Want to crush your goals and avoid getting crushed by long-term care costs? In today’s episode of The Stacking Benjamins Show, Joe Saul-Sehy and OG are joined by Retired Lieutenant Commander Gary McDermott, a former U.S. Navy officer turned business coach, who brings military-grade discipline to the world of goal-setting and financial success.
Whether you’re working toward a promotion, launching a side hustle, or just trying to stay on track past February, Gary shares a field-tested, civilian-approved approach to achieving your biggest financial and personal milestones. From defining SMART goals to building sustainable habits and multiple income streams, this conversation is all about real results—no fluff, no buzzwords.
But that’s just the first mission. In the second half, Joe and OG dive into one of retirement’s trickiest topics: long-term care insurance. Is it worth it? When should you buy it? How do you know if it’s right for your situation? Consider this your tactical briefing before walking into a battle you didn’t know you were fighting.
You’ll also hear:
- Why borrowing someone else’s goals is a recipe for burnout.
- The power of structure and accountability (no drill sergeant required).
- What “Trump Accounts” are and why you might want to know about them.
- How to evaluate long-term care coverage before it sneaks up on your plan.
- Joe’s high-speed review of the new Formula One movie (spoiler: he’s not drafting behind the popcorn).
Packed with tactical advice, unexpected laughs, and practical strategies, this episode delivers a full-stack toolkit for Adventurers looking to thrive—financially and personally—in the second half of 2025 and beyond.
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Wednesday Mentor: Gary MacDermid
Big thanks to Gary MacDermid for joining us today. To learn more about Gary, visit garymacdermid.com. Grab yourself a copy of the book Set Your Own Goals-Or Someone Else Will: How to Overcome Self-Limiting Beliefs and Get Things Done
Our Headline
Doug’s Trivia
- What artificial organ did the voice of Walt Disney’s Tigger receive a patent for on today’s date in history?
Better call Saul…Sehy & OG
- Stacker Bonnie is turning 55 next month (happy birthday!) and has questions about getting long-term care insurance as a late starter in retirement planning.
Have a question for the show?
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Other Mentions
Join Us Friday!
Tune in on Friday for a fun episode when we’ll examine one blogger’s take on how to waste your life on stupid stuff!
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: Mid-Year Financial Reset: Key Takeaways from the First Half of 2025 (SB1708)
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] opener: Proud your dad. Bring out your dad. What? I’m not dead. What? Nothing. Use your nine foots. I’m not dead. Yeah, he says he is not dead. Yes he is. I’m not. He isn’t. Well, he will be soon. He is very ill. I’m getting better. No you’re not. You’ll be stone dead in a moment. Oh, I can’t take him like that. It’s against regulations. [00:00:29] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:00:42] Doug: I’m Joe’s Mom’s Neighbor, Doug. And how about we set some goals and actually achieve them? Today we have the perfect mentor for the job, former Naval Officer Gary McDermott. Plus we’ll answer a question from one stacker who thought, you know, I’d better call sa. See hi N og. Bonnie wonders about long-term care insurance, especially for people who started late working toward financial independence. [00:01:08] Doug: Then don’t you worry because I’ll also share some of my heartwarming trivia. And now two guys who’ve mastered the art of turning compound interest into compound happiness. Oh my God. It’s Joe and oh, [00:01:31] Joe: and I’m super happy that you’re here with us. Happy Wednesday everybody. Welcome back to the Stacky Benjamin Show. Sit back and relax. You found us. We are about to have well, an hour that hopefully changes everything for you ’cause you’re about to set some goals. Maybe you open up your notes app on your phone, take out a piece of paper, get ready to actually play along. [00:01:50] Joe: It’s funny, og, when I first talked to Gary, he’s in the middle of describing like good goal setting. And even though we’ve heard this stuff before, Gary, because he lived it in the Navy and in the [00:02:02] OG: Navy, oh, sorry. [00:02:04] Joe: And he’s coached multimillion dollar businesses how to do this. It’s so funny. I’m like, why am I not doing this more often? [00:02:11] Joe: Right. What the heck’s going on? But how are you [00:02:12] OG: man? [00:02:13] Joe: How’s your [00:02:14] OG: week going? Going great. I’m uh, on a plane to Vegas right now recording this, so, uh, gonna just go spend all the, uh, all the big bannerman money. Sadly. No. This is a work trip. So not, uh, no, no casino time, no nothing. This is purely, purely work related. [00:02:33] Joe: I always love the idea of Vegas work trip though. [00:02:37] OG: Yeah. Well I didn’t pick the location and, uh, uh, Vegas work trip July 15th. Oh, sounds even better, doesn’t it? [00:02:46] Joe: Maybe a hard pass. Yeah. Oh man. I was not in [00:02:49] OG: charge of the destination, unfortunately. [00:02:51] Joe: Well, today, two big topics. Uh, we talked, uh, Doug explained early on that we are gonna talk long-term care later in the episode. [00:02:59] Joe: But first [00:02:59] trailer: sweet [00:03:00] Joe: Gary McDermott is just an amazing human being. Worked for the Navy. We’ll get into why and how he got into the Navy and it really wasn’t his choice as much as it could have been. Don’t get me wrong, nobody, he wasn’t pressed into service like the British used to do. Just, Hey, you’re coming with us, where are we going? [00:03:20] Joe: Uh, you’ll be back in a couple of years, maybe none of that. But he definitely just kinda life on autopilot when he woke up and goes, wait a minute, I need to change the trajectory of my life or somebody else’s. I. I’m always gonna be playing by somebody else’s rules. If you think about that, we’re all playing by somebody else’s rules. [00:03:36] Joe: A good part of the time, Hey, I need this from you, I need this, I need this. We’re helping everybody else with their priorities. Why not focus on your own? Especially after listening to Monday’s episode, there’s so many big things that we need to work on ourselves that I thought today’s a great way to have. [00:03:51] Joe: Gary help us kick off the second half of 2025. Gary though, originally became famous because he was a star of Amazon Primes Speak Up series, so you can go to Amazon Prime, you could see Gary give the talk. Gary also then wrote a book about goal setting, and we’re gonna go through Gary’s strategy to help you set goals today. [00:04:17] Joe: So Gary McDermott coming up next, but before that we have a couple of sponsors who help make sure that you don’t have to pay anything for this and we get to keep on keeping on. So I. Uh, we’re gonna hear from the people that help us go. And then Gary McDermott, you, stackers and I, we are going to dive into how to set better goals. [00:04:47] Joe: A and I am super happy. This guy’s helping us kick off these eight weeks. Gary McDermott’s here. How are you, man? Doing [00:04:53] Gary: great, Joe. How about you? [00:04:55] Joe: I’m fantastic. You know, my goal was to get a kick ass guest to kick off these eight weeks, and we got one Andy’s gonna talk goal setting. How about that? Huh? Well, it’s an important topic [00:05:06] Gary: and, uh, happy [00:05:07] Joe: to help. [00:05:07] Joe: Let’s start off with your service. When did you decide to go into the service? [00:05:13] Gary: Well, that, that’s kind of why we talk about goal setting, right? Because my story is, is I, I didn’t know how to set my goals and in fact, I. It was never a choice or a goal for me to join the service. Uh, it was just by chance that as a senior in high school, my father woke me up, uh, middle of the, the school year, and he basically said, son, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. [00:05:37] Gary: The bad news is that there’s, uh, no money for college. But the good news is I have a plan, get in the car. He had a goal for me, which was that if I were to join a military, you know, whatever the branch was, that the money for college issue would kind of go away. And that was how I joined and, and, and why I joined. [00:05:58] Gary: I did get a little bit of a luxury of, you know, he, he told me when he opened the door to the recruiting station, he said, you got Army, Navy, air Force, and Marines. I, I recommend Navy so you could see the world. So I guess you could say I had a goal of joining the Navy. [00:06:13] Joe: Wow. So literally, hey. But, but, uh, the good news is get in the car. [00:06:19] Joe: Like right now, like when this plan came together, it was, we’re doing this right now [00:06:23] Gary: and he must have had the plan for some time. I’m hoping it wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction, but that’s just the way it felt for me. Um, especially to, you know, within a few hours your whole life changes. Right. [00:06:37] Joe: That’s incredible. [00:06:38] Joe: And so you quote chose the Navy, but it was on a recommendation from a guy who’d raised you. So were you gonna go against dad’s recommendation for the Navy? [00:06:48] Gary: You can kind of see why the title of the book is set Your Own Goals or someone else will. [00:06:54] Joe: Well, and what’s funny about that, Gary, you know, when you think about it, somebody does every day, right? [00:06:59] Joe: And you point this out to us, which is that your boss tells you to do something. If you’re great at your job, you go do it. If you’re married in a relationship and your significant other, your spouse tells you to do something and you’re, you know, you wanna be good at relationships, you do it. A friend asks you to to do something, you go do it. [00:07:19] Joe: We spend most of our time, you point out at, at the far end of the stick of somebody else’s goals. [00:07:26] Gary: And, and that’s exactly what, just a few instances you mentioned, right. You know, significant other, the boss, uh, I mean it’s, if you really drill down on it, you really ask yourself. And that’s what I had to do. [00:07:38] Gary: Right. Like, I never thought of it. It’s commonplace. So, you know, I, I never personally thought of goal setting other than achieving something like you’re in the military, you know, there’s a task at hand. You, you do the task. I was 16 when I started working. I was working in a diner and a lot of the times, even the manager that was leading me, I. [00:07:58] Gary: May not have really set goals, but I knew what had to be done. So it’s like those goals, were they set by me? Were they set by the manager? Were the, was it just common sense? I don’t know, but I try to get the job done and I’d get it done at high levels and never really thought for myself independently that I could create something, do something of my own volition. [00:08:16] Joe: Well, and this is something else you point out when you talk about getting the job done at a high level, you were operating nuclear reactors. Is my understanding why you were in the Navy. Is that correct? [00:08:27] Gary: Yeah, I’ve done a lot of startup reactors, startups and shutdowns. I’ve, I’ve done high stress evolutions, so yes, I was operating nuclear. [00:08:36] Joe: Yeah. So you can be fantastic at what you do. You can be somebody with a ton of knowledge and yet. When you left the Navy goal setting was incredibly, incredibly difficult still because you’ve been taking, you’ve been taking orders from somebody else and you point out that it, that’s not just you, that’s a lot of successful people who have a very difficult time setting their own goals. [00:08:59] Gary: Well, e even getting out of the Navy, there’s head hunters that target people like me. So when it was like, okay, I need to get a job. Uh, how do I even do that? Right. And then the headhunters, they do it for you. Like they have their own goals because, you know, for whatever economic reason, they’re in the business of placing me in a position. [00:09:17] Gary: You’d be surprised, like, I guess I was qualified for five. I mean so many different, I, I was interviewing for an agricultural company, a pump manufacturing company. There was at least five or so that I did before I just said, you know, enough’s enough. There was a nuclear position and I just took that. [00:09:33] Joe: When did you, I don’t know, is is, do you think wake up is the right term? [00:09:37] Joe: Like when do you, when did you go, wait a minute, I’m on this conveyor belt helping all these different people with different stuff. I’m making good money, but this is not really what I wanna be doing. Do, do you remember, was there a like a point you’re in a coffee shop and you go, what the hell am I doing? [00:09:50] Joe: Or in the shower one day or, well, I [00:09:52] Gary: don’t, it’s hard to say if there was like a turning point, so to speak. I mean, there was a lot of trajectory or a lot of a series of events, if you will, that happened to get me to, uh, come to that part of it had to do with, um, just lifestyle. So when you look at, like, when I started looking at this stuff, you know, afterwards and looking back, right? [00:10:15] Gary: It’s like when you start looking at things like ideal life, right? Like, what does that mean? I mean, if, if you never even think about it, you don’t know what that is. You wake up every day. When I was in the Navy, you know, you wake up, you execute the mission, and the mission might be different every day. In the military, I was away from friends and family a lot, and I didn’t sleep. [00:10:34] Gary: It’s high speed, there’s little downtime, there’s always something that needs to get done and, and you’re always like a year behind. And the nuclear field, it was much to the same. I started getting a little bit of burnout and then when you get burnout, you’re having to restart, you’re moving all over the country, you’re basically reinventing yourself with new friends every time, and you’re disconnected from your old friends and your family. [00:10:58] Gary: The sleep deprivation was the tough part. So you start to get burned out and then you start to question, you know, the longevity and, and so for me, I started worrying, you know, what happens if something happens to me? Like, how long can I go doing this stuff with little sleep and no rest and no life, so to speak. [00:11:17] Gary: You know, if you just think of burnout, does it happen like, and then you just crash and burn or does it happen over time? So that stress just built up over time when I started to have to look for solutions. And so it’s not like something that happens ever once, it’s just I’m starting to figure out solutions and what do I do? [00:11:33] Gary: And that was what took me forward. [00:11:35] Joe: Is that really step one in the process of getting on track, Gary, for where you want to go? Is it looking down the road and seeing where do these railroad tracks even lead me? [00:11:46] Gary: So I, I think, um, you know, whether it’s step one, you know, whether it was my step one or it should be a step one, I think it, it really, knowing what I know now, it’s like the step one should just be for anybody, you know, just do a quick sanity check of where you are and, and just kind of make sure that there’s alignment and where you are and what you feel. [00:12:08] Gary: What your belief system is. That’s what I never did, never knew how to do. And so I really just believe that step one is, is to just reset for a minute. Just look at the present moment and analyze and, and just see what your alignment is, what you know. It’s like a compass, right? What is your alignment and are you being pulled or are you, you know, at zero gravity? [00:12:27] Gary: That’s really the step one, and that’s what I wish I had known. [00:12:30] Joe: And it’s funny because you do say that, listen, sometimes being pulled is not a bad thing, but being pulled all the time when you’re not doing your own thing, you’re not chasing your own goals. It becomes incredibly difficult. And like you mentioned, it’s easy to get burnout. [00:12:45] Joe: You, you have a more in depth 10 step self-assessment that you walk people through. I’m gonna use the one that you, that you use later in the book, which is a five step simpler version and how you answered these questions. But I think our stackers can go through these as well. Gary, number one, do you like what you’re doing? [00:13:09] Joe: So when you talk about gravity, do you actually like the thing that you’re doing? What was your answer to that question? On a scale of one to 10, did you like what you were doing? [00:13:18] Gary: Uh, depend on the time that you ask me, but if I just take it at its simplest value, the answer was probably close to a zero. [00:13:26] Gary: And, and just the caveat, right? Like the reason why I would’ve put it at a zero was because when you’re not sleeping, I. You’re not getting taken care of physically and mentally in the position that you’re in. It’s almost like you’re a race car driver that never gets arrest. It’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. [00:13:44] Gary: It’s, it’s like that fight or flight response of just always having to perform, always having to deliver and be perfect. That is the only reason that I would do zero, because if the basic needs were taken care of, like I had adequate sleep and I had, um, you know, a little bit of, of downtime and some of that stuff, I, I probably would never have noticed and we’d never be having this conversation because I could have been in a nine. [00:14:05] Gary: So just, that’s why it’s so powerful. [00:14:08] Joe: And it’s funny, even as you talk, it almost is a blessing for you that you were a zero because you were able to then reset completely to the thing that you wanna do, which I wanna bring up here in a second. But question two, why are you doing what you do? Your answer. I don’t know. [00:14:26] Joe: So you gave it, you gave that a zero. On a scale of one to 10, why did you choose that job? Again, I didn’t. My dad did. Zero outta 10. Was it related to something you wanted to do? Answer no. Zero outta 10. And was it because of something somebody else thought that you should do? Yes. It was answer zero outta 10. [00:14:50] Joe: And you remark that only 20% of people actually set their own goals and 70% of those people fail to achieve them. And, and it’s funny, Gary, the second half of that, 70% of people fail to achieve their goals. Even of the 20% of people that set them. Okay, somebody goes through this and they go, Nope, I’m charting my own course. [00:15:10] Joe: It’s just not going well. Why do we fail to achieve the goals that we set even if we get that far? [00:15:17] Gary: There’s so many different reasons why people can fail at their goals. I mean, it, it could really just start from. Did you actually have a clear goal to begin with? You know, I was actually talking to my son the other day about a goal and it’s like, do you describe it? [00:15:32] Gary: Like how do you even describe it? What does it look like if it’s in your head? Like, can you write it down and tell somebody? So having the clarity of the goal and having it be specific, measurable, you know, achievable, relevant, time sensitive. If you put those concepts around the goal and you have a real goal, then it’s just execution. [00:15:54] Gary: What I found is a lot of people that I’ve worked with or had these conversations with, it’s that their goal may not have, you know, it was kind of borderline a dreamer. It was never really achievable because they never took the time to actually get the clarity of what does that end state look like. [00:16:11] Joe: What drove me crazy when I was a financial planner, to your point with your son Gary, was when somebody would tell me what their goal is and it would start off with, I’d like to. [00:16:22] Joe: It had kind of this someday quality to it, which you and I know what meant This goal was a non-starter. It was going nowhere. If your goal starts with, I’d like to, uh, yeah, no thank you. It’s gotta be stronger than that. How do we lock the goal down then to begin getting it? I think you mentioned that there’s some language around the goals that we first need to understand. [00:16:45] Gary: Right. And that’s a format I actually learned from, you know, the Navy and nuclear power. We use it a lot for our actions. Like, so if there’s a meeting and somebody’s gotta do something, we use that smart acronym. I just took that as an easy way to explain, setting a goal for somebody that may not understand how to take something that’s in the fourth dimension. [00:17:08] Gary: Write it down on a piece of paper so that it’s executable and bring it into reality. [00:17:13] Joe: And I think that’s, uh, this step is where I see people I. People go, yeah, okay. Goal setting. This is where they don’t get it. Is that it’s always a, I’d like to, well, someday we might. Well, you know, I really think that it’d be fun to, but taking that and making reality. [00:17:28] Joe: People do use this language and I love how you get into the different language around goal setting. They use these terms, vision, mission, purpose, values. Like, let’s walk through these for a second. This shared language, what’s the difference between a vision and your mission? Like, we hear the term mission statement that a company will have. [00:17:49] Joe: We hear that a company has a vision or somebody’s got a vision board. What’s the difference between mission and vision? [00:17:54] Gary: I just like to look at it in terms of, um, the military background and then, you know, other folks will apply it to entrepreneurship, but we always had some sort of vision that was like, where are we going? [00:18:07] Gary: What does that end state look like In the Navy, we, you’re gonna execute a plan, right? So there’s the commander’s intent or the vision, so to speak. And then for the mission is like, how are we gonna start executing so that if the vision is forward looking and it’s like, you know, this is where we we’re gonna be, and how do I get everything that we have, all of our assets, all of our troops, and step through the actions or develop the mission to be able to get to that end state. [00:18:36] Gary: That’s the way that I always understand it, but depending upon who I’m explaining to, if it’s an entrepreneur or if it’s a business owner, might be different than how I might explain it to somebody that’s, you know, maybe it’s a, a weightlifting student or, uh, somebody that wants to be an engineer. But that’s the easiest way because that was my first exposure to the concept was in the Navy following the commander’s intent, and then just breaking it down to the mission and then executing tasks through a workforce. [00:19:05] Joe: I’ve talked a lot about on this show, Gary, I get coaching from a group called Strategic Coach. And in Strategic Coach, it’s funny, as you are talking about this, I’m thinking. Strategic coach has us do this all the time. Where do I wanna be as an end state and actually write that down. What, what? What does the vision look like? [00:19:24] Joe: You know, we talked about, we have it in our head, it’s kind of nebulous. The fact of writing it down, just, I don’t know what it is about your brain. That tactile response of, now I wrote it down and it’s in front of me now it becomes that much more real. They would have us do two things, and I think you’d find this fascinating. [00:19:42] Joe: They’d have us write down, if we do this well, this is what it looks like. If we do this, really, this is what it looks like. And even writing down the vision that we get if we don’t do it sometimes for some people, that cattle prod Gary was really important. Like going, no, if I don’t do this, if I do it wrong, if I mess it up, this is what happens. [00:20:08] Joe: And it kind of raises the stakes on you so that you take the whole process seriously. [00:20:12] Gary: It’s an important subtle detail that many people are unwilling to do. And I don’t consider myself a professional coach that does that all the time, but over the course, I’ve had a lot of people ask me to help them and mentor them. [00:20:27] Gary: And this is sometimes, uh, one of those breaking points where if you’re unwilling to write that down and like hold yourself accountable and take, you know, make it real, like those things, it’s almost like a, a showstopper. I can’t do it. And, and just like when you started, when you speak and you’ve baked in all those self living beliefs, like it would be nice to, I’d like to, those are things that I try to change right away. [00:20:51] Gary: And, and that first step, write it down, make it real like there’s, there’s power in that. It’s scientific brain science. Do you tell other [00:20:58] Joe: people or do you not tell other people? I. About your goal? [00:21:02] Gary: I tell people about my goals and a lot of times me telling somebody helps make it a little bit more real because in the past I might’ve been afraid to tell somebody, but then that’s putting a limiting psychology. [00:21:16] Gary: Like if I’m afraid or if I, if I don’t wanna share it. So like to the point of articulating it, right? If I’m able to articulate the clear goal, then it also allows me to get some feedback, constructive feedback. It also really opened up naysayers. Which, which is [00:21:32] Joe: well, and that’s why I ask, ’cause you and I know there’s these well-meaning people out there, right? [00:21:36] Joe: Parents, relatives, and they don’t wanna see you get hurt and they go, oh Gary, you’ve got a good job right now. Why would you go off and do X, Y, Z? Why would you go take that chance? I don’t think I would do that. [00:21:49] Gary: And that’s absolutely what happened to me and it’s absolutely the reason why it delayed me and it delayed me in, in achieving my, you know, my first goal when I wanted to become an entrepreneur. [00:22:00] Gary: Free myself officially from the, uh, you know, you know, the W2 workforce. I shared that goal and it was pretty, I, this was a goal that I was writing down, you know, in the morning when I woke up and at night when I went to bed. It was very real to me. And when I shared it, I got so many naysayers, but at the same time, it also helped me deal with it because, and this is, you know, talking to a lot of successful folks, the more success you achieve, the more naysayers and and negativity there. [00:22:34] Gary: There’s people that will throw that at you. So it’s like, if I’m gonna put it out there, there’s also some level of constructive, like it’s real. I’m putting it out there, I’m sharing it, I’m accountable to my goal, I’ve committed to it. It also opens up for some constructive, so I just focus on the positive and it helps me better, you know, sometimes I’ll get some advice and, and you get better at just like a military. [00:22:53] Gary: So in the military, as a commander. Your job is really to make sure that you get the most UpToDate information, real time from all sources so that you can make the best decisions. By putting out your goals, you’re opening that invitation so that you can do exactly the same thing. You wanna get all of the information, some good, some bad, some, I just try to trick you. [00:23:15] Gary: Some is trying to help you and, and you sort through it and you make the best decision with what you have available. If you do it in a vacuum and you don’t put it out there, you, you can’t effectively do that. [00:23:26] Joe: That’s so important that you see some of the landmines before they come. Like these things that, well-meaning people are saying that are the naysayers. [00:23:34] Joe: You’re saying these are things that strangers are gonna throw at you in the future, so you got the opportunity to get ’em up front. [00:23:40] Gary: And it does help you to get that early access. Not to say that there’s sometimes that, you know, elements of the mission need to be covert and you may not wanna give, you know, the trade secret away. [00:23:48] Gary: But the concept of just sharing the goal, writing it down and putting it out to the world and putting that energy out there is, is an important part of the process. [00:23:59] Joe: Walk us through, you mentioned smart goals. I think a lot of our stackers have heard of smart goals before, but then Gary, we always talk about, okay, you’ve heard of it. [00:24:07] Joe: Yeah, that’s neat. Are you actually doing it? And there’s a big difference between people that have heard something and people that are actually doing the thing. I think it’s well worth our time to dust these off and walk through what a smart goal actually looks like. How do these five steps work? [00:24:24] Gary: So when you think of the smart goal and you think of the acronyms that we’re about to go through, look at the end state and ask yourself, how would you portray the path to that end state? [00:24:37] Gary: So that somebody can understand it and follow the path. And that’s essentially what the smart goal is. If you have the end state and it’s in your mind and, and it’s gonna be achievable. So it has to be specific, like what is it, are we talking about? If you wanna be healthy, you know, what does that look like? [00:24:56] Gary: That’s different for everybody. But if I say I want to have, if you use weight or you use something that’s measurable, so something specific, you know, because healthy is not specific. So if we’re talking about, you know, your lipid panel, maybe you want total cholesterol, whatever that is, you gotta put the specifics on it. [00:25:14] Gary: Then it’s gotta be measurable. So if it’s. Your definition, the healthy is having the low cholesterol because you’re breaking something that you had to do. Or if it’s weight, whatever that is, you know, body, fat, B, c, a, whatever, measurement. And, and the point of this is not to say that one measurement is better than the other. [00:25:31] Gary: It’s just take something that’s ambiguous. Like, I wanna be healthy, I wanna be in the best shape of my life. Right? You have to at least set something so that you could, ’cause how do you know if you’re improving? I feel better. Like how do you measure that? Right? So to show progress and also to paint the picture so that you can do it. [00:25:47] Gary: Anybody else could do it. You know, start with something, make it specific, make it measurable. So like we talked about with the health achievable, right? Like, do you wanna run the three minute mile? So it, it has to be achievable. And, and so that’s, if you’re serious about it, you may wanna talk to some experts in the field or of whatever it is. [00:26:07] Gary: Like if you’re gonna write a book or if, if you’re looking at a business, maybe talking to somebody, like you mentioned Strategic Coach. Talk to an expert is the goal that if you’re setting a revenue goal for a company, you know, is that revenue goal achievable? It’s really about defining that end state. [00:26:21] Gary: Looking at specific, measurable, achievable, you know, is, is the goal relevant to the vision? If the vision is here, sometimes you have some goals and, and there might be a bigger plan, so you wanna make sure that there’s alignment there. And then, um, time sensitive. That’s where you take, I’d like to, and you say, I will accomplish this in the next three months, or by December 31st of this year, we will have done this. [00:26:48] Gary: And then it’s specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time sensitive. [00:26:52] Joe: I found some people, Gary, that uh, I’ve met and worked with back when I was a financial planner, would set smart goals and they still wouldn’t achieve them, which is why I really like this next. Hack that you bring to the table, which is don’t stop there. [00:27:13] Joe: Build milestones in to reaching these goals. Can you talk about setting milestones toward the goals and then really what points are good to do that and how do we evaluate the milestone? [00:27:25] Gary: Right, right. So the way that I figured this for myself and, and have explained it to others is you have the goal. Now that you have the end state and it’s measurable and it’s smart, then that’s when you can work backwards and sort of set the milestones or the targets. [00:27:40] Gary: If you’re in a business and you’re setting a a revenue goal, well, you gotta work backwards into that. Like take a medical clinic, right? There’s a revenue goal to hit that goal. How does one do that? So if you’re talking to the team that’s gonna implement it. You do have to work backwards. So if patients produce revenue, well, how many patients need to come through the door on a month, over month basis? [00:28:04] Gary: What’s the mix? Do you have existing patients that normally come in and then now you need to get new patients? Because if the base load or the existing patients is, you know, only 50% of your revenue goal, that means you need 50% new patients. So we need to work backwards to see what the recipe is to hit the goal. [00:28:24] Gary: And so that’s what these targets or these milestones would be. And, and you wanna be careful in setting ’em. So if you wanna read so many books a year, you could divide the number of days and figure out the average page of a book, right? And so what, what, what you’re trying to do, and this goes back to is it achievable? [00:28:40] Gary: So maybe you need two people to read the books and one person to like dict. Like, the point is, once you’ve got that goal. And part of the reason that it’s achievable is because of this test. So now you wanna set the target in such a way that in your weakest day or your weakest time period, that milestone is achievable. [00:29:00] Gary: Because if you say that you’re gonna read five pages a day in the book versus I’m gonna read 50 pages a day in the book, because both could put you in line with your goals. What is that sweet spot where in your weakest day when everything unplanned happened that you still wanna do that? And, and if the the period is it could be a day or it could be a week, your busiest week, your toughest week, you still wanna hit that target. [00:29:27] Gary: So that’s the way that I look at the milestones is let’s take the goal, let’s work backwards and translate. The recipe into an active milestone. So for a clinic, it could be, you know, number of new patients to get the number of new patients. That means I need to do 50 sales calls a day, or, or whatever that is. [00:29:45] Gary: Or I need to sponsor one event, or I need to send an email to this, this many people, and you know, those conversion rates for each one of these channels. Then you can set the activity target. Okay, so I’m gonna do this many emails, I’m gonna do this many calls, I’m gonna do this many in-person visits, the books, right? [00:30:04] Gary: I’m gonna read this many pages a day. So whatever the goal is, there is a path. And so my mentor shared with me, you know, the win is in the activity. So focus on the activity, set the target or the milestone and honor that. And then the results and the goal will come. [00:30:23] Joe: Take care of themselves. You know, it’s so powerful because I feel like you’ve got your hand right on the drivers for the goal. [00:30:32] Joe: When you have these milestones and you also, you see the course going the wrong way. So much quicker. Just so, so much quicker. When I was a financial planner using these mini milestones with my client, like looking at, we would have this retirement goal that’s way off in the distance, Gary. You’re 33 years old and we’re talking about accumulating $3 million or $4 million and you have maybe a hundred thousand dollars saved, and you’re like, this seems impractical. [00:30:59] Joe: Like there’s no way. But you know, when you look at compounding interest and what they were doing, they could actually be on target for the goal. So looking at these huge ass numbers way in the distance didn’t work. But when I said six months from now we have to go from a hundred thousand to 104,000 or 105,000, whatever that number is, they’re saving money and the market’s working for them or not working for them, we find that we’re off just a little bit and we can then make these much, much better decisions. [00:31:32] Joe: I feel like this type of goal setting gives you so much more control than if you just say, someday I’m gonna be healthy. [00:31:38] Gary: And it absolutely does. I mean this, what we’re talking about here is, is how multimillion dollar construction budgets and, and nuclear. Operations are, are done too. And, and so I just remember from my time in the Navy that these stoplight charts or these dashboards were built for admirals because they would track all these different goals and metrics all the way from the strategic level to the tactical level down to the individual ship level, right? [00:32:06] Gary: So we’re just putting a framework so that we can track one goal, 50 goals, however many goals in align with a, a project, a vision, and giving us the tool to be able to monitor and then assess. So if everything’s green and then you see one turn yellow put in the recovery plan and then never get read. And so that’s really, you know, the science. [00:32:29] Gary: And then it’s just the art of how do we explain it or how do we teach it to the folks because it’s not something that, like for me, I, I, I needed somebody to teach me or I needed to learn it. [00:32:40] Joe: Yeah. Let’s talk just two quick things here on the end. We can have great goals. We can set them scientifically. We can put the milestones in place and yet, as you know Gary, sometimes we still get in our own way. [00:32:53] Joe: First one, I think for me is always fear. I dunno if it’s fear of success, fear of failure, fear of whatever. How do I work through that, that fear? [00:33:05] Gary: Uh, that’s a tough one. A lot of this I get from the Navy, the Navy planning process. However, if I were just to take the five steps that I came up with to explain this and gave it to myself, it’s easy to use myself as opposed to anybody else, I’ll own this. [00:33:20] Gary: So if I were to have taken those five steps and given it to me 15 or 20 years ago, I would not have been able, and I told myself, you know, you’re gonna start your own company. You’re gonna have a portfolio of companies. These are the five steps you need. Set the goal. I wouldn’t have been able to do it. [00:33:34] Gary: That has to do with what I say is the mindset I. For me, the toughest part about setting the goals for myself, you know, I, I had no problem, you know, executing a mission, but for my own self, I got in the way. Why is that? It’s because, you know, when I was doing it for the military or for other folks, they believed in me. [00:33:56] Gary: You know, they knew I could do it because they’ve seen what I could do. But when I came for myself, I didn’t believe in myself. I had to go through some powerful mindset shifts. I, I break it down. There were three mindset shifts that I had to make. I know that even though I had the process in a way to execute goals, I wouldn’t have been able to execute the big, hairy, audacious goals. [00:34:16] Gary: I had enough self-limiting beliefs and mindset issues that I wouldn’t have been able to do it for myself. [00:34:21] Joe: That’s so frustrating. Is it the same with procrastination? Is that a similar barrier, or is procrastination a whole different, different mindset issue? [00:34:30] Gary: I think it can be related because when we talk about like, I’d like to, or I’ll do that when I, that’s my favorite one. [00:34:36] Gary: Like, I’ll do that after I, or I’ll do that when this happens. Right. So, you know, there’s procrastination. That could be just because of she laziness. And then there’s procrastination. That could be because you, you can’t figure out how to reprioritize your time or you you’re afraid. So you basically make up an excuse to say that you’ll do it later because something that is commonly accepted by anybody that you share with is gonna understand that that’s more important than you becoming an entrepreneur or you doing a goal that you actually wanna do. [00:35:11] Gary: I, I could see that as elements of both, and, and I think it’s kind of up to the person, you know, what, what camp did they fall in? But procrastination could easily be with how we started this. Right. The, I I like to, or one day. Right. Right. [00:35:27] Joe: We started off with visualizing that process number two. We talked a little bit about seeking counsel, your second step, third, working backwards setting targets. [00:35:37] Joe: Step four, writing it down, saying it out loud. Step five is finding a suitable accountability partner. Walk us through that step. Just briefly, and I know this is a long, it’s a long process, Gary, and there’s a lot of micro steps, but how do I begin on the trying to find a suitable accountability partner? [00:35:57] Gary: Yeah, so trying to find one. I think it’s just recognizing that we’re all human and we all make mistakes and, and so how do we find somebody that is like-minded? You know, at the right level that that can hold us accountable. And, and so it, it can be tough to find that in your own circle and you may even have to leave your comfort zone and go to a, a new event or a, you know, networking. [00:36:25] Gary: I mean, that’s been huge for me. The networking, I mean, one of my activity targets when I was growing the business was one networking event every week. Virtual or in person. When you start looking and understanding that we’re all going to make mistakes, how can I find somebody that would hold me accountable? [00:36:48] Gary: And, and, and there’s been times when I may have to hire somebody to do that. There’s times when it was natural and organic for a specific goal where somebody was trying to achieve the same thing and we were almost like side by side trying to do it. That can cause its own challenges if, uh, you know, to certain 0.1 surpasses or outgrows. [00:37:08] Gary: I start with mindset because it’s very important. So the first and foremost thing is you wanna find somebody with the right mindset. You know, positivity, no negativity. If you can’t find that, the, the odds are against it. So finding that one person, because when you find somebody that has that can-do attitude and is positive, no negativity policy, whatever they’re doing, they’re probably gonna be successful. [00:37:31] Gary: They may not be doing what you’re gonna be doing, but with that attitude and that mindset, they would make a great accountability partner. So that’s the first and foremost. And the second thing that I just try to do is just looking at something that’s synergetic or complimentary. Meaning what? Meaning, um, if I wanted to write the book. [00:37:51] Gary: It would be nice to have somebody that’s written a book or somebody that was an author. Ah, yeah. If I, if I want to, um, be an athlete, somebody that, it may not be like a professional, but it may be somebody that’s also healthy. If I’m working on a software company or if I’m working on developing a software, I, I may not be a programmer, but maybe there’s somebody in another business or there’s gotta be some common ground, so to speak. [00:38:15] Gary: Where Sure. Shared language almost. Yeah. Right. So that’s just, I, I think first and foremost, the no negativity policy. And then second, like, what is the common ground that we have? So even if we don’t have the, an identical goal, the way I look at it is if somebody is an accountability partner for me and holding me accountable to achieve something, is there something synergetic or complimentary that maybe I can also do to help them? [00:38:39] Gary: And that’s when it becomes a little bit more natural. So, like my accountability partner had a slightly different goal. When I first started with my real estate company, because the real estate company that he had was a completely different model, but the activity targets were the same. That was complimentary because we both had the same activity targets. [00:39:00] Gary: We had to make a certain number of calls or offers, so to speak, just different, different structure. But that complimentary of that synergy made it, you know, it was a battle rhythm. I, I get kind of used to the military analogies, but you know, you’re in that battle rhythm at the same time every day or the same time every week. [00:39:18] Gary: We’re we’re exchanging the call like, okay, did you do it [00:39:21] Joe: well? And that’s why people not watching the video. This didn’t see me smile when you said one networking meeting a week. There’s your smart goal right there. That’s part of a smart goal is setting, I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do it once a week. I’m gonna continue to do it. [00:39:33] Joe: Obviously over time, then you get better at it because you’re doing it every week and you get that Gary to use your words battle rhythm. The book is called Set Your Own Goals or someone else will. Clearly someone else does. Every minute that we do the thing that our boss asks us to do, we’re working on their goals. [00:39:51] Joe: And the subtitle is How to overcome Self-Limiting Beliefs and Get Things Done. And Gary, I’m assuming this is available everywhere. How do we get it [00:39:58] Gary: right? So set your goals, book dot ComCom and awesome Amazon. Um, set your own goals or someone else will, or my name Gary McDermott. But set your goals. [00:40:10] Gary: book.com is an easy way to find it. [00:40:14] Joe: And you know what, if you’re walking the dog or you’re on your commute, we have you covered stackers. We’ll have links to all those places on our show notes at stacky Benjamins dot com. Gary, thank you for helping us kick off this eight weeks and help people set goals as we make our way through the, the last half of summer and into the fall. [00:40:31] Joe: I appreciate you very much. Thank you too for your service, by the way. [00:40:34] Gary: Oh, well thank you. I, I appreciate the opportunity to be a part of your show and, and look forward to, uh. Setting goals and having your audience achieve them. [00:40:48] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Duggan. Let’s talk multiple streams of income, shall we? Sometimes it’s easy to make more money because a new project pops up that’s related to the current project and other times an idea strikes you right outta left field. The latter was the case for voice actor Paul Winchell, who among other things was the voice of digger in Walt Disney’s version of Winnie the Pooh. [00:41:11] Doug: But Winchell took part in some scientific efforts that hopefully made a millions, because it helped save a ton of lives. In what may be the weirdest sentence I’ve ever said, answer this question. What artificial organ did the voice of Walt Disney’s Tigger receive a patent for On today’s date in history, I’ll be back right after I practice my bouncing. [00:41:33] Doug: Maybe Tigger has something there. It’s pretty fun. [00:41:45] Doug: Hey there stackers. I’m fun lover, but guy who jiggles too much when he bounces. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. The character Tigger was a huge part of aa Milton’s classic, Winnie the Poo Tails and actor Paul Winchell brought Tigger to life with his iconic voice, but it wasn’t his voice that helped save tons of lives. [00:42:04] Doug: Today’s question is this. What artificial organ did Winchell receive a patent for on this day in history back in 1963? If you said an implantable artificial heart, he’d be correct. How about some more weird history? He developed the artificial heart with the assistance of Henry Heimlich. Yep, the same inventor of the famous anti-icing Heimlich maneuver. [00:42:29] Doug: And now back to two guys who think finance is fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. Joe, NOG. [00:42:36] shout-out: Hey guys, this is Shane. And when I’m not chasing kids around, driving a tractor or scraping up horse shit, I’m Stacking Benjamins [00:42:47] Joe: big thanks to Gary for helping us out. Oh gee, it’s a hundred percent true. You’re always working on somebody’s goals. [00:42:55] Joe: Yeah. But you think about the amount of time you’re working on somebody else’s end game. It’s a big number. [00:43:01] OG: Yeah. I think when you pair that with what we were talking about on Monday in terms of, you know, risk and the reward and the components of building your own kind of financial independence, whether it’s real financial independence with money, but also financial independence in terms of time, independence and your work life balance, that sort of thing, absent your own. [00:43:23] OG: Vision of the future, absent your own, your own goals, you’re just marching to the beat of whatever drum is out there. It’s great if your goals line up with other people’s and you guys can all, everybody can kind of move in the right direction or the same direction with one another. But yeah, like you says, eventually you have to decide, is this the path that I wanna be on? [00:43:43] OG: And for how long, so did your dad take you down [00:43:45] Joe: to the recruiter’s [00:43:45] OG: office [00:43:46] Joe: one day blindly? You’ve went into the military? [00:43:49] OG: No, it wasn’t. I got the same message of we don’t have any money for college. But no, it was not, uh, here, jump in the car or I’ll show you the new plan. I chose it all on my own actually. [00:43:58] OG: I thought, uh, you know, the chicks would dig the dress blues. So that’s [00:44:02] Joe: what I went with. And man, when I was at the Citadel, I always thought that, uh, women would love that Citadel uniform. And they did, until those dudes from Paris Island showed up. In the Marine Corps stuff, and then you’re like, oh, I’m just a child. [00:44:18] Joe: I’m, I’m just a child. I don’t know about all that. Literally you’d be like, oh, there’s, there’s the badasses. Hey, uh, we got a very quick headline today, so let’s do this. [00:44:27] headlines: Hello doling. And now it’s time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamins headlines. [00:44:34] Joe: Headline today comes to us from Yahoo Finance. [00:44:36] Joe: Here’s how the new Trump accounts work and why financial experts don’t love them. Pretty soon, Americans will be the proud owner of their very own Trump account. This, uh, Yahoo Finance piece says, which they [00:44:46] OG: have yet to name. By the way, they’re not gonna, I [00:44:48] Joe: don’t think [00:44:49] OG: they’re gonna call it this. [00:44:50] Joe: Everybody’s calling it Trump accounts though. President Trump’s sprawling tax law creates a new tax advantage investment account pre-funded with a thousand dollars for each child, born from the beginning of 2025 to the end of 2028. Kids born before this year are eligible for the IRA style accounts, but they don’t get the thousand dollars of seed money. [00:45:09] Joe: So, uh, does this mean people gotta, people gotta get busy to get their a thousand bucks? Oh gee, we just, uh, get after it. Put some Barry White on there could be a thousand dollars there. The idea is backers say the accounts are a way to get all kids into saving and investing early in life, while helping them save for goals like college or a home. [00:45:28] Joe: You know, they say in the headline, financial experts don’t love these accounts. Do you like this account or not? [00:45:34] OG: I’ll be honest, I don’t know that I’ve spent a lot of time on looking into them a bunch. I love the idea of, uh, getting some free cash put into an account. Obviously somebody’s paying for it, so it’s not really free, it’s just transferring from somebody to another person. [00:45:50] OG: I guess the part that the parents have to decide on is, are they gonna add to it? The question becomes like, I mean, sure if I’ve maxed out all my other accounts and my kids’ five 20 nines are good and they all have brokerage accounts and, and, and, and, and, and, and I’m loaded and you’re gonna gimme another five grand I can put in this thing and the gross tax effort. [00:46:10] OG: Okay, cool. But I don’t know where it falls in the hierarchy of where I wanna put money. At some level, this is just money for my kids down the line, which is great, but my brokerage account is also money for my kids down the line, and I get all the control and the liquidity and I don’t have to wait till my kid’s 20 to take it out or whatever, you know what I mean? [00:46:29] OG: Like if I got five grand extra for my kids, I’m gonna put it in my account. Because I might need it before they need it, at least where I am in my life right now. [00:46:38] Joe: The only thing that I like about it is the thousand dollars. I think that if children get that money and, uh, seeded into the account, but I wish they, they couldn’t get the money until maybe 65. [00:46:54] Joe: If you look at all of the research that’s been done on, if you just give a kid a little bit of money when they’re first born and then they get a 65, our social security burden’s gonna be a hell of a lot less. Like the financial markets historically have taken care of that in a much, much better way than Social Security does. [00:47:10] Joe: So, yes. But then what would the government have to borrow [00:47:12] OG: against? Quiet. Do not pay attention to the smoke. Please, sir. [00:47:19] Joe: But we said this about the accounts that, uh, president Obama set up. I don’t think we need another account. Og. I mean it just, it’s more spaghetti, uh, just yet another account. Everything that you can do in these new Trump accounts or back in the Obama accounts is the same exact thing that you can do in an account. [00:47:43] Joe: Without this, the rules are kind of confusing. It’s a little bit of spaghetti. It’s just another thing. I’m also not a fan for all those reasons, although I love the thousand bucks. I wish it didn’t stop at 18, though. I wish it went to 65. [00:47:58] OG: Well, obviously I’m not gonna sit down and do the math on it in terms of inflation adjusting and all that other sort of stuff, but to kinda save everybody from having to do the math, basically, if you put $10,000 in an account and it grows at 8% for 65 years, you got about a million and a half bucks, adjust it up or down based on 9%, 10%, 7%, 6%, 10,000 going in, or 20,000 going in. [00:48:18] OG: To your point, think about all of the cost. All the money that go, if you’re trying to solve social security, I think all the money that goes into Social Security over your lifetime. And you just have to pull, you know, just go on ssa.gov, log into your own account and it tells you here’s how much you’ve paid in Social security taxes, here’s how much your employers have paid in Social security taxes and here’s your future benefit. [00:48:41] OG: And I happen to think Social Security pays out pretty good. I think it’s a pretty good ROI As long as you, you know, are alive to get it. Yeah, and that’s obviously the trade off. That’s how the math works for everybody, is that some people unfortunately don’t get their social security checks and they, you know, they don’t get any money they paid in their whole lifetime and they don’t get anything which feeds into the, like, I gotta get it at 62 Idea. [00:49:02] OG: Despite this, every single solitary study saying 70 is a better time to take it. But if you look at the total payout of social security right now, for a normal life expectancy person, whatever, it’s gonna be some number less than a million bucks, right? So, I mean, it’s still a lot of money. A million dollars, that’s a boatload of cash. [00:49:21] OG: But I’ve put in, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars of social security between me and my employers. Over the years you’ve done that. Everybody who’s 50 has done that. And it’s like, but for 10 grand, once I can get the same million five, like why wouldn’t, why wouldn’t the government go, well, this is a way better idea, way better idea. [00:49:39] OG: Like save hundreds of thousands of dollars of FICA taxes and just go, well, just when you’re born, we put 10 grand in. That’s your social security check. And when you turn 65 or you turn 70, or whatever it is, we run some sort of calculation. And oh, by the way, if you die along the way at 65 or whatever age, we’ll pay that out to your beneficiaries. [00:49:59] OG: Or we’ll use that. If you die young, we’ll use that as your seed capital for your kids, or you know, to help them or your family. If you live to be 150 and you’ve burned through your cash, that sucks. It’s like that’s the trade off, right? I mean, just that’s what we do. But solving social security is pretty easy for you and me, I think pretty difficult for, uh. [00:50:21] OG: Congresspeople due to their jobs being on the line. [00:50:24] Joe: I also like the fact different than the Obama plan, which was in treasuries, which I didn’t understand. Yeah. It’s gotta be invested in the market. It’s, yeah. This, this is invested in a broad stock index, but it, it just is one more thing. So I don’t know my advice, but it’s, it’s [00:50:36] OG: so why it’s like we’re like half doing this [00:50:38] Joe: stuff. [00:50:38] Joe: I know. You know what I mean? [00:50:39] OG: It does. It’s like, just do it. Like if you’re, Hey, this is a great idea. We’re gonna help people and help their da dah, dah, dah, dah for a thousand dollars. And it’s like, okay. I mean, it’s not zero. A thousand bucks over 20 years is gonna double twice or three times. So that’s three, four grand when the kid’s, 23 or four grand when I was 20 would’ve made a big difference in my life. [00:50:59] OG: No doubt about it. Absolutely. It would’ve, it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t have been a down payment on a house, but it would’ve helped ease the burden of college. And, you know, that’s not zero. It’s not like fixing anything, you know what I mean? It’s like just a little teeny tiny bandaid. Make it 65 that you can’t touch the money. [00:51:14] OG: Make it 10 grand that goes in and go. Well, okay, so now you’re good. Think about the, this is the bad side of it. Think about the economic impact of not having to save any money. No, you got a million and half dollars 65. Yeah, because you like, I don’t save anything, man. I’m good. Uh, I was a born of America. [00:51:31] OG: And back to that real consumerism argument right there. Yeah, exactly. You wanna see consumerism holding my beer? You’re gonna choose the economy. Give everybody a million and a half dollars. Uh, there’s no inflationary effects on that, so pay no attention to that either. [00:51:43] Joe: I’ll link to this piece at, uh, Yahoo Finance, but um, definitely take advantage of it. [00:51:47] Joe: Parents, if you have a child, I not [00:51:49] OG: get your 3000. I mean, I’m gonna have two or three more just to. Just to see. You guys should try. [00:51:54] Joe: Okay. Good news. We’re we’re gonna have some more kids. Great news, Cheryl. Boy, do [00:51:59] OG: I have a deal for you. You’re 55 years old and we’re getting back in the saddle. Every one of those things, I think you’re over that three year period. [00:52:06] OG: You’re good for four kids if we time it out. Exactly right. That’s $4,000. Just think about that. Think about that. When you’re, when you’re 70 hashtag blessed when [00:52:17] Joe: you’re 73 years old, they’re gonna be graduating from high school. Oh my goodness. Yeah. [00:52:23] OG: With three grand in their accounts to show for [00:52:26] Joe: 74 years old. [00:52:27] Joe: My, I can’t imagine time for our segment where a stacker realized. You know what? I better call Saul. See. Hi and og. If you’ve got a question for us, head to Stacking Benjamins dot com slash voicemail. And you can be as cool as stacker Bonnie is. Hey Bonnie. [00:52:47] caller: Hello gentlemen. My 55th birthday is next month, and I’m hoping you can gift to me some of your wisdom. [00:52:53] caller: What are your thoughts on long-term care insurance? If one is a late starter with retirement planning with low-ish retirement assets, and I’m not convinced I can amass the one plus million dollars, various tools suggest I need to pay for my care, should I live to be a hundred? Nor am I convinced I can work until I’m 70 without flipping a table. [00:53:12] caller: I’m definitely sure that should I get laid off at 55 in a knowledge management technology job, I would not get another job at this level. But retirement planning tools are incredibly conservative and I get very frustrated when I try to plant things out. They generally say You should stay in your job until you’re 70. [00:53:32] caller: Then live off your portfolio and then, you know, probably leave my daughter hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nah, I don’t wanna do that. I’m very proud of how I’ve clawed myself back from a number of setbacks. the.com bust affected me. I’m a single mom. The 2007 2008 crisis affected me. I lost a house and filed for bankruptcy. [00:53:56] caller: My real savings didn’t start until I was in my forties, but I now have 400,000 in investible assets. I’m a renter, but I have no debt. I’ve seen some things, I’m scrappy, but I would look to you to give me some advice. [00:54:10] Joe: Oh, Bonnie, before I give you any advice, congratulations. And that shows og. You can, you can get there. [00:54:16] Joe: I mean, from zero to 400,000 in that short amount of time. Nice. Nice, nice, nice, nice work. Yeah. She [00:54:22] OG: said she doesn’t think she’d get to a million. I would beg to differ. I think so too, but I mean, not gonna be to a million tomorrow, but it’s just a little bit over a double and a half away. That’s, I mean, between the amount she’s gonna put in seven years, eight years, 10 years, maybe. [00:54:36] OG: I bet you 10 years, you know, she can make it to 65. Might not be the vision she has, but long-term care [00:54:42] Joe: OG is Bonnie, not just for you and for late starters, long-term care just for everybody is the, that is the Achilles heel of the retirement plan. [00:54:51] OG: Yeah, I mean, so think about it this way. So what is long-term care first? [00:54:57] OG: How do I define it versus maybe if there’s a colloquial difference here. So I think of long-term care assistance is having somebody help you out when you’re unable to do some of the things you’re able to do right now. And that could be anything from. Twice a week, somebody shows up and just kind of checks in and makes sure there’s food in the fridge and you’re taking your medicine all the way to, you’re in a nursing home, the proverbial like long-term care facility and you have 24 7, 365 care. [00:55:29] OG: You know, it’s not one or either of those. It’s a spectrum of, of potential care needed. What we all wanna have happen is, uh, we all just wanna be really healthy and then go and we’re dead. You know, like, you know, and hopefully that happens at like 95 or something. That’s the dream come true. I think part of long-term care planning honestly, is thinking about the stuff when you were in your forties and fifties and going, what sort of health decisions do I need to be making so that I can have a better health life expectancy, not just a okay life expectancy and, you know, my health is declining. [00:56:00] OG: You know, like, you kind of think about that happens from 70 to 90 or something. I love the concept that Dr. Peter Attia, he’s not been on the show, but we should get him. He talks about the lost decade, right? The last 10 years of your life. You don’t want to have that be the sucky 10 years, you know, where just you’re just hanging around waiting to die. [00:56:17] OG: So a lot of that planning starts when you’re in your forties and fifties about making good health decisions. Okay, so on the insurance front, the way that I think about this is how much is the exposure that you have now and how much of it do you want to transfer to a third party, if any? ’cause it’s not about the money necessarily, it’s about what do you want to have happen if something happens to you that requires some level of assisted care. [00:56:44] OG: Again, all the way from every so often somebody shows up to 24 7, 365 memory care, right? And so we know a couple things. We know that the average cost of care is about 6,000 a month depending on where you are. That’s a little bit dynamic based on. Location and high cost living areas and that sort of thing. [00:57:03] OG: But a good rule of thumb is about 6,000 a month in today’s dollars. We know that that’s a medical cost, so that’s increasing at a rate greater than inflation. Um, we also know that statistically if you’re using a form of, uh, assisted care, and you probably need that for about 30 months on average. Now there’s plenty of examples of like, well, my grandpa was in a memory care facility for 12 years with Alzheimer’s. [00:57:26] OG: Yep, that’s true. And there’s plenty of examples of somebody who like went to a nursing home and was dead and weak, you know? So there’s all manner of of things there. You just have to think about an average number and, and, and work off of that. So if you just pencil that out and say, I need 30 months of 6,000 a month, it’s 200 grand. [00:57:44] OG: So if you had to write a check for 200,000, do you have it? And would you choose to spend it on that? Or what are the other things that happen? So if you are in a state, I think almost all states have this, they have certain levels of. Spend that’s required before they’re gonna start taking care of you. [00:58:01] OG: You’re not gonna end up on a, uh, likely anyway, end up on a street corner, you know, of old age trying to take care of things. There’s a program for you, but to get there, you gotta spend your own money first, right? You gotta spend all your stuff, which makes sense, right? Why am I, I’m not gonna have the state step in if I got a million bucks in my brokerage account, right? [00:58:19] OG: They’re gonna say, well, you just let us know when you’re broke and then we’ll, then we’ll help. Now there’s some stories about how maybe the state thing isn’t as great as like a private, of course it’s not gonna be. So you just have to think about like, how much of this do you potentially want to cover and can you earmark some of your, uh, retirement expenses or earmark some of your retirement assets for that? [00:58:40] OG: So let’s say that you look at it and say, alright, I’ve, I’ve done my financial planning. I think that I could cover half that cost. Well, now you have to go find insurance carrier that will cover the other half of the cost. I. What does that look like? Today’s day and age, if you wanted to buy a full coverage long term, like all the soup to nuts, all the bells and all the whistles, it’s probably 5,000 a year. [00:59:03] OG: Might be 7,000 a year, depending on how old you are in terms of premiums. Well, if I’m gonna write a check for a hundred thousand dollars and I expect my insurance company to write a check for a hundred thousand and I’m gonna pay six or seven or $8,000 a year premiums, hold on a second. That’s like 10 years of premiums. [00:59:21] OG: And then I would’ve just been able to pay the whole thing on my own. So you have to kind of evaluate that, you know what I mean? Is it something I’d worry about at 55? No. Is it something I’d really start looking at at 65? Yes. 60 maybe. Is there a chance that you have assisted care need at 57? Of course there is, but you know, that’s just, I. [00:59:46] OG: Sometimes how life is, and, [00:59:47] Joe: and you’ll hear long-term care experts that will argue about that. They’ll like, well, you know, I know people that work for, yeah, okay, there’s the outlier of the person that’s 45. I mean, it happens, right? It absolutely [00:59:56] OG: does. But that’s what disability insurance is for, [00:59:58] Joe: right? We’re just playing the probability game, [01:00:01] OG: right? [01:00:01] OG: A hundred percent. Now, if you’ve, again, if you’ve got bajillions of dollars and you’re like, I could insure this for pennies on the dollar and no harm to my cashflow. Yeah, of course. Transfer all that risk. Buy insurance, get as much as you want. Like, who cares? But I think in the real world, you have to kind of evaluate what those, what the averages look like, what your plan would be. [01:00:19] OG: You know? And, and by the way, when does this happen, generally speaking, the last three years, right? So if your average, it’s your 85th through your 88th year. So guess what? You got 30 years of market growth to go. So what’s your portfolio gonna do over the next 30 years? Uh, probably do. Okay. [01:00:36] Joe: I like where your argument started, and I want to, uh, paint this more as a, uh, uh, let’s talk about the way OG thinks everybody, because. [01:00:45] Joe: I think this is super important. Insurance companies want you to begin with evaluating the insurance. Yeah. How much can I buy? Yeah. Is this, what’s the payment? And then here’s all the bells and whistles instead. Oh gee, you started with two things. What’s the quality of care that I want and what would this money be doing if I didn’t spend it on long-term care? [01:01:05] Joe: Would it be going to beneficiaries? Would I live more life? Like what? What are the things that I would be doing when you start with the quality of care that I want? What does that cost? And then what would my assets be doing? Otherwise, you’re gonna come up with a better solution where insurance is maybe still in the picture, but it’s at the end instead of the first thing I evaluate. [01:01:25] Joe: So Bonnie, you know, you asked, how do I look at long-term care insurance? The appropriate answer and the most snarky way possible is you don’t. You, you, you ask about the condition and how do I want the condition to go? Yeah. And then maybe I look into insurance as a way to cover that, that condition. [01:01:46] Joe: Because frankly, you only have, and this just breaks down og I know what you already said. But, but what OG did was, was basically said this, you have two choices. You shoulder the risk yourself and you broke down that, or you hand it to an insurance company that’s gonna demand a premium, but then that’s gonna cap that portion of exposure, or all the exposure. [01:02:09] Joe: Or to get to the, the portional part, which you talked about is, okay, maybe I can handle 50%. Well then I hand the other 50%, so maybe there’s a midway between the two. Maybe I take part of the risk. Maybe the insurance company then takes part of the risk. So I start off with the top of the funnel being what is my asset gonna do? [01:02:26] Joe: What’s the quality of care gonna do? Then I have this option. Do I shoulder it? Do, do I become the insurance company myself? AKA what? You said, well, wait a minute. If I made the premiums to myself. If I call this a premium, I made the premium myself for 10 years, I could totally cover this. Okay, well there’s a strategy. [01:02:43] Joe: Now, the thing people don’t do, and you know this og, they say they’re gonna do that and then they don’t do anything. They don’t, they don’t actually pay the premium. So you gotta, you gotta do that if you’re gonna, if you’re gonna follow that approach. But if I look at those two options, or I find a middle ground at the end, and I think that’s the beautiful way of handling what truly is og a really complex question. [01:03:05] Joe: ’cause then, you know, you’ve got these insurance policies that just have long-term care riders on them. You’ve got full-blown long-term care coverage. You’ve got, you know, Medicaid that picks up to your point, you also have lawyers who are telling you that, Hey, you know, if we do some asset planning around the edges here early on, yeah, that’s my [01:03:22] OG: favorite one. [01:03:23] OG: If you get rid of all your stuff, then the government will pay for it. It’s like, okay, no offense to the government, but I’m, I’m good man. Yeah. I’ll choose door number two, where I’m rich and I do with what I want with my money. There’s one little piece here that I’ll add, just a little wrinkle. To some thinking on this, which is there is some circumstances, and I only say this because it sounds like she’s in a position where she has high income and is like saving a bunch of money to kind of catch up. [01:03:47] OG: That’s kind of the, the sense that I got from that intro. There is some thought or potentially could be some thought around saying, well, if I’m gonna work for the next 10 years, is there a way for me to fund this over the next 10 years while I have all this excess cash flow? If it was really important to you or if you have a history of, you know, this is all personal stuff, right? [01:04:09] OG: Like tons of family history of needing this level of care and it’s just like, you know, whatever things are in my DNA have led me to think this. You might choose to explore it sooner rather than later if only to say a, it’s a little less expensive ’cause you’re 55, not 65. But also you can say, well hold on a second insurance company. [01:04:30] OG: I’ve decided I wanna cover half of this. You do through that whole process and then you say, I wanna cover a portion of this. I want you guys to cover a portion of it. The portion I want you to cover, I wanna pay for while I’m working. I wanna be done paying for it. When I’m, when I’m done working, like some sort of a paid up option, yeah, I’m gonna do it for the next 10 years, which is totally common. [01:04:48] OG: I’m gonna pay for the next 10 years while I’m working. It just comes outta my work bonuses that I get in my RSUs and I am just good. Now again, there’s a downside to that, which is, that’s money. You’re not consuming for fun. That’s money. You’re not saving into another place, you know, into your investment accounts for the future. [01:05:03] OG: But it does give you a measure of, of security saying, okay, I know that when I’m done with work, this payment’s done. I don’t have to factor it in my cash flow. I’m covered for life asterisk. Unless, of course the insurance company changes their mind and change says they wanna raise the premiums or drop my benefit in the future, which they’re always able to do with a bunch of paperwork and they do, but at least it gets you like 80% of the way there. [01:05:26] OG: So I. If it is a concern, don’t sleep on saying, well, how do I, maybe, maybe I wanna handle this right now. I’ve got excess cash flow. I’m feeling pretty good about my position, you know, I, I lock it in. I can pay for it today and just be done in the next decade. [01:05:40] Joe: I’m gonna also make an argument on the other side, which is that you, uh, Bonnie said, you know, I don’t really care about my daughter’s inheritance. [01:05:48] Joe: I dunno if you’re joking or not, but if you weren’t joking, if that was a truth that was wrapped in a laugh, uh, that you truly don’t care about the inheritance and you think you are going to remain single, then your money is for you. And then in that case, Ochi spend her money on whatever. A lot of the time when it comes to long-term care, I wasn’t as worried as a financial planner about the person who’s spending down the money. [01:06:12] Joe: I was much more worried about what is the surviving family member going to do. Oh, [01:06:17] OG: absolutely. It’s the surviving spouse that matters the most. ’cause they’re the ones that are healthy with only two grand in the bank account and. Yeah, no assets left. Yeah, that’s the biggest thing, so, so I [01:06:26] Joe: also mitigate what OG said against that as well, but you can see how multifaceted that is. [01:06:33] Joe: Yeah. Thanks for the question. If you’ve got a question for us, it’s stack your Benjamins dot com slash voicemail. Gets you on the line. With us and we’ve got a few questions in the queue, but we can get to you fairly, fairly soon. Alright, that’s gonna do for today. Just a quick wander out on the back porch. [01:06:50] Joe: We’ve got our new guide, the college planning guide coming online, but the guides are going up in price on August 1st. So if you wanna get the current pricing, because you’re a fan of the show, we’re gonna give you a month, almost a month here. Well now we’re down to about half a month, aren’t we? Liar? I know. [01:07:07] Joe: I’m looking. I’m like, wait a bit. That’s based on when we’re recording this, based on this, you got a couple weeks here, but our text time guide and our HR guide, you buy it once and you get to keep it forever. We update it every single month so you don’t have to buy a new updated one in a few years. We’re always updating it. [01:07:26] Joe: And, um, the price moving up August 1st. So if you want to get it at current, locked in price, Stacking Benjamins dot com slash guides. Stacking Benjamins dot com slash guides for that. Alright, that’s gonna do it for today, Doug. You got it From here, man. What should be on our to-do list today? [01:07:43] Doug: So what’s stacked up on our to-do list for today? [01:07:46] Doug: First, take some advice from Gary McDermott, write down your goals, smart them out and set milestones. You’re much more likely to reach them if you practice little tweaks than if you have some vague idea in your head. Second, long-term care. You definitely want a strategy. Long-term care insurance, that’s another story between self-insurance and handing coverage to a company. [01:08:10] Doug: You’ll need to shop widely to find a solution that works for you. But the big lesson, don’t tell Joe’s mom, you’re gonna smart your goals. She’ll make some joke about being a smart ass, which truly isn’t funny, and we’ll tell you which goals she has for you. Seriously, isn’t that what we’re supposed to be getting away from? [01:08:30] Doug: Didn’t she listen to any of what Gary talked about today? Thanks to Gary McDermott for joining us today. You’ll find his book set Your goals, or someone else will at set your goals book.com. We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com and you can also see Gary Talk goals on Amazon Prime Speak Up. [01:08:55] Doug: This show is the property of SP podcast LLC, copyright 2025 and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. Joe gets some help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. [01:09:16] Doug: Come say hello. Oh yeah. And before I go, 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. [01:10:26] Joe: Welcome to the after show. This is the part of the show that doesn’t exist. And in the after show we generally talk about other things going on in our life. And a lot of the time that’s movies. Oh gee, I saw this little movie. That is made by Apple. And it is produced in part by a driver named Louis Hamilton, who might be one of the top, uh, race car drivers in history. [01:10:49] Joe: And it is Formula One, the movie starring this little known guy named Brad Pitt. [01:10:59] trailer: See, like straight talk, stray, narrow, no sugar. Why are you here sunny? [01:11:14] trailer: When you look in the mirror, you see this rough and tumble old school cowboy doesn’t take orders, goes his own way. Huh? [01:11:32] trailer: A lone wolf. [01:11:38] trailer: Well live, have news for you. Formula One is a team sport. It always will [01:11:48] trailer: listen. Let’s get this straight. We all lose our jobs if you can’t pull off a miracle. No pressure, none. The only question here is why does Sonny Hayes come back to F1? I think it’s really wonderful that Apex are given second chances to the elderly. It’s all right. You just wait ’em quicker than you. [01:12:12] Joe: I could listen to them working on cars all day long that I could, I could totally do that. [01:12:18] Joe: Uh, now given I’m a race car fan, but I know a lot of people have seen this, this movie that are not Formula one fans, not racing fans. It is the story of Brad Pitt, who clearly from that trailer, OG is this washed up racer, old guy, comes back and uh, has to help this team that needs a miracle, get their stuff together. [01:12:39] Joe: It’s funny, I just did this fantastic media press tour with Barclays and General Motors and my contact at Barclays, a wonderful gentleman named George. George when we were in Detroit the night before our media tour said that he went, because he is not from Detroit, just went to see Formula One by himself. [01:12:59] Joe: This OG was George’s assessment of Formula One, the movie. He said, is it a good movie? No. But for two and a half hours I was super entertained. And then I talked to a wonderful young woman who works with us, Deb. Deb does a ton of our graphics and, uh, some of our social media stuff. Denny said it’s like Top Gun two, but with race cars. [01:13:28] Joe: So if you liked Top Gun two. And you know what’s funny? We walked outta the movie theater yesterday and I told Cheryl Denny’s assessment and Cheryl said, a hundred percent this was Top Gun two. So if you liked Top Gun two, the Old Maverick teaching the young guy, all the stuff he needs to learn about teamwork and about the fact that we got this mission and the stakes are really high and things aren’t gonna go right, and he’s, uh, a Wiley veteran. [01:13:54] Joe: You’re gonna love Formula in the movie. If you don’t like that formula, well then, um, maybe not, but I can totally see OG why this thing gets like a, I think it’s a 91 or a 92% from the people and gets, uh, low eighties, low to mid eighties score from the critics. It’s a good movie. It’s a fun two and a half hours. [01:14:14] Joe: It is long, but it doesn’t feel long. It never feels long, but, uh, two and a half hours. Man, that’s a lot of time to sit in the movie theater. And by the way, even though this is either on Apple or coming to Apple, I’m not sure if it’s there yet because we, we disconnected our, our Apple TV for a little bit and, uh, save some money on streaming services over the short term. [01:14:37] Joe: We’ll be back to Apple and we’ll cancel something else later. But, um, I don’t have it, so I don’t know if it’s there yet. It will clearly be coming to Apple. If not, this is the kind of movie you see on a big screen. I mean, oh gee, those cars racing, you know, the, the noises, the views, the motion, the excitement, that’s big screen stuff. [01:14:58] Joe: If I could have seen it in imax, if we had an IMAX locally, I would’ve demanded that we saw this movie at the IMAX theater, and I know that they have an IMAX experience where you can see this film. So if you’re interested at all, formula One thumb up from me, thumb up from Cheryl, who doesn’t like racing Thumb up from my son, Nick, who also is a racing fan who is in town visiting and went with us, and all three of us really enjoyed the two and a half hours of Formula One, the movie. [01:15:22] Joe: I think you’d love it, og. [01:15:23] OG: Yeah, I saw, I was flipping on, uh, apple TV yesterday and I saw the headline for it that I, I didn’t click on it, but, but it made me think that it was gonna be available on Apple TV soon. So.
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