If you’ve ever wondered if there’s more in life and your career waiting for you than your current job, then today’s mentor is someone you want to listen to! On today’s show, we welcome Michael Balter to the basement to discuss his career path and how he pivoted in a big way!
In our headline segment, we see some shocking (eyeroll) news about one store’s credit card and how they are going to make up the lost revenue that they can charge in late fees. OG is not surprised.
And, finally, stick around for Doug’s trivia loosely tied to April 15th. It’s a stretch, but he’s going with it.
FULL SHOW NOTES: https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/career-pivots-for-the-win-1503
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Our Headlines
Michael Balter
Big thanks to Michael Balter for joining us today. To learn more about Michael, visit Michael Balter Author Thriller Novels. Grab yourself a copy of the book Chasing Money: A Marty and Bo Thriller.
Doug’s Trivia
- Why did President Lincoln impose the first federal income tax?
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Written by: Kevin Bailey
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Episode transcript
And now we’re ready to start this mission. Michael Balter waiting in the wings. So let’s get our headline rolling. β
Hello
Darlings. And now it’s time for Your Favor.
Part of the show I was Stacking
Benjamins
headlines. This headline stopped me. A company decided OG, that even with all these new late fees that we talked about just a couple weeks ago, we’re gonna find a different way to make money. It’s almost like you’re the oracle of Delphi, and I’m not talking the automotive company.
You’re the Oracle who called this. The credit cards might find a different way to get stuff done. In this case, the company seriously laying down the lumber Lowe’s credit card now has no ββ anything. ββββ Keep going. Laying down the lumber. Yeah, we got it now. Now. Has a 31.99. β 31.99% interest rates. Customers, and this is gonna come as a shock.
Call it loan sharking. How about low sharking? ββ
See, Joe, that’s how it’s done right there. Yeah.
32%.
32%. It’s impressive. It’s like a payday
advance. Like those places that were, ββ
it was just tube of cock for God’s sake. ββββββββββ
You gotta put it on Klar and have 87 payments for your cock. I was
gonna say 40. With only 480 payments of a dollar 75.
This cock could be yours. β I guess we shouldn’t say cock ’cause it sounds
too much
like, gotta be careful with that word. Yes. Vanessa Wong wrote this piece. Vanessa writes that when John Govea needed a new washer and dryer in September, 2021, oh boy, a new washer and dryer at 32%. He signed up for a low’s credit card.
The card’s, annual percent rate at the time was, you know, it was only 26.99. Ah, yeah, that’s more reasonable number. Run of mill, totally ββ quote, I realized that 26.99 is ridiculous, but we definitely needed the washer and dryer. VEA told market watch and card holders get a discount on their purchase. He said later on when you need to freezer.
He also put that on his lows card. Geva, 68 years old from North Carolina said the monthly payments were manageable but the interest rates steadily rose. He carries a balance on the card, but quote, I’ve never been laid on anything. I’ve been an excellent payer since 2021. In fact, his credit score seven 60.
Excellent on time payment history. He got a notice that the a PR on his lows card recently was gonna be going to 31.99. So he called the number on the card and tried to negotiate a lower rate. And you guys know what happened? ββββ They said, nay, nay, βββ come on, ββ weird. They’re gonna find a way, og, they will find a way to get the money back.
I was just thinking about like what to say about this besides, don’t do that if you can avoid it. I mean, he’s, he’s, he’s talking about, you know, he said, well, we needed a new washer and dryer. And that’s probably true. We had a situation here at our house where our washer took a crap and then we fixed it for 500 bucks and then it took another crap and, and the guy came out and he says, listen, it’s a $1,500 fix.
You should just buy a new one because they’re less than 1500 bucks, like the way the parts are and technology, it’s, it’s not made to be this 20 year machine anymore. It’s a plastic thing with. Technology in it, and the circuit boards take a crap and whatever. But I was surprised at the wider range of price points, right?
You could spend 500 bucks for one, or you could spend 3,500 bucks for one. β I guess what I’m thinking about here is there’s times and circumstances where you, you know, need a washer and dryer, right? You’re like, this one’s broken, we have to have a new one. β And then you get to the store and there’s so many different choices and you know, it’s the right thing to say, like, I’m just gonna buy the cheapest one.
’cause that’s like, that’s fits the need. It literally only washes clothes. It doesn’t, you know, do anything else like all the other bells and whistles. I think that’s the, that’s the piece here. It’s like if you fall into the, well, I absolutely need to have this. I think you have to really kind of go bare bones base model as much as you can without any of the frills.
Because I. If you gotta charge it and God forbid have to pay interest on it, you’re gonna be paying on this
a while.
Let’s go through. I feel bad for vea. ’cause you know, he’s looking at his credit score. I think first of all, gee, that’s the wrong thing to look at. I’ve got a great credit score. Well, you’re still paying 26.99 even on that, even on that first card. ββ
I don’t wanna have a great credit score as much as I wanna have the emergency fund. ββ Yeah. And not use the credit at all.
Yeah. I mean, obviously, if possible. Now the other thing that he could do here, of course, is find a 0% rate or a low balance transfer rate to transfer this too, because his score is high, because he has a good payment history and, and presumably isn’t maxing out the Lowe’s credit card.
Lowe’s. Lowe’s, by the way, is known for doling out huge lines of credit. So if you’re, if you’re like complete sidebar, if you’re working on building your credit. One of the angles of the acts associated with credit score is utilization. How much of your available credit are you using? Um, and that counts for 35% of your credit score.
If you have the ability to get a lows card in very short order, you can increase the available credit on that thing. If you can trust yourself. This is, this is it for, this isn’t rookie moves here. Yeah, but you can, but you can make that credit card limit like 20, 30, $40,000 and you go, what the heck? I would never use that at Lowe’s.
That’s okay. When you’re thinking about building your credit, all that matters is that denominator of how much do you have? How much do you have using, yeah, yeah. How much, how much do you have access to and how much you’re using. If you’ve got a credit card that has a $5,000 limit and you always have a $3,000 balance, even if you pay it off, if ev you know, you use 3000 and pay it off, according to the credit score people, you’re using 60% of your available credit that looks like crap.
Even if you pay it off, you have perfect payment history, you have pay no interest. That’s a crappy. Part of your credit score. Instead have $50,000 of available credit, even if you’re not gonna use any of it, still charge your 3000 bucks. Now you’re using less than 10% of your credit.
Yeah. I, I think that’s a, I that’s an important lesson for a, a lot of people don’t know that that is a major factor in credit scores and, you know, getting approval for more credit.
So I’m, I’m glad you explained that, but, but when was the last time when a store credit card was the cheapest option to get money? Right? Yeah. You’re purchasing money. It’s never, ever been the cheapest option. And yeah, Lowe’s
isn’t a bank. Bank of America’s a
bank, right? They’re like not the first middle man.
They’re at least the second middle man. So they, everybody’s gotta make profit through that whole chain of, of the loan. And so, yeah, anytime a store credit card is off being offered, it’s never the cheapest option. If this person had a 760 credit rating, not bad means they’ve got other credit cards. Okay.
Understand there are times when a lot of people don’t have the emergency fund. They should have Joe, of course. That’s always the first line of defense, but in lieu of that, at least make the effort to go look for the cheapest source of money you can. And it’s probably one of the credit cards already in your pocket versus a
store card.
I think the store card can be cheap. Really? Yeah. I mean, it says it right here in the piece. He scored a discount because he used the store card. I. If he really wants to get well, if he really wants to get technical about that. I mean, if we really want to get technical and if we wanna play the game, which is what the credit card hacking community does, right?
He opens the store credit card, he gets the discount, and then we do what OG says. Then we look for a different line of credit at a lower interest rate, and we transfer it immediately knowing this is the evil empire. ββ I think there’s a bigger problem though, which is the whole idea of know yourself. You know?
I mean, for some people opening up this huge line of credit through Lowe’s and not using it is great, ββ but there’s a bunch of people that if I’ve got plastic in my wallet, all of a sudden I find an emergency where that has to, they have
m and m that Lowe’s, right?
Yes, they do.
That has to be accessed. β And I was there, I remember having those feelings.
I’m like, oh, I got a gas card. I think it’s time to go to Sonoco. You know? Time. Time for more pork RINs,
Sonoco. βββ Yeah.
Clark. Clark. Mine was Clark βββ Clark gas station. $200 limit.
It was awesome. We’re laughing, but this is how they get people. Right. And, and to your point, Lowe’s is, by the way, not even the credit card issuer.
It’s a company called Synchrony. And, uh, of course, uh, Reddit users complaining about the recent rate hikes on social media. One Reddit user described the increased a PR is quote, loan shark rates totally true, predatory as hell. Another wrote, they’ve also been objecting to, and another way, oh gee, they’re clawing this money back.
As the government decides we’re, we’re gonna, we’re gonna make sure that you don’t pay these, uh, stupid late pay fees. We’re gonna find another way. Now. It’s a dollar 99 fee if you want your bill on paper. If you want paper. Oh, really? Oh, oh yeah. Well, we’d happily do it. We’re gonna give you that. What’s the stamp now?
I don’t, I’m not old enough to know what a stamp is. ββββ It just says forever. Yeah, yeah. I’m not old enough to know. The government figured that out
too. Like if we don’t put the price on there, then they’ll never complain. βββ
That’s it.
And took a page apparently outta their playbook if we don’t write the dollar 99 anywhere.
Yeah. Ah, but, uh, more good news though, in credit card land, they’re not the only one with the new credit card. Robinhood OG βββ Robinhood, by the way, I don’t know if I didn’t realize this or I wasn’t paying attention. You know, Robin Hood’s, β Robin Hood’s ticker symbol is HOOD is hood, β which what the robber pulls down β when they are taking away all your money
mask. ββ
Something like that.
Shipping mask, ββ Robinhood, ticker symbol, holdup. ββββββ
Is there an apostrophe before hood? ββββ
It’s, it’s so amazing. And you’d be like, I love Robinhood. No. What, what did they do bad? Well, Robinhood still trying to, uh, increase the disguises β that helps them prove that, that they’re awful company, you know, more smoke, more mirrors.
Robinhood wants to be quote, a one-stop shop. Of course they do. β If I could steal your hubcaps and your front grill
and the radiator and your sense of self worth, βββββββ
let’s get all of it. They wanna be a one-stop shop with its new credit card. Is the Robin Hood Gold Card a good deal? This also from Market Watch.
Andrew Kesner and Hannah Aaron Lang wrote this. βββββββ Robinhood was once an upstart brokerage platform giving investment powerhouses a run for their money by appealing to a new generation of traders and investors. β There’s so much hilarious about that one sentence.
Yeah. Yeah. Schwab is really shaking in their boots over Robinhood, but go on. ββββββββ
But also, uh, we couldn’t get anybody who knew what they were doing, so we went for the new generation. Yeah. ’cause we could fool them. Now, the financial services companies continuing its bid to become an integral part of the money decision of its users by rolling out its own credit card. This is, ββ there is that, there’s that joke Doug that, uh, Jim Gaffigan does, you know, this whole water thing.
It’s a scam. Yeah. You know where they get Yeah. You gotta buy the tray. Yeah. ββββ
The water’s free. There’s a recipe for ice on the back of this. Their water’s
for free. But if you wanna make ice, you gotta buy the tray. That’s where they get get you. That’s they get you. That’s how they get you. But this is where they get you.
I have an Xbox β and if you wanna communicate on the Xbox with anybody, play a game with anybody. You have to buy their their upcharge, right? And then when you realize that your PC will connect with the Xbox and hey, you can start a game on the Xbox and then you can play it on your pc. And oh by the way, we’re gonna make this Netflix ish, no longer buy games.
We’re gonna make it. So it’s everybody’s creating their ecosystem. Apple has their ecosystem. I’m in hell ’cause I’m stuck between both of these ecosystems, right? Netflix wants to have their ecosystem, Amazon with their ecosystem. β Robinhood OG is just doing the thing that, uh. Professor Scott Galloway talks about just, just, uh, making sure that we capture all the money, all of it.
Again,
back to uh, what I said earlier, this is, uh, this is gonna be something I don’t have much to say about because this is a bad
idea.
So in the open, Joe, I said legalized scams, right? Yeah. Like is it really a scam or is it just like this is not the greatest way to manage your money? ββ
Well, I think that if you’re, no, that’s a great question.
So if I’m buying an Xbox, I mean, I’m gonna use the Xbox analogy, not the Robin. ’cause people have heard me beat upon Robin Hood. But let’s use the Xbox analogy ’cause I
occasionally, I like Xbox. You occasionally play Yeah. Occasion.
Every once in a while I partake. ββββ
I don’t
inhale, so it’s totally okay. β
Never once I turn it on, but I never play the games. Mm-Hmm. β When you buy the Xbox, you think you’re buying this piece of hardware? I. Y you’re not buying the piece of hardware. If I buy the Robinhood Gold Card, I’m not buying the Robinhood Gold Card. I’m further into the ecosystem, and they’re going to give me more privileges if I use the Gold Card in conjunction with their other offerings.
The second on Xbox that I buy, the Xbox I, if I wanna play any game with OG or Doug, if we want to get on and play golf together like we have in the past, βββ I’ve gotta, I’ve gotta buy the chat channel that comes with it β if I want the ability to play multiplayer games at all, and, and then if I’m gonna play three or four games, hey, you know what?
So I’m buying them the ability to pay them even more money. ββ I think all this gold card does, you know, it goes into this. The gold cards by the way, doesn’t look bad. It’s actually, it is a, uh, it gives 3% cash back on all spending categories. Uh, I remember we started working with Magnify money, uh, Nick Clements, who was an industry insider, work with Citi and with Barley. β
Nick said if you get anything over two, you’re doing well. This is 50% higher than two. So is the card good? Yes, but it’s never OG in any of these. We just did a show about gotchas recently. Right. The financial gotchas a couple weeks ago. We’ll link to that. ’cause I thought with you, Roger, Whitney and, and Shauna game, the three of you did a great job of talking about the fact that it isn’t what’s being said.
This is a great card. It’s what they’re not saying. Like I think as humans we’re really good at knowing, no, no, no. My BS meters there, but we’re not good at catching what. Is not being said, which is what they’re luring you to is a crappy product. And this gets back
to each individual piece of your financial puzzle.
Does it make sense to, to really hyper optimize or try to each specific thing? You know, you might look at a credit card and say, well, if I have this and I spend in these categories, then I’m gonna get this amount of reward or cash or, or whatever. That’s 50% better than this. You, you know what I mean? You can spend lots and lots and lots of time and then not pay attention to your point.
You’re not paying attention to the dollar 99 fee that wipes this all out. Or the fact that you have a balance which charges you interest, which wipes all this out, or that the rewards platform β only sends the cash to, you know, this bank, which is a crappy interest. You know what I mean? Like versus simplifying your life and having. β
As much as you possibly can. Kind of simple, and then finding out what is, β what’s the lever that’s gonna give you the biggest bang for your buck? You know what I mean? Like yeah. That’s mostly around spending energy on your savings, spending money on your income, spending money on your, like your personal development and personal utility.
There’s one piece that I agree with, with, with Dave Ramsey, is that there’s never been anybody who’s gotten rich on credit card points. ββ That’s a perk. I’m certainly happy that I have a crap load of Marriott points and a crap load of Amex points and all these other ones that when we go somewhere I can just go, I don’t, you know, just pay with points like, you know, and not really have to think about it.
But that’s not why, that’s not why people are
gonna be financially successful. No, and I
think that’s, that’s if we think order of operations, I. I think that og, that’s why we start with what ecosystem do I want to be in? So I hear stuff about Vanguard. Okay, go to the Vanguard website. You know the great thing about Vanguard, very low fees, the thing everybody complains about most loudly, Mindy Jensen over at uh uh, BiggerPockets, our friend Mindy, complains about that website and that customer experience sucks. β
But if you appreciate super low fees, you’re gonna go to Vanguard. Okay, well, I wanna moderate that a little bit, then go look at Fidelity. Go look at Schwab. But I don’t think you start with, Hey, Robinhood has this sweet ass credit card. The brokerage service stinks. The tools are horrible. They’re known for ripping you off.
They’ve done it over and over again, but I’m getting 5%
of my cash back. Right? Exactly. But you only spend $8,000 a year on your credit card. Like that’s 40 bucks, you know, or four oh bucks. It’s like. That’s not gonna move the needle.
Yeah.
Who’s gonna be your partner? What brokerage firm are you going to work with?
And then I think use all the perks. Like hey, if you’ve decided no matter everything that we said that you love Robinhood, this is a pretty damn good credit card, I’m in that ecosystem. Take advantage of that credit card, if that helps you. Yeah. Then that’s great. But I don’t think we start here.
I don’t think you spend really any energy there, honestly because, good point.
The end result is β a fairly insignificant move. The needle it that it’s all downside, you know what I mean? Like back to the lows thing. Yeah. You can get 3% cash back and that’s fantastic. But if they’re charging you above average interest and you happen to carry a balance, I would rather get no cash back and a competitive interest rate and be okay with the fact that for whatever reason I gotta carry a balance on my credit card.
’cause I’m like the average American and I do. β Then the points don’t matter. You know, you need to probably have a freaking credit union credit card that’s gonna charge you seven or 8% interest with no perks of any kind. And a really crappy limit. Yeah. Because that’s gonna pay off way more than the fact that you get double X points if you use this travel service to book your flight through, you know, whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
There it is. That’s the place, that’s the place to start. That definitely is, is the order. What ecosystem, what am I trying to do? Be the CFO of your situation. Forget about the points β coming up next. Uh, Michael Bolter is a guy who worked a full-time career in finance. We’re gonna dive into his career and how he got into writing, which was not what he did originally.
Had nothing to do. In fact, with the amazing career that this gentleman had now his brand new book. Chasing money, winner of two book awards. And, uh, for a guy who’s retired, living in northern Michigan, having his best life writing, just, it’s an amazing story. And we’re super excited to talk to Michael Balter.
Also, you know, we talk to a lot of authors. We don’t talk fiction. That’s gonna be some fun on today’s show. But first, uh, something else. It’s always fun. Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, our friend Doug’s got some trivia. Doug, what are we talking about today? It’s, it’s April 15th. I don’t think there’s, what, what could be going on in April?
I can’t believe it’s April 15th, that we haven’t talked about, uh, any of the big things that might be going on.
I don’t, Joe. We do a lot of trivia here based on the date that the episode, you know, airs. But I couldn’t find anything significant that’s tied to April 15th. There’s like nothing. I’m just Googling and searching.
There’s no holidays. No one ever said beware the odds of April. That could though. It’s pretty unlucky day for presidents. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 15th. Uh, you know, it was also pretty unlucky for anyone floating out to see in a giant watercraft that’s famously unequipped to. Handle a catastrophe hitting ice cubes.
Although we might be in the clear now. I doubt the Titanic’s gonna sink again. Wow. Other than the, yeah, other than those two things. April 15th, was it too soon? Yeah.
It’s never too soon for a Titanic joke.
Other than those two things, April 15th has been pretty chill day. You know, historically chill.
Nothing. Nothing. He asked you what I did there. Nothing ever bad ever happens on this particular day. Hey, speaking of Lincoln, only five months after his inauguration, he signed the revenue Act of 1861, which imposed the first ever federal income tax. He barely had time to break in his new desk at the White House, and he’s already jacking up the prices.
Who does he think he was? Like the landlord of the United States? Today’s trivia question is why did President Lincoln impose the first federal income tax? I’ll be back right after I show Joe’s mom my new stovepipe hat. This might be my new look. Hey, the right mom, the right black really is a slimming color. ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
Hey
there stackers. β I’m Chappo model and guy who definitely would’ve kicked rose off that floating door in the North Atlantic Joe’s Mom’s Neighbor Duck. βββ In 1913, the 16th Amendment was added to the Constitution to Enshrine Congress’s, right to collect a federal income tax without having to base it on the population with nearly four times as many people living in the US now than did at that time.
It sounds like the amendment set us up for a pretty good deal. I think. Wait. Hey, somebody do the math on that. Today’s trivia question is, why did President Lincoln impose a federal income tax? The answer with the Civil War having broken out just a month after he was inaugurated, president Lincoln needed a way to fund the war without bankrupting the country, and so he enacted a 3% tax on all income over $800, which is equal to roughly $23,000 in today’s money.
Wait, I thought the Civil Wars were a band. You mean this whole time? It was also an event. As always, kids, you learn something new from Doug’s trivia. Sometimes I’m learning right there with you. And now here to teach you how to grab retirement and create some magic. In his case, an award-winning fiction crime novel.
It’s today’s mentor, Michael Balter, ββββββββββββ
and I’m super happy we have him here for the World Tour in mom’s basement. Michael Balter ISS here. How are you?
I’m fine. Thank you for having me, Joe. Well, I’m super happy
you’re here, although whenever somebody comes up with this twisted stuff as you’ve come up with in your new book, chasing Money, I just kinda wonder where that all comes from and, and, and actually this book starts off with really high stakes and these people are running a company, and I wanna talk about that for a second.
This idea of running a startup, of being an entrepreneur, that piece is autobiographical to you.
Absolutely. Um, a little bit of background. I, uh, started my career a long time ago. Um, and I went to work for, uh, for Intel Corporation when it was still a small company. I think when I went to work for them, they had about 500 employees. β
In fact, a side note, just before I interviewed with them, I interviewed with an even smaller company. They had about a hundred employees, and I figured they were never going to make it. And they had a really funny name. I think it was called Apple. Oh, no. So I went to work for Intel, was a technologist for 20 years, and got the entrepreneurial bug and left the company in, uh, the late nineties for a startup, which after a year crashed and burned.
Actually, we were about. Two weeks from going public and we literally imploded. Oh, yeah. And so I then kind of got the entrepreneurial bug and ended up spending the second 20 years of my career, uh, being an entrepreneur and starting multiple different companies. And you’re right. It, it’s a real grind. And it’s, it’s also a great challenge in many ways.
Well, we follow these
two guys, Marty and Bo, and they have this company that they’re trying to get funding for. And what’s wild to me, Michael, you know, and most of our stackers, they work for somebody else, but a lot of ’em are thinking like you did when you were with Intel. Hey, what if I went out on my own?
Like, how great would this be? I could have the freedom to do what I want. I, I could do all these fascinating things, but there’s also a family attached. Right. What did your wife say when you said, I’m gonna leave this company called Intel, which is booming in the late nineties, and I’m gonna go start my own thing.
How did the two of you come together on that? ββ
So my advice to any of your audience who want to become entrepreneurs, either male or female, they need two things. One, they need to make sure that their spouse has an awful lot of patience, and two, they need to make sure that their spouse is earning a living. ββ
Because if you suddenly end up being an entrepreneur, you’re going to find yourself going months at a time without contributing to the household finances. And if your spouse can’t help. Then you’re in trouble. I was very lucky, uh, because as I said, I, I became an entrepreneur after already having been with Intel for quite a number of years, I did quite well there.
And so for a while anyways, until, uh, Intel crashed in terms of stock, yeah, the valuation, it went from $75 down to about 13. That was
2002, right? The 2000 to 2002
wreck. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course I, I’d been with Intel for so long, I didn’t diversify. I fell in love with the company. Right.
I fell in love with the stock. It’s a lesson I learned that I’m never going to do again. So I watched it just go down. I’d never got out of it. I stayed with it ’cause I always thought it was going to come back and ended up losing about 80% of my retirement. And so my wife is looking at me and I’m looking at her and we’re saying, oh, I gotta go back to work.
Yeah, you do β so and so. If you’re going to become an entrepreneur, my wife went back to work as well and. During the rough years when things were tough and I didn’t collect a paycheck, she was able to keep everything going. ββ She was very patient with me. She was, she’s a great sport about that. Well, and that’s
what’s interesting here in chasing money, and we’re gonna talk about, for people that wanna write a book, actually, you going through and writing this, but in chapter two we get a glimpse into one of the main character Marty’s households and his spouse.
You do a great job, uh, Michael, of making her seem charming and seeming like somebody with the patience of job. Uh, she’s already been through one startup that didn’t succeed and now it seems like they’re on startup number two. That clearly is crashing and she’s completely had enough and I think you do a great job of making it that it isn’t that she’s not patient, it’s that you can only be patient for so long.
This woman, Michael’s been patient forever and she’s just seeing the writing on the wall that this seems to be going nowhere.
Right. So in the book, although I draw a lot of my characters are from people that I know or that I met, and obviously Abby, the, the Marty’s wife is very concerned at this point and is trying to do things to try to get him out of being an entrepreneur.
She wants ’em to go back to work and make a regular income and not go through these periods of financial drought. And so now, in real life, that never happened to me. And I was, as I said, I was very fortunate, but I needed and wanted the tension in the book. And so I made Abby a little bit more concerned about their financial situation.
Oh yeah, she’s, she is done.
And what I like is you draw this out. Once again, everybody, I’m not gonna give away the book, but we’re just gonna talk about the first three chapters here. So we’re gonna give you just some little cues here. There’s gonna be plenty of chasing money for people that wanna read the whole thing.
But early on you have that, you draw up her frustration when she stops at, I think Michael, it’s a gas station and her credit card gets declined. Yes. And it’s in front of friends of hers because they live in this small town and everybody knows everybody. And so she’s got that, that embarrassment. I’ve lived through that too.
That was
I have too, that’s why I actually, that’s actually something that happened. That’s why I, I, I put that in there. It’s horrifying. Yeah, it’s embarrassing as heck. Absolutely
horrifying. And it could be a million different things that happen. I actually, it’s funny, when I was a financial planner, Michael, I took clients to dinner ββ and, and the waiter walked up to the table with me and these high net worth clients and said, sir, your card’s been declined. ββ
Great. Oh, fantastic. And for people that haven’t read my book, stacked, this is back when my money was, I was actually at that point, frankly, getting my act together and it was my debit card, which brings up something else. She then goes to her debit card. The debit card goes through, but Marty knows there’s no money in that account, so they’re gonna pay a $34 overdraft fee.
On top of that, like this monetary tension that our families have, like you build these stakes that I think everyday families feel all the time.
Yeah, no, that that’s absolutely true. And that’s actually what happens, right? And it happened to me. So you would use the card, it would go through, because the bank for some reason, just they let you kind of on a debit card.
They let you charge, but then what they’ll do is they’ll give you a 35, 36, I don’t remember what it was, it was many years ago, but $36. The charge itself is 50 and you now have an 85, 80 $6 tab because they process the card. So, yeah, and it’s just a wheel that you can’t get out. I
remember trying to pay the $50 right afterwards to make sure that I, I had enough money in there.
Of course, the bank back then would rearrange the transactions to make sure that I had enough. This has been proven. We’ve, we’ve had Wall Street Journal reporting on this. They’d rearrange the transactions to make sure that I still sunk. You know, bank of America always said, Michael, that they were there to help.
As I was digging my hole, they were like providing me bigger and bigger shovels, man.
Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely. Yeah, that’s exactly what they do. Yeah. So this tension
of being an entrepreneur is there β this tension of there’s not enough money, there’s not a consistent paycheck, and the need to go back to a consistent paycheck is there.
Let’s talk about the third elephant in the room. Your book opens. These guys are, are in this cabin in the middle of nowhere. Partway up Mount Hood. There’s a tarp on the floor and, uh, a guy’s wielding a gun. So I think we know why there might be a tarp on the floor just in case there needs to be some cleanup afterwards.
Marty Bow and another guy, they’re investor all tied to these chairs and there’s a Russian mobster, and I thought, wow, this seems like a James Bond movie. Like this is when I first, you know, you opened. This is page one, page two stuff we’re talking about, guys. I’m like, wow, this is right out of a James Bond movie.
This is not out of a James Bond movie, Michael. There was a Russian mobster incident that you know of somebody close to you, something happened. β
So you’re right. The first nine pages I opened the book with a bang, right? And, um, in the first nine pages, it’s basically introduces Marty and Bo their two entrepreneurs trying to save their struggling company.
They take on a third partner. They should have vetted this guy a little bit more, but he came up with a very clever way to raise capital. And so they go to an investor meeting and they’re Shanghais, uh, so to speak, and they’re, uh, by a Russian mobster who demands that they return $10 million and a mysterious painting of some kind and make his point.
He kills the third partner. All that happens in the first nine pages of the book,
which by the way, and I will give this away, this is a big hook that led me in to this thriller. He’s the only guy that knows what the hell’s going on.
Exactly. They kill the guy that knows what’s going on. That was the point.
They killed the wrong guy to make his point. He killed the wrong guy. And the rest of the book is, it basically just unpacks then the next four days. ’cause the Russian maniac gives him four days to find the money in the painting. And so the book basically, uh, spends the next four days doing that. Yeah. So what happened is that actually something very similar happened to a business partner of mine.
So I’d got a call, uh, at like, I don’t know, it was like maybe one o’clock in the morning. I was in bed and I had been into being an entrepreneur for about a year. And I had just bought a company from a very small company. It was an art company from this person. And they call me and they says, you gotta come over.
You gotta come over. It’s really, really bad and wouldn’t tell me what. So long story short, I end up getting to his house. And I knock on the door and a very large policeman with a very large gun meets me at the door, wants my driver’s license, checks my identity, and then lets me in. I’m looking around, I’m I, and he won’t tell me what’s going on.
And then I, you know, well, where is, where’s my friend? And I said, he’s in the bathroom. And I said, he’s in the bathroom. He says, yeah, he won’t come out. And so I went, knocked on the door. He opened up the door just a little bit to see who it was, and he lets me in. And he is sitting in the toilet just, and he’s just blubbering like a child.
He is, his eyes are all swollen. He’s been crying for at least several hours. He’s just a mess, right? And I’m going, what is going on? What, what’s happened? And he tells me this story about how he owed money to this Russian guy. And, um, that guy called him up and said, let’s come over to my house and we’ll talk about it and we’ll figure out, and we’ll negotiate a way that you can pay me back the money that you owe me.
And so he goes, and as soon as he, uh, knocks on the door, the guy opens the door, puts a gun to his forehead, marches him downstairs into his basement, there’s a tarp. On the floor and a chair and there’s another guy there and the guy tapes him to the chair and then they go kind of torture him to, in order for him to sign these contracts that they had that would turn over all of his assets.
House, motorcycle, cigarette boat, multiple cars, various other different things. And they would put a plastic bag over his head if he didn’t agree to do it. And they did that several times till he blacked out. And then he finally started signing all this stuff. When they taped his arm back up, it was over the jacket that he was wearing.
And so because of that, he was able to, when they left, they left him unguarded for a while and he was able to squeeze out and he ran to the neighbors. Oh. And told the neighbors, the neighbor, the cops came, everybody, and they actually caught him. And, and the guy is, uh, I think he’s still in prison. It was like he was, uh, the trial and the sentence I think was 23 years, and that was about 20 years ago.
So he is probably still in prison. Maybe
there’s another story when the, when the guy gets out. Maybe that’s your next
book. I don’t know. Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah. I don’t think your friend
would want that, uh, that ββ
that written. β Yeah. So, well, it’s a, it was a fascinating story and I, I’ve always carried kind of those images in my head and that helped.
To form a lot of the first chapter. Well,
and I know that building stakes is, is super important. A big question is, you know, you see a lot of authors now that come out of an MFA program or that begin their career as a writer. For you, that is not at all where, where you began. Let’s talk about the process of writing a book.
How long have you been wanting to write this book? How long did it take to put together, and how did that all get started? β
So, that’s a good question. I’ve always wanted to, to write, I always thought it would be a fun thing. It was a, it was literally a bucket list item. And about 10 years ago, a little over 10 years ago, my friend and I, the, the two characters, Marty and Bo are strongly associated with, uh, with my business partner and best friend Roy and, and myself.
Not exactly, not a hundred percent, but I drew a significant amount from that. And we were in, uh, we were in New York actually, and we were trying to raise capital for a startup that we had. And we had just gone through a really grueling day of talking to an awful lot of people on pitching and doing all of that.
And, uh, we were heading back to the hotel and it was, um, late at night and my friend said, listen, let’s, let’s pick up the pace. ’cause I’m not comfortable walking the streets of New York at night and. I was very frustrated and stressed out and I said, you know what Roy? I said, right now if some guy wants to rob me and stick a gun in my face, I’d probably ask him to invest in the company before he pulled the trigger. ββββββββββββ
And Roy starts to laugh just like you. And what happened was that we then ended up getting back to the hotel lobby and we’re, we’re still joking about it. And Roy says, you know, he said, that would make a really interesting story, wouldn’t it? And so we spent the next hour sitting in the lobby bar drinking scotch and coming up with different ideas associated with that story.
What would happen if an entrepreneur or two entrepreneurs ended up taking money from the wrong people? Right? And so that was, like I said, that was about 10, 12 years ago. And every time I had a moment to myself, whether it be driving or showering or whatever, I would keep adding to that plot. I would just, you know, come up with like a little, a little anecdote that I had wanted to throw into that plot.
And so I developed this plot in my head. It’s a little bit like, uh, like a, a daydream, if you will, right? I then ended up retiring and I said, you know, uh, I think I’m gonna write this down. I, I, I’ve got it floating around in my head for years now, and I think I’m just going to start writing it. And of course, it wasn’t working.
It didn’t work at all because I’d never written a book before. And, uh, what happened was that I was, uh, taking a walk with my wife one day and she said, Hey, how’s that, uh, how’s that book thing coming for you? And I said, oh, it sucks. It’s not working. And she said, why? And I said, well. It’s not working every time I, I, I can’t get my thought down on paper where it makes sense.
And I’ve tried it in various different ways. I’ve tried, you know, third person past tense and this and that, and whatever, all the different, all the jargon that’s associated with writing a book. She said, you know, Michael, she said, you’re doing it the wrong way. And I said, what do you mean? And she said, well, she said, you’re a great storyteller.
You’ve always been a good storyteller. Hell you go to the grocery store and come back and tell me an entire story, uh, about, about what happened while you were at the grocery store, right? She said, so stop worrying about writing it and just tell it. Pretend you met a friend that you haven’t seen in a long time, and you met him at a bar, and you’re sitting in a bar and, and you say, oh my God, you should hear what happened to me. ββ
I said, huh, that’s interesting. And I did that and it worked. ββ
Did you take any writing classes? Did you go to meetings? I know in northeast Texas here we have a, we have a writer’s workshop a couple times a year that people can go to, that authors can attend. Did you attend any of these writing functions at all? β
No. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why I’m so happy that it’s won these awards because I didn’t, I just wrote it, I just told the story. So I, I, I have no formal training at all.
But it has, it seems to have that same, you know, three act, play kind of structure that a modern tale will have. Do you watch a lot of thriller movies?
Do you read a lot of thriller books before this? ’cause it seems to really, you know, it is highly original, but it still also seems to fit the genre very, very
well. Well, yes. I love movies, right? So I’ve seen tons of thriller type movies, do a lot of reading. I’ve always loved reading. And when I read, uh, I tend to actually love the way words are put together.
So it takes me a long time to get sometimes through a book, because I will reread sentences because I just love the way the words are structured. The construction of the sense, and, yeah. Yeah. And so a lot of people think that’s really weird, you know, they’ll go, why don’t you just read the book and you know, you’ve been on this thing forever?
And I go, yeah, but there’s this one paragraph. And I just keep rereading it ’cause it’s so beautiful and, you know, so yeah. But that’s just me. I, I, you know.
Are you an engineer then by training? Yeah,
I, ββββ my, my undergraduate, yeah, my undergraduate’s in aeronautical engineering. Yeah, that just said
engineer all over it right there.
Yeah, it does, doesn’t it? Yes. Doesn’t it? Yeah. But still, but still the beauty and, and for me too, like, and you know, uh, our fans of our show know how much I like Disney and I’m not that much into Mickey Mouse or into whatever. But I do like when you go there thinking about like, what these people were thinking when they created it, like how that came out, how it sprung from them, which is this wonderful combination of science process and creativity, you know, which I think are the ingredients.
Which leads me to a couple more questions for, uh, budding writers out there. Did you outline it first or did you just sit down and write it? ββββ
I didn’t have to outline it. As I said, I had this entire plot outlines completely in your head, or at least the outline. Yeah. All in my head. ’cause I’d, I’d spent 10 years on it.
Yeah. I wouldn’t advise other writers, running writers to do that. ’cause it takes an awful long time. But as I said, for me it was just this, it was a little bit of a, a kind of a, a little fancy thing that I had in my head. Right. So I get bored when I’m driving, et cetera. And this is the time before podcasts and various other different things.
I don’t do that anymore. I, I now listen to Stacking Benjamins in my car. There you go. Stop. Keep going. Stop, keep going. Yeah. There. ββ So I don’t, but in the old, you know, and the 10, 15 years ago, um, I, you know, you just start. Daydreaming and you start thinking about different things and different characters and a potential story that you’ve got floating around in your head.
So I didn’t have to outline it, I just told the story. Sometimes it does go in different directions. Uh, the very first draft, the very first manuscript that I kind of put forward, and I, I let my wife read it and I let my two kids read it ’cause I didn’t trust anyone else. And my wife said, she said, honey, there are no women in this book.
It’s all about men. I think you need to have some female characters. My daughter said Dad, the Marty character, who’s clearly based on you, I think he needs a little bit more stress. I, I think, you know, life’s a little perfect for him already. And as a result, I introduced Abby, the wife, into the book. I also introduced Natalia, who you don’t know yet.
She’s later in the book. He’s, so, yeah, I started re I, I then rewrote it with different characters to make it a little bit more robust. It’s, it’s interesting
that you say that ’cause it’s, it’s very easy for people to write from just their point of view. And I think that’s an author’s journey is fleshing that out.
I’m just thinking of, there’s a middle grade, uh, fiction book that I have 99% finished and then I realized that the best friend of the main character needs to be a girl. It’s a boy, it’s 12, but it totally makes a book better by a long shot if, if his best friend is this girl. So now I have to rewrite the Duffy character as a girl.
And I got to that point, Michael, maybe six years ago, and just went, that’s just a bridge too far right now my life’s. So it’s sitting there, 99% of the way done for this major rewrite, but a great thing. But that brings up the next thing, which is when I wrote my half of Stack to, you know, the money book that I co-wrote, I set myself a word count goal every day to just.
Get it out. Like how did you actually accomplish the writing? Did you set a word count goal? Did you try to write a chapter at a time? Because I know writer’s block comes up and procrastination comes up for every writer. Like, how did you fight those things? β
So, really, really good question. I didn’t worry about words at the beginning.
’cause remember it started out as this is just a hobby. Yeah. You know, I’m retiring and I need something to do because I spent my entire life getting up in the morning and putting on a uniform. Meaning, you know, work clothes. Yeah. And going to work. ββββ And even to this day, uh, I’m right in the sequel right now, and I leave the house.
I can’t do this at home. I leave the house and I go to a coffee shop. I actually put it in the, uh, the acknowledgements. There were two coffee shops, one in Charlevoix, Michigan, and one in, uh, Portland, Oregon. And I would go there every morning. They knew me. They had my coffee waiting for me. And I sit there and I, uh, and I write for, you know, 6, 7, 8 hours depending on how I feel.
I didn’t worry about the word count or any of that. I just, uh, and writer’s block is definitely something that, that you have to wrestle with. But I wasn’t worried about it at the beginning. And then once it started to kind of become real, uh, that the hobby started becoming something that was, you know, legitimate and, and, and people were going to be reading this, not just me, then I started worrying about getting it done. β
That’s when I would then say, okay, I’m not leaving here today, meaning the coffee shop for, you know, until I write at least 500 words there it or something like that.
Yeah. Yeah. I like having some type of a structured approach like that to get it done. It’s interesting to see a hobby turn into a business to some degree, you know?
And even though it sounds like you’re not worried about money and making money from the book, but treating it in a business-like manner, where you’ve got a structure to your day.
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And in fact, I, to be really honest with you, if I didn’t have this, I would probably die in early death.
I, I’m one of those people that I can’t just sit, let me digress for a moment. So, there was a period of my life I left Intel, uh, was an entrepreneur for about a year with a startup that I started while I was at Intel, uh, which blew up. As I said, I then went into kind of deep retirement because I’d, I’d gotten sick, overworked, and had some medical problems.
And so for about a year, I didn’t do much. I just kind of, you know, I enjoyed the retirement before the Intel stock started to crater, okay? And I would find myself becoming this vegetable. I, I sometimes I wouldn’t even get out of. Bed till like 10 or 11 o’clock. I’d hang out in my, in my bathrobe till two or three o’clock in the afternoon.
It was pathetic. It was really sad. And so I realized that here I was in my late forties, early fifties, and I was acting like I was in my eighties. You know, I actually started really to dislike myself. Now I went back to work, I became an entrepreneur, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I, if I, even now, after I am officially retired, if I went back to that, if I didn’t have something to get me up in the morning and go and do something, I would probably just become a vegetable.
So it is fascinating though. I
mean, uh, our friend Wes Moss wrote a book about what the happiest retirees know. And it’s all about purpose. Michael. It is all about having this, this, uh, purpose and thing that you’re different than you were at Intel. And I think this idea of not chasing something. Is, um, rejecting, I think the human condition, you know, and who we really are at our heart.
I wanna ask one more thing, which is about the coffee shop, because, uh, uh, I believe that’s where you and Doug fortuitously met, I think was at the coffee shop. But it’s funny. Yes. This idea of background noise and creation. I work from mom’s basement and there is an app that goes on my browser called cfi and it makes the noise of a coffee shop.
And what’s fascinating is when I have this hum going behind me, I become a machine and I can, I can do tons and tons and tons of work. I turn that Caity app off and it’s dead silent here. I get nothing done. Do you find the coffee shop actually makes you more creative and spit out work? We
are a hundred percent alike, uh, in that respect.
Uh, that is exactly, uh, what I need. I need the white noise. Here’s a, here’s a, uh, another small anecdote. So when I was, even back when I was going to school and I would get ready for finals, ββ a lot of people would go to the library to study or they would study in their dorm room. I didn’t, I went to the student union.
Which was like this giant cafeteria, right? And I would literally sit there from like seven o’clock in the morning while the kids were coming in and eating breakfast, and then they were having their coffee and all their meetings and all, all the way till four or five o’clock in the afternoon studying for my finals.
Because I needed the energy, I needed the noise. And you’re right, if it’s dead quiet, β my mind starts to wander. I do everything but concentrate, right? I just, I, you know, oh look, there’s a shiny little object over there. What is that? Yeah. And oh, ββ oh, whatever happened to this, you know, whatever. It’s, oh look, there’s this magazine.
I haven’t looked at that magazine in years, so you get my point. It just becomes crazy. And I need that. And so what I do is I, I do, I go to a coffee shop. Thank God, uh, there’s a couple of, uh, coffee shops because if you think about it, other than Starbucks, if you go to a regular coffee shop, they’re gonna kick you out because if they’re not going to enjoy, because they make their money churning tables, right?
So the last thing they want is some guy who’s gonna nurse a cup of coffee for the next five hours. Right. And it’s like, it’s like you wanna buy something, sir. And that’s a real problem. So, so there are these two coffee shops that I found. One is in Portland, which was Jola. And they were just wonderful.
They was a large enough, and, and yes, they served food and all that and they did make money off of that, but they didn’t mind because they were large enough they that, that I could sit there and they got to know me and et cetera. And then here in Charlevoix, it’s a, it’s a coffee shop that makes money, not off their tables, but off of all the other stuff, the maple syrup and stuff that they buy.
And so they have no problem with me sitting again for literally six, seven hours, β uh, you know, nursing this one or two cups of coffee. I’ll get a refill every once in a while. It’s like, okay, well there’s another buck you’re willing to spend. ββ So, but yeah, I need the noise. I, I need the, uh. The noise.
Well, well, I didn’t know there were coffee shops in Portland, Oregon.
That surprises me. Yeah, ββββ
yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. You have to look
for them, but you’ll find them. Yeah. Yeah. Just turn a corner and you’ll find it. ββ Exactly. The book is, is, uh, chasing money. It is a tightly woven tail of greed, deception, and treachery. It says right on the front cover. I am three chapters in and I cannot wait to finish this book.
And, uh, Doug has already read it and has said that this is definitely a thriller we need to read, and you can tell it’s not just Doug and me, uh, the awards that this book has won, including the best indie book award. Congratulations, by the way, Michael, on the success and thanks for helping our stackers.
Uh, know what it takes to maybe put words on paper and do the thing that you’ve been dreaming about forever. It’s a great thing.
Well, thank you very much for having me by the way. I’m almost done with the sequel, so if it’s as good as the first one, please invite me back. Absolutely. Will do, man. Thank you.
It’s also about money. Oh, fabulous. Well, even better. Come on back. Yeah, yeah. Okay. βββββ
I’m Liz, the Chief Mom Officer, and when I’m not busy being the breadwinner
of my family of five, I’m Stack and Benjamins ββββ og. Are you writing Uh, starting up thinking about writing the next great American fiction novel, sitting alongside Michael Balter.
It’s a coffee shop. ββββ I
will
be happy to read more precisely. Listen to the next Great American crime novel when they bring it to a movie.
Very seriously, and then I can watch it. You, β you have, ββββ
it’s the laziest thing. Anybody has ever said
kid to be bothered with the audio book? I’m not gonna go listening.
That’s where
we thought he was going. He is like, Nope. You need to shove it in my face. βββ
As long as it comes with buttered popcorn. Actually, I don’t even like Popcorn Peanut m and ms and Cherry Coke Doug.
You’ve read this book though, and it, yeah, and it reads like a movie. I have it. I
bought it. This book is so fun.
It it takes you along on such a ride. There’s some great Hi. You have, I don’t think you’ve gotten to this part yet, Joe, but you get deep into some like art history. This is a great ride. It kind of takes you halfway across the world. This is a movie. If, if this doesn’t get made into a movie, somebody’s missing the boat in
Hollywood.
I also gotta say it hit close to home and, uh. What, when he was talking with me about people play in this book,
Joe, what? ββ What’s that? How does this get close to home? I’m a
little worried about, yet that part didn’t take close to home. The fact that he added, you know, the character who is like his wife doubting his career once or twice ββββββ in my career, ββββββ
it might have come up at the dinner table. ββββββ
What’s
your job gonna be when you grow up, ββ
dad? ββββ
My spouse may have doubted ββ my, what color is my parachute direction? ββ May have happened β big thanks to Michael.
Yeah. You know, the book was so good that almost immediately after it came out and it got these awards, like as soon as it hit the streets, the publisher asked him for a sequel right away, which never happens to an author who writes their very first book and he got.
Like had that hit album and the band was like, uh, what do we do? We don’t have any more material. β He got it write on sequel right away, because it, it got so popular.
So, uh, so hear him though. He sounds super excited about it. I can’t wait. Yeah. Oh yeah. Why wouldn’t you be, I’m excited for him and, and frankly, having that type of a quote retirement where you wake up every day ’cause you’ve got this big thing that you’re working on and it’s sitting at a coffee shop, right?
Yeah. And type it away. I mean, what a fun, fun, uh, I don’t know, hobby, what do you call it? OG Avocation. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that’s it. I have been curious, OG, because you know, you’ve joked about your retirement before, but that means that you’ve thought about, you and I have been working together for a long time and I’ve never asked you, like, for you, what’s the after thing?
What’s the, what’s the thing you do when you’re done? Uh, done financial planning.
Oh, during retirement time, huh? Um. ββ You know, that’s always the question, right? Is it’s not the same that it was when, β two generations ago or even one generation ago. ββ You have to have something that you’ve got to look forward to.
My grandfather worked until he was 92. He owned a printing company, β and every day he went to work. I mean, he wasn’t work, he wasn’t, you know, slaving over the presses and, and you know, lifting cartons of paper, you know, in his nineties. But he was there and that was his, you know, that was part of his purpose.
So I think you run the risk of going sweet. I, and that’s the thing that we talk about with the fire movement. It’s like, you, you retire, you know, when you’re 48 and you’re like, woo hoo. Look me, I retired, I got all this money. And it’s like, well, now what? All your buddies are still at work. You know? Even if you want, you can’t just be like, Hey, let’s go.
Yeah. Doug and I were talking about skiing, like it’s great snow, sea snow skiing still up in the mountains with all the fresh April snow. It’s like, I. ββ I got kids. I can’t just be like, Hey guys, skip school. I know you’re a junior in high school and the AP tests are in two weeks, but come on, let’s go skiing.
You know, you have to kind of factor in real life on top of that. So β it’s uh, it’s a fun thing to start considering. And plus, why the heck am I getting all the pushback on retirement? You two are the old guys in this group. βββ
Did you? Wait a minute,
just lashing out now. β
Oh, I’m the angry, angry pre-retiree. I don’t wanna be a pre-retiree.
I’m 40 for God’s sake.
Did you hear the big def in my forties? Did you hear the big deflect there? Doug ββ in my forties. Huge deflect. Mid forties. Mid. So you really gotta think about this. It’s super important. Why am I getting all the heat? Yeah. Uh, sir, was that a non-answer? None of your business.
You guys stuck. βββββββββββββββ
Look over there. β If you were tired tomorrow, what’s the first thing you’d do? ββββββββ Change my phone
number, βββββββββββββββββββββββ
no longer gonna be on a podcast. Oh my God. That’s the best answer. βββ
It’s like, I, I, I talk to my brother a lot and my brother’s like, what would you do if you won the Powerball? And I’m like, this is super easy. The answer is like, literally do, do do. We’re sorry. The number you’ve called is no longer in service.
It cannot be reached at this time. Goodbye. It’s like poof, vanish is what I would do. Yeah. Smoke trail behind you. There was a person that Joe, you and I knew who won the Powerball. You may not, you may remember this story, who was an advisor. She and her husband won the Powerball and literally they packed a suitcase and vanished for a year.
Wow. They just were, it was like, did you guys ever know what ha what did ha what happened to someone who like, I don’t know, called her assistant from the road and said, hire somebody, pack up the house, sell it, β store our stuff. We’ll come and get it some other time, like literally vanished to like escape from all the chaos that was about to happen. β
Well, pretty smart move all things considered, you know? Yeah. Knowing that, uh, also you got a billion dollars in the bank, you know, you gotta do that. We’re already
halfway there, but time to, uh, wander out on the back porch. We’ll, we will, uh, come back to the better call sell segment on Wednesday of, of this week.
Uh, but Doug, what’s, uh, what’s going on here at the end of the show? Let’s talk some community.
Yeah. Well, you know, we haven’t done this in a little while, so I want to talk about a couple of reviews that have just hit the internets
about us. Oh, people being nice. Thank you. Well,
you’re assuming they’re being nice.
Of course. Wow. It’s gutsy.
Why don’t you give us a negative review? ββββ
Well, well, I’m gonna start this one off and it’s gonna be a bit of a thrill ride for you. You’re not gonna be sure where it’s going. Be warned. This is, see, right away you’re like, uh, uh, it had me at be warned, this is some awesome informal conversation on this podcast.
There we go. Stick with it. All of it. His great information that is given in a relatable way. Honestly, it feels like Joe OG and Paula, WTF and others βββ and βββ are my good friends, even though I’ve never met them, βββ I have learned so much from this podcast about financial decisions and their impact on my life. βββ
It’s like I’m not even in the room some
days. That is very nice. Thank you. But be warned, and that is specifically our goal is, is to make it, you know, I’ve really loved this, uh, new book by, uh, Catherine Price, not that new. She also has a TED Talk. If you watch Catherine Price’s, Ted talk about the power of fun.
She talks about fun as the number one way to learn and people think, no, I wanna be serious. I want a serious career. I want a serious vocation. I wanna take my life seriously. Katherine’s huge thing and I’m a hundred percent on board. We gotta get Katherine on the show. But is that, uh, if you seek connection. β
The flow state and approach things with a sense of playfulness. You will achieve all those things. You will take your life more seriously. You will be involved more. You will have have this existence. You wake up and you get excited about. I mean, you could hear the sense of playfulness and Michael Balter today.
Holy cow. Yeah, that dude is for sure. That dude’s super happy. That’s
wonderful. And you know something we haven’t said in years on this show, I’m amazed it still keeps coming up from stackers who call in to the better call Saul Life, you know, helpline, or even in reviews, they’ll say, I didn’t learn anything.
We used to joke about that like five or eight years ago. It’s been so long since we said that because we wanted you to learn on this show without realizing you’re learning, right? We’re gonna have so much fun talking about this big stuff. Just play that. You’re not gonna, yeah, we’re just playing and you’re not gonna realize you’re learning something.
Yet people still use that phrase forever. Like, no, stop. ββββ
We had it last week with, uh, call Nick, remember? Yeah. I haven’t learned a thing. And,
uh, and we do want you to learn. We just don’t want you to realize you’re learning. It’s a whole karate kid thing. Wax on,
wax off. It’s very nice. Thank you. Who, who gave us that review? β
Oh, sorry. I did not say that. That was, uh, somebody who doesn’t know how to hide their identity very well on the internet. That’s Heather 45 vt. So if you need to find her, she, it’s somebody named Heather, who’s 45 years old in Vermont. That’s, that’s my internet sloop
thing right there. Well, that’s, that’s what she wants you to think.
It really is. It really is. Bill in Nevada, ββ who’s, who’s
26, who would ever misrepresent themselves on the internet
place behind that, guys, uh, uh, I do have a review. The other thing we do on the back porch is we, we review some fun stuff that we found or stuff that’s not fun, man, that discussion last week about poor things as I’m on TikTok.
Looking for new segments for the show, either brilliance or air quotes, brilliance. I came across this, you guys remember like the old seventies albums that maybe you know parents, heck for some of you grandparents had, and you look at these cheesy covers and you listen to the music and you’re like, either, wow, they don’t make music like that anymore.
If you’re older, if you’re younger, you’re like, thank God they don’t make music like
that anymore. You just described OGs entire collection of abba. β
Exactly. ββ Old Barry Manalow covers some of these folk albums.
Hey, β don’t you be Smirch, Barry Manilow’s name.
Oh, but you’re gonna love this Doug. There is a TikTok channel that’s fairly new called Obscurist Vinyl, β and it has these phenomenal 1970s covers.
And then they play a piece of some of these super obscure songs. Uh, I’m gonna play a couple of these. Listen to this. This is, looks like a folk song. It says Timeless folk music, acoustic vintage vibes. Listen to how seventies this is. ββββββββ
I’m just daydreaming βββββ out, taking a huge dump, βββββ getting the βββββββ piss on the dump, ββββ cut the dump in βββββ
what βββ I
got.
Strong stream. ββ Don’t stand to change βββββ when I’m ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
what Doing. ββββββββββββββββ
This is the best channel. This channel is supposedly. Look at this album cover. It’s just a guy staring off into the other way. It’s a dude. It’s a dude staring off into the distance. And then they are not real, obviously not real songs. ββ This is another one that’s a seventies, a disco one that you guys might remember. ββββββ
Here’s some seventies disco. Check out this album cover while we’re playing it. ββββββββββββββββββββββββ
Gonna sit here and. βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
But my colon don’t care. βββ I understand you just bought the new sofa, but my
colon, my understanding is that TikTok and Instagram and these things are largely driven by what your previous searches have been βββββββββββ
or what
you linger on in kind of all
the details worked out. But I’m pretty sure,
I’m pretty sure that, you know, if you’re getting β fart jokes β in your TikTok, I got beat. βββ
You have somebody that erase your search history. Like if you get hit by a bus, right?
Like you gotta have your ride or die. Somebody needs to be lined up. It used to be, here’s where I stashed my porn, now it’s who’s clearing my search history. Oh, that Larry
David episode. Yeah.
Did you see the automation that somebody created for their Apple device?
You know, you can do all these automations, right? Like when I’m two minutes from my house, turn on the. Front porch light. You know, you can do all these automations and somebody created an automation that said, when my heart rate is less than five on my Apple, watch clear browser history. ββββββββββββββββββ
And that might be the best tip we give you today. It’s like
automate Apple. Watch less than five heart rate. It’s time to, βββββββ
but Doug, you’ve got three more big takeaways. β What are they? So what’s
stacked up on our to-do list today. First, take some advice from Michael Balter. Have a book in you or some other project.
Go do it. You can’t create something fantastic that the world wants to see unless you begin second 31% interest rate from Lowe’s or a Robinhood Gold Card. Don’t work in a horrible ecosystem just because it’s what you’ve always done or because one piece of a bad deal looks good. The apple is still rotten, even if the worm is on a different side than you’re currently looking at. β
Kinda had to think through that one, don’t you? But the biggest to-do βββ I gotta find a country that’ll put my face on their money? Maybe Vietnam and people can earn Doug. Don, I bet that had helped their economy. ββββββββββ Thanks to Michael Balter for joining us today. Be sure to head to your local bookshop and pick up a copy of Chasing Money Today.
Don’t have one of those cute little bookshops in your town. Okay. Then we’ll allow you to head to one of those giant online resellers. We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. ββ This show is the Property of SB podcasts LLC, copyright 2024, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy.
Our producer is Karen Repine. Karen and Joe. Get 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. 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. ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
I’ll be back right after I showed Joe’s mom my new stovepipe hat. This might be my new look. Hey, the right mom. The right black really is a slimming
color βββ to pay for the Civil War. Mm-Hmm. ββββ
Take that out, Steve. ββββββββββββββ
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