Todd Havens spent decades dreaming of a net worth of zero, just breaking even felt like an impossible finish line. Then, in 2021, at the height of COVID, a doctor delivered news that would reframe everything: incurable blood cancer, tumors too numerous to count. What follows is one of the most honest, wide-ranging conversations this show has had about money, mortality, and the difference between being rich and actually being wealthy. Todd is now in remission, a self-made millionaire, and the author of a book built entirely around one idea: the biggest obstacle to financial security usually isn’t a spreadsheet problem. It’s what’s happening between your ears.
What You’ll Walk Away With
- Why disability insurance and life insurance, the coverage nobody wants to pay for, turned out to matter more than almost anything else when the worst actually happened
- The “money dam” framework for deciding, moment by moment, what’s actually worth spending on
- Why believing you “deserve” financial security might be the single most important money belief there is
- A game that separates helpful money beliefs from dangerous ones, and why “I’ll save more when I make more” quietly sabotages people for years
- Why net worth, not salary, is the number that actually matters, and how that shift changed Todd’s entire trajectory
- A genuinely difficult story about saying no to a parent’s request for money, and why it was ultimately an act of love
- Why gratitude, generosity, and integrity are money topics, whether people realize it or not
Why This Matters Now
It’s tempting to think financial struggle is purely a math problem: spend less, save more, invest wisely. But plenty of financially literate people still feel stuck, and the reason is rarely a lack of information. It’s an old story about not deserving security, about money meaning lack, about identity getting tangled up with a bank balance. Untangling that story doesn’t require a windfall or a perfect plan. It requires deciding, the way Todd did at forty, that today is the day the narrative changes, and then building simple systems that don’t depend on willpower to keep working.
From the Basement
A headline on the four things you should never order in front of your boss turns into a genuinely useful (and very funny) etiquette lesson, complete with a real story about a twenty-year-old nephew calmly ordering the most expensive steak on the menu without blinking. A listener question on Robinhood also gets a thorough, unflinching answer on why the platform’s marketing has repeatedly crossed lines other brokerages haven’t.
Resources Mentioned
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel — referenced book on the behavioral side of money
Think Wealthy by Todd Havens — Todd’s book on the mindset behind financial freedom
The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins — companion read referenced as the “systems” counterpart to Todd’s “mindset” focus
Our Mentor: Todd Havens
Big thanks to Todd Havens for joining us today. To learn more about Todd, visit Think Wealthy Book. Grab yourself a copy of the book Think Wealthy (2nd Edition): The Foundational Mindset for Financial Freedom (That Won’t Put You to Sleep)
Our Headline
- Things You Should Never Order at a Work Event, From Etiquette Expert (Business Insider)
Doug’s Trivia
- If I own a stock and the endowment effect is rearing its ugly head, what does that mean?
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Other Mentions
- Think Wealthy | Todd Havens | Substack
- How to Make $100M Dollars in 2025 (with Alex Hormozi) SB1625 | Stacking Benjamins
- How to Make $100M Dollars in 2025 – Part 2 (with Alex Hormozi) SB1626 | Stacking Benjamins
Join Us Friday!
Tune in on Friday when we ask why collaboration is praised everywhere except when it comes to your money. We’ll look at what you may be giving up by keeping all the financial control to yourself.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: You’re Doing Risk Tolerance Backwards SB1894 | Stacking Benjamins
Episode transcript
Speaker 1
I guess you should have called. I did call earlier when using the phone. Earlier when was that?
Or later when then I uh left a message. A message? What number did you call?
Two, four, niner, five, six, seven, eight. I can’t hear you, you’re trailing off. And did I catch a niner in there?
Were you calling from a walkie-talkie? No, it was cordless. Mm-hmm.
You know what? Don’t. Not here, not now.
Doug
Live from Joe’s Mob’s basement, it’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. I’m Joe’s Bomb’s neighbor Doug, and today we’re asking the big question. What is this whole financial security thing all about?
Today’s mentor had over $60,000 in student loan debt alone and a big goal of having a net worth of zero When he found out that he had incurable cancer. What does that diagnosis do to your outlook on life? Todd Havens joins us to share his healthy tips for a clean balance sheet and the right mindset to build your stack battle.
Plus, in our headline segment, what a quick way to make your career disappear. The guys will share a big one. And speaking of sharing I’ll also get in on the action and share some of my mind-bending trivia.
It’s one you’ll be sharing across your workplace, assuming you listened to our headline and didn’t get fired. And now, two guys who are fired up about you and your money, it’s Joe and O J-J-J-G.
Joe
Hey there stackers and happy Wednesday too. you. Oh man, I love our Wednesday shows.
If you’re new here, we’ve got some of the best and brightest minds. You just heard Mel Robbins here a couple weeks ago. Today you’re gonna hear Todd Havens coming down to the basement.
No gee. If you have a loved one who is struggling with being motivated to get your saving right, to get out of debt, to get your financial plan in place. You want to find a way to have this on in the car when they’re listening.
Like just find a way to get them in to hear Todd because Todd’s going to bring it today. How are you, man?
OG
Oh, I am uh fantastic. I’m in California right now. I don’t know if you can tell. Can you hear the beach? Oh, there it is.
Joe
Shh. Oh, that’s wild. Shh.
OG
Yeah.
Joe
Coming to us remotely from the beach. From the beach. I love the miracle of uh recording early and all of the places where we’re going to be at that time.
It’s super exciting. The thing that I love though is being able to go to the beach and not worry about it. I remember the early days, OG, when I had no money.
Well, let’s put it very bluntly. My honeymoon was all on credit cards. It was a hundred percent So was mine building credit card debt.
I was going the wrong way. I felt horrible afterwards. I spent a bunch of money I didn’t have because I thought that we deserved it.
Remember when Buffy Purcell was on the show and she said the three most horrible words a broke person could say is I deserve it.
OG
Yeah. No kidding.
Joe
I thought I deserved it. Well Todd Havens is a guy Who’s going to help you with that? He has an incredible backstory.
I’m not going to preview Todd a ton. I’m going to let Todd tell his story, which is a powerful reminder. of what we’re really doing here.
We’re not trying to accumulate more money. We’re just trying to live our best life. And Todd is definitely a representation of that.
So coming up next, Todd Havens, who’s upstairs talking to mom. He’s going to be coming down the stairs. While he’s getting set up at the card table here in mom’s basement, we’re going to have a couple sponsors who help us continue to bring this to you for the premium price of free.
We’re going to hear from them. And then Todd Havens joins us to talk motivation and your money. Our guest today says most people don’t have a money problem.
They have a thinking problem. That’s frustrating news because the problem was just money, we’d all know what to do, right? Just spend less, save more.
That’s the difference. Duh. It’s simple.
So simple. But It isn’t. Todd Havens went from being the guy who felt like the poorest person in every room he entered to becoming a first-generation millionaire, best-selling author, and somebody who spent years studying why some people build wealth. why others stay stuck.
But as Todd and I were getting to know each other before today’s conversation, I learned there was another chapter in his story that completely changed how he thinks about money success. and what it means to live a wealthy life. So today, stackers, we’re going to talk about mindset.
We’re going to talk about money, purpose, how to build a life that’s richer than your bank account. Todd, welcome to mom’s basement, man.
Todd
I’m so happy to be here. It smells great. That’s that is I don’t know if you hear that. That’s the incense candles. I’m not sure what’s going on, but it it’s a feast for the senses.
Joe
I think you’ve done so many interviews over the years. How many times have you gotten to lead with it smells great? This is the first.
Todd
This is the first.
Joe
Well, before we talk about money, I do want to talk about life because as you and I were getting to know each other You shared part of your health journey. Can you tell our stackers what happened?
Todd
Yeah, it’s um 2021, March 15th, the ID’s a march. I went into the hospital. I’d had back pain for months and months.
The doctors thought it was osteoporosis. I was like, 51 and osteoporosis? Is this is this normal, guys?
That was what they said, so they treated it as osteoporosis. Several months beforehand, I had sneezed and a rib had cracked and I felt it crack. Wow.
But I started laughing, Joe, because I’d already woken up one morning with a cracked rib and like things were just not doing well, like in the frame in the skeleton. March 15th, it’s the height of COVID. You can’t get an ambulance unless you have COVID.
We finally like wheel me into the hospital. My partner can’t be there because it’s COVID. So right, it’s just you.
Joe
Yeah.
Todd
I’m pumped up with morphine. The the pain had been increasing and instead of it getting better, as it’s supposed to do when your bones heal. They do an MRI, and the physician’s assistant comes in and she starts crying.
I’m the only one there. I’m hopped up on painkillers. And she says.
There are tumors throughout your chest and your back. There are too many for the radiologist to even count. The floor drops out, right And I go, I’m in a movie?
These are words that people don’t say to each other. It’s it that takes a writer to write it. You know, they want to get a reaction out of the actor.
Joe
You’re used to Hollywood because you work in Hollywood, but you’re not used to being the star. Like you wanna be a star of this movie.
Todd
No. So she says that. And I comfort her. That was my instinct, like, oh, that’s okay.
Thank you. And she says the doctor will be in soon. She leaves.
That was the beginning of the journey of learning that I had. multiple myeloma, which is an incurable blood cancer, but it’s actually in the bone marrow. Basically you’re you know cancer is anywhere cells uh divide too fast.
So it’s antibodies and they crowd out the bones and the bones start crunching down. But we had an answer. We had an answer.
Uh oncologist eventually comes in at another hospital and she says, if you’re gonna get a cancer, this is the best one to get. All right, good news. Right.
Because there’s so much research. It’s a rare cancer, but there’s so much research done on it that the dollars in RD are outsized. So she was right.
It should be a chronic condition. It is a chronic condition. I had a stem cell transplant.
I’ve been in remission for five years. It will come back. That’s what everyone always says.
But they’re still like. 12 medicines FDA approved and whatnot that I can go through. So I’ve got the best team.
So when you get that kind of News delivered that can affect you in many ways. It affects you physically, obviously, emotionally, spiritually, but financially, it it didn’t matter. It didn’t affect us because We had the systems in place, right?
So that was the last thing for us to worry about is my treatment, which is ongoing, is about $120,000 a month. So well over a million a year. I’ve been in the hospital a couple times.
We just got an EOB and explain explanation benefits from my health uh insurance provider. that has said blah blah blah what we pay what we agree to what you pay and it says two million point two something something something And like, that’s not actually what I owe because it has to go through the hospital and the hospital writes off whatever. But I’m like, why do they send these things out?
W if you didn’t understand the system, you might really make some bad life choices.
Joe
I was just thinking that they’re supposed to cure you, not give you a heart attack.
Todd
Exactly. Yeah. They just want me off their they want me off their books as soon as possible.
Joe
There is though, I mean I love the fact that you don’t have to deal with the superficial stuff. And when I started to get my financial house in order, that was the great thing. When I needed to deal with health and nowhere near the healthcare That is Todd.
I just can’t imagine. But I didn’t have to, you know, I can go do things. Or if I’ve got a family member, that’s a problem.
I can just go do it because I don’t have to worry about the little things. But but I want to talk about something deeper there, which is You’re forced to confront your own mortality. And I’m wondering, what did that do to your definition of wealth?
Todd
Listen, I’m not getting life insurance ever again. But when I first met my partner and before we had our daughter, we met with a financial planner and he was Here’s what you gotta do. Everybody knows about life insurance.
So we got life insurance, million dollars, right? That’s just kind of what you do. But he also said private disability insurance.
He’s like you’re much more likely to be injured in your working years than you are to die. You need to get and I used to grumble every year at that twelve hundred dollar payment, but it’s it didn’t save my life. It kind of it helped our financial life, right?
I paid in maybe $12,000. Maybe the policy was worth several hundred thousand in payouts. That’s not a bad investment.
We’re talking investments. So I wasn’t worried financially because we had all of those things already in place. Now it’s a five-year contract.
A five-year contract runs out. Eventually you get to figure that out. But There was nothing to worry about.
My partner had a job. He’s got life insurance. Like on the financial level, there was just It’s like it it didn’t even really enter our minds.
Now you’ve got your copies and you’ve got those things and the system is, as we all know, as I always say, if someone can figure out healthcare in America, you should be the first trillionaire. Now we’ve got a trillionaire who has not done that exact thing. But wouldn’t that be great if somebody did?
It really it wasn’t part of the conversation, Joe, our our finances. We we talk about money all the time, but not not about the medical stuff, if that makes any sense.
Joe
Yeah.
Todd
Right? We bought a house in California, which is the most insane thing anyone has ever done. So now our conversations are about cash flow and cash flow is king, Robert Giyosaki, everybody else, right? All the sharks on Shark Tank.
Joe
But did your diagnosis change the way you thought about money at all?
Todd
No, it it really I don’t I might I might come back to that later, but I don’t think so. Yeah. It was really I wanted to do things and I felt like there was a point where I was about to have back surgery because there was a tumor that was pushing on my spinal cord so much.
That’s where all the pain came from. And when the surgeon went in, he couldn’t even find my spinal cord because it was so compressed. It was so flat.
So that tells you kind of what the pain is and why medication didn’t work. But I thought there was a point like maybe this is the end. And I thought of my daughter.
And I was like, I can’t leave my daughter. My partner would be fine. Like, of course it’d be grieving.
But I was like, I can’t. My daughter was seven. I was like, that really messes people up. So it was primarily a spiritual journey, I would say.
Joe
I would think that it did then, Todd, based on what you’re saying. I mean, I don’t want to put words in your mouth.
Todd
No, do it. Let’s go.
Joe
But it sounds to me, even though you said no You’re talking about, and you mentioned this earlier, time. And I think what money geeks tend to do, you know, we have people that need Todd Havens to show them the basics, which is a lot of what we’re gonna do today and talking about today. And thank goodness you had life insurance.
Thank goodness you had disability coverage, which Back when I was a financial planner, I was with you. Nobody wanted to buy it. And it’s the it’s it’s this huge risk.
It’s this huge risk. So the fact that you did was fantastic. But it seems to me that the the money game changed to time.
Like the fact that you had the money to spend the time. And I feel like we some of our money geeks in the audience, we spend so much time optimizing our money. We forget about living.
You know what I mean? Kind of the the flip side.
Todd
Well, I used to dream of a zero net worth for decades. decades because I had loan debt and credit card debt. And my highest financial aspiration was zero.
It was just to break even. Just to get out of the hole. Just to get out of the hole.
Like That’s where I was. So to go from that to set for retirement and that just keeps, you know, compounding and compounding is unfathomable that I could even do that. What I had to do was really dive into the idea that that money is safety first, money is security second, and ultimately freedom.
Right. And who doesn’t want to feel safe? And who doesn’t want to feel secure for the long term in their lives?
And of course, we’re all hoping for financial freedom. And that freedom can be in each of those levels, depending on what your lifestyle is and and and whatnot. But I had already made that switch.
And so I knew that money was freedom not to buy things. but just to be able to breathe through life’s chaos, whatever was thrown our way, we had already done that both. Me and my partner had had crossed over into, all right, we’re we’re safe, we’re secure.
Freedom depends on your we’re still working on that.
Joe
I want to dive into that more in a little bit too because I love your concept of the money dam, and I think our stackers will as well. But one reason I was excited to share your message is that we hear a version of the same frustration all the time, Todd. People read books, they listen to podcasts, they follow smart financial creators, they know what they’re supposed to do.
And yet they still feel stuck. It’s not an investing problem, it’s not a budgeting problem, something that’s between our ears. Why do smart people still struggle financially.
Like I’m smart enough. Damn it. I’m good looking.
How come I’m not getting ahead?
Todd
Uh I can talk about myself. And what I had to realize is that I felt I didn’t deserve it. I felt I didn’t deserve to be wealthy, whatever that could could mean, right?
Because there was such a separation growing up middle class in in the Midwest in the seventies and eighties, there was such a difference between us and them. And them was rich in wealth and everybody you knew needed more money. We didn’t know anybody who was well off or or whatnot.
I needed to make the switch that I deserved it. And not that I deserved it like I needed it. Like I had to get excited about money.
It was always There were such uh rain clouds. Whenever I would think about money, I’d get a check and I’d just be like, oh, I’ve already spent that. I had to switch to no money is is incredible and not to buy things, but just to feel safe and secure in a world that you never know what’s gonna happen.
It was that switch in in my mind too, because I read the books and and was like, oh, you know, I would build a savings account and then the car would break down and so I’d have to drain it. But every step of the way, it’s almost like a daily motivation that you do. Like I did that.
I, you know, I got paid first and I paid myself first. And That’s what I love the image of the money dam so much is that the money comes into your lake of net worth first and you decide where it goes. Now, you might not have much of a damn holding back your lake of net worth.
But you get to decide. You decide whether to pay the electric bill. You decide whether to to pay for your uh life insurance and all those things.
Like it is ultimately your choice. And when you take that choice, when you own that, that it’s your decision. Life changed.
It changed for me when I did that. Does that make sense?
Joe
Uh no, it completely does. I was thinking about this earlier today while I was driving back to mom’s basement and I stopped somewhere for a coffee And I actually had the thought, Todd, because we were speaking today. I’m like, is it worth this dollar going through the money dam?
Which before I knew the Todd Haban’s concept of a money dam was not in my vernacular, but it’s great. If I’m sitting at, you know, and I’m deciding whether to eat at home or go to a restaurant, I start thinking about what do I value? Is it, should it stay behind the dam?
And build up and make this lake for later or should it go through the money dam? I I think we start looking at what we value.
Todd
Yeah Well that’s the thing. Look at any credit card statement or however you work in the world of finance and look at everything on the credit card statement as and and say, oh, I must really value that. I must really value that.
I value this thing over safety and security and freedom, right? And then you say, oh, but I don’t really. Great, cut that out.
You know, I hate budgeting. I don’t know if That’s kosher to say or not, but I just I can’t do budgeting. It lasts for two weeks.
And then I’m like, oh now I know where my money is, I know what it’s doing, but I don’t have that granular Um my my partner does that right now. But I used you know I used to have mint. Do you remember mint as an I refresh and like every day it’d like go up?
And they’re like, oh my gosh. It felt like Vegas or something like that. So I I track it.
But not to that granular level.
Joe
Did you need to track it granularly at first and then got to the point where it wasn’t as important, just more the money damn concept was, or did you never really follow a quote budget?
Todd
I never really followed a budget. I I would do it and be like, okay, the first thing you have to pay is your rent or your mortgage. That’s the very top item.
And then if you have a car loan, like there were just certain middle class Midwestern Values that were instilled in me, like you will always pay your bills. I would line them up that way, and they’re always biggest to smallest. But it’s really what you said with the money damn, like You you get to that level where you’re like, do I want to do this?
Or could that money go somewhere else, like to pay off a student loan or to pay down credit card that got out of control? Something like that. So It comes down to that moment by moment choice.
And I listen, when I had no money, I knew if I left my apartment in Studio City, California, I was gonna have to spend money. So a lot of times they’d be like, I’m not going out tonight. Uh I I know that’s $60 for somebody’s birthday party that I don’t even know.
You know, like Yeah. Felt like at a cellular level, like you’re like, okay, this, is this worth it? Is it worth it?
Is it gonna get me to my goals
Joe
I think that’s great. Like begin yeah well, what’s the Stephen Covey quote, right? Beginning with the end of mind. That’s the whole money damn, beginning with the end of mind.
Todd
And the end of mine wasn’t a dollar amount, it was the feeling of of freedom. You know, the turnaround was really, I was 40 years old. I was about to turn 40.
My partner said, Oh my God, 40, that’s such a big year. Let’s let’s call all your friends and what do you want to do? I felt fearful.
I was like, I don’t want to be seen because I was embarrassed. Like my my net worth was defining my self-worth. And so we went on a cheap uh carnival cruise and 250 each, like great value, right?
And then we won the first night of bingo at several hundred dollars, yay, and then drank it away. Um but And that was such a reaction that he was like, I was, Joe, I was literally afraid someone would come into my birthday party and be like, hey Todd, happy birthday. How much student loan do you still have student loans do you have still have it?
Forty I’d be like, oh twenty five thousand. They’d look at me disgusted and and leave or something. It was so irrational, but it took Me almost like standing outside of myself at this like gut reaction I’d had to say like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, why I’m 40 years old and I’ve have I just ignored money for all this time?
Like What is happening? So I I really started diving into my own psychology and and what I’d been raised with and that money meant to lack, like there was never enough of it. Money doesn’t grow on trees and all of that.
That was the wake-up call for me that things have to change. And I and now on the other side of it, I I I just have this excitement for money. And I kind of I want to say like Why don’t people want to feel safe?
And even in members of my own family still that are are struggling. Like, I see the decisions they’re making. And I want to say.
You have the power to You can change it. You can change it. Why don’t you want to feel this way?
It’s not about buying things. I have to keep saying that because It’s so easy to equate wealth with materialism.
Joe
And that’s not it.
Todd
That’s not it.
Joe
One of your big aha’s that you explain, and I think a lot of our stackers And for new stackers, they may still feel this way, Todd, which is you equated wealth with your salary And you’re like, no, no, no. Wealthy people don’t equate it with a bigger salary. Really, people people it it’s gotta go beyond salary.
Todd
It’s gotta go beyond salary. It’s net worth. It’s I don’t know why that wasn’t Right, like that should be the marker that is taught in personal finance classes in high school and whatever they’re doing, it’s like it’s not salary, but I was of the generation where I was the first to go to a four-year college.
My mom and my sister eventually did, but I was the first one to go through. My mom was an educator and she knew You know, get a good education and get a good job because that’s where the high salaries are. But the salary doesn’t really matter unless you can hang on to it.
Wealth is not what you earn, it’s what you keep. It’s what you keep in your lake of net worth, right? So that was a big one too.
I think somebody said, uh, so-and-so’s net worth is XYZ. I’d be like, net worth? What does that even mean?
Yeah. And then as you get to the other side, you go, oh, salary is one of the worst ways to earn money because of the taxation and because of that it just so much goes out of it that is out of your paycheck. And that’s what helped me.
Again, 40, I have nothing in retirement. I still have student loan debt. To now I’m 56 and we have million plus in retirements that’s going to keep growing.
So we’re only talking about 15 years here of a complete turnaround. Now the market goes up and up and up and up. And that’s really where, you know, this isn’t a crypto play we did.
This is really just investing in basic SP 500 and and things like that. So you don’t even need, at least in my case, 40 years or a 50-year time horizon to start to see the growth and to and to start changing your life and feeling that, you know, in your bones.
Joe
I think it’s a message a lot of people need to hear because so many people feel like they’re behind. You know, and they when they hear somebody that uh hates budgeting, does doesn’t want to look at the budget, doesn’t want to think about the budget But is able to turn the ship around and have this aha and really take the same self-judgment a lot of us have that you know as well as anybody, Todd, can be horrible. This self-loathing, this self-you know I’m 40 years old, what the hell But to make that work for you and to turn it into something an engine versus just beating on yourself all day really is a powerful thing.
I want to play a quick game based on some of the stuff that I learned in your book. Okay. Yeah, this is gonna be a tough game.
Steve, we need some background music here for a second. We’re gonna call this helpful or dangerous. So uh I’m gonna say a phrase that Todd Havens might have said before me and you will tell me if this is a helpful belief or a dangerous belief.
Todd
You ready? That’s that’s what I say.
Joe
Yeah Yes.
Todd
Y you will say helpful or dangerous. Yes, we’re the only two here. I don’t know why I asked that.
Joe
Yeah. No, it’s the other guy, Todd. Here we go. I’ll save more when I make more.
Todd
Dangerous. I deserve this. Uh what’s it what what are the options dangerous or helpful? Helpful. Helpful.
Joe
I’m just not good with money. Dangerous. I need to learn more before I invest.
Todd
Dangerous. This is a hard game, Joe. Money changes people.
Money changes people. I think that’s dangerous. That’s that’s a nuanced one.
That’s a nuanced one.
Joe
Well yeah, because you talk about I want to get into that later, Stackers, but Todd, I really want to get into this because You don’t say those exact words. Well, the exact words that money shouldn’t change you. And if it does, it should change you for the better, which I love and I think a lot of our stackers need to hear from you. But it is interesting that all but one of those was this limiting dangerous belief. Like which of those that I made you say do you think causes the most damage?
Todd
The one about deserving it. Because I think that’s really that’s the core of everything I write about and everything I went through myself is that you need to believe And a lot of times nobody else is going to give that to you, that inside belief, interior belief that you can do it. That even putting aside $250, not getting that dollar coffee. I don’t know where you get a dollar coffee.
Joe
You’re saying the opposite of what I asked, which is this is the one that helps the most. I deserve it helps the most.
Todd
Helps the most, yeah, because that’s so foundational. Yeah. The idea that money changes you is Uh I I say money just makes you more of who you already are.
So it’s always your choice to be a good person or bad person in the world, whether you have negative fifty thousand dollars like I did, or Whatever Oprah has now, two billion, who knows, right? It’s always your choice. So money just makes you more of who you already are.
Joe
One thing I know about our stackers is that they don’t just want inspiration. They want something they could do. So let’s say that somebody finishes this episode, they park their car. Walk into the house and they decide like you did when you turn 40 that today’s the day. Today’s the day. What’s the first thing they should do
Todd
I would say the first thing you need to do is put systems in place so that you don’t have to wake up every day wondering if your savings account is increasing and whether you’re contributing to your retirement accounts. Put the systems in place so that you don’t have to be forced into what has been a dangerous financial ground for you to walk on, right? Like, oh, that dollar coffee, am I gonna do it or not?
Like it’s it comes out of your paycheck, certain percentage, whatever, whatever system you need to set up. But The one thing that wealthy people do is they have separate accounts for different reasons, right? I used to have one checking account for everything.
So everything went into it and that was that’s just what you spent. Okay, I can pay more more my loans down or or whatever it might be, but you’re paying yourself first. So you have a savings account.
You open up an investment account. Again, if your company has a We say this all the time, right? If your company has a 401k match, that is free money, you should get into that.
So I would say the first thing is there are systems that you can set up that people have gone before you, many people have gone before you and done and to tap into those.
Joe
So it sounds like Number one is set up these separate buckets, we’ll call them. But then number two is automate money into them. Is that what you’re saying?
Todd
Right.
Joe
It’s funny because the very next question I was going to ask you was what’s a wealth-building habit that’s boring but effective? That’s one right there. It is boring but effective, but what’s another one?
Todd
You want something more boring is do nothing. Do nothing. Once you’ve got the systems in place, do nothing.
The market is down five percent because of the war in Iran. Great, do nothing. You know, you don’t need to be my partner.
He’s another room. I’m like whispering. It’s like, oh, the market’s down five percent.
And I’m like, great. Let’s let’s put some more money into it. Right.
It’s very Warren Buffett. of seeing it kind of the flip of of what you would normally think. But like we are not about to retire.
We have a fifteen year time horizon plus. So the market’s gonna go up and it’s gonna go down. And if and I I did used to track it well, you know when my money was in it, and I’d play the stocks and that’s gambling.
I wasn’t as good as I thought I would be with individual stocks. So it’s really set the systems in place and do nothing. Is there anything more boring than doing nothing?
You could say live your life, you say help others.
Joe
But really that’s great because you you’re spending time not thinking about it. You’re thinking about the things that are important like being with the people you love when you have inoperable cancer.
Todd
When you have uh yep.
Joe
Yeah. So we talked about a few of your think wealthy framework, a few of the first ones. Think net worth, not salary is how you talk about the first one.
Second, think long term. We really just talked about just now, think long term. Uh, think about what you value, the financial dam, and whether it gets through the value or not.
Your fourth and fifth are think of what’s possible and think big. What do those mean?
Todd
Think of what’s possible every day that we wake up. Oh, I get to say my favorite line. Every day that we wake up, it is our choice, how we live that day.
what we do, whether we’re meeting new people or starting a business or whatever that might be, starting a side a side business. We are so driven by our past, right? Well, I’m bad with money, that whatever thoughts we have that that circulate in our head over and over again that do damage.
to us financially because every day is a new day to be the person that you want to become And I think about, you know, listen, uh I watched Oprah’s show back in the day and have always followed her because she’s rags to riches. Yeah. And she’s like, you know, there’s a bigger dream than you can even dream for yourself.
when you’re doing what you really want to do. And I’m not going to say that follow your passion, because your passion also has to is to bring money into your lake of net worth. But it’s that you don’t even know Prime example, turning 40 and saying, oh, I can’t, I I don’t want to be seen by my friends.
You don’t even know what’s possible. Tony Robbins says we overestimate what we can do in one year, but underestimate what we can do in 10 years. And I mean exact systems in place, things like that.
But the thing I want to say, which I love, love, love, love, is The wake doesn’t drive the boat. I don’t know if you saw that in there, the wake doesn’t drive the boat. So many of us, myself included, we look over the back of the boat like looking at our past and trying to understand it and but the boat is just going forward anyway it’s not the wake that drives the boat the wake is what your past leaves so i always say like turn around And grab the steering wheel of your boat and put it on the heading that you want to go.
And that is available every single day, every single moment. after you clear out the negative money thoughts that you’ve had. Does that make sense?
So that’s bigger than, you know, think bigger than you can even dream of in a way. Right. Once you’re on the right track, doors will open and that will turn out to what it’s supposed to be.
Joe
It just helps you create such an exciting life instead of dwelling on the past, just in the infinite future. the future things that you can do every every minute you wake up.
Todd
It’s not even financial advice ultimately, right?
Joe
No, well and that’s what I think is so powerful is that this is not about money. As you’ve said three or four or five times today. It’s not about having more stuff.
It isn’t about having more stuff. It’s about possibilities. I want to get into the idea of money changing you because one thing that I really, really think our stackers need to hear from you is some of these themes that you have about Gratitude, generosity, joy, and integrity.
Like most people don’t think of those as money topics. But as you said earlier, they really are. Why are they?
Todd
Some of the wealthiest people that I’ve met, and have a few that have crossed my path here in Los Angeles, some of the wealthiest, many of the wealthiest that I have met. are grateful for where they are. They’re grateful for, you know, I’ve gone out on sailboats with millionaires, possibly billionaires, and they’re grateful for everyone around them helping them.
They do things themselves. They’re not just being catered to constantly. There’s just a sense that they’re not doing it alone, that it takes everybody to cross the finish line or keep keep running the marathon, however you want to look at it.
A lot of that comes back to upbringing. Again, Midwest, 70s and 80s. You were just a good person because At the end of the day, you can’t take it with you. And uh I I just wrote a post on Substack.
It’s the eulogy test. You know, what do you want people to say at your funeral? Does anybody ever stand up and say, wow, her her Roth 401k was just through the roof?
Does anybody say that? So how do you strike the balance between Being a good person, being a good parent, being a good friend. Would you uh there’s one thing in the book about you’re the CEO of your own life.
We kick and scream when we’re teenagers, like, no, I don’t want to be like, and then you get your freedom and you’re like, oh, is this what I really wanted? But you’re the CEO of of you. So would you hire you as a as an employee?
Where do you want to be? Do you want to, you know, are you the kind of friend that people want to hang out with? Like there’s a lot of of that self-reflection in there.
Um, but I’ve drifted. My boat has drifted, Joe. Where where are we in the conversation?
Joe
Well, no, I think that this idea of It isn’t about the money and as you have more money you get to experience more gratitude. You can choose to experience more gratitude. You can choose to experience more joy You can live more according to your values. And as you’ve said before, it magnifies who you are. And if you’re not that person, you can be incredibly rich, but not really wealthy.
Todd
Right. There’s a story that I don’t often share. It’s it’s very interesting.
So at one point my mom, my mom was an accountant and a teacher, and she was good with money, but my dad wasn’t. So they set up their retirement right. They they took money and they invested in rental properties, but they were just not good landlords. So people wouldn’t pay their rent, uh, you know, month after month or month.
Uh the um places would uh fall into disrepair. But at one point, I think she knew that I was making good money as at a digital creative agency. And she called and she asked for $2,500.
And that broke my heart. And she’s because she said, she’s like, don’t tell your father, he wouldn’t let me ask you for it. And I said, no, I had to say no to my own mother.
Because of how she had raised me, like she knew to teach a man to fish, not to just give him fish. I had the money Not gobs of it, but I had $2,500 that I’ve given her. And it was like, well, is this a loan?
Like, what are we talking about? And so that was that was a hard moment. That’s a really hard moment.
Because I didn’t want her to suffer, but the reason she was asking for it was the wrong reason, because there was no communication or not. Sufficient c communication between the two of them.
Joe
Was she angry at you?
Todd
Did she resent you? She was but uh we Didn’t really have a lot of anger in her house. Certainly, certainly not me and my mom.
So she expressed that, but she under she understood She ultimately understood that that was not the way to go about repairing their finances or whatnot. And ultimately, they’re both passed now. But I took over.
My sister was back there and helped them through the end years. But I took over their finances and I made sure and they had debt. I mean they were completely out of debt.
I kept them in their house throughout the end. They had the the end of life experience that they wanted. That was worth a lot more than $2,500.
You know what I mean? Like negotiating with uh uh debtors and and whatever there was. That was ultimately my final gift.
And she had dementia for the last 10 years of her life. But she was grateful for it when she knew it was happening, if that makes sense. Yeah.
That was probably the hardest financial decision I’ve ever had to make. But knowing it took me a while to learn that the reason I said that was because of things that she had taught me.
Joe
Wow. What a what a what a tough place to be. But the fact that you could then help them with their money in their final years, I think is uh also because that’s what I was good at, right?
Todd
That was my helping them fish. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, I kind of viewed that as a piece of integrity in an odd kind of flipped-about way. Like I had to have integrity that I knew that it wouldn’t solve the problem. You know, there’s always it it may sound harsh to others, but they had the resources, they had the assets just untapped.
If that makes sense.
Joe
It was the same as yours when you were 39.
Todd
Yeah. And I was still building like I was just in the beginning stages of building everything. But that was a classic case of Midwestern thinking of like somebody else needs it more than me.
So I know a lot of people that they they’re blocking themselves from a wealthier future because that will mean that they are, at least in their own minds, on a different level than everyone else they know. Oh, you know, they say don’t put on airs or something like that. Like if you you become too big for your britches if you have more than other people do.
And yet that’s what everybody wants. It’s really confusing.
Joe
It is confusing. We’ve had uh charitable giving experts on, and they talk about, hey, giving $2,500 to a charity is a nice gift. But if you have skills, you certainly have the skills from what you do in your everyday world in Hollywood.
being able to use those skills to help a charity is far more valuable than $2,500. And it’s almost the same with your parents. Being able to help them learn to manage their own money, far more valuable than giving them the money.
Todd
Right. And I did uh I made a PowerPoint presentation of their rental properties and their main property and and it fell on deaf deaf ears. Like I did it.
I I put the everything into it. And I think my mom was like, yes, yes, but my dad was just not. Couldn’t see it or understand it.
What does that look like 10 years from now, 20 years from now? And I think it’s because his own mother passed in her fifties. And so he thought, as a lot of my friends do when their parents pass young, life is short.
Life is short. Why why sacrifice this pleasure right now? But again, in the Tony Robbins way, it it really compounds before you even you look up one day and you’re like, whoa.
Joe
Yeah, you could you can more quickly have both than than you would ever expect. That was the surprise for me when I started getting out of debt, was how quickly AI felt empowered immediately, even before anything changed, I felt empowered. But how quickly my situation changed just when my mindset around it changed.
Speaker 6
Yeah
Joe
You know, I’ve I’ve learned a lot, and I hope our stackers have learned a lot about how to think wealthy today But there was something I was thinking the whole time, and I don’t think you specifically address this in any anything that I’ve read of yours, which is You’ve got money rules that make sense, right? The boring stuff. Think long term.
Don’t look at it. Uh set up automation. Set up separate accounts for these things.
But what is a money rule that you see people follow that makes Todd roll his eyes and go, oh God, what are you doing? This is crazy.
Todd
You know, you never know what’s going on in other people’s houses or in their financial lives. Right. I I think it’s probably that would be thinking long term.
But how surprised I am at family members who have really good jobs and whatnot. And then you find out, oh, if they lost a job the house might have to go or something like that. And you’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
You know, you make more than I ever have in a year. You had a statistic around like 70% this is 70% of people, right? Yeah.
That that fluctuates. Yeah. But it’s a lot.
How many people are dependent on Social Security to get through the end of their lives? My parents were completely almost completely dependent on it. That’s not how it should be if you want to feel safe and secure.
You said it yourself, like how powerful you felt, right? What changed for you that you something switched in your mind? You’re I don’t know if you said I can do it or you just needed a baby step to see, right?
But something something flipped. And that’s really all it takes is for people to just make that flip. So the thing I’m most surprised by is, I guess.
Again, cancer out of the blue, no long-term thinking. And again, others can help with this. Millions of people have gone before you.
80% of millionaires are self-made. They didn’t just inherit it. So wealth is very learnable.
It really boils down to like the excitement of of making that change. And it it rests within. You can’t You can’t make somebody do it.
You can’t beg them to do it. You’ve got to make that flip yourself.
Joe
Yeah, thinking about yourself now as a billionaire. is uh is is one thing you write about. And just waking up and even if you got a negative net worth, just thinking, no, I’m a billionaire.
And thinking like a billionaire, I think is a great place to start. And I also think just the positivity and your message, Todd, of it’s never too late to begin this journey. Wasn’t too late for your parents, not too late for you at 40.
Certainly not.
Todd
And the whole point of the interbillionaire is not that you necessarily have a billion dollars at the end, but that you really get to the foundation that you you know you create your own life and that you deserve to have whatever you can collect behind your lake of net worth or whatever uh cash flow systems you you set up. You know, if we’re talking about the fire movement, things like that. One of the biggest ones is that you can handle any situation.
Wealthy people know that they can handle any situation. I don’t think it’s because they know they have the money to fall back on if times get rough. It’s just everything can be Resolved.
Right. Some people I think are just so fearful, like, oh, if I do this, if what will so and so think, or whatever it is, but the idea that you can handle I I knew that I could handle my mom saying, being pissed at me or something for even though it took a couple months, I knew that that I could weather that because that was the right thing to do
Joe
It’s a hard day, but in the end, it’s a good it’s a good day. Yeah. Believe it or not, Todd actually wrote a book about this topic. Oh my gosh.
Todd
I did Yeah.
Joe
It’s called Think Wealthy. It’s in its uh second edition, the financial mindset for financial freedom that won’t put you to sleep. And uh endorsed, by the way, by a couple of friends of the Stacky Benjamin show.
Paul Sullivan, uh New York Times columnist who’s been with us. Paul’s such a great guy, by the way. Oh, isn’t he great?
Todd
Company of dads he started. I don’t know if he talked about that or not.
Joe
Yeah, we did. And it was it the Paul is such a great guy. And uh some dude named J. L.
Todd
Collins, not sure who that is. Doesn’t ring a mouth.
Joe
If you’re new to this show that that is pure sarcasm, Jayle Collins wrote a best-selling book called The Simple Path to Wealth that I think goes really hand in hand with uh Think Wealthy. Todd, where is it available?
Todd
Available Amazon in four formats, working on availability for like libraries and whatnot. That’s just a simple thing. I need to do. You can put on my to-do list.
Joe
If it’s like minus like thing forty-seven. You were gonna say something, I cut you off accidentally
Todd
Was it about JL Collins? Uh about JL. Oh, I used to say like mine is mindset. Like I really think it’s about the psychology behind it. And then JL is systems.
Joe
Yes.
Todd
Really talking about the systems and not worrying about not checking your accounts every day. So I kinda go one, two, and then I add the psychology of money. Yeah.
Yeah. Because that is just a book that’s changed. It’s it’s a phenomenal book, Morgan Housel’s A Psychology of Money.
Joe
I finally got to meet him last fall for the first time. Oh did you? Yeah, yeah. Just a super nice guy.
Todd
What a talking about flipping the script and just approaching it from left field Those are my favorites.
Joe
Todd, thanks for hanging out in the basement and for mentoring our stackers. I super appreciate you and congratulations and uh so happy that you’re in remission. Here’s to you, man. Thank you so much.
Todd
Thank you so much.
Speaker 7
I’m Liz, the chief mom officer, and when I’m not busy being the breadwinner of my family of five, I’m stacking Benjamins.
Doug
Hey there stackers, I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor Doug, and Todd and I are a total team here with a one-two punch on this show, right? Heck, Joe and I should probably be your next guest on the podcast. Before you answer, check out how I can keep Todd’s ball rolling with some behavioral economic trivia.
There are lots of biases in investing and personal finance, but one is a biggie and it’s called the endowment effect. Let’s say I own a stock and the endowment effect is rearing its ugly head. What does that mean?
Speaking of ownership, I’ll be back right after I replace the cookie jar upstairs with one I own. That way when Joe’s mom makes the next batch I’ll own them all. Hey there stackers.
I’m Cookie Schemer and guy who just got a lesson in behavioral eating Joe’s mom’s neighbor dog. Joe’s mom Mom caught me replacing the cookie jar with my own, you know, so I could claim them all. Glorious eats inside right when she came around the corner.
Told her I was trying to demonstrate the endowment effect, and she told me about a new behavioral term called, get your hands out of the jar, or you’re gonna lose one of them, pal! Never heard of that effect before, but I don’t like it. So I conceded and stepped away slowly.
But I hope you didn’t concede the answer to today’s trivia question because it wasn’t that hard. If I own a stock and I’m suffering from the endowment effect, what’s going on? The answer?
The endowment effect is a bias where if I own an item, I value it more. Therefore, I’m less likely to give up a stock because I already own it, or any item for that matter. This is where hoarding begins.
How about that? Well, I love my stock, so I guess that makes me well endowed, huh? No?
Is that a different thing? I’ll figure out how I stepped in at this time a little bit later. But for now, let’s send you back to Joe and OG
Joe
That may be something slightly different. OG.
OG
Yeah, slightly is the understatement of the century.
Joe
Yeah. Let’s uh get it, Doug.
OG
Very slight.
Joe
Understatement, Doug. Uh let’s do a headline.
Speaker 8
Hello, darlings. And now it’s time for your favorite part of the show. Our stacking Benjamin’s headlines.
Joe
Our headline today comes to us From Business Insider. This is written by Alicia Hall. You remember the early days, OG, of your career and the boss would invite a bunch of you maybe out to lunch or you go to some corporate dinner?
Well, I saw a lot of times people step in a few things. And this is a great reminder of even though you’re not at work when you’re at the company dinner, the company lunch. You really still OG are kind of over.
You’re at work. Yeah.
OG
You’re on stage.
Joe
Everybody is judging you. So I want to walk through four things you should never order in front of your boss or coworkers.
OG
Order. Okay.
Joe
Yes, these are things you shouldn’t order. Number one is the big one. Don’t order the overly expensive meal. You’re sitting across from your boss and you decide to go for the most expensive thing on the menu.
OG
That’s probably the thing that says market price. Right. The special.
Joe
Which is always gonna be low.
OG
Isn’t does the market mean low? What is the uh market price presently? Uh it’s the price we pay for it.
Joe
Okay, I’ll do that. And it’s showing the surf and turf. You know, your boss is judging everything that you do. And if you’re out at uh lunch or dinner and you’re Are you asking me my opinion about these?
OG
Like yes or no?
Joe
Yeah, what do you think about that?
OG
Oh, um Yeah, I don’t think that you should go for the caviar, but you know, if you’re you you gotta order commensurate with where you are. If you’re at five guys and you want the double burger instead of the single, get after it, man. If you’re at a steakhouse You should order a steak if you’re into that.
I think people make uh you know err on the other side more too often, right? Um I’ll just have the salad. It’s like, dude, you’re at Del Frisco’s. Get a friggin’ ribeye.
Joe
Yeah, but I’m still gonna go for, you know, they got the different levels of ribeye. I’m still gonna go for the lower ribeye just to show my boss that I’m Cost conscious. I’m not gonna overdo it.
Also, just don’t order first. That’s a great one. Pass you’re still looking at the menu.
Wait and see what everybody has to do. That’s a great idea. But that’s phenomenal.
Never mind.
OG
And then if they’re like, oh yeah, we’re going to do the seafood tower. Uh let’s go ahead and get the Wagyu appetizer for everybody. Uh I’m going to do the 20-ounce uh porterhouse medium. And then you’re like, yeah, we’re getting after it today, buddy.
Joe
Then you’re good to slide in with the fillet. That’s right. Yeah, absolutely.
You’re fine with the fillet then. Yeah. Watch out because that’s trouble.
Here’s one I saw rear its ugly head over and over again, OG. The night’s getting fun. You’re out for drinks afterwards.
Excessive alcohol consumption at a work event.
OG
I’ve never seen you have excessive alcohol consumption, Joe.
Joe
What are you talking about? Never me. But not at not at a work event. I think I helped my own at work event. Well, and by help my own, I don’t mean I had excessive alcohol.
OG
Well, that’s what you think. Um Yeah, don’t get tampered in front of your boss. That’s a bad idea.
Joe
Here’s how bad this is. I heard a story several years ago. About Lester Holt.
OG
Yeah, the NBC guy.
Joe
Lester Holt was at the NBC Company party and was crocked, was absolutely loaded And got up and sang karaoke and just completely embarrassed himself because it became clear at the company event he was overserved. And I heard another story that that was The reason why it took him so long to get that last step to anchor was because people could not forget the one night. Do you believe in love after love?
OG
And you’re like, oh boy.
Joe
I don’t know Lester Holt. I don’t know anybody that was at that party. That could be urban legend, but I think it still fits.
We’ve all seen this person. Sure. That got passed over for something later because they made a Really dumb mistake.
Don’t be that guy. Don’t, don’t. It is a work event. Watch out for excessive alcohol.
Number three. Don’t order too much food. It’s the same thing as number one.
No, it’s not. One is expensive food. Another one is I’ll have a salad and an appetizer and the bread and I’ll have the next thing.
And you’ve got this. Power meal around you. Everybody else has one single dish, and you’ve got like five dishes around you.
Not only does it increase the bill. It also looks awkward like you can’t control your eating.
OG
Yeah. I disagree. When I go out to eat, I get one of everything.
I want to try. I don’t want to make the decision. But again, there’s another trick here, especially if you’re a younger stacker and maybe you’re not the host and maybe you’re the guest of this, is you can float the idea.
Right? When they come around and they say, hey, so we’re gonna give everybody some water. Do you want the sparkling water?
So right then you go, do you guys want to split an app? If you’re like a little extra hungry and you’re like, I’m I’m gonna, you know, I don’t want the cheese sticks all to myself because that’ll look weird. Do you guys want to split the You know, and like if the vibe is no, not really, then you’re good.
Just shut that down. You’re gonna go main course, get out. Uh, and get out early so you can go get like some other food somewhere else, clearly.
But if they’re like, yeah, you know, then have something that’s ready. Good go-to is you ask the server, hey, you know, there’s eight people here. What do you think?
Like two? What what are your favorite two appetites?
Joe
I think it’s easier to do that when you’re the boss though. Sure. If you’re the low woman or man on the totem pole.
And you’re asking the server, what’s a good appetizer for all of us? And I’m the boss. I’m like, what are you doing?
OG
What are you doing? I love I love like having somebody take charge like that. So I think I think you can get away with it. I’m completely out of this world, so I don’t have any idea, but it would not bother me in the least bit if somebody like owned that decision matrix.
Joe
I had this happen when I took my nephews to dinner. You had this with Steak Brother I lean forward with my three nephews. If I told you the story, we were at Lonesome Dove in Fort Worth.
Great, great restaurant. Fantastic. I highly recommend it.
One of the top eats in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. were there and I leaned forward to my nephews and I said, hey, if nothing on the menu lights you up, go ahead and get the wagu.
OG
But how come I’ve never been invited to a dinner where you say that? But nothing lights you up. Get the Wagyu.
Joe
But then I told the story about how my son had ordered the Wagyu and I didn’t even see it on the menu And then he ordered it and I’m like, who the hell had a hundred and thirty dollar stake? Like who the hell did that? So I was telling them that. I’m like, listen, I have enough money to afford it, but look at all these great options.
OG
What I was trying to do was take it off the Right, Uncle Joe, but uh the A5 Wagyu does look pretty good.
Joe
So nothing lights me up like a Japanese Wagyu does, though I was taking it off the menu for these kids that you said you could order it. I did say it, but I was taking off. I was saying, listen, if nothing else on the menu, but otherwise, here’s the story.
Nick ordered it, and we all kind of freaked out. But I should have set the stage for him earlier. So if you don’t want me to freak out, look at the entire menu.
OG
I am 100% the next time we’re going to dinner having Wagyu.
Joe
My nephew, my nephew. My first two nephews were great. They ordered responsibly. My third one looks right at the server and goes, I’ll take the Wagyu.
OG
Damn right.
Joe
And my other nephew leans over, gives me a hug, and goes, it’s going to be okay, Uncle Joe. Because he’s like, fuck. He saw that I was having a heart attack.
OG
Forty dollars an ounce minimum eight four ounce purchase.
Joe
For for a twenty-year-old who has no idea. Just zero idea.
OG
Sorry, if your palette is still on Ponderosa. I know.
Joe
I could have taken him to Logan’s and he would have been happy with the sirloin. And by the way, that’s no judgment because I was at Logan’s a couple weeks ago and I had the sirloin.
OG
It is just fine. Not quite Japanese wagon.
Joe
He does not know the difference. But you’re a few would not know the difference. He had no idea.
Oh, that was horrible. Last one on here, and then we’ll wrap this up. Don’t order, and and I really like this one, OG, and it’s one that I didn’t think enough about, but I 100% agree.
Meals that are difficult to eat, like Italian foods, where there’s a chance it might get on your suit. Every time something could get on my my clothing when I’m at a work event, it would get on my clothing. So have something because you’re gonna be talking.
You’re really there to talk. You’re there to network. You’re there to get along with other people.
You’re not there to to spiral the noodle around your fork 50 times.
OG
You know, like slurping up pasta.
Joe
Just horrible. Yeah, meals that are difficult to eat are no.
OG
If you’re at an Italian place, you gotta get a heavy cream sauce that’s not gonna splatter everywhere for sure.
Joe
Yeah, and then cut it into little pieces ahead of time so it’s just gonna be easy to talk and eat a little bit and uh maybe not the way you’d eat it regularly, but just make it as easy to eat as possible.
OG
God, I can’t wait to go out to dinner with you next time. I’m ordering the most expensive Wagyu topped spaghetti pasta with an appetizer and a salad and the soup and two desserts and the most expensive bottle of wine.
Joe
Right. No G’s gonna be like, hey, we’ll split the drinks. I’m only having two though, and you’ve got the first one and the last one.
OG
No way. I’ll be like just getting blasted in front of my boss. Does it count if we both get destroyed at the Rangers game?
I think it’s co-destruction. It’s like mutual assured destruction. It’s like how we both have Nukes pointed at each other.
It’s like if we both have eleven beers by the fourth inning.
Joe
I won’t talk about you if you don’t talk about me. Exactly.
OG
Yes. Yes. As long as we Ubered home, that’s the only thing I mean.
Joe
That’s exactly what I was gonna say was don’t worry, Stackers. There was an Uber involved. Everybody was okay.
OG
Yes. Not the next morning we weren’t okay, but in the present moment we giggled and hugged it out. We were having a blast.
Yes. I love you, man. Joe is the little spoon.
Joe
It was it was a great night. Wait, I don’t know.
OG
Is it big or little? I don’t even remember.
Joe
But easy. Uh goes back to the endowment effect. Yes.
All right. That’s gonna do it for today. I will link to this piece in Business Insider.
If you know somebody who’s new to the workplace and goes out with clients or goes out with their boss, I think this is uh It’s a great piece. I read this and said, oh man, we should we should cover this for some of our uh stackers just getting into the workforce. All right, that brings us to the back porch.
And OG, I’ve got a couple things that our stackers are doing. Number one is, you know, you and I do this for one reason. And that is to spread the word of financial security.
It is so exciting when somebody takes the things that we talk about. And they implement something new. They change their trajectory.
And what I love is that for many of you, you also influence other people around you. And they ask, what are you doing? What are you doing different?
What did you like? What’s going on? Well, imagine my surprise a few days ago when I’m on TikTok and I see this from a stacker who runs a podcast of her own.
Her TikTok brand is Decision Day. She helps young professionals do what we just talk about, get ahead in the workforce. Listen to what uh she had to say
Speaker 9
Watched an amazing episode on the Stacking Benjamins podcast featuring Alex Hermozzi and I took a ton of notes, so I’m gonna rapid fire some of my takeaways to you as cliff notes. Do more than you probably are. Long term sounds good in theory until it takes a long time.
Success comes from doing the thing, not the result of the thing. Money doesn’t solve problems, but you can arrive at them in a limo. I thought that one was funny.
Increase your ability to trade time for money. If you ask your boss to define your career path They will define it based on whatever they want you to do for them. Sometimes the best strategic move is not on your to-do list.
I’ll leave you with this one. Learn as much as you can about all of the skills required to make money. And to go with that, there’s money in it.
Someone just hasn’t figured it out yet.
Joe
It was an incredible thing that I just saw. Cool. Thank you so much for uh that Alex Hermozzi two episodes series about making more money And if you know somebody who’s at the beginning of their career, we’ll also link to that in our show notes.
Those were a couple epic episodes. Yeah, a thousand percent they were. I’m so glad.
When you see her, when you watch this video. And you see all the notes she took. It was so fulfilling.
It makes you even love what we do even more. Hey, we also got a note from Dennis. Dennis said, I’ve heard you guys talk a bit about Robin Hood.
And how we recommend people stay away. Just found out my son is in the Navy. Just found his son’s in the Navy.
He knew his son was in the Navy.
OG
I just found out. Like, wow.
Joe
Surprise, Dad!
OG
I read that book. Good news, Dad. I’m calling you from the Pacific.
I know, I know you’ve been wondering where I’ve been. Yes. Turns out I’m in the Navy.
Joe
Let me reread that sentence for everybody because I think it’s going to be better the way Dennis wrote it. Just found out my son, the Navy’s been using it. There we go.
But I’m not really sure about why he should stay away. I was thinking he might be invested in the Vanguard ETF, the Total Stock Market Index VTI. Great choice, by the way, Dennis, for somebody his age.
Just trying to see if there’s a few items I should be aware of that I can talk to him about. Dennis, thank you for the note. It’s great that your son is serving his country.
I hope he is safe right now with all the stuff going on around the world. But OG, there’s a number of things here. The first of which is kind of technical, because on the surface of it Robinhood looks like a great app.
It has easy functionality. They have a lot of programs to get you over into their ecosystem. Here are the problems with Robinhood.
The name Robin Hood makes you think they’re benevolent. Robin Hood has done so many things that are beyond, not even malevolent, but just sometimes either they didn’t know. Or they were criminal.
And I’m not sure which one it is. So I’m kind of hoping that they’re well, I don’t know which one I hope for. But if they don’t know, I don’t want to use that brokerage platform.
And if they’re criminals, I don’t want to use that that brokerage platform. But the biggest one of all is they have by far the highest spreads of all of the major brokerage platforms in the industry. So the spread And a lot of people, OG, don’t even know that there is this spread, that there’s this invisible fee that people pay.
Everybody’s looking for the fees. The spread is an invisible fee. There’s a difference between the price that you pay when you buy a position And the price the person sells it at.
And that is a lot of where Robin Hood or Schwab or Fidelity or Vanguard or whoever you’re using makes their money is on this spread between the two. Everybody in the middle. Eva the people at the stock exchange are in on the spread.
Like there’s so many of the middle people that are taking a piece of your money. But Robin Hood’s is far, far bigger than anybody else’s spread.
OG
Yeah, which is true. Yep.
Joe
Number two is that Robin Hood over and over and over has been caught by the Securities and Exchange Commission, have been caught by other watchdog agencies of doing things that they weren’t supposed to do. And I’ll give you an example. They presented SIPC insurance as if your account somehow had this insurance against loss on it at one point.
Which was incredibly ridiculous because that’s not what SIPC insurance is. SIPC insurance protects you if your broker runs away with your money. up to the amount that they insure.
But they presented it in a completely different manner than the way it was intended. They’ve also done the thing, the same thing with their sweep account, presented a way that was not correct. and advertised it that way.
They got caught by having confetti fall after you traded positions which made people, especially young people that like to use Robin Hood. made people increase the volume of trading that they did. They made it really exciting to place trades.
They were one of the first people, OG, to allow you to trade crypto in your brokerage account. Now Most companies are following suit there. But Robinhood early on was, yeah, let’s do crypto there.
Now they’ve added capabilities similar to Kelchi. to the Robinhood app where you can bet on football games, you can bet on the weather, you can bet on all kinds of stuff. Robinhood has shown over and over that they are not looking out for your best interest.
If you can get around all the problems that they had and you just don’t want to go to one of the responsible people, and listen, I’m not saying that Schwab’s your friend or Fidelity’s your friend or Vanguard’s your friend. I’m not saying that at all. But these companies toe the line far, far more than I’ve seen Robin Hood toe the line over the years.
OG
Yeah, I mean for people who are doing the right thing, if it’s just, hey, I’m putting in a hundred dollars a month into my brokerage account and you know, I’m buying a index fund and that’s fine. It can kind of matter that spread like you’re talking about. It’s such an insignificant amount in the big scheme.
I wouldn’t worry too much about it. The problem isn’t that. It’s the fact that it has The gamification of all of the other things and just simply putting it in your face enough times could motivate you to try to do it.
And um And it only takes one time, you know, one option trade to blow up your thousand dollar brokerage account to zero. You know what I mean? So To your point, I I don’t think that I when you said this, I’m I was gonna jump in, but then you kind of added the the parenthetical on the back end I don’t know that Schwab actually gives a crap about our well-being, nor does Vanguard, frankly, or Fidelity, or Bank of New York, or Chase, or anybody.
All of them are beholden to shareholders and driving shareholder value, right? It’s like, how much can I wring out of you before you don’t come back and I gotta go find a new one of you? And that’s kind of the, you know.
That to me isn’t the greatest argument. It’s the putting this the the nonsense in your face enough that it might tempt you just enough. to do it that one time and that one time blows up your whole day and now you’ve spent an entire year saving money at $100 a month and and you know all for what?
That’s not to say Schwab’s not going to send you an email and say, hey, by the way, did you know you can margin this? Did you know we have option trades? You know, or Fidelity doesn’t say, by the way, you could get her a credit card.
Fun fact, Trump accounts are Robinhood accounts. So if you’re gonna do a Trump account, which I think is a good idea if you have the money, you’re gonna dance with the devil a little bit. But I’m with you.
It’s more of a philosophical You know, I don’t want to give my business to a company that’s so blatantly anti-my business. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Like when there’s other things. It’s I I I’m I’m willing to accept the fact that You know, I’m a customer. No matter what they say.
You know, you know, we so we do we look out for our custom. Okay, sure, buddy. You look out for your shareholders.
Let’s just call it what it is. But I’m willing to look the other way when it’s not so much in my face. You know what I mean?
But when it’s like, oh yeah, we it’s like the day that Betterment decided we know better than our customers, we’re gonna stop you from trading today. Which honestly probably was the right thing for a lot of their customers. That’s just not in their mandate.
You know what I mean? That’s just not their role. Step too far.
It’s just, you know, well, we’re protecting our customers. It’s like No, you made it so I couldn’t get my money out. Or when they, you know, and to to you know pile on betterment, maybe this changed.
But for a long time You couldn’t do a rollover unless you, if you had a sizable account, unless you had a medallion signature guarantee mailed, wet signature mailed to New York. Like that’s not doing what’s best for people. That’s literally making it impossible for people to do to not do business with you who want to change their mind.
That, you know, I’m not I just don’t wanna I just don’t wanna give my money and my my business. My I’m I just want to give my business to a company that wants to behave that way. Because if I can see all the stuff the ways that they’re screwing me, you know, and it’s right in my face.
I’m wondering how many, how many of the things that I don’t see are not in my face that are behind the scenes. You know what I mean?
Joe
That’s what scares me is so much of the uh pickpocketing from me has been very obvious. It’s been very obvious. How many things are they doing?
OG
Look at all this. Look at all this. Look at all this.
Look at all this. And you’re like, what’s the other hand doing? So, you know, so it’s just more of a, you know.
Again, I’m under no illusion that Schwab has my best interest at art. Like um, but they haven’t, you know, largely run afoul of straight up advertising fraud, you know? Just just unbelievable.
And you know, to your point, you know that some corporate lawyer at Robinhood, some compliance consultant was like, dude, you can’t say that. They’re like, yeah, what are they gonna do? Well they’re probably gonna find you.
Like, so what? Look at all the press we get when people find us. Like, I don’t care.
If we get, you know, 30,000 more clients because they think their money’s insured. So what? Like that’s good for us.
Joe
Nobody’s gonna see the fine. They’re just gonna be.
OG
Yeah, they’re gonna get in trouble. It’s like, eh, we got all sorts of money. We don’t care.
You know what I mean? Like that that blatant disregard for You know. Slimy.
Yes. There you go.
Joe
Yeah. Dennis, thank you so much for the question. Great question.
If you’ve got a question, feel free to send those to me, Joe at Stecka Benjamins. com. Better yet.
Be part of a upcoming episode and uh stackingbenjamin’s dot com slash.
OG
Yeah. Geez, we haven’t talked about that forever. If you don’t have a Stacking Benjamin’s t-shirt You get some swag if you leave a voicemail, man.
Like why wouldn’t you want to do that? And that is stackybenjamins. com slash yell downstairs.
Joe
Seemed a lot easier when it was stackybenjamins. com slash voicemail. You can do that too.
I just thought yell downstairs is funnier. Okay. You can do either one.
OG
The pretty link is slash voicemail.
Joe
That’s right. All right. That’s going to do it.
Speaking of pretty, we’re going to put a pretty bow on the end of this show. How about that? Okay.
Thanks to all of you for hanging out with us. If you know somebody that really needs to begin doing the right thing with their money, they just need to turn the ship around, have them listen to Todd Havens today If you know somebody who is brand new to the working world, going out to a corporate lunch for the first time, maybe corporate dinner, or that uh company party You might want to have them listen to today’s headline. And of course, if you know somebody using Robinhood, I think there’s a lot of cautionary tales when it comes to using that particular platform.
All right, uh Doug though is gonna put the bow on this officially. Doug, what should we have learned on today’s show?
Doug
Well, Joe, first, take some advice from Todd Havens. You can build financial security by starting today. Don’t look back Keep your eye on the prize and get moving.
You know what you need to do first. Heck, pause the show and do it now. I dare ya Second, out at a business lunch, don’t order something expensive or complicated.
The first will get awkward with the boss when they’re paying, and the second will be awkward for you when lunch is all over your new suit. But the big lesson Uh maybe don’t ask
OG
All right. Uh I found this on the interwebs and I just thought it was really, really quite funny. For those of us who have parents that are dealing with this, um, I know Doug.
has talked about this, Joe, maybe a little bit for you. I’m certainly dealing with it with my mom. Uh it’s a video of uh Gen X son talking to his baby boomer dad.
I think about uh some technology things.
Speaker 10
All right, we’re gonna start with a true or false question. Okay? If someone calls you claiming to be the bank, asking you for your social security number, you should give it to them.
True or false? Um Well hold on. Does the bank It’s false, Dad.
It’s false. Well, I just think that there are certain situations False. Always false.
Okay? Oh for one. Now we’re gonna do a multiple choice question for question two Okay?
Let’s say you get a call from a random number and they’re saying that it’s me, your son, and that I am in a tremendous amount of trouble, could be an accident or in jail, and that I need you to wire me some money right now. Do you A wire me the money B, hang up the phone. C, ask me a personal question to ensure that it’s actually me on the line.
Or D do literally anything other than send them money. Whoa, whoa, whoa. When did you get in an accident?
Was it in my car? There was no accident. It’s a hypothetical and Okay, if you go over three, I’m gonna take your phone away just like you used to do to me when I was a teenager.
Okay For the third question, I’m gonna try to make it easy. We’re gonna fill in this blank. Fill in the blank.
You get a call from the IRS telling you that you are behind on taxes and that they need your bank account information right now. In this situation, you are being Blanked. Audited?
Scam. That’s it. Give me your phone.
Go to your room.
OG
That is the way it goes. That is the conversation.
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