Is Any Expense Truly "Worth It"? (with Leisa Peterson) SB1682

special guest, Leisa Peterson—author of The Mindful Millionaire and now The Money Catalyst—joins us to talk about abundance, scarcity, and how to stop living life like you’re budgeting for armageddon. (Hint: It’s okay to order the nice wine now.)

Joe Saul-Sehy and OG also shine a light on the resurgence of alternative investments. Is it innovation… or just Wall Street’s way of sneaking in high fees through the back door? Plus, we roll into Doug’s trivia, a TikTok Minute that flips the script on a certain “draft pick,” and, of course, a few stories that prove—yet again—that golf is no game for the frugal.

“Am I YOLO-ing or just broke?” Why framing matters more than frugality
From scarcity to satisfaction: How one moment in Paris changed Leisa’s relationship with money
You call that a tip? The surprisingly deep conversation behind street musicians, champagne, and generosity
Alternative investments are back (again?) Why your advisor might pitch you on ditching the market… and why you should think twice
Personal growth through fiction: Leisa’s surprising journey from nonfiction burnout to a book that might just fix your wallet and your heart
When the camel arrives with a skeleton on its back: Doug’s trivia gets weird (and somehow financial)
TikTok Minute: What happens when a 50-year-old thinks he just got drafted into the NFL
OG’s rule of thumb: Volatility isn’t the villain—it’s the entrance fee

🪄 PS: Boston-area Stackers! Joe’s coming your way May 20th. Get all the meetup deets at ⁠stackingbenjamins.com/meetup⁠

🎧 Listen now and start living (and spending) like abundance is already yours.

Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201

Enjoy!

Monday Mentor: Leisa Peterson

Big thanks to Leisa Peterson for joining us today. To learn more about Leisa, visit WealthClinic® helps people elevate their financial consciousness and restore a healthy and prosperous relationship to money. Grab yourself a copy of the book The Money Catalyst: Your Guide to Prosperity, Freedom, and Living Your Best Life

Our TikTok Minute

@espn
Wasn’t expecting that 😭 (via @Brianwallace22) #skit #nfldraft
♬ original sound – ESPN

Our Headline

Edward Jones joins the crowd to sell more alternative investments (InvestmentNews)

Doug’s Trivia

In hot weather, like a summer in the American southwest, how long can a camel go without water?

Have a question for the show?

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Other Mentions

Join Us Friday!

Tune in on Friday when we dive into the topic of deriving happiness and fulfillment from earning and saving more money.

Written by: Kevin Bailey

Miss our last show? Listen here: Learning to Think Like a Millionaire (with Sam Dogen) SB1681 » The Stacking Benjamins Show

Episode transcript

STACK 05-14 Leisa Peterson -steve

[00:00:00] bit: Nervous.

[00:00:01] Doug: Yes.

[00:00:02] bit: First time.

[00:00:03] Doug: No. I’ve been nervous lots of times.

Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show.

I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. And are you fighting a scarcity mindset where it’s tough to imagine yourself having it all? Well, today we are standing beside you and fighting back with special guest Lisa Peterson Plus in our headline volatility in the Stock market. Don’t worry because one company is gonna join the parade of selling you alternative investments.

Oh man. I can’t wait to see what OG thinks about this. We’re all here together. I’m sure. Plus we’ll also hear today’s trivia question from yours truly, and we’ll share a TikTok minute that I’m sure will be a hit with all of your friends. And now two guys who, when you say diversify, they say how much, sir, it’s Joe and, oh,

[00:01:15] Joe: hey there stacker. Welcome to your Muddy Bootcamp. This fine Wednesday. I am Joe Saul, sea High Hub two Soldier, because the commander in chief is on his way into the barracks. Mr. OG is here. Straighten up. What’s happening? Look alive. Would you like to inspire our troops? But where

[00:01:36] OG: I don’t see the, I don’t see where we’re going with this.

Mr. Ochi.

[00:01:39] Joe: No.

[00:01:40] OG: Yeah. Sorry.

[00:01:40] Joe: Not at all. Not gonna inspire anybody for money. Greatness today, everybody. We got a great Wednesday. Otherwise though, Lisa Peterson’s in the house,

[00:01:49] OG: that’s the inspiration

[00:01:50] Joe: there. It is, not me. He’s incapable of inspiring.

[00:01:55] OG: I’m, I’m perfectly good at purse by ring. Is that okay?

[00:01:58] Joe: He had have a 20 minute pep talk just to get on the mic.

[00:02:02] OG: We

[00:02:02] Joe: got, we got a lot of work

[00:02:04] OG: to do. Slap myself in the morning. Like, let’s, let’s do this. We’re

[00:02:07] Doug: gonna, we’re gonna wake up at oh 400 and have a locker box inspection.

[00:02:11] OG: The hell’s a locker box.

[00:02:13] Doug: Were you not afforded a place to keep your belongings in the Marines? Do you not even get like a locker box is a thing at the foot of your bed or your bunk?

[00:02:22] OG: You use some weird words. A locker box,

[00:02:26] Doug: foot locker. I’m quoting from Stripes.

[00:02:29] OG: Yeah,

[00:02:29] Doug: stripes. Oh, those guys clearly knew

[00:02:32] Joe: Army training, sir. They say that all the time. Army training, sir.

[00:02:36] OG: It’s like six weeks long. You get dessert,

[00:02:40] Doug: you get what? You kind of what a great weight loss program here. Six to eight weeks long, which is perfect for me.

Was that John Candy? Yeah, that was John Candy. Of course, my doctor says I swallow a lot of aggression along with a lot of pizzas. That that sounds, that sounds like something your doctor would’ve said. Doug and I would’ve been the guy in the, in the get to know you session in the barracks on the first night.

I totally would’ve been that guy.

[00:03:08] OG: I didn’t see this movie. I’m glad I Oh, you didn’t see

[00:03:10] Doug: Stripes?

[00:03:11] OG: I think I would be, I don’t believe infuriated

[00:03:13] Joe: anybody that hasn’t seen this old movie. This is his fun. Bill Murray, John Candy, um, John Landis was in it. John John Landis and, and who was the other ghost by

[00:03:23] Doug: Harold?

Uh Ramis. Harold Ramis. Harold Ramis. Oh, I’m sorry. That’s who I’m thinking of. I said John Landis, but I’m thinking Harold Ramis. Yeah, John

[00:03:28] Joe: Landis was the director.

[00:03:29] Doug: Right? Yeah. It’s one of the few comedies from back then that still. Carries it still works. It’s gotta hold up like that. And Caddy Shack, those two were like bookends of the comedic pantheon back in the early eighties, and they’re just, they’re amazing.

I listened

[00:03:44] Joe: to a podcast recently called, uh, what Went Wrong? It goes over, I think Doug, you’d really like this one. It’s about all the things that go wrong in the making of a movie. And they were talking about Ghostbusters and those guys had come off of stripes. Um, no, they, no, they come off of um, uh, yeah, I think there was something in between Meatballs.

Meatballs, yeah. Which didn’t do great. No. ’cause it was up against these other big movies like National Lampoon’s Vacation, which did much, much, much better. But anyway, uh, I would like that. Fine. If you like hearing about how some of these movies are made and the business decisions they make, the ones that go well, contract negotiations, all that stuff, when it comes to making your favorite.

Movies, what went Wrong is a fun podcast, diving into all that, but we got a fun podcast for you today, talking Money. We’ve spent all day this Monday talking with Sam Dogan about your money mindset. We’re gonna continue that, get even a little deeper with, uh, Lisa Peterson. Lisa, of course, is the person who is behind the Mindful Millionaire brand.

She had an amazing story that I use all the time about thinking about what’s important. Lisa sadly, was at her doctor’s office when there was a mass shooting and she realized that, uh, the things she thought were important weren’t nearly as important as she thought, and she wasn’t focusing on the right stuff.

So, Lisa’s person who knows a lot, lot, lot about mindset, she’s coming up next. But before we get to Lisa, we have a couple of sponsors that make sure that you don’t have to pay for any of all the goodness you’re gonna hear today or any day on the Stacking Benjamin Show. So we’re gonna hear from a couple of them.

And then Lisa Peterson, it’s gonna help be uh, or Money Catalyst. Hay Stackers great news that we received after we recorded these shows. You may have heard this last week, but if you missed our greatest hits week, we are coming to Boston. Boston area Stackers. I will be there on Tuesday, May 20th at Idle Hands Brewing in Malden.

It’s Idle Hands Brewing in Malden. The place to sign up is stacky Benjamins dot com slash meetup. Go make sure we know that you’re coming. We’re gonna have, uh, some appetizers, we’re gonna have some drinks. It’s gonna be a good time with either a foamy beverage or just the beverage of your choice. Non foamy is perfectly acceptable as well, but you know what?

Hanging out with you is something that is so fun. We had a great time. Last time I was in the Boston area, idle hands craft ales in Malden Tuesday, May 20th, Boston area. Stacker stacky Benjamins dot com slash meetup to tell us you’re coming.

Well, if you suffer from one more a year syndrome or fears of spending the next dollar or that money’s transitory and like I thought when I was younger, if it’s in my pocket, baby, it is. It’s fair game. Well, the next half hour is gonna be specifically for you because the Lisa Peterson’s here. How are you?

[00:06:55] Leisa: I’m so good. It’s so fun to be here. Thank you.

[00:06:58] Joe: It’s so fun to have you back. It’s funny, I don’t know if I’ve told you this, but when I talk, your face is always on a screen. ’cause I always tell, I. The story you told me from a long time ago when you were on, so, which we don’t have to go back through that, but I gotta tell you on this project, talking about Money catalyst and really kind of changing our framing around money, I love this project number one because when you’re introducing it, it’s all around a donut.

Number one, like this woman is looking longly at a donut. And I’m like, oh, that’s, that’s me. That’s totally me. And in Paris, which I don’t know if you and I have talked about this, but it’s my favorite city in the world. Me

[00:07:35] Leisa: too,

[00:07:36] Joe: isn’t it? It’s so Paris is so, so, so awesome.

[00:07:40] Leisa: Oh, the best.

[00:07:41] Joe: Yeah. Why this topic? Why now?

Why do we need to talk about a new framing around money?

[00:07:50] Leisa: It’s time. It’s time. The idea that I’m always talking about being more conscious about this relationship with money. I have the sense that. People are gonna really, really be more conscious about their money in the coming months and years. Let’s face it, we live in the United States of America.

There’s been this debt problem, there’s been these things like inflation. There’s been a lot of stuff going on, and no matter where you fall, you’re affected by it. And that’s how it goes with money. So I’m always preaching to this idea that the more we understand our relationship with money, the happier our lives are gonna be.

[00:08:29] Joe: It’s funny, we have all this subconscious stuff going on, and stacker’s, Lisa and I are gonna take you through the, a little bit of the journey that she takes us on because this project is a, uh, it’s a parable. So if you’ve read the E myth, which I’ve talked about a lot here, if you’ve ever read the goal books like that where it’s just a simple, fun story.

Like I was telling Lisa before we hit record, I just wanna know what happens with her and Ethan. But we’ll get to that in a second because I haven’t finished it. But in the beginning you realize immediately that we attach all this meaning to these little either things in our wallet or to our credit card, Lisa, like, this woman has been living this life where she, she’s very mindful about money, but maybe too mindful to the point that she’s not doing any living.

[00:09:15] Leisa: Exactly. You summed it up very nicely

[00:09:18] Joe: is that most of us, that we don’t spend freely enough because like I wasn’t that person. I was the direct opposite of that person. Uh, so when she’s finally let’s loose in Paris in chapter one, I’m like, thank goodness. But then I was worried for her that now she’s letting loose too much.

[00:09:35] Leisa: Yeah, I think that we fall on the spectrum depending on what phase of life we’re in. Like when we’re younger, there may be a tendency to spend more and then we learn that that didn’t work out so well. But you know, in her situation, she didn’t have a lot growing up. She was responsible for a lot in her home at an early age.

She gets outta college, has money, goes a little bit crazy, and with spending too much gets into trouble, her husband bails her out and now they’re like, okay, we just have to be careful. Like everything is about this frugality mindset. And then she goes to Paris and she realizes, hold the fort. You know, like, I don’t know if I’m doing this right.

I don’t know if this is really going to get me what I want, which is happiness and joy. And therein lies the struggle because. It isn’t one way or the other and that’s what she ends up starting to explore. It’s not just spend all your money, it’s also not be frugality your way to joy and happiness. I mean, maybe, but again, we write books that we most need or that we’ve most learned from.

And side note, my husband a few years ago got prostate cancer and I know that had a lot to do with this book because. I was in Paris myself, experiencing what started this whole thing. And I was with someone who had never been to Paris before and had, doesn’t have a lot of money, and yet I was taking her as a thank you gift.

Yet she showed me what true abundance was all about in Paris. And it wasn’t just about spending money, it was about being in the present moment and celebrating what was in front of us instead of me doing this, okay, well how much is that gonna cost? And US dollars to Euros and all these crazy behaviors that I have done.

And I miss out on the whole experience because I’m thinking about how much it costs. And so all of this is kind of coming into the setting of what. She starts to explore.

[00:11:44] Joe: Yeah, she is this, uh, uh, your friend was the one that had the donut in front of her and she’s worshiping this donut. And you’re like, I don’t know.

I get the feeling. You’re like, come on, it’s a donut. But then you realize it’s no matter what it is, she’s in the moment, Lisa, she’s present all the way through Paris. Instead of, to your point just clicking off the next box and go, well, now it’s time to go to the Louvre. It’s time to go to the next thing.

[00:12:05] Leisa: Yes. She is seizing the moment and every single thing we do is the most magical experience I’ve ever had. And I’ve been to Bears many times and I was shocked. I, it was so shocking. I didn’t even understand what was happening. ’cause I was just kind of holding on. I feel like you’re seeing it through new eyes.

Yep. And how money plays into our experiences of whether we’re in the present moment or we’re not.

[00:12:37] Joe: You know, I get the feeling that what you’re telling us early on is maybe we’re even just coming at this from the wrong way. Like, am I frugal? Am I somebody that YOLOs? I get the feeling that you’re saying that deciding that really isn’t where we need to start.

Am I right with that?

[00:12:55] Leisa: Yes. You are questioning these assumptions that we just take for granted are right, and that are taking good care of us. What if we don’t have it is figured out as we think we do like that? That is really what’s going on and, and what’s so interesting is a little backstory is. I was asked to write a book, the most basic book possible, a nonfiction book about abundance by my publisher.

And I started writing it and it just felt like everything had already been said before. I was bored to no end, and I didn’t think I could do it the way that they wanted me to do it. And what kept coming to me was a year before this experience of being in Paris with Jenny. And I was like, well, I’m just gonna write that as a short story, not necessarily about us, but two women in Paris together.

And I wrote it thinking, well, maybe this would be like the way to introduce it. And once I introduce this short story, then I can write the nonfiction book. Well, when I was workshopping this with 35 people in my community and I, I was writing the nonfiction book and I was writing the fiction story, I gave them the fiction story and everybody was like, I.

Oh my gosh, what happens next? And I was like, I don’t know. And like, I dunno what happens next? You guys, like, I’m not a fiction writer. Like, I don’t know that I can tell you, but I’m really excited. Like it made me cry that they actually got excited about the story. Then I, I came up with the next scene, which actually was inspired by a real life thing that happened in Paris.

And then they were like, Lisa, there’s no point of writing a nonfiction book. Like, stay with Melle, please tell us what Maribel’s about to do. So I feel like this did not happen in a very planned way, is what I’m trying to say. Like all these. Crazy ass experiences that I’ve had with money over my lifetime.

Were able to find their way in a very vulnerable way into these characters.

[00:15:03] Joe: And yet then the final product is eight. Very laid out. Not necessarily steps, but this emotional maze that we go through as we try to figure out abundance like I was. I love the fact that you failed on telling us about abundance and instead succeeded to show us this is, this is abundance through this story because when she begins so far, our stackers out there, we’ll just share just a little bit of what happens at the beginning.

She’s with a friend, much like your friend, and she’s present in Paris and she’s seeing this wonderful stuff that the friend says, let’s share a bottle of wine. Let’s make a champagne. And this woman who normally is a penny pincher, is like, yeah, let’s do it. And then she finds herself at a nice restaurant and they, they spend money on that.

And she realizes, because it’s so much a part of the experience, I don’t ever feel like it’s frivolous. It just is. She’s fully enjoying the experience without spending so much time and energy worried about her wallet to the point that even at the end I’m like, well, maybe she needs to worry about her wallet a little bit.

Which is funny because then she comes home and she immediately, then Lisa has this fight with her husband because he wasn’t there. He didn’t experience it. And I feel like, Lisa, this is kind of the two halves of our brain, right? I’ve got the damn it, I’m in Paris and this is the experience I want in my life.

But at the same time, I have to be responsible. I gotta make sure this lasts forever. Like it is. It is truly hard to live an abundant life and yet live a responsible life at the same time. It’s not an easy journey.

[00:16:46] Leisa: It really isn’t. It really isn’t. And I think that was why I was struggling so much in this non-fiction book about abundance, because it felt like it was filled with bullshit.

I couldn’t do it. Like, I couldn’t just tell people what they wanna hear. I couldn’t make it picture perfect and glossy. And, oh, if you just think this way, then everything’s gonna be awesome. And meanwhile, people are trying to figure out how to buy organic blueberries at Costco, which is what we were talking about with my husband today when he was there saying, there $11, I I, is it worth it?

And it, it’s like, no, it’s not worth it today, honey. I mean, you know what I mean? Like I couldn’t Right. Write

[00:17:31] Joe: that book or, or people even just worried about making the rent payment this month.

[00:17:35] Leisa: Oh my gosh. Yes. Yes. And there’s tons of people that are really struggling. If you look at the data, it’s saying that I.

More people were making the minimum payments on their credit cards than like they, they had ever tracked. I mean, just crazy data that tells you we have a problem. And I couldn’t play into this self-help thing that I have been a part of. I, I was like, it’s way more complicated than this. And the only way I could say what I wanted to say was through real people living a real life struggling with the things that we struggle with.

Now, granted, their transformation happens and it’s a lot faster than most of the time it happens for us. But this period of it is those fights, those challenges, those conversations with our friends where they’re like, uh, you know, it’s nice for you to imagine that you’re living in Paris all the time, but that’s totally not realistic.

The truth tellers in our lives, thank goodness they exist. I wanted the character to still be in this real life experience, and yet she’s able to find a way through it.

[00:18:42] Joe: That to me is the exciting part because of the fact that these maybe not fights, but these deep discussions are worth having with your spouse, with your partner, with your friends around you.

Like, this is not my reality. I want a different reality for myself. And even to begin. ’cause you talk about at the beginning of this project that really starts inside like, you need to look inside. Is this really, is this really what I’m going for? Like what am I going for? This was a frustrating thing. You were a financial planner.

I was a financial planner. Looking at, even with my clients sometimes they weren’t looking at like what they really want. They’re like, oh, I could probably do this. I’m like, who cares about that? What do you really wanna do? And Lisa, it’s such a big struggle to even look at that in the mirror.

[00:19:27] Leisa: I agree and I’ll say that this book, my husband and I have been together forever and like he helped me a lot on this book and we have like got a lot of money conversations and I am not kidding you, we grew more from this book and his involvement in this book that I could ever even begin to list out all the changes.

How,

[00:19:53] Joe: how was that? What do you mean?

[00:19:54] Leisa: Well, first of all, when I wrote, ’cause I had never written fiction and he read the first draft, he’s like, you’re Ethan sounds like, uh, maybe a male therapist, but more like a woman. That’s not what a guy would say. Sure. He had to help me. He had to come back and get really involved in the characters to be like.

A guy would say this, not that.

[00:20:15] Joe: Right. I mean, and everybody says it’s hard for people to women to write men, men to write women, yeah. Et cetera. Anyway. Yeah, yeah. Totally.

[00:20:22] Leisa: Totally. So he was involved in the whole thing and what would happen is he’d read it and he is like, are you trying to tell me something?

[00:20:33] Joe: he thinks you’re using the character to talk to him. Yes,

[00:20:36] Leisa: a hundred percent. I’m like, honey, did you say everything

[00:20:40] Joe: does have to be about you?

[00:20:42] Leisa: Yeah. I mean, he is like, he has this thing, I think, ’cause I’ve been growing so much as a human for the whole time we’ve been together. And I think he goes through these periods where he is like, oh my gosh, she’s growing again and that means I’m gonna have to grow again.

So this book was like an opportunity because I was exploring things that were deep inside of my relationship with money and my challenges and my relationship. And I was bringing him in because I was like. We are not the only ones dealing with this stuff, but what’s amazing is by writing about it and reading it, we started having conversations about patterns that we have that weren’t healthy for us even after being together for, so, oh,

[00:21:24] Joe: that’s fabulous.

What are you struggling with? But

[00:21:27] Leisa: it was, I struggling with,

[00:21:28] Joe: yeah. You said patterns and things that you’ve been struggling with.

[00:21:31] Leisa: Yeah. Whoa. What are you

[00:21:32] Joe: struggling with?

[00:21:33] Leisa: You know, we have achieved a really good position with money and yet we still struggle with where is it reasonable to spend it and where is it not.

[00:21:44] aftershow: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:45] Leisa: It’s not ever probably gonna be easy for us because I know that we were able to build wealth through frugality, but we’re at a phase in life where, between him getting cancer and us kind of backing away from work being the primary way that we earn, I, I’d say actively working for others, we are more focused on like.

We have more freedom than we ever had before, but nobody taught us how to use that freedom and use it in a way that brings us great joy. And so even the story of Ethan, originally, I thought this book was gonna be mostly for women, but what Tim has shown me is that, and, and the men who have read this book have come back to me on, is they see themselves in the places and the places where they’re holding back, where they really aren’t asking that question.

You said earlier of like, uh, do I really, really know what I want? Do I really, really know who I wanna be hanging out with and why I wanna be hanging out with them? Am I being incredibly purposeful in these areas?

[00:22:49] Joe: Even Lisa, for me, it was even smaller than that. When they upgrade the bottle of wine, I’m even thinking to myself, I’m like, is that worth it to me?

Is it worth it? Do I go with the less expensive bottle of wine, or is this the moment I know I’m not the only person that’s done this. I’ve got a couple bottles of wine in my fridge that are probably bad now because I’ve saved them for a special moment. Yeah, for so long. And every single moment, Lisa, it’s not the moment I’m like, no, no, no, no.

This isn’t the moment. It’s gonna be really special moment. You know what’s gonna happen. By the time I actually get around to crack and open the bottle of wine, it’s gonna be junk. It’s gonna be gone. It’s gonna be bad because I’m gonna wait too long. And so this is this. The moment, is this what’s really important to me?

You know, should I be looking at the donut and appreciating it before I just gobble it? You know, like even those little things. Are important. Well, well, heck, let’s take one here because I’ve got a couple things early on in the book that I think that a lot of us struggle with. One big moment comes when Maribel, your main character, asked, uh, Lela, who is the free spirit, who is, uh, really convinced her in Paris to have fun.

Mirabell asked Lela, why she’s tipping this street artist so much money. They go by this street artist, Lela Leaves, leaves like this huge tip, and Maribel says, I don’t get it. Isn’t that a lot of money for something you can’t even take with you? I’m not even gonna get anything out of this. And then Lela says back, if we follow that logic, this trip is a waste of money.

The memories won’t last forever, but isn’t experiencing beauty and feeling alive. What truly makes us feel wealthy? That’s what living an abundant life is all about.

[00:24:34] Leisa: Yes. And are we paying attention to that? Are we totally equating money to stuff or money to the number? How high that number goes? That’s the most important thing.

There are plenty of people that do look at it that way without questioning the fact that money is literally there to make sure that we have a roof over our heads. You know, a car to drive food to eat. That’s the most important thing about money, not the accumulation of money as the joy in and of itself.

[00:25:19] Joe: It’s this reminder when I generously tip, because it meant a lot to me. I. It was a big moment for me, and I realized that this person probably needs the money more than I do, frankly, as somebody that’s done pretty well. I’ve also found that it always comes back to me, you know, like the spirit of giving.

The more I give, the easier it is for me to manifest Mormon. I don’t know why. I don’t know how, but Lisa, it always seems to happen. You know what I mean? Where when I get really, really, really frugal and I don’t do anything, I feel like the opportunities dry up. The universe just shuts down to me the same way I’m shutting down to everybody else.

[00:25:58] Leisa: I totally feel that and I’ve noticed it. It’s so powerful to just notice. Where your scarce patterns show up, because they might not be as blatant as what you just described, where you’re like, oh, I feel like I need to be more tight with my money. Like, it might just be in certain places. Sure. Like at the restaurant when you’re tipping.

[00:26:20] aftershow: Yeah.

[00:26:20] Leisa: Or, and, and instead of feeling the generosity of this great service that you just received, you are like, oh, tipping is overrated. You know, like you go into an internal tirade of like, even though you just got wonderful service that would be in that moment, you are having a scarcity or abundant experience right there and then

[00:26:43] Joe: it’s amazing being around other people and watching this manifest itself, and you sometimes wonder what’s going on.

You know, people also feel this way when it comes to work early on. Melle meets a man in the airport and he clearly, you have this great device you use so that she’s able to be around. A really, really rich guy. Won’t, I won’t, I won’t spoil it for everybody, but I like how you get them sitting next to each other and they just start to talk.

And he explains to her that he grew his company bigger and bigger, bigger, and he made more and more and more money. And he talks about how he was really chasing this unclear idea of success and he didn’t really know it was bigger and bigger and bigger. And it was for what? And it’s funny that I read that.

Within an hour. I saw this interview on TikTok. This is an interview with the character known as, uh, Mr. Beast. You know Mr. Beast from YouTube? Yeah. This is Jimmy, Mr. Beast being interviewed by, uh, Steven Bartlett.

[00:27:43] bit: If my mental health was a party, I wouldn’t be as successful as I am. I mean, that’s just like a sad fact.

Like I obviously never would’ve bared myself alive for seven days. Seven days of solitary, seven days on a desert island, seven days, blah, blah, blah. Being able to consistently suffer over long periods is like arguably one of the deepest moats. Like there’s a reason no one makes videos like me, like not even close because no one wants to live the life I live.

I think there was one year I was flying like 200 days, like I was on a plane. I mean, it was, it was a. But you know, to get these videos done, when I wake up tomorrow and I’m gonna be pretty tired and feel like something I always tell myself is how you feel right now is why no one else does what you want to do or does what you do.

And if you push through this, that’s just even, you know, more of a reason why no one will ever be who you are. And so I think being able to push through unhappiness and do things you don’t want to do consistently year after year over the course of a decade is like the ultimate advantage. Like, I mean, I think we’ll hit a billion subscribers and, uh, I don’t think anyone will be anywhere near close because like, once you make a couple million dollars, why would you live the life I live?

Like, why, why would you not take weekends off? Why would you not just film locally even from a means less views so you can be on the right time schedule? Why would you not prioritize your sanity and that kind of stuff? It makes no sense, but that’s why no one else does it.

[00:28:50] Joe: Lisa, I’m with him about the mission.

You can tell it’s not about the money, it’s about the billion views. I see people like him, like Tom Brady, like Serena Williams, where if it was just about one title, Lisa, they would have gotten the trophy moved on. But it truly is about this system of making trophies in this inner drive to be better. I’m on board with all of that.

The part that struck me that I don’t hear from any of those other champions was pushing through unhappiness and pushing through mental instability. I’ve never thought of. I have at times and, and obviously I’m looking at this through people, magazine’s, eyes. I’ve questioned sometimes what Tom Brady’s focused on, or, you know, Serena, it’s easy for me to do.

It’s easy for all of us to throw a darts, right? But I never questioned their sanity. Or their happiness. I felt like they’re probably very happy when you see them. They seem very happy doing this thing. Driven and happy. When Jimmy starts talking about unhappy, that’s what he really loses me because he seems like your guy in the book.

Mm-hmm. Like he’s just building it and building it and building it and building it and colossally unhappy.

[00:30:01] Leisa: Totally. It’s all ego. There’s no heart in it. The character in the book, it took getting cancer for him to reevaluate his life, and I’ve known plenty of people who have done that, but not just reevaluate, but realize that maybe he was missing the whole freaking point of his life.

Like that’s what I feel like happens. And you know what just occurred me when I was listening to that and to you. Most of the time we’ll see successful people and we’ll see them like doing the Tom Brady, or right now it’s Nicole Kidman. I’m like, how many movies can you be in? Like you’re in every single thing.

I don’t know how she has a life. Everywhere

[00:30:43] Joe: you look,

[00:30:43] Leisa: we see those stories of like one more, one more, one more, more, more, more. But what we don’t see are those stories. And I, and I do feel like this may apply to Serena, where she did fall in love and she did have a baby and her life radically changed. Okay.

And she went to that life and she’s and totally embracing that life. And I think she’s talking about it. But most of the time when people do find the beautiful combination that’s bringing them love and happiness and joy, they exit. And we don’t ever hear about what happened for them. They just disappear.

So we don’t have a lot of role models that say, um. I, yeah, maybe I didn’t really understand this thing, this game of life, even though it looked like I was winning, it’s not true.

[00:31:35] Joe: I’m chasing the thing. And for what, yeah, I was very disturbed by that interview. I had a long discussion with our friend Paula Pant about, about that discussion.

But because when he talked about being unhappy, I’m like, I think you’re missing it. I, I don’t know, again, easy for me to say, ’cause he’s Mr. Beast with all his stuff going on, but I don’t think choosing unhappiness is the way to go. Later on in the book, you begin marrying money habits into these catalyst.

How do we begin? And obviously, you know, in a 25 minute discussion, we’re not gonna solve all of our stackers problems, Lisa, but how do we begin molding better money patterns into this abundant approach that you’re talking about? What are our first moves?

[00:32:20] Leisa: What I realized was it was very important for the reader to have some suggestions about increasing their income, increasing their savings, because this is something that people love to talk about in the worlds that we come from.

And what I also knew, and this was Maribel’s mom, is very similar to my mom. She was always in financial trouble, even though Maribel’s kind of figured out money and she’s trying to understand abundance, her mom’s struggling with all kinds of money problems. And what ends up happening is Maribel’s goes to her coach and she’s like, I need some help with all of this.

And what ends up happening is she gives her five strategies for each. And it was so hard, Joe. I have been working with people in money for like 30 years. I started with 20 for each of ’em, and I just kept drilling down and drilling down like, okay, only five girlfriend, you can do it. And one of ’em I’ll share came directly from my daughter in the past couple years, who is running a very successful content creation business.

Okay, so these aren’t the same that we’ve heard all along. I tried to bring things that were different, and the one learned by Zoe is when you wanna make more money, you need to be very, very comfortable with the word no. What that means is that my daughter, in negotiating her deals, she strives to hear no, because until she hears no, she is not sure that she’s actually pricing at the market for her services.

I started applying that to everything. Like when you ask for a raise, like are we all afraid of hearing? No, because we’re never gonna know the ceiling if we don’t push it. And in any negotiation, are you stopping before you get to know because you wanna keep it copacetic? Or could you actually push yourself and become very comfortable knowing that you’ve reached the end of the negotiation and now you have achieved something that you wouldn’t have achieved without that one tip?

[00:34:29] Joe: What I love about that tip for me too, is you kind of got to think to yourself, is this worth going until no, which means I have to question, is this really important to me? Which is to our earlier discussion. That’s the important part of this. How? How important is this? Am I debating something that’s actually important?

[00:34:47] Leisa: Yeah, I don’t know about you, but it’s important to make sure that you’re earning the value that you’re creating in the world.

[00:34:54] Joe: Absolutely. The book is called The Money Catalyst, and it has been available for about three days, but you’ve got some extras that people go to a specific place, Lisa.

[00:35:08] Leisa: Money Catalyst book.com.

Uh, there’s a journal that goes along with it and meditations that guide you through. And my latest edition, a song list that takes you through the whole book, which is super A song list. Yes. Isn’t that fun?

[00:35:24] Joe: Like a Spotify playlist? Yes. I’m so That’s awesome. So excited. That is awesome. I’m a guy that listens to music nonstop, so that just made the whole thing.

This was a very good book. It’s now a great book. Lisa, thank you so much for helping our stackers, uh, really get their mind in the right place and think about abundance and what we really want. I truly appreciate the, the time and your energy around this topic.

[00:35:51] headlines: Thank you for having me. Thank you.

[00:35:58] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s moms neighbor, Duggan. Here’s a money catalyst situation gone wrong. It was on today’s date in history, way back in 1856, that a shipload of camels were first brought to the USA for commercial purposes. It was congress who had appropriated $30,000 for the camel acquisition to be used in experiments to determine whether they’d work for the military.

33 camels began the voyage from Turkey, but 34 arrived incredibly. One had died along the way, but two were born and survived the trip. They were sent to Texas. You could still go see Camp Verde where they were stationed. Which leads to an important question under hot conditions like a Texas summer. How long can camels go without water?

Is it a whopping five days, an incredible two weeks, or the, there’s no way they can do it half a month. I’ll be back with the answer to that question once I start finding out how long OG can go without Woodford. I believe it’s about a week, but I wanna find out scientifically.

Hey there, stackers. I’m Mr. Scientific Method and Guy who’s the three humped camel carry. In this podcast, Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. The first camels in America, sadly didn’t work out. After the Civil War broke out, the Confederates couldn’t afford to maintain the camel brigade, and that was the end of it.

However, legends of camel’s roaming the southwest continued for decades, including one called the Red Ghost, a huge camel supposedly with a skeleton riding on it. And that was seen across sections of Arizona until 1893 when a farmer reportedly shot it and killed it. And yes, there was a skeleton on the camel, but the question is, in hot weather, like a summer in the American Southwest, how long can a camel go without water?

It’s half a month or roughly 15 days. That’s incredible. And now, because you shouldn’t go without financial knowledge bombs for more than five minutes. Here’s Joe and og,

[00:38:10] Joe: man, camel’s roaming the American Southwest og. Imagine if that had taken off. You could be camel riding to work every day. Wouldn’t that be fun?

[00:38:21] OG: I mean, it’d be something, I don’t know, fun would be the word I’d use. Have you ever ridden a camel? Uh, briefly, briefly.

[00:38:28] Joe: When we went to Egypt, scoreboard, wrote a camel right by the gray pyramid scoreboard. Is

[00:38:32] Doug: that like, sit on it. We’ll take your picture. And I get off tourist.

[00:38:36] Joe: Oh, dude, it, it was not fun at all because the Bedouins that ran the thing, they had already been paid and tipped.

Oh. And they spent the entire time begging me for another tip. Oh man. And when I finally gave the dude a co I told him 15 times. You’re like,

[00:38:50] OG: buy low, sell high.

[00:38:51] Joe: I told him 15 times. I kept saying, dude, I know you were already tipped. And he goes, he, he goes, no, brother, you got your information wrong. I’m like, no.

My tour guide said that you were already tipped. No, you got your information wrong. And then I see my buddy Malcolm, who’s on the next camel over giving a tip, and they say something back and forth. So I’m like, Malcolm dammit. So then I give him a buck and the, the dude, whoa,

[00:39:17] OG: whoa, whoa. Big spender. Oh

[00:39:18] Joe: no, no, no.

Oh gee, it gets, it gets really bad. The dude literally takes the dollar and throws it back at me. Oh. And it just falls in the desert and goes, you call that a tip? You think I can live on that? Your friend over here knows how to tip his guy. He said, I can’t accept any of this money. That’s horrible. Get off my camel.

[00:39:37] Doug: Wow.

[00:39:37] Joe: Okay. Yeah. He asked you for the tip while you’re sitting on the camel. While I’m on the camel after he is already. Oh, they, it,

[00:39:44] OG: it was horrible. We played a golf course a year ago with a bunch of, uh, friends and some other friends had already played it, and it’s a unique setup where you have to take caddies and so there’s a caddy feed, but then there’s a tip for the caddies and there’s eight of us playing, and maybe three or four of the guys had already played this course before.

And we talked about it ahead of time. We’re like, what’s the, you know, what’s the going rate on the caddy thing? So that we’re all, and they said, well, you know, this is how much it is. I said, okay. So we all tip our caddies every day. We played four days in a row, and on the last day, the caddy that I had made some comment about it.

I was like, well, hopefully, you know, hopefully we made some

[00:40:20] Joe: comment, like negative comment about the amount. It’s, yeah, it was

[00:40:22] OG: just enough of a, it was just enough of a comment to make me go. I thought we all had agreed that this was the rate, you know, and so it was just enough to, you know, spidey senses tingling a little bit.

Right. And so I asked one of my other friends, I said, Hey, what, uh, I mean we all agreed on, you know, whatever the number was, a hundred bucks, right? And he goes, no, man, I’ve been doing 200. We’re like, what do you mean? And then I asked somebody else and they’re like, yeah, I did 200. I know we said a hundred, but I’ve been doing 200.

I’m like, hold on a second. So half the group knows that the real number’s 200 and half the group is looking like the sheep as Yeah. I’m like, no wonder I’ve been getting bad putt reads this whole time.

[00:41:01] Doug: It’s a driver. I’m a hundred yards out. Sir. It’s a driver

[00:41:04] OG: for you, sir. It’s uh. It’s actually two wedges

[00:41:07] Doug: from here.

[00:41:07] OG: Yeah.

[00:41:07] Joe: I had a very awkward situation the first time I ever had a caddy. We pull up at the Detroit Golf Club with my buddy and he pops his trunk. I get out and this kid comes over and he grabs my golf clubs and he starts walking away with him. And so I start chasing after him. I’m like, Hey, hey, hey. And uh, my friend grabs my hand and goes,

[00:41:31] OG: that’s your caddy.

He looks deeply in your eye. He says, Joe, that is, that is your caddy. There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.

[00:41:37] Joe: And then I step up to the first tee later. It was, it was so embarrassing. I, I think some, you know, high school kids and then he teed off

[00:41:43] OG: and then you realize that wasn’t the embarrassing part.

[00:41:45] Joe: Oh, well, no, no, that’s exactly where I’m going because I tee off and, you know, we’re right there in front of the beautiful club and of course the, it’s part of the PGA tour now, the Rocket Mortgage Classic or whatever they call it. And I just. Smother the, it’s just a beautiful drive right down the middle of the fairway.

And so we get to my ball and my caddy comes up and he goes, uh, something like, wind’s blowing left or right in the thing. You wanna play it over here and whatever. And I turn to him and I just start laughing, og. I’m like, you don’t need to do any of that today. ’cause you’re about to see some, you are gonna see some people.

And I remember maybe on the 14th hole, I just, I needed a big, I needed a big hit. I needed a big, big, big hit to get where I was going. So I just rear back and I take this massive swing and I completely miss the ball.

[00:42:35] OG: Great practice week,

[00:42:35] Joe: and I turned myself so far around that. My caddy literally has his head down and he’s trying so damn hard not to laugh.

He’s like, no, I want a tip. No, I, no, please God. I wanna tip. I can’t laugh at this dude. Who’s the worst golfer I’ve ever seen. It was so bad. Yeah. Not great. Anyway, let’s get to our TikTok minute, shall we? Is it about golf? It is not about golf, but Doug, it’s about sports. It is about sports. Um, go. My favorite, favorite sports team go.

Yeah. How about the football draft that happened a couple weeks ago and watching, uh. Watching that. That one poor kid just go down and down and down in the draft.

[00:43:13] Doug: Got out his, he was at the top of the mountain, got out his sled and slid all the way down. Just

[00:43:19] Joe: horrible. When they were doing the fourth and fifth round, I actually put on my headphones and I went out for a run because I didn’t wanna miss ESPN calling.

When this kid finally got drafted, I felt so bad. Oh, and how about the prank call that was made to him?

[00:43:34] Doug: Yeah, and, and that one got all the headlines, but there were a ton of prank calls. There were some offensive linemen who got five prank calls. Were there. Really? Yeah, there were a bunch. The NFL’s looking into how all of these numbers got exposed.

[00:43:45] OG: They know exactly how it happened.

[00:43:48] Joe: Oh geez. Like my bad.

[00:43:50] OG: No, no. They’ve already solved that problem. Oh, they have? Yeah.

[00:43:53] Joe: Is it all from that same kid, the offensive coordinator’s son?

[00:43:57] OG: I think so, yeah.

[00:43:58] Joe: It’s all from that one kid.

[00:43:59] Doug: Oh, I didn’t know that.

[00:43:59] Joe: Wow. Oh, that is, that is not good. Imagine if you came home and your kid did that.

That’s a bad day for everybody, but I saw this TikTok video and for people that aren’t into sports in the draft, you wait and you wait, and finally you get a call from the team that tells you that you’ve been drafted. So here is a guy who is in his fifties and it appears that he has just gotten a call because his draft number has come up.

[00:44:32] Doug: Yeah. Defense guy. Oh man.

[00:44:37] headlines: Are you serious? Oh, I’m excited. I’m pumped. I can’t wait, coach. I can’t wait.

[00:44:45] Doug: Yes. Been dreaming this all my life. I’m ready, coach. Alright. Alright. Thank you. Thank you so much.

[00:44:58] Joe: Living

hold. Whole different call up. The bad news about that one, og, you don’t make a bunch of money. You end up spending millions of dollars instead of getting millions of dollars.

[00:45:12] OG: I, I thought it was gonna be a play on selective service, which was a conversation I got to have with my son the other day. He’s like, wait, I gotta do what?

I was like, well, it’s this really cool thing. She said to volunteer yourself like, I don’t want to. I’m like, that’s not an option. That’s the law.

[00:45:25] Joe: Big thanks to Justin for sending that my way. He, uh, actually wrote me and said, uh, maybe this is gonna happen to one of you guys pretty soon. And I wanted to send him back.

Just a big old finger. Yeah,

[00:45:34] Doug: a single finger. A tall boy salute.

[00:45:37] Joe: Absolutely not the million dollar opportunity. I was looking forward to. Alright, time for today’s headline.

[00:45:45] headlines: Hello Darlings. And now it’s time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamins headlines.

[00:45:51] Joe: Our headline today comes to us from investment news.

This is some good news, OG with the markets fluctuating as they always do, but people of course, in the media really talking about it the last several weeks and all the, uh, tariff concerns that people have. Bruce Kelly writes a piece that I think is gonna save everybody’s bacon. He says, add Edward Jones, the closely held private partnership with more than 20,000 financial advisors in $2.2 trillion in client assets to the roll call of firms.

Expanding or revamping its list of drum roll investments outside of the stock market, higher risk alternative investments that their financial advisors can sell to. You and me

[00:46:40] aftershow: firms are doing this. Kevin Gannon

[00:46:43] Joe: chair and CEO of Robert, a Strangler and company. There’s a big pull to alternative investments right now ’cause of volatility in the stock market.

So the answer OG, that you’re Edward Jones person is gonna tell you is, you know what, Mr. Client, miss client, you shouldn’t be in the stock market at all. I got a better thing for you than the stock market here. What are we talking about with these alternative investments, do you think?

[00:47:07] OG: Well, in a word, I guess, um, stu, uh, stupidity is that, is that a hundred percent a thousand percent stupidity?

This stuff pops up from time to time. Right. Especially when the market goes down. People who aren’t comfortable with that recognize that volatility works both ways. For some reason, people seem to think that plus 20 is a really great thing, but minus 20 isn’t the same thing. And you know, at the end of the day, if the average return is 10 and you get 20, that’s volatility.

That’s, I mean, it’s just, that’s the fun part of volatility. That’s the good side. It’s just we don’t like the not so fun side of volatility, but

[00:47:46] Joe: guess how you pay for it.

[00:47:47] OG: So when we get this downside. Uh, uh, fluctuation when there’s, you know, so a lot of the stuff, financial products come out that are, or at least they come outta the woodwork that are meant to, you know, prey on the fear of people who are not as, uh, educated about it as they maybe could be.

And so they’ll say things like, you know, get all of the upside with none of the downside, or you need non-correlated investments that, uh, that stay the course when the markets plummet. And then you use big words like that. The reality is, is that if you believe, and I think at the vast majority of people will subscribe to this theory, that markets are terribly efficient, efficient, not inefficient.

They’re very efficient. And what I mean by that is there’s not any real information. That’s not immediately known by everybody all at the same time. And that’s really the whole thesis of efficient markets, right, is like, there is, there are no secrets. And if you’re trading based on secrets, you’re doing it illegally and you know, eventually you go to jail, you get a big fine.

So, you know, for, for real market participants, and I know people are gonna say, well, what about Congress? I’ve read that they, okay, whatever. That’s not a thing. That’s, those aren’t real people. I’m talking about us real people in the real world. I’m talking about average people. You know, I’m just saying, like you and I both get to know the earnings report of Coca-Cola at the same time.

There’s no, you know, your, your computer’s slightly faster than mine. Maybe you can read faster than I can, so you can get through the 200 pages faster than I can. But the information is there and it’s available for consumption all at the same time to everyone at the, you know, uh, at the same time. So all of the information is known, therefore.

People are educated in the price structure of stocks. So you sell it and I buy it. We agree on that price. You’re comfortable with the selling it at that price. I’m comfortable with buying it at that price that makes it an efficient market. It’s just no different than going to the grocery store and knowing that avocados are 50 cents a piece or a dollar a piece or whatever they are.

If one store is selling it for $6 a piece, they’re not gonna sell any avocados, because pretty soon the store manager’s gonna go, there’s something going on with our avocado. Well, like, well, how come nobody’s buying it? And he’ll find out, well, somebody else is selling it for a dollar. And then, you know, or the guy at a dollar will go, well, hold on a second.

Those guys over there are selling ’em for six. Why are we only selling for one? Let’s charge three. You know? And it just, it works out and it works out very quickly. So when you introduce an investment product or an investment solution that supposedly has some sort of secret sauce, it just just flies in the face of the overall overarching thesis of efficient markets.

There is not a thing. That exists, that provides you with, you know, X return, but y volatility, you know, you can’t have bank security guaranteed availability of your money tomorrow by the FDIC insurance and small cap value returns of 13% a year. That doesn’t exist in real life. And if somebody’s trying to spin that to you, they’re full of crap or there’s something else associated with it.

A high cost illiquidity, there’s something that you don’t know because there’s no way that a, that that product can exist in the real world. Otherwise everybody would do it. You know what I mean? Like, it’s just, it’s kinda like when somebody says, well, such and such a person always picks really good stocks.

Well, if, if there was a person out there who could always pick the stock market in advance, that person would manage all the money for all the people, right? Always. But there, there would be no other people who were doing it. Then guess what? There would be no market and then Right. It would be over. So, you know, so it’s a good thing that we can’t predict it.

So when you hear things like this, alternative investment is designed to give you upside protection, but don’t say, well, it can’t do that, that just, you can’t get market returns and bank like security unless there’s something else associated with it. I

[00:51:30] Joe: think the takeaway is, is every investment strategy has an Achilles heel.

Every single, there is no investment strategy that does not have an Achilles heel. And if somebody sells you that they’ve got this perfect weapon that is no Achilles heel, you need to look harder. ’cause there is one, there’s always gonna be a time when an

[00:51:47] OG: investment doesn’t. Yeah. And I think a trusted pro, I think somebody who is.

Doing what’s in your best interest? We’ll volunteer that information. Look, if you’re concerned about market volatility and you’re like, I can’t, you know, I can’t, I can’t sleep at night. I’ve, you know, I’m, I’m really stressed out about this. I understand the concept of investing and, but it just really makes me uneasy.

What can you do for me? There’s a solution for that.

[00:52:10] Joe: Well, they want you to know it’s in their best interest that you know what the downside is. So when it happens, then you, you go, oh yeah, OG told me this is gonna happen. Like, this is a naturally occurring piece of this puzzle.

[00:52:23] OG: And I would say that in the context of your financial plan, that’s how you answer these questions.

It’s like, we’ve mentioned this before. It’s been a long time since we’ve talked about it. So I think maybe it’s not a good time if all you wanted to do was have zero volatility. So let’s say that you’re, you’re like, look, I’m 20 years old. I’d have too many Tums. Like there’s no way I can deal with that.

I’ll just save into my savings account. Okay. That’ll be what I do. I’ll just save a lot of money. I get that, you know, I don’t have any return, so I have to say money. This is the profound thing. You cannot make enough money between 20 and 65 to have enough money from 65 to 95. You will not earn, even if you didn’t pay taxes or bills or anything, you’ll not earn enough money to outpace the inflation required from 65 to 95 if you saved every dollar you made into a savings account.

You have to have market returns. And I think when you build it, you know, when you think about it from a financial planning standpoint, you, you become a little bit more, uh, well, what’s the word I want to use here? A little more, uh, immune to the, to the ups and downs, because you’re like, I get it, this is part of the trade to get 10.

I got money that I, if, you know, Alex’s tuition is due in four months, that money’s safe and secure. It’s sitting in the savings account. I don’t care about that. My retirement is in 15 years. That money’s invested aggressively. I’ve got money for when my grandkids go to college. That’s in 25 years from now, that’s invested aggress.

Like, I don’t care what happens to that money. I do care. Look, if I had my, if I had Alex’s college tuition money in the market right now for his freshman, I’d be pretty stressed, you know, because of like, oh crap, it’s down 15%. I should have, but that’s on me for not having the goal aligned with the money that I have.

That’s having the money in the right place. Yeah. Yeah. That’s me going, you know, I’m being careless

[00:54:14] Joe: and this is where I think Edward Jones is really getting it wrong. Og, if the leadership at Edward Jones had any balls at all, Ooh, they would, they would seriously be saying, no, this is when the rubber meets the road.

If your goal is 15 years from now, this is when you double down on these investments that we’re doing. You know, why? Because five years from now, seven years, who, who the hell knows when? But we do know that if the economy’s gonna continue, this is when the money is made. It’s not when the market’s up. It’s not five years ago when things were doing great, it’s not two years ago when things were doing great.

You seriously are gonna look back and go, you know what I should have been doing? And instead, what’s Edward word Jones doing? Edward Jones is going, oh yeah, we’re gonna give you this. Like

[00:54:54] OG: the easy fix.

[00:54:55] Joe: Yeah. Yeah. We’re gonna give you some duct tape that number one takes away from the brilliance in your strategy, which is investing when things are down.

But number two are also a bunch of garbage strategies that we end up reporting on later that blow up in your face. Five years from now, Edward Jones advisors are gonna get these calls. How come this thing isn’t performing now that the stock market’s back? How come I locked into this stupid thing? Well, you know, remember when the market was bad?

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Well, the

[00:55:26] OG: other thing that’s kind of interesting, I don’t know, I don’t know what the market will be like when people listen to this show, but as we record it today, it’s, it’s been about a month since the chaos started. It went down a whole bunch pretty violently. I was surprised to learn, ’cause I don’t track this every single day, but I mean, it’s kind of like a big nothing burger right now.

Right. It was down 15, 18%. Now it’s back down to like minus three, minus four. Like it’s, it’s like, yeah, a couple days ago if you’d gone on vacation for a month without access to tv and somebody’s like, dude, oh my god. DeMar down 3%. You’d have been like, uh oh. Oh, okay. I mean it’s, well, okay, yeah, mark had done six a couple days ago and if you stayed cumulatively, yeah,

[00:56:08] Joe: well invested.

I don’t even know. Meaning that you’re diversified. If you’re not just all in the s and b 500, you’re diversified, you’re done less than that. If you had some international positions. You’re gonna be Oh yeah, yeah, for sure. You’re gonna be sitting in a, in a decent spot right now for sure. So, so, so sad to see Edward Jones make that move.

And they’re not the only ones. They’re just the ones in this particular piece. And we’ll link to it in our show notes at stacky Benjamins dot com. This is the time stackers when shoveling money away, shovel money away. Just,

[00:56:38] OG: just do your thing. So in a mattress, just do your plan. Follow your plan,

[00:56:42] Joe: stick with the stock market.

You cannot save into the mattress like OG was saying earlier. The other thing too, some of this, by the way, OG for some people, and you’ve seen this before, it’s boredom. Like some people, they just, they’re like, boring is so not sexy. And then they get these sexy sales pitches about, you know, these cool things that they do.

Mm-hmm. And the risk premium on most of these investments just isn’t there because that’s what the founder of the investment, the people making the packaging, that’s what they’re living on, is the risk premium by charging a bunch for the strategy

[00:57:13] OG: one year return ending. April 29th of the s and p is 10.14

[00:57:20] Joe: plus 10.

[00:57:21] Doug: Yeah.

[00:57:22] OG: Plus 10, yeah, plus 10 as of today. Wow. As we record this, as of when we record that,

[00:57:26] Doug: like if you’re bored, be like a normal person and buy a pair of golf shoes at 11 o’clock at night when you’re scrolling and you don’t need, don’t start. Messing with your investments.

[00:57:35] Joe: I know. I think, oh, you know what?

There’s gotta be some alternative investment out there. Get a hobby, man.

[00:57:41] Doug: Right? Get into photography. You can spend your money real easily on lenses. Buy an

[00:57:45] OG: airplane. Those are fun. Guess what investment I made? Oh, that’ll burn through a lot of cash.

[00:57:51] Joe: We’ll leak to this piece in the show notes. It’s stacky Benjamins dot com and, uh, stay the course stackers.

Stay the course. We’re gonna move out on the back porch because we’ve got a couple things. Doug, if you decided, are you joining us Thursday night for this

[00:58:05] Doug: shindig? I am, I am leaning positively in that direction. Yeah, that’ll be great. I’m not gonna guarantee it, but, uh, I am, I’m leaning strongly in that direction.

[00:58:14] Joe: You get the, Doug, by the way, I had somebody reach out to me and say, I’m really enjoying more Doug, in the conversations lately. And I said, and this might’ve been Gary, who we talked about on Monday, but I replied back. I’m like, do not write that. Do not say that. Don’t, don’t let him know. Please, God, do not ever, ever, ever.

And

[00:58:37] Doug: you went and you undermined yourself and said it out loud to everybody by saying it right

[00:58:40] Joe: now. I know my head’s huge right now. Well, that is the thank you for saying that. You will join us on the, on the 15th. ’cause uh, we did this a few years ago. We had about 400 people join us online. It was a great discussion.

Here’s where you go. For the retirement calculator mistakes, stack your Benjamins live. 8:00 PM Eastern on Thursday. This is, if you’re listening to this later, you’re like, which Thursday? This will be April 5th. April May 15th. May 15th, 2025. So if you’re listening later, you missed it. It was great. It was fantastic.

And next time we’ll listen quicker

[00:59:16] Doug: and Doug can get there. Doug. Doug might have been there,

[00:59:17] Joe: and Doug may have been there. And it was amazing. Steve Chen from Bolden joins us. He was there four years ago, and this guy brings up all the things that he’s seen and I’m, he and I were talking earlier, he’s got some new ones, uh, some doozies that people have made when they’re diving into calculators.

Bolden is our favorite calculator. If you’re going to dive into the numbers yourself, it’s the closest to the calculators that professional use professionals use that I know of. So stacky Benjamins dot com slash bold, 2025 B-O-L-D-I-N. 2025, go either to that link or just go to our YouTube page Thursday night, 8:00 PM and uh, you’ll see that we are going live.

Then that’s 8:00 PM Eastern, 5:00 PM Pacific. And do the math. If you’re in central or mountain time zone. I feel like

[01:00:04] Doug: those people are constantly doing math. Their whole life is just converting time.

[01:00:09] Joe: I gotta say, I dunno about you og, but once I went to Central, I’m doing the math constantly. I’m like, okay, do we, uh oh.

All right. That’s hour. Or where does this TV

[01:00:16] Doug: station originate? You’re close enough to the line, Joe. You’re probably wondering, wait, is that time they’re putting on the screen real time? Is it like the rest of the world time or central time? The only time it dries me

[01:00:26] Joe: crazy is on New Year’s Eve because on New Year’s Eve, finding the ball drop in the central time zone is so difficult.

Just

[01:00:35] OG: watch the one that’s on New York and then go to bed half hour early. I was gonna say,

[01:00:38] Doug: I, you know how I solve that? I go to bed at 11 o’clock. I mean, if you’re searching for the ball drop, which is an

[01:00:44] OG: hour or two late anyway. I

[01:00:46] Doug: If you’re still, don’t make the joke, Doug. I’m gonna say, I have to say it.

Don’t the, dont I gotta say the ball drop joke. Do not,

[01:00:51] Joe: do not make the joke. I knew exactly where your 12-year-old mind is going and we’re not making the joke. Damnit, I got some great stuff from our friends on Spotify, by the way. Silent Shade. Agreed with me South at midnight’s. A really good game. It is, it’s, it’s the prettiest game I played in a long time.

This is a great Xbox game that we talked about a couple weeks ago. It is so good. Doug, you and I are getting into Far Cry now and we’re,

[01:01:14] Doug: uh, yes. I, you know, I’ve heard about that franchise forever ’cause, and you and I are playing Far Cry five. It’s our first time trying any of them. And uh, I was told about the setting for it and that just appealed to me more.

It’s like Montana, Wyoming kind of avenue. We’re taking out some cultish

[01:01:29] Joe: group. There’s some separatist group.

[01:01:33] Doug: Yeah. Yeah. But I always thought it was a sci-fi setting and I just don’t do sci-fi. And so I’ve tried it, but it just doesn’t hook me. But yeah, you and I played Was it just one night or two nights?

Just one night. Yeah. God, it was awesome. Yeah. I can’t wait to get back to it. That was, it was a great ’cause, you know what I like is co-op.

[01:01:50] Joe: Yes, me too. Yeah.

[01:01:51] Doug: And I’m not gonna sit down and play that in story mode, but I’ll play it. The only bad

[01:01:55] Joe: news OG, is I always have to carry Doug through these Yeah.

Levels. ’cause I’m so much better at video games

[01:02:00] OG: than he is. I feel the same way.

[01:02:02] Joe: Actually, Doug,

[01:02:03] Doug: Doug sits there

[01:02:03] Joe: while I’m

[01:02:04] Doug: going. Yeah. I hear Joe screaming and I think he’s yelling at me. God dammit. Why are you doing it? I’m just, I’m on the rooftop covering your ass. Why are you yelling at me? No, it’s because I can’t figure out my gun.

I’m yelling, yeah. I’m yelling at the other guy. I didn’t wanna switch to that weapon. How? How do I make my guy stand up? My guy wants stand up screaming at me

[01:02:23] Joe: all the time. I am the average old guy playing video games when we do that. That’s that’s fun. This is who said it? Brandon. Brandon on Spotify. Let’s go.

Brandon. I have to say that may not mean what you think it means,

[01:02:38] Doug: but

[01:02:39] Joe: I have to say I like that you’re including Doug Moore on the show. See, I shouldn’t even be reading this. Would be interested in what his top fives are for financial stuff after hanging out with you and that other guy. Yeah, nobody else wants to know Brandon.

Nobody wants to know that

[01:02:51] Doug: we, we are vetoing that there’s a reason they’ve got me next to the water heater. Brandon Balls is

[01:02:58] Joe: back. Balls. Who identified that? He is a man. Uh, so he’s aptly named but Balls said when Le Penso is here for the Squirrels Gone Wild episode talking about retirement resilience a couple weeks ago, just before the break.

And going through these things that derail retirement. Uh, ball says, to be honest, planning for a serious medical illness never crossed my mind in my early thirties right now. I think og, when you think about these ahead of time, I love the fact that Ball says in his early thirties and he’s thinking about the things that could go wrong now.

Because then you start thinking, uh, I think better about your financial plan, knowing well ahead of time. I feel like people concentrate on these things the day they retire. Oh, well, what could possibly go wrong?

[01:03:41] OG: Well, it’s not even the time after you retire that it’s the issue. It’s the time between 30 and retirement of a major illness or injury that really matters.

Good point. That disability.

[01:03:50] Joe: Yeah.

[01:03:51] OG: Yeah.

[01:03:52] Joe: He says, thanks for the info and a great episode. Love listening to your episodes while I work through Excel spreadsheets. Le Penso iss awesome. He’s also an engineer, so he and Len, uh, on the same wavelength. Uh, people will hear the len’s gonna be back, I think in about three weeks joining us for another red along.

Yes, that’s, well, no, there are two parts to Len. He likes the engineering part. Doug loves squirrel’s. Gone wild. Oh, can’t get enough of it. That’s where he’s at. I paid for that. All right, thanks a ton to everybody for hanging out with us. If there’s somebody that needed to hear about alternative investments and why we think they’re bad or they need that money, catalyst Lisa Peterson brought, please tell a friend and, uh, forward this to them.

Get them on that same train that we’re on stackers, on financial literacy, and making sure that our community gets the same great help that you get by hanging out with us. So, thanks a ton. And Doug, you’ve got it from here, man. What are our big takeaways from today’s show?

[01:04:46] Doug: Well, Joe first take some advice from Lisa Peterson to change your financial situation.

First, you need to change your thinking. Creating money in your life means finding money, catalyst to help you along the road. Second, alternative investments. My God, how bored are you? Seriously, go find a hobby or leave your investments alone. But the big lesson, mom has absolutely no sense of humor. She didn’t laugh at some of my best material.

Check this out. What do you call a crying camel? A humpback whale. Wait for it. Here’s another one. No, here’s another one. What do you call a camel with no hump? Hump free. And finally, piece of resistance. How can camels live in the desert without going hungry? Because all of the sandwiches there, oh my God.

Sandwiches

[01:05:43] Joe: there. And you guys rag on my jokes. Are you kidding me? Are you seriously kidding

[01:05:47] Doug: me right now? That’s gold, Joe. It’s gold. I’m telling you. Thanks to Lisa Peterson for joining us today. You’ll find her new book, the Money Catalyst Wherever Books are Sold, will also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com.

This show is the Property of S SP podcasts, LLC, copyright 2025. It is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots.

Come say hello. Oh yeah, and before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s Neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.

[01:07:32] aftershow: Short

[01:07:33] Joe: after show today, but, uh, Doug, you got your better half involved in a TV show. Oh,

[01:07:38] Doug: I did. Yeah. This, I’ve been telling people about, whenever we talk about favorite TV shows and stuff, I feel like I, I always have to bring up the same two or three that just really hit me and have stuck as far as great series, great TV shows, streaming.

But you know what I’m talking about. You know, I always talk about the Americans. I always talk about godless. And I frequently talk about Fargo, and I think a, it gets amazing reviews. The critics love it, but I think a lot of people stay away from it because they’re like, yeah, I saw that movie. I don’t need to watch the TV version of it.

It is, there’s almost no correlation. I, I still am a little bit amazed or befuddled why they chose that title because other than happening, most of the stories and seasons happen in the upper Midwest. Save one in Kansas City. It’s, it’s not Fargo at all. And so I couldn’t get her interested in it. We were looking for something to watch.

We’d finished the thing, we were, I’m like, let’s try Fargo. And she just like immediately cut me off. No, not watching that. Uh, yes, you are now I’m making you. And I know she liked the, we watched, I started her on season five because the seasons are so loosely connected. It kind of doesn’t matter. There’s a thin thread of connection between each of the seasons, but you don’t need it to enjoy it.

And I started her on season five because it’s got some big name actors in it that you’ve seen before. John Ham is in it. Jennifer Jason Lee slash Lay. Nobody knows how to say her name. She’s an amazingly strong. Female character. Jennifer Jason’s, uh, Lee’s character is, and so is Juno Temple. That’s who we couldn’t, we couldn’t remember her name.

Juno Temple Keeley on Ted Lasso. Ted Lasso. She is amazing, like the strongest female characters. I knew that my wife was gonna like this and she wouldn’t admit it after the first episode she watched, but she’s like, okay, let’s watch another one. And then by the end of season, she’s exactly like us. She does not want you to be right.

Right? She doesn’t want, she absolutely does not. Whenever Doug recommends

[01:09:33] Joe: something to me, I’m like, yeah, it was okay just to mess with him.

[01:09:36] Doug: You know how I could tell she was into it. She put her phone down,

say you’re in 2025 without saying you’re in

[01:09:46] Joe: 2025.

[01:09:47] Doug: She limited herself to one screen while, while we were watching. But Juno Temple’s a total badass. She does an amazing Minnesota accent, maybe arguably better than mine, marginally. And then by the end of the second episode, she’s all in. Now she knows. She just wants to binge it.

It’s so good. I would strongly recommend to people Fargo, start with season one. If I thought you’re saying Keely

[01:10:09] Joe: wanted to binge binge the accent by the, by the second episode, she’s into it. She’s full on Minnesotan. Yeah, but there’s full on,

[01:10:18] Doug: there’s some good action, great fight scenes in it, you know, but there’s, it’s just a great drama storyline as well.

It’s kind of intricate. It’s, there’s something for everybody, something for the whole family

[01:10:28] Joe: I’m loving and or the new season just, uh, finally started that. And I love how gritty it is. It is for people that you know marginally like Star Wars. I would say it’s a great place to start because less of the magic and the Jedi stuff, and much more of just the underdogs trying to get the job done gritty.

Very, very, very good. Uh, good series. So just watch if I’m

[01:10:51] Doug: gonna search, if I’m gonna search for that. Do I, is it a d slash or

[01:10:56] Joe: it’s just a d or, right.

[01:10:59] Doug: Make Up Your Mind and or what? Star Wars and or Star Trek.

[01:11:07] Joe: They

[01:11:07] Doug: could have called it.

[01:11:07] Joe: Either or would’ve been fine and, or is really good. And then on my own, I’m finishing up this season of the Formula One series, um, oh, the, the latest season of that drive to survive, drive to survive.

The, your spouse likes that

[01:11:23] Doug: too. Yeah. Well, we, we lost the enthusiasm and season three when they stopped sort of manufacturing drama, season one and season two, I think we found out they were kind of creating stuff that wasn’t there. But that was the good stuff. It was so great though.

[01:11:36] Joe: Did you see though the team principals talk about that?

No. Christian Horner going, I. There’s been all this kerfuffle about us, supposedly manufacturing drama. They ask him on the show, they go, there’s supposedly been, you know, all this stuff about it. And Christian Horner goes, really? A TV series that manufactures drama I would’ve never known. And then Zach Brown, the head of, uh, McLaren says kind of the same thing.

He’s like, color me. Shocked. I never saw this coming. I would’ve never known. While Max Tappin the driver was like, I’m not taking part ’cause you’re making me look bad. And now Max Tappin takes part again. ’cause he kind of gets it. And

[01:12:11] Doug: well, because if it opens up the American market to F1 racing, everybody wins.

[01:12:16] Joe: Look at, there’s three races now. There’s three races in the United States. Just a few years ago, there was one that was barely hanging on. There’s

[01:12:22] Doug: what? Miami, Texas and where else

[01:12:24] Joe: in, in, uh, Las Vegas.

[01:12:27] Doug: Vegas. Yeah.

[01:12:28] Joe: Yeah. Vegas at midnight. Where they had accidentally that, uh, that manhole cover that wasn’t on.

Oh, I forgot about

[01:12:35] Doug: that. That’s right. Carlos

[01:12:36] Joe: signs drove over it. And imagine how, how much those cars cost.

[01:12:40] Doug: Yeah.

[01:12:40] Joe: I gotta say 10, $15 million. Maybe I’m way off. We did a trivia question about that, but how to wreck a car in 30 seconds Flat. Oh gee. What are you watching?

[01:12:50] OG: Mostly the Weather Channel.

[01:12:52] Joe: The Weather channel.

Say you’re 150 years old without saying you’re 150 years old. It’s

[01:12:57] OG: an active weather season right now. What can I say?

[01:13:00] Joe: Oh my God. You know it, you know it’s gonna be three degrees cooler tomorrow. The barometer tomorrow wind’s coming out of, out of

[01:13:08] Doug: three degrees.

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Is Any Expense Truly “Worth It”? (with Leisa Peterson) SB1682

Monday Mentor: Leisa Peterson

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