What is a microskill? Today we talk about the building blocks of success, which contrary to popular belief, isn’t being “special” or taking a “big leap.” It’s getting the little things correct. Dr.’s Resa Lewiss and Adaira Landry join us to dive into tweaking some of the skills they’ve found can give you the largest boost with the least amount of effort, to increase your income, experience life more, and ultimately not just stack more Benjamins, but stack more worthwhile moments.
Before that we share a headline that could save you thousands of dollars in taxes. One popular tax expert looks at the thousands of layoffs recently and finds some lemonade in the job-loss lemons of life. We explore one tax strategy we haven’t discussed in a long, long time…and it could be your biggest tax break ever.
Of course, we also share a great idea in the TikTok minute, Doug’s amazing trivia, and more!
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Our Headlines
Our TikTok Minute
Resa Lewiss MD and Adaira Landry MD
Big thanks to Resa Lewiss MD and Adaira Landry MD for joining us today.
To learn more about Resa, visit Resa E. Lewiss MD (resalewiss.com). Hear more from Resa by listening to The Visible Voices on Apple Podcasts.
To learn more about Adaira, visit About Me – Adaira Landry MD.
Grab yourself a copy of the book MicroSkills: Small Actions, Big Impact.
Doug’s Trivia
- What was chef Mary Mallon’s nickname?
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Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: Apple Vision Pro vs Your Goals: Our Review (SB1478).
Episode transcript
It’s the Monday after the Monday after the Super Bowl, and it’s strange because I woke up normally today, like I didn’t wake up feeling like I’d partied half the day. Took two
weeks to feel back to normal. I know, geez.
Ate too many chicken wings. Like I had a weird, it’s like a strange Monday. I don’t know if you guys feel the same, but it feels great to be here with you
today.
I just got over the heartburn from all of that food. I made these incredible, it was like candied bacon on club crackers with a little bit of like spice in there with some red pepper flakes and you put a jalapeno and brown sugar and it was amazing. The problem is you eat ’em like potato chips and then your body doesn’t love that for the next.
Probably three to five days.
So same thing. Doug, my friend Bobby hosted our Super Bowl party and he made his own tortilla chips. He fried himself, he’s got this fryer, and he took tortillas and just quartered them and popped them in the fryer himself. They were so crisp, they were a little thick. They were super good.
And then he also fried us tons of wings. I think I had 11 wings and I think I had 11,000 tortilla chips. And uh, you’re right, I’m still feeling the effects. It’s great that you
guys are remembering this from two weeks ago while I’m suffering at a kid’s waterpark today. Talk about taking one for the team.
Better you than us.
Bitch. Have you been to one of these places? My God. The amount of chlorine you get pulled over and the cop’s like, sir, what’s going on there? They’re like, no, no. Why are your eyes all red? My eyes are all red. I was at a water park officer. He’s like, sure. Step out of the car.
Uh, no wonder you’re like, let’s record all morning. Please God. Let’s record all morning. Busy, busy, busy. We’re not gonna do that. What we are gonna do is raise our glass, is our glasses, our mugs is, and salute our troops like we do every Monday Here. Big thanks to the men and women protecting our country.
On behalf of the men and women at Navy Federal Credit Union and the Men and Women Making Podcast in Mom’s basement, thank you so much. Let’s all go stack Benjamins together.
Stacking Benjamins is not for everyone. Side effects may include euphoria, increased ability to meet your goals, and aggression from
people wondering what the hell your secret is. Stacking. Benjamins may be habit forming, especially if you stick around for the entire episode. Wink, wink.
Please check with your doctor to see if Stacking Benjamins is right for you.
Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin
Show.
I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor. Doug. Think it’s the big things that make the difference. Turns out it’s a lot of little changes that can yield huge results here to teach you how to break down work tasks into micro skills. It’s authors and doctors. Risa Lewis and Adara Landry in our headlines. Did you get laid off?
We have some news that may help you make lemonade out of lemons and in our TikTok minute, a great idea that two guys have brought to their city council we can get on board with. Plus we’ll feature one stacker who called sa, see hi and OG for advice, and then I’ll share some microbial trivia. And now two guys who are here to bring you the best personal finance advice, both big and small.
It’s Joe and O Oh,
hey there, stacker. Happy Monday. Welcome to the show where, uh, three, uh, big units of microbes get together to share financial fun. So sit back and relax because these microbes are ready to play in the financial pits across the cart. Table from me, the dude who is a, uh, virus, just waiting to.
Should that just not working.
Crawl outta the
Petri ditch, trying to affect someone. I for like two minutes every chance he gets trying to affect you with financial knowledge. There you go.
Og You got the part, you got the big unit part. That’s right. That part you I liked
strong like bull. Sun’s out, guns out. og, how are you man?
Uh, fantastic.
President’s Day fast. Fantastic. President’s Day to
you, sir. Yes. Thank you very much.
Enjoying the day off. It is, uh, it doesn’t feel like a
day off, does it? It’s a day you go and everybody, uh, says Cheers to President’s Day by going to buy a mattress, I think. Isn’t that what you do? It is. He celebrates President’s Day.
Nothing. Honors George Washington. Poor
score. And better than buying a seven years ago, man, set forth to. Procure a new
mattress. Yes. Find, hire thread count sheets, and a better mattress. We’ve got a fantastic show today. We are talking about all those little skills that make the big, big things happen. You know, when I was young, I always thought that, you know, it was these big, big, big actions.
So, gee, but it’s all the little things you do and those little nooks and crannies, as mom says of your life, that to Cabot, that truly, yeah, truly make a difference. And Resa Lewis and, and ADL Landry here to, uh, go over that. But first we’ve got a fantastic headline, but even before that, so og, what did you think, and I know it was over a week ago, but what do you think the best Super Bowl commercial was?
Oh, my favorite. Easy. Definitely this one.
I didn’t know that was a
Super Bowl ad. Yeah, I didn’t see that one either. I was probably stuffing my pie hole with more of those bacon bite things. But was what, what’s your
second favorite one? I, I think my agent also missed, uh, an opportunity for me to get more money if that was a Super
Bowl ad.
After that, it was kind of sandwich, right between the 11 minute left on the third quarter and 10 minute left on the third quarter, six media timeouts that they did. It was like right after that was this one. Oh, that one was brilliant. I liked them both. Those were definitely top two.
That was fantastic. My
number three was the Dunking Dunking Ads.
I love that Dunking ad. That’s
all anybody’s talking about. They stole the Super Bowl. All right. Coming up. Uh, two women that are going to steal this show, but before this, I. We’ve got our headline Hello Darlings, and now it’s time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking
Benjamins
headlines. Great news, OG from Ed Slot this morning.
This is uh, from Investment News. Ed wrote a piece called High Stock Values and Layoffs combined for big tax breaks on company stock. Like Woo-hoo. What could be a better moment in your life than getting laid off? Yes, stock break. Or tax break. Thank goodness I got laid off because man, I got this opportunity.
But Ed really brings it with this and there is a rule that I think a lot of our stackers don’t know about, and we’re going to help you whether you’re laid off or not. Uh, know about a really important rule out there, ed writes, is stock values continue to rise to record levels, unfortunately, so do layoffs.
- More than 260,000 tech employees were let go according to layoffs. fyi, really? There’s a website called Layoff, fyi. Nice. And I don’t think we need the fyi if you got laid, FYI got laid off. Really? I didn’t know that. A site that tracks job cuts of all things. That includes workers at Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.
Some of the world’s most valuable companies. Microsoft just announced another huge layoff.
Yay. Tax break. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Is that that the right response? No,
no. Well, that’s coming. Oh. Citi recently announced plans to eliminate 20,000 jobs, tax break, or roughly 10% of its workforce. Macy’s cutting more than 2000 jobs.
UPS just announced 12,000 tax break, and even the venerable sports illustrator just wiped out most of its company’s employees. What does that mean? Tax break? Lots of text. No swimsuit issue this year. Oh, he writes, wait, stop. No swimsuit issue. Oh, hold on. Doug. That opportunity for you to finally make the cover is gone.
Damn.
Been holding out Hope for that since seventh grade,
but. Layoffs mean rollover opportunities and advisors will need to get up to speed on how to guide these employees on their plan distribution options. And here’s the deal, og, we see people mess this up all the time because they’re working with maybe commission salespeople that just money, money, money.
If you have stock and the stock market’s been very high and a lot of these tech companies have great pricing right now, if you have stock that is highly appreciated, he points out a rule OG that you know very, very, very well that could help you save tons of money in taxes.
I think it’s interesting that we’re talking about this now because it does, doesn’t it feel like to you, Joe, that this was very popular kind of early to mid two thousands and then you didn’t hear about it at all ostensibly.
’cause all the market was, you know, whatever, you know, and here we are on this site, so there’s, there’s conceivably a full generation of, of advisors. Brokers who, who haven’t ever thought about this to the detriment of, of a lot of people, a lot of, a lot of big detriment, a lot of clients across country. So basically the long, the short of it is this, if you have company stock in your 401k, and there used to be a lot of different rules around this.
When you put money in your, in your 401k, or when your company matched in your 401k, they could just dump it all into the company stock and you know, that was an Enron type of deal and then all of a sudden they, you know, made some rules around that. But if you have company stock in your workplace plan, you have the opportunity to take that money out of your workplace plan and only pay capital gains taxes on the gains.
And you think like, well, what does that matter? You know, well, capital gains taxes could be profoundly less than ordinary income taxes on the same dollars. So you’ve got a situation where your 401k is worth a million dollars, and of that million, half of it is. Microsoft stock because you know, you’ve just been putting in a little bit of money every paycheck into Microsoft stock, but it’s gone up so much out proportionately grown so much more than the rest of the portfolio that it’s a large portion of your portfolio.
You can take that company stock out at the ordinary income tax rates of the cost basis. So let’s say you put in a hundred thousand, it’s worth 500. That a hundred thousand is ordinary income. The 400 is capital gains. That’s a heck of a lot better than ordinary income on the whole thing. Plus it gives you some liquidity if you’re a young person and you’re like, I need to diversify or I wanna buy a house, or, you know, there’s lots of different opportunities.
’cause now that money’s not part of your retirement plan anymore, it’s part of your brokerage account. All that to say, while it looks really great on paper, it is a pain in the butt to execute in real life such a pain. You have to do it correctly. You get one shot at doing it, and the penalty for screwing it up is.
Amazingly high because if you take the money out and you don’t do it correctly, now you just took half a million outta your 401k before you’re supposed to 10% penalty. That’s the alternative right now, it’s all taxed, it’s all you know, it’s a 10% penalty. It’s to hold the whole deal versus following the rules along the way.
So make sure if you’re leaving your company, I mean, this doesn’t have to be a tech layoff. I mean, this could be anybody, but if you’re leaving your company and you have company stock in your 401k, especially if that company stock is highly appreciated, meaning you look at and you say, oh, I mean I have a hundred thousand of cost base in Microsoft stock, but it’s now worth 500 K.
If you’ve got highly appreciated company stock in your 401k, just call timeout. Just go, hold on a second. I need to do some more research on this. I need to get somebody involved who knows what they’re talking about. The technical term here that you’re looking for is net unrealized depreciation. That’s what this is called.
So company stocking your 401k call. Timeout. Don’t roll it over. Just wait a second. Hit pause. Do the taxes, do the math to make sure that this isn’t a strategy that can work for you.
Yeah. Depending on the difference between whatever your ordinary income rate is and that, uh, capital gains rate, this is not a small amount of money.
I mean, this could be a 50% difference. I mean, if there’s a slim difference between the two, maybe it’s a 25, 30% bump, but could be a 60, 65, 70% bump for some people like this is a huge tax break. Well,
and it’s compounded over time because if you’re a 40-year-old getting laid off and you’ve got half a million dollars in a workplace plan, that’s all company stock.
That money is gonna continue to grow for the next 30 years and now is gonna be subject to now you get ordinary income, required distributions and all that sort of stuff, versus having it grow and, you know, only be partially taxable. I’ll, uh, capital gains along the way. So obviously it’s all kind of predicting, trying to predict what future tax rates are gonna look like, but.
The closer you are to retirement, and the closer or, and the wider that spread is of, of the cost basis in the company stock, the more this is a judging, a huge opportunity for people. So go slow.
You know, if you have an employee stock purchase plan, which a lot of people may have as you’re listening to us today, you may think, oh, can I do this?
Th this is not for any non-retirement plan thing. This is if you have stock inside your retirement plan. However, I did want to, while we’re on the topic of employee stock og, I wanted to talk about the employee stock purchase plan, because for some people, this is a big opportunity that I think a, a bunch of people don’t take advantage of it, and I think you should.
But then B, I think there’s also a bunch of people that use the employee stock purchase plan wrong, and they end up accumulating a lot of stock. But this is a way to build your net worth fairly quickly.
Most publicly traded companies have an employee stock purchase plan, which allows you to set aside money out of your paycheck.
Every single pay period, they accumulate it into an, uh, an interest bearing account. It’s just a little bit of interest. And then after a period of time, once a quarter, once a year, maybe, then you buy company stock. And usually they have some, some rules around it. It’s the better price of the beginning of the quarter.
The end of the quarter, it’s the average price of the quarter. It’s, you know, it’s some, there’s some formula that they use and then a lot of times they apply a discount to that, maybe 15%. And so you put money in, in a plan for the first quarter of the year, you accumulate $3,000. They go out and buy $3,000 worth of company’s stock, less a 15% discount.
So you bought it, uh, on sale for 15% off basically. At the end of the trading day, you have a 15% profit, just poof, just like that. And
we know how hard it is to get above 10, right? Yeah. If your expectations, you’re gonna get above 10, that’s a horrible expectation to have. But with an employee stock purchase plan, you get it
automatically, right?
Immediately. It’s like a match in your 401k, it’s free money. It’s free that day. So now the stock is gonna do whatever it does, right? Once you buy it, let’s say you buy it on April 1st, it’s yours. You can turn around and sell it on April 2nd and take your 15% profit, totally fine if you wait two years. So if you wait two years from the time that you accumulated it, now that 15%, assuming it’s still there, and that’s the trade off, depending on what the stock does for two years.
But after two years, now that becomes long-term capital gains. So again, back to the, the tax strategy of, you know, I gotta pay a little bit more now, but I have access to it. Or I can drag my fee a couple years and now I get a, a better tax rate. Once it gets past that two year period, then you get a more favorable tax rate.
What we generally see is one of two things. Either people just take the free 15, right? It gets deposited on May, April, verse boom, April 2nd, they’re gone, which is fine, you know? So now you’re getting a 15% return minus your income taxes. So maybe you’re seeing a 10% return, or we see people that do it for 25 years and don’t ever think about it.
Yeah, and you’ve got, and now you’ve got another problem, which is you have a thousand different share, a thousand different lots, you know, so nobody’s keeping track of that. That’s a pain in the butt to dissect. And now you have this oversized position in your portfolio of company stock, which you’ve been accumulating in little bits and pieces.
So I think you have to have a selling strategy, just like you have a buying strategy when it comes to this. And also with, you know, with any sort of equity awards, people get lots of equity now restricted shares and sense of shares, you know, whatever, and they just pile up. And when you’re young and when you’re getting your first tranche of rsu, you’re like, oh, I should just hang onto this forever.
It’s like, well, you know, hang out to it for a while. Sure. But as you move up in your company, as you move up in your career, more and more of your compensation is tied to equity results. And it’s not uncommon for people to see millions of dollars in company stock. And now you’ve got this problem of, I’ve got my net worth is $3 million, 2 million is in my company stock.
I’m an insider now, you know, a director because I’ve moved up in my career, so I can only sell on four times a year if I get permission. And I don’t wanna sell it because I’m gonna owe 800,000 in taxes, but it’s 70% of my net worth. So how do I get around that? Well, the way that you get around it is having a sales strategy.
Over the course of your entire career to make sure that, uh, you’ve got a plan to diversify. It’s not saying that you shouldn’t keep it all or keep some of
it, that plan is gonna be based on your goals. But one that I like OG that I think is a good generic starting place for the ESPP is around that two year rule.
Anything that sat there, two years conveyor belt off. Yeah. A similar amount to what you purchased. So you’re conveyor building new stuff on one end of the conveyor belt and you’re taking a similar amount off and then you’re constantly holding X amount for a two year period. I like that as a starting point.
Yeah.
That’s pretty much what we start with as well, because it allows you the opportunity. It’s like it’s buying laddered CDs, right? I mean, if you believe in the growth of your company. Company. Yeah, totally. You’re helping it perform. By the way, most companies have maximums on this, you know, up to 15,000 a year that you can do, or 25,000 a year if you’ve got the cash flow.
I don’t know why you wouldn’t do the full amount cap it and if you ever needed the money, it’s there. Right. You can, you can go and access it immediately, you know, if you, if you want to. So it’s like getting a 15% bonus. And that is a good
point. If you end up needing the money, take it off the other end of the conveyor belt.
Like if you can float two years not needing that money. Yeah. You can then take it off the other end if you don’t need it for another goal. Yeah. Then you’re, then you’re
all of a sudden back to, it’s like a deferred comp, right? You’re just saying, I’m gonna kick this money two years away and then I’m gonna start getting it every quarter, whatever the term is on the back end
time for our TikTok minute, this is the part of the show where we shine a light on some TikTok creators doing either something brilliant or air quotes brilliant, og, we got brilliance today.
Or some air quotes. Doug’s already frustrated. I went to OG
seven,
I’ve You’ve been going to OG for like the last 12 episodes. Yeah. Wow.
Shooter’s. Gotta shoot, bro. I’ve seen some air quotes, brilliance here at the waterpark all, all day today. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna go with, um, as his
head hits the microphone again,
you’re probably getting a great opportunity to evaluate all of the tattoo artists in that part of Texas.
Well, you know, human behavior being as it is, there’s some questionable swimsuit choices in the population. I gotta, I just gotta be honest. Always it’s like, whoa, dude, nope. We need a bigger bathing suit or a smaller frame. You gotta pick one of those two things that is, that is, that is really snug. All the wrong places.
This is a kid’s place for crying out loud. So,
wait a minute. So does that mean that mean we’re, we’re about to have brilliance?
Is that what you’re about to say? No, air quote brilliance? Yeah. Oh. I’ve seen people try to make their own, uh, wave pools by belly flopping. This is definitely air quote brilliance.
You
know, how long has it been since we had a new holiday? A holiday That really works. You know, we’re talking about on President’s Day here, like when, when have we had a new holiday? And I’m thinking about how some, sometimes now what we do Doug is we take these old holidays and we just try to refresh ’em.
Like as an example, Columbus Day we finally went, oh, Columbus might not have been the great person we thought he was. Let’s, uh, change it up and make it indigenous people day. Right? Like, we’re just talking about making lemonade outta lemons. Like nothing against that holiday. It just, we’re trying to, you know.
Yeah. Uh, uh, uh, clean it up. But how long has it been since we had a new real holiday?
I mean,
do you want the, oh, I thought you were about to play the clip. Do you want
the, no, I thought Doug, you were waiting to say something. Well,
I was just gonna, I didn’t wanna steal ’cause I’m pretty sure this clip has to be Yes. About new holidays. The coolest, new, hottest new holiday on the market, uh, is Gallant Times’s Day.
Which the three of us don’t get to participate in. But the day before Valentine’s Day, it just happened a week ago, is Valentine’s Day. And it was a holiday that got started on Parks and Rec. By, by, uh, the character named Leslie Knope. And it’s like girlfriend’s day. All the girls get together and they’re like, Hey sister, yay, girls are awesome.
Well, maybe then Doug, we have Gallant’s Day. Largely women. And then a holiday that not all men, but I think a lot of men in our audience would appreciate. Uh, these are tiktoks, Chad and JT who went to their local city council and, uh, said that they needed this holiday. These guys are right. I think we all do.
Uh, what up council? My name is Chad Kroger. Let’s cut the BS guys. The Super Bowl is America’s holiday a day where we honor the two
sacred seas, contact
sports and capitalism. And it’s filled with other seas too, comradery, commercials and brews. However, there’s one issue. The Super Bowl is on a Sunday and the next day is Monday.
I mean, how are we supposed to enjoy our national birthright when we know we have to work the next day? And this Super Bowl? For me, honestly, total disaster. I couldn’t enter into full party mode because I knew I had to clock into my job at Peco the next day. And I was having this conversation with my crush Tina and I totally blew it ’cause I couldn’t remember my rising astrological sign.
Like that conversation had the potential to be epic, but ended up only leading to a make out. So that’s why I’m requesting counsel, that you make the day after the Super Bowl, a national holiday, a day of rest and redemption, so that we can fri frigging honor those who empty the tank. Let’s make our
founding fathers proud.
That’s the holiday we need.
Empty the tank. Honor those who empty the tank. That’s the holiday we need. He, he
about to go epic with his crush. Tina couldn’t remember his astrological.
That city council, I think that’s in Southern California somewhere at this point. I feel like they’re behind the scenes.
They’re just like, these meetings suck. Let’s get Chad back. Let’s get an agenda item on for Chad. ’cause he shows up like, you know, I don’t know, every couple of
months. Is that the guy that said that, uh, he wanted, uh, boneless wings to be stopped calling boneless wings and they had to be called nuggets from now on.
’cause it’s not a wing at all. It’s just a nugget. It’s it’s a good point. It’s like they’re not boneless wings. There’s no such thing. It’s just a nugget. Yeah.
I think if we had Gallant Times’s Day and we had the day after, we could trade that Super Bowl. Yeah. Trade that. It’s like a bookended pair. Got to coming up next.
Speaking of got to, I think we’ve all gotta think about those little things we do with our day that make us better. Not the huge things, but those little micro skills that make us better. Well, doctors Risa Lewis and Adera Landry are going to join us to share with us exactly some of the great micro skills that our stackers can use.
All of us in our day to get just a little better every day, and that creates the big benefit of being phenomenally better by the end of a year. Just amazing, over a decade. But before that, Doug, you’ve got some trivia for us.
I do. I do. And I’m so glad that we’re, we’re talking about micro skills. Hey there, stackers.
I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Today on Stacking Benjamins, we’re celebrating the micro skill and man, am I happy to about that because small things are my specialty. Just ask any woman I’ve dated, they might all have different memories of me, but the one thing any of them will tell you is that I am great at doing a lot with very little.
Sometimes ladies in my neighborhood are reluctant to ask me for help with things since they all know I don’t have very big tools. But I’ve reassured them that it’s not the size of your drill, it’s how you use it that counts. You don’t need a big fancy table saw to cut wood, just an average or even smallish saw, and a little bit of elbow grease.
It might look a little different, but the outcome is exactly the same. Sometimes it’s even better, and it doesn’t take me any longer than anyone with different tools either. I’m in, I’m out just like that. I’m in, I’m out. I get the job done so fast, you hardly notice I’m there. You hardly feel a thing. I think it’s a great lesson for everyone to remember that little things can make a big impact.
Joe’s mom knows this better than probably anyone. She’s often on the receiving end of my micro skills. I always let her take care of herself for the most part, so she can have some independence, you know? But I like to pop over sometimes to pick up the slack where she needs it, whether it’s changing the batteries and the remotes, getting things down from high shelves, or even stirring her famous stew.
She’s a pretty good cook, but I know her dishes turn out better when I help her with them. You know what I mean? On this date in 1910? No, I don’t, I don’t
even wanna know what you mean. I’m just, I’m
just like, I can really help with the cooking. No, no. Look. All right. Let’s just get, let’s get to the trivia.
On today’s date in 1910, it was discovered that another great chef Mary Mellon, had killed three people and infected 51 others with typhoid. So today’s trivia question is, what was her nickname? I’ll be back right after I see if Joe’s mom still needs my little screwdriver.
Hey there, stackers. I’m micro specialist and Joe’s mom’s secret ingredient. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. They say the best things come in small packages, and I am no exception. My dad even told me that once when I was a kid. Right in the middle of the birds and bees talk though. That was weird timing.
Today’s trivia question is, what was Chef Mary Mallon’s nickname? The Answer known as the first asymptomatic carrier of typhoid in the us. Chef Mary Mallon came to be known as Typhoid Mary, and now here to teach you how to improve immediately by doing small, important things. It’s today’s mentors, doctors Risa Lewis and Adera
Landry, and I’m super happy we finally have them here in Mom’s Spaceman, Risa Nadera.
How are you?
I’m so well, thank you so much, Joe. It’s
amazing to be here. And you know the dehumidifier is working really well. It doesn’t feel humid
at all down here. Isn’t it wild how that thing runs so loud and then we start recording and you can’t hear it at all. It’s good. Pretty incredible. I wanna ask something, just this idea of this project of micro skills.
So I was thinking earlier today. About when it hit me that these big changes you sometimes see people make are not so much big changes as a series of little tiny things. Right? These little tiny tweaks. And I was like, when did I, when did I think about that? And I think it was when I realized in high school that I couldn’t dance.
Like I was just a horrible dancer. And long time stackers would be like, Joe even tried to dance. Like what is he thinking? And Michael Jackson was big then. And I asked my mom if I could take a class to dance like Michael Jackson. And, and I think even if I would’ve tried to take that class, like it would’ve been, it would’ve still probably been a train wreck.
But then I remember then thinking, well, you know, maybe it’s little steps. Like learn to actually have a beat and then learn these little things. Mm-Hmm. But, so that’s me. But then I think, okay, I get this project from you. I love the whole thing, but how, and I guess adara, we’ll start with you. How did two emergency room doctors go?
You know, what the world needs from us? Is a book on little tweaks. Well,
first, thanks so much for having us. Um, I’m really excited. So yes, Risa and I are emergency medicine physicians and we are educators. So we have so much experience teaching people the art of emergency medicine. And the way that happens in practice is if I tell someone, let’s say, to go put in a central line, A central line is like a big catheter that you put in a vein for a patient who’s really sick.
Like think the IV that you get when you get your blood drawn, but much bigger. And so if I were to tell a student or a resident to go put in that catheter, there are probably 60 steps to that entire task. And so we have to teach them those small, small things, how to position the patient, how to consent the patient, how to hold the needle, how to introduce the needle through the skin, right, and so forth.
And so in the end, it’s about 70 or so tiny, tiny micro skills that make up this big goal of putting in the catheter. So the fundamental way we teach is through identifying what are all of the skills. And the reason why we want to do the micro skill approach is because it really reveals the knowledge gaps where someone gets stuck.
And so when it comes to writing this book, right about the workplace and navigating the workplace, our approach is upheld. We really wanna make sure that we are writing a book that allows for people to see their own knowledge gaps. So instead of just saying go out and get a financial advisor, we talk about more things in detail, right?
Like, what is a financial advisor? Which are the one, what are the red flags for a financial advisor? So getting to those smaller skills is really the fundamental philosophy we have when it comes to teaching a concept.
Well, I like that you start even before that, which is even before you think about getting a financial advisor, Risa, that you think about like, how does money work in the first place?
I feel like too often, back when I was a financial advisor, people walk into my office and really, they don’t even know the basics. We
wanted to try to the best of our ability to make no assumptions, whether it’s finances, the assumptions that you even know what a financial advisor is, how to find them, whether or not that requires having financial resources upfront.
I wanted sort of segue a little bit. Adera provided a medical example and for audience members are like, yeah, but mm, I’m never gonna be putting a central line in. We know that actually this goes outside of medicine and what we talk about in terms of micro skills is not just our industry. So think about when you’re a kid and you are learning how to ride a bicycle.
The training wheels, the balance, the training wheels come off, one comes off, two come off. Or tying a shoe. Now I think that’s dating myself because these days I think people have Velcro or slip-ons, right? But I remember painfully being walked through those steps, open up the tongue, loosen the laces, put in my foot, secure my heel.
Pull, the laces taught. I won’t continue. You get it. Everything that you think about in terms of a task, a project, a habit you’re trying to incorporate, it can be broken down and it’s just much more
doable. You make a point in the introduction to this work adara. That is something that I think, and I’m, I’m trying to remember when, um, when I got this aha, maybe it was when I was failing bad at a job in college and I realized that I was going to get fired.
Like I just one day had this realization that I am going to get fired any day. But then I realized something that you said in the book. Well, in many respects, you talk about how a lot of self-help books written from one point of view all the time. They seem to gloss over the fact that we don’t start from the same point of view.
And yet you also make the counterpoint that nobody else is going to save you. And I remember when I thought I was gonna get fired, I had to go learn the micro skills to rehabilitate my own career. Mm-Hmm. So hopefully I could save my job. Didn’t save my job, by the way. And getting fired was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
I totally deserved it and I learned so much from that. But also I learned that I was a way better worker after this. But I thought that was a big point, that you really need these little skills because nobody’s, there’s no help coming.
That was a lesson that I learned. So just to clarify, Risa and I wrote this book and it’s, it’s chockfull of our personal struggles.
Like this is born at, it’s almost like a memoir slash business self. All the stories, the stories are true. They’re full of examples of how we are not perfect, of how we have not done everything correct, but we have learned from everything, our own lessons, our own successes, our own observations of how other people function in the workplace.
And one of those observations that I saw really early on. Was that my colleagues were just like skyrocketing. Like their careers were just moving much faster than mine. And I was waiting, like, I was literally waiting for some senior person to come up to me and say, I’ve, I’ve noticed you haven’t moved to the next rung.
You are stuck. Let me save you. Right? Like, let time to come help let me, yes. And so I, I, I personally feel like I was struggling like with this mentality for a few years until someone told me about their approach. Like they put themselves forward, they nominate themselves, they ask for a recommendation, or they ask to have their name mentioned.
They ask about when am I getting that promotion? Like they’re driving the ship. And it wasn’t until someone told me that, that that’s okay to do. Right? Like I didn’t grow up in a house where like self-advocacy in the workplace was taught. Like my parents were wonderful, but they didn’t teach that particular lesson.
I always assumed just wait until someone. Reaches out to help you. And that is a skill to learn, like how to advocate for yourself. And we cover that throughout the entire
book. Well, let’s start there. Let’s start where you start, which is with self-care, which I think is so important. And yet Risa I know so many professionals over the years that have told me, well, I, I, uh, I don’t have time to work out.
I don’t have time for self-care. Because the mission is so critical, and actually you make a good point in your book. It’s about talking about this is really what the life in the emergency room is all about is not practicing great self-care.
100%. It’s very intentional that our chapter one is micro skills for self-care.
To be clear, we had to teach ourselves this. We had to learn this even the hard way. It’s not modeled in medicine. It’s not laed, it’s not rewarded. In fact, it’s considered weak to call in sick. It’s considered weak to have to eat on shift. It’s considered weak to have to sleep. All these things that sound.
We know ridiculous. For example, eating. I don’t think I had ever tested how long I could go without eating. Surely when I started my emergency medicine training on an 8, 10, 12 hour shift, my colleagues didn’t eat. They didn’t take a break. I’m like, oh yeah, I can do that. And then I would realize at about the six hour mark, I’d get a little jittery.
I would feel really annoyed when I would have phone conversations. I wouldn’t allow myself to speak in an annoyed way, but I felt it inside and I’d be like, Risa, what’s wrong? I’d have these internal dialogues and I realized it’s ’cause I hadn’t eaten. So I created this sort of adaptive behavior where I would speed walk to the coffee shop in the hospital lobby.
The reason I emphasized room temperature bagel is there was no time to toast it or to add any coutre, you know, it was like, grab the bagel, grab the small coffee, you know, speed, walk back. I was able to inhale the bagel by the time I sped walk back and I had a coffee for the rest of the shift. Adaptive behaviors and you know, not really ideal.
I’ll bring up one more about sleep. You know, shift work is real and what it does to your circadian rhythm. And when I would drive, I would hope that I didn’t have any stop signs or didn’t have any red lights because stopping meant potentially nodding off. Oh. And then when I worked in Manhattan, I would take the subway and I learned the hard way.
If I sat down, I would wake up in Queens, so I would stand up on my subway rides back home after an overnight shift. So it’s real. And we know and really value, you know, prioritizing physical, emotional, spiritual, social, mental, all the kinds of health. We as emergency physicians are most able to call it out because we see it Sure.
In our patients that come in. But more so emergency physicians. There was a study that just came out. Highest rates of burnout and depression. Very high rates of addiction to alcohol and other drugs. High rates of death by suicide, you know, some, not some great things.
I am thinking even as you’re telling the story about nodding off on the subway or in the car, like the number of people have told me that Risa, where it’s almost like they’re bragging and there is a piece of me that’s heard these stories for so long that goes, oh my god, you, you’re a badass because you were that tired.
And you push through it, like, that’s amazing. And then we think about all the consequences. Horrible.
Yes. We get that a lot. Like the same. I think the equivalent for us is, um, when someone says that they don’t sleep much at night, like, I only need three hours of sleep, or I never call in sick. We have heard that so many times and I would agree that there was a time where I was impressed by that person or I felt bad that I couldn’t do what they were able to do.
I do think with COVID in, in our profession. We are normalizing self-care a lot more than ever where people are calling in sick and, um, people are, you know, encouraged to sleep and to rest and to eat. It’s not a universal theme, it’s not practiced everywhere, but I would say it’s emerging
from this big idea of self-care.
You mentioned sleep is one, but you begin with nurturing relationships with people you trust. This is the very first topic that you cover and, and adara about why this is so important. You tell a story that I told my spouse Cheryl on our walk last night because it’s because it’s harrowing about someone coming in and they are in super bad shape and, and a nurse hands you.
Um, uh, some medicine to give to them.
Exactly. And so this was a case, um, that I remember very vividly, um, because you remember things that don’t go the way they should. And, um, it was a patient who was already dead. Um, and we were trying to give medication to bring them back. My supervising doctor ordered a medication, um, a dose.
The nurse drew up more than that. I assumed that they had given me the correct dose, right? So miscommunication on all fronts, um, myself included. And so I administered the wrong dose to the patient. Luckily, this wasn’t a dose that was, you know, gonna make them necessarily more dead, and I don’t think it caused harm, but it was still something that made me feel really bad about, because it was just incorrect, right?
No matter what harm or no harm, we wanna do the right thing at all times. When I finished that, um, shift, I called a different doctor who was not working that day, and I just. Explained to them what happened, and it was so important to have someone who would be a safe space, who wasn’t offering all these solutions, like, this is what you should have done next time.
Do this. Like, I, I wasn’t in a, a, a place to hear that, right? I just wanted to hear, this is a human mistake. This isn’t because you don’t know the science or you don’t know the medicine. This was a communication error. You’re not a bad person. Just that comforting was important. And this is speaking to identifying your go-to people like who are the people that you can turn to?
Because as you journey through this book, we will challenge you and ask you to do things that might feel hard. And at the base of all this, you need people who you can turn to as you grow, as you develop, because there’s gonna be challenges, ups and downs that you can turn to and you feel safe revealing your vulnerabilities, and you don’t feel judged from that.
I think that’s so important. And by the way, my spouse works also in the medical field and, and in the emergency room, you, you’re moving so quickly, adara, I mean, you are moving so very quickly, so quick. Yeah, that, um, oh, it, it just, just, just, I can’t, I can’t even, even imagine. But finding these people is so important.
And we talk a lot here on Stacking Benjamins about having this, this board of directors, about having these smart people who are around us. So, Risa, you both go through some great ideas to kind of fill that board of directors, but who are we looking for and how should we think about this group of people
love this question and love the board of directors concept, and I think it’s something everybody should incorporate into their lives.
Their lives will be enhanced. So the concept is you have your go-to people. These are people that are trustworthy and trusting, um, people who want the best for you. And you know, these are not necessarily people you’re speaking to every day, maybe not even every week, every month. And not everybody fills the same need and the role they play in your life and.
We emphasize that this is two ways, the role you play in their life changes over time. So you might have the person that you call when you are want some input about job negotiation and finances. You might have the friend that you’ve known since childhood that you wanna talk to when you have some sort of kerfuffle with your biological family.
Like there are people that serve different needs at different times. And we emphasize that it’s important to always have open chairs at your table, open seats. Uh, also, you know, although many boards in real life have term limits, there are no term limits. But some people cycle off naturally, organically, and some people cycle on, some people are there your whole lifetime.
Some people are just there for a small chunk of time. So there’s not,
I’m Well, I glad. Let me, can we stop right there because I’m glad that you said that because my. Initial feeling about this, and I’ve been doing this board of director concept for a long time. So as I’m reading this, I’m thinking about stuff that I got right and stuff that I got wrong.
And one thing I got really wrong here was I thought this was like, uh, uh, uh, Supreme Court justice, where it’s for life. Mm mm And instead, I think it’s way better that somebody’s great at a skill that I need today, or they’re great at something I need today. And to your point, Risa, I have them there to teach me that thing, and then maybe they go away.
Like there’s lifetime coaches, but then there’s the person who teaches me inbox zero. And by the way, I just, and, and, and I don’t mean I, that kind of belittles the concept, but you know what I mean. There’s people that are teaching just little things, I think is what you’re saying.
Can I just say and share that this is not one sided and our, the goal is not take, take, take.
That we really are committed. And what we teach in micro skills is that you have something to offer and make sure you keep that front of mind that you are helping too. It’s not just take, take, take, take, take. The error I have made is thinking someone needs to be on my board. They must be on their board because their, their, their professional path is exactly what I wanna do with my professional path.
So I really, I want this relationship. And you know what? The relationship didn’t stick. I think they just weren’t that interested in being a mentor. And so it took me a long time to pick up on that. Once I did, I was like, oh. And so my lesson from that experience was, if someone doesn’t want to be on your board, you can’t make them sit at the table.
Well, well, and that brings up another question for both of you, which is does that mean, uh, do I do this in a, um, uh, do I do this in a, I’m thinking professional manager, Dara, I love your work. I love what you did here. Um, just following your career. It’s phenomenal. Would you be on my board of directors? I.
Or is it more that I think of you on my board of directors and I begin talking with you? Like I’m hoping to pick your brain a little more. So I
do a lot of mentoring and I get this from my students all the time. Like, do I have to formally ask someone to be my mentor? Yeah. And I don’t think so. I, I, I have never formally asked Risa to be my mentor.
The relationship just evolves. And I think it’s kind of akin to like romantic relationships. Like on the first date when you’re meeting someone, you’re not like, will you be my girlfriend? Right. You wanna get to know the person. And I think over time you just start calling them that. Right. And I think I remember like, you know, I started calling Risa a mentor and I think that is a natural process.
There are, I will say like. Programs out there where you’re like paired with someone and they’re like officially your mentor or advisor. There’s so much data that the best relationships are organically grown. I’m, I don’t wanna undermine the formal stuff, but No, when it comes to your personal board of directors, I don’t think you have to like have a contract handshake, those sorts of things.
But the way you can sort of circumvent that is by saying, Joe, I recognize that you have a successful podcast. I’m actually looking to get into podcasting. I’m just curious if you would have the time for us to meet maybe two or three times a year. Just so for me to get some updated skills that you have learned about podcasting and I can sort of turn to you when I have questions.
I think it’s okay to ask that because you are explaining your needs and expectations and like seeing if they’re interested in that. So you know what you’re getting into as well, Joe, if you say yes to my question. So I think you can ask the question, but you don’t have to put a formal label on it, especially if you’re just meeting someone like you wanna get to know them and see if they vibe with you before you have that commitment.
Maybe that’s part of why we struggle so much with these relationships is we think we build it up. It’s gotta be this big thing. Mm. And I love that, that it doesn’t have to be, I love the dating analogy by the way, and the fact that you, that you set up these parameters, right? You’ve got these, this is what I’m interested in podcasting.
I’m hoping to do that myself. And it kind of sets out for the, for the mentor that I’m not gonna monopolize every hour of your day, um, following you around and asking you how you pick groceries or I dunno, whatever. Next from there you move on to this micro skill of gratitude. And I see this so rarely Risa, and I wonder a why do we see it?
So, so well, let’s start there. Why do we see gratitude express So, so not often. Super
interesting. So I will share that. I was given that lesson growing up of, um, you should write a thank you note when you receive a gift, you know, at the holidays, at your birthday. And as a kid, you like roll your eyes and you fight it.
There’s something. About where that comes from, which I think is actually quite smart and quite good. I’ve shared with you that one of my first financial personal finance reads was David Box. Smart Women Finish Rich, and he speaks about the importance of thank you notes. He said, if you send a thank you note to your doctor, to your dentist to fill in the blank, it will really compound in terms of their appreciation of you, the way you are treated, the demonstration of valuing the relationship.
Now, this is not superficial, this is not fake. This is not performative. It should be authentic. One of the reasons why we speak so much about it is because we’ve seen how it feels on the receiving end and also how it’s received on the giving end. You know, of course it’s very trendy these days to talk about meditation and a gratitude practice, and I speak like this.
I’m not sure why, but. I believe in it. I do it. I think it’s sort of as a mindset, it’s a mindset of thinking and being appreciative. Like even on your worst day, there are things that went well saying the words thank you, and realizing there’s so many more opportunities in a day that you could thank people, thank situations, thank the universe.
I think it’s real, and I think it’s part of actually health and taking care of yourself. But I literally send thank you notes and I, I’ve had my primary care doctor said, you know, Risa, no one sends me thank you notes. I love it when I get your notes. And so it’s, it’s real. And we’re. You can just say, thanks so much, great, great visit.
But it’s like you can name specifics. Like people are like, okay, is this real or is this fake? You know, like, thank you so much. I realized that you were running late, but yet when you spent time with me at my annual appointment, I did not feel rushed. All my questions were answered. And thanks to your counseling, I’m gonna start doing physical therapy, like fill in the blank, you know, just being specific and concrete about why you’re thankful and what they did and what you saw.
Can I just add that you can lower the bar, like if, if you’re really swamped, you don’t have to go to paper source, buy a, an envelope and then go get a stamp and like, you can do that through electronic medical charting where you can, you know, there’s like patient gateway here in Boston. Like you can send an electronic message, you can say it in person at the end of the meeting, you can lower the bar so that it’s done and it’s convenient for you as well.
My son did something really cool, and this isn’t gratitude specific, but I feel, I feel really cool when I get his notes. He sets one day aside a year, and to your point, adara, he has a service he works with and everybody’s birthday anniversary, important days in their life. He has this service send out notes from him and they are so personal.
And when I asked him about these notes, I said, I said, you seem to put a lot of time into it. And he said it, it was incredibly easy and it was incredibly fast. He sent something to his mom of a picture of the two of them. He lives in Seattle and you’ve got the Seattle background. And it was just Happy birthday, mom, love you.
And it was, it was so amazing. And the fact that, uh, I don’t know, the fact that he took the time and to your point ad it didn’t take that long and it looked so good was, was so awesome. But that, but that actually brings me back to kind of my first question, which is I kind of, uh, Reese as you were talking, I think.
Maybe it’s, it’s, we’ve become such a takey society, and I think maybe the takers don’t realize that there’s something in gratitude for them. Like when you talk about notes like, that makes my doctor feel good if I send my doctor no, but what the hell does that do for me? And I don’t got a lot of time, so I’m, you know, screw that.
Somebody else can thank the doctor and I’ll be, but I think there’s, when you do that action, like I, I watched my son just glow when Cheryl calls him and talks about it, I feel, you know, and I don’t want people to do it because they take, but is that the reason why there’s not more gratitude?
So I think you and the listeners need to understand, we are emergency doctors.
We see horrible things. Mm, we see horrible things. I tell people it keeps me sober and people are like, oh, is that why you don’t drink? I’m like, well, no, I’m not talking. Literally, I’m talking figuratively. Yeah, maybe, I don’t know. Because, you know, alcohol has horrible effects on the body and we see horrible things in emergency department secondary to alcohol as well.
But going back to micro skills and breaking things down into small. Concrete fundamental building blocks and keeping it simple and keeping it real. And maybe like maybe social media and maybe capitalism lead people a certain way, but when you have regular reminders of what’s important in life because of, again, the example of emergency medicine, I think it does, you’re like, huh, huh.
You know, I’m just gonna make sure I express this. But I, the other thing that may or may not be known to you and the listeners is, gosh, we have some of the highest rates of violence in the emergency department. Like we get yelled at, we get physically assaulted. Um, it’s real. This is not happening on a regular basis necessarily, but definitely these are some hostile environments because people are having, people don’t feel well.
People are sick, people have lots of stuff going on in their lives, and we get it. You know, we’re
seeing people, it’s probably in a lot of cases, the worst day of their,
their year. It’s the worst day of their life, and so I think there’s regular reminders of what’s important and keeping it real. Something as simple as a thank you and Adera is spot on.
It can be in person, it can be a text. It has
impact beyond self-care. And there’s so much more in self-care. And I’m looking at the time, and by the way, stackers, this is micro skill number one. Yeah, it’s so chapter one. I know. But number two I really like, which is struggling with a task list. And maybe we’ll make this our last one because Adera, I really would love it if you tell us the story of the birthday cake because I found the birthday cake, uh, issue to kind of highlight the importance of a, of a task list.
So this was my first job job, like I, I, I had worked in places where I had a very specific task and I only did that one thing. Like I used to call for donations. So I would show up and call donation for donations, and then I would leave. But this job I worked for, um, the uc, Berkeley Food Service. I had my own personal desk.
I had like people to help me and I was in charge of a, of a very big task, which was making sure all the birthday cakes that parents ordered for their students at uc, Berkeley were delivered. And so we would get, you know, anywhere between 20 to 50 sometimes a day, depending on the week. And so it was a big job.
I had to work with Deliverymen and pick up the cakes in the cafeteria, all these things. Over time, I started to notice that I was missing cakes because I didn’t have a very concrete system in which I was tracking them. I, I didn’t know it was my first time ever doing this job. And so I would show up and some would come in by email, some would come in by my phone.
Some, some orders would come in through my boss’s phone. And we had a registration system, so I would get some through that. We had all these different ways that they were coming in and I was just sort of. Addressing them as they came in versus like making some overarching spreadsheet. Right. I had no experience doing that.
My boss was like, this is a problem. I mean, she’s a wonderful person and she is still supportive of me, but she’s like, you can’t do this. Like this is not how you, you work. And so she actually was really instrumental in teaching me some of the fundamental aspects of being organized, and I hadn’t really needed to do that before because I’d never really had a job like this and that coaching, I would say that was coaching.
So she coached me on how she uses a spreadsheet, how she color codes things, how she checks it in the morning every day. But that structure was so fundamental, like it Joe, if you saw Risa and my spreadsheet for this book, you’d be like, okay. They are very organized. Everyone who has seen our spreadsheets has have told us that we are super organized.
And I’m gonna speak for myself and say my, my origin story for my organization is Kim Lapin, my boss, who taught me all about being organized.
Well, let’s stay with that. And by the way, before we get back to Kim Lapin, I have to say adara, I was a little disappointed that in no part of that story with cakes going missing.
Did somebody find you like in a back hallway with frosting all over your face? What like’s what I was expecting what
they were rock. Solid. So they were in this like deep freezer. Actually, my biggest worry was someone closing that door when I went in there to get them. Oh, because you’ve heard these stories, right?
Oh, yeah. So they were in, like in the back, back, back deep freezer when I would get them and deliver them, you know, sometimes I had to hand deliver them too. They were frozen, and so I never got a chance to eat them myself because they were opportunity. They were so
cold. Well, let’s talk about Kim for a second, because Okay.
One thing that you dive into is one of the huge micro skills is knowing what your boss actually wants. Cool. And this is where a lot of us get tripped
up. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I, there’s a story, I, I won’t go into that story as a separate story, but I realize that it is so important to understand that what you value is not exactly the same as what your supervisor values.
And that can lead to major consequences. So for me, you know, I might’ve thought at that time what I value was just showing up, being energetic, being social, showing I care about the job and what she valued was actually the deliveries happening the day they needed to happen. Right. Like that makes sense. I was, I was like 16.
So it’s a different environment, but it’s, it’s very important to understand that your perspective doesn’t always align with your supervisors.
Another piece of this work, Risa, that I was talking to Cheryl on our walk last night was that you also caution people that a lot of us organize our tasks around which one either makes us the most money or saves us the most money.
And you both talk about pumping the brakes on that idea. So
first of all, I’m so glad that the book resonated with you so much that it was the focus of last night’s walk.
Me too. I was thinking about that. It totally
was. We are touched. I believe we provide an instructive table to actually help illustrate to readers that it’s not always obvious how to prioritize your task list, your work list.
And it might seem obvious, um, that you just do it as dare just shared with cakes when they come in. But actually know like what is the timeline? What is, and this is gonna be an emergency department reference. Again, what’s emergent, urgent and non-urgent? In other words, which patient’s gonna die, which patient’s not gonna die right now?
But if we don’t take care of them pretty quickly, they’re gonna go downhill. And which patient actually just has tennis elbow and they just couldn’t access a doctor, so they’re coming to the emergency department. And that kind of mindset of urgency and prioritization based on consequences is actually a good way to approach.
And that sometimes lists. Fall out one way, but then you need to reshuffle them and you need to, what we call, run the list and reprioritize. And sometimes it’s because your supervisor has expressed importance. Maybe it’s because something fell off and is no longer even on your task list anymore. Maybe you actually have some time to kind of put in some of your own decision making.
You’re like, you know, I wanna do the fun thing first and I’ll do the more arduous. I wanna use that word arduous task next. Yeah,
the idea, there’s a micro skill in your work here that is, uh, uh, just taking stuff off the list. Like is there stuff that, that I shouldn’t be doing in the first place? I ran into that a lot doing a bunch of work that just did not need me to do it.
Somebody else could have done it. I remember I was in charge of, uh, some stuff with our swim team and, and I’ve been a professional for a while and I banish people and I remember I’m in charge of this whole task and I’m working on it, and I’m working my butt off. And I, and I talked to the, uh, president of the swim club, my kids swim club, and I said, oh, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this.
And he literally, John puts his arm around me and goes, just because I assigned it to you doesn’t mean you needed to do it. Mm-Hmm. And I went, oh. And I was 40 something when that happened. Mm-Hmm. Which is amazing. Which by the way, getting back to mentors and mentorship, a big mistake I think a lot of us have too, is mentors have to be older than you.
Yeah. I’ve realized a lot of people that know stuff on a specific area are younger than me. Like don’t, don’t, don’t cap your learning by just looking one way. Mm. Look at, uh, look at, I mean, Julia, who does her social media is just amazing. Like the, the stuff. Of course, maybe that’s the exception, right? When it comes to social media, find, find somebody in college.
I don’t, I don’t know. uhd, just very briefly before we say goodbye, what’s your favorite micro skill? What did you enjoy most? Oh, such a hard
question. It really depends on what we’re doing that day. You know what I’m gonna say because I just, this just came up yesterday. Socialize carefully at work. Be careful with how you spend your time, how you use your words, who is around you, what you are saying, like loudly versus privately, your safe spaces versus not safe spaces.
And be more careful than you think you ought to be. I have definitely been in situations where, you know, we talk a lot about gossiping. That’s, that’s an important one too. So I’m sort of blending two into one right now, but gossiping is important. It’s an important part of work. I don’t want to minimize that.
We connect over sharing information and how we reflect over that information, but there’s a time and place to do, you know, the sharing of information and you really wanna be careful with how you do that in the actual workplace. Who’s listening? Who do you trust? Because that can come back and harm your reputation.
Well, on that note, the idea too, and one of your micro skills about your reputation. Uh, learning how to complain carefully is something I had to learn. I’m, I was a bad complainer and realized that maybe I need to put some velvet on my hammer. Uh, Risa, how about yours?
So I’m not gonna commit to a fave because, oh, come on.
There’s, okay, well, so let me explain. Every day it changes and as Adera shared, it depends on what happened that day. Mm-Hmm. What skill I needed to bring up. And, you know, if I can share for listeners about the book or watchers, you don’t have to read this cover to cover. You can actually go to a specific skill that you think you need to work on.
And, um, we’ve gotten that feedback and we’re glad ’cause we really wanted this to be something that people just can just thumb to a specific place. But I’m gonna say related to what Adera just shared about complaining you, Joe said that and the gossiping, I had it experience where I thought I was having a conversation that was just between me and my supervisor and it went beyond, like, he basically shared it with a bunch of people.
And I found that out the hard way because I was in a meeting and literally one of my peers turned to me and said, oh, come on, Risa, everybody knows. And I was like. Oof. Talk about when you have like a bodily response to being just suckers punched or caught off guard. I love those types of experiences and stories because I’m able to turn it around and be like, that was amazing feedback.
And also because then we can share that I learned that confidential conversations aren’t always confidential, so that when you’re sharing information, you have to just accept that it might become, it might become public knowledge, even though you hope and think it’s not gonna become public knowledge.
And it does. So I have shared that when colleagues or mentees come to me and you know, say, I wanna tell my supervisor this. And I say, okay, but just know as soon as you share that, you have to assume it’s being shared with everybody. And they’re like, no, no. I’m like, yes, yes, yes,
yes. I can’t tell you Reesa, how many times I stepped in that one before I realized that that’s a, um, I dunno, mixing my metaphor, but I don’t need to keep touching that stove.
Like, I just don’t need to, the book is called Micro Skills and uh, they’re all these, all these little things that create big, big, big change in our life. And, uh, Adera and Risa, thank you for mentoring us on these, the book available everywhere, I assume.
Yes, all major bookstores. And you can order it from your local library if you’re interested in saving some money.
This is Stacking Benjamins, duh. And uh, but yeah, it’s coming out April 16th. Thank you
so much. I super appreciate it.
Joe. Loved being on your show. Thank you. Thank you.
Hey, I am Rob Berger when I’m not rolling in the dough. That’s right. I’m Stacking Benjamins. Big thanks to Doctors Landry and Lewis, uh, for joining us powerful, these little, tiny skills.
I hope those were very helpful. And of course, Kevin Bailey will dive into these micro skills in our. 2 0 1 newsletter comes out the day after our Monday, Wednesday shows. Find that at stacky Benjamins dot com slash 2 0 1. Speaking of the 2 0 1, we had a great Valentine’s Day giveaway. We did have a winner, and right now we’ve actually written to them, we record this a little bit early and so we’ve written to that winner and we’ll share more here soon about, um, about what restaurant they chose and how they got to spend their $200 of our money.
How
their night turned out. We,
we, we don’t want details. No details. What? Please, what’s the point? Why we even pay for all of this? You know, we do want details on Doug, uh, time for our segment where somebody you better call sa see Hi and og. This is the part of the show where a stacker calls in with a burning question about their personal financial situation.
And today we’re gonna help Chris out. Chris, you’re on the line, man. What’s up?
Hey, better call Saul. Glad I got your number because I could really use a scumbag. Attorney’s hope right now.
Great.
You’re telling me this isn’t the dirt bag with his face on the bus Stops all over town basement. How’s the guy that hangs out in his mom’s basement gonna help?
Anyway, guess while I’m here. Let’s chat. I need help with this tax situation. I’m trying to figure out.
Wife and I are in our mid and
late thirties. The plan is to have enough assets to retire sometime in our fifties or
earlier,
but that’s our goal because we’d be retiring early. I’d like to take advantage of the Roth conversion letter for my 401k.
I’m wondering what the mechanics look like when doing this. Will I need to only move the amount I wanna convert that year to my traditional IRA and then convert that amount to the Roth? The goal would be to keep taxes to a minimum or zero if possible. I’ve heard things about what I think is the pro-rata rule that I’m guessing would affect the Roth conversions if I transfer the whole amount to the IRA.
Is this going to depend on my employer’s 401k plan when it comes to allowing only transferring a specific amount and not the entire balance to make these conversions happen and keep the tax bill low? I don’t hear much discussed about this topic and would love to know now if I’m planning correctly, since I would like to take advantage of these conversions.
Thanks. Hey Chris, thank you so much for the call and I think dudes in mom’s basement can help. Of course. A lot of times. Let’s talk about this whole converting it over to the Roth side og. I like
how people will take something that is a very nuanced piece of financial planning strategy and put the word the in front of it, like it’s the only thing and or it belongs to someone.
I wanna do the mean, the Roth conversion ladder, it’s like, what do you mean? The Roth conversion ladder? There’s like 7,000 ways to convert money into Roths. Like, which one do you wanna do? I guess what he is talking about here is he wants to retire early and use the fact that he has lower earnings to move money from pre-tax accounts.
IE uh, 401k pre-tax, 401k into Roth at a low tax rate, thus arguably getting kind of a double tax benefit, right? He’s deferring taxes today at a higher rate. And then not paying them later at all or at a substantially lower rate when he does the conversion. This requires a couple of things. Of course, it requires tax rates to be known in the future, which we do not, and it requires them to be actually be lower in the future, which we don’t know whether or not they will be.
So you can kind of pencil this out on the back of an envelope, but the reality is, is that you’re gonna have to wait and see what’s really going on in the year in which you wanna do the conversion to decide whether or not it makes a lot of sense. A couple of things to be aware of, he did bring up pro-rata rules, which is to say basically when you do A IRA conversion to a Roth, the IRS doesn’t let you cherry pick the numbers.
So you can’t say, well, I just wanna convert this part of my IRA, the part that doesn’t have a lot of taxes. It’s like, well, tough if you have any IRA, they’re gonna average it all out. If you’re converting money, that is what we call the backdoor Roth IRA, where you’re putting money in and not getting a tax deduction upfront for it.
A non-deductible IRA, and then doing a conversion. We see a lot of people make, make mistakes there because they do that and then you know, and then convert money. But in reality, they’re only converting a portion of it because the IRS looks at the entire balance of the IRA. This really wouldn’t affect, uh, Chris because ostensibly all of his money is pretext.
So it doesn’t matter where the pretext money is, if it’s all IRA or all 401k. The other thing that he might look at is some plans are starting to offer in plan Roth conversions. So you can convert into a Roth within your 4 0 1 KI give you 10 99, do the same thing, and now it’s just part of your Roth 401k.
So we’re starting to show little, it’s really
nice that that’s happening, by the way. Just a little commentary there. I really like that. Yeah, I hope if somebody’s listening and is in HR upper management and you don’t have that at your company, I think that is a great thing you can do for your employees.
Yeah, I mean, it does make it a lot simpler for sure, especially, you know, as, as people are being a little bit more conscious of it. But with, with, you know, when they give things, they take things away. So you used to be able to undo Roth conversions if the, the math didn’t check out at the end of the year, and now you can’t do that anymore.
So we see a lot more Roth conversions toward the end of the year, once you have a known, or at least a fairly certain idea of what your, what your tax liability’s gonna look like. The other thing to consider with all of this is largely if you’re doing Roth conversions while you’re working, or slightly after, you wanna have the money to be able to pay the tax bill from another source while you can pay it from your IRA.
It’s kind of defeating the purpose because you’re taking money out to pay the tax bill. That’s not part of the conversion, basically. It’s not as beneficial to do it that way. Ultimately, what we think about when it comes to Roth conversions is. This is a year to year decision and you can, you can plan it out and you can have a pretty good idea of how you want it to look in the future, but there’s too many variables year in, in year out, and way too many variables.
You know, Hey, I’m 35. I was thinking about doing a Roth conversion when I’m 52. What do you think it’s like that is a bunch of paper that you don’t need to waste right now because you’re talking about, you know, three more presidential cycles, you know, six more congression. I mean, there’s so many, there’s so many things that are gonna change from a tax standpoint, a retirement planning standpoint.
Between then and now, I think you do this on a year to year basis, and that includes deciding how you’re gonna contribute money into your workplace plan. We had an article by Ed slide just a few minutes ago, and Ed, who everybody pretty much assumes is like the world’s greatest IRA expert. He has been on record many times to say Roth 401k, period.
Full stop. I don’t care about anything else. Yeah. And he’s got a really good point of it solves a lot of those problems because you’re, you’re, you’re dealing with today’s problem today, which is, I’ve got income, I’m gonna pay taxes on this income, but once I invest the money, it’s mine and my family’s till the end of time tax free.
That’s a pretty powerful thing to say. I don’t ever have to worry about having to pay taxes on this. Again, the downside of pre-tax money is you look at your four one K or whatever and you go, oh, I got a million bucks in there. Well do you, you got, you got $400,000 of that as the government’s money, so you’re holding onto some money for them.
You know, your spendable money might be six or 700 K out of that. Um, now you can do what Chris is talking about. Try to manipulate it, you know what I mean? Like, ah, I can take a little bit out here at 10%, a little bit out at 12%, but you’re still writing a check for taxes along the way. And when you get to the point where you’re actually in a retirement, you actually need cash flow.
Y you’re gonna take out what you need to live on anyway, regardless of what the tax rates are. And so I like the idea of making this super simple like ed slot suggests and going, just put it on the Roth. You’ve got the money today. You can pay the tax bill today, put it in the freaking Roth 401k and be done with it.
You’re matching is likely always gonna be pre-taxed because of the tax break that that businesses want. So you’re building both legs of that, of that stool, so to speak, you know, through those contributions. But if you wanna get super tactical about it, it’s definitely year to year decision of pre or Roth and you can make those changes pretty frequently within your four oh k plan.
So change your mind halfway through, just change your mind. It’s fine.
Absolutely love it. Thanks for the call, Chris, and uh, and for the great stuff to kick off your question. Fantastic. You know, uh, the pro rata rule is something people are wondering about, what exactly that is. What this talks about is if you’ve pre-tax money.
After tax money in your 401k and you go to do this. What some people try to do is almost like they’ll do when they sell stock, where they’ll go, no, I’m gonna take just the pre-tax money and do this, or just the after tax money and do this so I can lower my tax bill today and manipulate the tax system.
The pro rat rule says that if you have pre-tax and after-tax money in your 401k, it’s gotta come over pro rata. So if it’s three to one pre-tax to post-tax, the money that goes over is three to one as well. There’s a simple way to avoid the pro rata rule. I usually hear financial nerds bring it up. The pro rata rule, financial nerds, by the way, should be the last people to be bringing up the pearl rat rule because what financial nerds really should know is you should never have after-tax money in your 401k.
This is just another horrible reason or another good reason. To not have after-tax money. Why OG so many people have after-tax money in their 401k. There is zero benefit. Zero benefit unless you’re in the middle of this Roth conversion, which as some people are flipping the money. Maybe there’s after-tax there for a few days, but there’s no reason to contribute after-tax money people there is zero reason.
Yeah.
To let it pile up is what you mean. Yeah.
Yeah. Either go Roth or go pre-tax and then you avoid the pro-rata rule completely. You’re done.
Yeah. Well, the reason you’d have after-Tax was if you’re gonna do like the mega backdoor, but to your point, you do that at the end of the year and then you take that money out and convert it to a Roth within the first couple weeks of the year right away.
You’re not hanging onto it for years, years and years. The other time we see that Prorata thing is in IRAs, you know you’ve worked at three different jobs. You take the money out, you put it in your IRA, you do a rollover, and then all of a sudden you read about. Backdoor Roth and you’re like, oh, I should do that.
So I’m gonna put 6,000 into my IRA and I’m gonna go convert 6,000 out. Boom. I just did a backdoor Roth. It’s like, well, no you didn’t. Your IRA, you know that you’ve accumulated over the years of all pre-tax, 4 0 1 Ks that you rolled over is worth $600,000 and you just put 6,000 in to do a backdoor Roth.
You took 6,000 out. Well, the IRS went, well, you had $6,006 of which 1% of that was after tax. Thus your conversion is 1% after tax at 99% pre-tax. So you can’t do that. I mean, you can, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just not giving you the benefit that you think you’re getting. You know what I mean?
Right. So you just have to somewhat plan for it. To your point, one way is to, to get the Roth side of the equation is to just put the money in the Roth to begin with. You know, I’ve, I talked to a lot of people who are like, I gotta do backdoor Roths. It’s like, why don’t you just do Roth 401k. They’re doing 5% in their 401k pretax.
And then they say, well, I gotta do back to a Roth. It’s like, well, why don’t you just do 10% in your 401k and split it 50 50 do 50% Roth, 401k, and 50% pretax, and you’ve accomplished the same thing. You’ve saved $12,000, 6,001 and 6,000 in the other, and you did it without a buttload of paperwork and tax forms and all this other sort of stuff.
Like you just saved it. It was just easier than trying to manipulate all this stuff. So now if you get to the point where you’re maxing everything out and you’ve got some other wiggle room, I suppose, but, um, maybe, but that’s, that’s less frequent than the other side of it. Thanks for
the question, Chris.
If you’ve got a question
anyway and 401k conversions, fun stuff, man.
Just Tax Break City on today’s show, stack your Benjamins dot com slash voicemail if you’ve got a question for us. And by the way. If it’s not just one question about just backdoor Roth IRAs, you’re like, I just need a better plan. I don’t have any idea what these people are talking about, but I have these different tools available.
I don’t know how to use them. Well, OG and his team are taking new clients and the way to start exploring that relationship now that if we’re a week out from Valentine’s Day and Relationship week, Stacking Benjamins dot com slash OG is the link to their calendar gets you on the calendar for a first meeting to see how they’d interface with you to make better decisions and use those tools better.
All right, time to wander out onto the back porch. Doug, I wanted to talk to you about today’s back porch ’cause we haven’t talked about video games for a while, but you and I played a really fun game that I think is overlooked on the Xbox a lot. It’s called, uh, super Mega Baseball. My team really sucks OG in super mega baseball, but, but we are two and seven.
But Doug came to save the day. We actually won an extra innings last night to get our third win of the season. But super mega baseball Doug is super fun for people that have an Xbox. It’s a great game. It is,
and it’s interesting because I’m a big baseball fan and it looks like a game I would hate because it’s very cartoony and it’s not trying to be a sim or a realistic game.
The character names, the player names are silly and all of that. But the gameplay is actually really good from a baseball standpoint. And, uh, it’s very easy to get into. It’s not one of these super complicated things to pit, like, you know, to try to pitch in at the strike zone. Doesn’t take motor skills of a surgeon.
So, um, yeah. Yeah, I mean it’s, it’s a, it is a really good game and it’s really inexpensive. It’s a great alternative to the 2K, whatever. Do they even make but the show, I dunno, how come
I didn’t get invited? Play this game. Well, what is
cool OG is you can play at co-op, which is what we did last night. And, and it’s neat because one player pitches, so if Doug’s the pitcher, I’m in the field and then the next, the next inning.
It’s really neat because then you flip it and the other player’s in the field and, and you know, Doug doesn’t play his game as much as I do. So when he was pitching and I was in the field, it was generally an easier combo than the other way around. So I like that. And also you take turns batting and because there’s nine players, you’re not batting with the same players every time.
So, you know, Doug and I both have to be hitting the ball for good stuff to happen. Team, I don’t team really nice on. Yeah, we’re on the same team. It is a very nice co-op feel to it, doesn’t it? Doug where you just It does, it is, uh, super fun. And by the way, to the names, some of them are just funny. There was a guy last night on the opposing team called something like, uh, his first name was Hitten and his last name was Dingers.
Yeah. There’s Nacho Crisp. Yes. Yes. And then there’s a little bit risque names. Well, one of our better hitters on our team, our number two hitter, his name is Dirk Sports Wood.
Nice. And there’s some of those where you’re
like, that was Doug’s nickname in college.
Uh, Doug Sports would,
thank goodness on our YouTube video, it’s chest up,
so we would’ve invited og. Right. But it’s just too, if you’re gonna do the co-op mode, it’s just two player. So, I’m sorry,
man. Yeah, yeah. But a super, super
game.
I’m glad we took all the important time and real estate on our show minutes to talk about that when we have some other really big stuff to talk about in the base. Can I run through ’em at least quickly? Well, yeah. Yeah. All right. First of all, apple reviews folks. We need more. We need more, whether it’s on Apple or whatever your platform is, where you’re, you’re listening to us, the reviews we’ve got out there are a little stale.
They’ve been sitting out there a while, so, you know, there’s always a little something, something in it for you. You’re gonna get a mention on air. If you write a great one. I’m gonna talk about you and you can be famous and tell all your friends, but we need more
reviews. I’ve also been sending out books.
I sent out, uh, two books last week to people that wrote me
about reviews. That wrote reviews. Well, I mean, that’s a nice, like. Consolation. Yes, but I mean, the mention from me right there, way better, that’ll make your year far, far better, right? Uh, so we need more of those. Please, uh, get some reviews in, and then there’s some great discussions going on in the basement.
I’m gonna run through these quickly. First of all, you took a hit from a frequent contributor to the basement with a. Looks like a New Yorker type cartoon about a guy explaining rules for a board game. And the two people he is playing with have just turned into skeletons and, and the poster just says, is this you, Joe?
And your own mother commented and said, nailed it.
Nice.
That was awesome. If you don’t know how to play the game, why play the game?
If you don’t know how to explain rules quickly, why suggest that game to be played? Okay,
I gotta tell you my least favorite thing. You know what I hate? And I love my brother-in-Law, but he does this every time.
I will begin explaining the rules. He’s like, let’s just play a practice hand. Let’s just do a practice round. Let’s do a, oh God, shoot me. ’cause you know why it’s gonna take three times longer than me just explaining the rules. You sure to play a practice round? Let’s play a practice
round. Is that how he sounds?
Screw that. Oh, he does to me. I’m like, no,
I know the guy you’re talking about. I don’t think he sounds like that.
No, he does. When he says that phrase, it’s horrible. No practice round.
Well see here. See I’m like playing practice round. See? Alright, so we got that going on. Kevin Bailey did, uh, he reposted something, but still it was a great, uh, repost on the finances behind the Apple Music halftime show at the Super Bowl.
And like I said, it was a repost but it was totally appropriate for the
basement. The Apple money cleaned up on that. What’s that? Think Apple Music cleaned up on that?
Um, probably, yeah, a little bit. But they numbers 50 million annually. 50 million annually for the rights for that. And the artists get none of it.
Well, but
come on, there’s a huge but usher’s downloads that day and the day after. I’ve seen some of those numbers and those are monster numbers. Right.
Um, we had a great session of show and Tell time in the basement about a week ago now, and uh, we had some great trips that dream trips to the pyramids that people were talking about.
I saw that picture. Beautiful. Yeah. And ta is that from the second floor of the KFC?
Across the way, I don’t know, but there’s only one way to take that picture and get that desert look because any other way, you just see the big city suburbs of Cairo behind it. Like when I got there, I’m like, this is not what I
expected.
Right. Tom, who kind of followed up on a question he asked in the basement a while before that about topics to, I think it was the same guy, topics to cover in basic investing and he held another 1 0 1 level investment class, so spreading the good word.
We had him on a couple years ago on one of our Stacker Cool Stories episodes where he, uh, went over what his curriculum is and, and I busted him a little bit ’cause I’m like, uh, hey Tom.
He shows all these second tier books that he’s teaching kids on. I’m like, you know, there’s one book that CNN said, uh, in 2023 that, uh, was probably the must read. He did say busted, and he’s been traveling just a ton,
but just great that there’s somebody hosting 1 0 1 level classes, which is exactly what we aim to do.
So thanks, Tom.
I love that. By the way, on that note, if you just wanna get together with stackers, like Tom puts people together in the same room in Minneapolis, we’re having our first boots on the ground actual meetup, and it is going to be, is it this Wednesday? I think it is this Wednesday. It is two days.
Two days from now, and two days at 6:30 PM Go look for it on Eventbrite scroll, uh, through it. If you live in the Minneapolis area, you probably got an email from me. Uh, but it is at, it’s
at, uh, union 32 in Eagan, Minnesota. Yeah, at six
- Great. Six 6:30 PM Come and join us. We’re gonna give away a bunch of stuff.
We have a cool format for these meetings. 90 minutes or longer if you wanna hang out with like-minded people.
Well, thanks Joe. ’cause that was like, I was building up to that and you just stole it from me. You snatched it from me right at the end. That was the whole, I like, I was doing all of this, like let’s just talk about this cute, fun stuff.
But the big crown jewel of today’s back porch discussion, twin Cities were coming for you, was gonna be that. And then you’re just like, but wait, wait, wait.
Say it jerk.
All right. How about what we learned today? Oh, should we just roll right into that
or, I mean, I’m supposed to say that. Oh, oh. See, every
time I was trying to steal it from you ’cause I was just getting ready.
Tit for tat baby. Tit for tat. So Joe, what’s stacked up on our to-do list today? First, take some advice from Doctors Landry and Lewis Micro skills. Yeah. It turns out those little things you get right that make huge differences in your career, your wallet, and. With your happiness. Second, were you laid off or have an employee stock purchase plan time to figure out your exit strategy, whether it’s using net unrealized depreciation or a conveyor belt strategy, the right actions could net you thousands in either better diversification or better tax treatment.
But what’s the biggest to do? I gotta wash my hands more often. And maybe also tell Joe’s mom to throw out that last batch of stew I made have accidentally put my little spoon back in the pot after I tasted it. Ooh. Thanks to Dr. Issa Lewis and Dr. Adara Landry for joining us today. You can find their book Microskills Anywhere Books are Sold.
We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. The show is The Property of SP podcasts, LLC, copyright 2024, and is created by Joe Salhi. Our producer is Karen Reine. This show is written by Lisa Curry, who’s also the host of the Long Story Long podcast. With help from me, Joe Kate Yakin, Karen Reine, and Doc G from the Earn and Invest podcast, Kevin Bailey helps us take a deeper dive into all the topics covered on each episode in our newsletter called the 2 0 1.
You’ll find the 4 1 1 on All Things Money at the 2 0 1. Just visit Stacking Benjamins dot com slash 2 0 1. Wonder how beautiful we all are. Of course you do, but you’ll never know if you don’t. Check out our YouTube version of the show Engineered by Tina Eichenberg. Then you’ll see once and for all that I’m the best thing going for this podcast.
Once we bottle up all this goodness, we ship it to our engineer, the amazing Steve Stewart. Steve helps the rest of our team sound nearly as good as I do right now. Wanna chat with friends about the show later? Mom’s friend Gertrude Stacey Doe and Julia Gar are our social media coordinators, and Gertrude is the room mother in our Facebook group called The Basement.
So say hello when you see us posting online to join all the basement fun with other stackers, type Stacking Benjamins dot com slash basement. For more interactive fun, join us on Instagram every Tuesday and Thursday for our Instagram lives. Kate Yakin and Joe Host those weekly. Not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know.
This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s Neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.
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