If you’ve been running on fumes, juggling work deadlines, family obligations, and maybe even a neglected 401(k) or two, this episode is your permission slip to stop, breathe, and recalibrate. Joe Saul-Sehy, OG, and Neighbor Doug welcome Dr. Danielle McGeough—professor, transformational strategist, and champion of intentional living—into the basement for a conversation that’s part burnout intervention, part life strategy workshop.
Dr. McGeough shares how to spot the early signs of burnout before you hit the wall, and how to rebuild your days with personal rituals, playfulness, and values-driven planning. You’ll hear real-world strategies for setting boundaries, aligning work with what truly matters to you, and bringing joy back into your calendar. And because we’re in the basement, we also manage to sneak in some Labor Day trivia, a Broadway tangent, and a solid helping of SB-style banter.
And for the Stackers worried about the financial side of burnout, we pivot in the second half to a practical discussion on managing multiple 401(k) plans—because a cluttered retirement portfolio can be just as stressful as a cluttered schedule. From account consolidation tips to understanding your investment options, this is a one-two punch of mental clarity and financial order.
- How to recognize the red flags of burnout (and stop it in its tracks)
- Why personal rituals and play can fuel productivity and joy
- How to align your schedule with your core values
- Strategies for balancing ambition with sustainability
- Practical steps for managing multiple 401(k) plans without losing track
- Why decluttering your finances can boost your mental clarity
Thoughts to Ponder During the Episode
What’s one value you’d like to see reflected more clearly in your daily life?
What’s one personal ritual you could add to your day that would give you energy instead of draining it?
Have you ever consolidated old retirement accounts? What made you decide to do it (or not)?
How do you know when you’ve hit your “enough” point with work and need to reset?
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Monday Mentor: Dr. Danielle McGeough
Big thanks to Dr. Danielle McGeough for joining us today. To learn more about Danielle, visit Danielle Dick McGeough | College of Humanities Arts and Sciences. Tune into her podcast, PLAN GOAL PLAN | Goals, Transformation for Women, Mindful Time Management, Balance, Working Moms | Podcast on Spotify.
Doug’s Trivia
- What’s the highest-grossing play ever on Broadway?
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Other Mentions
Join Us Friday!
Tune in on Friday when we’re diving into the idea of retiring often.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: The Deceptive Allure of Investing Like the 1% (How We Get Conned) SB1726
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Doug: Uh, Hey everyone. Just a reminder to tell Joe’s mom, she looks like she lost weight because I accidentally parked on the grass again. [00:00:11] Dr. Danielle: Hey guys, mics are hot. Quiet on the set. [00:00:22] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:00:36] Doug: I am Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. And if things felt a little off with your career or at home where the two just aren’t meshing. It’s hard to stack Benjamin’s like a boss when you can’t find the spark. Today we’re diving into how to reset with clarity and purpose with professor and transformational strategist, Dr. [00:00:55] Doug: Danielle Miu, but that’s not all. We’ll also answer a question. From Matt who’s wondering what to do with old 401k plans, do you leave them where they are or do something different? Of course, halfway through this Power Hour, I’ll swoop in with some incredible money themed trivia that I know you’ll get, right? [00:01:14] Doug: And now two guys who think Labor Day is about avoiding labor. Especially when it comes to budgeting, it’s Joe, oh and oh. [00:01:27] Joe: Hey there, stackers, you know, budgeting, maybe we spend some time on, but definitely leaving the investments alone, hands off. It’s a great, uh, weekend to do that. Hey, everybody, happy, happy. Labor Day Week. I know that, uh, oh. Gee, you are already cruising into Labor Day. Like a boss, like your, your, your brain already went on vacation maybe right after we recorded on Monday. [00:01:51] OG: I mean, when is my brain not on vacation? I could do this show with half my brain tied behind my back. [00:01:57] Doug: Wrong answer. You have clients listening to this show. [00:02:01] Joe: It was funny. I got a nice, uh, note from, uh, stacker Matt. We were talking about work life balance and you were joking about that, og and he’s like, well, OG works for himself, so he’s able to, you know, phone it in sometimes, and I wrote. [00:02:15] Joe: I worked for the man, quote unquote for a number of years. There were weeks. You can’t tell me that. That’s an entrepreneurial thing when you’re show up at the office and go, yeah, I’m gonna smile enough. [00:02:28] OG: Everybody has that day. I’m thankful that I’ve got a great team that they went, cool. We got you boss. [00:02:35] OG: And handled it for the day that I was a little in a funk. You know, it’s okay. It happens. [00:02:41] Joe: Dr. Daniel Magoo is here today just for that reason. So if you’re feeling like you’re a high performer normally in whatever it is that you do that, uh, you, things just aren’t, aren’t working, maybe feeling a little burnout here at the end of summer, this is what she does. [00:02:57] Joe: She helps people with burnout, feeling demoralized. You’re just stuck. So how do you create some personal rituals that are gonna help you, uh, get on track If you’ve ever heard unstuck. Yeah. Did I say stuck? Get stuck? No, [00:03:13] OG: I was saying yeah, get unstuck. [00:03:15] Joe: Oh, yeah. I, I thought maybe like I have in the past, I just missed it. [00:03:19] Joe: If you’ve ever felt like you’re not stuck enough and you [00:03:22] OG: like, speaking of, did you see that there was a YouTube video that made the rounds? It was a judge reading the verdict and it’s like, okay, has the, uh, jury reached a verdict? Yes, your Honor. We have. He goes, okay. So he gets it and he looks at it and he goes. [00:03:37] OG: Okay, we, the jury find, uh, the defendant guilty as to all six counts, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he, you know, and, and there’s kind of a light murmur in the crowd. He goes, and, um, we’ll, uh. Go ahead, uh, bailiff, you can, uh, release the defendant and, and the prosecutor goes, whoa, wait. What? And he goes, what? Oh, wait, didn’t I read? [00:03:59] OG: Not guilty. Sorry. Uh, not guilty on all six counts. [00:04:06] Joe: And it’s, imagine the emotion if you’re that man rollercoaster [00:04:09] OG: emotion of that, of that moment of like, oh my God, I thought I won, or No, I didn’t win. Wow. Oh crap. I’m going to jail. Wait, I can leave. Wait, now I can’t leave. Yeah. What if you’re the defendant though? [00:04:23] OG: Your emotion? Yeah, that’s what I mean. Yeah. Yeah. Like you’re the defendant. You’re going, oh, we slayed that. I’m outta here. Oh, and then it’s guilty in all six counts. Oh my gosh. Crap. What is, go wait. What the prosecutor’s like. What do you mean you’re gonna release him? And he goes, oh wait. Sorry. Did I read, didn’t I read? [00:04:39] OG: Not guilty? Let me do that again, guys. Uh, not guilty. [00:04:42] Joe: Well, as you guys know, bad as much as anybody. I can mix that stuff up in a hurry. [00:04:47] OG: That’s on me, coach. That’s my bad. [00:04:49] Joe: You guys are all wound too tight. So, of my favorite episodes, the 15 years that we’ve done this show have been where we create some of these rituals that help us move on. [00:04:57] Joe: I love the idea that we got early last year about cowboy fencing off time. I still use that analogy all the time, or the argument that, you know, people are like penguins. That that was a great one. When Hal l Robb was on, you know, with his morning rituals, Dr. Daniel McGough. Is going to be bringing those today. [00:05:18] Joe: What a great way to begin rolling into a holiday weekend. So get ready to get Unstuck Stackers with Dr. Daniel Magoo. We’ve got a couple of sponsors who make sure we can keep on keeping on. You’re not gonna pay a dime for any of this. Goodness. So we’re gonna hear from them. And then coming down to Mom’s Basement, Dr. [00:05:36] Joe: Danielle micu. [00:05:46] Joe: And I am super happy she’s coming down the stairs to the basement at Dr. Daniel Magoo is with us. How are you? I’m doing awesome. How are you? Well, I’m better now that you’re here. I am so much better. Well, and let me tell you why. As you know, labor Day weekend is this weekend and a lot of people, you know, this is kind of the traditional Danielle traditional end of summer and playtime’s over. [00:06:07] Joe: And we decide starting next week, I’ve gotta go, I gotta be like a rocket ship. I gotta be huge. I’ve been through this before. You’ve probably been through this before. You get to like mid-October, and then there’s this disillusionment, right? And actually, you know, for our stackers, Danielle, there’s disillusionment, I think in two different areas. [00:06:27] Joe: Number one is you’re running a hundred miles an hour toward a goal, and then you realize the things you’ve been doing every day don’t match the meaning you’re looking for. And by the way, for people, for people who are just listening to us, she’s nodding her head. Yep, yep. I know that. Which is exactly why I wanted to talk to you. [00:06:44] Joe: But even on a bigger level, you know, this is what we see all the time when we talk to people about their money. Is that we set these big lofty dreams for way in the future. We reach the future, we get to that point, and then we realize this thing I thought I wanted is not at all what I wanted and I’m so, yeah, I’m still showing up as me, even though I thought it was gonna be unicorns and rainbows. [00:07:11] Joe: And I thought, A, this is your life’s work talking about this, but also you went through this yourself earlier on in your career. Do you mind telling your story to everybody about your big disillusionment? Aha. [00:07:25] Dr. Danielle: Sure. I think I should preface this by letting you all know that. I did not grow up the smart kid. [00:07:30] Dr. Danielle: I was the weird kid growing up. All of my report cards describe me as unique, and so when I was 20 and I declared to all of my friends and family that I was getting a PhD, they were sort of like, oh really? [00:07:43] Joe: That [00:07:44] Dr. Danielle: really, [00:07:46] Joe: it’s so funny you say that I was an English major in college. I had this high school English teacher who always thought I was bad at English. [00:07:53] Joe: Literally thought that, and I remember coming back one time as a college freshman. She’s like, so what did you major in? And I said, English. And she, same thing, Danielle. She goes. Oh, neat. How weird. [00:08:05] Dr. Danielle: Neat. That’s always like the best reaction, right? You know, so that’s what’s so wild. And so then I did do all of the things. [00:08:11] Dr. Danielle: I got the master’s degree, I moved across the country, I got the PhD, I did the, the slog, that is the academic job market. And I got my dream job, and I should have been like, Hey y’all, I just earned tenure. Look at me doing this thing that you thought I couldn’t do. I should have felt. You know, elated and instead I just felt flat. [00:08:32] Dr. Danielle: I felt simultaneously overwhelmed and just empty, and I had no idea what was next. No idea what was next. I had a student give a presentation on decorative planning, and she was talking about how she was dealing with anxiety. She went to her therapist. Her therapist is like, well, you’re avoiding doing anything with your calendar or your to-do list. [00:08:57] Dr. Danielle: Why don’t you doodle and decorate it and make it really delightful? And see how that goes. And when she said that, I was like, oh, maybe I should try that. I have no artistic skills despite my dad being my art teacher growing up. Sorry dad. But I was like, stickers, stickers. I can do that. I can be artsy fary with stickers. [00:09:17] Dr. Danielle: And so I started decorating my planner with stickers, making it wildly fun and playful. And I started to notice things changing in my life. [00:09:28] Joe: Like what? [00:09:29] Dr. Danielle: Well, one, I think I stopped thinking about time management. As time management. My planner became more about personal revelation. What you were just kind of describing that moment of, oh, maybe my. [00:09:42] Dr. Danielle: Goals should have changed, but I just kept doing it and all of a sudden I find myself achieving it and I’m not connected anymore. I started realizing that planning could be a way that I actually connect with myself, that I can check in and go, Hey, do I still care about this? Is this still a priority? Is the goal I set even happening in everyday life, because I do think that sometimes what happens is we, we set these goals, but then it doesn’t show up anywhere in our daily practices. [00:10:10] Dr. Danielle: So I started seeing this shift of just like connecting with myself, realizing what I, what was giving me energy, and what was taking my energy, what I wanted more of. I started connecting with even just like, well, what do I want? What, where are my desires? Lie. [00:10:27] Joe: I love this idea of instead of having this planning be like an end all, be all, it’s almost like Danielle, you’re a human science experiment and you know, it’s like playing in the mud when you’re a kid. [00:10:39] Joe: You’re like, Ooh, let’s just get messy and see what the hell happens. [00:10:42] Dr. Danielle: Absolutely. You know, I even played around with the idea of saying no. I was really scared of saying no. That if I said no, that people wouldn’t think of me as a team player or that they’d quit asking me and then opportunities wouldn’t come my way. [00:10:56] Dr. Danielle: And you know, all of those things that run through your mind. I started to realize that some of my overcommitment though was this cycle of me trying to prove my value to other people. And I thought, well, what if I’m just. And how does that change what I need to say yes to and what I can say no to? And I was like, let’s do an experiment. [00:11:15] Dr. Danielle: Let’s just start saying no to things and seeing what happens. And I would say no. And then I would just wait. And it was wild because often not much happened. Not much happened. It was this wonderful way where I was like, okay, so I have some evidence now. That some of the scenarios that were playing out in my head about what would happen if I said no, were just scenarios in my head and not the real lived experience. [00:11:46] Joe: So before you were hyper-vigilant about time management, and now you’re hypervigilant about listening and looking for cues, and all of a sudden, I bet when you started saying no, all of a sudden the time management just appears. [00:12:00] Dr. Danielle: Oh yeah. I mean, there’s this wonderful book that’s called Subtraction, and it’s all about all these ways that we. [00:12:07] Dr. Danielle: As humans really wanna solve our problems with addition, when oftentimes there is a solution that involves subtraction, that’s just as elegant, if not more. [00:12:17] Joe: It’s so hard for us though, because I feel like when I try to subtract, you know, you worry about, well, and you, you just said this, you worry about all the doors that’ll close that if I say, yeah, I can’t do that anymore. [00:12:29] Joe: And yet when I subtract. I find that doors in the areas that I leave open, open bigger, if that’s a thing. [00:12:37] Dr. Danielle: Yeah, absolutely. But it, there is that act of trust to recognize that by saying, no, I’m actually creating space. For what matters, rather than giving something up or walking away for something. I like to imagine that it’s actually opening up space for the things that matter the most, but you have to know what those things are. [00:13:00] Joe: Can I say something as an aside that I thought was really cool? About your disillusionment story was the lesson coming out of left field, which is your student. I just don’t know many professors Danielle, that would’ve learned something from their student that was as transformative as that was. Like, if a kid says that, I’m like, yeah, whatever. [00:13:19] Joe: Okay. Uh, my student said it. That’s fine. Uh, you’ve got a lot to learn. I know everything, you know, but often those big lessons in our life come out of the blue like that. [00:13:28] Dr. Danielle: Oh, my students teach me so much. I think that one of. My most recent lessons from a student was in May, they were giving presentations and my students stood up and her first sentence was, burnout and demoralization are not the same thing. [00:13:44] Dr. Danielle: And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Can we back that up? I just hear the breaks going, yes, absolutely strong er, you know, sound. And from there I actually went and I started looking up journal articles because I’m a nerd like that. And I realized, oh my gosh, they aren’t the same thing. There’s some overlap, but that burnout is really when we’re going a hundred miles an hour doing all of the things, putting in all the hours, and we need to hit the break, right? [00:14:15] Dr. Danielle: We need to pause, but demoralization is actually when we kind of know what we need to do. But the structures and the systems aren’t really allowing us to do the work. That’s the meaningful work. It’s when you get stuck and bogged down in all the busy crap work instead of the meaningful stuff. So that was a really important distinction for me because I think that so many people are describing themselves and come to me and say, you know, I’m burnout. [00:14:46] Dr. Danielle: But for some people it’s not that you’re burnout. That you’re demoralized [00:14:52] Joe: deeper. They’re much deeper. [00:14:54] Dr. Danielle: Yes. And you need different solutions for each of those things. [00:14:57] Joe: Well, when you say that the systems and the processes that we don’t have those in place, so how do we start to reset that? [00:15:03] Dr. Danielle: Yeah, I think that one. [00:15:06] Dr. Danielle: If you can name, you’re stuck. If you can name whether you’re burnout or you’re demoralized, you’re gonna know, do I need systems of saying no? Do I need systems of rest or do I need systems that really help me connect with the things that matter the most? And for me, that has always been through the process of creating some rituals. [00:15:24] Dr. Danielle: So for me, I like to think what is the state that I’m in? Then what’s the desired state that I’d like to be in? And I use ritual to move me from one state to the next. [00:15:34] Joe: Can we talk about that? You have a ritual you call the RISE ritual method. Can we dive into that? [00:15:38] Dr. Danielle: Yeah, so what I have found is that other overachievers like me, when we are facing a spot where we feel flat, our impulse is to go, well, let’s stack some more habits. [00:15:51] Dr. Danielle: Like what are some other good habits that I can, I can stack up? If I get [00:15:54] Joe: 50 more good habits, [00:15:56] Dr. Danielle: then then I’ll feel great about life, right? And the problem with that is that habits are designed to eventually become unconscious. So if you feel like you’re living on autopilot. Creating more things that are designed to work on autopilot are not gonna help you. [00:16:11] Dr. Danielle: Whereas rituals are actually designed to transition us from one state to another. They’re designed to evoke presence and connect us to meaning. And so the rise ritual method helps you do that in four steps. You reflect, you do some intentional planning. You activate your senses and you embody the story. [00:16:31] Joe: Okay. Can we go through those? Mm-hmm. So the first thing we do is we reflect, am I reflecting on like what I did yesterday that was great and what didn’t work? Or am I reflecting bigger than that? Like what am I reflecting on? [00:16:43] Dr. Danielle: So right now we’re just gonna reflect on what you want the ritual to do for you. [00:16:49] Dr. Danielle: Where is a space that you need some transition in your day that you’re gonna create your ritual and go, what is the state that I’m in? What’s the state that I wanna move to? So let’s say you wanna do a morning ritual. That’s a really common one. Sure. Maybe you wake up and you’re all groggy and grumpy and you wanna be perky and energetic. [00:17:07] Dr. Danielle: Mm-hmm. So if that’s kind of what you’re moving to, the reflection is, can we just name the state that you’re in and the state that you wanna move to? [00:17:16] Joe: Gotcha. Well, and that’s spoken like a professor too, because I know from my time taking classes in education, like showing people, showing your brain the top of that mountain ahead of time helps your subconscious mind then begin working on it throughout the day. [00:17:31] Dr. Danielle: Absolutely, and to just intentionally name, you know, this is how I wanna move through my day, is so wildly helpful. And then the intentional planning part is just thinking, well, when am I gonna do the ritual? Where am I gonna do it? And you know, how am I gonna do it? It doesn’t have to be very long. I, you know, I tell people 15 minutes is a great place to start, but you could have a five minute version of your ritual and you could have an hour long, cozy version of your ritual. [00:17:59] Dr. Danielle: But, you know, take a little bit of time to intentionally plan and then think if it’s possible, do your ritual in a place that evokes that desired state that you named. [00:18:12] Joe: So if it’s, so, if it’s that morning routine and you’ve got a specific spot in your house or out behind your house or wherever it might be, go to that spot. [00:18:22] Dr. Danielle: Absolutely. So for example, if you want to get in a state where you’re energized, doing your ritual in your bed may not be the best answer, right. [00:18:34] Joe: Teaching your brain the wrong thing. [00:18:36] Dr. Danielle: Absolutely. You know, I always joke that I wake up and I have busy brain. I kind of just need to chill out right from the get go. And so my ritual in the morning is incredibly cozy, but my husband, he wakes up and he is in a fog and he, he’s just, he’s not there yet, you know? [00:18:55] Dr. Danielle: So for me, I might like to have things like, and this is part of the sensory activation. I might like to have things like a cozy blanket, but if my husband had that. Gone. If he gone was acting gone. Yeah, he’d be gone. And so part of it is how do you design the ritual? Always thinking intentionally about the state that you want to move yourself to. [00:19:17] Joe: That’s funny. There was a ritual that I have tried off and on over the years. I think like a lot of people have meditation. Mm-hmm. And to your point, like your husband. I, I couldn’t meditate without falling asleep. Like I would, I would just, I’d end up with nap time and my coach kept telling me, she’s like, that isn’t, that’s not what we’re going for. [00:19:36] Dr. Danielle: But it feels so nice. It does [00:19:37] Joe: feel nice. [00:19:38] Dr. Danielle: Well, and if you, if you’ve had that busy brain and you finally turn it off, it is just easy to soak into it. [00:19:45] Joe: Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. Absolutely. I was gonna ask you another follow-up question about going back to your student and what they said. Mm-hmm. Not only you taking that advice and it being so transformative, and it’s funny you just referenced another student said you and may something that you learned a a ton of stuff from. [00:20:04] Joe: But going back to this idea of playfulness, I feel like when people talk about planning, they talk about their career, they talk about goal setting. Playfulness is nowhere to be found ’cause it’s all too serious. And yet it seems like every answer, Danielle, that you’ve given me so far has kind of revolved around this idea of making it more playful. [00:20:25] Dr. Danielle: Absolutely. I think that maybe one of the biggest secrets of productivity that people aren’t talking about is enjoyment. That, you know, if we want to do something more. We should just find a way to make it delightful. And for me in that moment, you know, when I was really in the muck of it. When my student talked about decorating our planner, what that opened for me is I’ve been really resistant to any sort of goal setting because I didn’t wanna add pressure to my already pressure filled life. [00:21:02] Dr. Danielle: But it kind of like lit up this light bulb where it was like, well, what if my goal is to go around the lazy River 93 times with my kids this summer? What if the goal is one that just invites play into my life, and I knew that I needed that because I’m an intense person and I can be intensely serious and I can be intensely playful. [00:21:25] Dr. Danielle: And so I knew that I needed to invite more play into my life. And in doing that, you know, I learned so much about myself and. My posture towards the things that I was very serious about, shifted to, [00:21:41] Joe: I have to imagine for the better. Like I would think people around you would even see that and, and I think we’re afraid of play because we think that play is going to make us seem in some way unprofessional. [00:21:53] Joe: And I haven’t found that to be the case. I don’t know if you have. [00:21:56] Dr. Danielle: Oh, I mean, I think that that is a huge fear, right? That if we wanna be taken seriously, we need to show up seriously. I would encourage people, just like I played with the idea of no experiments, to have a play experiment, you know, show up to the office and think about how can I bring an element of play to this meeting that’s bound to be contentious and watch the attitudes and postures and connections in the room shift. [00:22:26] Joe: You have talked elsewhere about having anxiety and in the like late hours of the night getting up and decorating your, decorating your planner and looking at it, but I have to think about that planning for a second. How do you go through your planner then and plan out your week? Or if your week’s already planned, do you go through your planner then and visualize the meetings? [00:22:54] Joe: Think about where the rituals go, like tell me about setting up that planning. [00:22:58] Dr. Danielle: Oh, yeah. One of the first things that I do is I just look at, well, what have I already committed to? I do a hybrid planning system, so I do have a digital planner. I use Google. I pull up my Google calendar and I look at everything that’s on my calendar and I actually rewrite it back down into my planner, and I’m usually looking at about one week at a time. [00:23:20] Joe: Wait a minute. So tactile, like you literally write it back out into your planner. [00:23:26] Dr. Danielle: Yes, and I need to do that for a couple of reasons. One, I don’t know. Since having kids, my brain just doesn’t hold onto things like it used to. [00:23:33] Joe: Mine too. [00:23:34] Dr. Danielle: Yeah. And so there’s something about writing it down that just helps solidify it for me. [00:23:39] Dr. Danielle: But also in the process of doing that, I do think that I get a sense of what are the rhythms of my day going to feel like I start doing automatically. Some of that visualization that you were just mentioning. And then it helps me think about, okay, here’s my list of to-dos that I have, where are they gonna fall between these different appointments that I have and how I’m gonna map that onto my day. [00:24:05] Dr. Danielle: I kind of keep on one side all of my appointments and then my to-do list on the other side. And I do have a daily practice then of asking myself, okay. Here’s what’s going on this day. Let’s review it quick. Well, if there are only three things that I could get done today. What would those three things be? [00:24:24] Dr. Danielle: That would leave me feeling satisfied, content happy at the end of the day, [00:24:31] Joe: is that where I start from when I’m picking the three things is satisfied and, and content. [00:24:37] Dr. Danielle: I think that that’s a really easy place to start from. What I would ultimately recommend is that once you’ve set some goals, that all your daily top three are actually connected to your goals, moving the needle, and if you’ve set goals from a space that are really connected to your values and you’ve had processes to kind of keep checking in with those goals, setting those daily top three alongside the goals is really, really helpful to keep moving that needle. [00:25:03] Dr. Danielle: You know, sometimes too, I like to set what I call to be goals for my day instead of to do goals. So one of my daily top three might be, you know, how do I wanna be in that contentious meeting that I have to walk into rather than something I have to do and check off. [00:25:19] Joe: That’s funny. I had that situation with a friend of mine this morning. [00:25:23] Joe: I didn’t show up and be the person I wanted to be, and afterwards I’m like, oh, you know, he has some big things going on in his life. I talk too much and I got done with the run. I’m like, I should have asked John more about what the hell was going on with his, his stuff. So I love the idea of walking through and thinking, who do I want to be? [00:25:40] Joe: Do you use AI now for any of your planning stuff? [00:25:43] Dr. Danielle: I do sometimes, especially if I’m struggling with how to break down a task. I’ll put into AI what it is that I’m working through. I have attempted to use a few of the apps that will automatically schedule things for you. You know, like, we’ll map out your days for you, um, and you can prioritize and stuff, but. [00:26:05] Dr. Danielle: I don’t know. It didn’t stick for me. [00:26:07] Joe: Well, you know what’s funny is that I think you and I are like, that way it doesn’t stick for me either. And I’ve also tried it that way. But the intentionality I get from, and that’s why I latched onto you writing out your day. ’cause I think like you do that is so important. [00:26:22] Joe: Just the mindfulness of taking. 10 minutes to rewrite your day and think about how is this gonna work? Like what’s gonna happen. Spending just a little bit of time on it with a cup of coffee or whatever could be huge. Where if I hand it to, I wanna hand ai the stuff that I don’t wanna think about. Yeah. [00:26:38] Joe: Not the stuff I think that I need to think about more. But what do you, how do you prompt AI for some of your planning stuff? [00:26:45] Dr. Danielle: So when I’m doing that, usually, like I said, it might be like a big project or it might be a really big goal and I might say, Hey, here’s the timeline that I wanna do this in. I’m trying to figure out all of the different steps to get this done. [00:27:00] Dr. Danielle: Can you help me map that out? Okay. And then I’m like [00:27:03] Joe: a milestones, [00:27:04] Dr. Danielle: yes, I might have it map out milestones or could you break this down into weeks? For me and then let me know what are all the different resources that I need to be able to do this. I just like held a really big retreat. You know, it was so helpful for me to say, Hey, could you plan on the day of what are all of the things that I need to pack in my car and what are all of the things that I need to have ready? [00:27:29] Dr. Danielle: And it was so nice for it to just make me that checklist. And so yeah, there are things like that that I apps. Use it for, [00:27:37] Joe: that’s a hundred percent fantastic. Because how often have you gotten down the road and went Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And especially with kids on the brain too, right? Oh my goodness, [00:27:48] Dr. Danielle: yes. [00:27:49] Dr. Danielle: And I mean, that’s actually, I love to use it for meal planning. You know, Hey, this is what I have in my fridge. Here are some of the meals that we’re trying to eat to eat healthy. Could you put these things together and like, tell me what I need to eat and, uh, gimme a shopping list for it. [00:28:05] Joe: Now, you were talking earlier about going through your values and do my tasks that I’m working on, line up with my values. [00:28:13] Joe: I know a piece of the work that you do, Danielle, is teamwork. And let’s say that you and I are on a team and my values and tasks look good, and your values and tasks look good, but they don’t really align. If I’m working with somebody else on a project, what’s the first step to getting that alignment that we’re looking for? [00:28:32] Dr. Danielle: Who, you know, I think that so often when we have conflict, whether it’s actually, you know, it can happen in families too, right? Sure. We might have financial goals, but what we think is worth and valuable to spend our money on might be different. Mm-hmm. So one of the first things to do is to make sure that you’re carving out a little bit of space for your team to actually get to state what are our values? [00:28:56] Dr. Danielle: You know, what are our individual values? And then what are our we values? So what are my me values? What are our we values? Then from there, I think that sometimes we might even have a lot more patience with each other if we don’t even change anything. But now I understand why you’re doing the things that you do, because you’ve expressed what your values are to me. [00:29:17] Dr. Danielle: And now at least there’s, there’s some reasons. There’s a why between your behavior. For me, where before I might’ve just been like, what is he doing? [00:29:27] Joe: Yeah, right. Why are you wasting time on this? [00:29:29] Dr. Danielle: Get it together buddy. You know? And so it’s so nice when you just express that. But then what you might do too in those conversations and. [00:29:38] Dr. Danielle: Are there ways that there are conflicts between the things that we are valuing? And I see this even in individuals, that you might ha value two different things, like spending time with your family and making money. But those things are in conflict with each other sometimes. So how are you gonna decide which one actually gets prioritized? [00:29:59] Dr. Danielle: And so sometimes that happens within one person and sometimes that happens within a team. But I think that one, we just have to speak out loud what our values are, and then we need to kind of look for those spaces of conflict. [00:30:13] Joe: If only. If only there were a podcast that dealt with these issues like on a weekly basis. [00:30:20] Joe: I sometimes dream, and maybe we call it plan, goal plan. I mean, call me crazy. Does such a podcast exist? You know, I think it does, and that’s a great, I heard a genius came up with that name. [00:30:34] Dr. Danielle: Ooh, what genius came up with that? I would love it for people to listen to a podcast by the name of Plan. Go plan. [00:30:41] Joe: Yeah. So tell us what happens every week, because I’ve been listening to it recently. It is so informative and playful and fun. But tell everybody about the show. [00:30:53] Dr. Danielle: Yeah, so really the show just came from me hosting planning parties, uh, with my friends and then wanting to have a place to share and to talk about these things and other people that geeked out about those sorts of things. [00:31:08] Dr. Danielle: And so once a week, for sure, you’ll have a solo episode from me. Um, I’m just moving into two episodes a week this month, and so then I get to talk to other people about. All different sorts of goal setting that we might do. So sometimes that’s financial goals and sometimes that’s fitness goals and other times that might be family goals and making memories. [00:31:27] Dr. Danielle: So I’d love it if you listened. Are [00:31:29] Joe: you enjoying the interviews? [00:31:31] Dr. Danielle: Oh my gosh, it’s my favorite. I really, really love getting to meet and talk with people. It’s just the jam. [00:31:39] Joe: It is. It’s so fun. But I also, I love your solo episodes and I find as a podcaster, it’s so hard to do solo episodes and you’re so good at it. [00:31:48] Dr. Danielle: Oh, it, it was a struggle, especially because. Teaching is what I’m really used to. And I teach in a very like workshop, playful, getting your body move around kind of way. So it’s mostly back and forth between my students and I. And so all of a sudden doing a solo podcast, I was like, Ooh, I gotta work on my lecturing skills [00:32:09] Joe: in a room by yourself with a microphone. [00:32:10] Joe: Well, you’d never know because. You definitely have a talent for it. It is called plan, goal. Plan available wherever finer podcasts like Stacking Benjamins are. So, hit pause right now and subscribe. Danielle, thank you so much for mentoring our stackers today. I know that as we get into busy season, guys, we’re gonna get there. [00:32:28] Joe: You’re gonna get six weeks in and the burnout’s gonna start hitting, and I think putting some rituals and intentionality in your life can help you keep going all fall along and into the next year. So Danielle, thank you so much. [00:32:41] Dr. Danielle: Oh, thank you so much. This is a blast. [00:32:47] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and as Americans nationwide hit the road for some Labor Day play. Let’s talk about play because today is the anniversary of the first play ever performed in America. At least that’s on record anyway. I mean, it was way back in 1665 when you were like 12 Joe. [00:33:08] Doug: You’d think that the premier play in the USA or you know, maybe pre USA at the time, if you wanna split hairs, it would have been great, right? It had to have been great. But this play was actually so controversial that the creators were taken to court because one critic called the ACT Profane. Luckily, tell me this isn’t the American way, the judge let them off. [00:33:30] Doug: Because while he agreed it may have been profane, it was actually kinda entertaining. That’s the same thing we say about Joe’s mom after she’s had two vodka tonics, profane, but hilarious. Here’s a money question. Some Americans will be hitting Broadway for a play this weekend. What’s the highest grossing play ever on this iconic street? [00:33:51] Doug: Here’s a hint. You know this play. May have probably seen the movie, and it’s a classic tale about a young cub who’s coming of age, wait, is it about me? I’ll be back right after I figure out what Haku and matata means. That’s such a wonderful phrase. [00:34:15] Doug: Hey there stackers. I’m a Kuna matata lover and guy who’s always up for a good play. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Earlier I asked what the highest grossing play on Broadway is and told you that you know it. Surely you’ve heard of the company that created it. Anyways, Disney and the play based on the movie of the same name was of course. [00:34:35] Doug: The Lion King. And now let’s get back to two guys who are leading this safari through your money Jungle, Joe and og. [00:34:44] Joe: When you went to Broadway, did you see The Lion King? You saw a Disney play, I think og. Uh, on bro. Oh, we saw Aladdin. Saw Aladdin. Yeah. I bet that’s gotta be up there too, Doug. [00:34:55] Doug: Everything they do is up there. [00:34:56] OG: Yeah, that’s true. Saw Aladdin with the original Genie and then when they came to Dallas, when Aladdin came to Dallas, of course, you know, the traveling show is not the Broadway people different right. Generally. But the guy who was the genie in the Broadway, Aladdin was from the DFW area the night we went. [00:35:12] OG: He did his role as Genie because he was in his hometown and that’s cool. He had a free Saturday. Ah. So he came down to Dallas. That did it in Dallas. So we got the original air quotes, the original Genie. One might argue Robin Williams is the original genie, but Okay. Right. But the [00:35:28] Joe: original Broadway genie I heard was just brilliant. [00:35:31] OG: Oh, it’s a great, I mean, it’s, it’s so impressive to watch. I, I just love watching people who are the best in the world at what they do, do the thing that they’re the best at. I was watching an interview with Denzel Washington and they’re like, oh, you know, you’re a movie star. You goes, I’m not a movie star. [00:35:45] OG: I’m a Broadway actor who happens to do movies. Right. So his whole thing, he started Wow. Um, on Broadway. And he likes, yeah. You know, he, he’ll go back and do Broadway stuff watching how they perform or watching how they, how they can carry a tune or something. You’re like, Lee, that’s good. Yeah, so [00:36:03] Doug: it’s [00:36:03] OG: fun. [00:36:03] Doug: I saw a clip of him, Denzel Washington on the Gram Norton Show, which is a late night show in England. [00:36:10] Doug: Probably the second best interviewer that I know. He did a. Joe, you were supposed to get all like a flutter when I said that, I said, that is so nice. Thank you very much. Just, I’m just throwing out the compliments. I was like, wait, Howard Stern, I got a blank stare from you, mark Marin. Uh, but, but he mentioned to Denzel, like you did some, some Shakespeare in your time. [00:36:32] Doug: Right. And prior to seeing this clip, I actually did not know that Denzel Washington was a Broadway actor. He just starts reeling off. Like whole chunks of dialogue from Shakespeare and he hadn’t done it in 20 years, but that’s how into stage acting Denzel was. That’s, it’s pretty incredible. Those people dunno that [00:36:50] OG: it’s [00:36:50] Joe: still, still is. [00:36:50] Joe: Yeah. I love watching, as you mentioned, OG high performers work and big thanks to Dr. Daniel McGough for coming today. But you know, this idea. That people that are great don’t get burnout is not true. Right? I mean, everybody still goes through that. Look at that. Segue, the cycle. Yeah, absolutely. [00:37:10] OG: Then that’s the thing, like there’s times to be on stage, right? [00:37:13] OG: There’s times to practice and then there’s downtime, and the downtime in my view, needs to come first. I just challenge everybody as you’re looking at your calendar for the rest of the year and you’ve got vacation time left, or you’re planning your, your 2026, you’re starting to look at the 2026 stuff. [00:37:31] OG: Start with your free time and then build your work around your free time. And I get it. Everybody’s got different rules on what that free time and vacation looks like. I remember my parents when they worked at gm, it was like, yeah, we have free time. It’s two weeks in July, two weeks in December. Those are our free times. [00:37:46] OG: We don’t have other free times. ’cause that’s when the company mandates it. Okay, I got it. Sometimes you don’t have that flexibility, but if you do. Start with free time and then build your work around it and see how that sits with you for the next 12 months, and I bet you have a little bit more energy. [00:38:00] Joe: And I think it also means that during the weekend when you’re away, be away, be present in the everyday activity, not have your brain half at the office if you can. If. [00:38:10] OG: Try your best. [00:38:12] Joe: I just, there was a video I saw recently with this woman interviewing a guy on his deathbed and, and he’s like, you know, the thing that I regret was that, uh, I didn’t spend more time on the weekend thinking about my KPIs, which is, you know, all the things I gotta get done. [00:38:29] Joe: I wish I would’ve done more of that. Made a, made a great point. Speaking of great points, we have a caller who called in with a great point and a question. This is the segment we call Better Call Saul. See hi and OG on today’s show. We actually got a great comment from stacker Michael, who decided also to call in with a question, but we did a trivia question. [00:38:53] Joe: If you remember, Doug and I got lots of people who. Chimed in on this one, and this was, remember when we talked about the top beer on college campuses and Oh yeah. The study showed that it was Corona and we had so many stackers tell us. Yeah, I don’t think so. Right. Yeah. [00:39:11] Doug: We knew that was gonna be controversial going in though, as we were writing it, as we were, we’re [00:39:14] Joe: like, yeah, we don’t, we don’t believe this. [00:39:16] Joe: And we even said it there. We asked people, in fact. Stacker. John told us that he was taking his son last weekend driving him back to State College, and he said while he was in State College, he was gonna do some market research with some of the college kids while he was there. So John, I hope that went well and I hope you weren’t driving after that experience. [00:39:37] Joe: But anyway, Michael wanted to pitch in and tell us about beers that he drank, and then he also has a question. [00:39:46] caller: Hey guys, it’s Michael from New Mexico. I called in a little while ago looking for some guidance on getting a new job, which I actually found when that was a fairly significant raise. Nice. [00:39:54] caller: Shortly after I asked that question, but on your latest episode, I believe 1714, you put in out a call for people. What people drank when they were in college, if they’d graduated in the past five years or so. I graduated back in 2021, and at least when I was in college, the Bureau of Choice in my household was Corona. [00:40:12] caller: But there were two kinds of beers people drank. It was either Corona or Modelo. So there’s kinda your answer, at least for what we drank. Um, I figured I’d also to ask a question while I was at it. So I’ve gotten a few 4 0 1 Ks since I’ve graduated college and kind of been trying to find a job that works for me and a field that works for me. [00:40:30] caller: One thing I’ve noticed of all of them is none of them are really. Good. Some of ’em have high fees and specific funds that would make up my standard stock bond portfolio. And so I’ve just kind of been sitting on them while I kind of figure out what I’m gonna do with them. I’ve been still putting money into them max amount every year, but it’s mostly, it’s, uh, what do I do with the. [00:40:48] caller: Old 4 0 1 Ks from previous jobs. Do I roll those over into like a self 401k or is it just keep ’em, there they are. Roll ’em into my newest one and just roll that one over. Every time I leave a job until I find a 401k, I’m happy with. I figured you guys might be able to gimme some insight. [00:41:04] Joe: Thanks Michael for the question. [00:41:06] Joe: And Michael was the guy who drank Coronas in college. Who knew? Do you think that has to do with where he went to college? Because you know, I think if you’re in the. Down on the southern end of the United States where it gets a little hotter, like some of those light beers, like a, you know, ’cause I think a Corona Modelo, the two that he’s drinking, I’m thinking warm weather. [00:41:29] OG: Yeah. Maybe it has to do with the, uh, the heat. I, I don’t know. Ultra make a low Ultra, just keep it simple. [00:41:36] Joe: Or two beer, I still think I didn’t have the budget for Corona. [00:41:39] OG: Yeah. [00:41:41] Joe: I was looking at quantity, not quality. [00:41:43] OG: Yeah. [00:41:43] Doug: Natty Ice. Right. Ice beer. Remember that? Remember when that was a thing? Why did I get a hangover Just from you saying netty ice, [00:41:53] OG: don’t you? [00:41:53] OG: You remember the can like blue and it had the little thing on it. The big ice. Yeah. And so gross. Yeah. [00:42:00] Joe: Bush Michael, uh, let’s talk about his 4 0 1 Ks and people. This tends to happen as we have different jobs OG over the years. We start to get this trail of 4 0 1 Ks behind us. [00:42:12] OG: Yeah, so two things he talked about that I want to think about here. [00:42:16] OG: Look, I get it. If the 401k you’re investing in is less than ideal in terms of its fund choices, in terms of its cost structure, be the voice of change in your organization and try to fix that. But don’t martyr yourself and say, well, I’m not gonna invest in this ’cause it’s too expensive and the fund fees are too high. [00:42:36] OG: They’re ripping me off because you’re only stealing from yourself if you’re not contributing. Cheer 401k, getting tax deferral and a company match and you know, all that. Building that muscle of saving and investing. Even if it’s not ideal, make sure it’s invested. So, uh uh, or make sure you’re participating in it as far as the old retirement plans go, I don’t like the idea of keeping ’em in the old places because believe it or not, people lose track of where those places are. [00:43:02] OG: You move. You change your logins, you, you know, your email address and your password and just stuff falls through the cracks. And I know, I know when you’re young, you go, I’ll never forget about my first job at insert company here and the 3000 that’s in my 401k plan, I promise. But you will. It’s just, you know, if you move a couple times, all of a sudden the, the mail gets undeliverable and now they’ve got. [00:43:25] OG: Very rigid processes in these states for unclaimed property. So even if you just say, I’m gonna not pay attention to it for a long period of time, and I’m gonna keep track of it, they could deem it to be unclaimed. So it’s just far better to consolidate it all in one place. Really, your two choices here of one place are either with your existing company. [00:43:44] OG: So you just kind of keep on moving it into, you know, rolling it into the new one every time you get a new job. Or get a third party custodian, like a Fidelity Schwab or something like that. And that’s your repository for all your old stuff. And I think the vast majority of people choose that option versus putting it in the new plan. [00:44:02] OG: Mostly because you’re just free to invest in whatever you want. So you never run into the scenario that he’s talking about here where, ah, you know, I’m not really enthralled with the options here, or the cost structure or the flexibility, or whatever the case might be. If you put your money in an IRA at Schwab or Fidelity, you can virtually invest it in anything you want. [00:44:19] OG: So that’s the standard, typical go-to advice is consolidated in one place, and then you’ve got one place to keep track of all of your old money for the rest of your life. There are some exceptions obviously, but you wanna be on, on top of that. The other thing I would add is if you’re at a company for a short period of time, in short, meaning, you know, maybe you only have a couple of months worth of contributions or uh, you know, a couple of dollars worth of contributions, a lot of company plans have a threshold in which they will force liquidate your money, and sometimes that number’s around 5,000 Just send you a [00:44:50] Joe: check. [00:44:51] Joe: Yeah, [00:44:51] OG: and so again, if you don’t do anything, if you do the do nothing plan and you worked at this company for a year and you put in your 5% and it’s worth five grand, they may say, this number is too small for us to keep track of forever, so we’re gonna give you 30 days to you do something, or we’re mailing you a check. [00:45:08] OG: I think we talked about this a couple of weeks ago. It’s like people look at it and go, eh, it’s five grand. I could really use that anyway to pay off my insert thing here. Who cares that I get a little bit of a penalty? It’s only 500 bucks. Who cares that I pay a little bit of taxes? It’s only 1,250 bucks. [00:45:24] OG: And by the way, I could use the money now, but you’re just robbing from yourself in the future. So if you have, this is another good reason for when you leave your company. You wait 30 days to make sure the final paperwork’s in the final contributions are in. And then poof, off you go, roll that money over to a third party custodian and, um, get it as part of your asset allocation and move on. [00:45:42] OG: So don’t take it in cash. [00:45:44] Joe: I love the idea too, og just behaviorally that it’s so much easier to navigate when you have fewer screens to look at. Just having things in a spot where you can. Make a few meaningful decisions instead of 50 small decisions. I think just behaviorally is, is great. When I began talking maybe a year ago about getting closer to the efficient frontier than V-T-S-A-X, when you have more than a hundred thousand dollars that can pay big dividends, and I mentioned that. [00:46:22] Joe: Diversifying your money along the efficient frontier takes about 15 minutes. The planning to get to that point actually is a lot longer than 15 minutes, but doing it is maybe 15 minutes. And so spending 15 minutes once or twice a year to rebalance stay diversified is easy, and some of the pushback I got o. [00:46:42] Joe: Was from people that said, but I’ve got money in like 12 different accounts. Like having this money in all these different accounts just makes it so much more difficult. I think that’s another reason, just to have just a few different accounts so that it can be 15 minutes, because I think that if you’re keeping 45 different old 4 0 1 ks, and I’m being a little bit ridiculous there, that it just, it creates unnecessary complexity. [00:47:10] OG: Yeah, it [00:47:11] Joe: does keep it simple. Easier equals often better. Thanks Michael for the question. If you’ve got a question for us and you want to hear your voice on the Stacky Benjamin show Stacky Benjamin, and I know that’s exactly what you wake up thinking every morning. You know what I want? I want my voice in the Stacky Benjamin Show. [00:47:28] Joe: Stacky Benjamins dot com slash voicemail gets you on the microphone. We always end our episodes with a community segment. We like to call the back porch. Doug, what’s going on in the back [00:47:40] Doug: porch? Joe, there’s a ton on the back porch today. I just have to move it all to the side so I can get to the cooler to get my beer first. [00:47:48] Doug: Okay, so here we go. One, there’s an email coming out, right? I think everybody needs to watch their email because we’ve got some guide updates coming out in the next couple of days. [00:47:57] Joe: We do. Yeah. If you’re somebody who gets one of our guides, if you don’t get our guides, you may not know that these are updated. [00:48:04] Joe: Every single month we send you an email with the new update. And so the tax guide, the college planning guide, and the HR guide are all live, uh, coming next, by the way. Speaking, uh, Michael of, of having a better dashboard. Your financial dashboard guide is going to be coming probably in the next 30 days, and then a retirement guide, and those will be all five of them, but in the tax guide this month, more from the OBBB, the new legislation with a lot of tax changes. [00:48:31] Joe: Those are going into the tax guide this month on the college planning guide. Brand new. Just a month ago we talked about the fafsa. When the college planning guide first came out, we do a whole walkthrough of the FAFSA now in this month’s update of the guide. So taking it step by step through the FAFSA and on the HR guide, more details on health insurance, where we go through some examples of. [00:48:55] Joe: If you’re in this situation, this might be what you should think about. If you’re in this situation, this might be what you should think about. So trying to demystify some of those health insurance discussions. If you’re not getting the guides and you’d like to, and you buy it one time, we update it every month. [00:49:12] Joe: No matter how the tax laws change or the college process changes, or your HR changes at work or you change jobs, just go to Stacking Benjamins dot com slash guides and you’ll see the full suite of guides. [00:49:25] Doug: Joe, don’t forget to tell ’em also about the workshop coming up September 3rd, 2025, [00:49:31] Joe: next Wednesday, September 3rd. [00:49:34] Joe: Speaking of health insurance, if you’re like, okay, they offer this thing called the HSA. You want HSA basics like HSA 1 0 1. This is not gonna be high level HSA stuff. This is going to be the basics of an HSA in human terms. Join me eight 30, what did we say? Extra terrestrial time, et, or five 30 specific. [00:49:55] Joe: Specific time. Yes. Finally. Then for people central in the mountains, you can do your own math, but, uh, eight 30 ET and, uh, five 30 specific. Come join me for about an hour and then I’ll take questions on the HSA, probably about 45 minutes actually for me on the HSA. And then we’ll dive into as many questions as you have so that you get the basics of, uh, what a health savings account is and how it [00:50:20] Doug: works. [00:50:22] Doug: I’m sure it’s gonna be awesome. There’s another thing we gotta squeeze into this back porch. I said there was a lot we gotta squeeze into this back porch session is there is a groundswell of support happening right now in the basement group for a central New York Central slash Western New York meetup. [00:50:40] Doug: Derek says, uh, just wanna say I’m in full support of the Western New York Finger Lakes Meetup, as I know Jesse Kramer is between Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse. I’m sure we can find a good spot. Uh, and he goes on and on. Uh, a number of people. Joe, you need to know a number of people, a groundswell of people. [00:50:57] Doug: That’s a quantity. I think they have all chimed in to say that they’ll drive for it. They’re in Jesse Kramer, the Jesse Kramer of Ply Fame, and our Friday, uh, contributor. Says, here’s the problem though. The audience wants neighbor Doug to be there. I’m sure everyone loves Doug, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But Jesse says, but if he comes, I’m leaving the state. [00:51:22] Doug: So we have a, we have a little bit of a problem. We’re at odds. [00:51:25] Joe: I think what we will do though, we’ll see if Jesse, uh, would be up for having a meetup, and we’ll, we’ll see if we can get details on that. I’m sure Jesse would have fun doing that. We’d have fun doing that. Doug, I don’t know if you can be there or not. [00:51:36] Joe: If we could get you and Jesse in the same room. I don’t know, but we’d love to make that. But speaking of that, we have a great meetup group if you’re in the Twin Cities, Minneapolis, St. Paul, our friends, uh, Chris, Veronica, and, uh, Mike put that on every month. It is truly a great group that we’ve got in the Twin Cities. [00:51:54] Joe: So if you’re in the Twin Cities. Look up our Facebook group, or if you don’t get the 2 0 1 newsletter, you may not know that we have that group and when they meet, also we have Stackers. Cole and Chris in Seattle are starting a Stacky Benjamin Seattle Meetup group. Their first meeting is going to be in October. [00:52:13] Joe: That’s pretty cool. We’re also talking to James in Boston who is uh, starting to get some help for. Uh, Boston Meetup group and also the northern suburbs of Chicago. [00:52:24] Doug: Yeah, [00:52:24] Joe: the area between Chicago and Milwaukee. Milwaukee. [00:52:28] OG: The northern area of Chicago. [00:52:30] Joe: Yeah. [00:52:30] Doug: Yes. [00:52:31] Joe: Right. [00:52:32] OG: Somewhere between Chicago and Milwaukee [00:52:34] Doug: is where the, the entire western coast of Lake Michigan. [00:52:36] Doug: Walkegan Meetup Group. Oh, Waukegan Meetup Group. This is such a layup. I don’t know why it’s taken so long. For these, we could just imagine saying to your partner. I am gonna go do some financial planning for us for the future. They don’t have to know that you’re going to drink beers, right, while you’re, and, and eat a whole bunch of bar food while you’re talking about money. [00:52:57] Doug: Or if they do know, Hey honey, come with me and let’s go do some financial planning. It’s a win-win. There’s literally no losing position here. You get to go to a bar, eat fried food and talk about money. [00:53:11] Joe: If you want a Stacky Benjamins meetup group in your area, just write to me joe stacky Benjamins dot com and I can tell you about how it generally works. [00:53:19] Joe: We can go over some best case stuff that, uh, Chris and Veronica, especially in the Twin Cities, have learned in just over the years that they created our first meetup group. So happy to help people there. But that’s, that’s cool. If we can get Jesse to just do it one time there in the Finger Lakes area or even where Rochester, that’d be awesome. [00:53:37] Joe: There’s such an easy [00:53:38] Doug: joke there. Trying to get Jesse to do it. Just, I think he did it his one time. Didn’t he just have a, anyway, he did. Just over a year old. But here’s the other win I didn’t even think of. Everybody talks about how difficult it is to meet people, future partners, how tough dating online is. [00:53:55] Doug: This could be an amazing singles opportunity because you know you have a shared common like value. Holy cow. Yeah. We should have hundreds of these things. [00:54:04] Joe: Absolutely. Anyway, write me if you’re interested, Joe, at stacky Benjamins dot com. Not if you’re interested. Let’s shit, write me if you’re thinking about starting a meetup group and uh, I can tell you how we’re able to help. [00:54:15] Joe: Joe Stacky Benjamins. All right. That’s gonna do it for today. Big thanks to all of you for lending us your ears. Thanks to Dr. Daniel Mcg for joining us today. I think it’s so helpful we all go through bur, I don’t know about you guys, but three or four times a year. I just need that kick, you know? Just get back out in front of it. [00:54:31] Joe: Gimme [00:54:32] Doug: a call, man. I’ll kick you. [00:54:34] Joe: And thanks to, don’t be so excited about it. Hey, can I do that? It’s happening. Yes. Thanks to Michael for, uh, calling in and sharing his beer. Pick of choice in college with us, and thanks to all of you for hanging out with us. Whether you’re walking the dog or you are commuting, just hanging out, whatever it might be. [00:54:53] Joe: Thanks a ton for the time. Coming up on Friday, we’re going to talk about retirement specifically. Something that is a new idea, which is taking these mini retirements. I think the number of sabbaticals in America that people take from traditional employment where sabbaticals have never been a thing, has doubled in the last few years. [00:55:15] Joe: And for that reason, we’re gonna talk to Jillian Johns rude on our roundtable with OG and Paula talking about how maybe this can apply to you too. This weird concept of going to your boss and going, Hey, I think I want a month away. We’ll see how that works. Alright, that’s on Friday, but right now, Doug, you’ve got our top three things we gotta know. [00:55:36] Joe: Take it away, man. You know, I [00:55:38] Doug: do first take some advice from Dr. Danielle Magoo. If things don’t feel like they’re in alignment, the time to stop and fix it. Well, that’s right. Now second, that old 401k, roll it into an IRA. There’s only a few reasons why you wouldn’t want to do that. But for most people, having a single catchall IRA helps you keep your eye on your money better and makes your asset allocation job easier. [00:56:03] Doug: But the big lesson, don’t ask Joe’s mom about the Lion King. She says that play is total BS because the true heir really is the queen. And she’ll remind you that she is the queen of this basement only about six times per day. Thanks to Dr. Danielle Magoo for joining us. You’ll find her podcast plan goal plan wherever you are listening to us now. [00:56:29] Doug: We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. This show is the property of S SP podcasts LLC, copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. Joe gets 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. [00:56:54] 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.
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