing is, if, so, so there's sort of like, there's kind of like, you can build lifestyle influencers among your employees Right But you can also. Like this idea of building up someone who is, who is a, I know this is kind of a gross word, but thought leader in the, in the, space you're, you're excited about.People kind of come to them, they build affinity with them. And I think you, you can build individuals as marketing channels where like starts out where like someone's reading your posts on LinkedIn. maybe that person hosts a, a kind of invite only webinar for, for the people who engage most of them on LinkedIn.So, so then you're building sort of deeper affinity towards that person. And, and as, as you go down the sales funnel um like marketing and sales, you actually transfer that affinity over to the company as, as like they get into the sale process. from kind of a B2B side, but like, I think you can do it also from a B to C.[00:33:49] Nathan:Do you think that a company like gone. Hired people are good at that and encouraged it, or do you think they like had the people that they hired and said like, okay everyone, this is now what we're doing. a playbook, here's best practices. Here's a slack channel where you can talk about what's working.What's not, but like we're this now. Get on board.[00:34:11] Nick:This is, would be a hundred percent pure speculation. What is, is someone at gong started doing this one of their salespeople and started crushing it. And they're, you know, director of marketing was smart enough to. Hey could be doing a lot like, and B, because it's their salespeople who do it, right.A natural incentive to do it. And so, you know, I would imagine they probably brought on a copywriter and said, Hey, if you need help, you know, crafting these posts, like you can do that It's just, it's such a, it's such a virtuous right? It's like, it's like, because of the affinity you build with these individuals it translates to the company.And like it just sends it a bat signal out to other people who are like that, who want to build audiences, that like the company will help you do that. And they will be supportive. And like, and again, if we imagine that like, they're like audience is this long-term career mode, it's just like, it's such a great gift.You can give to your employees for them to leave with like you know, like you leave ConvertKit and you have, you know, a hundred thousand subscribers or 10,000 it's like, or whatever. Right. It's, it's, it's as much of a gift as like the salary you're giving them. It's just, we don't think of it that way.Cause it's, it's a weird thing to think about getting. From your company[00:35:27] Nathan:Yeah. I mean, that's how we've handled it in that we're very in favor of side projects. We want everyone who wants to, like, we're not gonna force it on. But to have a way to be a, a creator on the, on the side and to have some actual reason to use ConvertKit as a customer. Because it's so different when you're the product and like clicking through the happy path to test something and you're like, Hey guys, it works.Then some customers like this is really frustrating. and so that, like, it's a very different, different, I think that it's just interesting. You're absolutely right about people with that. Like, Matt Reglan, who's been on this show before he was at ConvertKit for years. joined when we were like 20,000 a month in revenues like that. when he eventually moved on to his nets, next thing, you know, he built an, a YouTube audience to like 10,000 subscribers at that point. And that was a whole thing that he'd done a lot with skills he learned at ConvertKit a lot with, you know, our creative director, Charlie, like promoting him and just, all right. But like, it still happens even we've got 70 people on the team and we're talking like six are active in this way. I just wonder how much to encourage it versus how much to just say like, Hey, this is an option if you want it, but like you don't push it any more than that[00:36:51] Nick:I mean, I think one of the interesting things, when you think about like the creator economy is like, I think the creator economy can support a lot of people, but the the challenge is like when you're deciding, should I follow this person? there aren't very good moats in the creator economy. And so and so one of the.Few moats you can have is like companies that you've worked for giving you this brand halo. Right And so, and, and, brand from your company sort of, it says this person might be a little more worth following because someone chose them now, does that true You know, don't think so, but like, it at least sends this signal.And so I think, one, like your brand can do that for, for, for your employees, but also like I think there's a. I think just showing that the company will pour fuel on whatever fire you're starting, I think is like, it's, it's one of the best like employee value props. I think a company can have, It's like, it's like, look the life you want to have. Like, we, want to get you there. like, and like, and I think the kind of people who would come work for ConvertKit it should be that they want to do something in the creator space, because you're serving creators that makes a ton That makes a ton of of sense[00:38:10] Nathan:Yeah. And we've definitely had people that we've hired, who are already creators, and that's grown. So it, an interesting world in all the things that you could do to grow. Like a company or growing audience. I'm not sure that that's the one would pick, but you, you see Morning Brew and, and gong in so many of others doing it and it seems to work, know? So[00:38:33] Nick:Yeah Like, I think it works for like, like select companies in select Right. And like, and there's, and there's probably a channel that works under and like the. way you do it for, you know, for Guild where, like we, you know, we really target, um you know, companies with huge employee populations at the very level Like like we wouldn't do that on, on Twitter. Right. Just doesn't make any sense, but like, would we do it on LinkedIn where like, where, you know, C-suite spends an increasing amount of time and we can directly with those individuals and maybe influence that the five to 10 people that, that matter at those companies with like, you know, one post a week.Totally. so, so it just, it kind of depends on like, um I think companies can, can kind of do it at different levels.[00:39:21] Nathan:So that's interesting of the LinkedIn approach, which I think a lot of creators are either all in, on LinkedIn and loving You know, people have built massive lists over there, or they're like, what's that like, I'll hang out in the Instagram, YouTube, Twitters of the world, you know? but if you imagine that B2B world where let's say I'm, I'm working in sales, either as an executive, trying to get big deals done, or, you know, or as a team member, I have a meeting, we have a great conversation.We connect on LinkedIn, you know, we're now an official connection. And now, even though you're not going to buy my thing now, you're like seeing my content every. Week or every few weeks. And then it's like, oh yeah, you're going to buy that thing from Nathan, you know, whatever B2B tool, like starts to come up.And then when I reach out again and you're like, it's not like, oh yeah, it's that one sales rep that I wasted 20 minutes off on with, you know, six months ago. It's like, oh yeah. I feel like we're friends there. I've learned so much, even though it's just been one to many communication.[00:40:25] Nick:I mean, I think the really powerful thing it's like obviously a sales rep is incentivized to promote the product at company they work for So it's like it's product whether it's in a sales call or on LinkedIn like it will not it will not move the needle for any customer.Because it's sort of priced in that That's what they're expecting. But showing that you are an intellectually interesting person who has deep thoughts about the world, who is, who's a smart person. And then the customer making the connection, man, this smart person out of all the places where they could go work has chosen to work here.[00:41:04] Nathan:Right[00:41:05] Nick:Of something, right. There must be something kind of interesting and special there. And so they built of this affinity and comfort and excitement about you and like, and, and then getting on a sales call with you, you're at this just like this nice advantage, right? You're, you're, you're now slightly a celebrity to them.Right Like and, and there's something, you know, like when your, your email or even your company's email then pops up in their inbox, like it's just that much more likely to open that much more interesting. And sometimes it's, it's those, it's those little things on the margin that can make all the difference.And so I think, especially when you're talking like a, like really big enterprise sales, I actually think it's still, a kind of, underrated strategy.[00:41:48] Nathan:Yeah, sense. talk about a, more from the creator side. Cause that was, know, we went more on the platform company side of the which, you know, someone running a company, I am intrigued in that direction, but I'm curious on the, on the creative side, how do you think about that audience as being for your career and that thing that goes with you as you between roles and giving you a future opportunities and all.[00:42:14] Nick:I think it comes to like writing a newsletter.There's basically three reasons. You'd write a personal newsletter and earliest the way I think about it. Like it's either passion, like, you know, I love cooking and like, this is a way I can express that side of me It's it's profit. I want to actually just make some side income or make this into my full income Or it's General advancement.And maybe the relationship building kind of tithing relationship building probably ties into that. but, but in general, like the, I sort of see one things being being like the reason, like for me, at least for a long time, it's probably been advancement. but, certainly the other two are mixed.Like I'm, you know I'm curious about, you know, turning on the profit spigot out of it And like, it certainly like I wouldn't keep doing it if it didn't hit the passion bucket. and so, and so I think that, that, you have to sort of figure out which of those you're doing. I think, I think like if, if what you want to do, I think most people actually are doing it because they do want new opportunities and relationships.I think actually advancement to me is it's actually, the best reason to do it. Um uh over the other two. And, in that world, like, you kind of want to imagine like, okay, Who is, what kind of job do I want, who is the person that I want to be at some point down the road? Who's the gatekeeper that stands in the way of that.Whether it's like, maybe it's I want to publish a book at some point, right. a publisher stands in the way of that. and so what, what gets this publisher excited? Well, either, maybe I'm writing a newsletter for book publishers and this is the industry standard, but like more likely it's like, it's like, Hey, I built this audience that is then really exciting to a publisher.So-so I or, you know, it's, I want to become a senior engineering manager. and so what's going to be exciting to the VP of engineering who is going to interview me. You know, it, it could be that I have an audience full of engineers, who who like are easy to hire, maybe it's that I just like think in a really deep level about this really complicated problem that is really important to them, but it's, it's sort of like, I think having that, kind of magic gatekeeper mind as as not the person you're necessarily writing for all the time, but the, thing you're trying to build up to, that can be a good north star in that direction.If you're doing this, advancement thing, I still don't think you should pick something that doesn't light you up because it's really, you know, it's really hard to keep doing this, week after week when you're grinding it out for some future version of yourself that you know, may may change.I, I think that, that that tends to be a pretty good path.[00:45:10] Nathan:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me and like networking connection and advancement side of things, I think is one of the best reasons to do. A lot of that. I remember like the first conference that I went to after having a blog and it being such a night and day difference. I wasn't even a speaker at this conference, any of that, but people were like wanting to come up and talk to me because of the articles that I've written you.Whereas like months earlier, you know, pre blog, you go to a conference and I was shy and introverted. Like I didn't talk to anybody. And so I was like, wow, because I published words on the internet. People will now do all the work. Like interesting people will come meet me instead of me having to like put out all the work.This is the best leverage ever on the same way, like podcasts and everything else Write being able to, everyone says the Podcast in there for the audience. It is right. You know, thousands of people will listen to this episode. I am more doing it because I get to meet people like you and Kimberly, who we just had on last week.And right. It's just about meeting people. that's so[00:46:09] Nick:It's like it's like you know, like I think with Podcast, it's crazy because you like appear in somebody's ears. Right. You're like, literally like you're right next to their head, you know And like and it's it's, just like, it's this, it's this wild, like intimate relationship, usually, like I'm listening, you know, on, on two X.So everyone sounds smarter than you than they would were listening to them on one X like it's, it's, it's I think publishing and creating content, especially in a world where like we just live more online where like more of our interactions are, are remote. I think it's, it's a, it's a pretty, it's still sort of an underrated hack, especially in, in your career, right?Like you can, you can do. You know, you, you become inter like instantly, someone who someone wants to take a meeting with and like it's those little, like, sort of marginal decisions, right To like chart the course of your career, right? Like, like, did, did this person meet with you or not? Were they predisposed to like you, before you came in and like, you don't actually know which article is going to hit to make them feel that way, or which Podcast is going to, you know, which Podcast you're going to meet, the person who, you know, might be an ex customer or investor or something like that.But like, there's just such a powerful, you know, with that[00:47:26] Nathan:I think one of my favorite examples a people using an interview show or, you know, interviews in general to break into an industry Harry Stebbings, who does 20 minute VC, because I don't know how old he was when he started it, but like 17, maybe I'm not[00:47:42] Nick:Totally[00:47:43] Nathan:nd he's like, I want to break into the world of venture capital and, you know, interviewing all the biggest names at first people were saying yes to him, probably because of his hustle, because he was young.They're just like, sure. I'll take a chance on this kid on, your 20 minute.And[00:47:59] Nick:Now love I love people who have like, a, a 10 step plan for their career. Maybe you just, you just wanted to create a podcast. It was sort of like,[00:48:11] Nathan:Right[00:48:12] Nick:Doing this for fun, but like, not a ton of people have, have a plan. Right. like, like most people are just sort of doing stuff, but like, if you like sit down and just kind of think about it for like, like 20 minutes and you're like, who might, I want to be like, who does that person like, like what would make me credible in that person's eyes?Like, like how could I, you know, do that thing now. So that in two or three years, like, like Harry's, I've been such a good example. Like, I, I think there, there are so many people who, who like, if they, they sat and gave that like 10 minutes and turn Twitter off, like you can just, like, you can do a lot of, you know, good, good strategy there.[00:48:52] Nathan:Well, I think can do it as a method to break into any business. So if we were like, know if you and I were 18 years old and we're like, wouldn't be in the music business or even right. You wanted to go into screenwriting. you with what you know now, and you and I were brainstorming how to get 18 year old you into like screenwriting, we would probably suggest starting a podcast and you interview all the screenings. In some format and it wouldn't result in work, but then you'd imagine we have this network and this work would come from the network and you're like, no direct connection, but then there's a ton of indirect connections that wouldn't have happened without it.[00:49:31] Nick:You know, it's kind of a similar thing. We talked we've dragged them at Twitter at the beginning. Right. Twitter does this service for people that gives them like a feeling of prestige. Right. And like, and, and what you're basically doing is like, it's like, you're giving an audience to people who don't have time to build one for themselves.And like, you know, most of the people who are listening to this podcast are people who are building audiences in, in some way shape or form, but like most people don't do that. Right And and so, and so you can find all sorts of people who are who are just like all the time, who like, would love to sort of rent someone else's audience to build themselves up.And so like, and so you can be then 18 and it's a total hack to be able to sort of bring on this screenwriter, this music industry, executive, this, you know, a VC. Right. And it's just, it's[00:50:23] Nathan:Right It made me realize another person on the ConvertKit team who does this really well is ISA Adney. Who's our storyteller. she used to teach all of our webinars and workshops and, and, is branched into working on like brand development sides as he writes a lot of and else, but her personal audience, let me take a step back.If you talk to her, she's like, know this person, or whoever at Disney or that kind of thing who worked on, you know, and just like the amount of people that she knows in the world of storytelling and film and everything else, you're like, how do you know all these people? like, oh, I interviewed them for my newsletter, you know?And you're just like, wait, what? And it's like, I was going to say cartoonists, but like illustrators from, from will like draw her a birthday card. can tell us just for her, you know? And you're like, how, and, and it just comes from this exact thing of like, oh, I just interviewed them on my newsletter, which is a fantastic newsletter, but it's not like they came on it because she's wildly famous.It's that[00:51:26] Nick:It's incredible. And I like there, there's a couple other people I've seen who have like, who, who sort of, they have their, their, their full-time job, but like, on the side, right? Like, Liz Bostonian, someone I've known for awhile and interviewed, and she, she wrote a book called no hard feelings about emotions at work.She's about to publish her second one and like the way she's just like, she's known by, by all of these people at all these different companies that like her company would be the perfect company to sell in, to sell into. you know, it's just, it's just there. There's. There's so many good things that can come a bit.I think one thing I'd advise to like, w going back to like this, how do you balance a, like a, like a newsletter and a full-time career is like don't work for any company that doesn't value it because because like you know, clearly there are places like Guild, like ConvertKit like there there's so many different companies where like you can go where like, they will appreciate what you're doing.And if you can, if you can, like, ideally, like, let's say you love to write about cooking, right. If you can find a company where like, that is like, like, especially like building an audience around cooking, like it's, you know, a dishware company or whatever it is, like finding that right place for not just you, but your publication, a really underrated thing, because it just makes everything so much smoother to find that right.Manager find that. Right. you know,[00:52:52] Nathan:Yeah. That makes sense. If it's an uphill battle, like find another, another place where that's actually a asset.[00:52:59] Nick:Someone will like it.[00:53:00] Nathan:Yeah, exactly. So maybe before we wrap up, let's talk about the growth side. Cause everyone's thinking about, okay, I have my newsletter and it has 100 subscribers or 500. How do I grow it to that next tier So I'm curious, what are some of the things that have worked for you on, adding 100 or 500 or a thousand subscribers at a time?[00:53:19] Nick:Twitter Twitter. You, you, you can use Twitter.[00:53:22] Nathan:Yeah[00:53:22] Nick:It's It's frought in many ways you can also use LinkedIn. I actually think LinkedIn is, an underrated place to do it. Like it's to me, it's not as stressful to write a LinkedIn post as it is to write. A tweet, it's a little stressful, cause it's like, it's like, definitely definitely to your company And it's a place where you're in professional domain, but especially if your newsletter is somewhat professional, then I think, I think LinkedIn can be a really good place for it. and a little bit less of a pressure-filled way to do it. I probably one of the underrated things now is like, you know, I look at how many discord servers I'm suddenly in, like in in you know, months and like, I think those are probably good places to like promote.I don't think it's, I don't think you can in communities, it's harder to just be promotional. You need to sort of have earned it by, by building relationships. And so, but I think like, you know, I'm, I'm in a writing group called foster, right? Where, where like where, you know that they help with editing and like, and like everyone's sort of publishes their stuff in there, but like that's a great place to like, to, to sort of build a following, especially sort of early on.Obviously you can do things like hit Reddit, hit hacker news, you know, Reddit, I think I've been banned from like, you know, 20 different subreddits for, you know a just posting a blog post, which seemed to me. But, um and then hacker news, right? You, you, you never know. And, and, you know, getting to the top means you're going to get barraged with terrible comments, but, I think ultimately though you kind of want something you can build, right.And this is, this is the, this is the challenge with Twitter, right? It's like, it's like, there is a weirdness about Twitter, but. Building an audience on Twitter Like it's a great top of funnel for a newsletter, and same way with LinkedIn. And so it's hard to totally steer away from those things. I think one thing I'd to try and toy with once I figure out the monetization piece, of my newsletter is I'd like to try paid ads.And there's this weird discomfort with it with it. if what you value is value is, having an audience and people to write to and you want to grow that audience, I actually think it doesn't need to be that literally every person you painstakingly gathered with your blood, sweat, and tears, right.It's it's I think there's, there's other stuff that you can try, but you obviously don't want to be throwing a lot of money down the drain on, building an audience[00:55:53] Nathan:YeahI've, I've done paid ads with good results of four. I have a local newsletter called from Boise, is just for the Boise area. And in the last month we actually went to a thousand subscribers and we doubled to a little over 2000 subscribers, almost entirely with ads. So like no ads to a thousand and, ads worked well, you know, and it helps to have the hyper-local targeting.So I was in the same boat of like, hadn't played with it before. And, you know, at, I think we paid between $2 and two 50 a subscriber,[00:56:25] Nick:Facebook.[00:56:26] Nathan:Yeah, Facebook and Instagram. So we'll play with it more. What are you thinking maybe we'll end on this question. What do you thinking for on the newsletter?What are you paid? Is it a A A book? What other things are coming up?[00:56:39] Nick:It took me a while to find something I was comfortable with on modernization paid, never, appealed that much to me. just because there, there are some people who I like I will pay for their ideas, but like, overwhelmed with Content. that like, usually when I'm paying for, for, for, for a newsletter, it's because I really liked the person, like their, their, just their style of analysis.I can't get anywhere else. but, but, but the competitive dynamics of newsletter sort of, to me, like they'll, they'll kind of always be someone who something close to what you do for free. And so, and so that, that always kinda, didn't appeal to me as much. Like I think of it as like, This audience, that you're kind of building affinity with over time and like, and can you, ideally sort of find, build something or find something that's going to be really valuable to them.So I actually, literally just this morning, teamed up with this, this company called palette, to, I swear, this, this, this time it was not planned. It just, it just happened nicely, to a team at this company called pallet in pallets, been sort job boards with a bunch of and I actually worked with them on this, this kind of beta product that they're working on, which is this idea of talent collectives. And so what we're doing is like, it's like basically job searching really sucks. Like you're filling out tons of applications. You are, waiting for a long time to hear back from companies.If you are highly desirable, you're getting a lot of recruiter spam and they're just like barraging you. so we're going to do, is, is put basically just an air table form where you can say, Hey, like, this is who I am. This is the kind of role I'm looking for. pallet has this, this, all these companies that they are so, so they're going to basically, send people and you can be anonymous if you want to all sorts of stuff, but they're to their partner companies and then and then they'll send you sort of the intro request, like, Hey, you know, do you want to, do you want to chat with ConvertKit right.And, and, and if you do right, we'll, we'll make the intro, but like, you don't have to worry about our recruiter reaching out to you because they've, they've said they won't do that. so yeah, I think it's cool. you know, if, if, if any of the folks listening to this are like, exploring new job opportunity.We'd love you to come check it out. I think it'll be really neat. I think it'll solve a challenge that a lot of people are facing. For me it felt really native. It felt like I didn't want to do a job board because I don't know these companies. I'm doing a newsletter about careers, and it felt really important that I'm sending people to the right place.I said, “Hey, if you sign up for this, and you take one call from a company, I'll do a 30 minute career coaching session with you.” Even though, I'll get paid some commission, if the person goes to one of these companies, I will really try to give them the best advice for them, because that's what I promised to readers.When you're thinking about monetization, it's like find something that feels native, and not weird to your audience. I think sometimes that can be a pure paid subscription, but you can be creative in different stuff.[00:59:51] Nathan:Yeah, I think that's good. Let's leave it there. I'm super excited to see what comes on the monetization side. It's probably the coolest thing about newsletters and audiences that you can monetize different ways.So, where should people go to follow you and follow your writing, and see more about what you're up to?[01:00:07] Nick:You can follow where I have a conflicted relationship, where there are days I will post a tweet, tweet threads, and the next day I'll feel very ashamed of it, but that's @Nick_deWilde. Then the better place to get my thoughts, I would say, is JungleGym.Substack.com.At some point I should probably switch that to ConvertKit, but yeah, that's another time. We'd love that, and thank you so much for having me. This has been so fun.[01:00:42] Nathan:Yeah, It's been a great conversation and, thanks for coming on, and we'll talk soon.[01:00:47] Nick:Awesome, Nathan.

About NickNick Heudecker leads market strategy and competitive intelligence at Cribl, the observability pipeline company. Prior to Cribl, Nick spent eight years as an industry analyst at Gartner, covering data and analytics. Before that, he led engineering and product teams at multiple startups, with a bias towards open source software and adoption, and served as a cryptologist in the US Navy. Join Corey and Nick as they discuss the differences between observability and monitoring, why organizations struggle to get value from observability data, why observability requires new data management approaches, how observability pipelines are creating opportunities for SRE and SecOps teams, the balance between budgets and insight, why goats are the world's best mammal, and more.Links: Cribl: https://cribl.io/ Cribl Community: https://cribl.io/community Twitter: https://twitter.com/nheudecker Try Cribl hosted solution: https://cribl.cloud TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by Thinkst. This is going to take a minute to explain, so bear with me. I linked against an early version of their tool, canarytokens.org in the very early days of my newsletter, and what it does is relatively simple and straightforward. It winds up embedding credentials, files, that sort of thing in various parts of your environment, wherever you want to; it gives you fake AWS API credentials, for example. And the only thing that these things do is alert you whenever someone attempts to use those things. It's an awesome approach. I've used something similar for years. Check them out. But wait, there's more. They also have an enterprise option that you should be very much aware of canary.tools. You can take a look at this, but what it does is it provides an enterprise approach to drive these things throughout your entire environment. You can get a physical device that hangs out on your network and impersonates whatever you want to. When it gets Nmap scanned, or someone attempts to log into it, or access files on it, you get instant alerts. It's awesome. If you don't do something like this, you're likely to find out that you've gotten breached, the hard way. Take a look at this. It's one of those few things that I look at and say, “Wow, that is an amazing idea. I love it.” That's canarytokens.org and canary.tools. The first one is free. The second one is enterprise-y. Take a look. I'm a big fan of this. More from them in the coming weeks.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Jellyfish. So, you're sitting in front of your office chair, bleary eyed, parked in front of a powerpoint and—oh my sweet feathery Jesus its the night before the board meeting, because of course it is! As you slot that crappy screenshot of traffic light colored excel tables into your deck, or sift through endless spreadsheets looking for just the right data set, have you ever wondered, why is it that sales and marketing get all this shiny, awesome analytics and inside tools? Whereas, engineering basically gets left with the dregs. Well, the founders of Jellyfish certainly did. That's why they created the Jellyfish Engineering Management Platform, but don't you dare call it JEMP! Designed to make it simple to analyze your engineering organization, Jellyfish ingests signals from your tech stack. Including JIRA, Git, and collaborative tools. Yes, depressing to think of those things as your tech stack but this is 2021. They use that to create a model that accurately reflects just how the breakdown of engineering work aligns with your wider business objectives. In other words, it translates from code into spreadsheet. When you have to explain what you're doing from an engineering perspective to people whose primary IDE is Microsoft Powerpoint, consider Jellyfish. Thats Jellyfish.co and tell them Corey sent you! Watch for the wince, thats my favorite part.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. This promoted episode is a bit fun because I'm joined by someone that I have a fair bit in common with. Sure, I moonlight sometimes as an analyst because I don't really seem to know what that means, and he spent significant amounts of time as a VP analyst at Gartner. But more importantly than that, a lot of the reason that I am the way that I am is that I spent almost a decade growing up in Maine, and in Maine, there's not a lot to do other than sit inside for the nine months of winter every year and develop personality problems.You've already seen what that looks like with me. Please welcome Nick Heudecker, who presumably will disprove that, but maybe not. He is currently a senior director of market strategy and competitive intelligence at Cribl. Nick, thanks for joining me.Nick: Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.Corey: So, let's start at the very beginning. I like playing with people's titles, and you certainly have a lofty one. ‘competitive intelligence' feels an awful lot like jeopardy. What am I missing?Nick: Well, I'm basically an internal analyst at the company. So, I spend a lot of time looking at the broader market, seeing what trends are happening out there; looking at what kind of thought leadership content that I can create to help people discover Cribl, get interested in the products and services that we offer. So, I'm mostly—you mentioned my time in Maine. I was a cryptologist in the Navy and I spent almost all of my time focused on what the bad guys do. And in this job, I focus on what our potential competitors do in the market. So, I'm very externally focused. Does that help? Does that explain it?Corey: No, it absolutely does. I mean, you folks have been sponsoring our nonsense for which we thank you, but the biggest problem that I have with telling the story of Cribl was that originally—initially it was, from my perspective, “What is this hokey nonsense?” And then I learned and got an answer and then finish the sentence with, “And where can I buy it?” Because it seems that the big competitive threat that you have is something crappy that some rando sysadmin has cobbled together. And I say that as the rando sysadmin, who has cobbled a lot of things like that together. And it's awful. I wasn't aware you folks had direct competitors.Nick: Today we don't. There's a couple that it might be emerging a little bit, but in general, no, it's mostly us, and that's what I analyze every day. Are there other emerging companies in the space? Are there open-source projects? But you're right, most of the things that we compete against are DIY today. Absolutely.Corey: In your previous role, which you were at for a very long time in tech terms—which in a lot of other cases is, “Okay, that doesn't seem that long,” but seven and a half years is a respectable stint at a company. And you were at Gartner doing a number of analyst-like activities. Let's start at the beginning because I assure you, I'm asking this purely for the audience and not because I don't know the answer myself, but what exactly is the purpose of an analyst firm, of which Gartner is the most broadly known and, follow up, why do companies care what Gartner thinks?Nick: Yeah. It's a good question, one that I answer a lot. So, what is the purpose of an analyst firm? The purpose of an analyst firm is to get impartial information about something, whether that is supply chain technology, big data tech, human resource management technologies. And it's often difficult if you're an end-user and you're interested in say, acquiring a new piece of technology, what really works well, what doesn't.And so the analyst firm because in the course of a given year, I would talk to nearly a thousand companies and both end-users and vendors as well as investors about what they're doing, what challenges they're having, and I would distill that down into 30-minute conversations with everyone else. And so we provided impartial information in aggregate to people who just wanted to help. And that's the purpose of an analyst firm. Your second question, why do people care? Well, I didn't get paid by vendors.I got paid by the company that I worked for, and so I got to be Tron; I fought for the users. And because I talk to so many different companies in different geographies, in different industries, and I share that information with my colleagues, they shared with me, we had a very robust understanding of what's actually happening in any technology market. And that's uncommon kind of insight to really have in any kind of industry. So, that's the purpose and that's why people care.Corey: It's easy from the engineering perspective that I used to inhabit to make fun of it. It's oh, it's purely justification when you're making a big decision, so if it goes sideways—because find me a technology project that doesn't eventually go sideways—I want to be able to make sure that I'm not the one that catches heat for it because Gartner said it was good. They have an amazing credibility story going on there, and I used to have that very dismissive perspective. But the more I started talking to folks who are Gartner customers themselves and some of the analyst-style things that I do with a variety of different companies, it's turned into, “No, no. They're after insight.”Because it turns out, from my perspective at least, the more that you are focused on building a product that solves a problem, you sort of lose touch with the broader market because the only people you're really talking to are either in your space or have already acknowledged and been right there and become your customer and have been jaded to see things from your point of view. Getting a more objective viewpoint from an impartial third party does have value.Nick: Absolutely. And I want you to succeed, I want you to be successful, I want to carry on a relationship with all the clients that I would speak with, and so one of the fun things I would always ask is, “Why are you asking me this question now?” Sometimes it would come in, they'd be very innocuous;, “Compare these databases,” or, “Compare these cloud services.” “Well, why are you asking?” And that's when you get to, kind of like, the psychology of it.“Oh, we just hired a new CIO and he or she hates vendor X, so we have to get rid of it.” “Well, all right. Let's figure out how we solve this problem for you.” And so it wasn't always just technology comparisons. Technology is easy, you write a check and you hope for the best.But when you're dealing with large teams and maybe a globally distributed company, it really comes down to culture, and personality, and all the harder factors. And so it was always—those were always the most fun and certainly the most challenging conversations to have.Corey: One challenge that I find in this space is—in my narrow niche of the world where I focus on AWS bills, where things are extraordinarily yes or no, black or white, binary choices—that I talked to companies, like during the pandemic, and they were super happy that, “Oh, yeah. Our infrastructure has auto-scaling and it works super well.” And I look at the bill and the spend graph over time is so flat you could basically play a game of pool on top of it. And I don't believe that I'm talking to people who are lying to me. I truly don't believe that people make that decision, but what they believe versus what is evidenced in reality are not necessarily congruent. How do you disambiguate from the stories that people want to tell about themselves? And what they're actually doing?Nick: You have to unpack it. I think you have to ask a series of questions to figure out what their motivation is. Who else is on the call, as well? I would sometimes drop into a phone call and there would be a dozen people on the line. Those inquiry calls would go the worst because everyone wants to stake a claim, everyone wants to be heard, no one's going to be honest with you or with anyone else on the call.So, you typically need to have a pretty personal conversation about what does this person want to accomplish, what does the company want to accomplish, and what are the factors that are pushing against what those things are? It's like a novel, right? You have a character, the character wants to achieve something, and there are multiple obstacles in that person's way. And so by act five, ideally everything wraps up and it's perfect. And so my job is to get the character out of the tree that is on fire and onto the beach where the person can relax.So, you have to unpack a lot of different questions and answers to figure out, well, are they telling me what their boss wants to hear or are they really looking for help? Sometimes you're successful, sometimes you're not. Not everyone does want to be open and honest. In other cases, you would have a team show up to a call with maybe a junior engineer and they really just want you to tell them that the junior engineer's architecture is not a good idea. And so you do a lot of couples therapy as well. I don't know if this is really answering the question for you, but there are no easy answers. And people are defensive, they have biases, companies overall are risk-averse. I think you know this.Corey: Oh, yeah.Nick: And so it can be difficult to get to the bottom of what their real motivation is.Corey: My approach has always been that if you want serious data, you go talk to Gartner. If you want [anec-data 00:09:48] and some understanding, well, maybe we can have that conversation, but they're empowering different decisions at different levels, and that's fine. To be clear, I do not consider Gartner to be a competitor to what I do in any respect. It turns out that I am not very good at drawing charts in varying shades of blue and positioning things just so with repeatable methodology, and they're not particularly good at having cartoon animals as their mascot that they put into ridiculous situations. We each have our portion of the universe, and that's working out reasonably well.Nick: Well, and there's also something to unpack there as well because I would say that people look at Gartner and they think they have a lot of data. To a certain degree they do, but a lot of it is not quantifiable data. If you look at a firm like IDC, they specialize in—like, they are a data house; that is what they do. And so their view of the world and how they advise their clients is different. So, even within analyst firms, there is differentiation in what approach they take, how consultative they might be with their clients, one versus another. So, there certainly are differences that you could find the more exposure you get into the industry.Corey: For a while, I've been making a recurring joke that Route 53—Amazon's managed DNS service—is in fact a database. And then at some point, I saw a post on Reddit where someone said, “Yeah, I see the joke and it's great, but why should I actually not do this?” At which point I had to jump in and say, “Okay, look. Jokes are all well and good, but as soon as people start taking me seriously, it's very much time to come clean.” Because I think that's the only ethical and responsible thing to do in this ecosystem.Similarly, there was another great joke once upon a time. It was an April Fool's Day prank, and Google put out a paper about this thing they called MapReduce. Hilarious prank that Yahoo fell for hook, line, and sinker, and wound up building Hadoop out of it and we're still paying the price for that, years later. You have a bit of a reputation from your time at Gartner as being—and I quote—“The man who killed Hadoop.” What happened there? What's the story? And I appreciate your finally making clear to the rest of us that it was, in fact, a joke. What happened there?Nick: Well, one of the pieces of research that Gartner puts out every year is this thing called a Hype Cycle. And we've all seen it, it looks like a roller coaster in profile; big mountain goes up really high and then comes down steeply, drops into a valley, and then—Corey: ‘the trough of disillusionment,' as I recall.Nick: Yes, my favorite. And then plateaus out. And one of the profiles on that curve was Hadoop distributions. And after years of taking inquiry calls, and writing documents, and speaking with everybody about what they were doing, we realized that this really isn't taking off like everyone thinks it is. Cluster sizes weren't getting bigger, people were having a lot of challenges with the complexity, people couldn't find skills to run it themselves if they wanted to.And then the cloud providers came in and said, “Well, we'll make a lot of this really simple for you, and we'll get rid of HDFS,” which is—was a good idea, but it didn't really scale well. I think that the challenge of having to acquire computers with compute storage and memory again, and again, and again, and again, just was not sustainable for the majority of enterprises. And so we flagged it as this will be obsolete before plateau. And at that point, we got a lot of hate mail, but it just seemed like the right decision to make, right? Once again, we're Tron; we fight for the users.And that seemed like the right advice and direction to provide to the end-users. And so didn't make a lot of friends, but I think I was long-term right about what happened in the Hadoop space. Certainly, some fragments of it are left over and we're still seeing—you know, Spark is going strong, there's a lot of Hive still around, but Hadoop as this amalgamation of open-source projects, I think is effectively dead.Corey: I sure hope you're right. I think it has a long tail like most things that are there. Legacy is the condescending engineering term for ‘it makes money.' You were at Gartner for almost eight years and then you left to go work at Cribl. What triggered that? What was it that made you decide, “This is great. I've been here a long time. I've obviously made it work for me. I'm going to go work at a startup that apparently, even though it recently raised a $200 million funding round”—congratulations on that, by the way—“It still apparently can't afford to buy a vowel in its name.” That's C-R-I-B-L because, of course, it is. Maybe another consonant, while you're shopping. But okay, great. It's oddly spelled, it is hard to explain in some cases, to folks who are not already feeling pain in that space. What was it that made you decide to sit up and, “All right, this is where I want to be?”Nick: Well, I met the co-founders when I was an analyst. They were working at Splunk and oddly enough—this is going to be an interesting transition compared to the previous thing we talked about—they were working on Hunk, which was, let's use HDFS to store Splunk data. Made a lot of sense, right? It could be much more cost-effective than high-cost infrastructure for Splunk. And so they told me about this; I was interested.And so I met the co-founders and then I reconnected with them after they left and formed Cribl. And I thought the story was really cool because where they're sitting is between sources and destinations of observability data. And they were solving a problem that all of my customers had, but they couldn't resolve. They would try and build it themselves. They would look at—Kafka was a popular choice, but that had some challenges for observability data—works fantastically well for application data.And they were just—had a very pragmatic view of the world that they were inhabiting and the problem that they were looking to solve. And it looked kind of like a no-brainer of a problem to solve. But when you double-click on it, when you really look down and say, “All right, what are the challenges with doing this?” They're really insurmountable for a lot of organizations. So, even though they may try and take a DIY approach, they often run into trouble after just a few weeks because of all the protocols you have to support, all the different data formats, and all the destinations, and role-based access control, and everything else that goes along with it.And so I really liked the team. I thought the product inhabited a unique space in the market—we've already talked about the lack of competitors in the space—and I just felt like the company was on a rocket ship—or is a rocket ship—that basically had unbounded success potential. And so when the opportunity arose to join the team and do a lot of the things I like doing as an analyst—examining the market, talking to people looking at competitive aspects—I jumped at it.Corey: It's nice when you see those opportunities that show up in front of you, and the stars sort of align. It's like, this is not just something that I'm excited about and enthused about, but hey, they can use me. I can add something to where they're going and help them get there better, faster, sooner, et cetera, et cetera.Nick: When you're an analyst, you look at dozens of companies a month and I'd never seen an opportunity that looked like that. Everything kind of looked the same. There's a bunch of data integration companies, there's a bunch of companies with Spark and things like that, but this company was unique; the product was unique, and no one was really recognizing the opportunity. So, it was just a great set of things that all happen at the same time.Corey: It's always fun to see stars align like that. So—Nick: Yeah.Corey: —help me understand in a way that can be articulated to folks who don't have 15 years of grumpy sysadmin experience under their belts, what does Cribl do?Nick: So, Cribl does a couple of things. Our flagship product is called LogStream, and the easiest way to describe that is as an abstraction between sources and destinations of data. And that doesn't sound very interesting, but if you, from your sysadmin background, you're always dealing with events, logs, now there's traces, metrics are also hanging around—Corey: Oh, and of course, the time is never synchronized with anything either, so it's sort of a giant whodunit, mystery, where half the eyewitnesses lie.Nick: Well, there's that. There's a lot of data silos. If you got an agent deployed on a system, it's only going to talk to one destination platform. And you repeat this, maybe a dozen times per server, and you might have 100,000 or 200,000 servers, with all of these different agents running on it, each one locked into one destination. So, you might want to be able to mix and match that data; you can't. You're locked in.One of the things LogStream does is it lets you do that exact mixing and matching. Another thing that this product does, that LogStream does, is it gives you ability to manage that data. And then what I mean by that is, you may want to reduce how much stuff you're sending into a given platform because maybe that platform charges you by your daily ingest rates or some other kind of event-based charges. And so not all that data is valuable, so why pay to store it if it's not going to be valuable? Just dump it or reduce the amount of volume that you've got in that payload, like a Windows XML log.And so that's another aspect that it allows you to do, better management of that stuff. You can redact sensitive fields, you can enrich the data with maybe, say, GeoIPs so you know what kind of data privacy laws you fall under and so on. And so, the story has always been, land the data in your destination platform first, then do all those things. Well, of course, because that's how they charge you; they charge you based on daily ingest. And so now the story is, make those decisions upfront in one place without having to spread this logic all over, and then send the data where you want it to go.So, that's really, that's the core product today, LogStream. We call ourselves an observability pipeline for observability data. The other thing we've got going on is this project called AppScope, and I think this is pretty cool. AppScope is a black box instrumentation tool that basically resides between the application runtime and the kernel and any shared libraries. And so it provides—without you having to go back and instrument code—it instruments the application for you based on every call that it makes and then can send that data through something like LogStream or to another destination.So, you don't have to go back and say, “Well, I'm going to try and find the source code for this 30-year old c++ application.” I can simply run AppScope against the process, and find out exactly what that application is doing for me, and then relay that information to some other destination.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by Liquibase. If you're anything like me, you've screwed up the database part of a deployment so severely that you've been banned from touching every anything that remotely sounds like SQL, at at least three different companies. We've mostly got code deployments solved for, but when it comes to databases we basically rely on desperate hope, with a roll back plan of keeping our resumes up to date. It doesn't have to be that way. Meet Liquibase. It is both an open source project and a commercial offering. Liquibase lets you track, modify, and automate database schema changes across almost any database, with guardrails to ensure you'll still have a company left after you deploy the change. No matter where your database lives, Liquibase can help you solve your database deployment issues. Check them out today at liquibase.com. Offer does not apply to Route 53.Corey: I have to ask because I love what you're doing, don't get me wrong. The counterargument that always comes up in this type of conversation is, “Who in their right mind looks at the state of the industry today and says, ‘You know what we need? That's right; another observability tool.'” what differentiates what you folks are building from a lot of the existing names in the space? And to be clear, a lot of the existing names in the space are treating observability simply as hipster monitoring. I'm not entirely sure they're wrong, but that's a different fight for a different time.Nick: Yeah. I'm happy to come back and talk about that aspect of it, too. What's different about what we're doing is we don't care where the data goes. We don't have a dog in that fight. We want you to have better control over where it goes and what kind of shape it's in when it gets there.And so I'll give an example. One of our customers wanted to deploy a new SIEM—Security Information Event Management—tool. But they didn't want to have to deploy a couple hundred-thousand new agents to go along with it. They already had the data coming in from another agent, they just couldn't get the data to it. So, they use LogStream to send that data to their new desired platform.Worked great. They were able to go from zero to a brand new platform in just a couple days, versus fighting with rolling out agents and having to update them. Did they conflict with existing agents? How much performance did it impact on the servers, and so on? So, we don't care about the destination. We like everybody. We're agnostic when it comes to where that data goes. And—Corey: Oh, it's not about the destination. It's about the journey. Everyone's been saying it, but you've turned it into a product.Nick: It's very spiritual. So, we [laugh] send, we send your observability data on a spiritual [laugh] journey to its destination, and we can do quite a bit with it on the way.Corey: So, you said you offered to go back as well and visit the, “Oh, it's monitoring, but we're going to call it observability because otherwise we get yelled out on Twitter by Charity Majors.” How do you view that?Nick: Monitoring is the things you already know. Right? You know what questions you want to ask, you get an alert if something goes out of bounds or something goes from green to red. Think about monitoring as a data warehouse. You shape your data, you get it all in just the right condition so you can ask the same question over and over again, over different time domains.That's how I think about monitoring. It's prepackaged, you know exactly what you want to do with it. Observability is more like a data lake. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this stuff. I think there's going to be some signals in here that I can use, and I'm going to go explore that data.So, if monitoring is your known knowns, observability is your unknown unknowns. So, an ideal observability solution gives you an opportunity to discover what those are. Once you discover them. Great. Now, you can talk about how to get them into your monitoring system. So, for me, it's kind of a process of discovery.Corey: Which makes an awful lot of sense. The problem I've always had with the monitoring approach is it falls into this terrible pattern of enumerate the badness. In other words, “Imagine all the ways that this system can fail,” and then build an alerting that lets you know when any of those things happen. And what happens next is inevitable to anyone who's ever dealt with the tricksy devils known as computers, and what happens, of course, is that they find new ways to fail and you generally get to add to the list of things to check for, usually at two o'clock in the morning.Nick: On a Sunday.Corey: Oh, absolutely. It almost doesn't matter when. The real problem is when these things happen, it's, “What day, actually, is it?” And you have to check the calendar to figure out because your third time that week being woken up in the dead of night. It's like an infant but less than endearing.So, that has been the old school approach, and there's unfortunately still an awful lot of, we'll just call it nonsense, in the industry that still does exactly the same thing, except now they call it observability because—hearkening back to earlier in our conversation—there's a certain point in the Gartner Hype Cycle that we are all existing within. What's the deal with that?Nick: Well, I think that there are a lot of entrenched interests in the monitoring space. And so I think you always see this when a new term comes around. Vendors will say, “All right, well, there's a lot of confusion about this. Let me back-fit my product into this term so that I can continue to look like I'm on the leading edge and I'm not going to put any of my revenues in jeopardy.” I know, that's a cynical view, but I've seen it over and over again.And I think that's unfortunate because there's a real opportunity to have a better understanding of your systems, to better understand what's happening in all the containers you're deploying and not tearing down the way that you should, to better understand what's happening in distributed systems. And it's going to be a real missed opportunity if that is what happens. If we just call this ‘Monitoring 2.0' it's going to leave a lot of unrealized potential in the market.Corey: The big problem that I've seen in a lot of different areas is—I'll be direct—consolidation where you have a company that starts to do a thing—and that's great—and then they start doing other things that are tied to it. And in turn, they start, I guess, gathering everything in the ecosystem. If you break down observability into various constituent parts, I—know, I know, the pillars thing is going to upset people; ignore that for now—and if you have an offering that's weak in a particular area, okay, instead of building it organically into the product, or saying, “Yeah, that's not what we do,” there's an instinct to acquire a company or build that functionality out. And it turns out that we're building what feels the lot to me like the SaaS equivalent of multifunction printers: they can print, they can scan, they can fax, and none of those three very well, so it winds up with something that dissatisfies everyone, rather than a best-of-breed solution that has a very clear and narrow starting and stopping point. How do you view that?Nick: Well, what you've described is a compromise, right? A compromise is everyone can work and no one's happy. And I think that's the advantage of where LogStream comes in. The reality is best-of-breed. Most enterprises today have 30 or more different monitoring tools—call them observability tools if you want to—and you will never pry those tools from the dead hands of those sysadmins, DevOps engineers, SREs, et cetera.They all integrate those tools into how they work and their processes. So, we're living in a best-of-breed world. It's like that in data and analytics—my former beat—and it's like that in monitoring and observability. People really gravitate towards the tools they like, they gravitate towards the tools their friends are using. And so you need a way to be able to mix and match that stuff.And just because I want to stay [laugh] on message, that's really where the LogStream story kind of blends in because we do that; we allow you to mix and match all those different pieces.Corey: Joke's on you. I use Nagios and I have no friends. I'm not convinced those two things are entirely unrelated, but here we are. So here's, I guess, the big burning question that a lot of folks—certainly not me, but other undefined folks, ‘lots of people are saying'—so you built something interesting that actually works. I want to be clear on this.I have spoken to customers of yours. They swear by it instead of swearing at it, which happens with other companies. Awesome. You have traction, you're moving forward, things are going great. Here's $200 million is the next part of that story, and on some level, my immediate reaction—which does need updating, let's be clear here—is like, all right.I'm trying to build a product. I can see how I could spend a few million bucks. “Well, what can you do with I don't know, 100 times that?” My easy answer is, “Something monstrous.” I don't believe that is the case here. What is the growth plan? What are you doing that makes having that kind of a war chest a useful and valuable thing to have?Nick: Well, if you speak with the co-founders—and they've been open about this—we view ourselves as a generational company. We're not just building one product. We've been thinking about, how do we deliver on observability as this idea of discovery? What does that take? And it doesn't mean that we're going to be less agnostic to other destinations, we still think there's an incredible amount of value there and that's not going away, but we think there's maybe an interim step that we build out, potentially this idea of an observability data lake where you can explore these environments.Certainly, there's other types of options in the space today. Most of them are SQL-based, which is interesting because the audience that uses monitoring and observability tools couldn't care less about SQL right? They want search, they want regex, and so you've got to have the right tool for that audience. And so we're thinking about what that looks like going forward. We're doubling down on people.Surprisingly, this is a very—like anything else in software, it is people-intensive. And so certainly those are other aspects that we're exploring with the recent investment, but definitely, multiproduct company is our future and continued expansion.Corey: Expansion is always a fun one. It's the idea of, great, are you looking at going deeper into the areas you're already active within, or is it more of a, “Ah, so we've solved the, effectively, log routing problem. That's great. Let's solve other problems, too.” Or is it more of a, I guess, a doubling down and focusing on what's working? And again, that probably sounds judgmental in a way I don't intend it to at all. I just have a hard time contextualizing that level of scale coming from a small company perspective the way that I do.Nick: Yeah. Our plan is to focus more intently on the areas that we're in. We have a huge basis of experience there. We don't want to be all things to all people; that dilutes the message down to nothing, so we want to be very specific in the audiences we talk to, the problems we're trying to solve, and how we try to solve them.Corey: The problem I've always found with a lot of the acquisition, growth thrashing of—let me call it what I think it is: companies in decline trying to strain relevancy, it feels almost like a, “We don't see a growth strategy. So, we're going to try and acquire everything that hold still long enough, at some level, trying to add more revenue to the pile, but also thrashing in the sense of, okay. They're going to teach us how to do things in creative, awesome ways,” but it never works out that way. When you have a 50,000 person company acquiring a 200 person company, invariably the bigger culture is going to dominate. And I don't understand why that mistake seems to continually happen again, and again, and again.And people think I'm effectively alluding to—or whenever the spoken word version of subtweeting is—a particular company or a particular acquisition. I'm absolutely not, there are probably 50 different companies listening right now who thinks, “Oh, God. He's talking about us.” It's the common repeating trend. What is that?Nick: It's hard to say. In some cases, these acquisitions might just be talent. “We need to know how to do X. They know how to do X. Let's do it.” They may have very unique niche technology or software that another company thinks they can more broadly apply.Also, some of these big companies, these may not be board-level or CEO-level decisions. A business unit might decide, “Oh, I like what that company is doing. I'm going to go acquire it.” And so it looks like MegaCorp bought TinyCorp, but it's really, this tiny business unit within MegaCorp bought tiny company. The reality is often different from what it looks like on the outside.So, that's one way. Another is, you know, if they're going to teach us to be more effective with tech or something like that, you're never going to beat culture. You're never going to be the existing culture. If it's 50,000, against 200, obviously we know who wins there. And so I don't know if that's realistic.I don't know if the big companies are genuine when they say that, but it could just be the messaging that they use to make people happy and hopefully retain as many of those new employees for as long as they can. Does that make sense?Corey: No, it makes perfect sense. It's the right answer. It does articulate what is happening there, and I think I keep falling prey to the same failure. And it's hard. It's pernicious, but companies are not monolithic entities.There's no one person at all of these companies each who is making these giant unilateral decisions. It's always some product manager or some particular person who has a vision and a strategy in the department. It is not something that the company board is agreeing on every little decision that gets made. They're distributed entities in many respects.Nick: Absolutely. And that's only getting more pervasive as companies get larger [laugh] through acquisition. So, you're going to see more and more of that, and so it's going to look like we're going to put one label on it, one brand. Often, I think internally, that's the exact opposite of what actually happened, how that decision got made.Corey: Nick, I want to thank you for taking so much time to speak with me about what you're up to over there, how your path has shaped, how you view the world, and also what Cribl does these days. If people want to learn more about what you're up to, how you think about the world, or even possibly going to work at Cribl which, having spoken to a number of people over there, I would endorse it. How do they find you?Nick: Best place to find us is by joining our community: cribl.io/community, and Cribl is spelled C-R-I-B-L. You can certainly reach out there, we've got about 2300 people in our community Slack, so it's a great group. You can also reach out to me on Twitter, I'm @nheudecker, N-H-E-U-D-E-C-K-E-R. Tell me what you thought of the episode; love to hear it. And then beyond that, you can also sign up for our free cloud tier at cribl.cloud. It's a pretty generous one terabyte a day processing, so you can start to send data in and send it wherever you'd like to be.Corey: To be clear, this free as in beer, not free as an AWS free tier?Nick: This is free as in beer.Corey: Excellent. Excellent.Nick: I think I'm getting that right. I think it's free as in beer. And the other thing you can try is our hosted solution on AWS, fully managed cloud at cribl.cloud, we offer a free one terabyte per day processing, so you can start to send data into that environment and send it wherever you'd like to go, in whatever shape that data needs to be in when it gets there.Corey: And we will, of course, put links to that in the [show notes 00:35:21]. Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.Nick: No, thank you for having me. This was a lot of fun.Corey: Nick Heudecker, senior director, market strategy and competitive intelligence at Cribl. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with a comment explaining that the only real reason a startup should raise a $200 million funding round is to pay that month's AWS bill.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

Fire extinguishers, airbags in your car, and smoke alarms in your house are all examples of things in life that don't really seem to matter until they're the only thing that matters. On that rare occasion when you need one of those items, you'll either be very glad that you have one, or really regretting the fact that you don't. Let's talk about some of the things in the financial world that don't matter until they do. Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Mark: Hey everybody, welcome in to another edition of the podcast. This is Retirement Planning - Redefined, with John and Nick from PFG Private Wealth. And we're going to chat today about some things that don't matter, well, until they do. And I've got some pretty good examples of that, so we're going to get into that in just a second. But I don't know, Nick, I feel like I should pick on you a little bit. Things that don't matter until they do, is that the Buffalo Bills again this year or what?   Nick: Those are fighting words. It's a good thing we're in a different state. Now, what's your football team?   Mark: I just had to pick on you because of the whole Tom Brady thing. I was going to talk to you about it, so you just couldn't get away from this guy, right? He was kicking your butt in New England, then he comes down in your backyard and still knocks your team out. I actually felt for you this past playoff, so.   Nick: Yeah, it's all good. We've got a real quarterback now so I'm okay with it.   Mark: Yeah.   Nick: I'm not a complete...   Mark: My team is total garbage, so you can pick on me all day long, so it's no worries. My team is the laughingstock of the NFL pretty much on a regular basis.   John: Are you a Panthers fan?   Mark: That's close. You think I would be because, same thing with you guys, I'm next to the Panthers so you think I would be. But no, I'm a Cowboys fan. Yeah. It's the worst.   Nick: Nah. Trust me. It's not the worst.   Mark: We get a lot of flack for Cowboys fans. That's for sure.   Nick: Yeah, but it's not the worst.   Mark: Gotcha. John, what about you? Do you pull for anybody?   John: The Patriots.   Mark: Oh my God. Wait, what? Oh my gosh, you two must have really gone back and forth.   John: Yeah, I grew up in right outside of the Boston.   Mark: That's right, I remember that now yeah. So you guys have had some fun times over the last few years, haven't you?   Nick: John used to ask me to watch games-   John: He refuses.   Nick: I couldn't be around. I couldn't be around people in public watching the game, but now that they're a little bit better-   Mark: They had a great year last year, they really did, so.   Nick: They made the playoffs three out of the last four years.   Mark: Yeah, they did. They're definitely on the run. So I just had to give you a little bit of a hard time, but it's all good. It's all good.   Mark: So listen, things that don't matter until they do. So here's some real examples, like a fire extinguisher, right? Who thinks about a fire extinguisher until you need one? Or the airbags in your car or smoke alarms in your house, all these things we just don't pay any attention to until we actually really need one. And then we're awfully glad that they're there.   Mark: So I've got a couple of these financially speaking fellas. So talk to us about the importance of why these things can be kind of out of sight, out of mind. But man, we really need to have those ducks in a row. And let's just start with an easy one, legal documents, right? Won't matter until they do, but when you need it, man you're going to be glad you've got it in place, and right.   John: Yeah, this is a great example of that. And where when you're living and this happens is you have some type of health event and I just had a family member who just got an accident and healthcare surrogate had to step up and make some decisions and help them out during that process. So that's something that you really need to consider doing some of these things. Meeting with an attorney that's qualified to do this stuff, to make sure that your ducks are in a row.   John: And the unfortunate one where it's too late is if you pass away and then now your beneficiaries are dealing with whatever estate, whether it's trust, wills, documents that you did or didn't do. I'll tell you from Nick and I have helped a lot of clients kind of navigate that, if it's not done correctly it can be a nightmare for your beneficiaries just to figure out where everything is and who is responsible.   Mark: Yeah. And it's one of those things that's easily avoidable, right Nick? I mean, this is not that hard to fix. This is, of the low hanging fruit that can be out there, you can do this stuff pretty easy. Especially things like beneficiary designation, updating those, so on and so forth. Wills and trusts, sure, they can be a little more complicated, but even that it's not that complex. You've just got to get with an advisor and an attorney.   Nick: Yeah. What we've seen is that often times people don't personally know an attorney or somebody in this space that can help them. Or, if they do, they're private and they don't necessarily want them to know everything about them. Or we'll see people that just... It makes them extremely uncomfortable to talk about death, dying and, or being sick.   Nick: And so it's a classic avoidance behavior. And like we had talked about previously, time flies and all of a sudden it's five or 10 years later, and your mom and dad that you've had listed as the beneficiaries are no longer alive and kids are grown up or you had another child that's not listed anywhere. Or maybe you got divorced or remarried.   Nick: All these things happen and if the documents aren't in place or they're lagging and inaccurate, it can turn into quite a quagmire if something happens. And I'll say this too, is oftentimes when people think of the legal documents, they think of death and not necessarily what John referred to as far as healthcare proxy and a power of attorney, those sorts of things where there's a health event and you're still alive, but you need help making decisions and that can really get pretty squirrely.   Mark: No, I agree with you. And I think the other one we hear sometimes too as well, is, that's for rich people, right? A trust is for rich people or so on and so forth. And it's like, okay, that's not really the case. And it's really not as expensive to get some of this stuff taken care of as we often think it is. I think we build it up in our mind or whatever. We just kind of have this, oh, that's for rich folks or it costs too much money so I'm just going to avoid it. Pretty easy to handle this stuff.   Nick: Yeah, I would say that's accurate, as well as, and we've talked about the run-up in the markets over the last five or 10 years. There's a lot of people that, seven, eight years ago they maybe had a third of the money that they have now. And so they still kind of are in the same train of thought or the same thought process. And they don't realize maybe what they perceive... They still think of themselves in that same way as they did eight to 10 years or even 15 years ago. And there's a little bit of disbelief. And so it kind of leads into kind of procrastinating and you almost have to kind of take stock and realize, okay, hey, this is something I really need to get done.   Mark: Yeah, exactly.   Mark: Well, that's hopefully what we try to provide here on the podcast is there's a little useful nuggets of information that might spark that conversation. And speaking of which, John, life insurance, not something that you're really popping up at the dinner table saying, "Hey, let's have a rousing conversation about life insurance." Right? It doesn't kind of go that way. But, again it's one of those things that don't seem to matter until you need it. And it can be quite important and quite useful tool.   John: Yeah, a hundred percent. I'll say this is probably one of the most disliked conversations for people, is talking about life insurance and what happens after if they were to pass away or a spouse or whoever.   Mark: Right.   John: Especially with children, because when you have kids, and I have two daughters, one of the big things you look at is, I'll use myself as a scenario, I'm gone. So there's my income gone for the next 20, 30 years. So you really want to look at it from that standpoint when you're talking about needs planning for life insurance is... I'm no longer here. My income's no longer providing for my family. How do I replace that? And really life insurance is a great vehicle to go ahead and replace someone's income for a 20, 30 year period. And there's ways to back into what amounts are correct, but definitely something you need to look at when you're doing a plan.   John: And going into retirement can be the same way depending, and Nick mentioned it on the last session where everyone's situation is different. Well we've had scenarios where, there may be still is a need for life insurance in retirement because maybe one person has a heavy pension. And if that person passes away, that pension now is gone. And maybe that's a big requirement for the plan to work.   John: So everyone's situation is different. It's definitely something that needs to be considered. You just want to take a look at it and see what would happen if someone did pass away and there wasn't any life insurance. I'll say a lot of these things that we're going to go over too, I think it's easy to address, there's definitely people that can help you out. And it's just a matter of getting it done. And once it's done it just kind of provides a nice peace of mind that it's kind of like a bandaid, just do it, rip it off.   Mark: There you go. Exactly. I think life insurance too, I will be honest. It's a very important tool even for retirees, there's a lot of ways it can be used. It's not our daddy's Oldsmobile like those old commercials. There's just so many different nuances now to life insurance, where it could be a useful tool for various times of life, but I can't help but thinking of Ned Ryerson and the Groundhog Day movie, when he comes up on Bill Murray, that insurance guy. I think that's what a lot of times people think of when they think life insurance or life insurance agent, and it's just changed so much. But it is a great movie.   Mark: Lifetime income streams. We kind of talk about this fairly often, but I mean, look, it's one of those things maybe you don't think about. You think, well, I've got these accounts, right? I got all this stuff, but how do I turn it into money because I do need money all through my retirement? I need a paycheck coming in.   Nick: Yeah. So, one of the things that we'll say is that in retirement, income is king. Assets are great and assets are the thing that people love to talk about and kind of chat about, but income is king. And I'll say too that everybody knows about social security. They realize in theory it's important, that sort of thing, but many people, and this is something that we'll kind of review with people often, is that they don't quite realize like, well, hey, if your household is getting $60,000 a year in income from social security, which these days, a lot of people are. That is really equivalent to between one and $2 million of nest egg assets from the standpoint of generating a saving [column 00:09:37] , having it last your lifetime and getting inflationary raises.   Nick: So, building a portfolio or an overall strategy where, we've got quite a few clients that they have rental properties, that rental income, they purchased a property a little bit when they're younger. They get the house or the property paid off, and the rental income supplements their income in retirement.   Nick: John referred to pensions, that can be a big deal. Annuities can provide a guaranteed income as well. So, trying to balance forms of guaranteed income with assets can be really important. And just a little caveat to throw in there, although income is king, it is important to have assets. So the reason I say that is we have had some clients come to us that have been, whether it's between social security and pension, they've been income rich and asset poor, and that can also lead to other issues as well. So a good balance is really just like so many other things is really the most important part.   Mark: Well, balance is key, definitely balance is key to anything. And we all know we got to have these different forms of, or we have to have some income coming in, in retirement. But having the multiple streams and turning things on at different times, and whether you want to call it bucket strategies or laddering or whatever the case is, but just having these different various forms to be able to pull from at different times is going to make obviously all the difference in keeping up with our retirement. Because nobody wants to go backwards in their lifestyle in retirement. They want to kind of continue on the way they have been, or maybe even more so in retirement. So that's some things that- go ahead.   Nick: And let me jump in on that too, that point that you made about not going backwards or maintaining is important. Because there are times, and I've had this happen a couple of times, when it comes to retirement and income in retirement and when it comes to life insurance, two of the topics that we talked about, in people's minds they have an enormous amount of confidence that all of a sudden they no longer need any of the things that they've wanted and bought for the last 25 or 30 years. It's like all of a sudden they flip the switch and it's going to be the cheaper food, the cheaper restaurants, the cheaper car-   Mark: I've got plenty of clothes. I don't need to buy any new clothes.   Nick: Yes. And in reality, people don't live like that. And so that's an important-   John: In reality, it's typically the reverse. They have more time on their hands to go buy things.   Mark: Right, yeah. My dad always said every day was a Saturday when he got to retirement and he spends the most money on a Saturday, so, that always stuck with me.   Nick: Yeah most people live in a state of want versus need and it's often, that's a pretty common thing, so anyhow.   Mark: That always stuck with me. That's a great point. Well, I'll tell you what, that's some things that don't matter until they do so, again, whether it's legal documents, pretty easy fix, life insurance, certainly a worthwhile conversation to have no matter what stage of life you're in. And making sure definitely that you've got those income streams set up for life. Some key topics there that we talked about this weekend.   Mark: We're going to take some email questions and wrap up because we want to get back to a couple of these here. We haven't done these lately. And of course, anytime you submit a question, you're going to get your question answered, but to just talk about someone here on the show, we kind of do those from time to time. If you'd like to drop a line, go to pfgprivatewealth.com, that's pfgprivatewealth.com or call (813) 286-7776 if you've got some questions for your own situation that you need to get answered, and the guys will certainly tackle those for you.   Mark: But for right now, let's see what we got from Linda who had sent an email question. And guys, she says, "Fellas, my daughter just turned 18 and I'd like to help her get off onto the right foot with some retirement savings. What's a good idea for something to get her started with?"   John: Yeah, I'll take this one. So, we've had this come up quite a bit with some of our clients and their kids, when they turn 18, they want to just get them used to investing or just understanding it which we think is very important. Some of the things we've done, it just depends. If the child is working, we might do a Roth IRA where we'll go ahead and just open up a Roth retirement account. It's a great vehicle for kids because they can tax free money in retirement. They could use it for a first time home purchase, et cetera, et cetera. So we've done that. We've just got to make sure that they're working because you need earned income to contribute to a Roth.   John: If they are not working, there's definitely some kind of joint accounts you can set up, but it's definitely a good thing to do. Because I'll tell you, we've done that for some clients and we've had those kids become clients early, right when they graduate college. And they're pretty aggressive in saving. I have one where, as soon as he graduated he got in touch with me and then just started aggressively saving in his early twenties, which is very uncommon. And now he's early thirties and he has a pretty sizable nest egg. And now he's got kids and all this stuff and he can't save as much because he does not have as much discretionary income. But it really set that foundation for him to really start saving for retirement, understanding how important that is.   Mark: No, I think that's awesome that you're having some people do that, especially at a younger age. And so kudos to her for getting her daughter start off on the right foot. And for people that just in general kind of have that interest. I had a young kid that I knew for a couple of years ago that used to work for me. Same thing. Early on he was very into saving money for his future self, which is fantastic. I think because his parents hadn't done a very good job and so sometimes we see that mental shift, right? Where you see your parents do something and you want to do the opposite and so on and so forth. And in this case, that was a good thing.   Mark: So very cool question. Thanks so much for submitting that. Hopefully that helps you out a little bit and keep listening to the podcast. We certainly appreciate it. And let's do one more guys before we wrap up here, [just 00:15:13] go around, and we've got one from Patty. You guys got to put on your counselor hats here. Patty says, "My husband and I argue almost every day about money because we haven't done a very good job planning for our retirement and it stresses us both out. Is this a normal thing between spouses or do we need some serious help?"   Nick: So I'll jump in on this one. So, there's a couple of things here. So the first thing is that this points out specifically the importance of a plan. And what we mean by that is that when there's not a clear picture of what people actually have, what their life actually looks at, when there's a high amount of uncertainty on the future, that's when there's often anxiety and bickering, arguing those sorts of things when it comes to money.   Nick: And so, step number one is take an inventory, build a plan. So once that's done, if it is truly terrible, then you can fight, but at least let's figure out what's there. But all joking aside, so then the next step is to kind of come to grips with the fact that, hey, we are where we are today. There's nothing that we can do about it. If we can focus on the future and start making decisions that are positive and maybe make some changes that'll be helpful, then that's great.   Nick: From our perspective as advisors, one of our kind of golden rules, and we oftentimes tell clients this is that, we can't care more about your money and your situation than you do. So ultimately it has to start at home and then they have to be willing to take guidance and advice and make changes. And then really what we found is that in 12 to 24 months, the momentum can be significant in a positive way. And things can really swing strongly. And once that happens, it becomes kind of addicting. It's kind of like when you're in your early twenties, for most people maybe they're just starting out at the first job and the first time you started to hit a few thousand dollars in your account that stays in your account, maybe 5,000 is your threshold and you're like, "wow, this is great." I've never had this amount of money in here before.   Nick: And then maybe down the road you hit 10 and as you get older that number changes. And what's interesting is that it also becomes more stressful and you kind of get this hoarding mentality where once you hit these certain thresholds, 50,000, a 100 thousand in your savings account. Once get there and you realize the comfort and the peace of mind that it provides, you never want to go back. And so we like people to kind of get that, to taste that so that they can understand that. And then usually it's full speed ahead.   Mark: Yeah, no, that's a great way of looking at it. My daughter, she's still pretty young but is definitely, she kind of got that. She was constantly just spending her check and spending all her money when she wasn't making too much. And then once she got started getting a decent check in from the Navy and she got a couple of bonuses and she put it in there and she watched her account grow, she was like, "wow, this is-" and so now she's gotten bitten by this bug to kind of see what she can get the number to. She'll message me every so often, "The number is this now. And the number's that now." And so I'm like, "Hey, cool. You're 24 years old. You got a long time for that to grow and compound." So yeah, it definitely can be addicting.   Mark: And of course, if you're closer to retirement and obviously that sounds like that's the case for this question. I think that's a great piece of advice. Find out what you got, get an assessment, get a plan put together, look at it. And then see, you guys might be fighting over nothing too, so think about that. You guys could possibly be in much better shape than you even realize. And therefore you're fighting for [not. 00:18:55]   Mark: So reach out and have a conversation with the guys. Just give him a jingle and call them at (813) 286-7776, or stop by the website, pfgprivatewealth.com. And that's going to do it this week for the podcast. Again, don't forget to subscribe to us on Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Stitcher, or whatever platform you like to use. You can find it all at the website, pfgprivatewealth.com. For John and Nick, I'm Mark, we'll see you next time here on Retirement Planning - Redefined.   Nick: Go Bills.

If you're of the age that your mom and dad retired 20 or 30 years ago, the world was a much different place when they walked away from their paychecks. Let's talk about how things are different now. Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Speaker 1: Hey everybody. Welcome into the podcast. It's Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick from PFG Private Wealth. Hanging out with me to talk about this being not our father's retirement now. That's our podcast topic this week, not your father's not our fathers, whatever you want to say, we're going to go into this conversation about how things are so much different even just 20 years ago when it comes to retirement. And some things to think about before we walk away from that paycheck. And there's a lot that's obviously changed and obviously we're seeing a lot of turmoil coming off of COVID and things of that nature. So there's a lot of good topical stuff in here for us to discuss, but let's jump in and say hi to the guys first, Nick, what's going on, buddy? How are you doing?   Nick: Pretty well, staying busy.   Speaker 1: Staying busy. Well, that's always good. John, how are you, my friend? Last time we talked you were having some troubles with the kids. Everybody not sleeping and things like that. Doing better?   John: Yeah, for the most part, actually, I don't know if I've mentioned it. We got them to share a room which has helped their sleeping habits a bit. So we've been sleeping through the night. So it's been a few years, my friend, of consistent nights of sleeping.   Speaker 1: There you go.   John: Starting to feel pretty good again.   Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that. Well, very good. So you never know what's going to make the trigger there. So I'm glad to hear that. Do you guys remember these commercials? I'm a little bit older than you, but I know a lot of our listeners might remember these as well, if you guys don't. But back, maybe late '70s, early '80s, Oldsmobile was trying to rebrand and make the Oldsmobile a little bit cooler. And so they had these commercials and it would always say things like, "It's not your father's Oldsmobile." You guys remember those at all?   Nick: I do actually.   Speaker 1: Yeah. And so they would try to rebrand it that way. So that's kind of the idea I had for today's conversation. It's not our father's retirement. My dad retired in '93. He passed away in '96. So he didn't have a very long retirement, but even just the principles and some of the things are completely different here 30 years later.   Speaker 1: So let's talk about a couple of these things and how the world's changed and how really planning has also changed and what you guys do and what folks need to consider when they get closer to retirement. First of all, the concept of retirement is not actually that old, a hundred years ago you didn't retire. You worked until you dropped. Right? So really retirement's only been around since, the idea of it really since the late '30s, '40s, '50s, '60s, so on and so forth. And it was this thing where you got to 65, you retired, you were done. Maybe you sat on the front porch and did little, but nowadays more and more people work beyond 65. They want to, not just have to, they want to, and that's okay. Right? There's nothing wrong with that.   John: Yeah. I would definitely, we see that in our office here, Bob Perry's 76, 77, he's still working. We joke that his wife won't let him retire, but he really enjoys coming in and the environment here and just being with everyone, it gives him stuff to do and he provides a lot of insight for us as well. So it's great to have him around so I could see where in his situation or other people's, if they're somewhere they enjoy, what's the point of retiring if you enjoy it?   Speaker 1: Right. Exactly. And not only that, Nick, but a lot of times people, again, they just want to do some other things and maybe you don't need the full job income, like you used to have, the big career, but maybe you do need a little extra money to help with the plan or something, but it's just a way to kind of have some fun and maybe make a little extra scratch on the side.   Nick: Yeah. I think ultimately what happens is that almost one analogy to think about, you see things like football players, baseball players, et cetera. Here you have people that retire early, they maybe have a career 5 to 10, maybe 15 years. And obviously their situation is a little bit different from a perspective of the money that they're retiring with and the bandwidth they have to route the time between retirement and their life expectancy. However, there's probably a little bit more similarities than people realize where ultimately when you see interviews with people like that, the things that you hear them talk about are missing the structure, missing the comradery, coworkers slash teammates, those sorts of things.   Nick: So, there's actually a lot of similarities and it's almost keeping that sort of structure and help keep my mind sharp, keep people engaged. We definitely see patterns from the perspective of, there are some people that they do a great job of having hobbies and they know that when they retire, they've got a list of things that they want to do, whether it's travel, whether it's hobbies, whether it's a small sort of business. And then you have people that really struggle. And I was having this conversation actually with my parents this weekend. My dad is a retired fireman, but he's been working, he had his own small business for the last maybe 15 years. So he retired as a fireman really early.   Nick: My mom's a nurse. She works a couple days a week now, but she's looking to slow down. And my dad was talking about a friend of his, maybe like 10 years older, that still does some work because he can't just sit around, he's got to stay busy. And my dad was like, "Well, he needs hobbies." And I said, "No, you need some hobbies. You don't have any hobbies." And he looked at me like, "I had never really thought about that before." And we've had different conversations, but the point that I'm trying to make is a lot of times, we look at other people, we look at other situations and we perceive ourselves in a different way. And sometimes just taking that self inventory and asking ourselves these sorts of questions, it really is important because there's many more similarities that we realize. So...   Speaker 1: Yeah.   Nick: So we've tasked my nieces who are younger to help, start coming up with some hobbies for my father, their grandfather, to keep him sharp and engaged. So...   Speaker 1: Well, I think we went through this cycle. Like I mentioned earlier, a hundred years ago you just worked until you dropped. And then we said, "Oh, we can do this thing called retirement." And then people started retiring and sitting around and doing nothing. And then you wither away that way too. So I think we've now started to learn over this past a hundred years that, okay, it's got to be a bit of both. You, you work really hard, you get to retirement, you hit retirement, but you still need to be active. You still need to do things and have things that interest you, if you want to just sit on the front porch and make wicker baskets, then that's great, do that, if that's what you want, but more and more people are-   John: Real quick, Nick loves making wicker baskets.   Speaker 1: Does he really? I got to get one now, I need a custom wicker basket.   Nick: No wicker baskets.   Speaker 1: Oh man, just crushed my dreams right there. But anyway, I think that's a really great point is having something to retire to. Now, the next point on this guys, is being retired, it can be more expensive nowadays than working. So, we used to see that 20% less is what you need in retirement. Well, that might not be the case now. And we've just been having conversations as well about inflation and stuff. So it can be quite expensive to retire if you're not careful.   Nick: It absolutely can. Especially depending on where you live from the perspective of the things that you may be looking to get into or do. I live in a downtown area in St. Pete and I absolutely see how, anybody that lives in this space, all you have to do is walk down the street to grab a coffee, to grab a lunch and depending upon your lifestyle, you've just got more time on your hands to do the things that you want to do. So, so why wouldn't it be more expensive if we're just doing these things more often, more frequently, so it can definitely be the case. And that's even from a discretionary standpoint, let alone the health care costs and all the things that people do to stay healthier, stay more engaged, live longer, all those sorts of things.   Nick: And ultimately, one of the things that we'll have conversations with people, sometimes people come in with an open mind thinking like, "Hey, this might be happening. I may spend more money." Other times we have people that they're absolutely convinced, " No I'm going to spend 50%, 60% of what I spent before." And that's sometimes the question to them is, "Why would you? Is that what you want to do? Or is this just something that you read?" Because I would guess ultimately you want to enjoy what you've saved up for and worked hard for. So, at what point in life or maybe even in the last 30 years, one of the questions, at one point in the last 30 years, have you lived only for needs and realistically here in the U.S That's for most people that's not too common, ultimately we live in the things that we bought. We enjoy the times that we want to spend with others, all those sorts of things. So, that's an important conversation to have.   Speaker 1: No, I definitely agree with you there. John, retirees are facing more problems than ever too. Well society, we're all facing more problems than ever before, social media, so on and so forth. Just the inundation of information, but longevity, I think maybe longevity guys might be a key to this whole conversation today because it magnifies all of these things. And that's certainly going to be the case when juggling more problems because we're living longer, so much longer, the body's able, we're figuring out lots of great ways to keep the body going, but sometimes we're having some difficulties when it comes to the mental side, dementia is on the rise, things of that nature. And that gets pretty costly.   John: Yeah. Yeah. Previously we talked about retirement changing, people had pensions which lasted for their life. And the shift has been away from pensions to putting the responsibility on the individual where now they have just basically savings, whether it's cash or investments or whatever, but now you need to be very cautious, we have to be very careful that that's going to last you 30 plus years. And that's why it's important to have the plan to make sure that your money is going to last throughout retirement, which is really the biggest concern for retirees. Some other things we've seen popping up more recently and we've just dealt with this with a client where their they're aging parents, they were providing financial assistance for their parents in assisted living facilities and things like that, or having helpers.   John: So I have one client where they're were assisting their parents with that. So they weren't really going on vacation and enjoying their time. And then the parent passed away and then with everything that's happened recently, their son lost a job and then they were not helping out their son with expenses. So it was a double whammy for them is that they can't truly enjoy retirement because they're helping family members out, which again, no one plans for this, you just happen in this situation, but it's something that you always want to keep track of.   Nick: Yeah. That's kind of that sandwich generation that they talk about a little bit and it really started coming to the forefront back during the recession, '08, '09, '10, where there was a lot of kids coming out of college, couldn't get jobs, parents aging, all these sorts of things. So I would say baby boomers definitely have their hands full with all the different things that they have to juggle. And so having peace of mind of having that plan in place and understanding how their money is going to work in retirement is more important than ever.   Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and like I said, longevity is probably the key to this whole conversation. So we have to sell fun. Right? We don't have pensions now. Well, not many do. Right? So I think something like 15% or less of the population has pensions. It's an interesting statistic, but we're talking 30, 40 years. I was just chatting with somebody yesterday, guys who they're 72 and their mom and dad both are still alive. They're in their 90s and they're also dealing with helping their 40 year old children. So there's a lot in this to unpack.   Nick: Yeah. Yeah. We see it all the time. We see it all the time and it can be pretty stressful. And a lot of times what we'll try to do and go through with people and this even ties into some other previous podcasts, that we'll have from the perspective of, "Hey, my kids are looking to buy a house. I want to give them money for a down payment." And we'll talk about things like, "All right, well, where does that money have to come from? How does it impact your overall plan?"   Nick: So we try to walk it through and we try, we joke where we try not to be the money police and tell people what they can and can't do, but we just help them understand the impact of their decisions and trying to make sure that they do it from a perspective of viewing their retirement first and making sure that they're okay because they also don't want to be a burden down the line for their kids. So it can be a really slippery slope and making sure that the decisions that are made along the way position them to be able to help, but it can be difficult, especially like you said, planning for that 30, 40 year retirement.   Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. And it's a situation where we're just going to continue to see more of it. So having a good strategy, having a good plan is going to be paramount to getting through all these hurdles and things that we've got going on. Because I imagine at the end of the day, nobody comes in and says, "Hey, I'd like to have less of a lifestyle than I have now in retirement." No one wants to go backwards. So you want to make sure that you are having those conversations to move yourself forward or at least maintain into retirement. So that's our topic this week. So we all know things are different than they were 20 or 30 years ago. But when you really start dissecting it, especially from a financial standpoint, there's just a lot to unpack.   Speaker 1: So sit down and have a conversation. If you're not already with a team that can help you like the team at PFG Private Wealth, John and Nick, and the whole team there to get on the counter, reach out to them. (813) 286-7776. If you've got some questions or concerns, reach out on the website if you'd like to as well pfgprivatewealth.com, that's pfgprivatewealth.com. Don't forget to subscribe to the show. Retirement Planning Redefined on your smartphone there. If you've got an Apple phone, for example, Apple Podcasts is already on your phone. You can just open up that app and type in Retirement, Planning Redefined, and subscribe that way or Google or whatever platform you use. Most of that stuff's already pre-installed on your phones anyway, but you can find it all at pfgprivatewealth.com. Guys, thanks for hanging out with me this week. I appreciate it. John. I'm bummed that he's not going to make me a wicker basket.   John: I've been trying to get one, he won't do it.   Nick: I'm not the creative type.   Speaker 1: Not the creative type. All right, guys. Well, thanks for hanging out again. I appreciate it. I'll see you next time. John, take care, buddy.   John: Have a good one.   Speaker 1: We'll see you later. Nick, take care. Have yourself a good week.   Nick: All right. You too. Take care.   Speaker 1: We'll talk to you next time here on Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick from PFG Private Wealth.

In this episode we discuss Redefining Normal. 2:48 Venturing Out So today we're talking about redefining normal and this really was inspired by a conversation we were having. I was mentioning how,  going out into the world now that things are opening up. I mean, they've been opening up for awhile, but I think we've started venturing out more than usual.  KISMA I'd say that's fair.  Nick I even took a trip. I flew across the country, and it was fine, but it's just, it's a little bit sensitive. And so my go-to is like, well, I can just be inside the house and be a hermit and work from there and teach from there and coach from here, you know, like everything. KISMA 3:48 What happens to those three bodies? Many people can resonate with that idea of like, well, let's just stay home and feel all cuddly and cozy and safe and never go out again.  KISMA I think I even more so have that tendency of like being the home body.  Nick Yeah you're more hermity than I am, but I've grown into being quite the hermit over COVID.  KISMA Yeah. I think there's that part of your nature too. That's just like, yeah, we're good. We got everything that we need right here. Nick And we do, I'm so grateful. But then what does that mean for, you know, if we just look at three pieces, your mindset, your physical body and the energy body. If we're not actually out in the world, mindset and you know, emotional body, but if we're not out in the world interacting and being with other humans, what happens to those three bodies? You look at the mental, emotional and the physical and the energy bodies. KISMA 6:40 The inertia sets in So long as you're getting some fresh air and things like that, do all your exercise, you can maintain your body. Like you can do all that stuff. You can maintain a really great immune system in that way and really great health. But you have to make concerted efforts to do it. Well, you know, what we saw over the past year is that certain people did that and certain people didn't. We're not making any of it right or wrong, but you know, people went through their own thing around it and some people got super fired up. We decluttered the whole house. I learned how to cook a lot better, you know, like all sorts of things and, and other people drank a lot and just really kind of closed up in their holes. In TV, again, for all different reasons and we're not making any of it wrong, but that has obviously the physical effect and that inertia sets in. Nick 11:52 Self-trust Not knowing who to trust and that erodes a self-trust. And so now it's like entering back into the world and the trust isn't really there. And I think ultimately, you know, cause I want to give our listeners some tips on how to reboot the whole system so you can have your normal and it's healthy for you. I think self-trust is a really good place to start because if you're not trusting yourself, you won't really know what your true normal is, what a healthy normal is.  KISMA That's right.  Nick So maybe it's spending five to fifteen minutes every day, just kind of anchoring into your core values, your beliefs, whether it's affirmations, whether it's Nick's meditations or my meditations, but to really get centered, you know, for us, it's like, or at least for me, I'd be like connect to Source, connect to God, connect to Universe, remember who you are as this spiritual being, and really bring in that so that you can trust yourself as a human being again, then you can start to trust the world outside or at least trust that you can navigate it. KISMA 16:39 Dysfunction can be very normal I think those are things that are really important. Cause a lot of things are very normal, dysfunction in family is extremely normal. But is that the kind of normal that we want? Nick Exactly.  KISMA And you see it from family to family, like, remember when you were a kid and you know, you do dinner at your house, the way that you do it. And then you go over to your friend's house and it's like radically different. That's like one normal versus another. Nick 18:07 New Normal So when I think about a new normal, I think about it kind of in terms of, well what's really that conducive environment for myself, that's going to help me thrive, help me be more of me and help me do the things that I'm here to do.  Nick That's right. Get to what you want, what you want to do while you're here and create the normal reverse engineer. I like it.  KISMA

In this episode we are talking about The Most Important Thing that No One Wants to Talk About. 1:16 This is Important for Your Journey We're talking about something important that nobody wants to talk about, but if you're on any sort of spiritual journey, personal growth journey, success journey, you got to get this under control. KISMA If you just want to be a little bit happier, this is actually really important for that too. Nick 2:18 The Role it Plays What we're talking about today is shame and the role that it plays in our lives and also how to really start acknowledging it and dealing with it in our lives in a healthy way. Nick Even if we're running little seeds of shame, or vibrations of shame, it pulls us down. KISMA It ties in really closely with guilt and the guilt mechanism to control behavior. So it's a mixed message to start with and the shame is something that's put on to suppress you. Nick 6:47 It’s a Big Deal It's a big deal.  I think one of the first steps in just kind of understanding this is recognizing that basically everybody has some level of this and the degree to which you have will determine just how suppressed certain parts of you are and how suppressed your personality is.  Nick 8:33  What is Shame? Shame is the thing that we use that covers up and suppresses our personality. It's the mask that we put on to hide those parts and to show to the world what we have decided for ourselves is good and worthy of showing to the world. It covers up our humanness and when you cover up your humanness, you never have a chance to get to the essence of your being because you just can't face it. Nick So self love is a long way off and true love from another human is impossible. KISMA Well, yeah, because they're not really loving you. They're loving what little pieces of yourself you've decided to show them. Nick 12:26 Losing What is Not True How does this relate them to this spiritual journey of exiting out of this shame?  KISMA The real essence of a spiritual practice, in my mind, is not about getting anything, but it's about losing everything. Nick  It's about losing what is not true. KISMA Yeah. That's what it's really about. Nick 16:24 True Self If you have shame around just the way you are as a human being then you're going to make it wrong and then you're going to cover it up and then you're going to try to be different. And that's the worst thing that you can do because it takes you further away from the essence and the truth of who you are. You're never going to get to the essence and core of your spiritual being by trying to be somebody else. Nick I think as we go through this process of really finding who we are and wanting to be ourself, when we turn our shoulder against our true self or when we're on this path and all of a sudden it's like, “Oh, I'm not comfortable with that. I'm not going to look at that in me.”, it's because there's a wall of shame or layer of shame. So we miss out on this true self.  KISMA 18:36 Peace Treaty So where does everyone start removing the shame? KISMA I think there's an inherent conflict when you're trying to cover up part of yourself. And when you have shame around that, there's going to be a conflict because there's a part of you that is like trying to do the right thing and there's a part of you that's trying to not do the wrong thing, and those two things are going to fight with one another.  So when you're in that place, there is an exercise called where you go through a process of basically writing a peace treaty with yourself.  What the peace treaty does is help you to really look at yourself and recognize where you're in conflict with yourself. And basically you just stop that. You lay down the arms and you're like, “We're going to stop fighting”. And what you find is that you start to not make so much of yourself wrong and that opens the door for you to start to have some respect for exactly who you are and where you're at right now. It's a serious endeavor in the sense that it's not just a throw away thing that you do once. Like if you're making peace, you have to be actively engaged in that process.  So it's starting to have the awareness of where the negative thoughts, the shaming thoughts, the self-defeating thoughts start to come in, where the conflict starts inside of you and then making a new decision for yourself in it.  And when you have a peace treaty written with yourself, there's a really powerful, energetic thing that happens along with that. Nick 22:51 Make The Decision I think that's a great place to start.  I'll give my tip.  When shame starts coming in, I actually talk to it.  I just say, “Yeah, we're not doing that today. We're not going to do that”. There's something really magical when you just voice. I think it's that conscious mind telling the subconscious not today. There's like a shift in that. You're making and stating a stand for yourself. And I feel like to exit shame, that's what we're doing repeatedly.  We just have to make the decision each and every day.  KISMA

We often see people making certain assumptions about retirement that just aren’t correct. Let’s explore some of those on today's show. Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Marc: Hey, everybody. Welcome into Retirement Planning Redefined. Thanks for hanging out in the podcast with us as we talk investing finance and retirement with John and Nick from PFG Private Wealth. On this episode of the podcast, we're going to talk about not making assumptions reasons, why to never assume. We all do it as humans, but when it certainly comes to retirement, there's some ways and pretty easy ways to just not make these assumptions, but yet it does happen. So we're going to talk through that a little bit, got a couple of bullet points we're going to go over, but first let me say, hey to the guys. What's going on John and Nick? How are you doing John?   John: I'm doing good. I'm doing good. I don't know if I mentioned it on the past podcast, but we moved to a new house and it's been a couple of months and just settling in. So getting some new furniture, which if anyone's ordered furniture recently, everything's back ordered by about two months. So we finally have some of that trickling in and so it's nice to settle into a new place and then getting ready to enjoy it with the weather turning around here.   Marc: Very nice. Yeah. If you bought or tried to buy a lumber as well, holy moly. Lumbers through the roof if you've gone even to just a Lowe's or something to get some plywood. It's pretty crazy. But Nick, what's going on with you? How are you?   Nick: Just staying busy. No complaints. I have a friend coming down to visit. He was one of the early people to get vaccinated, so he's coming down to visit in another week or two. So that'd be kind of cool we'll do everything outside and all that kind of stuff, but to have some sort of activity and a friend in town will be a good time.   Marc: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, good. Well, I'm glad you guys are doing well. So let's jump in and talk about this week's topic, making assumptions. As I mentioned before, I mean, it's common right? We're humans. We do it in all sorts of areas and ways in life, but when we're talking about retirement, there's a few of these that maybe just don't hold water anymore. So let's start with a classic one here guys. I'll spend less when I retire. I mean, we've heard that for a number of years and I get it, but at the same time, I just think with the cost of everything going up, the way it is, and my dad used to tell me when you get to retirement and he got there, he's like, "Every day is a Saturday," and he's like, "I always spend the most money on a Saturday." And I thought that was a good way of looking at it because you're inclined to just do more, at least you want to anyway. That's the goal of retirement right, is to get out there and do those things you've wanted to. Nick: Yeah. Well, one of the things that we oftentimes talk about with people is really the whole goal of this planning process and the work that we put in over the years that are leading up to retirement is to allow you to not have to spend less, to want to spend the same. Maybe you'll pay a little bit less on certain things here and there. Maybe you got the house paid off, but really from a lifestyle standpoint and your analogy that your father used of every day's a Saturday is correct in a lot of ways. And so a lot of times people, depending upon the conversation, people will focus on needs versus wants, but very rarely do people live a lifestyle of needs only. And so, the beauty of planning is we can try to kind of build some of those scenarios in, but ultimately, and we'll kind of say it to people up front is like, "Don't you want to live the same sort of lifestyle, so why don't we budget and plan for that?"   John: Yeah. And we see a lot of people when they go to retire, a lot of those kind of bucket list of vacations happen, and I'll tell you those aren't cheap. So it's kind of it's... we call them what? The go-go years, where it's time to really start doing things and if you plan correctly, you do want to spend the same amount of money if not more, to really start enjoying your Saturdays every day.   Marc: Yeah. And if you think about the go-go years John, in that respect, you're doing more in the first couple of years of retirement, but you're starting... Yeah, maybe there's some trade offs like I think there's some statistics, like people go out to eat more in their thirties, forties and fifties. As you get over 60, you start going out a little bit less and less. And we'll just take COVID out of the equation for right now. And even with that's the case, you're going to start trading that off for other things. So yeah, you might spend less than this category, but you may spend more in another category. So just the general assumption that you're going to spend less in retirement is typically a false one, especially if you are having some dreams and some lofty things that you want to do again, COVID aside or not right? So that's one classic one to ponder. Another one that goes right along with it guys is the taxes will be lower. Typically, we think our tax rate will be lower in retirement and maybe that used to be the norm when the tax rates, there was a wider range in them. I mean, I'm talking 20 or 30 years ago, but I don't know that that's the case anymore. What do you guys see?   John: When we do planning for the most part, I'll say we see taxes drop a little bit, but Nick and I really try to kind of build a worst case scenario and we're historically in very low tax brackets. So when we're doing planning for our clients, we make sure that even if the plan showing lower taxes, that we adjust their plan to taxes do go up. At some point they're going to go up, I'm assuming with all the spending the government is doing, that they can adjust to that. So although we have seen that, we definitely do not make plans based on that and when we run some numbers, we kind of stress test to say, "Hey, what if taxes do go up into retirement?" So one of the big things that we'll see when people retire is they do have a little bit more deduction. You have that deduction of, once you hit 65 on your taxes, and then also you're not paying social security tax anymore because there's no more earned income. So that tax does get lowered, but from an income tax standpoint, maybe a little bit, but again, not enough to really say, "Hey, I'm going to be spending a lot more because my taxes are lower."   Nick: It can also very much be a production of how you have saved over the years. So for example, if maybe you're eligible for a pension and you have a pension which is going to be fully taxable when you receive it plus the money that you saved has gone all to pre-tax accounts, to pre-tax 401k, pre-tax IRA and you don't happen to have any Roth accounts or any accounts that are what we would refer to as non-retirement non-qualified accounts, that can have a significant impact as well. So it's not as simple as a total income number. It can also be, "Where is the income coming from and how does that impact the overall situation?" And just like John said, the probability of taxes going up in the future is fairly high with the debt levels and those sorts of things.   Marc: Yeah. I mean, just some quick numbers. Right now, I think it's around 75% or so the federal budget is allocated towards entitlement programs. I mean, think about that. So what's it going to be 10 years from now? And that's not factoring into your guys' point, some of the stimulus stuff. So it's going to continue to be a situation where I think everybody's in the same agreement that it's going up. It's just a matter of when, when they're going to do it or whatever the case is. So being prepared and not just making that assumption again, that you'll be in a lower tax bracket. That's the goal if you're working with a good team and working with guys like yourself to get to plan, to keep your taxes as low as possible. That's always the goal, but just don't assume it's going to happen.   Marc: Let's talk about the college conversation, guys. We'll try to stay away from those, "Should it be paid off or should it not be by the government," well, if we can. But just in general, the thought from a retiree standpoint, especially for people who've had kids later in life and they really want to help them with retirement... or excuse me with college, that's great. We all love our kids. We all want to do things, but at some point, do you guys see a situation where people can put themselves behind the eight ball for their own retirement and now they're becoming a burden on their kids later in life because you've sacrificed your own retirement to help them get started? That's a slippery slope.   John: Yeah. So actually oddly enough, I just had this conversation today where a client had some money that was freed up and their kids are young and they're in daycare. So there's some extra money now that they're going to school. I mean, the question is, "Hey, what should I do with that?" And part of the conversation was, let's start looking at your overall retirement plan to see what that looks like before you start socking away all this money into a 529 plan or any other college savings plan because there are loans for college. There's no loans for retirement.   Marc: Right. Maybe a reverse mortgage will be about the only thing way you could finance a retirement. Maybe right? But that's totally another conversation for another day.   John: Yeah. And when the kids get to that point of school, depending on how you structure your retirement assets, there are some ways that you can access those retirement funds to help them pay for school. And kind of the way I view it is that you can tap those funds to pay for school and still kind of maintain your retirement. So it's always something you really want to take a look at and just plan for and be prepared.   Nick: Yeah. I would say that our default is, typically save first for yourself and for your retirement and then we can build in strategies and structures for saving for college expenses for the kids. We really don't know what that space is going to look like 10 or 15 or even 20 years from now, whether college will be fully required for everything or what sort of programs will be put in place, even the ways that students will be able to qualify for things like financial aid and those sorts of things. And so, anytime a plan is too heavily focused in one area, we oftentimes see mistakes. And so it's difficult with this conversation because it can be a very personal conversation. Oftentimes, it's based upon the client's experience when they were children, whether or not they had to go through it themselves.   Nick: And that can go both ways like, "Hey, I don't want this burden to be on them," or, "Hey, I learned a lot by having to do that and I'd like my kids to do the same sort of thing." And so just like so many other topics, we really try to talk about the financial side of things and help them understand the impacts in that space and then get their feedback on their personal feelings about it, and then try to find a way to kind of mold those two together to make it make sense from both a preferential and personal standpoint as well as a financial standpoint.   Marc: That's a great point. Yeah, exactly. Because it can be, and everybody [inaudible 00:10:29]. it's almost like the same conversation around legacy planning right? Some folks say, "I don't want to leave anything to the kids because they're doing just fine," and others say, "I want to leave as much as I can." So yeah, it becomes a very personal conversation, but just be careful because what we've seen over the last couple of years is people sacrificing a little too much. And then again, like I said, it comes back around and you wind up being a burden. You're in your seventies and you need help with retirement and now you're trying to lean on your adult kids who are maybe just starting their own families. And so it's just a slippery slope. So just be careful.   Nick: Yeah. And one other thing on that. You pointed out the legacy planning and that's kind of a good point because, and we consider that factoring in the overall throughout the whole planning. But a lot of times what we will see are, "Hey, we paid for school so we are going to spend our money in retirement and use our money in retirement," or the vice versa where it's like, "Hey, we didn't help out with school so we'd like to make sure that we leave some money." So again, it's a multi-tiered sort of conversation. And ultimately, we always try to focus on control. Be in control of your own money, be able to have as much of an impact as you can on your own personal decisions. And so, sometimes knowing like, "Well, hey. If I can help them out down the line afterwards, that may be a way to "make up" for not having put away as much money for their education or whatever."   Marc: That's a good way of looking at it. And again, it's all very personal things. So just, again, the topic this week on the podcast, it's just not making the assumption that you have to help your kids through college before you worry about retirement savings because they can get you into a bit of a pickle. One more here, guys, on the main topic this week, and that's the classic "I'll never be able to retire" kind of assumption. And I think what we find, and you guys tell me what you see in your practice is many people just assume that and they never take the time to sit down and go through a planning process and find out if they're right or wrong because they are just terrified and they're assuming they're going to be wrong. And more times than not, they're actually not. People find that they're in better shape than they thought they were when they go through the process typically.   John: Yeah, I would agree with that. Nick and I do the classes and a lot of those people are kind of in that position, it's time to start looking at it. And we've had a lot of scenarios where people feel that they haven't done enough. And when we do the plan, it's, "Hey, you're on track and it looks really good," and it produces a nice kind of sense of relief for some of those individuals. I definitely will say, never assume that and it's better to take a look at it sooner rather than later because if it's vice versa where you need to start saving more, we do find that people in their fifties, kids have moved out. They're kind of off the payroll. And now if there's a time to really catch up, it's going to be in your fifties to sixties. So it's really important to build that plan, see where you're at and if you're on track, great. Let's enhance that to give you more flexibility down the road and if you're not on track, now is the time to really... it's better to start planning sooner rather than later versus, "Hey, once you hit 60 and it's like, your working years-"   Marc: It's going to be harder right?   Nick: Yeah. And just like so many things in life, we've had conversations with people like this. And the reality is, is that we can't change the past. So we really try to emphasize the present and the future and decisions that can be made moving forward. It can be difficult for us as advisors sometimes because ultimately, we tell clients, "We can't care more about your money in your retirement than you do." So the number one factor in this whole thing is that it has to be an important thing for you and you have to be motivated to make changes if you are behind the ball and we'll absolutely help you get there, but I would say one of the biggest mistakes that we'll see is that people get paralyzed by the concern about mistakes that they've made in the past, and then all of a sudden, it's five years, 10 years later and they've just really doubled up on the mistakes. And so the sooner you can make changes the better and less focused on the past and more focused on the present and the future.   Marc: Absolutely. So some good points to ponder there as we're talking about not making assumptions for retirement. And of course, if you've got questions or some concerns, you need a little bit of help, you want to get a second opinion on a plan you might have, or even the first opinion if you've never taken the time to do so, reach out to the team, go to the website, pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com. You can click on the podcast link right there at the top of the page. There's a blog. And there's a contact section where you can send us an email to the show if you'd like to do that as well. You can find all those goodies at pfgprivatewealth.com. And like I said, if you want to send an email question, feel free to do so. And we've got one this week, we're going to toss out to you guys. Bo sent one and he said, "Fellas, I need about $5,000 to live on each month in retirement and my social security and pension is looking about to be $5,300 a month. You think that means I can leave my 401k behind to my son? What do you guys think?" Nick: So there's a couple of things with this question. Ultimately backing up a little bit, we're always concerned when people provide flat numbers like this. I think I've been doing this since '07 and John you've probably been doing it at least as long, I think an an extra year. I don't know if I've ever seen anybody come in with $5,000 a month flat on expenses. It's an awfully convenient number. And so first thing-   Marc: Well, he does say, "I need a [inaudible 00:15:58]," I guess, so we'll give him the benefit, but yeah.   Nick: The first thing that we like to do is kind of peel back those numbers and make sure one of the things that we've learned kind of throughout these years of doing this are that sometimes when people post questions like this, some people think pre-tax and some people think net of taxes. And so first backing up to see in reality, depending upon how they're calculating the numbers, that $5,000 expense number might actually be closer to 6,000 or 6,500. And then the social security and the pension numbers may be net versus gross. So the first things that we'll make sure that they understand will be, from a cost of living standpoint and projecting out the numbers for the social security, are they using a cost of living and which number are they using it? And then for the pension also, the same thing. I would say at this point, depending upon where the pension's coming from, if it's coming from a private company, typically we don't see cost of living's built in. If it's coming from some sort of like state or a municipality employee, then there will be some cost of living's built into that.   Nick: So making sure that they calculate inflation on both income and expenses is going to be a huge deal. So as far as being able to leave the money, the first conversation that we're going to have with them about specifically, "Hey, am I going to be able to leave my 401k money behind?" We'll be making sure that they understand how required minimum distributions work and what that looks like. So as an example, making sure that they understand that starting at age 72, they're going to have to start pulling money out of their account so that the government can tax that from an income standpoint. And that doesn't mean that the client has to spend that money. It means that they will pull it out so that they can pay the taxes and then either they can save it or they could spend it.   Nick: So just like so many other things, it's a pretty nuanced... it's a question that on the surface seems super simple like, "Hey, I did the math. My income is 5,300. My expenses are 5k. I look great. Let's just plug along. And my goal is going to be to leave my money behind for my son." So kind of diving into making sure that they first understand how those factors are going to work from a planning standpoint with things like inflation, how they understand that the required minimum distributions are going to work, pulling that money out and then really focusing and drilling down on if it's very important for them to leave money, for Bo to leave money to his son.   Nick: Let's figure out what might be... is that the best way to leave the money or are there other things that we could do to leave that money? Like for example, does it make sense for him to start doing conversions to convert his traditional money to a Roth account, which can be a much more effective tool to be able to leave? What sort of income bracket is his son in? If he leaves pre-tax money, is that going to be a tax bomb for him? Those sorts of things. So on the surface, it looks like a very kind of basic question, but in reality, we're going to have to peel back and look at kind of the other factors and then really strategize to figure out ultimately what's the goal and can we find more efficient ways to accomplish that goal?   Marc: Yeah, exactly. I think the first thing that I thought when I read that was 5,000 now, what is it going to be in 10 years? So with inflation, I mean that 5,000 might be 10, so who knows? So some good thoughts there for Bo to consider. Thanks so much for the question. We certainly appreciate it. Nick, thanks for handling that one. And that's going to do it this week here on the podcast. Again, if you've got questions or concerns before you take any action, you should always check with a qualified professional like John and Nick at PFG Private Wealth. Give them a call at (813) 286-7776 or stop by the website, pfgprivatewealth.com. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast, Retirement Planning Redefined. You can find all that information at the website. Of course, you can also just search it out on Apple, Google, Spotify, or whatever platform you like to use. And for John, Nick, I'm your host Mark. We'll see you next time here on the show. And this has been Retirement Planning Redefined.

In this episode we are talking about How to Give Feedback to Close Friends and Partners Without Seeming Critical. 3:45 Giving and Receiving Feedback I think it is a real skill to be able to give feedback in a really clear way. Nick And of course, on the other end, you really have to have the skin to take it and use what's valuable and if you disagree with it, you let it go. KISMA 4:52 It’s a Human Thing So I could make this episode really short and just say don't give feedback.   Like, why do you think it's up to you to give feedback?  Let’s start here because it is kind of this weird phenomenon that we humans go around life feeling that we need to tell people our thoughts without being asked. So everyone just take a breath there. It's a human thing where we go around feeling like we have to tell people our thoughts and opinions about them without being asked.  KISMA I didn't expect that to be your first one, but I think you're right. Nick 7:50 Opt Out or Opt In Well I think the starting point is to not make somebody wrong and check yourself. Who are you to give the feedback? We have to go there because otherwise it starts to get really messy. It gets messy karmically, it gets messy ego wise. And there's a lack of respect to the other person.  And then if you think there's something that they are doing, saying, or being, and you really feel like you can help, you've got to ask permission to share. You simply have to respect the human enough to ask permission.  KISMA I think giving people an opt out or an opt in is really helpful. It goes back to the art of allowing which is so important. Nick 10:18 Start With One Thing Once they’ve given you permission to share, you probably have a list of 10 things that you could tell them, but start with just one thing. KISMA That is brilliant advice. It's so easy to over teach overshare, give them a whole litany of things or a whole five step plan, but think about how you would receive that. It’s kind of overwhelming. Nick And all of a sudden it all goes out the window. KISMA 13:00 Cut Cords and Let Go After sharing, cut cords and let go. That's the biggest piece.  KISMA 17:30 Do They Even Want Your Feedback? I want to share one more thing before we close out this episode on giving feedback. There are moments when I am listening to certain friends or family members I will stop and say, “Hey, before you get going, do you want me to just listen? Am I just a sounding board because you need to vent? Or do you want my opinion?” Finally, if they said they just want to vent and they vent and I sense something is really off, I can then say, “Hey, I'm sensing something. I'm hearing something. If you're interested, I could share. And it doesn't have to be today, but I have a couple of ideas. So just let me know when you want me to text those over to you or have another quick call.” KISMA That's so cool.  A lot of folks are living life in problem solving mode. So it's really easy to drop in with that when sometimes people just need to be heard. If they just want to vent, it takes off so much pressure because you don't have to solve anything. And if they want to hear your feedback then you get to drop in in a different way and really listen with different ears.  Nick  So there you are everyone.  Thank you for listening to Illumination Podcast with Nick and KISMA.

In this episode we are talking about Why Bad Things happen in 3s. 3:14 Does This Really Happen? We are diving into why bad things happen in threes. “As far as I know, bad things happen in threes.”  We hear this all the time and I think it's interesting to look at. Does this really happen? Do we create it or is it the force of nature? KISMA Personally, I do believe bad things happen in threes, but I also believe that we create that circumstance. Nick So in other words, they don't have to happen in threes. KISMA They don't have to. Nick 4:06 It Starts with Perception It's important to really understand why bad things can happen in threes. Like why is this even a thing that happens for some people? Nick It starts with perception. The moment that we perceive something as bad, our thoughts flow towards it in a stronger method creating what we call thought flow.  You then start to almost train yourself to see the next bad thing.  KISMA 10:12 Your Attitude is Key So what do we do? What can somebody do when something happens that they don't want to experience?  KISMA Your attitude towards the circumstance is the real master key to it. The best attitude that's going to keep you on an upward trajectory and keep you more in a flow is actually a mindset of, “Oh, well I guess this is exactly what I needed.” Nick Even if you don't know why you needed it. KISMA 16:46 Self Inquiry When you say “This must be what needed to happen”, maybe you have to lift your head out of the water a little bit higher, maybe you have to look out in front, or also take a look at yourself and ask, “Why am I causing this? Why did I attract it?”.   You’re not making it wrong, but just be willing to have a further self inquiry. KISMA 21:15 A Miracle Right in Front of You So here's to you having amazing events. Know that you're a divine operating system and there might be a miracle right in front of you. KISMA

We were lucky enough to have Nick Santonastasso come to my house and wrestle with me, and give my kids a private workshop. Listen in behind the scenes and hopefully it will change your life like it did ours. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- What's up everybody. This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. And Oh boy, do I have a treat for you guys today. So the guest for the podcast is my new friend and wrestling partner, Nick Santonastasso. And he's someone who I had a chance to... I've seen him online a whole bunch of times and a whole bunch of different places. And then he reached out to me out of the blue and said, "Hey, Russell, come out and interview for my podcast." And I knew that he wrestled, and I was like, "Dude. Yes." And I was excited. I'm like, "Yeah, I love your message. Love who you are. I love what you stand for." And he's like, "If you want I'll actually fly out to Boise." And at the time I was just sitting in my wrestling room, I knew he's a wrestler. And I was like, "Dude, how about this? You come out and then you can interview me for your podcast. And then I'll actually wrestle you in my wrestling room?" And he was like, "Yeah, that'd be amazing." And so we planned this whole thing out. And the week before Thanksgiving, he flew out here to Boise and I did an interview for his podcast. And then we came back to my wrestling room and wrestled. And obviously, my entire family wanted to meet him and to see him. If you haven't met Nick before, he has no legs and he only has one arm, and his story is amazing. And the fact that he was a wrestler is even cooler. And so me and him wrestled. And after we got into wrestling, we had so much fun, then everyone, my kids and my wife and my parents were there and everybody had a million questions for him. So I said, "How about this? Let's do a little mini seminar with my kids to be willing to." And he's like, "Sure." And so we pulled up the mats and the crash pads and the box jumps, and we had everybody sit on them, and then Nick had a chance to tell us some of the story and talk to the kids at a really cool level. And it was really fun. One of my kids was really nervous asking questions. He thought I was going to get mad at him. Anyway, it's fun. You have a chance to hear from kids, you ask him questions and hear Nick's story. And I hope that you love it. It was one of the highlights of my year, super special opportunity for me and for my family to have a chance to meet someone like Nick and to hear his story. And it's just a huge blessing that I think he gave me to be able to have him talk to my kids. And so I wanted to share this with you guys, because a lot of you guys have kids, a lot of you guys are kids and a lot of you guys have different situations. And I hope that some of the things that Nick shared with me and my family, it'll mean a lot to you as well. So with that said, we're going to cue the theme song. And we come back, you have a chance to sit in, into a private discussion with my kids and Nick as they talk about life, motivation about doing your best, a whole bunch of other cool things. So with that said, we'll cue the theme song. We'll be right back. Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. I'm here in our wrestling room right now with a bunch of my kids and cousins and friends, because we've got a special guest in town, in Boise today who I just got done wrestling, which was so much fun. And this is Nick. We had a great time. And thanks for coming and hanging out with us here in Boise and talking to all the kids. Nick Santonastasso: You got it. Russell: So kind of the game plan we want to do is I wanted my kids to get to know him and hear some of his stories and stuff for so many reasons. And so I'd love to begin with, if you want to tell them little about your story, about your life, growing up wrestling, and just some of the background. And then I got some cool questions about other stuff I want to talk about too. Nick: Yeah. Great. It's pretty open-ended when he said share your story. I got a long story. And so I'll give you a little context of why I was born like this. And yes, I was born like this. I didn't wrestle no sharks or anything. I see we got some laughs. I'm 24 years old. In 1996, my mom went in for a late ultrasound, and a ultrasound is where they see the baby inside the stomach. And they sat my parents down and said, "Something's really wrong." And they said, "From the looks of it, it doesn't look like your baby's limbs are being developed. It looks like he's missing his legs, his arm, and his face might be messed up." Clearly, my face isn't messed up. Right? And so what they did was they classified me with what they call Hanhart syndrome. And Hanhart syndrome is a super rare genetic disorder that either leaves the babies with undeveloped limbs or undeveloped organs. And so that means the babies are either born with a heart that can't beat on its own or their stomach can't process food on its own, and they later on pass away. And so they told my parents that their baby boy has about a 30% chance to live. And so I was born and the test of my organs came back 100% healthy, and the only thing that was affected were my limbs. And so I was born in this unicorn body of no legs and one arm. And all my organs are 100% healthy. Always the lesson behind that is the doctor said it had about a 30% chance to live. And my parents made a massive promise. And that promise was that they were going to focus on the 30% chance of me living rather than the what? Dallin: You dying. Nick: Exactly. You dying. Exactly. The aggressive way to say it. And so the 70% of me dying. Exactly. And so in life, that's the... Ooh, careful. I know you beat me up earlier, but stay on here. And so the little lesson is, would you agree that in your life, there's always something bad that you can focus on? Would you agree? And would you agree that there's always something good that you can focus on? And so the majority of humans, and you can agree, the majority of adults always focus on the negative stuff. And so if we can train our brain to always focus on the good things, then we always win. And so that was how I was born. And then getting into wrestling, when I got into middle school and high school, which some of you, when you get into middle school and high school, at that time, a big portion of life was boyfriends and girlfriends. Awkward phase, getting into middle school and high school. I see people getting awkward. It's awkward. And so I felt like I stood out. Well, I clearly stood out because I have no legs, one arm. And there was a specific moment where I was on the bus and there was a girl to the left of me and she was making fun of everyone on the bus. And I'm like, "Oh my God, she's going to have a field day with me." And she looked over to me and she said, "Nick, I don't even have to start with you. You're already too messed up anyway. Look at you." And I'm only a 14, 15 year old kid. And the first question that pops in my head is, why me? Have you ever asked yourself, like, "Why is this happening to me?" And so I asked myself, "Why is this happening to me?" And from that moment of one girl making fun of me, I thought things like, "Oh, I'm disgusting. I'll never have a girlfriend. I'll never go to a school dance. I'll never be able to walk my girlfriend to her locker because I can't walk. And she want to hold my finger. Is that weird?" I just started thinking about all these negative things. And so for the majority of my life, I felt my body, my no legs and one arm was the most disgusting thing, the biggest curse that life could give me. And then I was able to reframe it. And what reframing is, is say you have a bad event happen in your life. And I had the same thing happen to me. You could see all the good and I could see all the bad, it's what we focus on, yes? And so I realized a couple of years later that if a girl doesn't want to be my girlfriend, or if someone doesn't want to do business with me because of my no legs, one arm, well, wait, maybe this disability or whatever you want to call it is actually working for me and it's filtering out the type of human and womens that I don't want in my life anyway. And so when you show up authentic, when you show up transparent and you show up yourself, would you agree that the universe makes it very easy to see who's your friend and who's not your friend? I mean, have you ever had a situation in school where you thought someone was your friend and they no longer was? Has that ever happened? And that means that we don't want those people in our life. And then you also have people in your life that love on you. Anyone have good friends here? I hope. Raise your hands. That's because you show up yourself. And so I have a quote on my arm. It says, "You laugh at me because I'm different. I laugh at you because you're all the same." And that's not me making fun of people with legs and arms, but what I'm saying is the best thing you could be, the most authentic thing you could be as who? Who do you think? Were you listening? You. You. You show up, Norah, and you're the greatest Norah that the world has ever seen, because you are you. And so we're going to grow up and people are going to like us and people are not going to like us. Who agrees with that? But as long as you show up yourself, the universe makes it really easy to find out who loves you for you and who doesn't love you for you. Russell: That's awesome. Nick: Facilitator, where else would you like to go? Russell: So now we're in high school, struggling with high school stuff. And you told me your older brother's a wrestler, and you wanted to do that. I'd love to hear the story about wrestling, why you got involved in that. Nick: Yeah. So my older brother was a wrestler. He's a really good wrestler and I thought wrestlers were the coolest thing on earth. And so when I got into high school, I was looking for a way to build more confidence in myself, because I didn't have much confidence. And so I wanted to do something that was going to make me feel really good about myself. And so I wanted to become an athlete after my whole life people said, "Nick, you can't be an athlete. You can't do sports. You have no legs, one arm." And so, one day I came into school, my friend said, "Nick, you should try wrestling." And I said, "I can't my arm." And this, we call it the potato. It looks like a potato now. But it used to look like a chicken wing. You believe it? Do you believe it? And the reason why it looked like a chicken wing is because this arm was five inches longer than it is now. And my bone was going faster than my skin. So it was super sensitive. And the bottom line is if I would have hit my arm hard enough, my bone would've came through my skin. Yeah, crazy. Right. And so I couldn't do any physical activities with it. And so one day I came home and I said, "Mom and dad, I want to become a wrestler." And they said, "You can't, your arm." And then I looked at my parents and I said, "Can we cut my arm off?" And they said, "What?" And I said, "Yeah, I'm not joking. Can we cut my arm off? Can we do something about it?" And they said, "Is this something that you really want to do?" And I said, "It's going to make me an athlete. I'll be able to wrestle. I'll have more confidence in myself." And so my sophomore year of high school, my parents scheduled the appointment for the doctors to amputate my arm. And so I have these scars here, but what they did was, I didn't know they could do this, but they lasered five inches of my bone off. And then they pulled extra skin. Now you're taller than me. Then they pulled extra skin from my shoulder over my bone so I could beat people up with it. I remember right before I went into surgery, I said, "Doc, if I can't beat someone over the head with my arm when I come back, we're going to have a problem. I need to be able to do some physical activities with this thing." And so I went throughout the surgery and I go back to school. I had 17 stitches in my arm and I was the happiest kid that just cut his arm off. I go back to school, smiling. And people are like, "Nick, what'd you do?" I'm like, "I cut my arm off. It's great." And they said, "Why?" And I said, "I'm going to become a wrestler." And people made fun of me. They said, "Nick, how are you going to become a wrestler? You have no legs and one arm." And so I went out and I became a wrestler. My junior year, I got my butt kicked. And then my senior year, I was able to come out as the 106 pound varsity wrestler from my high school. And would you agree that that would probably instilled confidence in me and I'd probably feel a little bit better about myself, I'm an athlete, maybe the girls would like me? That's my thought process as a 16, 17 year old kid. And then the app, Vine came out. Y'all know what Vine is? You remember Vine? You remember Vine? Vine was an app that you could post six second videos. Raise your hand if you know what Vine is. Adults, raise your hand if you know what Vine is. All right, I'm going to educate you. So Vine was an app in 2014. I was a senior in high school where you can post six second videos. You had to be as creative as you can in six seconds. And so I wanted to create a way where I could make people laugh, but inspire them at the same time. And I wanted to do something that has never been done before. And so I was with my friends like this, and we're thinking of an idea. And I said, "I got an idea." I said, "How many legless guys do you see crawling around Walmart, pretending to be a zombie?" Bowen: Propped up just like that and siting in a elevator or something? Nick: That was me. And so I said, "That's a great idea." And so I'm a senior in high school and I put fake blood on my face and I put fake blood on my clothes, and I set out to my local Walmart in New Jersey, which Nick's not allowed in that Walmart anymore. And I go down the aisles and I'm looking for my victim, and I see this guy, he's heavily invested in the paper towels. And I looked at my camera guy, I go, "Record this. I'm going to try to scare him." And so I came around the corner as fast as I could like this. And he goes, "Oh," he threw the paper towels at my face. And I looked at my camera guy. I go, "Was that six seconds?" He goes, "Yes." I'm like, "Yes, this is just what the internet needs." And so I apologized to the guy. I told him I wasn't a zombie and that I'm really alive. And, "Thanks for letting me prank you." And I told my friends, "Pick me up and carry me out of Walmart before we get kicked out." And so I posted the video and I wanted 500 kids to see the video. I wanted to get 500 views. I posted the video and I went to sleep. And when I woke up for school, the next morning, the video had over 80,000 likes and over 80,000 reposts. I go back to school, my friends were like, "Dude, you're the zombie king." And I'm like, "What did I get myself into?" And so in under a year, my senior year I gained a million followers on Vine and the owners of The Walking Dead, the TV show hired me to fly out to Tokyo, Japan, to scare the main actor of The Walking Dead as a zombie. And so, the lesson in this, don't try to crawl around Walmart. It probably won't work for you, but would you agree that we all have unique gifts, unique ways, unique ways to make people laugh, inspire them? For me it was crawling around Walmart at the time, but we all have unique gifts. As you said, God gives us unique gifts and we have to use those. And so I use my unique body to scare people and make them laugh at the same time, which led me into going out on the internet and gaining a bunch of followers. And then I realized at one point that when I have kids and grandkids, that I want them to know me for much more than crawling around a Walmart. So I did what every kid with no legs and one arm kid would do, is I tried out for bodybuilding, said, no one ever. A lot of the times in bodybuilding, they say you have to focus on your legs, but most bodybuilders skip leg day anyway. And so I fit right in. Where do you want to go from here? But that's my zombie prank story. And so some of you may have seen my zombie pranks. You've seen them? Ryker: I've seen the one where you crawl in Walmart. Nick: Yeah. So that was high school Nick. I've evolved. I've come a long way from scaring people in Walmart. Russell: That's cool. So you got into bodybuilding and then I just wonder, because one of things I think a lot of us people don't do is we dabble in things. Like, "Oh, we'll try this. I'm going to try this and try this." But when you decided, "I'm going to be a bodybuilder," it wasn't just dabbling, right? You shifted your environment, shifted everything. You want to talk about the process there and what you did to be successful? Nick: Yeah. What humans have, we all have it is shiny objects into syndrome, kind of like Norah. You like shiny objects, right? Stars and bells and whistles and all humans like that. And so we try to do one thing and we're like, "Oh, maybe I want to try this over here." And so when I wanted to become a bodybuilder, I was living in New Jersey and it's very cold in New Jersey most of the time. And so I moved to Florida because it's... Have you ever been to Florida, anyone? We got to get you to Florida. I know Boise is great, but I mean, Florida is great too. And so I moved to Florida and I wanted to become a bodybuilder. And the first thing I did was found a really big muscle dude. And I said, "Will you teach me how to body build? You look like you know what you're doing." And that's what we do in business, is if we want to do something, we find out someone who's successful and we model them. And the reason being is because we don't have to reinvent the wheel, we don't have to recreate something. We just find someone who's successful and we learn from them. And so I attempted to become a bodybuilder. And when I moved to Florida, I told everyone, over a million people that followed me that before 2017 was over, I was going to step or hop on the competitive bodybuilding stage before the year was over. And so I did a 12 week preparation and I dedicated 12 weeks of my life to training and health and fitness. And I was 10 weeks into my prep, and I went to Vegas for an expo. And one of the days I went to the gym. Do you guys know The Rock? Everyone: Yeah. Nick: So The Rock was in the gym when I was at the gym and I've been blowing him up with bodybuilding videos for years. And so he already knew who I was. And so I go in the gym and low behold, there's Dwayne, The Rock Johnson. And he's surrounded by four security guards. And he's working out. I'm like, "Oh my God, it's The Rock." And I told my friends, I said, "Let's not bother this man." I stick out like a sore thumb. If he sees me, he's going to know who Nick is. And so after about 45 minutes of lifting, his security guard comes over and taps me on my shoulder and says, "You're Nick, right?" I said, "Not many people look like this. I'm Nick." And he goes, "Can Dwayne meet you?" I was like, "Dude, bring him on. I've been waiting all this time." And so they bring me over into the corner and they bring The Rock over and The Rock gets on my level or tries his best to get on my level. And he goes, "Dude, I'm such a big fan. Can I have a picture with you?" And on the outside, I'm like, "Sure, bro." But on the inside and I'm like, "Oh my God, it's Dwayne The Rock Johnson." Fangirling. And so we took a picture and I blurted out all my goals to him. I said, "I'm going to be the first Calvin Klein model with no legs. I'm going to write a book. I'm going to speak all over the world." And he said, "Nick, you're right, because people like you and I, they put us in any industry and we adapt and overcome." And all of us, would you agree with COVID and during this weird time, we've all adapted? We do school differently. We hang out with friends differently. Would you agree, we all have adapted? And so the more that we exercise the muscle of doing things differently, the more successful we'll be when we're adults. And so after that, I went back to Florida and I competed in bodybuilding against full-bodied guys. And I took third. I beat full body guys in bodybuilding, but I was telling Russell that I competed in the category where they don't judge your legs. That was important, because I don't got legs, I don't want them to judge my legs. And so I competed and I took third and I was the first man with no legs, one arm to jump on a bodybuilding stage. And the quote that I use is, "Over the 24 years of my life, I realized it's not the physical body that holds us back. But the biggest disability you can have," what do you think it is? "Your mindset." Great job. You guys rock. Russell: Awesome. The next thing we'll talk to you about is I know in your company you have a program that goes over a year long, Victorious, right? Nick: Yep. Russell: And each month covers a different letter. So I'd love just today and then probably out of time after that, but talking about the V and what that is in victorious. Victorious, right? Nick: Yeah. Junior Victorious. Russell: Yeah. And just talk about that for these guys because I think that's the first step for a lot of these guys when they're planning goals in sports or school, or any of their things they're trying to become. Nick: Yeah. So Junior Victorious, I created it because people like me and Russell, if we have all the knowledge and we don't give it to kids, then what's the use of it? Because we're not going to be around forever. That's just reality. And so we have to teach young people like you, so you can come, go and take over the world when you grow up. And so Victorious, basically the first month is V which stands for vision. And what vision is, is getting really clear on what you want in life. I think you can agree that the majority of humans don't really know what they want in life. They go to work or they go to school and don't really know why. Their first answer is, "I have to," but there's a deeper reason why you go to school. You probably want to be something, you want to do something with your life. And so V is getting clear. Say, you're an athlete. It's like, how many wins do you want to have? How many hours a day do you want to drill? What grades do you want to get? Does anyone know what they want to be when they're older? Curious. No idea. You got something, in the pink? Dallin: I would say it, but I don't think my dad would like it though. Nick: Got it. Maybe we'll skip over that one. But a vision. Are you okay? So vision basically is just getting very clear on what you want. And the reason why... Do you like cars? Dallin: Yeah. Nick: What kind of cars do you like? What kind of car do you want? You don't know? Dallin: Just one that goes fast. Nick: Yeah, exactly. So if he says, "I want a car and the one that goes fast," he's not going to get it because he doesn't know what car he wants. so the more clear that he can get on what car he wants, who agrees that he'll get the car faster because he knows exactly what he wants? That's a perfect example of all human beings. They want things, but they don't really know what they want. Right? Dallin: Yeah. Nick: And so next time I come back to Boise, I want you to have a specific car that you want so we can go get that car. Is that cool? I'm not buying it. Russ will buy it. But so getting very clear on what you want. And so it's like, who do you want to be? What kind of job do you want to work? What kind of college do you want to go to? What kind of school do you want to be? And the more clear that you can get on things, the faster that you'll get them. That's why, for example, if you wanted a specific car, adults help me out here because kids are a little bit difficult. Have you ever wanted a specific car and you were driving down the road and it was the only car you saw? I don't wear dresses, but women, have you ever wanted a specific dress and you finally got that dress and then you saw a bunch of other women that had the same dress? It's because your brain will go to what you want. That's why people who are depressed or people who are sad, they'll always be sad because they're always focused on the bad in their life. They're not focused on the good. And so our brain is extremely powerful because say you and I were very heavily invested in real estate, and they were whispering a conversation about real estate, we would hear it because our brain would pick up on it because that's where our focus is. That's why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The poor always focus on all the bad in their life, and the rich are focused on the opportunities. And so your brain is a computer. What you focus on, you will get more of. And so if you're always focused on, why me, or why is this happening to me? Or why does my life suck? Your brain will always come up with answers of why your life sucks. Who sees that? But if you ask yourself the question of, why am I amazing? Why did I get beat by Norah during the wrestling match? Or why is my life amazing? Your brain will always find the answer. And that's the thing. Our brain is a problem solving computer. And so it always looks for problems to solve. And you know this, if you're sitting around in your house and you don't have a problem, your brain will think of a problem and you'll try to solve it just because that's the way the brain works. And so I'll give you an easy example. If I woke up every single day, a man with no legs, one arm, and I focused on the fact that I'll never become a professional soccer player, will I be happy or sad? Quick. Everyone: Sad. Nick: Sad, right? I'm never become a professional soccer player. That's reality. But if I focus on what are my unique strengths, how can I make people laugh? How can I inspire them? What does my life look like then? It's better, right? That's where my focus is. Like Tony says where focus goes... Russell: Energy flows. Nick: Energy flows. They're a tough crowd. Russell: Okay. Next one. What questions do you guys have for Nick? Ryker? Ryker: How do you drive a car? Nick: That's a great question. So I drive a car, regular wheel. He's probably laughing because he doesn't think I could drive a car. So he just got proved wrong real quick. That's like teenage years, they try to test people. And so I drive a car with a regular wheel. That's why he's getting embarrassed. That's why you drive a car with a regular wheel. And then I have a little lever and I push the lever for brake and I push the level over for gas. And actually I have videos of me drifting my race car around the parking lot. Great question. Russell: There's another question here. Nick: You got one? Dallin: No. Nick: Okay. I'm just making sure. Aiden? Aiden: What's your favorite food? Nick: Great question. You want to guess? Aiden: I don't know. Nick: I like spaghetti. I'm Italian. My parents gave me a lot of spaghetti as a kid. You like spaghetti? What to go eat spaghetti after this? We can ditch this thing, get some spaghetti. That was a great question. Russell: Any other questions you guys have? We're super lucky to have him here. Bradley: I've got a question. How do you battle the fear of when you're trying to start something new or try something? How do you overcome the fear of trying something new? Nick: That's a great question. I'll give you a little story to help paint the picture. So they'd done a study on skydivers. And basically, they hooked the heart monitor up to skydivers. And so when they fly them up in the plane, their heart is going really fast. They're getting super nervous. "Oh my God." And then the moment that they jump out of the plane, their heart goes back to the normal speed. And so how do we eliminate fear? We take action. And so a lot of the times Russell and I are probably scared to do new things. Well, you're not scared to launch new funnels. You're a master at it. But launching new things, we're very scared. But I'd much rather attempt at my dreams and my goals and be on the sideline, hoping, wishing and regretting. Because at the end of the day, we only have one life for all we know. And there's so many people that are sitting on the sideline of life, making fun of people, bashing them. "You can't do this, you can't do that." But I'd much rather be on the mat rather than on the sideline. And also, realizing that failure is just feedback. A lot of the times we get programmed as kids that failure is bad. "I don't want to fail," but actually failure's our greatest lesson, our teaching. And so I failed a lot at life. Everything was hard for me, getting my clothes on, feeding myself, you name it, it was hard. And that's why I've been so successful is because I'm not afraid of failure. And so if we learn early on that failure is amazing and failure is our best friend, we'll have a better life. And so a little quote for you to remember, if you want to remember it, is, "If failure is a foe, you will never grow. If failure is a friend, you'll learn to the end." Super easy. I had to make it super dumb proof for adults as well. Do you want to ask a question? Dallin: Yeah. It's like, I don't know. It's just like talking about dropping out. Russell: Do you want me to ask it for you? Dallin: Yeah. Russell: So Dallin wants to be successful in life, but he focuses on he wants to drop out of high school. All he ever talks about is, "I want to drop out. I want to drop out." That's his vision and his goal, which is interesting, because I think he's got the right mindset. He wants to be successful, but he focuses on that all the time. So the question he wants to ask you is about him dropping out of school. Nick: Now you can ask it. Dallin: Oh. How do I say it? Nick: How do you drop out? Dallin: Yeah. Or, I don't know. Should I do it? Nick: Let me ask you a question. Do you individually pay for your school? Dallin: Nope. Nick: So why not get the knowledge if it's free? Dallin: I didn't think of it like that. Nick: Because when you're an adult, you're going to have to pay for knowledge. So if you're getting it for free why not take an advantage? Dallin: Because it's boring. Not boring, because I'm positive. Nick: Great takeaway. But would you agree if something's free, you might as well leverage it? Dallin: Yeah. Nick: So if you're a teenager and you're stuck in school, why not learn as much as you can because it's free and you're not paying for it? You probably don't take it serious enough because you don't pay for it. So maybe you need a little bit more skin in the game. Dallin: Maybe. I don't know. Nick: So I'd say get the knowledge while it's there. Dallin: All right. Nick: Who's the O.G? He says broke and stupid. Who's that? Zig Ziglar. Is it Zig or Jim Rohn? Russell: I think it's Jim. Nick: One of them. "The worst thing you could be is broke and stupid." And on top of that broke, stupid and ugly. You can't fix ugly. You might as well get the knowledge while it's there. I'm not calling you ugly, but I'm saying is you don't want to be broke or stupid. So get the knowledge while it's there. You're not paying for it. It's free knowledge. You'd be stupid not to take the knowledge. Dude, once you get out of high school, do you want. If you can't make it through high school, you ain't going to make it through business. Good luck. Good luck. High school is easy. Real world's way harder than high school. If you want to quit and tap out in high school, good luck, brother. Dallin: Oh boy. Nick: Let's keep that in there. That's a great lesson. That's a great lesson. That's a great lesson. I'm going to post it on my Instagram. What do you think? Russell: Do you have any questions? No. All right. Anybody else? Nick: That was a good question. It takes a lot to ask a question like that. Want to know why? Because most people wouldn't ask that question. I like it. I like the question. Great. You want to drop out too? Oh, okay. Just making sure. Just making sure. Russell: The good news for all your kids is everybody wants to drop out. It doesn't mean we do. I want to drop out of business lots of times. It gets hard. I got angry, I got people suing me. I got all sorts of stuff and it's tons of times I'm like, "Oh, it's so much easier to drop out." But it's like, well, I have a vision, we talked about it earlier. What's the vision? What are you trying to accomplish in life. You got to through a lot of hard stuff to get the good stuff. If you're not willing to go through the hard stuff, you never get the good stuff. Nick: You want a family one day? Dallin: Maybe. Nick: Okay. Do you want a girlfriend one day? Dallin: Yeah. Nick: Maybe. Or a boyfriend? Dallin: No. Nick: Okay. I don't know, whatever you go. But imagine your kid coming up to you one day and said, "My dad's a dropout." Dallin: I'd be proud. Nick: Dude, I like it. As long as you're proud of your decision and you made something of it, but I'm not your dad. I'm just a coach. Russell: He tells a story you told in lunchtime about your motivations that anchors you back to keep working out hard in the hard times. Nick: Yeah. So a lot of people ask me like, "How do you say so motivated to say so healthy with no legs, one arm?" And the reality is that there's a lot of kids that are paralyzed in wheelchairs. There's a lot of adults that are paralyzed in wheelchairs that look outside every day and say, "I wish I could go outside. Or I wish I could go to the gym," and they can't. But the one little visualization that I was going in with him is whenever I feel myself falling off track, I picture me, I'm 24, so I picture myself like 30, 35 and maybe I have a kid or two and I'm in my office. And that kid walks in and says, "Dad, why'd you get so fat? Dad, why did you let yourself go? Dad, you used to be a great speaker. Why did you give up on your dreams?" It makes me feel some type of way. If I really went into it, I'd probably start crying, because I never want my kid to look at me as a disappointment. And so I may not have kids now, but it's a motivation for me to keep going, because at one point I'm not going to be building a business for myself. Who am I going to be building a business for? My family. So it's way deeper than us as we get old. But you're young, so you've got time. Don't worry about kids calling you fat or anything. But what I'm saying is I visualize my kids looking at me and I want them to look at me proud, not as a fat dad that gave up on his dreams. Who agrees? Or a fat mom that gave up on their dreams. That's a bit aggressive. It works for me. Russell: That's awesome. Very cool. Anything else you've got? Nick: You guys are full of energy. I love it. Russell: I appreciate you, man. Thanks for coming, spending time with us and the kids. Nick: You got it. Norah, thanks for beating me up today. Russell: This is awesome. All right. Let's give Nick a huge round of applause.

This episode is the first episode in our series called The Getting Unstuck Series. In this episode we're going to be talking about the in-between stuck. 2:28 Stuck Stuck: unable to move or set in a particular position, place or way of thinking. It's a frustrating feeling, a frustrating energy, and a frustrating mindset. KISMA It’s a frustrating circumstance all the way around. Nick It does not go well with creating success or prosperity. KISMA 6:28 The In-Between Being specific about where you're stuck is the number one step for getting unstuck. If you have an idea of what you want to have happen and an idea around where you're getting hung up, then you can have a much better conversation with yourself about getting unstuck. Which is what we want to talk about now and just kicking it off really with the dreaded in-between. Nick The in-between means you’re not in the past and you're also not creating or manifesting what you really want.  KISMA It’s an in-between dimension and essentially what the in-between is, is indecision.  Nick 14:47 Signs You are Stuck in the Middle I want to talk about a couple of signs that will show that you are stuck in the middle.  Number one is going to be energy fatigue and then with that will come a neglect of how you manage your life. You'll start doing things to exit your life and not pay attention because it's so uncomfortable being stuck in between. KISMA Also look for the areas where your decision-making in general gets kind of lazy. You want to look for where habitual patterns of not supporting yourself are starting to show up. Nick 17:31 Start with Changing One Thing So Nick, how do you coach people out of this? KISMA Well, it's actually more simple than you think. The first thing that I like to do with people is just get them out of their heads, like stop thinking so much about all this so that we can make a clearer path forward. And what is really effective is actually just choosing one area, even if it's a small thing that you really want to see movement around and just focus on that. Let that be the one thing that you're really diligent with. Nick So basically we're talking about changing something, starting with one thing and really dedicating yourself.  Once you get through a 48 hour period, things start to shift and you've got to focus on those things that do shift to give you the confidence to keep going.  KISMA

In this week’s episode we talk about Abundance Disruptors- Things People Do to Mess Up Their Love, Money and Happiness 1:34 Boil Things Down Sometimes we need a little pep talk. KISMA Yeah, you need a little pep talk every once in a while. We're so busy and our heads get cluttered up with so many things.  So when you can boil things down to very simple steps that can reset you, it's so powerful.  Nick So if you haven’t listened to Episode 198 yet, listen to it. It's all about deciding what kind of day you're going to have.  In today’s episode we're going to look at where you might disrupt that. KISMA 2:17  Understanding and Getting Back In Flow This is a bit of a companion episode and I call it abundance disruptors.  Sometimes I refer to these with my clients and students as manifestation disruptors. Because here's the deal, the manifestation one on one is you are always manifesting. If you follow me or Nick or you've done any sort of law of attraction work before, you know that we can get very purposeful and set our vision, our goals, our ideals and do all these things. Then, very quickly and easily, humans disrupt those.  We want to understand where we disrupt it, and then what to do to get back in flow. KISMA 3:14  Doubt Is The Big Disrupter It's really about finding your frequency where you're as receptive and as clear as possible. So it's sort of like that sweet spot of your frequency of your vibe. What can happen with the disruptors is we get excited as humans about all kinds of things, and then very quickly, what will come into the mind is, “Oh my gosh, but how am I going to do that? Is it going to work? What if it doesn't work? How am I going to feel? What are people going to think of me if I actually do get this great thing or I build my business to a certain level?”, there are all these little voices of doubt that come in and disrupt your abundance.  KISMA It starts with doubt. Nick Doubt is the big disrupter. And here's what's important, that doubt, those voices that you hear, I like to think of them as these voices on either side of you where you can just tell them “No, stop,  not right now. Go away. I'm not listening to you”. You have the ability to come into an abundant lens, a clean and clear lens, and re-decide and choose what you're going to believe. KISMA 5:12  Our Perception and Expectations Become Disruptors Yeah and I feel like a big place where people get off is the meaning that they place on things.  Nick What do you mean by that? KISMA We go into our day, and we have an idea about what we think it's supposed to be in order to be productive, or we have a goal and we have an idea about the things that are supposed to happen that indicates success. And, inevitably, something is different. So we take that very narrow scope of what we thought was success or what we wanted or the way it was supposed to be and then we make everything outside of that wrong, bad, or a failure. So it's our perception of whatever those things are that actually becomes one of the disruptors, which like you said, leads right back into the doubt and thinking you must have done something wrong. Nick 6:12  Field of Abundance Another big disrupter for your abundance is resentment and jealousy. “Well, it worked for them, but it never works for me”, and then there's anger.  All of these things tear into your field of abundance as if they were these knives and they rip  into your wealth container. KISMA 8:50  Deciding to Reset So there's a couple of things that I wanted to share. During the day, when you find that you're allowing these disruptors to come in and put down your vibe, diminish your dreams, etc. What can you do that lifts yourself up? What's the reset?  There is a way again, deciding to reset. Get back in alignment with your vision and your choice and stay there. KISMA It's right there, we just have to make the choice to do it. Nick 15:06  The Solution What we want to do is build awareness and build the presence, and stay in your own lane. If we're staying in our own lane, and we're holding our thoughts and our feelings and our actions towards our vision, we're going to get a lot done. KISMA This is a much more elegant way and much more ease filled way of dealing with those kinds of things. And, this is the illuminated thought for the day, the solution never lies in the emotion. The solution always lies in the decision.  Nick We love sharing our thoughts, our teachings and our experiences with you. If you'd like to hear and learn more about the universal laws, please join my Challenge: that begins July 23rd. KISMA

Surface miners, like the ones safety instructor Nick Ullrich teaches, get to play with some pretty big toys, like loading trucks with tires three times taller than the average person. But tires that big come with some pretty big blind spots, and Nick is using VR to get them used to those blind spots before putting them behind those gigantic wheels. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast, with your host, Alan Smithson. We all know safety comes first, and today, we're speaking with Nick Ullrich, a safety instructor from Gillette College, who's focused on using VR to train mining employees to become safer and better operators. Coming up next on the XR for Business podcast. Nick, welcome to the show. Nick: Yes, Alan, thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it. Alan: Oh, it's my absolute pleasure. I read an article about how you're using VR to train mining employees. How did you get into this? Tell us a little bit about your background. Nick: Ok. Yeah, so the first project that we've done is a blind spot recognition, using virtual reality 360 photography as well. And it's to help miners -- when they're on the mine side -- understand the blind spots of heavy equipment. So we started with that because MSHA -- the Mine Safety and Health Administration -- has an initiative out there about powered haulage. And that's kind of where the idea came from. We see fatalities every year in the mining world. So I wanted to give everybody an understanding of what the blind spots for the heavy equipment that they're working around are on, and give them an idea of that. And virtual reality gave us an opportunity to do that without actually having to have all the equipment here at the college. So it works out great to give them a vision of what they would see if they were in that equipment. Alan: That's pretty cool. So you're talking about those big, huge dump trucks with the giant wheels and loaders and all these type of things? Nick: Yeah, absolutely. We have-- in the program that we have now, we have 10 pieces of equipment, it includes the 400 ton haul trucks, which is the largest haul trucks in the world. Those tires are approximately 15 feet high. Alan: Whoa. Nick: Yeah, next to them, you will go about to the middle of the tire. Alan: That's incredible. So you've got these trucks. Now, did you create them as 3D models and then climb inside of it? Or is this taken from like a 360 video type of thing? Nick: So we do a couple different things with it. We do have 3D models of all the pieces of equipment. So like I said, we have about ten pieces of equipment right now, and we just have 3D models of those, where people can walk around them virtually and see how big they are, put them to actual size or as close as I could get to actual size, by my recollection of them. They can get into them -- for the most part -- and just kind of see it in a virtual spot. And then we did go out to all the different mine sites and take 360 photography of each of those pieces of equipment. And we did it a really cool way. We set up a scene, so we had a whole lot of different things around the piece of equipment. So let's just say a haul trip, we have several different people and smaller vehicles, like light duty vehicles, such as just your normal pickup or van. We had those all set up in a special way, where you couldn't see them from the cab, so they were *in* the blind spots of that equipment. We took that 360 photo from the cab of that piece of equipment, so we can show everybody what the cab looks like and what they could see outside of it, knowing that they couldn't see any of the things in the blind s

Surface miners, like the ones safety instructor Nick Ullrich teaches, get to play with some pretty big toys, like loading trucks with tires three times taller than the average person. But tires that big come with some pretty big blind spots, and Nick is using VR to get them used to those blind spots before putting them behind those gigantic wheels. Alan: Welcome to the XR for Business Podcast, with your host, Alan Smithson. We all know safety comes first, and today, we're speaking with Nick Ullrich, a safety instructor from Gillette College, who's focused on using VR to train mining employees to become safer and better operators. Coming up next on the XR for Business podcast. Nick, welcome to the show. Nick: Yes, Alan, thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it. Alan: Oh, it's my absolute pleasure. I read an article about how you're using VR to train mining employees. How did you get into this? Tell us a little bit about your background. Nick: Ok. Yeah, so the first project that we've done is a blind spot recognition, using virtual reality 360 photography as well. And it's to help miners -- when they're on the mine side -- understand the blind spots of heavy equipment. So we started with that because MSHA -- the Mine Safety and Health Administration -- has an initiative out there about powered haulage. And that's kind of where the idea came from. We see fatalities every year in the mining world. So I wanted to give everybody an understanding of what the blind spots for the heavy equipment that they're working around are on, and give them an idea of that. And virtual reality gave us an opportunity to do that without actually having to have all the equipment here at the college. So it works out great to give them a vision of what they would see if they were in that equipment. Alan: That's pretty cool. So you're talking about those big, huge dump trucks with the giant wheels and loaders and all these type of things? Nick: Yeah, absolutely. We have-- in the program that we have now, we have 10 pieces of equipment, it includes the 400 ton haul trucks, which is the largest haul trucks in the world. Those tires are approximately 15 feet high. Alan: Whoa. Nick: Yeah, next to them, you will go about to the middle of the tire. Alan: That's incredible. So you've got these trucks. Now, did you create them as 3D models and then climb inside of it? Or is this taken from like a 360 video type of thing? Nick: So we do a couple different things with it. We do have 3D models of all the pieces of equipment. So like I said, we have about ten pieces of equipment right now, and we just have 3D models of those, where people can walk around them virtually and see how big they are, put them to actual size or as close as I could get to actual size, by my recollection of them. They can get into them -- for the most part -- and just kind of see it in a virtual spot. And then we did go out to all the different mine sites and take 360 photography of each of those pieces of equipment. And we did it a really cool way. We set up a scene, so we had a whole lot of different things around the piece of equipment. So let's just say a haul trip, we have several different people and smaller vehicles, like light duty vehicles, such as just your normal pickup or van. We had those all set up in a special way, where you couldn't see them from the cab, so they were *in* the blind spots of that equipment. We took that 360 photo from the cab of that piece of equipment, so we can show everybody what the cab looks like and what they could see outside of it, knowing that they couldn't see any of the things in the blind s

In this week’s episode, Our Life in Lockdown, Nick and I talk about our life during quarantine. 1:08 Quarantined I want to start this episode by saying we are not making light of the situation of COVID-19. But, maybe we're going to make a little bit of light about being quarantined. KISMA Yeah, it's freaking weird. I mean let's just call it what it is. This is a really weird time. Nick I'll just share, my life hasn't changed that much because I work from home or the office anyways. So it's been a full on schedule for me at work and even more so because I've really wanted to make sure all of my clients and students are doing okay and they're just amazing. They're just showing up so beautifully.  KISMA 2:47 Things aren’t the same But I think it was this week that I started to notice the things that aren't the same. Like, “Hey, I want to take a drive and get a cup of coffee at Phil's.” Oh, that's not going to happen.  And it's not like we're feeling sorry for ourselves. It's just noticing all the times where I want the pattern interrupt and it isn't there to take. KISMA I went for a drive last week. Oh, it was the best. I don't even know if I'm supposed to do that. Nick It was needed for mental health. KISMA I think it really was. Nick 06:29 Being More Present The cool things are being more present to really simple things that are so easy to brush off like our balconies, just opening the door and walking out, and noticing the moon or the morning or the fresh air, and that makes a difference for me. Of course you've been cooking so I'm super lucky. Nick is cooking like a mad man. Mostly vegan. But, where are some of the recipes coming from? KISMA A lot of them are coming from They're really good. They have two books. I highly recommend them. Their recipes themselves are hilarious to read, and the recipes are really good, so highly recommended.They're all very simple too, very easy.  Nick 10:11 Intense Energy  And you know, when you walk in the store, everybody's really focused, they're doing their thing, they're trying to keep their distance. I've noticed that people are trying to honor that. And there’s a kind of intense energy. Nick Yeah, it's intense. We like to do our weekly run together and everyone is being so great. Well, well-behaved. Everyone really is, but you can feel the sort of anxiety of, “I gotta get in and get out. Is there going to be enough?” The worry, the fear, it's so strong. You've heard us all talk about cutting cords, and it's really important to cut cords. When you leave the store, cut cords. On your day of shopping, have a salt bath later. No one's trying to put stuff on you. It's just happening. KISMA Yeah, it's just humans being humans. Nick 12:05 The Way We Approach It I've said this before and I'll continue to say it, the way that we approach it through prayer, through meditation, through our own light, I just refuse to believe that we won't make a difference. So it's really important to do whatever work you do. Say a prayer for the planet. Say a prayer for our leaders. Say a prayer. Meditate on so much love and light and power going to yourself, your family, your loved ones, medical professionals. Just take time every day to really send that kind of energy because even when one of us does it, it makes a difference, so we can imagine what happens when everyone does it. KISMA That's been a big part for me is making sure I'm very diligent with my time for meditations. There's an energetic process behind it that supports it to make it effective and productive. Nick 17:01 This Too Shall Pass Well I have an illuminated thought for today. This one we have probably said before, but this too shall pass. It really will. And one of the things I keep checking in with me is don't miss it. As rough as this is for some people, there's a golden nugget. There's something to take hold of and make your own. Maybe some space you've been craving, whatever it is, like grab it, you deserve it. KISMA 17:39 Part of a Historical Time Yeah, I don't want to say that I'm enjoying this necessarily. It's very strange, but also, there's a part of me that recognizes it's a very unique point in our history and this is something that not everybody will experience in a lifetime, and I don't want to miss it. I don't want to just get in and do all the same stuff I always do. I want to be a part of it. Like I want to be really present. Nick So we'll leave everyone with this. What can you do to really remind yourself you are part of a historical time?  KISMA

In today’s episode, we are talking about Leonard, our Boston terrier and the five lessons that we learned from The Bestest Boston Terrier Ever. If you're looking for a little bright space on the internet, go find 00:48  Our Boston Terrier I wonder how this episode is going to go because we're talking about Leonard, our Boston terrier. KISMA Sadly, Leonard has left us. He's crossed the rainbow bridge as they say. He was a really good dog. He was so amazing. Nick 6:29 Everyone Loves a Boston Terrier That brings me to lesson number one, everybody loves a Boston terrier. Nick Everyone loves a Boston terrier. They're just so freaking cute. KISMA Everywhere I walked with that dog, people would stop and they were like, “Oh my gosh, it's a Boston”. Or they were like, “Is he a Frenchie or is he a Boston?”. You know, and they were always just so taken with him. Nick 8:00 Making Friends So, the second lesson is that you can make friends easily. These are all things that I've learned really just by observing my dog. Nick  Yes, this is true because he's fun and he would sort of trot around and anybody that came up to him, loved him, and he would just be friends. KISMA 10:52 When You Know Someone, You Know What's another lesson? KISMA Number three. This is a big one. When you know someone, you know. When you know their habits, their patterns, like you know what this little being does and when you expect it to be different, you're just setting yourself up for a whole world of stress. Nick Just like people.  KISMA 14:32 Manifest through Persistence and Charm Lesson number four is a big one for me. This is something that I learned by watching this dog. His amazing, truly extraordinary ability to manifest through persistence and through charm. Nick So true. The guy had charm. KISMA Add charm and persistence and you have a winning combination.  If he wanted something, he would not quit. Nick 17:14 Unconditional Love The last lesson I want to talk about is more universal to dogs, is just how they teach us and show us and demonstrate that unconditional love. Nick Yeah, that's so true. We can mess up so many times and they still love us. We can turn our backs on them, yell at them, whatever, and they still love us. It really is a beautiful thing. KISMA I could understand what goes on in the dog's head that allows them to do that because it's a powerful thing.  It's so powerful. Leonard, He will be missed.Nick He will definitely be missed. KISMA

Last week we covered the basics of the traditional IRA and today we will shift our focus to the Roth IRA. John and Nick will once again explain the basics to this investment vehicle. We will also compare and contrast the Roth IRA to the traditional IRA.Helpful Information:PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/Contact: 813-286-7776Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.comFor a transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/Transcript of Today's Show:----more----Speaker 1: Hey everybody. Welcome back in to Retirement Planning Redefined. Thanks for tuning into the podcast. We appreciate it. Maybe you've received this podcast through the team's newsletters or email blast. Or maybe you found us online on various different podcast outlets like Apple or Google or Spotify. Either way we appreciate your time. And we're going to spend a few minutes with John and Nick talking some more about IRAs. And this go round we're going to spend some time on the Roths. But first guys, what's going on? How are you?John: I'm good. So my one year old is sleeping through the night very well, so I feel like a new man.Speaker 1: That goes a long way that's for sure. Well kudos on that. And Nick, how you doing, buddy?Nick: I'm pretty good. My 15 year old dog is not sleeping through the night.I'm okay.Speaker 1: Yeah, getting up there. I've got a 13 year old dog and she's a pistol. I got a 22 year old daughter and I can't tell which one's a bigger pain in the butt, the dog or the daughter. But they're both doing pretty well. The kid's actually graduating from nuclear engineering school. Actually I get to go see her Friday, and she's now a petty officer. She ranked up in the Navy. So we're all proud of her.Nick: Congrats.Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate that. I'll tell you what, let's not talk about babies, dogs or the Navy for just a minute. Let's talk about the Roth IRAs as I mentioned. So if you happened to catch the last podcast, we wanted to go through and talk about IRAs, about the vehicle. And we spent some time on the traditional side. So guys, do me a favor first, let's just do a recap, a little bit, of the traditional IRA before we switch over to the Roth so people have some context on that.Nick: So one of the biggest benefits for any sort of IRA account are some of the tax benefits. But one of the things that we wanted to remind everybody of, and this helps with IRA accounts, but also just really any investment account. Sometimes the feedback we've gotten is it's helpful for people to think about the different types of accounts in three phases of taxation. There's as the money goes in, is it taxed, is it not taxed. As the money grows, is it taxed, is it not taxed. And then when it comes out so that you can use it, is it taxed or not taxed. So for traditional IRA, you know the first one, as it goes in, in the last session we talked a little bit about it. Most of the time for most people it's not going to be taxed. But there will be some rules on when that's after tax money, it's going to grow tax deferred. So you're not going to get 1099 on it each year as it grows. And then when it comes out, it's going to be ordinary income tax.Nick: And then for the Roth IRA, which is what we're going to get into today, it is money that's already been taxed is going to go in. It's going to grow tax deferred. So [inaudible 00:02:43] 1099s, and then on the backside it's tax free. That's the comparison as you go through.Speaker 1: Okay. Since you brought it up, let's go ahead and just jump right into it. So John, give us a few things to think about on the Roth side. He already mentioned the tax deferred part. What are some other limitations and things of that nature we talked about like with the traditional, some numbers or some things we need to know?John: Yeah, so like the traditional IRA, the contributions are based off of earned income. So again, that does not count real estate state income, any interest, income like that, but earned income. And as far as the limits go, if you're below 50, [inaudible 00:03:20] 6,000. Anyone above 50 can do 1,000 catch-up, which gives you a 7,000 total. And just to again reiterate some mistakes we've seen where you can only contribute 7,000 between the two of you. You can't contribute 7,000 each. Okay, so 7,000 total.John: And something that some people aren't aware of is that even if, let's say one spouse is not working and is staying home for whatever reason. They are eligible to make a spousal contribution to an IRA, whether that's Roth or traditional, which is a nice feature because that does come up quite a bit. So to talk about the contributions of a Roth, we gave the example of traditional IRA as far as making a pre tax contribution. As Nick mentioned, the Roth is after tax dollars. So example of that, 100,000 of income for somebody, they make a $5,000 contribution to a Roth, their taxable income stays at 100,000 in that given year. So there's no tax benefit up front with the Roth IRA versus a traditional IRA, you could have a tax savings up front when you make the contribution if it's deductible.Nick: So from an eligibility standpoint, for a single person, somebody that makes under 122,000 can make a full contribution. If their income is between 122,000 and 137,000, there is a partial that can be made. If their income is over 137,000, they are not able to make a contribution to a Roth IRA. For married filing jointly, if their income is below 193,000, they can make contributions for both of them and their spouse. If the income is between 193 and 203,000, it's a partial. And if the household or the married filing jointly income is above or greater than 203,000, then they are not eligible to make the contribution.Speaker 1: Gotcha. Okay. All right, so we've covered some of the contributions, some of the eligibility you mentioned already in the tax deferred growth part. What about access? Did we cover some things there?John: So one thing the eligibility and it's becoming more popular now with Roth 401k. So if you're not eligible to make a Roth IRA contribution, one thing to do is check with your employer and see if they offer a Roth 401k, which actually has no income limits for you to be able to participate in it, which is a nice [inaudible 00:05:37]Speaker 1: Okay, that's good to know. Yeah, absolutely. All right, that's a Roth 401k. Maybe we'll do another show about that another time. What about the access side, anything there? Is it the same 59 and a half, all that kind of stuff?John: So rules are fairly similar, where you as far as access getting to the account, there is the 59 and a half rule. And if you do draw early there's a 10% penalty on your earnings. And I stress earnings on that, because with a Roth IRA and I say this, consult with your tax preparer, tax advisor, we don't give tax advice. But with a Roth IRA, you can actually access what we call cost basis prior to 59 and a half without any penalty. I've seen a couple of people do it where basically let's say if you've put in 30,000 into your Roth in your account at 50. So 20,000 earnings, 30,000 is what you've put in, which is considered your cost basis. You can pull that 30,000 out without paying a penalty. It's just you have to keep very good records of your contribution amounts. And if you do pull it out, you have to work with your tax preparer to go ahead and let the IRS know that you pulled out a portion of your tax basis. And that's would avoid any type of a penalty on that.Speaker 1: All right, so we've covered several things on the Roth side, so the access, the eligibility, contributions, all that good kind of stuff. So let's just get into the fact that it's been hugely popular. It's been a very hot button issue for the last really couple of years. Obviously one of the reasons, we mentioned earlier that it's tax deferred. Really, the taxes are low, right? We're in a historically low tax rate. So one of the reasons that a Roth might be a good place to go, or a Roth conversion I guess I should say, is because of the tax thing. So what are some other reasons why the Roth is just really popular?Nick: You pointed to one of the biggest reasons from the standpoint of we are in historical low tax brackets. And one of the things that we talk about with clients and it really became evident towards the end of 2019 is, the thing that might be the quote unquote best strategy today, it may not be the best strategy five years down the road, 10 years down the road. So for most of the clients that we meet with, they're substantially overweight on pre-tax money and maybe only recently have started to build up Roth money. And we think it's really important to have balance and to have options in retirement. Your ability to be able to pivot and adjust to law changes, rule changes, market conditions, etc. are really important. And then part of that is not having to be forced to take out a required minimum distribution on a Roth helps you maintain that balance and maintain the nest egg, those tax free [inaudible 00:08:18] roles help give you flexibility and balance, the ability to be able to pass on funds to beneficiaries, Roth dollars.Nick: Especially if you have... Maybe your kids are high-income, you've done a good job planning. We go through the numbers, we built the plan and there's a pretty high probability that you're going to be passing on money to the kids. The rub, money is usually much better to plan or to pass down, because of the fact that it will be tax-free to them as well. So the ability to really create flexibility in your planning and strategies is one of the reasons that we think the Roths are a really important piece of the pie.John: Just to jump in. One thing, just backtracking to accessing it tax-free. Just a couple of rules with it is you have to be above 59 and a half. And you actually have to have had a Roth IRA account for at least five years. So an example would be, let's say I open one up at age 60. I'm above 59 and a half. The person cannot actually withdraw tax free until basically 65. So I have to wait five years and that's from the first Roth I ever started up. So one thing that we typically will work with clients is if they're eligible, we might just go ahead and start a Roth IRA just to start that five year window.Speaker 1: Okay. All right. That's good. Yeah. Good information to know on that. Now with the beneficiary thing and passing things along, is the change in the SECURE act, does that make a difference in the Roth as well? Is there anything there that would pertain to people if they're thinking about it that they should definitely be checking with you guys on before doing a conversion or something like that?John: Yeah, so I believe we're doing a four part session to this. We're going to talk about conversions, but yeah, that makes conversions a little more appealing where you have to pull the money out over a 10 year period now. Where basically at least if you have to pull it over 10 years, there's actually no tax hit. So as your IRA gets bigger, if you're pulling out of a $1 million IRA over a 10 year period, that's going to really affect your tax rate. If it was all Roth money, it would have no bearing on your taxes.Speaker 1: Gotcha. Okay. All right. Yeah, and we are going to continue on with this conversation on a future podcast about which one might be right for you and all those good kinds of things. Nick, anything else that we may have overlooked in there we need to throw in?Nick: No, I just can't really say it enough from the standpoint of building in flexibility is key. Most of the people that listen to the podcasts are going to have pretax money, but if they don't have any Roth money then just getting started can be really important to build that up. Because even if they're within a few years of retirement, just remember that we're still planning for 30, 40 years down the road. Having money that compounds over a long period of time and then has tax free withdrawals on the backside is a pretty significant leverage point and benefit.Speaker 1: Okay, one final question I'm going to ask you guys is you sometimes hear people say, if I'm still working, can I contribute or should I contribute to both kinds, the traditional or the Roth? What do you say when someone asks that type of question? Should someone do both the traditional for the tax reasons and then the Roth for the non-tax? What's your answer?John: We'll answer that in the next session.Speaker 1: Nicely done. Look at him teeing that up. There you go, folks. All right, I'll tell you what. We will take care of that on the next session and that way you have a reason to come back. A cliffhanger if you will. So if you've got questions about the Roth IRA, make sure you talk with your advisor about that. If you're not working with an advisor, you certainly should be. Reach out to John and Nick and give them a call at PFG Private Wealth. And you can reach them at 813-286-7776. That's the number to dial. 813-286-7776 here in the Tampa Bay area or go to their website, check them out online at pfgprivatewealth.com. That is pfgprivatewealth.com. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you can get those next episodes as they come out. Nick, John, thanks for your time this week.Speaker 1: I hope everybody has a great week and you guys enjoy yourself and continue to get some good sleep while that baby's resting, all right?John: Hopefully it continues. I think it will.Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. Nick, appreciate your time, buddy. Take care.Nick: Thanks. Have a good one.Speaker 1: We'll see you next time here on Retirement Planning Redefined with the guys from PFG Private Wealth, John and Nick.

SEASON 2: EPISODE 5 Poet Nick Flynn talks about the ways in which he won't die. ABOUT THE GUEST Nick Flynn has worked as a ship’s captain, an electrician, and a caseworker for homeless adults. Some of the venues his poems, essays, and nonfiction have appeared in include the New Yorker, the Nation, the Paris Review, the New York Times Book Review, and NPR’s This American Life. His writing has won awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Library of Congress, PEN, and the Fine Arts Work Center, among other organizations. His film credits include artistic collaborator and “field poet” on Darwin’s Nightmare (nominated for an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary in 2006), as well as executive producer and artistic collaborator on Being Flynn, the film version of his memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. His most recent collection of poetry, I Will Destroy You, appeared from Graywolf Press in 2019. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Lili Taylor, and his daughter, Maeve. http://www.nickflynn.org/ ABOUT THE HOST Neil Goldberg is an artist in NYC who makes work that The New York Times has described as “tender, moving and sad but also deeply funny.” His work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, he’s a Guggenheim Fellow, and teaches at the Yale School of Art. More information at neilgoldberg.com. ABOUT THE TITLE SHE'S A TALKER was the name of Neil’s first video project. “One night in the early 90s I was combing my roommate’s cat and found myself saying the words ‘She’s a talker.’ I wondered how many other other gay men in NYC might be doing the exact same thing at that very moment. With that, I set out on a project in which I videotaped over 80 gay men in their living room all over NYC, combing their cats and saying ‘She’s a talker.’” A similar spirit of NYC-centric curiosity and absurdity animates the podcast. CREDITS This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund.  Producer: Devon Guinn  Creative Consultants: Aaron Dalton, Molly Donahue  Mixer: Andrew Litton  Visuals and Sounds: Joshua Graver  Theme Song: Jeff Hiller  Website: Itai Almor Media: Justine Lee Interns: Alara Degirmenci, Jonathan Jalbert, Jesse Kimotho Thanks: Jennifer Callahan, Nick Rymer, Sue Simon, Maddy Sinnock TRANSCRIPTION NICK FLYNN: I was driving my daughter to soccer. And she had a bike and I had a bike and we'd ride, even though it was a little cold.  NEIL GOLDBERG: Yeah.  NICK: But a guy went by on a bike and he had like a boombox, one of those boombox that plays, he's playing like a podcast, like really loud, and it was so odd. We both just laughed. It was like, what is that? You're just blasting a podcast going down the street, blasting.  NEIL: This is fresh air.  Hello, I'm Neil Goldberg and this is SHE'S A TALKER. I'm a visual artist and this podcast is my thinly veiled excuse to get some of my favorite New York writers, artists, performers, and beyond into the studio to chat. For prompts, I use a collection of thousands of index cards on which I've been writing thoughts and observations for the past two decades, kind of like one of those party games, but hopefully not as cheesy.  These days, the cards often start as recordings I make into my phone. Here are some recent ones: I really love how Beverly pronounces 'Meow'. It's never appropriate to share scrap paper from home with students. I'm never sure what a simmer is. I'm so happy to have as my guest, poet Nick Flynn. I have been a hardcore fan of Nick's writing since his first book, Some Ether, came out in 2000 and was blown away by his memoirs, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, and The Ticking is the Bomb. In the fall, he released a new book of poetry, I Will Destroy You, and in the next few months he has two more books coming out: Stay, and This is the Night Our House Will Catch on Fire. I met Nick briefly in, I think, the late eighties in Provincetown, and we reconnected recently via our mutual friend, Jacques Servin, who is on an earlier episode. Nick and I spoke in January at a recording studio at The New School near Union Square in New York City. NEIL: Are you comfortable?  NICK: Like on a scale of one to ten?  NEIL: Like, you know those smiley faces, like if you're in the hospital. NICK: How much pain I have? Uh, I hadn't even thought about it till you just said that. Now I'm wondering if I am, so.  NEIL: I feel like I'm, I'm totally not, I'm not feeling any pain at the moment.  NICK: No, I'm not feeling any pain. No, I'm feeling no pain.  NEIL: That's different from, feeling no pain is different from not feeling any pain. NICK: That means if you're kind of fucked up, I think.  NEIL: Exactly.  NICK: You're feeling no pain.  NEIL: Um, I'm so happy to have you, Nick Flynn, on the show, SHE'S A TALKER.  NICK: I'm happy to be here, Neil Goldberg -  NEIL: I, you know -   NICK: on the show SHE'S A TALKER. Is the 'She' the cat? NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: That's, that's who the 'she' is.  NEIL: It is, yeah. I, you know -  NICK: I guess I got that. Yeah.  NEIL: Well, you know, in 1993 when everyone was dying... Everyone is still dying, but just differently.  NICK: I remember that. Yeah.  NEIL: Yeah. Uh, you know, I did a video project where I interviewed, it turned out to be, like about 80 gay men all over New York City in all five boroughs who had female cats, combing their cats and saying "She's a Talker." NICK: They were combing the cats?  NEIL: Combing the cat. It was just almost like, it was like a stealthy way to like, not stealthy, but it was a way to document a lot of gay men who felt like really imperiled, and it was my first video project. And, I don't know, when I decided to name this, that came up for me. But subsequently I get a lot of like, what does the word 'she' mean at this point? NICK: Right, right, right. Yeah.  NEIL: Maybe I should rebrand it. What should I call it?  NICK: Uh, you should stick with it, I think. Hmm.  NEIL: Uh, when, when you're looking for like a short hand, like you encounter someone on the proverbial elevator and are looking for like a pithy way to describe who it is you are and what it is you do, what do you, what do you reach for? NICK: I say I'm a poet.  NEIL: Period.  NICK: Period. Yeah. Yeah. Cause that usually gets a pretty dead-eyed stare like the one you just gave me. Like that's it? That's it.  NEIL: When someone is confronted with poet, silence, do you ever feel like helping someone out?  NICK: Well, it depends on like, often, that'll pretty much be the conversation-ender.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: So it does nothing to help cause they're gone right at that point.  NEIL: If your folks were around, how might they describe who it is you've become? NICK: Wow, that's a, that's an interesting one. Would they, would they still be, are they like idealized, my, like my parents on their best day or on their worst day?  NEIL: Oh, I wouldn't mind hearing both if you don't mind. Like the...  NICK: Ah, like, you know, there's the idealized version of your parents. Then there's the, not the reality, but the, you know, but recognizing at a certain point that they had some rough days, you know. In my mind, it's hard to deny they had some rough days. So, um, it's a little, it's a little harder to pretend. Yeah. Uh, my father, he knew that I'd published books and he was sort of, you know, strangely proud of that. Uh, but proud just in the way he knew I'd be a good writer because he was such a great writer, so I got it all from him. So he took all credit for any of it. So I imagined he would still take credit for any accomplishments I've had or that he perceives I've had. I've, I'm trying to think if he had like on a good day, that's sort of like a not so good day. Yeah. On a good day, he did have a couple moments where he was able to just recognize the struggle it had been, uh, between the two of us, uh, to actually acknowledge that. And I think that would be like, he'd say like, yeah, this was, this must have been hard, you know? So I think that would be. That'd be a good day for him.  My mother's a little more enigmatic, like it's actually, when I think about it, like, cause I mean, she died before he did. I was younger. I didn't know her as well, probably. So, although I grew up with her, but, um, I sort of studied my father more, and my mother's more of a, uh, a construct of the imagination in some ways. Although, I mean, we spent so much time together too. It's strange to say that actually, I don't know if that's true.  You know, I, there's always the question like, what would my mother be like now? So I'm, I look at women that are my mother's age, that would be my mother's age now. Like I don't know how, how she would be. So either way, I think she's, since she, from her backhouse sort of WASP-y Irish background, she probably wouldn't say directly anything. I'd have to decipher what she said.   NEIL: So it would be cryptic in terms of her estimation of you, or?  NICK: I mean, she, I think she'd say, "Oh, I'm, I'm proud of you." But the deeper levels of that I think would be harder to get to.  NEIL: Yeah. I see you came in, you were, you had a bike helmet, which I connect to. Um, on your bike ride over, did you have any thoughts?  NICK: Wow. Thoughts as I was coming here - the sort of meta thing is I was listening on my headphones to SHE'S A TALKER. And you're talking to someone about riding a bike over the bridge.  NEIL: Right, yeah.  NICK: So like, yeah. I mean, at the moment I was riding over the bridge. I was listening to you talk to someone else about riding over the bridge and then thinking that I would soon be here talking to you, and I brought my helmet it, I didn't - usually I lock it on my bike  but maybe I brought it in so you would ask me about it. It's possible, but I think I just brought it in cause it was cold, it was so cold outside. I wanted a warm helmet when I went back out. So.  NEIL: Aha, you didn't want to put on a cold helmet. I never thought about that. NICK: What I thought about on the bridge was that it was way colder than I thought it was. It was the wind, it was like howling and I had a hat in my bag and I kept thinking, I'll just stop and put my hat on under my helmet and I didn't stop. I kept thinking, I'll warm up at some point, but I just kept getting colder and colder the further I went. I just never stopped, I just kept going.  NEIL: Well, let's, um, go to some cards that I curated for you.  NICK: You curate these for this conversation?  NEIL: Yes. Yeah.   (Card flip)  So the first card is: the specific, tentative, hyper-attentive way one tastes something to see if it's gone bad. NICK: Um, what I usually do is I'll, I'll, I'll cook it and then give it to my brother. NEIL: Mikey likes it?  NICK: Yeah. And then if he can get through it then it probably hasn't gone so far bad. Cause he's pretty sensitive actually. I mean, while I'm presenting, it sounds like he'd just eat anything. No. He's quite sensitive. So he's like sort of the. He's, he, he, he's a Canary. Ah ha. Yeah. So I'll just fix it up and give it to him and then, cause he'll, usually, he's quite happy if I make him something, give him some food, then if it's no good, then, then I throw it away. Yeah. If he eats it, I'll eat it.  NEIL: He's your taster. Um, where, where does your brother live?  NICK: He lives upstate, New York.  NEIL: Oh, okay. Yeah, but he's your older brother, right, if I'm remembering? NICK: But why did you say, "but." Because he lives upstate?  NEIL: No, because of the scenario of like, your brother, the implication. He's an implied younger brother in the story.  NICK: Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. He's an implied younger brother in life too.  (Card Flip)  NEIL: Next card. When a toddler falls, that space before they start to cry. NICK: Well. My daughter was, uh, three. And for us, like three was really like, spectacular meltdowns and just like, you know, tantrums and just like wildness, just like absolutely wild, like wild animal, just screaming and frustrated and like, you know, furious. And one day she, uh, she was in a tantrum, she fell and she hit her cheek on the corner of a staircase and it split open and like bled. It sort of woke her up. Like it was right at the end of her being three, she was going to turn four. It was a Sunday night. And my wife and I were like, Oh, what do we do? Like, I'm like, I guess, do we take her to her doctor or do we like, you know, just like, like leave her with a scar for the rest of her life? And so I butterfly-stitched it, you know, like made a little butterfly thing, to hold it together to squish the skin together, you know? And, uh. That's what we did. We sort of looked up t see like how big and deep it had to be to go to a doctor and stuff and to need a stitch, and it was sort of right on the edge. So I butterfly-stitched it, and then. Yeah so now she just has this pretty little scar on her face and she's perfect.  NEIL: Wow. And does she know the story of the scar?  NICK: Oh yeah. I would say it's a part of her myth, part of her origin myth. The wildest, the wildness poured out of her cheek. Yeah. Yeah.  NEIL: Uh, can, can you share -  NICK: Did that answer your question? NEIL: Yes and no. That's always the, um, I think it's beautiful. I have the idea, I'm not a parent, but when I see a kid having a tantrum - NICK: I wasn't either before that.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: It comes on kind of suddenly.  NEIL: But how did you deal with tantrums?  NICK: I, I've been sort of attentive and amused by the whole process. Like I feel like we're really lucky. She's a really good kid and just a really interesting kid and like, so I just sort of like see it, like, I admire the tantrums in a certain way. Like, I think everyone should be like, just screaming, running down the streets, you know, most of the time. Like this sucks. Um, so there was something very, uh, wild about it. Like just to see like, wow, like you can just do this. You can just go and like, you can go to a store and just pull a whole rack down. If you don't get your Popsicle, you don't fucking. She, she used to fire me like every day as a father. She said, if you do not give me that Popsicle, you will not be able to kiss me. You will not be able to hug me. You will not be my father.  NEIL: What did you say to that?  NICK: I'm like, Oh, that's really hard. I'd be sad not to be your father. She was like, you will not be able to, you will have to go to Texas and never come back.  NEIL: Crafty.  NICK: Yeah, she was good. Yeah, but I, you know, I was onto her though. Yeah. I'd be her father like in half an hour later. NEIL: Did you ever say -   NICK: She'd rehire me like half hour later. Yeah.  NEIL: Was there a re-intake process?  NICK: No. No. We just pretended it didn't happen. Yeah, it was all moving forward. It was all the continuous present.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: You just kept this present moment. This present moment had no connection to the other moments whatsoever. NEIL: Did you ever join your daughter in a tantrum?  NICK: Did I ever join her in a tantrum? Oh, wow. Yeah, I did. Yeah. I remember one night, like early on when she was like six months old and that. The beautiful hallucination of early parenthood where you just, you just don't sleep. You just like, you're just awake for like months. Like just not sleeping. And you just fall asleep in the middle of things. Just like, you know, you can just barely do anything. Everything's filthy and like, you know, you just wash all the clothes and immediately they're filthy again, the food is just taken and thrown to the floor. I think the dogs eat it. You just give up in a certain way. There's one night I was up with her at like three in the morning and she was just screaming. And I was just like, I think I filmed her screaming with my phone. I'm just like, okay, just scream. Just scream. I'm going to make a movie of you screaming. I was like, I don't know what to do. So I just made a little movie of her. NEIL: Wow. But you didn't, but, but it didn't call on you the feeling of like, now I am going to lose it myself and cry?  NICK: Um, well, I think I viewed, it's like, you know, I'm from like a sort of WASP-y Irish background, and so we don't really show that stuff. And I'm sort of always like that, but it don't, I don't, I try. I think no one can see it, but I think everyone actually sees it.  NEIL: So always you're, you're crying always. NICK: Melting down, yeah.  (Card Flips)  NEIL: Okay. Kids with artist parents. Because both you and your wife are artists. Like to me, the idea of like, two artists come together and they have a kid, well that's going to be a super kid. And then that kid maybe, will - NICK: Be with another artist, yeah. NEIL: It's almost like an artistic eugenics kind of vision or something.  NICK: Um, yeah. I always think it for our daughter, like Lord help her. Really. I don't think like, Oh, you've been, you've won the lottery. Like, like, this is the card, this is the hand you've been dealt. Good luck with it. You know, we're both like, yeah, we're both a little. I, I don't know, I don't know if neurotic is the right word, but like, you know. You know, we're, we're sensitive. We're like, you know, in some ways not made for this world, we're, we're awkward where other people are comfortable, we're, uh, you know, we found our place to, to survive, which is really lucky, you know? And also, you know, in a culture, like I'm a poet too, I'm not, like, it's not that like, this is like some hugely respected artistic position in our culture at the moment. You know, like, that's why I say that I, I say it perversely if someone asks me, with the elevator pitches, like if they ask me what I do, I say I'm a poet. And just because it's perverse, it's like it's so perverse, you know? You know when, if you go to a doctor's office, I write it on a form. I write 'poet', just, you might as well ride hobo or something. Right? That's not right. I'm a wizard. So it's not like, it doesn't feel like that she's suddenly being dealt like this, like, like a superhuman. Like, what are you talking about?  NEIL: Right. NICK:  It's just unfortunate. Like, you know. Artists get attracted to artists because we can vaguely understand each other, maybe. You know, we're not like, you know, I've tried to be with civilians before and it's like, not easy, you know? I really, I feel less understood, you know? I barely feel like I fit in now. To this world. So you know, you find someone who you feel like, yeah, you also don't feel like you fit in. So that's a kind of connection.  NEIL: How does your, how does your daughter describe what, what you both do? Does she unabashedly say -  NICK: Well, it's a little easier for Lily, for my wife. I mean, cause she's like, you know, people actually will sometimes recognize her on the streets and stuff, so she's a little prouder.  NEIL: But him, the hobo.  NICK: And my dad's a poet.  (Card Flip)  NEIL: Okay. Next card: the fetishization of storytelling.  NICK: Yeah. Right now there's a, there's a whole storytelling thing going on, right? Yeah. There's a whole sense of revival and stuff, and I don't exactly get it. I mean, I, I admire it, like I've gone to The Moth, I've participated in a couple of storytelling things. It's a, it's a strange form for me. It's a strange art form for me, and I admire it when it's done really well. I admire it. The ones I've gone to, that I've been part of, they were, kind of felt a little closer to stand-up, which is another art form too. But I'm like, the line is a little blurry and a little like strange and, and it makes sense that stand-up would be part of it. Cause they are sort of like, like jokes in a way. They're sort of packaged. I mean it's a packaged form. It's like improv is more interesting to me. Like where you don't know where it's going to go. But where, if you know where, I mean, like I say, people that do it well, it's really beautiful.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: It's just not what I do. It's like memoir is not storytelling. Uh, it's another form. And storytelling is like one part of it. You sort of tell the story, but then you sort of have to turn over the story and say like, why am I telling this story? Like what am I trying to present in telling this story, ignores all these other realities that are happening or all these other things I don't want you to know. People will come up and say like, you know, how's it feel to like, have that people know so much about you now? Like, well, you only know what I want you to know. You're gonna get some glimpse from a book.  NEIL: Right. Yeah.  NICK: From storytelling, I don't know even what glimpse you get, you get a glimpse of how they tell a story I guess. I want to know about other people. I want to know like what their, the interior life is of other people, what the landscape is. Which is why I like read... Or, why I, why I do anything. Like go see art. Or just to sort of like have that, so you're not so, so you recognize it's not all, all ego, you know? It's not all, like everything isn't sort of springing forth from within me. You know?  NEIL: Right. I'm not interested in other people's stories generally.  NICK: Yeah.  NEIL: Specifically too. I'm not interested in other people's stories, but I'm interested in hearing people think, which is what this podcast is about. So like the way their thought processes reveal themselves. That interests me. I don't know, but I'm, I'm, I'm not interested in the content. NICK: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I understand. Yeah. I teach creative writing and often it's like, I'm much more interested in like, the stuff around the content. It's not about the content, like it's more about the stuff around like how you're like, like, you know, how this one thing transformed something else or how you chose to make this weird sentence, or how like these things that have sort of moments of excitement. The story itself can be rather deadening.  NEIL: Right.  NICK: Yeah. Because, I think because it's somewhat packaged too, it is a lot of times, yeah.  NEIL: But I also, the thing I really resist is this, like: "We're about stories." You know, like the, this fetishization of storytelling has creeped into like how, how stories are talked about. It's like, we bring you stories da da da, stories. It's like, it feels infantilizing too.  NICK: Well, you know, I was just talking about this with one of my, some of my students, uh. You know, the, what's the most famous Joan Didion line? "We tell ourselves stories in order to live."  NEIL: Right, right.  NICK: And, yet, The White Album goes on. That's the first line of The White Album. That'll probably be on her tombstone. Uh, you know, they make bookmarks of it in bookstores, and yet if you actually read The White Album, that essay, she totally just doesn't believe it and contradicts it and says like, why? Like this makes no sense at all. And like that this is, I thought I could do this. Like I was, I was desperately trying to create a story that would protect me from something and it, none of it worked. And it just dissolves, the whole thing just all is like, so to take that one line out of context and say, this is actually a truism is so strange. It doesn't make any sense at all. And there's a  thing, my therapist came up with this thing of the, I don't know if he came up with it, but we talk about my, one of my disorders, uh, one of my many disorders is a narrative affect disorder where I'll create like stories like, but you know, it's not stories like you're talking about, it's creating books and creating like versions of what happened, um, in order to contain it and to be able to hold onto it in a way that seems safe, so I don't have to feel the actual emotional intensity of it.  NEIL: Right.  NICK: Um, and I think it's, it is a type of illness. I think storytelling is a type of illness, uh, that keeps you from actually feeling.  (Card Flips)   NEIL: Next card: often when I leave the apartment, I think, is this how I'd like it to be found if I die today? NICK: I think that one's more about you than me. I think. Um.  NEIL: You don't think that when you leave?  NICK: Well, I don't think I'm ever going to die. I'm pretty sure. NEIL: Do you really believe that?  NICK: Yeah. Like I, yeah, no. I have a thing where like, I'm, I'm, there's, well, I just know the ways I'm not going to die.  NEIL: Okay. Let's hear it.  NICK: I'm not going to die in an airplane crash. I'm not going to die by getting eaten by a shark. Might die by getting hit by a car on a bicycle. I mean I might, so I have to be careful.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: But I can swim for miles in the ocean filled with sharks. I'm fine. Yesterday I was on a plane coming from Houston and, uh, it was just like, like being on a ship in the middle of a, of a nor'easter. Like it was just wild, you know, like it really, like it was almost spinning. Yeah. I was fine. I'm like, Oh, this is cool cause I'm not gonna die in a plane. Like, you know, so I just have these sorts of things. They might be, you know, just delusional. You know, I mean, how could I possibly know? But I'm almost positive I'm not going to get eaten by a shark. NEIL: Uh huh.  NICK: Which really, which really helps in Provincetown. Cause there's a lot of sharks there now and a lot of people don't swim in the water. And I'm like, ask yourself, are you going to get eaten by a shark? Do you really think that's the way you're gonna die? And most people would say no. I mean, wouldn't you say no? Like no. If you know, on a rational day, like that'd be really, and if you did, that'd be so cool. Like how many people, how many poets get eaten by a shark? That'd be so excellent, right? Like it's a win-win. I have a poet, there's a poet, Craig Arnold, a really great poet that died a couple of years ago. He was writing a whole series of poems on volcanoes. Traveling the world, like got a grant to travel the world and look at volcanoes. He's just gone. He just vanished one day. He vanished. We think he fell into a volcano and died. Like, that's like an amazing story. Like it's terrible, terrible, awful. But I mean, there are a lot worse ways to die than falling into a volcano.  NEIL: Oh my God. How would you feel about being bitten by a shark and surviving it?  NICK: That's cool. That woman, that, that surfer that only has one arm, she's cool.  NEIL: You'd be okay with that?  NICK: If I could surf like her.  (Card Flips)  NEIL: Um.  NICK: I really killed this bottle of Perrier.  NEIL: Oh, awesome. I love it. Um, good job. Uh: the ambiguity of "It's downhill from here."  NICK: Oh. The whole idea of like, you know. There's a few things. Yeah. The opposite is all uphill from here, right. It's all, so downhill sounds pretty good, right? But it suggests like we're sliding into the grave, I think. NEIL: Yes.  NICK: Like it's all like we've reached the peak.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: That was the peak. It was really hard to get to the peak. And as soon as you get to the peak, you start going downhill. Yeah. You know? Uh, and, uh. Yeah, I often joke, yeah, I'm on the other side of the, on the other side, now, you know, that you somehow that the, the, the greatest work and the greatest, uh, notoriety so that was a while ago. Um, and.  NEIL: But also maybe the greatest struggle, no?  NICK: Was a while ago.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: Yeah. Oh, I dunno. But I, I joke about it. I just, I don't really believe that. The most recent project I'm doing just feels completely, uh, uh, fulfills me. You know, I'd have this other book coming out, this book, Stay, coming out, which I'm, I worked on a lot last year and I'm happy with that. And another book coming out after that. So there's like, you know, I don't really worry about it, but it's, it's almost a thing. It might be sort of Irish too, like just so you don't want to sort of, uh, be too full of yourself. You know, you want to like sort of be somewhat, you don't want to show how many fish you caught that day cause then you have to give half away. So you sort of downplay it. You downplay it. So the downhill side is where we sort of live. We live on the downhill side. I don't know, it's a strange metaphor.  NEIL: It's, it's ambiguous. NICK: Yeah, it's a strange metaphor.  NEIL: But I'm also thinking it's a paradox, too, and, as you talked, because take the downhill part. Um, it does get easier.  NICK: Yeah.  NEIL: I think, I mean, my life, I will say, and anything could change at any moment, has gotten so much easier, you know, now that I'm clearly on the other side. NICK: Psychic.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: Psychically. Yeah.  NEIL: For sure.  NICK: Yeah. Yeah.  NEIL: Um, yeah. It's also, I am sliding into the grave. Yeah. I mean, hopefully it's a long slide, but...  NICK: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mortality. The cold wind of mortality does start to, you start to feel it. At a certain point.  NEIL: In your back.  NICK: Yeah. You started, you know, it's blown in your face. Yeah. It's like, it's like you feel it, which I, you sort of thought you felt it in your 20's but you really, you could have, I mean, we know a lot of people that died in their 20's, sure. It was not like this. This is like the real thing. Yeah. This is like, yeah. There's no, like, there's no choice in the matter. So like, yeah, maybe I'll just overdose or something, you know, or, or, you know, or I'll just be reckless and didn't die. Now it's like, yeah, no matter what I do, doesn't matter what I do, I can, I can eat kale, I can eat kale the rest of my life.  NEIL: Yeah. I don't have to coax the process and it's still going to happen. NICK: Yeah.   (Card Flips)  NEIL: The existential space of the clipboard. NICK: Well, I mean, clipboard, I think when you say clipboard, I was thinking of just like first of a blank clipboard, but then I was also thinking of the thing you put clippings on, that you put other things on, combine things together.  NEIL: I'm thinking of the clipboard, the computer clipboard. Like when you cut something. That space.  NICK: Well, what do, what is it? What is that on the computer?  NEIL: The clipboard. NICK: Yeah. What is that? I'm not sure what it, what do you mean? You cut and paste stuff? Or... NEIL: Anytime you, surely you do Command X and Command C, right?  NICK: You mean like copy things and then cut things? Yeah. Yeah. Cut. Yeah.  NEIL: So when you copy something -  NICK: And Command V.  NEIL: Oh yeah.  NICK: Yeah, yeah. Can't forget Command V.  NEIL: Absolutely. When you do Command C - NICK: Yeah. That copies it.  NEIL: Into the clipboard. And then that command, do Command V - NICK: It takes it off the clipboard.  NEIL: Yeah. Well, it stays in the clipboard, but it also pastes the inside.  NICK: See I don't think, I never knew that. Yeah. I never would've thought of that.  NEIL: I'm acutely aware of the clipboard. NICK: I never thought where it went. Oh. Oh. Well, this is a tough question cause I've never really thought of this before. So, uh, existential, I mean, that's kind of heavy to suggest it has to do with life or death. Um, uh.  NEIL: You don't think about your text in that kind of liminal state between when you cut it and when you've pasted it? NICK: I figured it just, it goes away. Like it doesn't, like if I, if I cut something else, then that replaces the thing I cut before, or if I copy something else, replaces the thing. So I just assume there's not a clipboard holding all of them.  NEIL: No, it isn't. That's part of the existential condition.  NICK: Cause it just vanishes once you put something else on top, once you copy something else.  NEIL: Yeah. It's fragile.  NICK: Yeah. I make a lot of copies. I try to, I try to like, save things as much as possible and like, yeah, like I'm, and print things up. I, I prefer to write by hand first. Uh, really. Um, and then to print it and then to write by hand on the thing I've printed and then to keep going back and forth like that. I like writing by hand. There's a, there's a young poet, um, who created an app called 'Midst.' It's hard to say midst, like in, you're in the midst of something. Yeah. I don't know how to - midst. M. I. D. S. T. It's very hard to say for me.  NEIL: Yeah. Me too.  NICK: Can you say it?  NEIL: Uh, yeah. I feel like it's going to intersect with my sibilant A-S. Let's try it. Midst.  NICK: Yeah. Oh, you do feel very well.  NEIL: But a little gay, right?  NICK: I didn't, I didn't say that. I raised one eyebrow, but I did not say it.  NEIL: When straight men raise one eyebrow, it somehow doesn't look gay. Midst. Midst. What's Midst?  NICK: Well, it's a, it's a program that she did where you can, where you write a poem, I guess you write anything, but it sort of keeps track of all the cutting and pasting you do and the, the process of making it. So you ended up, you send her like a final poem, but then she can press a button and can see all the stuff you did to make it. Um, so I have to try it though, but I usually, I really usually write by hand first and she's like, no, you have to write it on the, you have to compose the whole thing on the thing. I'm like, okay, so I just haven't quite done it yet, but I'm, yeah, I'm planning on it though.  NEIL: But this is basically, this isn't a useful tool. This is a tool to create a kind of -  NICK: To create a thing. She'll publish like a magazine that shows, like you look at a poem and then you press a button and it all sort of like, maybe it goes in reverse and dissolves back to the first word or something.  NEIL: Yeah. I just am not into those kinds of things. I feel like there's a lot of that peripheral to the art world. These things that kind of like perform a process or reveal a process. I'm just not into that. You know what I'm saying? NICK: No, but that's okay. I mean, I try, I believe that you are not into it. I'm just like, process is nice. Like I love, I love, I love seeing the process. I love seeing, don't you love like, like thinking like Michelangelo's slaves, you know, on the way to the David, right?  NEIL: Oh yeah.  NICK: We get to see the slaves like coming out of the block of marble and everyone says that they were like incomplete.  NEIL: Yes.  NICK: Yeah. We just said, which is such bullshit. Like if you think about it, like what, he did twelve incomplete at the same stage, like they're half out of the block just, Oh, I'm just gonna stop them all here.  NEIL: Right?  NICK: Like, it makes no sense at all. Like you couldn't finish one of them? NEIL: Right. NICK: Like he clearly saw that it looked cool for slaves who were pulling themselves out of what they're stuck in. And that, I find it so much more interesting than David, which is complete and perfect. I think, I think that's the meta thing where it's like all about process. That's like the process right there.  NEIL: Huh.  NICK: Yeah. So I try to think about that. That was just sort of a highfalutin way to counter your anti-process.  NEIL: Doesn't feel highfalutin. I think my thing was like faux highfalutin.  (Card Flips)  What keeps you going?  NICK: Um. Uh, just wondering what's gonna happen next. Yeah. Yeah. NEIL: Poet. On that note, thank you, Nick Flynn, for being on SHE'S A TALKER. NICK: Thank you, Neil. NEIL: That was my conversation with Nick Flynn. Thank you for listening.  Before we get to the credits, there were some listener responses to cards that I'd love to share. In my conversation with artist Tony Bluestone, we talked about the card: That moment when you forget what you should be worrying about and try to reclaim it. In response to that card, Jamie Wolf wrote, "A single brussel sprout rolled under the stove, and I wasn't gonna let Shavasana get in the way of my at least remembering to retrieve it." John Kensal responded with what I think is a haiku: Please sit or flee, my wee and quiet executive function disorder. Another card Tony and I talked about was: Fog is queer weather, to which Jonathan Taylor wrote, "To me, fog is transgressive because it's like a cloud. So it's either you or it is not where it's supposed to be."  Thanks to everyone who wrote in. If you have something you'd like to share about a card on the podcast, email us or send us a voice memo at shesatalker@gmail.com or message us on Instagram at shesatalker. And also, as always, we'd love it if you'd rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or share this episode with a friend. This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund. Devin Guinn produced this episode. Molly Donahue and Aaron Dalton are our consulting producers. Justine Lee handles social media. Our interns are Alara Degirmenci, Jonathan Jalbert, Jesse Kimotho, and Rachel Wang. Our card flip beats come from Josh Graver. And my husband, Jeff Hiller, sings the theme song you're about to hear. Thanks to all of them, and to my guest, Nick Flynn, and to you for listening. JEFF HILLER: She's a talker with Neil Goldberg. She's a talker with fabulous guests. She's a talker, it's better than it sounds, yeah!

We cover the basics on the traditional IRA. John and Nick will break down what this investment vehicle is for and how it may be able to benefit you.Helpful Information:PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/Contact: 813-286-7776Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.comFor a transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/Transcript of Today's Show:----more----Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome into this edition of Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick here with me, talking about investing finance and retirement. From their office, their PFG Private Wealth in Tampa Bay guys, what's going on? How are you this week, John?John: I'm good. How are you doing?Speaker 1: I'm hanging in there. Amidst the goofiness of the world, I'm doing all right. How about you, Nick? You doing okay?Nick: Yep, yep. Pretty good. We finished up the retirement classes that we teach recently, so just meeting with a lot of people after that class.Speaker 1: Okay. Those went pretty well?Nick: Yeah. Yeah, always good. Always fun.Speaker 1: Okay, well, very good. Listen, I got a little bit of a kind of a class idea for us to run through here. I wanted to talk this week about IRAs, really just an IRA 101, if you will, and then we'll follow it up with our next podcast coming up after this one. We'll follow up with the Roth side of the coin. Let's jump into here just a little bit and talk about this and get rocking and rolling. Just do us a favor. Just assume that we don't all have the same knowledge base. What is an IRA? Give us just a quick 101 on that.John: So yeah, good question. Especially with a tax season coming up, because I know a lot of people when they're doing their taxes, and whether it's TurboTax or working with an accountant, at the end of it it says you might want contribute to an IRA and maybe save some taxes this year. Or maybe get [inaudible 00:01:22] taxable income down the road. But you brought this topic up. So when I raise an individual retirement account on the personal side, a lot of people have their employer sponsored plans, but the IRA is for the individual. Really, there's a lot of tax benefits to it to provide for saving for retirement. One of the biggest questions that Nick and I get, or I guess assumptions, is that most people think an IRA is an actual investment, and it's really not. I explain it as imagine a tax shell, a tax shell you can invest in a lot of different things, and you have some tax benefits within the shell.Speaker 1: Okay. So it's like a turtle shell, if you want to look out that way. It's a wrapper really, right? So it's what your Snicker bar comes in. It's the wrapper. Then inside there you can put all sorts of different stuff. So who can contribute to IRAs?John: Well, there's two main types, and Nick will jump into that. But there's your traditional IRA and then a Roth IRA.Speaker 1: Okay.Nick: From the standpoint of how those break down, how those work, we're going to focus on traditional IRAs today. The number one determination on whether or not you can contribute to an IRA is if there is earned income in the household. So if it's a single person household, they have to have earned income. That does not include pension income, social security income, rental income. It's earned income. You receive some sort of wage for doing a job. So that's the first rule. You can contribute for 2019 and for 2020 essentially, if you're under 50, you can contribute $6,000. If you're over 50, you can take part in what's called a catch-up, which is an additional $1,000 for a total of $7,000.Nick: So as an example, let say that it's a two-person household. One person is working, one person is not, and the person that's working has a least $14,000 of income. Then as long as they satisfy a couple other rules that we'll talk about, they can make a contribution for themself for the $7,000 and for the spouse for the $7,000. So earned income doesn't have to be for both people. It has to be for one, and then the amount ties in the amount of earned income.Speaker 1: Oh, okay.John: One thing to jump into that, and I've seen some people, not our clients, but others, make some mistakes where they think that, we talked about the two different kinds, traditional and Roth, where they think they can make, let's say, $7,000 into one and $7,000 in the other. It's actually $7,000 total between the two of them.Speaker 1: Oh, that's a good point. Yeah. So, okay, so those are good to know. Whenever you're talking about just the contribution, the base set up of them. So let's stick with the traditional IRA and talk about it. What are some key things to think about like as an investment vehicle, as a machine here? These are pre-taxed, right?Nick: Yeah. When we talk about, and this is where the confusion really sets in for many people, when we talk about traditional IRAs, we really like to have conversations with people to make sure that they understand that there can be both a tax deductible or pretax traditional IRA, and there can be non-deductible traditional IRAs. So the logistics are dependent upon, really, a couple of different things whether or not they're active in an employer's plan. Then there are income limits that will determine whether or not somebody can participate in the tax deductible side of a traditional IRA. So that can be a little confusing. We usually have people consult with their tax prepare or and/or their software so that they can fully understand.Nick: But part of the reason that we bring that up is a real-world scenario is, what [inaudible 00:05:17] this client, worked at a company for 10 years, and she contributed to the 401k on a pretax basis. She left the company, rolled her 401k into a rollover IRA, and she's no longer working, but her spouse is working and wants to make IRA contributions for them. But he has a plan at work and makes too much money. They might have to do a non-deductible IRA. So usually what we will tell them to do is to open a second IRA, and when they make the contribution, they're going to account for it on their taxes as they made it. They're not going to deduct it. So we try not to commingle those dollars together. So a nondeductible IRA, we would like you to be separate from a rollover IRA. Otherwise, they have to keep track of the cost basis and their tax basis on nondeductible proportion commingled, and we're really just [inaudible 00:06:16] nightmare.John: Yeah, that's never fun to try and keep track of and never easy. One thing with with the pretax, just give an example of what that means is, let's say someone's taxable income in a given year is $100,000, and doing their taxes, it says, you might want to make a deductible contribution to an IRA. If they were to put $5,000 into the IRA, their taxable income for that given year would be $95,000. So that's where people look at the pretax as a benefit versus a nondeductible. That same example, $100,000 of income, you put $5,000 into a nondeductible IRA, your taxable income stays at that $100,000.Speaker 1: Okay. So what are the factors that determine if it's deductible or not?Nick: The answer is that it's fairly complicated. The first factor is, if we talk about an individual, they're going to look at do you have a plan at work that you're able to contribute to? So that's the first test. The second test is an income test. The tricky part with the income test is that there is a test for your income, and then there's also tests for household income. So usually we revert to the charts and advisors. We work together with the tax preparers to help make sure that we're in compliance with all of the rules. It should be much less complicated than it actually is. But it's really, honestly, a pain. I will say that if you do not have a plan at work that you can contribute to, your ability to contribute in [inaudible 00:07:56] to an IRA, a traditional IRA is much easier.Speaker 1: Okay. Gotcha. All right. So if that's some of the determining factors in there, what are some other important things for us to take away from a traditional IRA standpoint?John: Yeah, one of the biggest benefits to investing in an IRA versus, let's say, outside of it, is and if the account grows tax-deferred. So let's say you had money outside of an IRA and you get some growth on it, I say typically, because nothing's ever absolute. But you can really get it [inaudible 00:08:28] every single year and the gains and the dividends and things like that. Within the IRA shell, going back to that, it just continues to grow tax-deferred. So really help the compounding growth of it.Speaker 1: Okay. So when we're talking about some of these important pieces and the different things with the traditional, what are some other, I know a lot of times we know that it's the 59 and a half, right? All that kind of stuff. Give us some other things to think about just so that we're aware of the gist of it. Now, there was some changes to the Secure Act, which also makes them some of these numbers a little bit different now. The 59 and a half is still there, but now it's gone from 70 and a half to 72, right?John: Yeah. With good things like tax deferral and pre-tax, we do have some nice rules that the IRS/government basically hands down to us. One of them is as far as access to the account, you cannot fully access the account without any penalties until 59 and a half. After you're 59 and a half, you do get access to your account. If you access it before that, there is a 10% penalty on top of a whatever you draw. So that's basically deter to pull out early. There are some special circumstances as far as pulling out before 59 and a half, which could be any type of hardships financially, health wise, and also first time home purchases. We get that quite a bit sometimes where people say, I'm looking to buy a house and I want to go ahead and pull out of my IRA. Can I do so and avoid the penalty? The answer is yes, up to $10,000.John: Some of the changes with the Secure Act where they used to be after 70 and a half, you can no longer contribute to an IRA, even if you have earned income. That's actually gone, which is a nice feature when we're doing planning for clients above 70 and a half, where we can now make a deductible contribution to an IRA, where before we couldn't. Nick's the expert in RMD, so he can jump in and take that.Nick: One of the biggest things to keep in mind from the standpoint of traditional IRAs are that they do have required minimum distributions. The good thing is that those required minimum distributions are now required at age 72 versus 70 and a half. So that makes things a little bit easier for people. And again, that's kind of a big differentiator from the standpoint of a Roth IRA does not have an RMD, a traditional IRA does have an RMD.Speaker 1: Right, and with the RMDs, it's money that basically the government says, we're tired of waiting. Where's our tax revenue? Is there any basic things there just to think about when we're thinking about having to pull this out? Is there a figure attached to it?Nick: I would say we try to give people an idea, because sometimes there's uncertainty on any sort of concept of how much they have to take out. But on average it's about 3.6% in the first year. I would say though, that probably one of the biggest, or I should say one of the most misunderstood portions about it are that the RMD amount that has to come out, it's based on the prior years and balance of all of the pretax accounts. So you may have multiple accounts, you don't have to take an RMD out of each account. You just need to make sure that you take out the amount that is due, and you have the ability to be able to pick which account you want to take that out of, which really, at first thought that can seem more complicated. But if you're working with somebody it helps increase the ability to strategize and ladder your investments and use a bucket strategy where you can use short-term, mid-term, long-term strategies on your money, and have a little bit more flexibility on which account you're going to take money out of when.John: To jump on that, we went through that paycheck series when we talked about having a long-term bucket, and in some strategies that's where by being able to choose what IRA you draw from, you can just let that long-term bucket just continue to build up and not worrying about pulling out of it.Speaker 1: Gotcha. Okay. All right. So that gives us a good rundown, I think, through the traditional side of it, and gives us some basic class, if you will, on what these are. Of course, as the guys mentioned, they teach classes all the time. So if there's things you want to learn more about the IRA, the traditional IRA, and how you might be able to be using it or better using it as part of an investment vehicle, then always reach out to the team and have a conversation about that specifically. Because again, we just covered some basics and general things that apply to just about everybody here. But when you want to see how it works for your situation specifically, you always have to have those conversations one-on-one. So reach out to them, let them know if you want to chat about the traditional IRA, or how you can better use the vehicle, or change, or whatever it is that you're looking to do.Speaker 1: (813) 286-7776 is the number you call to have a conversation with them. You simply let them know that you want to come in. They'll get you scheduled and set up for a time that works well for you. That's (813) 286-7776. They are financial advisors at PFG Private Wealth in the Tampa Bay area. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Stitcher, whatever platform of choice you like to use. You can simply download the app onto your smartphone and search Retirement Planning Redefined on the app for the podcast. Or you could just simply go to their website at pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com. Guys, thanks for spending a few minutes with me this week talking about IRAs. So let's, next podcast, talk about the Roth side. We'll flip over to the cousins, okay?John: One more thing I want to mention before we go is withdrawing from the accounts of, let's say someone goes to retire above 59 and a half, and it's time to really start using this money as income. So it's just important to understand that whatever amount that you withdraw out of the IRA, assuming everything was pre-tax that went into it, it adds to your taxable income. So for example, if someone's pulling $50,000 out of their IRA, their taxable income goes up by $50,000 in a given year. So we just want to point that out, because as people are putting money into it, we sometimes do get questions of, when I take it out am I actually taxed on this, the answer is yes, if it was pretax put into it.Speaker 1: Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, great point. Thanks for bringing that up as well. So I appreciate that. And again, folks, the nice thing about a podcast is you can always pause it, and you can always rewind it, replay it. If you're learning, trying to learn something useful, or get a new nugget of information here, that's a great thing about it. That's also why subscribing is fantastic. You can hear new episodes that come out, as well as go back and check on something that you were thinking about, and that way when you come to have that conversation, you can say, listen, I want to understand more about how withdrawals with my traditional IRA is going to affect me, or whatever your question might be. So again, guys, thanks for your time this week. I'll let you get back to work and we'll talk again soon.John: Thanks.Nick: Thanks.Speaker 1: We'll catch you next time here, folks, on the podcast. Again, go subscribe. We'd appreciate it on Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick from PFG Private Wealth.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Cheryl: So Nick, I've never actually been to Australia. Can you tell me about any famous people that live there?Nick: Well, one famous person, his name is Ian Thorpe.Cheryl: Ian Thorpe.Nick: Ian Thorpe. He's a very famous swimmer. He won so many Gold Medals.Cheryl: Oh, really?Nick: Mm. In maybe four Olympics. I think he won maybe fourteen to twenty gold medals.Cheryl: For swimming?Nick: For swimming yeah. He a free-style swimmer.Cheryl: I've never actually heard of him. How old is he?Nick: He's 24 years old I think. 24 or 25. So he's really young.Cheryl: I see. You guys are really famous for athletics.Nick: Athletics, yeah. There's another famous person by the name of Cathy Freeman.Cheryl: Cathy Freeman.Nick: She's the first aboriginal[土著的；土生土长的] Australian to win a gold medal.Cheryl: Ah, aboriginal Australian.Nick: Yeah, so native Australian.Cheryl: What did she win a gold medal in?Nick: In the 400 meters sprint.Cheryl: Oh, the sprint, so she's a runner.Nick: Yeah, she's a runner, so yeah, she'd been doing it for years and years, but finally she had that big break-through and did very well.Cheryl: Is she the first aboriginal woman to win something, or is she is she the first aboriginal period?Nick: Well, many aboriginal have won events but never really at a world stage so it was really impressive to see her win the even and then she took the aboriginal flag onto the ground and did a lap of honor for the aboriginal Australians.Cheryl: Very nice. What year was that?Nick: That was the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.Cheryl: Ah, perfect.Nick: So in Australia so it was really, really a special moment.Cheryl: Very special since it was held in her own land.Nick: Yeah, exactly and Sydney's a very important place for aboriginals as well.Cheryl: Why is that?Nick: Because that's where the first fleet arrived from England was to Sydney, so that was the first, I suppose, invasion of Australia came through Sydney, so.Cheryl: Oh, yeah, I remember seeing that in the movie "Australia".Nick: Oh, yeah, you would have too. It was in Australia so.Cheryl: Yeah, I guess other country's also have aborigines people. I'm thinking of Taiwan and another island not too far from Australia. Well, I think Taiwan have the aborigines. One really famous aborigines there is Ah Mae. She is a very famous singer. She's been called the Diva of Asia because of her voice. She has a really, really, really talented vocal range. Really high and really low. And she was famous also for being native Taiwanese. The aboriginal Taiwanese.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Cheryl: So Nick, I've never actually been to Australia. Can you tell me about any famous people that live there?Nick: Well, one famous person, his name is Ian Thorpe.Cheryl: Ian Thorpe.Nick: Ian Thorpe. He's a very famous swimmer. He won so many Gold Medals.Cheryl: Oh, really?Nick: Mm. In maybe four Olympics. I think he won maybe fourteen to twenty gold medals.Cheryl: For swimming?Nick: For swimming yeah. He a free-style swimmer.Cheryl: I've never actually heard of him. How old is he?Nick: He's 24 years old I think. 24 or 25. So he's really young.Cheryl: I see. You guys are really famous for athletics.Nick: Athletics, yeah. There's another famous person by the name of Cathy Freeman.Cheryl: Cathy Freeman.Nick: She's the first aboriginal[土著的；土生土长的] Australian to win a gold medal.Cheryl: Ah, aboriginal Australian.Nick: Yeah, so native Australian.Cheryl: What did she win a gold medal in?Nick: In the 400 meters sprint.Cheryl: Oh, the sprint, so she's a runner.Nick: Yeah, she's a runner, so yeah, she'd been doing it for years and years, but finally she had that big break-through and did very well.Cheryl: Is she the first aboriginal woman to win something, or is she is she the first aboriginal period?Nick: Well, many aboriginal have won events but never really at a world stage so it was really impressive to see her win the even and then she took the aboriginal flag onto the ground and did a lap of honor for the aboriginal Australians.Cheryl: Very nice. What year was that?Nick: That was the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.Cheryl: Ah, perfect.Nick: So in Australia so it was really, really a special moment.Cheryl: Very special since it was held in her own land.Nick: Yeah, exactly and Sydney's a very important place for aboriginals as well.Cheryl: Why is that?Nick: Because that's where the first fleet arrived from England was to Sydney, so that was the first, I suppose, invasion of Australia came through Sydney, so.Cheryl: Oh, yeah, I remember seeing that in the movie "Australia".Nick: Oh, yeah, you would have too. It was in Australia so.Cheryl: Yeah, I guess other country's also have aborigines people. I'm thinking of Taiwan and another island not too far from Australia. Well, I think Taiwan have the aborigines. One really famous aborigines there is Ah Mae. She is a very famous singer. She's been called the Diva of Asia because of her voice. She has a really, really, really talented vocal range. Really high and really low. And she was famous also for being native Taiwanese. The aboriginal Taiwanese.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号:　VOA英语每日一听Nick: So Cheryl, how do you make the first move?Cheryl: Make the first move?Nick: Yeah, when you're interested in somebody and you want to take it further: to become boyfriend and girlfriend.Cheryl: I see. Make the first move! Well, first I think I would try to talk to the guy.Try to approach him and maybe ask him some questions about himself. Questions such as, "Where are you from? What do you like to do? Why are you here? " Questions like that. And then I would see how he would respond.Nick: So would you be physical? Would you maybe be huggy or ... I don't know ..Cheryl: Flirtatious[ /flɝːˈteɪ.ʃəs/,打情罵俏的，輕佻的]?Nick: Flirtatious. Yes.Cheryl: Flirtatious. Well, I think that would depend on whether I have the courage to be flirtatious or actively flirtatious. Maybe, I would use my body language to show him that I'm interested. Usually, when somebody likes a guy, they would probably lean in towards the guy, blink[眨] their eyes more than usual. Smile a lot. But I think if you have an interest in that person, your body should show it naturally and automatically.Nick: Is place important?Cheryl: Place? That is a very, very, very good question. If we are alone, then I think I would be more brave and courageous in making the first move. But if we're a room full of people, I might not be as forward as I would be alone with the person.Nick: So maybe would you make the first move and ask for a date or?Cheryl: Ask for a date? I don't think I have the guts. I don't have the courage to ask for a date the very first time I meet someone. I would probably have to meet them more than once, and get to know them and see if like that person more.Nick: OK, I see.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号:　VOA英语每日一听Nick: So Cheryl, how do you make the first move?Cheryl: Make the first move?Nick: Yeah, when you're interested in somebody and you want to take it further: to become boyfriend and girlfriend.Cheryl: I see. Make the first move! Well, first I think I would try to talk to the guy.Try to approach him and maybe ask him some questions about himself. Questions such as, "Where are you from? What do you like to do? Why are you here? " Questions like that. And then I would see how he would respond.Nick: So would you be physical? Would you maybe be huggy or ... I don't know ..Cheryl: Flirtatious[ /flɝːˈteɪ.ʃəs/,打情罵俏的，輕佻的]?Nick: Flirtatious. Yes.Cheryl: Flirtatious. Well, I think that would depend on whether I have the courage to be flirtatious or actively flirtatious. Maybe, I would use my body language to show him that I'm interested. Usually, when somebody likes a guy, they would probably lean in towards the guy, blink[眨] their eyes more than usual. Smile a lot. But I think if you have an interest in that person, your body should show it naturally and automatically.Nick: Is place important?Cheryl: Place? That is a very, very, very good question. If we are alone, then I think I would be more brave and courageous in making the first move. But if we're a room full of people, I might not be as forward as I would be alone with the person.Nick: So maybe would you make the first move and ask for a date or?Cheryl: Ask for a date? I don't think I have the guts. I don't have the courage to ask for a date the very first time I meet someone. I would probably have to meet them more than once, and get to know them and see if like that person more.Nick: OK, I see.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号:VOA英语每日一听Nick: So, I don't know much about Guam. I'd barely heard of Guam until last year so please, tell me something about it. What's life like?Cheryl: Well, most people have never heard about Guam. Most people who do hear about it are mostly Americans and even then most of these Americans that do hear about it, they have family in the military or they know a friend in the military and that's because Guam is a big US base, a military base.Guam is a little island in the middle of the Pacific. It's actually five hours from where you're from, Nick, five hours from Australia. And it's about four hours from Hong Kong and three and a half from Japan. So you can kind of gauge[ /ɡeɪdʒ/,測量，計量] based on those numbers just how much in the middle of the Pacific Ocean Guam is. It's about eighteen miles wide and thirty-two miles long so it's pretty, pretty small.Nick: So it's a part of America?Cheryl: Yeah, it's a part of America. The US military base there is actually the biggest in Asia besides the one in Okinawa which is the islands south of Japan.But it is supposedly the closest US soil...not supposedly, it is the closest US soil to Asia.Nick: Oh really? And it looks like a tropical paradise.Cheryl: Yeah, it is very much like Hawaii which is an island of the coast of the mainland US. It's got lots and lots of palm trees, blue waters, and white sand. Lots and lots and lots of water sports are available...scuba diving[戴水肺潛水] spots, it's actually a paradise, I think.Nick: I definitely want to go.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号:VOA英语每日一听Nick: So, I don't know much about Guam. I'd barely heard of Guam until last year so please, tell me something about it. What's life like?Cheryl: Well, most people have never heard about Guam. Most people who do hear about it are mostly Americans and even then most of these Americans that do hear about it, they have family in the military or they know a friend in the military and that's because Guam is a big US base, a military base.Guam is a little island in the middle of the Pacific. It's actually five hours from where you're from, Nick, five hours from Australia. And it's about four hours from Hong Kong and three and a half from Japan. So you can kind of gauge[ /ɡeɪdʒ/,測量，計量] based on those numbers just how much in the middle of the Pacific Ocean Guam is. It's about eighteen miles wide and thirty-two miles long so it's pretty, pretty small.Nick: So it's a part of America?Cheryl: Yeah, it's a part of America. The US military base there is actually the biggest in Asia besides the one in Okinawa which is the islands south of Japan.But it is supposedly the closest US soil...not supposedly, it is the closest US soil to Asia.Nick: Oh really? And it looks like a tropical paradise.Cheryl: Yeah, it is very much like Hawaii which is an island of the coast of the mainland US. It's got lots and lots of palm trees, blue waters, and white sand. Lots and lots and lots of water sports are available...scuba diving[戴水肺潛水] spots, it's actually a paradise, I think.Nick: I definitely want to go.

Today is part 5 of our social security series and we will focus on the survivor benefit option. We will talk about a few situations that can arise and share a couple of client stories that have revolved around this topic.Helpful Information:PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/Contact: 813-286-7776Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.comTranscript of Today's Show:----more----Speaker 1: Back here with us for another edition of Retirement Planning Redefined, the podcast with John and Nick from PFG Private Wealth. Gentlemen, how's it going? Nick, how are you today, my friend?Nick: Doing pretty well. How about yourself?Speaker 1: I'm hanging in there. Not doing too bad. We are into December. Moving along nicely on this. John, how are you doing? You doing all right?John: I'm doing good. I'm doing good. No complaints. It's a getting a little cooler here in Florida, which is nice. It's been been hot, so it's nice to get a little a cool, no more humidity.Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Now, as planners, you guys plan a lot of things, but are you the same way when it comes to holiday shopping? Have you kind of gotten some of this knocked out? We're at about the middle of the month here now in December. So you guys ready to roll for Christmas or are you last minute?John: I'll take that one first. No, I do a lot of Amazon shopping [crosstalk 00:00:49].Speaker 1: Me and you both. But how about you, Nick?Nick: Anything I can do to avoid going to a store, I do, so the majority of my shopping [crosstalk 00:00:59].Speaker 1: I think so many of us are that way, right, which obviously we can see in the death of brick and mortar, for sure. But yeah, absolutely. I agree with you there. Well, hopefully, folks, you're out there getting your shopping done. Maybe you're checking out this podcast while you're driving around doing some shopping or walking around in the malls or whatever the case might be. That is kind of the beauty of podcasting. It's not like traditional radio obviously, so you have more options, and hopefully you're subscribed to the podcast Retirement Planning Redefined. Do it at Apple, Google or Spotify, and a couple others as well, and you can find the links if you want, and podcast episodes on their website at PFGPrivateWealth.com. That's PFGPrivateWealth.com.Speaker 1: All right, part five. I think this is going to probably wrap it up, too, for our series on social security. We're going to talk about survivor benefits. Guys, give us some things to think about here. Survivor benefits are available to children and surviving spouses, correct?John: Yeah, so it is available to children and surviving spouses. For today's session, we're going to focus more on surviving spouses because that comes into play more when we're doing retirement planning.Speaker 1: Okay.John: So we always like to actually joke around with the survivor benefit. Not many people are aware, but they get a nice $255 lump sum death benefit if the spouse were to pass away.Nick: Obviously has not been adjusted for inflation.Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that doesn't cover much of anything, does it?John: No, no it doesn't. But they do get a monthly benefit as survivor and when it comes to planning, that does help out quite a bit when we're talking about strategies and trying to figure out a plan for a survivor. Kind of some rules that go with that. A survivor can actually start drawing social security at age 60 versus 62, which is kind of the normal first spouse, which we discussed last week.Nick: It is important to note that as a reminder, even though they're eligible to draw at 60, there are still the income tests from the standpoint of reductions. So if that person is working, then it may not make a whole lot of sense to get that early.John: Yeah. What Nick's referencing, we talked about the earnings penalty if you start taking social security before your full retirement age. That does still apply age 60, so if you're still working, most likely that will wipe out any social security benefit you're going to get as a survivor.John: Some other things to consider, and I'll kind of give some examples of this. Survivor benefit is not available if someone remarries before age 60, okay, unless of course that marriage ends. So we've had situations where we were planning for clients and we were talking about doing some survivor strategies and they actually ... Let's just give an example. They were 57 and were considering getting married and actually deferred their marriage until age 61 to be safe, which I don't think the spouse is too happy with us on that because it deferred the marriage, but it made sense because we actually get some pretty easy strategies, which we'll talk about later, to maximize the social security.Nick: For the widow to the eligible for those survivor benefits, they had to have been married for at least nine months. There's a caveat to that where the death was an accident, that could come into play. So essentially, that's pretty lenient, but it is important to understand the nine month rule as well.John: Yeah. And we stress a lot on just understanding what your situation is. Just kind of give you an example of that, I had a client that thought she's eligible for social security because she was married, but he passed away when they were within eight months of marriage. And she was shocked [inaudible 00:04:23] the whole time, let's say the last seven years, she was planning on it and then didn't qualify for it. So it was shocking, and unfortunately for her, she was hitting 62 so it made a big difference to her overall plan.Speaker 1: Gotcha. Okay. So good information there. Surviving spouse's benefit is based on what?Nick: So essentially kind of the caveat to this is whether or not people have been collecting. So if both spouses are receiving their benefits and there is death, then the surviving spouse receives the higher of the two.John: Not both.Nick: Correct. Not both, which some people will be surprised about how that works. But it's important to understand that they receive the higher of the two, not both. And one of the big factors that gets calculated into the firm calculation of the amount of money that the widow will receive takes into account when the deceased spouse originally claimed their benefit. And it gets a little bit confusing, quite frankly, for most people, but it factors in essentially whether or not they took it before or after their full retirement age. So John will walk us through an example on that. But it is important to understand how this works.John: Yeah. Again, we like to do everything in the realm of planning. So this is where doing the social security maximization strategy is very important. Social security is a big part of someone's retirement income. So you want to make sure that you're making the best decisions available to you, because the last thing you is to look back 10 years ago, it's like, "Oh, I wish I did this. I could have had X amount of dollars or really been enjoying my [inaudible 00:06:05] a little bit more."John: So just going to touch on an example of that. We'll call them Jack and Jill. We talked about some survivor strategies last week, but let's say Jack's up for retirement benefits, 2,400. Doesn't take it [inaudible 00:06:20] 70. Basically, Jill can jump on and actually take ... Let's increase it to 2,976 increases. That will be her new basically benefit for social security, so she gets a nice increase and that's where we talked about really trying to protect the spouse and giving them more income for life. And if she tries to draw early, let's say she takes it at 62, which anytime you draw early, you get reduction of benefit or a reduction based off of now the higher amount that he deferred, which is a nice little caveat. We have to really do some planning for a spouse.Nick: And one of the things too from a comparison standpoint is when we discuss the spousal benefits and how the spousal benefits do not grow past full retirement age, the death benefits does, or the widow benefit, survivor benefit does grow past [inaudible 00:07:15] age, so another reason why that's really a big factor.John: Yeah. And one thing that we'll always do, if we're incorporating strategies, you always typically want to delay the higher benefit. So if you're looking at an opportunity to take a widow's benefit or my own, rule of thumb, and everyone's different, but rule of thumb is defer the higher ones. I'll give my family as an example. My father-in-law, his wife passed away young and basically age 60, he was able to actually draw her social security benefit at 60, which a reduced amount. Most of his income is from real estate and investment income, so an earnings penalty didn't apply to him. So the plan is he's taking the widow benefit at 60 and he's deferring his, and then at full retirement age, he's going to switch over to his and get his full retirement benefit. So from 60 to 66, he was actually able to get some type of benefit and then at 66, will jump to his own and he gets the full amount.Speaker 1: Yeah. So there's some good strategies, some good things to think about, good information here when we're talking about these survivor benefits. So a couple of final key points or key takeaways, guys, just to think about?John: Things to consider is a reminder that basically when the person passes away, their social security benefits stop. And if the surviving spouse is going to take one, they'll take either their own or the deceased spouse, whatever one's higher, just making sure that it's important to plan and make sure the strategy is best for you based on your situation. Social security ... This is everything, not just survivors ... it's very confusing, and there's a lot of different things you can do, so if you're working with an advisor, just make sure that they have the capabilities to stress test your decisions, to make sure you're making the correct decision based on your situation and not your neighbors or as Nick likes to say, up north, his clients, they've talked to their plumber.Nick: Yeah. Everybody likes to get an opinion from somebody else. We will talk about opinions. But so anyways, I think the biggest kind of overlying thing, and we talk about it a lot, but we can't emphasize it enough, and even when we do overemphasize it, people still ask, but this is not a decision to be made in a vacuum. So many other factors tie into this decision.Nick: And even when we plan ... As an example, I was walking somebody through a plan this week, and they are three or four years out from retirement, and even though we have a strategy set up for social security in the plan on what we plan to do from a baseline standpoint, they asked and I really had to emphasize that realistically this decision doesn't really get made until maybe three, six months before their retirement.Nick: So we may plan for a certain strategy for four or five years, but the importance of planning and updating your plan every single year cannot be understated, because especially with social security, if we're in the midst of a recession, if we're in the midst of a 2008, we're not going to have somebody take a bunch of money out of their nest egg even though over the last five years we planned to do that. We're probably going to have at least one of them take social security, protect the value of the nest egg, give it time to bounce back and then adjust accordingly. The planning is via kind of a living, breathing thing and we always have to adapt and adjust.Speaker 1: Nope, I think that's a great point. We've said that many times here on the podcast that you've got to have a plan and then you have to realize that that plan needs to evolve much like your life's going to. A lot of times we kind of get a collection of things. We have some investments, we have some insurance vehicles, we think about social security. Maybe you're lucky enough to have a pension and you say, "Okay. Well, I've got this collection of things. I'm good to go. I have a retirement plan." No, you have a collection of things. So pulling them all together in a full retirement plan is really important.Speaker 1: That's what John and Nick do every day at PFG Private Wealth, so give them a call if you've got questions or concerns. Get on the calendar at 813-286-7776. That's 813-286-7776. Don't forget to go to the website, PFGPrivateWealth.com. You can always subscribe to the podcast and get new episodes, check out past episodes, things of that nature on Apple or Google or Spotify. So check them out online as well@pfgprivatewealth.com and also share the podcast with folks that you think might benefit from it as well.Speaker 1: This has been Retirement Planning Redefined. Thanks so much for staying tuned into the show. John. Nick, thanks for your time, as always. I hope you have a happy and safe holiday and we'll talk actually I think in 2020.Nick: Sounds good.John: All right.Speaker 1: You guys-Nick: Thank you.Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Take care and enjoy the holidays, everybody, and we'll see you next time right here on Retirement Planning Redefined.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号:VOA英语每日一听Nick: You've lived in three different parts of the world, so is there any difference between each part in terms of physical contact?Cheryl: Yeah, I have lived in Hong Kong, Guam, and the U.S. Hong Kong is in Asia. Guam is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and the U.S. is American culture. So in Hong Kong, I think most people would not touch each other, just give each other a little bow. I find that a bow is very common in Asia. If you're very good friends, you wouldn't really hug. Hugging I think is a very American thing to do. I think you would just touch each other on the shoulder, or give each other a side embrace. A mini-hug.In Guam, you would definitely greet your friends and family with a kiss on the cheek. A handshake is much too formal for island culture because Island culture is so relaxed and laid-back. You would only do a handshake with business partners or in a really formal setting, but usually, a kiss on the cheek is what you receive and give when you see your family and friends.In the U.S., hugging is most common I think for friends and family, but if you're not friends and family, a handshake would probably be the most common.Nick: Is a handshake always the same or is there different styles of handshake?Cheryl: From what I've observed, Guam has American culture so Guam handshakes and U.S. handshakes are the same. I think in Hong Kong, it's got a bit of British background, so that's also very similar. I don't see any difference with the handshake.Nick: So, what about young people? Is there a different way they interact physically with each other?Cheryl: Yes, definitely. In Guam, I always see people do a fist bump for close buddies of theirs. Girls would definitely hug and give each other a kiss. In Hong Kong, I don't see the fist bump often. I don't think I've ever seen it at all actually, but for close friends, I think a side embrace or a semi-embrace would happen, but mostly just some form of touch or acknowledgment of the other person.I think it's also very common for people of the same sex to hold hands in Asia and just be friends. Women and women hold each other's hand if they are very, very, very good friends, and it's apparently very normal. I don't know about a guy holding another guy's hand, but if a woman and a woman hold each other's hands, it does not signal that they are together as a couple. It might just signal that they are very, very good friends or sisters.Nick: In Australia that would be very strange.Cheryl: Yes, it would, wouldn't it? Even in America and Guam.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号:VOA英语每日一听Nick: You've lived in three different parts of the world, so is there any difference between each part in terms of physical contact?Cheryl: Yeah, I have lived in Hong Kong, Guam, and the U.S. Hong Kong is in Asia. Guam is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and the U.S. is American culture. So in Hong Kong, I think most people would not touch each other, just give each other a little bow. I find that a bow is very common in Asia. If you're very good friends, you wouldn't really hug. Hugging I think is a very American thing to do. I think you would just touch each other on the shoulder, or give each other a side embrace. A mini-hug.In Guam, you would definitely greet your friends and family with a kiss on the cheek. A handshake is much too formal for island culture because Island culture is so relaxed and laid-back. You would only do a handshake with business partners or in a really formal setting, but usually, a kiss on the cheek is what you receive and give when you see your family and friends.In the U.S., hugging is most common I think for friends and family, but if you're not friends and family, a handshake would probably be the most common.Nick: Is a handshake always the same or is there different styles of handshake?Cheryl: From what I've observed, Guam has American culture so Guam handshakes and U.S. handshakes are the same. I think in Hong Kong, it's got a bit of British background, so that's also very similar. I don't see any difference with the handshake.Nick: So, what about young people? Is there a different way they interact physically with each other?Cheryl: Yes, definitely. In Guam, I always see people do a fist bump for close buddies of theirs. Girls would definitely hug and give each other a kiss. In Hong Kong, I don't see the fist bump often. I don't think I've ever seen it at all actually, but for close friends, I think a side embrace or a semi-embrace would happen, but mostly just some form of touch or acknowledgment of the other person.I think it's also very common for people of the same sex to hold hands in Asia and just be friends. Women and women hold each other's hand if they are very, very, very good friends, and it's apparently very normal. I don't know about a guy holding another guy's hand, but if a woman and a woman hold each other's hands, it does not signal that they are together as a couple. It might just signal that they are very, very good friends or sisters.Nick: In Australia that would be very strange.Cheryl: Yes, it would, wouldn't it? Even in America and Guam.

Today's show is part 4 of our social security discussion. Our topic today is spousal benefit options. John and Nick will walk us through the ins and outs of this facet of social security and offer their advice.Helpful Information:PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/Contact: 813-286-7776Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.comTranscript of Today's Show:----more----Mark: Hey everybody, welcome into another edition of Retirement Planning Redefined. Thanks as always for checking out and tuning into the podcast with John and Nick, financial advisors at PFG Private wealth. Gents, what's going on? John, I'll start with you. How are you buddy?John: I'm doing good. I'm doing good. How are you doing Mark?Mark: I'm hanging in there. How's the little one's doing? I know they, you had some cold running through the house. Everybody getting better?John: They're getting much better, which is good. No more getting coughed in my face a lot less this week, so yeah, that's a good thing.Mark: And Nick, how are you my friend?Nick: Good, good. Looking forward to the holidays coming up here and all kinds of good food.Mark: Oh yeah, yeah. Are you a Thanksgiving kind of guy?Nick: I have become more so after my brother started deep frying turkeys a couple of years ago.Mark: Okay, good. So no YouTube videos of that now, so just be careful. We don't want to see any flying turkeys.Nick: He's got it all under control.Mark: Fantastic. Awesome. Yeah. At the time of this podcast taping it is just about Thanksgiving. It's just about here on us. And so we're going to continue on with our a multi-part series we've been doing about Social Security. So hopefully you've been checking these out and if you have, great, if you have not, make sure you go to the podcast page, you can find it on their website at pfgprivatewealth.com that's P F G private wealth.com and you'll find the podcast page. You can subscribe to it on Apple or Google or Spotify. I think there's other couple of choices there as well.Mark: So make sure you do, a lot of good content that we're discussing. This is a multi-part series all around Social Security and part four here is going to be on Social Security, spousal benefits, not deep frying turkeys that'll come another day, but a Social Security spousal benefits. So guys, let's get into this and just kind of break down some information for us on, I guess, what we're entitled to or how this whole thing kind of works.Nick: Sure. So just kind of a recap on, you know, how eligibility wears for Social Security. Essentially somebody needs to work, you know, for 40 quarters, pay payroll taxes for those 40 quarters and they become eligible for their own benefit. However, you know, one of the common questions that we may get is one spouse stayed at home, one spouse worked. The spouse that stayed at home didn't get their 40 quarters. And they want to know are they eligible for any sort of benefit.Nick: So it's important to understand that, you know, as long as the couple is married, the person that has not qualified for the benefit is eligible for a spousal benefit. And that spousal benefit is essentially calculated by looking at the full retirement amount benefit for the spouse that was working and multiplying by 50%. So, that's the starting line. That's kind of how you understand how they calculate that. And the reason that they did create that was understanding that households, you know, it's not always cut and dry from the standpoint of one spouse is working. There's obviously value to the other spouse staying home, helping to raise a family and they want to protect that spouse in situations like divorce or other sorts of scenarios by providing them with this kind of caveat for how the benefits work.Mark: Okay. And yeah, so the simple way to break it down. So give us some more, John, give us some more things to think about here when we're talking about the eligibility of spouses, maybe some rules, things of that nature.John: Yeah. So basically, some of the rules before you can collect a spousal benefit, the primary worker must have filed. So wait until the spouse actually draws and then you can go ahead and take your spousal benefit. Spouses can actually start taking it at age 62, that's the soonest that you can start taking.Nick: So a kind of a good example of that is, so let's say, Mr. Smith has been the worker and Mrs. Smith stayed at home with the family and raised a family. And a couple of years ago, two years ago, she started working, you know, so she's not eligible for her own benefit. So Mr. Smith is going to continue to work and Mrs. Smith is trying to figure out, "Hey, I'm also 62, can I file for benefits?" So the answer is not until Mr. Smith essentially retires and fights for his benefit. So that's where the restrictions on the ages kind of come to play.Nick: And when John referred to that primary worker must filed for their benefits, there used to be some other rules in play where you can kind of navigate around, but they really cut down and things are a lot more restricted than they used to be.John: Yeah. And just to kind of give some numbers to that, let's say Mr Smith's full retirement benefit was 2,400, Mrs Smith's spousal benefit would be, as Nick mentioned, 50% of that sort of 1200. And again, so her spousal benefit is based off of his full retirement amount benefit and not what he actually gets. So example of that would be, you know, when she goes to draw, let's say if he'd started taking early and he get his full 2,400, she's not penalize by that. Her 50% is still the 1200, assuming she draws at her full retirement age.John: If she decides to take early at 62 she will actually have a reduction of her spousal benefit.Nick: It is important for people to understand that, you know, there's the dates on when people start to receive the benefits are calculated, or factored in I should say, for each person. Though it factored in potentially when Mr. Smith files and starts collecting and it's also factored in when Mrs. Smith files and starts collecting. And so there's a lot of different variations on how that works. And because there are some different variations, we typically recommend to people that, you know, I was helping you kind of walk through the different, let's test out different scenarios and figure which one makes the most sense because there are so many factors that go into the decision.Nick: We understand a lot of people like to just, you know, they want a cut and dry answer and unfortunately or fortunately, the positive to there not being a cut and dry answer is that, you know, oftentimes they can be strategic and find something that works better for them and if it were cut and dry. But it does take a factoring in a lot of other things to make the right decision.John: Yeah. At first the answers to certain questions are, it depends.Mark: Yeah, that's the case a lot of times I think.John: One question we actually get a lot and we talked about in the last sessions was, you know, if you draw Social Security after full retirement age, you actually get a percent increase in your benefit. That does not work for spousal benefits. So if the spouse didn't want to take or they want to defer their spousal benefit, they do not get the 8% increase on it.Nick: Yeah. So, we have seen that mistake happen, you know, the primary person has decided, "Hey, let's wait to collect the benefit" because they are under the assumption that not only will their benefit grow by 8%, but the spousal benefit that their spouse will take will grow, but that's not the case. Only their benefit grows, the spousal benefit does not. So when we run kind of break even calculations, it can often makes sense to just have them start collecting so that they can get both of them.John: Yeah. And then, you know, it's important understand also for to be eligible for spousal benefits, you have to be married at least one year. So can't be a just getting married and after six months started drawing on Social Security for a spouse.Mark: They're not going to just make it too easy for you anyway. All right, so that's some good rules. That's some good basic information there. What are some strategies? Give us a few things to think about when it comes to the spousal benefit options.John: Yeah. And like we said, everyone's situation is different. It really depends and it's important to customize what works for you. And I think we offered in the last session, but if anyone wants it, we actually are working on a Social Security machination strategy, which we're happy to do so. But one thing that we'll do with some spousal strategies, depending on the situation, we might have one spouse claim early and the other spouse, depending on the situation, you know example of that would be, let's say we have a high earner and they want to protect the spouse in case of a premature death. So we might go ahead and have the high earner, who's Social Security benefit is higher, actually delay theirs. So, if they were to pass away prematurely, that spouse can actually jump onto a higher amount, high Social Security benefit, which is nice strategy to protect the surviving spouse.John: I've used that a couple of times when there's an age gap on the spouses or if I'm there, you know, sometimes clients will come in and they're just concerned saying, "Hey, I'm really concerned something could happen to me. Is my spouse going to be okay?" We'll go ahead and implement some strategies like that.Nick: Another time where that can be used is if the primary earner has worked at in an occupation where they're eligible for a pension and they're going to receive a pension and they, you know, kind of through planning or whatever it may be. Or like the example of John mentioned where on of the spouses is maybe quite a bit younger, so when the other spouse is quite a bit younger, it pulls down the pension amount that the primary person would receive. So to offset that a little bit, we might recommend, "Well, hey, instead of doing a hundred percent survivor benefit on the pension, let's do a 50% so that you can have a higher pay out. But to offset that, what we'll do is we'll have you wait to take Social Security until 70." So the pension amount that the spouse would receive would be less, but we can offset that waiting on Social Security a little bit and still have more income coming in the household.Mark: Gotcha. Okay. All right. So a couple of different strategies there to consider and I think a lot of times people sometimes don't plan ahead for that part. It's like we're sitting there talking about different, when you're getting your retirement plan done, I think sometimes we look at it overall and say, "Well, we want to turn Social Security on as soon as we can and yada, yada yada." Instead of saying, "Okay, how can we most maximize our Social Security for both of us in an overall inclusive retirement plan?"Mark: So it's certainly important to do. And as John mentioned, you know, they can run that Social Security maximization if you have some questions on that. If you want to get that done or have a chat with them, give them a call at (813) 286-7776 that's (813) 286-7776 and you can also check them out online at pfgprivatewealth.com.Mark: As I mentioned before, there are financial advisors here in the Tampa Bay area, so if you have some questions about that, again, as always when you're listening to this show or any other show before you take any action, always check with a qualified professional about your specific situation because everybody's, it can be so different, so make sure you have that chat.Mark: All right guys, I think in the interest of time we can probably squeeze in a couple more things. Can you give us a few things to think about on divorced spousal situations?John: Yeah, so it is important for people to understand that they are still eligible for a spousal benefit if they were married for 10 years and they are not remarried. So a scenario that we may see with that is they were previously married to a high earner, maybe they worked a lower paying job, they were married for 25 years, became divorced, they went back to work to cover expenses, et cetera. They may be in a relationship currently, but they're not officially married and we kind of go through calculations and we determined that, "Hey, the spousal benefit that you could receive from you former spouse would be higher than the benefit that you would receive on your own and or higher than the benefit that you would receive if you were to marry your current partner." And obviously a lot of other factors go into that.John: But, from a purely financial decision, that could work out really well because again, you cannot collect that spousal benefit from a former spouse if you are remarried. We have had questions along the lines of, you know, "Hey, I was married twice. Both were over 10 years. Am I restricted to choose just the most recent one?" And the answer is no, you can pick the higher. We had a nice young lady one time that had four different ten year marriages and she asked if she could add them all up together and unfortunately you can't, it's just the higher.Nick: But she had a lot of options.John: Yeah. It's good to have options.Mark: Like window shopping apparently.John: So, yeah. So those are a couple of things to keep in mind.Nick: Yeah. And one question we get a lot with divorced clients, they say, "How soon can I draw on the ex-spouse's Social Security?" And really you can draw on an ex-spouse once that ex-spouse hits age 62. Unlike a kind of a normal situation, when we wait until the spouse draws Social Security. They put this rule in really to protect the ex spouse because we've seen scenarios where certain people might delay drawing to intentionally hurt the other spouse and so they can't draw on them. So basically the rule is once the ex-spouse hits over 62, you can actually start drawing on the spousal benefits for divorcees.John: Yeah. It does not matter whether or not they're collecting. And also some people are happy about this, some people are not. But when you do get that benefit from a former spouse, again it does not affect their own benefit. There is no negative impact to doing that to them.Mark: They don't even know about it.Nick: They would have no idea. And it actually wouldn't affect any new spouse for somebody. So we get that question quite a bit where it says, "Hey, an ex-spouse draws on my Social Security. Does that affect my new wife or husband?" The answer is no.Mark: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And there's interesting on the time period on that, it's funny that you kind of brought that up. My mother, who's 78, actually was given that information and did a refile with the Social Security for her first husband. She was married twice as well. And so yes, she was able to do that and they hadn't been married in like 40 years, but they were married over 10 years. So they were like, "Yep, that's something you can do." So I was like, "Okay, well knock yourself out."Mark: So yeah, it's interesting. There's definitely some few things to consider in there. Different kinds of a spousal benefit options, divorce spousal benefit options. So again, a lot of it comes down to having a conversation about your specific situation with your advisor when it comes to Social Security, because there are a lot of things in Social Security obviously, which is why we're on a four part series, going to be a five part series actually around this.Mark: So with that said, I think we're going to depart this week on the program. I'll say John and Nick, thanks for your time. As always, we appreciate it. Folks, make sure you reach out to them, give them a call if you've got some questions at (813) 286-7776. (813) 286-7776, again, that number to call. And as always, make sure you subscribe to the podcast. Retirement Planning Redefined. You can find it on Apple, Google or Spotify.Mark: You can also just find it on their website at pfgprivatewealth.com and as I said at the beginning of this, that it was prior to Thanksgiving when we were taping this. Now we'll actually air it after Thanksgiving. So we certainly hope that everybody had a great holiday season. And we'll see you for more of our conversation around Social Security through the month of December, right here on Retirement Planning Redefined. For John, for Nick, we'll see you next time.

This is part 3 of our social security conversation. This week we talk about what aspects you should consider before you decide to start taking social security. Everybody's situation is different, but this may help you get a better idea on when you should start reaping your benefits.Helpful Information:PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/Contact: 813-286-7776Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.comTranscript of Today's Show:----more----Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in to a another edition of the Retirement Planning - Redefined Podcast. As always, I'm here with John and Nick, Financial Advisors at PFG Private Wealth. Nick, what's going on buddy? How are you this week?Nick: Doing pretty well. How about yourself?Speaker 1: I'm hanging in there, not doing too bad. Are you guys still sweltering down there? We are here in North Carolina. It's been pretty dang hot the last few days, and it's in October, so we'll see how this plays out. You guys still burning up?John: Yeah, we had two days of a little less humidity.Speaker 1: Uh-huh (affirmative).John: And then it just came right back.Nick: Yeah, yeah, the humidity dropped off and it kind of was a little bit of a tease like taking the dog out in the morning. It was like, "Okay, this is not bad." Especially even in the shade during the day. But came back with a vengeance the last few days. So hopefully we kind of get back to the... The heat, I don't mind as much as the humidity, but winters.Speaker 1: Yeah. When you got to use a butter knife to cut the air, because it's so thick with moisture and whatnot. Now that was Nick's voice. The other voice is John's. John, how you doing buddy?John: Great.Speaker 1: Hey, well that's good. Oh great. I like that. Well, very good. Well good. Then you're going to be ready to roll on this conversation. It's part three of our ongoing chat about social security. And we covered a few things the past couple of weeks. If you've been listening to us, we talked some mechanics, we've talked taxation, we've talked funding, some overviews of some of those things there. And if you did not listen, well go sign up at the website. It doesn't cost you anything to subscribe to the podcast. So go to pfgprivatewealth.com, that's pfgprivatewealth.com. That's their webpage. You'll be able to find lots of things about the team, as well as the podcast. And subscribe to that on Google or Apple or whatever you'd like.Speaker 1: You can also just call them if you ever have questions, or get tripped up and you want to have a conversation. And you should before you take any action. You should always check with a qualified professional like John and Nick. They are financial advisors. (813)286-7776 is the number to reach them at. (813)286-7776. But again, we're talking social security. We covered a lot of those things. So now let's talk strategy a little bit, gents. Big question that always pops up, and that's usually number one for most people is when should we apply for benefits?Nick: Yeah, so this is always a good one. My dad actually just hit his official social security birthday. He just turned 62, and of course the thing that he wants to do the most more than anything in the world, is start taking income.Speaker 1: Turn it on. Right?Nick: And so the first question that we have to anybody that hits 62, and is interested in potentially starting to take their income is, "Do you have any other earned income?" So the social security system is set up where if you have earned income, so earned income specifically on an individual basis, then there is an earnings test on how much you're making. And if you decide you want to take your social security benefit, whether or not there's going to be a reduction. So what we mean that is again, using my dad as an example, he's a retired fireman, he has a small business, so he has some income from the business, but he has a pension.Nick: So pension income does not count towards this income test. It's only the earned income that he gets from his business. At the same time, the income that my mom makes as a nurse, does not count towards his test for his social security. So understanding that it's based upon an individual's income, and that it's an individual's earned income, that limit is about $18,000, 18 to $19,000. It changes a year-to-year and it's been inflating up.Nick: So for every dollar that you earn above that amount, they start to reduce your social security benefit by 50 cents. So it's about a 50% reduction. So what we'll tell people is, a lot of these other factors start to come into play on whether or not they need the money, what they're going to do with the money. And we'll kind of get into some of those details a little bit more. But understanding that there is a penalty, or a reduction in the benefit that you receive if you take it before your full retirement age. And understanding how they calculate that's really, really important.Nick: So a really basic example is, if we say that somebody is going to earn $24,000 of income, so they're going to be about 5,000 over the limit, and there's going to be a reduction in their social security. That reduction isn't nearly as bad as somebody that's maybe earning 40,000, where they're almost going to zero out their social security benefits. And since they took it early, there is a permanent reduction anyways. So it does become kind of a more complicated response and an answer, but it does help to get people thinking and understanding and kind of strategizing on what makes the most sense for them.John: So to jump in here, in the year you reach your full retirement age actually that penalty goes away. So basically, let's say your full retirement age is 67, and you turn 67 in June, once you hit your birthday, you can earn as much as you want. And from that point moving forward, there's no penalty on any earned income for that individual. And kind of back to what Nick was saying, very important that people do understand that it's based on the individual's income and not household. Because I have run into some scenarios where some clients previous to us got some bad advice, and they actually did not take the social security, because an advisor told them it was based on household income. So there was a couple of years that they wanted to take it and they didn't, because they got bad advice.Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not good. So yeah, you want to make sure-John: No, that's why Nick kind of stressed that.Speaker 1: Okay, so let's talk about 62 as a magic number, first. If you go as soon as you can, Nick, you mentioned your dad. A lot of people do that. They're like, "I'm going to run right down and turn it on as soon as I can." That might be the right decision for you, but it may not, because you could be looking at a reduction in your benefit. Correct?John: Yeah. So I'll use my parents' example here.Speaker 1: Oh go for it.John: So once they hit 62 they were done. They were done working, they wanted to retire. And we had the conversation of whether they should take it or not. And we decided that it was best for them to go ahead and take it at 62. So the negative to that is you do get a reduction of benefit, which could be anywhere from 70 to 75%, which was okay for them, because they actually had some pension income.John: So when we were doing their plan, we looked at it and said, "Hey, we're going to take a little bit of a hit in your guaranteed income from social security." But they had some pension income, which helped out, which is why we kind of decided for them that it was okay to take. And again, everyone's situation's different, but just understand that when you do take at 62, you get a reduction of benefit, and that reduction of benefit is permanent.Nick: So then kind of going from there, that range between 62, which is when you're first eligible, up to your full retirement age, which is actually determined by the year that you were born. So for somebody that's in their early sixties now, their full retirement age is most likely 66. For somebody that might be in the thirties and forties, it's 67 or later.Nick: But once you hit that full retirement age and your statement that you receive on an annual basis, or when you log in to see it, it does tell you, that's kind of the point at which you can receive your full benefit amount. There are no earnings tests anymore, there are way less rules, is kind of the easiest way to think about it. However, let's say that your situation allows you, maybe you have a younger spouse, and your younger spouse is still continuing to work. Their income still is enough to support the household and you don't need additional income. You can let your benefit continue to grow, and it grows by 8% simple interest. And that number caps out at age 70.Nick: So once you get to age 70, there is absolutely no point in waiting any longer, because your benefit does not grow at all. So an important thing to kind of take into consideration as far as that goes, is we're going to have a separate session on spousal benefits and widow benefits. However, spousal benefits do not grow with those 8% increases. Spousal benefits do maximize at the full retirement age. So again, we'll kind of get into more detail on that a little bit later on. But just wanted to make sure that we took that into consideration. And one of the most common questions that we'll get, "Should I take it at 62 should I take it up for retirement age? What about in-between?"Nick: So there isn't a hard difference between 62 and full retirement age. The benefit will continue to increase. So we've used my dad as an example a few times. So although he just turned 62, we looked out over the next year, and we realized that the need to take the benefit this year didn't necessarily make a whole lot of sense, but we're going to revisit it next year. So this is something that you can kind of reevaluate on a year-by-year basis, or really even a month-by-month basis. Essentially what happens is that benefit grows by about a half percent per month. So that can does continue to grow. So it's not like if you wait between 62 and 63 you've been penalized or anything like that. It is something that does continue to grow.Speaker 1: Yeah.John: So one of the main questions that we get when deciding is really the break even point. So deciding, "Hey, if I take at 62, I'll have this amount of money versus full retirement age." And the break even is usually mid to late seventies, let's just say 76 to 77 years old. Looking at it in a vacuum, without any other parts, that's when people determine, "Hey, if I waited until 60, my full retirement age, once I hit 77 it would've been better to wait for that."John: But one thing to consider is that, just looking at a vacuum, really we're missing a lot of key points here. So a reason to take at 62 could be health. So as far as, I'll use myself as an example, because I'm currently injured with my back. But in my twenties, I could do a lot more than I can in my thirties. So someone might want to take it at 62, so they can enjoy between 62 and 75, and have more money to go on vacation. So those are things that you really need to consider besides the break even point.Nick: Yeah, I would say from a strictly planning standpoint. So if we take out some of the lifestyle decisions that factor into this, if we take a look at it from the standpoint of strictly finances, there tends to be, dependent upon people's situation, there tends to be kind of a magic number for the nest egg. So in other words, dependent upon how much people need to take out of their nest egg, if waiting on social security forces somebody to take an unreasonable or an unsustainable, which are all right from their nest egg, we're probably going to go ahead and have them take the social security.Nick: Because maintaining that nest egg for as long as possible is really important. And if that number isn't there, if they just for whatever reason haven't been able to save, or get to that number that's right for their specific situation, a lot of times taking that social security is going to alleviate the pressure on the nest egg. It's going to help us sustain through maybe some negative points of the market, and allow them to live the lifestyle that they want to live in that early five to eight year first portion of retirement. So that's a huge driver from a financial standpoint, to kind of make the overall plan work.Nick: Things like life expectancy come into play, although that can be a little bit tricky from, we'll kind of refer to that as the crystal ball planning. Where we try to plan for a long period of time not maybe what happened with your parents or things like that. So there are a lot of different factors but that helps kind of bullet point some of the key things to consider when trying to decide on when to apply.John: Yeah, no I just kind of jumped in with something that just popped into my head about something to consider where, client situation, where they had a really good strong social security benefit and pensions, but they really didn't have a lot of liquidity. So not a lot of assets.John: So strategy that we're using for them, is we're actually taking the social security once they hit the full retirement age, because they are still working. And instead of letting that benefit build up, we're actually saving that into some type of retirement plan. So when they do fully retire, in this situation it's age 70, they'll actually have some type of nest egg that isn't just income. It's actually a nest egg they can pull on. So we are taking the benefit, full retirement age, but we're actually saving it to provide some liquidity in retirement.Nick: Yeah. And so maybe a real world example of that is we work with a decent amount of local faculty at some of the local universities, and their plans have structures where they can save money into the different retirement plans. So in that scenario, maybe they have a pension, they're going to have a good pension when they retire, they have social security benefits. It's going to cover their expenses. But because of those things they save, let's just call it maybe like $200,000 into their nest egg.Nick: So what we can do is turn on that social security, and bump up the savings that they're putting into their 403(b), or some other sort of employer-based retirement account, offset the taxes from an income tax standpoint as they're taking that. Because again, going back, that benefit's going to be taxable or at least includable in their taxes, offset that, build that up, try to really bump up their nest egg by another hundred, hundred plus thousand dollars a year. And give them a little bit more peace of mind when they retire.Speaker 1: Well, really, really good information here on this podcast edition of Retirement Planning - Redefined. We've been talking about really kind of the strategy of taking social security. This is part three of our ongoing series of social security. When should you apply for benefits? A lot of good information covered. The great thing about a podcast is if you're going through and you're listening to it and you didn't quite catch it, or you're not quite following, you can always back up and listen to it again. Unlike a radio show or something where you just kind of catch it in passing. And especially easier if you subscribe to them.Speaker 1: So make sure you go ahead and subscribe to the podcast at pfgprivatewealth.com. That is pfgprivatewealth.com. But if social security is tripping you up, do not feel alone. It definitely can be that way for a lot of folks. Reach out and call John and Nick and have a conversation with them. Get yourself on the calendar at (813)286-7776. That's their number if you'd like to reach out to them. (813)286-7776, serving you here in the Tampa Bay Area, at PFG Private Wealth, where John and Nick are financial advisors.Speaker 1: And with that we're going to say goodbye this week for the podcast. Tune in next time, when we're going to continue on with social security, and talk about spousal and widow benefits in part four of our ongoing social security series here on Retirement Planning - Redefined with John and Nick, financial advisors at PFG Private Wealth. Boys, I'll see you next time. Thanks so much for being here and for everybody listening we'll talk to you next time here on the podcast.

Aviation Metal Fatigue is a concept for you to understand aircraft maintainance in a way. Nick: Hello, everyone. Thank you for tuning in to 5 minutes with AOPA-China. Claire: Let’s start with a piece of aviation news. Nick: A 22-year-old Chinese cadet with his instructor at US aviation academy died in a plane crash. Claire: Condolences to them and their family. It’s such a great loss. Nick: The US NTSB is leading the investigation now. It’s yet unclear who was flying the aircraft and what caused it to go down. Claire: The crashed plane is a twin-engine Piper PA-34 which was manufactured in 1973. Nick:So it is already 46 years old. Is it too old for a trainer? Claire: Actually it’s normal for an old plane to continue flying if it is well maintained. But if it is not, it does need retire. Anyway we are not jumping into any conclusions ...

feat. guest: Nick “So we have four gangs?! The Ghoulies, the Serpents, the Pretty Poisons, and the Gargoyle Gang!” - Maria “Tag yourself.” - Nick BETTY COOPER DESERVES BETTER! In this cult- and gang-filled episode, we talk Cheryl and Toni’s new gal gang/power struggle; our disappointment in Veronica for picking PRISONS over DRUGS (gurl NO!); and Gladys Jones’ new influence over Jughead, the Serpents, and Hiram Lodge. We hype up Josie and Archie as they put on impressive performances on the stage and in the ring, and tell some of our own raised-Catholic memories in light of Alice’s horrifying Farm baptism! As always, check out our bodysuit looks on Insta at bodysuits4bughead or Twitter at B4B_Podcast. *Thanks for your patience, y'all! After our 3x10 and 3x11 audio was deleted and had to be re-recorded, we're running behind on editing and so appreciate our listeners’ patience and understanding.* ————————————————————————————— A message from Rebecca, who is taking a step back from the podcast for the foreseeable future: “I want to start off saying how much fun this experience has been for me and how I want to ultimately figure a way to be able to play a role again in the future. I am in grad school now and my program is just overwhelming me. I'm also just a person so sometimes life gets to me too. I want to be able to be the best podcast co-host to my dear friend Maria, and to those who listen! Right now, I just have to take some time for myself and focus on school. I will be back! Because I need to know who that damn Twiggy-Smalls is and I have too many bodysuits now for my own good! Thanks to Maria! Thanks to RAS! Thanks to Bughead! XOXO Rebecca.”

Listen to part two of my private coaching session with Nic Fitzgerald. The lessons I shared with him here are the same ones I would share with you if we could meet face to face. On today’s episode Russell continues his chat with Nick Fitzgerald and gives him a list of seven things he can do to help his business grow. Here are some of the awesome things to look forward to in this episode: What a few things that Nick got close to doing totally right, but missed a few key elements. How Nick can collaborate with others in the Two Comma Club X to be able to grow his customer list. And how Russell went from being a nobody, to having Tony Robbins call him to ask for help and how Nick can use that advice to advance his own business. So listen here to find out what the 7 things are that Nick and anyone else can do to grow a business. ---Transcript--- Hey everybody, welcome to Marketing Secrets podcast. I’m so excited, I’m here on stage right now at the Two Comma Club X event with Mr. Nick Fitzgerald onstage. A year ago I gave a podcast to him about how to make it rain and this is section number two. Now those of you who don’t know, in the last 12 months since I did that podcast he’s been making it rain and he’s been changing his life, his family’s lives, but more importantly, other people’s lives as well. And it’s been really cool, so that’s what we’re going to cover today during this episode of the podcast. So welcome back you guys. I’m here on stage with Nick Fitzgerald, so excited. So I made a list of seven things that if I was to sit in a room with him in front of a whole bunch of people I’d be like, “Hey Nick, you’re doing awesome, but here’s some things to look at that I think will help you a lot with what you’re doing.” So number one, when Nick first kind of started into this movement that he’s trying to create, I don’t know when it was, if you created this before or after. When did you create the Star Wars video? Nick: This was, we talked in July, it was September/October. So a few months later. Russell: How many of you guys have seen his Star Wars video? Okay, I’m so glad. For those who are listening, about 10% of the room raised their hand, the other 90% who are friends and followers and fans of Nick have never seen the Star Wars video. His Star Wars video is his origin story and it is one of the best videos I have ever, by far the best video I’ve seen him do, it is insanely good. It comes, do you want to talk about what happened in the video? It’s insanely good. Nick: So I told the story of, I’m a huge Star Wars nerd, so if you didn’t know that, now you do. When I was young my grandma who lived in the same neighborhood as me, she took me to go see Return of the Jedi in the movie theater and I was such a Star Wars nerd, even at a young age, that when I was playing at the neighbors house, and you know, it’s the 80s, so mom and dad are like, “Nick, come home for dinner.” That kind of thing, I would ignore them. I would not come home until they called me “Luke”. No lie. I would make them call me Luke, or I would ignore them. I would not hear them. Russell: Had I known this in high school I would have teased him relentlessly. Nick: So my grandma took me and I remember going and it was so fun because we took the bus, it was just a fun thing. And we went and I just remember walking in and handing my ticket to the ticket person. And then popcorn and just the smells of everything. And again, this is the 80s so walking in the movie theater; I almost lost a shoe in the sticky soda, {sound effects} going on. I just remember how my feet stuck to the floor and all that stuff. And then just being so excited to see my heroes on the big screen and Dark Vader, I just remember watching it. This is such a silly thing to get emotional about, but you know I remember the emperor and Darth Vader dying and all that stuff. It was just like, ah. It was a perfect day. Sorry sound dude. But it was just a perfect day with my grandma who has always been dear to me. So the purpose of that video, I’d put it off for a long time. I knew I needed to tell my own story if I’m going to be helping somebody else tell theirs. And I put it off for a long time, because working through things, I was afraid that if it sucked, if the story was terrible, if the visuals were crappy, that was a reflection on me and my skills. I had worked on a bazillion Hallmark Christmas movies, you know how they put out like 17 trillion Christmas movies every year, if one of those sucks, no offense, they’re not riveting television. Russell: They all suck. Nick: That wasn’t a reflection on me, I was just doing the lighting or the camera work. I didn’t write the story, it wasn’t my story. But this was me, so I put it off for a long time because I knew if I didn’t execute how I envisioned it, that it would reflect poorly on me, and it would be like I was a fraud. So the purpose of the video, there were three purposes. One to tell a story and get people to connect with me on a personal level. As I told that story here, how many of you remembered your feet sticking to the floor of a movie theater? How many of you, when I talk about the smell of popcorn and that sound, you felt and heard and smelled that. So it was one thing, I wanted people to connect with me and just see that I was just like you. Then I wanted to show that I could make a pretty picture. So I had that and I used my family members as the actors. And then I went and talked about how…and then I wanted to use it to build credibility. I’ve worked on 13 feature films and two television series and shot news for the NBC affiliate and worked in tons of commercials. So I’ve learned from master story tellers and now I want to help other people find and tell their story. And then I showed clips of stories that I tell throughout the years. So that was, I just remember specifically when I finally went and made it live, I made a list of about 20 people, my Dream 100 I guess you could say. I just wanted to send them and be like, “Hey, I made this video. I would love for you to watch it.” And Russell’s on that list. So I sent that out and made it live and then it was just kind of funny, it didn’t go viral, I got like 5000 views in a day, and it was like “whoa!” kind of thing. But it was just one of those things that I knew I needed to tell my story and if I wanted to have any credibility as a story teller, not as a videographer, but as a story teller, being able to help people connect, and connect hearts and build relationships with their audience, I had to knock it out of the park. So that was my attempt at doing that. Russell: And the video’s amazing, for the 10% of the room who saw it, it is amazing. Now my point here for Nick, but also for everyone here, I wrote down, is tell your story too much. Only 10% of the room has ever seen that video or ever heard it. How many of you guys have heard my potato gun story more than a dozen times? Almost the entire room, for those that are listening. Tell your story to the point where you are so sick and tired of telling the story and hearing it, that you just want to kill yourself, and then tell it again. And then tell it again. And then tell it again, because it is amazing. The video is amazing, the story is amazing. How many of you guys feel more connected to him after hearing that story right now? It’s amazing. Tell t he story too much. All of us are going to be like, “I don’t want to hear the story. I don’t want to tell the story again.” You should be telling that story over and over and over again. That video should be showing it. At least once a week you should be following everyone, retargeting ads of that video. That video should be, everyone should see it. You’ve got 5,000 views which is amazing, you should get 5,000 views a day, consistently telling that story, telling that story. Because you’re right, it’s beautiful, it’s amazing and people see that and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, I need that for my business. I need to be able to tell my story the way he told that story, because the connection is flawless.” And I think my biggest thing for you right now, is tell your story more. Tell that thing. You’re telling good stories, but that story, that’s like your linchpin, that’s the thing that if you can tell that, it’s going to keep people connected to you for forever. Anyone who’s seen that video, you have a different level of connection. It’s amazing, it’s shot beautifully. You see his kids looking at the movies, with lights flashing, it’s beautiful. So telling your story more, that’d be the biggest thing. It’s just like, all the time telling that story over and over and over again. That’s number one. Alright, number two, this one’s not so much for you as much for most of everybody else in here, but number two is that energy matters a lot. I’m not talking about, I’m tired during the day. I’m talking about when you are live, or you are talking in front of people, your energy matters a lot. I was hanging out with Dana Derricks, how many of you guys know Dana, our resident goat farmer? By the way, he’s asked every time I mention his name is please not send him anymore goats. He’s gotten like 2 or 3 goats in the last month from all of our friends and family members here in the community. Please stop sending him goats. He loves them but he doesn’t want any more. Anyway, what’s interesting, I was talking to Dana, and he’s like, “Do you know the biggest thing I’ve learned from you?” and I’m like, “No. what?” and I thought it was going to be like dream 100 and things like that. No, the biggest thing that Dana learned from me, he told me, was that energy matters a lot. He’s like, “When I hang out with you, you’re kind of like blah, but when you get on stage you’re like, baaahh!” and I started telling him, the reason why is when I first started this career, in fact, I have my brother right now pulling all the video clips of me from like 12 or 13 years ago, when I had a shaved head and I was awkward like, “Hi, my name is Russell Brunson.” And we’re trying to make this montage of me over 15 years of doing this and how awkward and weird I was, and how it took 8-10 years until I was normal and started growing my hair out. But I’m trying to show that whole montage, but if you look at it like, I was going through that process and the biggest thing I learned is that if I talked to people like this, when you’re on video you sound like this. The very first, I think I’d have an idea and then I’d just do stupid things. So I saw an infomercial, so I’m like I should do an infomercial. So I hired this company to make an infomercial and next thing I know two weeks later I’m in Florida and there’s this host on this show and he’s like the cheesiest cheese ball ever. I’m so embarrassed. He asked me a question and I’m like, “Well, um, you know, duh, duh…” and he’s like, “Whoa, cut, cut, cut.” He’s like, “Dude, holy crap. You have no energy.” I’m like, “No, I feel really good. I have a lot of energy right now.” He’s like, “No, no you don’t understand. When you’re on tv, you have to talk like this to sound normal. If you just talk normal, you sound like you’re asleep.” I’m like, “I don’t know.” So we did this whole infomercial and he’s like all over the top and I’m just like, trying to go a little bit higher and it was awkward. I went back and watched it later, and he sounded completely normal and I looked like I was dead on the road. It was weird. Brandon Fischer, I don’t know if he’s still in the audience, but we did…Brandon’s back here. So four years ago when Clickfunnels first came out we made these videos that when you first signed up we gave away a free t-shirt. How many of you guys remember seeing those videos? I made those videos and then they lasted for like four years, and then we just reshot them last week because it’s like, “Oh wow, the demo video when we’re showing CLickfunnels does not look like Clickfunnels anymore. It’s completely changed in four years.” So Todd’s like, “You have to make a new video.” I’m like, “I don’t want to make a video.’ So finally we made the new videos, recorded them and got them up there and we posted them online, and before we posted them on, I went and watched the old ones, and I watched the old ones and I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is just four years ago, I am so depressing. How did anybody watch this video?” It was bad, right Brandon. It was like painfully bad. I was like, “oh my gosh.” That was just four years ago. Imagine six years ago, or ten years. It was really, really bad. And when I notice the more energy you have, the more energy everyone else has. It seems weird at first, but always stretch more than you feel comfortable, and it seems normal, and then you’ll feel better with it and better with it. But what’s interesting about humans is we are attracted to energy. I used to hate people talking energy talk, because I thought it was like the nerdy woo-woo crap. But it’s so weird and real actually. I notice this in all aspects of my life. When I come home at night, usually I am beat up and tired and worn out. I get up early in the morning, and then I work super hard, I get home and I get out of the car and I come to the door and before I open the door, I’m always like, Okay if I come in like, ugh, my whole family is going to be depressed with me.” They’ll all lower to my energy level. So I sit there and I get into state and I’m like, okay, whew. I open the door and I’m like, “What’s up guys!! I’m home!” and all the sudden my kids are like, “Oh dad’s home!” and they start running in, it’s this huge thing, it’s crazy, and then the tone is set, everyone’s energy is high and the rest of the night’s amazing. When I come in the office, I walk in and realize I’m the leader of this office and if I come in like, “Hey guys, what’s up? Hey Nick, what’s up?” Then everyone’s going to be like {sound effect}. So I’m like, okay when I come in I have to come in here, otherwise everyone is going to be down on a normal level. I have to bring people up. So we walk in the office now and I’m like, “What’s up everybody, how’s it going?” and I’m excited and they’re like, “Oh.” And everyone’s energy rises and the whole company grows together. So l love when Dave walks through the door, have you guys ever noticed this? When Dave walks through the door, I’m at a 10, Dave’s like at a 32 and it’s just like, he wakes up and comes over to my  house at 4:30 in the morning to lift weights. I sleep in an hour later, and I come in at 5:45 or something, and I walk in and I’m just like, “I want to die.” And I walk in and he’s like, “Hey how’s it going?.” I’m like, “Really good man. You’ve been here for an hour.” And all the sudden I’m like, oh my gosh I feel better. Instantly raised up. It’s kind of like tuning forks. Have you noticed this? If you get two tuning forks at different things and you wack one, and you wack the other one, and you bring them close together, what will happen is the waves will increase and they end up going at the exact same level. So energy matters. The higher your energy, the higher everyone else around you will be, on video, on audio, on face…everything, energy matters a lot. So that’s number two, when you’re making videos, thinking about that. Alright number three, okay this, you were like 90% there and I watched the whole thing and I was so excited and then you missed the last piece and I was like, “Oh it was so good.” So a year after that Facebook message came, you did a Facebook live one year later to the day, and he told that story on Facebook live. And I was like, “Oh my gosh this is amazing.” And he told that story, and he was talking about it, and I was emotional, going through the whole thing again. This is so cool, this is so cool. And he told the story about the podcast, and this podcast was an hour long, and the thing and his life changed and all this stuff… And I know that me and a whole bunch of you guys, a whole bunch of entrepreneurs listened to this story and they’re at bated breath, “This is amazing, this is amazing.” And he gets to the very end, “Alright guys, see you tomorrow.” Boom, clicks off. And I was like, “Aaahhh!” How can you leave me in that state?  I need something, I need something. So the note here is I said, make offers for everything. Think about this, at the end when you ended, and everyone’s thinking, I want to hear that episode, where is that? How would it be? Now imagine you take the opportunity at the very end that says, “How many of you guys would like to hear that episode where Russell actually made me a personal podcast? And how many of you guys would actually like if I gave you my commentary about what  I learned and why it was actually important to me? All you gotta do right now is post down below and write ‘I’m in.’ and I’ll add you to my messenger list and I’ll send you that podcast along with the recording where I actually told you what this meant to me.” Boom, now all those people listening are now on his list. Or they can even go opt in somewhere. But all you did was tell the story and everything and we were all sitting with bated breath and I was just like, at the end make the offer. You guys want the stuff I talked about, you want the thing? You want the thing? And then you send them somewhere and now you captured them and consider them longer term and you can do more things with them. It was like, hook, story, dude where’s my offer? Give me something. But it was awesome. How many of you guys felt that way when you listened to that thing and you’re just like, “I don’t even know where to find that episode. Russell’s got eight thousand episodes everywhere, I don’t even know where to look for it.” You could have been like, here’s the link. Just the link….if you guys can’t figure out how to make an offer, go listen to a whole bunch of stuff, find something amazing and be like, “oh my gosh you guys, I was listening to this Tim Ferris podcast, he did like 800 episodes, every one is like 18 hours long, they’re really hard to listen to, but I found this one from 3 ½-4 years ago where he taught this concept and it was insane. It was amazing; I learned this and this. How many of you want to know what that is? Okay, I have the link, if you message me down below I’ll send you the link to exactly where to find that episode.” Everyone will give it to you. You’ll be like, “But it’s free on the internet Russell.” It doesn’t matter. You know where it’s at and they don’t. They will give you their contact information in exchange for you giving them a direct link to the link. Back before I had anything to give away for opt ins, guess what I used to do. I used to go to YouTube and I would find cool videos from famous people. One of my favorite ones we did was I went and typed in YouTube, “Robert Kiyosaki” because he was one of my big mentors at the time. And there was all these amazing Robert Kiyosaki videos on YouTube for free. Tons of them. Hour long training from Robert Kiyosaki. Four hour long event from Robert Kiyosaki. All this stuff for free listed in YouTube. So I made a little Clickfunnels membership site, I got all the free videos and put them inside a members area and just like, “Tab one, Robert Kiyosaki talking about investing, Robert kiyosaki talking about stocks, Robert Kiyosaki talking….” And I just put all the videos in there and made a squeeze page like, “Hey, who wants a whole bunch of free, my favorite Robert Kiyosaki videos?” and I made a little landing page, people opt in, I give them access to the membership site, and then I went and targeted Robert Kiyosaki’s audience and built a huge list off his people. Dream 100. Imagine with Dream 100 instead of doing just one campaign to all the people, if each person in your dream 100 you made a customized membership site with the free content right now, be like, “Hey, you’ve listened to a lot of Grant Cardone, he’s got four podcasts, 5000 episodes, there’s only four that are actually really, really good. Do you guys wan tto know what they are? Opt in here, I’ll give you the four best episodes of all. I currated all these for you to give you the four best.” And target Grant’s audience with that, now you got all his buyers coming into your world. Is that alright, is that good. Alright number four ties along with this. Number four, start building a list ASAP. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do a call to action to get a list anywhere, have I? After today’s session you’re …..just build a list. If you got nothing from this event at all, every time you do a hook and story, put them somewhere to build a list, because that’s the longevity. Because that’s where if Zuckerberg snaps his finger and you lose all your fans and followings and friends, and all the sudden you’re trying to build over somewhere else, it won’t matter because you’ll have those people somewhere external and now you can message them and bring them back into whatever world you need them to be at. But that’s how you build stability in business. It’s also how you sell this time, you want to sell it the next time and the next time, the list is the key. Funnel Hacking Live, the first Funnel Hacking Live it was a lot of work and we sold out 600 people in the room, and we kept growing the list and growing the list, the next year we did 1200. Then we did 1500, last year was 3000, this year we’re going to be at 5000. We’re building up the list and building up pressure and excitement and then when you release it, it gives you the ability to blow things up really, really fast.  Okay, that was number four. Okay number five, I wrote down integration marketing, adding to other’s offers to build a buyer list. So this is a little sneaky tactic we used to back in the day when I didn’t have my own list, but I had a couple of skills and talents which you do happen to have, which is nice. If you have no skills this won’t work, but if you have skills you’re lucky. So Frank Kern used to do this as well. Frank is sneaky. He used to do this all the time and I saw him doing it and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, he’s brilliant.” So Frank did a one hour presentation somewhere and he called it Mind Control, it wasn’t Mass Control, but it was something like about how to control the minds of your prospects through manipulation and something sneaky. And the title alone was amazing. It was a one hour presentation he gave somewhere. And he put it on these DVDs and what he did, he went to like Dan Kennedy and he’s like, “Hey Dan, you have all of your buyer and you send them this newsletter every single month,” at the time they had 13000 active members, these were their best buyers. He’s like, “This DVD I sell for like a thousand bucks. Do you want to give it to all your people for free?” And Dan’s like, “sure.” And all the sudden the next month, Franks got his best CD with his best stuff in the mailbox of the 13000 best customers, every single person that Dan Kennedy’s been collecting for the last 15 years. So think about this. With your skill set, look at the other people in the market, all the dream 100 who are doing things and how do you create something you can plug into their offers, and every single time one of those people sell a product, your face is popping up as well. It’s called integration marketing, my first mentor Mark Joyner wrote a book called Integration Marketing, it’s a really fast read. You can read it in an hour, but it will get your mind set thinking about it. How can I integrate with what other people are always doing? Because I can go and make a sell, and make another sell, but I was like, when we launched Clickfunnels I was like, “How can I figure out other people’s sales processes that are already happening and somehow inject myself into all these other sales processes?” That way every single time Steven Larsen sells something or someone else sells something, or all these people are selling something, it always somehow gets flown back to me. I want every product, every course, everything happening in the internet marketing world to somehow have people saying my name. That’s my goal. How many of you guy have been to other people’s events and I’m not there and they say my name? It makes me so happy. I get the instagrams from some of you guys, “Hey so and so just said your name.” I’m like, that’s so good. How have I done that? I spent a lot of my life integrating into everybody’s offers. Initially when I first got started, every single person who had a product, I was an interview in everyone’s product. I was like, looking at people launching a product, specific product launches coming, I’d contact them. Product launch is coming up, “Hey man, is there any way I could do a cool thing for your people? I could create this and give it to you and you could plug it into your product?” and everyone’s like, ‘Sure, that’d be awesome.” And all the sudden, boom, they get 5000 new buyers came in and every single one of them got my thing. They’re hearing my name, hearing my voice and it’s just constant integration. I think about how I met Joe Vitale, I talked about that earlier with the greatest showman. He was in an interview in a course I bought from Mark Joyner, I listened to it, fell in love with Joe Vitale, bought his stuff, given him tons of money over the years, a whole bunch of good stuff because he was integrated in that. So looking at other ways to integrate, the skill set that you already have into other people’s marketing channels because then you’re leveraging anytime any of these partners make a sell, you’re getting customers coming through that flow as well. Cool? Nick: Yeah. Russell: That was number five. Number six, I call this one rainmaker projects, because we talked about rainmaker during the first podcast interview. So rainmaker projects are, and again when I first started my career I did tons of these, where it’s like, I was really good at one piece. For you, you’re really good at video and story telling. And I look out here and be like, okay who is someone else here that is awesome? So and so is really good at making a product on Facebook ads. “You’re really good at Facebook ads, so I’ll do the video for this course, you do the Facebook, you do the actual ads for us.” And then, you’re awesome at doing the traffic and you bring in four or five people, like this little avenger team, and you create a cobranded product together and you launch it and everyone makes a bunch of money, split all the money, 50/50/50/50, that makes more than 100,but you know what I’m talking about, everyone splits the money, everyone splits the customer list and all the sudden you’ve all pulled your efforts, your energy, your talents together and everyone leaves with some cash, and you also leave with the customer list, and that’s when you start growing really, really rapidly. When I started I didn’t have a customer list, I had a very small one. But I had a couple of skill sets so that’s why I did tons of these things. That’s like, if you guys know any of my old friends like Mike Filsaime, Gary Ambrose, I could list off all the old partners we had back in the day, and that’s what we did all the time, these little rainmaker projects. We didn’t call them that back in the day, but that’s what it was. It was just like, we all knew what our skill sets were, and it’s like, let’s come together, let’s make a project. This isn’t going to be how we change the world, it’s not going to be something we’re going to scale and grow, but it’s like, it’s going to be a project, we put it together, we launch it, make some money, get some customers, get our name out in the market, and then we step away from it and then we all go back to our own businesses. It’s not like, that’s why it’s funny because a lot of times people are scared of these. Like, “Well, how do we set up the business structure? Who’s going to be the owner? Who’s the boss?” No, none of that. This is an in and out project where all the rainmakers come together and you create something amazing for a short period of time, you split the money and you go back home with the money and the customers. But it gave you a bump in status, a big bump in customer lists, a big bump in cash and then all those things kind of rise and if you do enough of those your status keeps growing and growing and growing, and it’s a really fast easy way to continue to grow. How many of you guys want to do a rainmaker project with Nick right now? Alright, very, very cool. Alright, and then I got one last, this is number seven. This kind of ties back to dream 100. The last thing I talked about was, and again this is kind of for everyone in the group, is the levels of the dream 100. I remember when I first started this process, I first got the concept and I didn’t know it was the dream 100 back then, but I was looking at all the different people that would have been on my dream 100 list. It was Mark Joyner, Joe Vitale, all these people that for me were top tier. Tony Robbins, Richard Branson, and I was like, oh, and I started trying to figure out how to get in those spots. And the more I tried, it was so hard to get through the gatekeeper, it was impossible to get through all these gatekeepers, these people. I was like, “Man don’t people care about me. I’m just a young guy trying to figure this stuff out and they won’t even respond to my calls or my emails. I can’t even get through, I thought these people really cared.” Now to be on the flip side of that, I didn’t realize what life is actually like for that, for people like that. For me, I understand that now at a whole other level. We’ve got a million and a half people on our subscriber list. We have 68000 customers, we’ve got coaching programs, got family, got friends. We have to put up barriers to protect yourself or it’s impossible. I felt, I can’t even tell you how bad I feel having Brent this morning, “Can you tell everyone to not do pictures with me.” It’s not that I don’t want to, but do you want me to tell you what actually happens typically? This is why we have to put barriers around ourselves. Here’s my phone, I’ll be in a room, like Funnel Hacking Live and there will be 3000 people in the room, and I’m walking through and someone’s like, “Real quick, real quick, can I get a picture?” I’m like, “I gotta go.” And they’re like, “It’ll take one second.” And I’m like, ahh, “Okay, fine, quick.” And they’re like, “Hold on.” And they get their phone out and they’re like, “Uh, uh, okay, uh, alright got it. Crap it’s flipped around. Okay, actually can you hold this, my arms not long enough can you hold it? Actually, hey you come here real quick, can you hold this so we can get a picture? Okay ready, one two three cheese.” And they grab the camera and they’re off. And for them it took one second. And that person leaves, and guess what’s behind them? A line of like 500 people. And then for the next like 8 hours, the first Funnel Hacking Live, was anyone here at the first Funnel Hacking Live? I spent 3 ½ hours up front doing pictures with everybody and I almost died afterwards. I’m like, I can’t…but I didn’t know how to say no, it was super, super hard. So I realize now, to protect your sanity, people up there have all sorts of gatekeepers and it’s hard. So the way you get through is not being more annoying, and trying to get through people. The way you get to them is by understanding the levels of that. So I tried a whole bunch of times, and I couldn’t get in so I was like, “Crap, screw those guys. They don’t like me anyway, they must be jerks, I’m sure they’re just avoiding me and I’m on a blacklist….” All the thoughts that go through your head. And at that time, I started looking around me. I started looking around and I was like, “hey, there’s some really cool people here.” And that’s when I met, I remember Mike Filsaime, Mike Filsaime at the time had just created a product he launched and he had like a list of, I don’t know, maybe 3 or 4 thousand people. And I remember I created my first product, Zipbrander, and I was all scared and I’m like ,”Hey Mike, I created this thing Zipbrander.” And he messaged back, “Dude that’s the coolest thing in the world.” A couple of things, Mike didn’t have a gatekeeper, it was just him. He got my email, he saw it, and he was like, “This is actually cool.” I’m like, “Cool, do you want to promote it?” and he’s like, “Yes, I would love to promote it.” I’m like, oh my gosh. I had never made a sale online at this point, by the way, other than a couple of little things that fell apart. I never actually made a sale of my own product. Zipbrander was my very first, my own product that I ever created. So Mike was that cool, he sent an email to his list, his 5000 person list, they came over, I had this little pop up that came to the site and bounced around, back in the day. I had 270 people opt in to my list from Mike’s email to it, and I think we made like 8 or 10 sales, which wasn’t a lot, but 67 that’s $670, they gave me half, I made $350 on an email and gained 300 people on my list. I’m like, oh my gosh this is amazing. And I asked Mike, “Who are the other people you hang out with? I don’t know very many people.” And he’s like, “Oh dude, you gotta meet this guy, he’s awesome.” And he brought me to someone else, and I’m like, “Oh this is cool. “ and Mike’s like, “Dude, I promoted Zipbrander, it was awesome, you should promote it.” And then he’s like, “Oh cool.” And he promoted Zipbrander. I’m like, oh my gosh, I got another 30-40 people on my list and there were a couple more sales. And then I asked him, “Who do you know?” and there was someone else, and we stared doing this thing and all the sudden there were 8 or 10 of us who were all at this level and we all started masterminding, networking, figuring things out, cross promote each other and what happened, what’s interesting is that all of our little brands that were small at the time started growing, and they started growing, and they started growing. All the sudden we were at the next tier. And when we got to the next tier all the sudden all these new people started being aware of us and started answering our calls and doing things, and Mike’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, I met this guy who used to be untouchable.” And he brought him in and brought them in and all the sudden we’re at the next level. And we started growing again and growing again. And the next thing we know, four years later I get a phone call from Tony Robbins assistant, they’re like, “Hey I’m sitting in a room and I got Mike Filsaime, Frank Kern, Jeff Walker, all these guys are sitting in a room with Tony Robbins and he thinks that you guys are the biggest internet nerds in the world, he’s obsessed with it and he wants to know if he can meet you in Salt Lake in like an hour.” What? Tony Robbins? I’ve emailed him 8000 times, he’s never responded even once, I thought he hated me. Not that he hated me, it’s that he had so many gatekeepers, he had no idea who I was. But eventually you start getting value and you collectively as a level of the dream 100 becomes more and more powerful. Eventually people notice you because you become the bigger people. And each tier gets bigger and bigger and bigger. So my biggest advice for you and for everybody is understanding that. Yes, it’s good to have these huge dreams and big people, but start looking around. There are so many partnerships to be had just inside this room. How many deals have you done with people in this room so far? Nick: Quite a few. Russell: More than one, right. Nick: Yeah, more than one. Russell: Start looking around you guys. Don’t always look up, up, up and try to get this thing. Look around and realize collectively, man, start doing the crossings because that’s how everyone starts growing together and there will be a time where I’ll be coming to you guys begging, “Can you please look at my stuff you guys, I have this thing called CLickfunnels. You may have heard of it. Can you please help me promote it?” And that’s what’s going to happen, okay. So the level of the dream 100 is the last thing, just don’t discount that. Because so many people are like swinging for the fence and just hoping for this homerun like I was, and it’s funny because I remember eventually people would respond to me, that I was trying for before, and they’d contact me. And I was like, oh my gosh. I realized, I thought this person hated me, I thought I was on a black list. I was assuming they were getting these emails and like, “oh, I hate this. Russell’s a scammer.” In my head right. They never saw any of them. Until they saw me, and they reached out to me and the whole dynamic shifted. So realizing that, kind of looking around and start building your dream 100 list, even within this room, within the communities that you’re in, because there’s power in that. And as you grow collectively, as a group, everyone will grow together, and that’s the magic. So that was number seven. So to recap the seven really quick. Number one, tell your story way too much, to the point where you’re so annoyed and so sick and tired of hearing it that everybody comes to you, and then keep telling it even some more. Number two, in everything you’re doing, energy matters a lot. To the point, even above what you think you’re comfortable with and do that all the time. Number three, make offers for everything. Hook, story, don’t leave them hanging, give them an offer because they’ll go and they will feel more completed afterwards. Number four, start building a list, it ties back to the first thing. Make an offer, get them to build your list, start growing your list because your list is your actual business. Number five, integration marketing. Look for other people’s marketing channels and how you can weave what you do into those channels, so you can get free traffic from all the people who are doing stuff. Number five, create rainmaker projects, find really cool things and bring four or five people together and make something amazing. Share the cash, share the customer list, elevate your status, elevate your brand, and it’s really fun to do because you get to know a whole bunch of people. And Number seven, understanding the levels of the dream 100. Find the people at your level and start growing with them together collectively as you do that, and in a year, two years, three years, five years Tony Robbins will be calling you, asking you to make his video and it will be amazing. Does that sound good? Awesome.

Jennifer Henel is Digital Humanities Developer at Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art My guest today is Jennifer Henel, Digital Humanities Developer at Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art. When we talk about museum website content at Cuberis, we break it down into four types. We call one of those types "Essential Content." This refers to the day to day work, mostly scholarly in nature, that occurs at your museum, and would even if you didn't have a website. Thanks to recent innovations and initiatives, more and more institutions are finding innovative ways of repurposing Essential Work as web content. Jennifer has been helping curators and historians publish their work online for years, and joined me to talk about some of the unique challenges of digitizing scholarly works. She also has some great ideas and insights for others who are looking to do something similar for their own institutions. **FULL TRANSCRIPT** NICK: Hi, and welcome to What’s On: The Cuberis podcast. I’m Nick Faber. If you’ve ever worked on a website redesign project, you know that it takes a lot of content to fill an entire website. But for a moment, imagine that your museum didn’t have a website at all. Think of how much content your museum would still to produce -- Catalogs, scholarly research, educational resources, labels -- all of the work that is essential to your museum’s mission and purpose. But your museum does have a website, and that work can now impact people who can’t make it to your physical location. When we talk about museum websites at Cuberis, we refer to that type of content as Essential Work. Thanks to recent innovations in digital technology, more and more cultural institutions are making their Essential Work available online, making it accessible to more historians and scholars, and taking advantage of the Internet’s intrinsic properties to make it easier to read and understand. My guest today is Jennifer Henel. She is working with Research Conservator Melanie Gifford of the National Gallery of Art to produce a new publication for the all-digital Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art. I invited her to join me to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of publishing scholarly work online, what peer review looks like for digital publications, and what sort of insights she has for museums looking to make more Essential Work accessible to more people. Jennifer joined me over Skype from the National Gallery of Art. Before we dove into the technical aspects of her work, I wanted to know more about the Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Arts. JENNIFER: Sure. It is the scholarly production of articles, etc, relating to Netherlandish art, Flemish art, Northern Baroque paintings, by and large, Dutch Art, that kind of spans the 1400s - I'm making large generalizations here -- through, I'd say the early 1700s, depending on the subject matter. And they are deep scholarly dives, often, into a particular painting or paintings, that sort of thing. It is a community of these various historians that are spread out throughout the world, and they can all contribute. And they aim for quarterly publication, though it just depends on what is coming up when they produce certain publications. So that is what the journal does. NICK: So you just started working with them -- or recently started working with them -- as a digital humanities developer. What is your role there, and what does that title mean? JENNIFER: So I am working on a specific new publication that is part of the journal offerings. It's going to be slated for next year. We're aiming, I believe, for late June to push this out. And what I'll be doing is, I'm working with a scholar, Melanie Gifford, on her research on the Sir Peter Paul Rubens painting The Fall of Phaeton, which is at the National Gallery. Melanie is a scientific conservator here at the National Gallery, and she is interested, not only in doing an article,

A special conversation I had on stage at the Traffic Secrets event with a friend and a student Nic Fitzgerald. On this episode Russell talks to his childhood friend, Nick Fitzgerald about helping him go from being in a technician position to being in an entrepreneurial position. Here are some of the inspiring thing in this episode: Find out how Russell found out his childhood friend was in desperate need of help and what he offered to do for him. How Nick was able to make to Funnel Hacking Live via credit card, and then spent $1800 on a program without telling his wife. And why being on the program helped Nick be able to ask a client for $25,000 on a project, when that was his previous yearly income. So listen here to find out how Russell was able to help Nick achieve his entrepreneurial dreams. ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson and I want to welcome you to the Marketing Secrets podcast. The next two episodes are a really special one. For our Two Comma club X members and our inner circle members I did an event recently, some of you guys heard me talk about it. It was a traffic secrets event, where I’m getting all the material ready for the book, and start teaching this stuff. Anyway, it was really, really fun and as I was doing the presentations, the night before when I was doing all the prep work I had this thought. I was like, I want to bring up somebody on stage and it’s somebody who was a friend I grew up with in elementary school, and junior high, and high school, someone who was down on their luck, who was really, really struggling. About a year ago I saw him post something on Facebook and I reached out, and this interview is happening about a year later. During the process he tells his story about what happened and the transformation and the change that’s happened by being involved inside our Clickfunnels, Funnel Hacker community. So I wanted to share that with you as part of the event, so this first half is going to be Nick kind of telling his story and it’s going to be the story from the bottom of the barrel where they were, they literally made $25,000 a year for 3 years in a row and then the transformation to this year, they’ll do well over six figures. And that’s going to be this first podcast. And the second podcast episode is, I’m actually going to be doing, I did a live coaching session with him on stage, and I want to share that with you as well because I think there’s a lot of things for you specifically that you can get from this episode too. So the next few episodes are going to be sharing this really fun conversation that happened late night at the Traffic Secrets event with my friend Nick Fitzgerald, and if you think that name sounds familiar, I have talked about him before on this podcast. In fact, a little over a year ago I did a podcast episode called being a rainmaker that was a personalized podcast that I sent to Nick specifically to help him with what he was struggling with at the time. So anyway, I wanted to share this with you because it will take you full circle to show you kind of the progress and the momentum and things that are happening in his life, and I think it will be encouraging for you to hear the story because no matter where you are in your journey right now, if you are struggling, doing well, or if you’re somewhere in between, there are parts of this story that will resonate with you. And in the second episode where I coach Nick I think will help everybody as well. So with that said, let’s jump right in and have some fun. I want to introduce you to my friend Nick Fitzgerald. Alright so I want to set the tone for the next hour or so of what the game plan is. So I have a first initial question that I’m curious about with everyone here. I’m curious, who since they joined the Two Comma Club X program has had some kind of experience with Mr. Nick Fitzgerald? That’s powerful, I’m going to talk about why in a little bit, but very, very cool. So some of the back story behind this, and then we’re going to introduce him up, and when he comes up I want you guys to go crazy and scream and cheer and clap, because it will be good, and then I want him to sit down so we’ll be the same height, which will be good, it’ll be fun. So some of the back story, I actually met Nick the very first time in elementary school, and even in elementary school he was a foot and a half taller than me, which is amazing. He was like 6 ft 2 in like third grade, it was amazing. But we knew each other when we were dorky little kids and going up through elementary school we were both doing our things, and we didn’t have a care in the world and everything’s happening. And as we got older he kept getting taller, I stopped growing. And then we got into high school and he kept growing and he joined the basketball team. I didn’t keep growing so I went downstairs in the basement, literally, at our high school in the basement they call it the rubber room, and it’s this room that smells like, I don’t even know, but it’s under the gym. So he would go upstairs and fans would show up and people would cheer for them, and scream at their games. And all the girls would come to the games. And we’d go down in the rubber room by ourselves and cut weight and put on our sweats and lose weight and we’d jump rope and sweat like crazy. And we’d sit there, and I remember one day after working out for two hours pouring in sweat, I had my plastic gear on and my sweats on top of that, my hoodie and my hoods and we got the wrestling mats, and literally rolled ourselves up in the wrestling mats to keep the heat in, and we laid there and we were so hot. And I could hear the basketball players in the gym up above having so much fun and people cheering for them. And all the girls were there. And I was like, “Why are we not playing basketball?” It doesn’t make any sense. But during that time, obviously we were in two different kind of worlds, and we didn’t really connect that much, and then we left our separate ways. And I didn’t hear from him for years and years and years. And then do you guys remember Facebook when it first came out? The first time you got it and you log in and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I can connect with people.” And you start searching the friends you know and then you find their friends and you spend a day and a half connecting with every person you’ve ever remembered seeing in your entire life? Do you guys remember that? So I did that one night, I connected with everybody. Everyone in high school, everyone in junior high, or elementary, everyone in every stage of my life, as many as I could think of. And then I was like, I think that’s everybody. Okay, I’ve connected with everybody. And one of those people that night was Nick. And then, but I didn’t say hi, I just friend requested and he requested back and I’m like, cool we’re connected. And then after that I got kind of bored with Facebook for like a year or so. Then a little while later I found out you can buy ads on it and I was like, what, this is amazing. So we started buying ads and everything is happening. And it’s crazy. And then what happened next, I actually want Nick onstage to tell you this story because I want you to hear it from both his perspective and my perspective, I think it’d be kind of interesting. Yeah, I want him to come up first. So let’s do this real quick. As you guys know Nick has been a super valuable part of this community since he came in. I’m going to tell the story about how he got here and some of the craziness of how he signed up when he probably shouldn’t have and what’s been happening since then, because I know that you guys have all been part of that journey and been supporting him. How many of you guys are going to his event that’s happening later this week? He just keeps giving and serving, he’s doing all the right things, he’s telling his story, he’s doing some amazing stuff. So my plan now is I want to talk about the rest of the story. I want to tell you guys what I told him a year ago and then I want to tell you guys my advice for him moving forward, because I feel like it’s almost in proxy. I wish I could do that with every one of you guys. Just sit down here and coach you. But I feel like he’s at a stage where some of you guys aren’t to where he’s at yet and some of you are past that, and some of you guys are right where he’s at, and I feel like the advice that I really want to give him, will help you guys at all different levels. So that’s kind of the game plan. So with that said, let’s stand up and point our hands together for Mr. Nick Fitzgerald. Alright, this has some good music. That was like music from high school. Look how tall I am. I feel like….okay, so I had him find this post because I wanted to actually share a little piece of it. So this, I’m going to share a piece of it, I want to step back to where you were at that time in your life. So this was July 7, 2017, so what was that a year and a half ago, ish? So July 7, 2017 there was a post that said, “Long post disclaimer. I hate posting this, blah, blah, blah.” So at the time my family was about to go on a family vacation. We’re packing up the bags and everything, and you know how it is, you do a bunch of work and then you stop for a second and your wife and kids are gone and you’re like, pull out the phone, swap through the dream 100 and see what’s happening.  And somehow this post pops up in my feed and I see it, I see Nick my buddy from 20+ years ago and I’m reading this thing and my heart sinks for him. Some of the things he says, “I hate posting things like this, but I felt like need to for a while. Being poor stinks. For those friends of mine who are ultra conservative and look down consciously or not, on people like me, I can honestly tell you that I’m not a lazy free loader who wants something for nothing. I’m not a deadbeat who wants Obama or whoever to blame now, to buy me a phone. I’m not a lowlife trying to get the government to pay for my liposuction. I’m not a druggie who eats steak and lobster for dinner with my food stamps. I’m a father of four, a husband, someone who lost everything financially, including our home when the time came to have your healthcare in place or to get fined, I went through the process. “Based on my family size and income, we were referred to the state to apply for those programs. We couldn’t get coverage for ourselves to the exchange in other places, we qualified for Medicaid. After the process was complete, the state worker suggested we try to get some other help, some food stamps.” It kind of goes on and on and on and he says, “In 2016 I made $25000. $25,000 plus our tax returns for the previous year. So a family of 6 living on $25,000 a year is being audited for receiving too much help, too much assistance.” And it kind of goes on and on and on with that. He says, “I’ve never abused drugs or alcohol, I’ve never even tried them. I’m just a guy trying to live the American dream and provide for his family. It’s unfortunate that we look down on those who are trying to better our lives, even if it leaves them from receiving help from assistance in place to help them. Look down on me if you want, I don’t care. I know the truth. My family is healthy and sheltered and that’s all that matters. I don’t wish these trials on anyone else…” and it kind of goes on from there. So I want to take you back to that moment, what was, talk about what you were experiencing and what you were going through during that time. Nick: I didn’t expect this. I’m a friendly giant, but I’m a big boob too. Back at that time, I had started what I thought was, I started my entrepreneurial journey. I was working in film full time, working 12, 14, 16 hour days making $200 a day, just killing myself for my family. Going through the process of, I’d lost my job because I wasn’t going to hit my sales, I was a financial advisor, and I wasn’t going to hit my sales numbers. So you know, my ticket was stamped. So I said okay, I’m going to do my own thing. And in the course of all that, it was time to get your health insurance and those things, and I went through the proper channels, like I felt like I should. And I was referred to the government for the programs, based on the numbers. And as a provider, a father, an athlete competitor, I felt like a failure. We’ve all, when you have to rely on somebody else , or somebody else tells you, “Hey, we don’t think you can do this on your own, come over here and we’ll take care of you.” That’s basically what I was told. So it was hard to accept that and to live with that reality. So we did, and I worked hard and it was a blessing really, to not have to worry about how much health care costs or have some of the things to supplement to feed our family and stuff. So it was great and it was wonderful. But then I got the email from the state saying, “Hey, you’re being audited. We’re just looking at things and we’re not sure. You’ve been getting too much help.” So at that point I’m just sitting there frustrated because I’m working my butt off, just trying to make things happen, become someone involved in the film community in Utah. And I was, and everyone knew me, and I had a reputation, but I still was a nobody in the eyes of the government. So I went to Facebook to whine, looking for what I wanted, which was a pat on the back, “There, there Nick, you’re doing…we know you’re a good dude and you’re working hard.” That kind of thing, and I did… Russell: I was reading the comments last night. “Oh you’re doing a good job man. Good luck.” Everyone like babying him about how tough life can be. Nick: So I got what I wanted, but it still didn’t change anything. I still had to submit my last two years of tax returns and all of the pay that I’d got and everything like that, so they could look at our case number, not Nick, Leisle, Cloe,Ewen, Alek, William. So it was just one of those things. I got what I wanted, then comes Russell to give me what I needed, which was…. Russell: I saw that and I’m like packing the kids bags and everything and I was like, “ah, do I say something?” I don’t want to be that guy like, “Hey, 20 years ago…” and I was like, ah, I kept feeling this. Finally I was like, “hey man, I know we haven’t talked in over 20 years…” This was on Facebook messenger, “we hadn’t talked in like 20 years. I saw your post today and it sucks. And I know what’s wrong, and I can help. But at the same time, I don’t want to be that guy and I don’t want to step on any toes. I know we haven’t talked in 20 years, I have no idea if this is even appropriate. But I know what’s wrong, I can help you. And no, this is not some cheesy MLM I’m trying to pitch you on. But if you’re interested in some coaching, I know what’s wrong.” And I kind of waited and then I started packing the bags again and stuff like that. I’m curious of your thoughts initially as you saw that. Nick: It’s funny because my phone was kind of blowing up with the comments. So I would hear the little ding and I would check. And then I saw that it was a message from Russell, and we had said like, “Hey, what’s up.” And had a few tiny little small talk conversations, but nothing in depth personal. So I saw that he sent a message, so I’m like, “Sweet.” So I look at it, and I was half expecting, because I knew he was successful, I didn’t know about Clickfunnels per se. I knew he had something going on that was awesome, but I didn’t know what it was. So I was wondering, “I wonder what he’s going to say, what he has to say about things?” But I read it and it was funny because when you said, “I don’t want to overstep my bounds. It’s been a long time, I don’t want to step on toes.” Kind of thing, Russell, we all know his athletic accolades and stuff. I was a great basketball player too, I was in the top 200 players in the country my senior year and stuff like that. So I’ve been coachable and played at high levels and been coached by high level guys. So when I read it and he said, “I know what’s wrong and I can help you.” I was just like, “Yes.” That was my reaction. I just did the little, um, fist pump, let’s do this. So I replied back and I thanked him for reaching out and stuff, and I just said, I think I even said, “I’m coachable. I will accept any guidance.” And things like that. Because up until that point in my life, especially in sports, if a coach showed me something, I would do it the way he did, and I would kick the other dude’s butt. I didn’t care. I played against guys who made millions of dollars in the NBA. I dunked, I posterized on Shawn Marion when he was at UNLV my freshman year of college. I started as a freshman in a division one school in college. So I would take, I’ve always been that kind of, I would get that guidance, that direction, I can put it to work. So I was just like, “Dude, Mr. Miyagi me.” I’m 8 days older than him, so I’m like, “young grasshopper, yes you can teach me.” That kind of thing. So I welcomed it and I was excited. I had no idea, because again I didn’t know what he did. I just knew he had a level of success that I didn’t have. And if he was willing to give me some ideas, I was going to hear him out for sure. Russell: It was fun, because then I messaged him back. I’m packing the car and Collette’s like, “We gotta go, we gotta go.” I was like, ah, so I get the thing out and I was like, “This is the deal. I’m driving to Bear Lake, it’s like a six hour drive. I’m going to give you an assignment and if you do it, then I’ll give you the next piece. But most people never do it, so if you don’t that’s cool and I’ll just know it’s not worth your time. But if it’s really worth your time, do this thing. I need you to go back and listen to my podcast from episode one and listen to as many episodes as possible, and if you do that I’ll make you a customized episode just for you telling you exactly what’s wrong and how to fix it. But you have to do that first. “And I’m not telling you this because I’m on some ego trip, but just trust me. The problem is not your skill set, you  have mad skills, you’re good at everything. It’s all a problem between your ears. If we can shift that, we can shift everything else.” Then I jumped in my car and took off and started driving for six hours. And then the next day, or a day later you’re like, “I’m 14 episodes in.” he was still listening to the crappy one’s, according to Steven Larsen. The Marketing In Your Car, he was probably thinking, “This is the worst thing I’ve ever heard, ever.” But he did it. I said do it, he did it. And he kept doing it and doing it, and so two days into my family vacation I had Norah, you guys all know Norah right. She’s the coolest. But she won’t go to bed at night, she’s a nightmare. Don’t let that cute face trick you, she’s evil. So I’m like, I can’t go to sleep, so finally I was like, I’m going to plug her in the car and drive around the lake until she falls asleep. So I plug her in the car, strap her in and I start driving. And I’m like, this could be a long, long thing. She’s just smiling back here. I was like ugh. I’m like you know what, I’m going to do my episode for Nick. So I got my phone out, I clicked record and for probably almost an hour, it was an hour. I’m driving around the lake and I explain to him what I see. Did anyone here listen to that episode? I’m curious. I’m going to map out really quick, the core concept. Because some of you guys may be stuck in this, and the goal of this, what I want to do is I want to map this out, and then what’s funny is last year at Bear Lake, so a year later we had this thing where I was like, we should do a second round where I do a year later, this is the advice now. And I wrote a whole outline for it and I totally never did it. So I’m going to go through that outline now, and kind of show him the next phase. So you cool if I show kind of what I talked about? Nick: For sure. Russell: Alright, so those who missed the podcast episode, who haven’t been binge listening, you’ve all failed the test, now you must go back to episode number one, listen to the cheesy jingle and get to episode, I don’t know what it was. Okay, I’ve said this before, if you look at any business, any organization, there’s three core people. The first one is the person at the top who is the entrepreneur. The cool thing about the entrepreneur is the entrepreneur is the person who makes the most amount of money. They’re the head and they get the most amount of money. The problem with the entrepreneur is they also have the most risk, so they’re most likely to lose everything. I’ve lost everything multiple times because I’m the guy risking everything. But the nice thing is entrepreneurs that write their own paychecks, there’s no ceilings. So they can make as much as they want. They can make a million, ten million, a hundred million, they can do whatever they want because there’s no ceiling. So that’s the first personality type. The second personality type over here is what we call the technicians. The technicians are the people who actually do the work. And what’s funny, if you look at this, people who go to college are the technicians. What do they do, they look down on entrepreneurs, they look down on sales people. “Oh you’re in sales. What are you a doctor?” For crying out loud in the night. But they look down on people like us. Because “I’m a doctor. I went to 45 years of school.” What’s interesting, there’s technicians in all sorts of different spots right. I actually feel bad, I shouldn’t say this out loud, but at the airport here I saw one of my friends who is an amazing doctor and him and his wife were leaving on a trip and we were talking and he said, “This is the first trip my wife and I have been on in 25 years, together by ourselves.” I’m like, “What?” and he’s like, ‘Well, we had medical school and then we had kids and then we had to pay off medical school and all these things. Now the kids are gone and now we finally have a chance to leave.” I was like, wow. Our whole lives we’ve heard that medical school, becoming a doctor is the…..anyway that’s a rant for another day. But I was like, there’s technicians. And what’s interesting about technicians, they don’t have any risk. So there’s no risk whatsoever, but they do have, there’s a price ceiling on every single person that’s a technician, right. And depending on what job you have your price ceiling is different. So doctors, the price ceiling is, I have no idea what doctor’s make, $500 grand a year is like the price ceiling, that’s amazing but they can’t go above that. And different tasks, different roles, different position all have different price ceilings. But there’s like, this role as a technician makes this much, and this one makes this much and you’re all kind of these things. I said the problem with you right now, you have these amazing skill sets, but you are stuck as a technician in a role where they’re capping you out, where the only thing you can make is $25k a year. Remember I asked you, “What have you been doing?” and you’re like, “Oh, I’ve been networking, I’ve been learning, I’ve been getting my skills up, getting amazing.” I’m like, “That’s amazing, you’re skills are awesome, but your ceiling is $25k a year. No matter how good you get you are stuck because you’re in a technician role right now.” I said, “you’ve got a couple of options. One is go become an entrepreneur, which is scary because you’ve got four kids at home and you don’t have money anyway.” I am so eternally grateful that when I started this game, my wife, first off, we didn’t have kids yet, my wife was working, we didn’t have any money but I didn’t have to have any money at that time, and I’m so grateful I was able to sometimes, I was able to risk things that nowadays is hard. For you to come jump out on your own initially and just be like, “Boom, I’m an entrepreneur and I’m selling this stuff.” That’s scary right, because you’ve got all this risk. So I was like, that’s the thing, but it’s going to be really, really hard. I said, “there’s good news, there’s one more spot in this ecosystem. And the cool thing about that spot it’s that it’s just like the entrepreneur, there’s no ceiling, now the third spot over here is what we call the rainmakers. The rainmakers are the people who come into a business and they know how to make it rain. This is the people who know how to bring people into a company. Leads, they bring leads in. They know all this traffic stuff they’re talking about. These are the people who know how to sell to leads and actually get money out of peoples wallets and put it into the hands of the entrepreneurs. These people right here, the rainmakers don’t  have ceilings. In fact, companies who give the rainmaker the ceiling are the stupidest people in the world, because the rainmaker will hit the ceiling and then they’ll stop. If you’re smart and you have a company, and you have rainmakers, people driving traffic, people doing sales, if you have a ceiling they will hit and they will stop. If you get rid of the ceiling and then all the sudden they have as much as they want, they have less risk than the entrepreneur, but they have the ability to make unlimited amount of money. I said, “Your skill set over here as a technician is worth 25k a year, but if you take your skill set and shift it over here and say, “I come into a company and I’m a rainmaker. I create videos, I create stories, they’ll sell more products, more things.” Suddenly you’re not worth 25,000, now you’re worth $100,000, you’re worth $500,000. You’re worth whatever you’re able to do, because there’s no ceiling anymore. And that was the point of the podcast. I got done sending it, then I sent it to him and I sent it to my brother to edit it. And I have no idea what you thought about it at that point, because we didn’t talk for a while after that. But I’m curious where you went from there. Nick: So the first thing, you know, being told I was really only worth $25,000 in the eyes of the people who were hiring me, that was a punch in the gut. That sucked to hear. Thanks man. It was just like, I literally was working 12, 14, 16 hour days, lifting heavy stuff, I did a lot with lighting and camera work, not necessarily the story writing stuff, but you know, for him to put it so perfectly, that I was a technician. I thought going in, when I failed as an advisor and I started my own company, or started doing videos for people, and being so scared to charge somebody $250 for a video, being like, “they’re going to say no.” That kind of thing, and now I wouldn’t blink my eyes for that. But you know, it’s one of those things for him to tell it to me that way, just straight forward being like, “You are, you’re learning great skills and you’re meeting amazing people.” I worked with Oscar winners and Emmy winners and stuff in the movies and shows that I worked on, but again, I was only worth that much, they had a finite amount of money, and I was a small part of it, so I got a small piece. So listening to all of that, and then hearing the entrepreneur, the risk and stuff. I’m really tall, I’m 6’9” if you didn’t know. I’m a sink or swim guy, but because I’m tall I can reach the bottom of the pool a lot easier. When I jumped in, we had lost, as a financial advisor we had lost our home and we lost all these things. So I was like, I have nothing left to lose. Worst case scenario, and I had never heard that mindset before. We were renting a basement from a family members, our cars were paid off. Worst case scenario is we stayed there and get food stamps and that kind of thing. There was nowhere to go but up from there. So for me, I was just so excited. I’m like, I want to be a rainmaker, I want to be an entrepreneur, but I didn’t know where to find the people that I could do that for. So I was in this thing where I was still getting lots of calls to work as a technician, but I didn’t want to do that anymore. I didn’t want to put myself, my body, my family through me being gone and then when I’m home I’m just a bump on a log because I’m so wiped out, all that kind of stuff. So that was my biggest first thing, the action point for me. I started thinking, okay how do I transition out of this? How do I get myself out and start meeting the right people, the right kinds of clients who do have budgets and things like that, and how do I make it rain for them. That’s when I made that shift from working as a technician. I told myself I’m not going to do it anymore. The last time I technically worked as a technician was about 9 months ago. It was for a friend. So I made that shift and it was just amazing. Like Russell was talking about earlier, when you start to track it or when it’s part of your mindset, things start to show up and happen. You meet the right people and stuff. So those things just started, just by listening to that one hour long thing, I started changing and then the black box I got, Expert Secrets and Dotcom Secrets and started going through that as well. And it was just like, you see in the Funnel Hacker TV, that moment where the guy goes, “RAAAAA” that’s what happened with me. It was like a whole new world, Aladdin was singing. He was Aladdin and I was Jasmine, with a beard. Russell: I can show you the world. Nick: Exactly. But that’s what really, literally happened with me. Russell: That’s cool. Alright this is like summertime, he’s going through this process now, figuring things, changing things, shifting things, he’s changing his mindset. We go through the summer, we go through Christmas and then last year’s Funnel Hacking Live, were we in February or March last year? March, and so before Funnel Hacking Live we kind of just touched base every once in a while, seeing how things are going. He’s like, “Things are going good. I’m figuring things out.”  And then Funnel Hacking Live was coming, and I remember because we’re sitting there, and I think he messaged me or something, “Funnel Hacking looks awesome I wish I could make it.” I was like, “Why don’t you come?” And you’re like, “I just can’t make it yet.” I was like, “How about this man, I guarantee you if you show up it’ll change your life forever. I’m not going to pay for your flights or your hotel, but if you can figure out how to get there, I’ll give you a free ticket.” And that’s I said, “if you can come let Melanie know, and that’s it.” And I didn’t really know much, because you guys know in the middle of Funnel Hacking Live my life is chaos trying to figure out and how to juggle and all that stuff. So the next thing I know at Funnel Hacking Live, we’re sitting there and during the session I’m looking out and I see Nick standing there in the audience. And I was like, ‘I have no idea how he got there, but he’s there. Freaking good for him.” And I have no idea, how did you get there? That wasn’t probably an easy process for you was it? Nick: No. Credit cards. It was one of those things, I looked at flights. As soon as we had that conversation, it was funny because I was, I can’t remember what was going on, but it was a day or two before I responded back to his invitation. And I was like, I’d be stupid to say no. I have no idea how I’m going to get there. I think I even said, “I’ll hitch hike if I have to, to get there.” Can you imagine this giant sasquatch on route 66 trying to get to Florida. But I told my wife about it, and this is where Russell might have this in common. My wife is incredible and super supportive and she let me go. And we didn’t have the money in the bank so I said, “I’m going to put this on the credit card, and as soon as I get back I’m going to go to work and I’ll pay it off. I’ll get a couple clients and it will be fine.” So I booked the hotel, luckily I was able to get somebody who wasn’t able to go at the last minute and I got their hotel room, and I got the lfight and I came in and I was in the tornado warnings, like circling the airport for 5 hours, like the rest of you were. So I got there and I just remember I was just so excited. Walking in the room the very first day, the doors open and you all know what it’s like. I don’t have to relive this story. I remember I walked in and the hair on my arms, it was just like {whistling}. It was incredible, just the energy and the feeling. And I was like, t his is so cool. And then the very first speech, I was like that was worth every penny to get here. If I left right now it would have all been worth it. And you all know because you’re sitting here, you’ve felt that too. So that was my, getting there was like, “Honey, I know we don’t have the money, we have space on the credit card, and when I get home I swear I will work hard and it will be okay.” And she’s like, “Okay, go.” So I did. Russell: So now I want to talk about, not day one, or day two, but on day three at Funnel Hacking Live. How many of you guys remember what happened on day three? Russell sneak attacked all you guys. I was like, if I start going “Secret one, Secret two, Secret three” you guys will be like, “Here it is.” Sitting back. I was like, how do I do the Perfect webinar without people knowing it’s the perfect webinar? And I’m figuring this whole thing out, trying to figure that out. And we built a nice presentation, create an amazing offer for this program you guys are all in. And as you know, all you guys got excited and ran to the back to sign up and now you’re here. But you told me this personally, I hope you’re willing to share. But I thought it was amazing because you didn’t sign up that night. And I would love to hear what happened from then to the next day, and kind of go through that process. Nick: So this is my first Clickfunnels, I was all new to this whole thing. I was so excited when the 12 month millionaire presentation came up and I was like, “This is awesome.” Then I see it in the stack and I’m like, “I’m seeing the wizard,  I can see the wizard doing his thing.” And I was just so excited, and then the price. And it was a punch in a gut to me, because I was so, listening to it I was like, ‘This is what I need. This is what I want, this is what I need. It’s going to be amazing.” And then the price came and seriously, the rest of the night I was just like…. The rest of the presentation and everything after that I was just kind of zoned out. I just didn’t know what to do. Because I knew I needed it so badly and I’m like, that’s almost twice what we’re paying in rent right now. You know, it was just like, how am I going to justify this when I’m on food stamps and Medicaid and all this kind of stuff. You know, “yes, I’m on that but I dropped this money on a coaching program.” Russell: “From this internet coach.” Nick: Right. And so I’m having this mental battle and get back home to my room that night and I didn’t go hang out with people. I just was not feeling it. And I remember texting my wife on the walk back to the room. And I took the long way around the pond, just slowly depressedly meandering back to my room. And I’m texting her and I’m telling her how amazing it was and what the program would do and all that kind of stuff, and she’s like, “That sounds great.” And I’m purposely not saying how much it’s going to cost, just to get her excited about it, so I can maybe do a stack with her right. “For this and this….” See if I could try it. I didn’t, I failed when it came to doing that. I told her the price and she’s like, “That’s a lot of money. How are you going to pay for it.” And I’m like, “I don’t know.” And I’m like, “The only thing I can do, because I have to sign up while I’m here, and pay for it while I’m here. I can put it on the credit card and then we will figure it out.” So we talked a lot and I talked to my dad and it was the same thing. He was like, “Man, that’s a lot.” Just the scarcity mindset that a lot of us have with our family members and support system who aren’t, don’t think, who aren’t the crazy ones. So I went to bed and I got emotional, and I slept so so bad. Just didn’t sleep well that whole night. And again, I talked to my wife again the next morning, and I just, we just said, “It would be awesome. But I can’t do it, so I’m just going to work hard and figure something out and then if it ever opens up again, then I’ll be in a position to do it.” So I left my room that morning with that in my mind. I made the mistake of keeping my wallet in my pocket though, because I’m here. I again made the long walk back and kind of gave myself a pep talk like, “Don’t worry about that kind of stuff. Just more value out of it, meet more people.” So that’s when I left my room that morning, that’s where my mind was. Russell: What happened next? Nick: I walked into the room and Kevin Hansen, who I had, it’s funny, he does a lot of editing for Clickfunnels, and he and I had actually met independent of Clickfunnels before. It was one of those things like, “Oh you do, oh my gosh.” and it was like 2 months after we’d met. So I was talking to him, just chitchatting, and I just had right then in my mind, it was like, “Walk over to the table and sign up. If you don’t do it now, you’re never going to do it.” And it was just one of those things, because I’d given myself that speech, that whole five minute walk across the property. So I finished up talking with him and I just said, “I’ll be right back.” And I walked straight over to the table, got out the credit card, wrote it all down, and I’m like, I don’t even know what my limit is, so I hope whenever they run this that it goes through. I don’t know what’s going to happen. So I did and I got that little silver ribbon that we all got. And again, {whistling} chills. Like I was like, holy crap, this is amazing. I put it on my little lanyard thing and I was just like, I couldn’t believe it. The adrenaline and all that stuff of, “I’m doing it. And my wife is going to kill me when I get back home.” So that’s, then I went and got my seat and I was just floating, you know. I was so amped, I could have “Steven Larsened” it and screamed over the noise of everybody else and it would have been very, you would have heard it. So that’s what I did that morning. I was like, ‘Not going to do it, not going to do it, not going to do it.” I walked in, 60 seconds done. You have my money. Russell: So I’m curious, when did you tell your wife? This is like a marriage counseling session, huh? Nick: yeah, do you have a couch I can lay down on? Russell: A big couch. Nick: yeah, really. So I got home and I didn’t tell her, at all. I didn’t. I said, the clock is ticking. I have 30 days until that hits, or 20 days until the credit card statement comes and she’s like, “Wait, why is there an extra $2000 bucks on here?” So I just, I said, I’ve got some time because my wife, she’s 5’3”, she’s dainty, little petite lady, but she’s not scary I guess. But this is the first time I was really scared to tell her something in our marriage. So I just said, I’m just going to hit the road hard and see what I can come up with to cover at least the $1800 and the hotel, for what I racked up at Funnel Hacking Live, and then that will get me another 30 days to figure something out. So I went and I never told her until the credit card statement came and she saw it. She’s like, “What’s this?” But what happened before that, I don’t know, do you have something after that or do you want me to go to the next part? Okay, so me going to work and being like, “I gotta find it.” and it’s funny that night at Funnel Hacking Live, I went on Facebook and I created some half thought through offer where it was like, “Hey if I can get like 5 people locally where I’m at to do a monthly low number where I create a couple of videos for a monthly retainer, that will cover it and I can figure it. But nobody nibbled on it. So I got home and I started just trying to figure stuff out. And I had met another lady who had a company and she uses Clickfunnels for her course. And it was funny, I talked to her before I went to Funnel Hacking Live, and we were talking and she was like, “Do you know Clickfunnels?” And I was like, “That’s so crazy. I do.” Because I’d never met anybody else that had. So I got home and I shot a little video with her, it was a test to do some modules for her course and she loved it and it was great. So we were talking about, she had like 20 videos she wanted to do and we were talking about budget, and I just said, “you know what, for that much, for that many videos and all this kind of stuff, it’s going to be $25,000.” And she didn’t even blink. She’s like, “Perfect, that’s great.” Thank you, you guys. You’re going to make me cry. Thank you.  And that was like maybe two weeks after I got home that that happened. And I left her house and I tried my hardest not to do a jump heel click going down her driveway, out to my car, and I got around the corner and I messaged Russell like, “dude, you’ll never guess. I just closed my first 5 figure deal and this is what it was…” and he was like, “That’s so cool.” You know. But it was the whole plata o plomo thing, I would never have the guts to ask for something like that, I know that I should and that my skills and what I can do are worth that and more, and it’s been proven to me again and again since then, but to ask the first time, that first time you have a big ask and you’re just throwing yourself out there, and if she would have said no…Now what am I going to do? Because I had actually done another pitch where I did like a webinar pitch where I  had a stack and slides and stuff because it was for a Chamber of Commerce, and I wanted to charge them 2500 a month to do like 4 videos a year. And I did the whole thing like, “If you do it, it’s $2500 a month, or if you do it all right now it’s this…” that whole you know, and they passed on it. I was like, ugh. So it was just one of those things where being around y’all, that was my first experience being around entrepreneurs, really. I have friends who have had businesses, but I felt weird for wanting to create my own thing or being selfish because I have four kids. Like why don’t you go get a real job? All those conversations that you hear and have with yourself, especially when things aren’t going great. But it was like okay, I have to get it done or I have to drop out. And I just, even in that short amount of time I received so much value from the people I was beginning to meet, and then as the content started coming out I was like, “There’s no way I could live without this after having a taste of it.” So that was my, I had to get it done and it worked out. Russell: Amazing, I love that story. So coo. Alright, so since then, how many of you guys have watched his….are you daily or almost daily Facebook Lives? Nick: Pretty much, almost daily. I’ll miss some… Russell: How many of you guys have watched his daily Facebook lives, he’s doing what we’re saying right. He’s doing it. He’s doing it. I see it, I see it coming in my feed. It pops in my feed over and over. He’s doing what we’re talking about. He’s attracting people, he’s telling stories. All the stuff we’re talking about, he’s been doing it. But part of it, he had to have that emotion, that plata o plomo moment and then he hit it and it’s just like, he’s been running and running and running and running. And it’s been so insanely fun to watch the progress and the growth. Some of you guys know he put out an event that’s coming up this weekend and sold out in 5 seconds. He’s like, “I sold out, should I make it bigger?” and I’m like, “No people should have responded to you faster, it’s their fault. Sell it out because next time it will be easier to sell it out again and easier to sell out again.” But he did it by giving tons of value. Telling stories, telling stories, telling stories, providing more value to you guys, to other entrepreneurs, other people in the community and people are noticing. All the stuff we talked about today, he’s doing it. Consistently, consistently, consistently doing it. That was so cool. I don’t even know where to go from here. Alright I know where to go from here. Before I move into this, was it scary? Nick: All of it scary? Well, this is what, back to my competitive days, I don’t care who, I’d played against the best players in the country at high levels. And I didn’t care if you were going to the NBA, being recruited by Duke, once we got into the lines I didn’t care who you were, I was going to make you look silly. I would hold, you wouldn’t score a point on me, or I would just like out work you and if you wanted to get anywhere I was in your face the whole time. And so this was a whole different game for me. I remember Myron talking about in his speech at Funnel Hacking Live, you have to stay in the game long enough to learn the game, and I was new to this game. Like brand new, less than 12 months when I went to Funnel Hacking Live. And it was terrifying because, not necessarily because I didn’t think I could do it, I was just worried when, how long it would take. Like am I going to go and just spin my wheels and it’s going to be 15 years, 2099 and I’m wheeling up across to get my reward from him in his wheelchair, just like, “Hey buddy.” You know, that kind of thing. I just didn’t know how to make it happen quick. That kind of stuff. So I was definitely scared, not necessarily of failing, because I had failed before, I was just scared how long it was going to take. Russell: one of the best moments for me was this summer, him and his family were driving home from, I can’t remember where, they were driving through Boise, and he’s like, “Can we swing by and say hi? My kids want to meet you, my wife wants to meet you.” That’s always scary when you haven’t met someone’s wife or kids and you’re like, what if they hate me. And I remember I started thinking, oh my gosh. He spent all his money coming out here, and then he bought the thing, she might legitimately want to kill me. I have no idea. I was a little bit nervous. And I came and met them and the kids, it was super cool. I remember the coolest thing, your wife just looked at me and she said, “Thank you.” And I was like, how cool is that? Just the coolest thing. Thank you for convincing, persuading, whatever the things are to do this thing. I think sometimes as entrepreneurs we feel the guilt or the nervousness of, “Should I sell somebody something? Is it right, is it wrong?” You have to understand when you’re doing it, it’s not a selfish thing for you. It’s like, how do I get this person to take the action they need to do. Because most people won’t do it until they make an investment. It’s just human nature. They’ll keep dinking around and dinking around, whatever it is until they have a commitment, until they make that covenant, like Myron talked about earlier, people don’t change. So in any aspect of life, you want someone to make a change, there’s got to be something that causes enough pain to cause the change, which is why we have the program. We could have priced the program really, really cheap but I was like, “No we won’t.” We legitimately wanted to make a plata o plomo moment for everybody. You’ll notice, when the program signup, not everybody who signed up is here today. Some people fell away, some of them left, things happen and I totally understand, but I wanted to make it painful enough that we get people to move. And there are people in this room, I’ve joked about, Nick probably shouldn’t have bought that. If he would have asked I would’ve been like, “No dude, don’t. What are you thinking? Why would you do that?” as a friend this is weird, but I’m so grateful. Are you grateful you did? Nick: Absolutely. Russell: Where’s Marie Larsen, is she still in here? I talked about this in the podcast. She was in the same situation, she should not have signed up for it, it’s insane. I saw this text she sent Steven, she’s like, how much did you have in your bank account when you signed up for it? $70 in the bank account, $1800 a month bill she signed up for. And then it started happening and she was freaking out how it’s going, if you guys haven’t listened to the podcast, Lean In, yet I told the whole story. But it got nervous month one, then month two happened and she’s like, “Oh my gosh, I need to leave. I can’t afford this.” And she’s talking with Steven and Steven’s like, “Well, you could leave and walk away, or you could lean in.” so she decided, “Okay, I’m going to lean in.” So she leaned in, and I’ve watched as her business over the last 3, 4, 5, 6 months is growing and it’s growing and it’s growing because she leaned in. Tough times will come, every single time it comes, but those who lean in are the ones who make it through that, and who grow and who build huge businesses.

Here are the questions we discussed in this episode of Masters of Growth on which we had the pleasure to talk to the Nick So, Director of Optimization Strategy at WiderFunnel: 1) What are ingredients of a successful optimization strategy? 2) Common mistakes companies make along the process of starting an optimization programme? 3) What keeps you up at night as an Optimizer? WiderFunnel's proven PIE Framework is also available for scoring your ideas in iridion - Check it out! Links from this episode: https://www.widerfunnel.com/ https://twitter.com/SonickWF https://www.widerfunnel.com/conversion-optimization-process/ https://www.widerfunnel.com/lift-model/ Send us your questions using #mog on twitter or LinkedIn. Alternatively, you can visit our website iridion.com and use the intercom chat option on the lower right to talk to Tim directly for feedback on the show or to submit questions. iridion website: https://iridion.com iridion YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClcsmp127-kJ5CthBwkfmPQ Tim on twitter: https://twitter.com/herbigt André on twitter: https://twitter.com/morys --- Iridion is the conversion optimization platform enabling optimizers to learn and succeed. Iridion supports you in finding the right ideas to test, prioritize your efforts, set up and monitor experiments as well as documenting and sharing your gained insights. André Morys is the CEO of konversionsKRAFT, a well-known optimization agency. Andre is a prolific entrepreneur, speaker, and author who’s shaping the internal optimization landscape for several years. He also co-founded the Global Optimization Group as the first international network for conversion optimization. Tim Herbig is a product and business leader, as well as a prolific writer, podcaster, and speaker. He’s responsible for the overall sales, product, engineering and marketing efforts behind the leading conversion optimization platform Iridion. He previously shaped digital products at XING, Gruner+Jahr, and several smaller startups where he held product leadership roles for more than seven years. Tim also regularly co-organizes the Product Tank Hamburg meetup to promote the local product management community.

First, a note from Nick - So my original plan was to edit out the name of the company that we talk about in the news segment regarding damaging branding. Ultimately I decided to leave it in. I'm tiptoeing no longer. Sorry not sorry. Hey Listeners! Welcome to the Culture of Clouds Podcast, Episode 49! In this week's show, Ruby reveals her love for Mr. Poopy Butthole, and Nick has some DEEP THOUGHTS about the real backstory behind Rick Sanchez. Our main topic this week is all about RICK AND MORTY!!! We talk all about how/when/why we started watching the show, we go over all of the main characters, talk about our theories about the show, and then we discuss our top three favorite episodes so far. SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT!!! Thanks for listening everyone! Ruby & Grimm

Green Meadows Beef is an unique family business providing grass feed beef direct to the consumer. This is the story how the Carey family have built their business of providing raw materials to the end user and the way they have used social media to take it to market     Today’s guest is Nick Carey, Director and General Manager of Green Meadows Beef based in Taranaki.  Green Meadows Beef is a unique family business who have built their business primarily using online and social media platforms.  The business has experienced tremendous growth over the last five years.  Craig and Nick talk about what started as an offbeat idea that has become big business for his family.   In 2012, his family decided they wanted to add value to their products.  This propelled them to launch a paddock to plate system.  This involved shipping products from their farm through their own processing and distribution channels.  Their direct-to-market through online sales has formed a big growth part of their business.   Nick’s father, suggested for them to try and market their beef product directly to the consumer.  They sat together as a family and formed a new way to get their products to the market, and soon, they recognized the opportunity of selling online. This propelled them to launch a paddock to plate system.  This involved shipping products from their farm through their own processing and distribution channels.  Their direct-to-market through online sales has formed a big growth part of their business.   Nick started his career as a commercial lawyer in Wellington and New Plymouth His role in this new family business was in the development, branding, and logistics.  Soon enough this was taking most of his time and he eventually decided he needed to quit his job as a lawyer.    That was a leap of faith for Nick, who has had to adjust to being an entrepreneur.  There were four key problems Green Meadows Beef was solving for the consumer.  These were (1) Time saving (2) Ease of purchase (3) Quality assurance, (4) Provenance.   Nick and Craig also talk about how wildly successful My Food Bag has become.  It is a website that allows it’s customers to order a food bag for a varied number of people.  It is also customized for them in terms of the number of people and their diet.  My Food Bag has revolutionized the industry.  Countdown eventually came up with a similar concept of online selling.  There was a big shift in the market of people being more open to purchasing food products online.  That assured Green Meadows Beef of its market.    In terms of marketing research, they were lucky that Green Meadows Beef was nimble enough to adapt their offering as well.  This included having to tweak their operations on the way.  They started out selling bulk-frozen packs and delivering them through chilled or frozen trucks.  However, it has now evolved to a point where they can customize their own products and deliver them the next day, chilled, through a courier.   Nick’s journey has not been without challenges.  One day, his company’s freight company informed him that they were no longer going to deliver Nick’s frozen meat packs.  As a result, he was forced to change his business model, which led to better results because they are now selling fresh produce instead of frozen produce.   Another challenge Nick has had to face was the price of raw materials.  Over the last three to four years, the price of raw materials has almost doubled.  At the same time. One of the things that has raised the price of the raw product is the price that it can otherwise be sold elsewhere.  Export of demand has been high.   They now run their farm as a separate business from their meat processing.  Each company has different governance, advisers, and processes.  Ensuring that the two businesses were independent of each other will help with succession planning and will force each one to be profitable on its own.  .  However, with the easing off of demand in the United States, the farm gate prices have been affected.    Nick learned to focus on the role of governance and the value of the right independent advice.  Another crucial area that Nick has focused on is being able to get accurate and timely business information, dealing with changes in technology and how scalable that is, and finally, achieving a profitable core business before evolving into other paths.   Another thing that Nick has focused on is learning how to work with his people.  Getting the right staff onboard has been a good learning experience for him.  He makes sure his employees have clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and reporting lines so that he could focus on working on the business and growing it.  Nick has been able to retain his staff for 4 years now.  He hardly needed to do cold hires because he utilized the benefits of his networks.   As for online selling, Nick uses mostly social media such as Facebook and Twitter to connect with people and to build an audience.  They do mostly paid advertising now.  He initially did everything in-house but has started outsourcing it already using a marketing consultant who works remotely for them.   In terms of content, Nick suggests that you keep it personal, relevant, and fun to keep his customers engaged.  With competition sprouting up more, there is a need to ensure that you get heard.  Nick’s friend once said that content is king but engagement is queen and she rules the house.  You need to be able to engage your followers.    Currently, they are on Pinterest and Instagram but it has been a challenge to maintain everything.  They use third party tools to help with the marketing side.  They also use cloud based systems that help cut costs and get things done.   What Nick enjoys about being in business is building something from the ground up, seeing the evolution of that business, and having a chance to enjoy its success.    As a lawyer, Nick had a structured and disciplined career.  At the moment, he says he has very little structure in his life now.  Working with creative types, for example, causes him to work longer hours and deadlines extended.  He deals with it by communicating well with his people.  He says that if you spend a good portion of your day through communicating, it makes the day go so much better. This goes back to having structures in place so the rest of the team can function harmoniously while you’re communication with them.    Nick’s challenge working with his family is ensuring that there is regular communication in terms of what’s happening in the business as well as asking for feedback.  He suggests that there has to be a clear distinction of business and family time.  It is important that everyone gets their chance to have a say but at the end of it, they are able to sit down and have dinner together.   In terms of having external professionals and mentors for his business, Nick says that one of the critical things is finding the right independent advice.  His solution has been to persevere until you find exactly what you need at a particular time.  As your business continues to change, so does the levels of advise.  Nick has found that having an independent director has helped him fill the skills gap.  Engaging the services of experts can be beneficial to his business as well.    Nick does not dwell on the past.  His company has a year end review where they identify what worked and what didn’t so that in the future, they can learn from these experiences. Nick says that in hindsight, he would have focused on margin analysis in his business and having a better handle on his cash flow and budget.  This has become one of their strengths and has allowed them to diversify the business for a more consistent cash inflow.   Being content in terms of business and the industry that you’re in is a mistake that business owners make.  As an example, the evolution of online selling has had an effect on traditional purchasing.  Nick suggests that you need to stay on top of things and not rest on your laurels because you don’t know what’s around the corner.   Strengthen your core business and ensure that it is profitable and sustainable before you venture out into other business opportunities.  At the moment, there is a need to develop relationships with consumers because people want to know where there food comes from, how it’s produced, and what’s going on.    Visit www.GreenMeadowsBeef.co.nz for more information.   TRANSCRIPT NICK CAREY    Craig: Hi guys!  Craig here from The Project Guys. Today in our podcast, really happy to introduce Nick Carey.  Nick is a Director and General Manager of Green Meadows Beef based here in Taranaki.  Green Meadows Beef is a unique family business who built the business primarily using online and social media platforms.  They specialise in suppling New Zealand consumers’ grass fed premium beef, where you online, and delivered to your door in twenty four hours.  And their business has experienced tremendous growth over the last five years.  What started as an offbeat idea and working from home office is now having their own dedicated butchery and retail premises and offices.  So, welcome Nick.   Nick: Thanks Craig.  Thanks for giving me the opportunity to tell a little bit about our story.    Craig: No drama at all! . Tell us a little bit about your background and why you decided to go into business.   Nick: Well, my background was as a commercial lawyer for a few years both in Wellington and New Plymouth.  We as a family, I guess, back in 2012, decided that we wanted to add value to the products we were producing which was mainly meat or beef and as a way to, I guess, cement the family farm and those plans through a formal succession plan, we decided to launch an integrated pallet to plate business which is shipping products from our farm through our own channels and processing channels, as Craig mentioned, direct consumers New Zealand wide through the different channels we utilise it at supermarkets, restaurants, and caterers and of course, direct-to-market through online sales, which is our biggest growth part of the business.   Craig: So, you’ve mentioned that you were a lawyer and then from a lawyer to an entrepreneur, it’s not a traditional path, was it your idea to do businesses with family?  How did it all sort of evolve?   Nick: Yeah.  Evolve is probably the right thing to say.  It was my father’s idea to try and market the products.  Obviously, we soon recognised online was a much easier path than let’s say the traditional paths of standing at farmer’s markets or carport sales or whatever it may be where other people are maybe trying to sell similar products.  So it’s at that time, all of us, I’ve got two siblings.   We all became involved to help form a plan to get the products to market and I helped here on the side with development and branding and things and arranging all of that and then once we launched the business, it became pretty evident that I wouldn’t be able to continue in my day job and helping out with the business.  So it was about, I guess, 3 months in that I gave up…   Craig: Oh, that quick! Yeah.  Yeah.   Nick: Yeah.  Yeah.…full-time paid employment to jump into the business.   Craig: To be poor for a couple of years.    Nick: Yes!  Yes!    Craig: [laughs]   Nick: Forever.    Craig: Forever.  [laughs] Yes!  Yes!  So, when you started, obviously, it was just quite a bit different and there’s a new concept.  Get away from the farmer’s markets or selling to a wholesaler, direct….did you guys do any market research and that actually work out where you had a legitimate market and business…   Nick: Uhm…   Craig: And what are the problems you’re solving which are and I suppose were time saving and ease for the purchaser, wasn’t it?   Nick: That and also quality and provenance.  So those are I guess the 4 key messages or key problems we’re solving for the consumer.   Craig: Yeah.  Yeah.   Nick: In New Zealand, at that time, there was a limited range of producers doing what we were doing.  Certainly that landscape has changed now and more and more are coming on board to be…whether it’s in meat or other ___ farm products or whatever.  The launch of things like MyFoodBag and you know and the whole…   Craig: Which is wildly successful.   Nick: Exactly.   Craig: Yeah.   Nick: And a great example of success in this market.   Craig: Yeah.   Nick: So I guess in…when the business was in its infancy, there was only a couple of competitors in New Zealand.  I don’t even think Countdown had really launched their…   Craig: Right.   Nick: Online sales at that time so obviously, we’ve noticed a big shift in the market and people being far more open to purchasing food products online.  So, with our research, it was really based on looking at producers in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, seeing what they were doing, what offerings they had.   Craig: Yeah.   Nick: And obviously, because we…we were selling online, just online only at the start, it did allow us some chance to scale as time went on so there was no pressure of having products ready to go with no markets.   Craig: Yeah.   Nick: So I guess, we…we are currently on to building website number three.   Craig: Right.   Nick: So there has been multiple chances to refine the offering based on our own learnings…   Craig: Yeah.   Nick: Rather than…than doing too much…   Craig: Yeah.   Nick: market research at the beginning, I guess, which  potentially a pitfall…   Craig: Yeah.  But…   Nick: that were fallen into but we’ve been lucky that we’ve been nimble enough to be able to adapt that offering to…   Craig: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah…   Nick: to see that…what does that mean?   Craig: Yeah.  Oh, it’s a case sometimes of getting that ___ to market and then work out having to… and having to tweak everything on the way, isn’t it…   Nick: Exactly.  We’ve started out in our industry selling bulk frozen packs and delivering it via the chilled or frozen trucks…   Craig: Yes.   Nick: all over the country where it could take anything from a week to two weeks.   Craig: Right.   Nick: To be delivered to the model that we have now and it’s evolving as you can customise and pick and choose your own products…   Craig: Yeah…   Nick: …and it’s delivered the next day, chilled via courier, so…   Craig: Yeah.   Nick: You know, there’s different challenges that come at you and one of that for example was the freight company telling us, “No, we’re no longer gonna deliver your frozen meat packs.”  So…   Craig: Oh, is that right?   Nick: So your business if often forced to change…   Craig: Yes.   Nick: …which can obviously lead to better results…   Craig: Yeah.   Nick: …because the consumer appreciates…   Craig: Yeah…   Nick: fresh produce versus…   Craig: Yeah…   Nick: frozen produce.    Craig: So there.  So tell us a bit more about the challenges and the learnings you had in those early years and maybe also the challenges you’re facing now and how that evolved?   Nick: Definitely.  I guess the critical challenge for us been the price of our raw materials.   Craig: Alright.   Nick: Just to put them in a little bit of context and background, we run the farm as a totally separate business from the meat processing…   Craig: Yeah.   Nick: Different governance, different advisers, everything and we thought that was a critical distinction from a…   Craig: Uhm…   Nick: …a governance point of view particularly in the family situation so that we had two separate business which were hopefully, hopefully independent of each other, both supporting…   Craig: Uhm…   Nick: …themselves.  So…   Craig: Also that.  I guess it also helps with succession planning too.  Exit strategy is one [incomprehensible]…   Nick: Exactly.  And obviously that’s what we’re focusing…   Craig: Uhm…   Nick: The meat processing business now is taking on a life of its own with contract manufacturing…   Craig: Yeah…   Nick: …and things like that so…obviously anytime, I mentioned it at the start that the farm is very much part of the succession plan but if there were something that caused the farm to go, well, we’ve got another business…   Craig: Yeah…   Nick: And vice versa, we could always onsell the meat processing side of things.   Craig: Uhm…uhm…uhm…   Nick: …and keep the farm…   Craig: That’s right.   Nick: But so…part of it is that the farm must obviously make a profit…   Craig: Yes…   Nick: So we have to purchase the animals that we’re using through the Green Meadows Business from the farm at the prevailing market rate…   Craig: Yes…   Nick: Over the last three to four years, that price of raw materials has almost doubled…   Craig: Oh sh….   Nick: Without a corresponding rise in meat prices at the consumer end…   Craig: Yeah…   Nick: There’s still a certain barrier at the consumer end as to what a sausage or whatever may cost so I guess that’s been the critical challenge that we’ve face and we’ve had to really adapt and change our product offering.  So…   Craig: So what’s driven the price of the raw product up?  Is it the price on the farm to produce that product?   Nick: No, it’s the price that it can otherwise be sold elsewhere...   Craig: Oh, okay.   Nick: So, export demand, primarily out of the U_S where ground beef, easier ground beef is exported…   Craig: Okay…   Nick: …to the U_S and it’s been in quite high demand in particularly out of China as well…   Craig: Right.   Nick: So, depending on what’s happening in those markets, I’m assuming we’re seeing an easing off in the United States at the moment on demand which, of course, is then having a…   Craig: Yeah…   Nick: …a correlation back to farm gate prices here.   Craig: Cool…   Nick: So I guess with that challenge, we learned quite a lot and kind of like it’s focused a lot on what’s happened in the business so there are a couple of points off the top of my head…   Craig: Yes…Yeah…   Nick: I guess the role of governance and the value of the right independent advice has been a critical things that we’ve taken from it, I guess the information we’re pulling out of the business in terms or accurate and timely…   Craig: Yup…   Nick: …business information, technology and how scalable that is, what machines can really make our day better…   Craig: Right.   Nick: Versus culling out some of those manual processes, cause obviously, bearing in mind making food can sometimes be a relatively manual process…   Craig: Yup!  Yeah…   Nick: And then it all comes back to achieving a profitable core business before evolving into other paths.  So, we’ve really focused over the last year or two on what is our core business, how to make it profitable before launching into some other opportunities as well.    Craig: So how do you take yourself out of the business to work on the business around those things you just…   Nick: Yeah, well, as the businesses continue to grow, we’ve been able to put staff into roles that I was otherwise doing, so for example, we’ve just taken on an operations manager who is handling most of the day-to-day production and supply side of the business whereas I’m just handling the demand side and obviously everything else.  So the finances and working on the business so, I guess that’s been a good learning is getting the right staff on board, making sure that they have clearly defined roles and responsibilities and reporting lines so that that then frees you up to do as you say, “working on the business,” and growing it.  So we have that clearly…clear definition of okay, operations manager was gonna focus on the supply side and production, I was gonna handle the demand, so that’s where my focus is now…is on the demand side and when you’ve got the right people and the right positions, everything is fine and it works well.    Craig: So, you’ve gotta run on a fierce podcast business and about staffing.  How’d you go and find the right staffing?  How’d you know?  Do you know?  [laughs]   Nick: I guess, that’s a good question, “Do you know?”   Craig: Cause that’s critical, isn’t it?   Nick: It is and we are fortunate that in nearly 4 years, we’ve retained all our staff which I guess, obviously speaks of our environment also.  The direction that we’re pushing the company.  It…it’s…I guess it comes down to clear jobs…just clear job descriptions when you’re going so you know exactly who you’re looking for so when you find them, you know, they tick all the boxes and utilising the benefit of networks because all of our staff have been knowing to….   Craig: Someone…someone…   Nick: Yeah.    Craig: Someone who knows somebody…Yeah…   Nick: Exactly, so now I’m doing that thing with cold hires but I can see that the next thing we’re already looking for our next staff member, which is scary…   Craig: Yeah…   Nick: But I can see that that will be a cold…a cold hire so I guess that will come down to getting clear…clear pre-employment checks and questions and also making sure they’re the right fit for the…   Craig: thing…   Nick: Exactly.   Craig: Cool.  Awesome.  So, you have used a lot of online tools and platforms that you’ve touched on before to build the business to where it is.  Tell us about the strategy and has that changed over the years and if so, how or….yeah…   Nick: Yeah…It’s a different __part obviously with online selling.  You wanna connect with customers in real time and I guess social media in particular is great for that.  We’ve primarily used Facebook and Twitter for the connecting with people and building an audience at the beginning.  I guess how that’s changed is we’ve now moved from just connecting with customers and building that brand and that relationship through the more paid advertising now.  So we do a lot of online marketing in terms of ECO and pre marketing and also direct marketing through the likes of Facebook.  So, I guess it’s building a network and a platform, which would then turn into an opportunity to market, so…   Craig: Did you do all that in-house, or do you outsource it?   Nick: We did start all that in-house but now I’ve outsourced it.  We have a marketing consultant who works remotely for us, who handles all that ECO and ECM marketing.   Craig: And what about all your Facebook engagement?  Cause I know when you first start your business, you’re massive on engaging with your audience, you do a lot of that at the start.  Is that still done in-house?  Or…   Nick: It’s still done in-house and obviously that’s been one of the challenges I found is that I handle that role as the businesses grow, keep it…personal, and keep it relevant and keep it fun which is how we engage with our customers and perhaps that’s something I could be doing better.    Craig: [incomprehensible]   Nick: I think as we came and set the so high with using that as a focus, it’s kind of…you can easily fall by the way, so…   Craig: That’s so much of a big challenge, isn’t it because that’s how you built the brand and showing you some of the loyalty stats.   Nick: And I’m definitely seeing that with other influences that I follow that they came out with a good solid two years of social media engagement and then now it’s sort of dropped back…   Craig: Yes…   Nick: And I don’t know whether that’s just the maturing of the market and there are a lot of these platforms now and monetising, they’re successors, so it now makes it difficult to instigate…seen whereas in the beginning it was relatively easy but I think you raise a good point about engagement because a lot of the focus on social media a few years ago was all about content and posting the right sort of content but now, I know a person who writes and used to podcast a lot of Facebook.  She said that content is king but engagement is queen and she rules the house.   Craig: Yes…   Nick: And it’s sort of something that’s always always stuck with me because you can have great content but if you’re not getting anything back from the people you’re publishing it to, what’s the point?   Craig: Yeah, you could have 100,000 followers but if you’re not engaging them, what’s the point?   Nick: Yes.  So I think, you know, that’s a key thing to keep it at the back of your mind because it’s not a question of numbers because it’s like you said, it’s how they’re engaging.    Craig: You said when you sell your products you use Facebook and Twitter, yet have you tried the other platforms at all?   Nick: We do have a little bit on Pinterest, obviously we’re in a food business and Instagram, but it’s again, it’s the challenge of maintaining everything.  We do use a lot of third party tools to push the marketing side of things which we find works well and we obviously into the day to day side of things prefer to use online tools for managing the business, whether it be accounting software, our website is all run on a third party CMS which is obviously cloud based and what else do we use in the cloud?  Design tools and everything like that that’s all accessible now which really help (a) cut costs and (b) get things done.   Craig: So what do you enjoy most about being in business?  What strokes your ties?   Nick: Tough question, but I guess it’s with building something from the ground up and seeing the evolution it’s having the chancing to leap at success.  There are days obviously that I don’t enjoy leading.    Craig: You wish you were a follower there mate? [laughs]   Nick: Yeah.  Exactly.  When you bring in HR and customer issues and things like that.  Obviously, you want to do a good job, whether it be your staff or your customers but I guess that’s the critical thing is having that chance and opportunity which I do feel fortunate for that you know, we’re in a position that I was able to leave my fulltime employment to follow something which I could see working and it…with just a few challenges and refinements.  We’re now well on a path to making a success.    Craig: Yeah.   Nick: So that’s pretty special and something that I hold dear and try not to abuse really but it is a bit of a privilege to do this so if I can keep looking at it like that, then it’ll keep me focused and also keep me grounded.   Craig: Grounded, which is what New Zealand ___ is all about.  Cool, you hear that?   Nick: Yeah, I guess we at the start to kinda pushed the business and I do believe in it is we did a lot of PR work which is obviously the opposite to the grounded because you’re having to put yourself out there and tell your story and that can be difficult at times especially when you get…things like TV involved, so yeah, I think that’s a good balance to have.    Craig: So, ____ what have you learned from you know, five or six years ago, when you left the safe little confines of a lawyer’s office…   Nick: To me, just by one and a half years…whatever it was…   Craig: You were very structured and disciplined to doing this.  What have you learned as a leader?  Here, professionally and personally?   Nick: Yeah, I guess a couple of things, you do mean structure, I have very little structure in my life now.    Craig: [laughs]   Nick: Just by trying to plan things, you know, obviously things never really go to plan.  So that’s been difficult in terms of deadlines and things like that as I’m understanding how things work in the real world versus a lawyer’s world where 5 o’clock Friday was your excellent deadline and you wouldn’t dare go past 5 o’clock Friday whereas when you start involving perhaps creative types into the mix and deadlines can often extend.    Craig: Yes.   Nick: So that’s been one challenge for me personally and also from a managing or leadership type of thing.  Communication and understanding the importance of communication internally and externally and you can never really over communicate particularly with staff and things of concerns.    Craig: Yeah.   Nick: I guess that’s another that I’ve really learned is you spend a good portion of your day through communicating and it makes the day go so much better.   Craig: Yes.   Nick: But then it comes back to what I mentioned earlier about having the structures in place so that the rest of the team can function harmoniously while you’re communicating with them…the team…   Craig: Yeah.  And what about the family dynamic, isn’t that communications is key?  Sometimes, the family businesses, they can either go really well which is good or goes real bad because one of the first rules of business is don’t ever do business with family members, isn’t it?   Nick: It is.    Craig: Yes, back to the question.  Sorry about the rain everybody!  So I asked Nick about the dynamic of working with some family members.  One of the first rules of business is don’t go into business with family.  So I guess it has worked here.  From a leadership point of view, the communications point of view, have you managed that?   Nick: Yeah, it has been both a benefit and a challenge to go into business with family.  On a daily basis, I work with both of my peer, so on a day to day to basis, I mean, both of my brothers work externally from the business so two problems obviously, or challenges working with family day in day out but also having family interested in the business but not having the experience or benefit of seeing what’s happening day to day so we have pretty regular communications between in terms of what’s happening in the business, asking for feedback that they’re both very helpful and useful, these are my brothers who don’t work in the business.   Craig: Yeah.   Nick: But balancing that you also have a clear distinction of what’s business time and what’s family time because there’s always that tendency to make family time always business time and I think that’s critical particularly in terms of my own domestic situation as well, I’ve got a partner who doesn’t work and the person that’s end to end in terms of say my parents with their grandchildren and things like that.  It’s still got to operate in a normal situation and we are very open with each other so there’s never any issues in terms of overstepping lines or boundaries.   Craig: Yeah.   Nick: And I think it’s really important that everyone gets their chance to have a say but at the end of it, we still sit down for dinner.   Craig: Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Cool.  Cool.  So you’ve always had external professionals and mentors for your business and I believe now you’ve got a Board of Directors and an independent director tell us about what made you decide that you needed this and the benefits of using these strategies and advise that is out there around using mentors or Board of Directors, etc.    Nick: I guess one of the critical thing is finding the right advice, independent advice and it can be a struggle at times, so I guess what I sort of found is keep persevering until you find exactly what you need at that particular time and your levels of advice and who can advise you changes as the business continues to change…and…   Craig: Evolves.  As the business evolves…   Nick: Exactly, so I think the best thing you can do is get out there and take advice as step one but then if you’re not getting the right sort of advice is going out and looking for some different advice.   Craig: Yeah.  Yeah.   Nick: So, we’ve had, as you mentioned, a range from formal strategic planning with our accountants through the business mentors through to now an independent director who I work with closely on a daily basis and they’ve all had their uses and purpose but having an independent voice daily looks like some of the skill gaps that we have or that I have as well is really important and I guess that’s what I see the benefit…the main benefit of the independent board is to plug the skill gaps and I mean we are looking now at maybe bringing another independent onto the board who has some different skill set that none of us have secure around dealing with marketing to the end consumer…   Craig: Right.   Nick: And events cg and things like that so it’s…   Craig: So it’s skill gaps or experience gaps?   Nick: I guess both are incredibly relevant because you get the skills from experience so I think yeah.  I think both are intertwined.   Craig: And you said before that when you first started out your sort of a range of advisers, I mean, it’s the right advice.  When you start out were you ever nervous and scared about what’s going on.  So how do you know if you get some right advice?  If you’re speaking to for example an accountant and they say you should be doing this strategy, how do you know, is that the gut instinct or it is…how do you know if it’s the right one or the wrong one?   Nick: Yeah, it’s a good question because I guess when you go into business you’re always confident and pigheaded and you don’t really wanna take advice.   Craig: No.   Nick: And then to sit over the table with someone and, no offence when you’re listening to maybe to sit over the table with someone, no offence to any listeners who may be in the accounting profession or something.   Craig: Someone’s profession…   Nick: Who’s telling you you’re doing this wrong, you’re doing that wrong.  You know, it can be difficult so I think it’s not a case of knowing or choosing what that right advice is at the start but getting a lot of advice and really going out there and getting as much in as you can and taking bits and pieces from different sources to kind of form that plan because you and only you, I guess will know exactly how the business is going internally or what your dreams and goals and things are but it does help to get as much advice from them.   Craig: So that could be what we’ve talked about accountant, but there could be other business owners that could be lawyers, other professionals, and that’s where networking comes in, isn’t it?  You realize that when you network, you understand that same…your peers to having the same issues you have even if they might be in a different industry.   Nick: Exactly and as many people you can speak to as possible.  You know, whether it’s just a friendly ear or someone that you admire, in your industry or a different industry.  It can be really beneficial to have that engagement.    Craig: Awesome, so the benefit of hindsight, we all do this.  What would you do differently?   Nick: Hindsight, oh yeah, it’s a great thing.   Craig: No, it’s not.  It’s a terrible thing!   Nick: I guess that’s one thing our plan is not to dwell too much on the past.  We do a year review the end of each year and pick out the points of what went good and bad and then put it together and then don’t really dwell on it too much because again, it’s what you’re looking into the future that really controls things.  So I guess with hindsight, what I would do it has been more of a focus on margin analysis in our business, so which products work well, where we can extract the most value and also a better handle on cash flow and budget so that financial side of the business from the get-go.  I spend a lot of focus now on cash flow and planning cash flow a couple of months in advance and…   Craig: So you turned into an accountant?   Nick: Yeah, well, I…   Craig: [laughs]   Nick: I think maybe I’m turning into an accountant but that was a chance to really tighten the skill gaps that I had.   Craig: Right.   Nick: In the financial management side of things and now that’s one of our strengths where a lot of similar sized businesses I see don’t have a handle on cash flow, which in my business, can actually be quite difficult with online selling because we don’t know when people are gonna bulk buy meat packs and what’s gonna happen which is why we’ve diversified the business from just straight online sales to other traditional sales so that we’ve got consistent cash flow coming in.   Craig: A little bit of advice to people.  Look after your cash flow and mind your  budget, sounds like you’re good at. A couple of hours a week takes to analyse what else has happened that week which is critical.    Nick: I guess that’s one thing that having an independent director allows me to do because we have a phone call every Friday afternoon, which…   Craig: Hi guys, so from your experiences, what are some of the mistakes that you see business owners are making.  So, we talked a little bit about cash flow.  Anything else that…   Nick: Yeah.  I guess, something a little different and that I can see out there I see is that they are content both in terms of their businesses and their industries and not pushing their boundaries and or doing the… trying alternative ways to do things and obviously in the retail side of things.  I guess something else I am saying is people being content in terms of their…inside their businesses and in terms of marketing their businesses as well so obviously, the example is that the evolution of online selling and the effect it has on traditional purchasing, and brick and mortar stores and it kinda seems like…to some of them that it’s come out of nowhere whereas the evolution of online selling has been happening in time over the last ten years or so.  So I think, I see that both as established businesses and the traditional business being content can often come back to hurt them later on.  So, i mean, that’s something else we noticed and why we’re doing things differently as well.   Craig: So, the moral of the story is don’t be scared of pushing the boundaries and thinking outside the square box, just give it a go.   Nick: And also staying on top of things and not just resting on your laurels because you don’t really know what’s around the corner.   Craig: Don’t be scared of what’s around the corner.    Nick: Yeah.  That’s just saying a little bit no matter how established you are.   Craig: So is that the sort of advice you’d give to…if you were to mentor for a better general word, either both established or a startup…what other things would you…   Nick: Yeah, it’s different keeping on top of thinss, looking overseas, seeing what’s happening whether you’re selling shoes or cats, or whatever.  It’s…there’s a lot to…we’re fortunate in this part of the world that we’re a little behind as well.   Craig: Yes, yes…I was gonna ask that.   Nick: So, it’s kind of a good thing I think for us because we can have a look and see what’s happening overseas.   Craig: You think sometimes, people fall into the trap of going overseas either to Europe or America, seeing something, trying to do it New Zealand but they’re too soon   Nick: And obviously given our market size as well as the other key issue here, and also how spread out the market is.  It’s a long way from the top of the North Island to Steward Island.  Yes, I know, I definitely think that’s true and that’s where the difficulty, I guess comes in with what I just see is…do you become an adopter or do you follow…   Craig: Become second tier.   Nick: Yeah and there’s lot of risk, in obviously going out and being an early adopter and it falling in your face which…   Craig: But then fortune favours the brave and…   Nick: But again coming back to what I mentioned earlier on in the podcast is that’s where you’ve got a profitable and sustainable core being you’ve got those opportunities to go out and expand and you’ve still got that core business to I say loosely, to fall back on but you know…   Craig: Yeah.  To pay the bills…   Nick: Yeah.  Yeah.   Craig: Yeah.  Cool.  Awesome.  And so where do you see your industry going in the next five to ten years?   Nick: Yeah, well in the markets, the direct food market, there’s differently more choice for quality and more relationships with…between consumers and producers so I definitely see that as an important step in what we’re trying to stay ahead of because people increasingly do want to know where their food comes from and how it’s produced and what’s going on so I think it’s only gonna get more and we’re gonna see return as one kind of crystal ball return to a lot traditional ways of doing things because the end user or consumer’s putting a price on all those so in our case, it’s manufactured products and more real products and people are prepared to pay more even though it costs more to produce but that’s where I see it headed.   Craig: Alright.  Cool.  Awesome!   Nick: And you’ll be more disrupters, I’ve already talked about MyFoodBank and seeing markets online so we find those disrupters coming into the market so I guess, listening to my own advice that’s where I need to stay ahead of and say exactly what’s happening in the market and what trends are coming up.   Craig: Awesome.  Awesome.  Hey Nick, we’ll wrap it up.  Thanks very much for your time.  .  How do we find you?   Nick: Yeah so we are an online business.  Our website, so you can check out our products at greenmeadowsbeef.co.nz and find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram with our page will get you there.   Craig: Awesome!  Right.  Thank Nick!  Good stuff!   Nick: Sure!