Fitness Meets Finances: Your Questions for Angelo Poli from Metpro (SB1675)

How building better health habits helps you stack more Benjamins—and enjoy them longer.

When it comes to living your best financial life, good health isn’t a nice-to-have—it’s a must-have. In today’s episode, we welcome Angelo Poli from MetPro, who shows us why smart fitness and nutrition choices are just as important as smart money moves.

Drawing on insightful listener questions, Angelo shares:

• How consistent habits—not extreme diets—build the foundation for long-term health
• The real scoop on intermittent fasting, the carnivore diet, and other trending fads
• Practical ways to lower blood pressure, boost energy, and keep momentum even when life gets busy
• Why managing your wellness is one of the most powerful ways to protect your future earning potential and enhance your quality of life

Because stacking Benjamins isn’t just about saving—it’s about having the health and energy to enjoy them.

Later in the show, Joe and OG tackle smart financial strategies for uncertain markets:

• How to choose the right financial advisor when fear is everywhere
• What really matters in your long-term financial plan
• Why stability and experience will always outperform hype

And finally, we dig into Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOCs)—what they are, when to use one wisely, and how to avoid the common traps.

This episode is all about stacking smarter—your wealth, your health, and your life.

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

Enjoy!

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Our Headline

• OpenAI’s new reasoning AI models hallucinate more (TechCrunch)

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Doug’s Trivia

• Who finished last in the world’s first ever car race back in 1887?

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Better call Saul…Sehy & OG

• Stacker Austin has a question about what to look out for when opening a new HELOC.

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Want more than just the show notes? How about our newsletter with STACKS of related, deeper links?

• Check out The 201, our email that comes with every Monday and Wednesday episode, PLUS a list of more than 19 of the top money lessons Joe’s learned over his own life about money. From credit to cash reserves, and insurance to investing, we’ll tackle all of these. Head to StackingBenjamins.com/the201 to sign up (it’s free and we will never give away your email to others).

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Join Us Wednesday

Tune in on Wednesday when we dive into four culprits that can derail your retirement plan and how to prevent that.

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Written by: Kevin Bailey

Miss our last show? Listen here: Lessons from the Trenches: Career Branding Good, Bad, and Ugly (SB1674)

Episode transcript

Thanks for sending me that memo ahead of time, Joe.

You almost never do, but today I got it.

And I thought it was a great idea to have blue shirt day in the basement.

Apparently you’re a psychic because look at us.

Psycho. Psycho.

We’re psycho.

I always forget it’s one, one or the other.

Either way, I’m edgy.

We had I went to the Detroit Tigers baseball game a couple of weeks ago.

I’m standing there with my buddy.

This woman approaches us.

She had a couple of beers.

There’s no question about it.

She was a little edgy.

Well, she just walks up out of nowhere, hands me her phone and says,

you guys look safe.

Can you take pictures of me?

Look, ladies, you guys look safe.

Never approach a guy and say you look safe.

Because it was a worse way.

We never look very dangerous.

I look incredibly dangerous.

Baby, I’m edgy.

You don’t know where I’m coming from.

I’ve got angles and depth.

No, not you look safe.

Well, you know who isn’t safe from the bad people,

men and women serving our country, Doug.

That too is no, I’m glad you picked up on the breadcrumbs.

I’m like, I’m leading them right to the segue.

Come on, Joe.

Nailed it.

Come on.

And we salute those fine people who are a little edgy so that we don’t have to be.

Every Monday morning, they’re edgy all week.

We are trying to be edgy here on Monday morning.

So raise your glasses, gentlemen, on behalf of the men and women at

mom’s basement and men and women at Navy Federal Credit Union serving our troops.

Here’s a salute to the troops.

Cheers.

Go stack some bedgements now, shall we?

Thanks, everybody.

Hey, shake it back, Al.

Shake it back.

Live from Joe’s Mom’s Basement, it’s The Stacking Benjamin Show.

I’m Joe’s Mom’s neighbor, Duggan.

How’s your portfolio looking?

How about your waistline?

Well, if the market has you nervously noshing on donuts,

we’re bringing in the guy who’s helping you look and feel 100% from MetPro.

It’s Angelo Poli.

And on the money side, have you been thinking about finding some professional help?

Well, professionals are also talking about you and how to get you to hire them.

What are the people across the table from you thinking?

We’ll share on today’s episode.

And of course, we’ll also answer a question from one stacker who thought,

you know, I’d better call Saul.

See, I am OG.

Austin wants to know about a HELOC, which I just found out isn’t the name of an awkward

wrestling hold.

But don’t you worry, I’ll hold you tightly with my heartwarming trivia question halfway

through this circus.

And now, to guys who are the ringmasters in Mom’s Basement, it’s Joe.

And oh, juju juju juju.

And you know why I will let you hold this, Doug?

Because you’re safe.

[LAUGH]

That’s exactly why I offer no threat of any kind.

Hey, everybody.

Happy Monday.

Welcome back to the Stacky Benjamin show.

I am Joe Salcihi, Average Joe Money on Twitter or the X thingy.

Although I haven’t been on much social media outside of Mom’s Basement in quite a while.

But the guy who lives for Monday, Mr. OG, is here.

How are you, my friend?

I’m good, man.

Just trying to keep my head above water right now.

Got the shuffling papers.

I know we got a busy week, don’t we?

I’m trying to–

OK, boomer.

I got stuff to return.

I got, you know, it’s just papers.

I’m super excited because we’ve got Angelo Poli back for his–

Great.

So another guy that can yell at me for not reaching my goals.

[LAUGH]

If you thought Dave Ramsey was bad when it came to yelling at you about your money,

now we got the guy yelling at you about your waistline.

Actually, you’ve been looking svelte lately, OG.

Thank you.

What’s been going on?

Better living through science.

[LAUGH]

It’s amazing.

You drink enough Woodford and it reverses that.

No, there ain’t no Woodford.

No.

He found his mom’s old stash of Dexatrim pills.

[LAUGH]

Shush.

He’s on the grapefruit diet.

Remember the grapefruit diet?

Right.

Can’t take grapefruit with my cholesterol pills.

No, I didn’t know grapefruit high in cholesterol.

No, it counteracts the medicine.

It’s a bad town.

Grapefruit actually messes with lots of medicines.

There’s something magical about that.

Just stay off. If you’re taking anything more than an aspirin,

basically you can never eat grapefruit again.

Just don’t eat grapefruit.

That’s what I say about green beans and broccoli and squash.

Well, I can’t do it.

I mean, I’d hate to counteract the medicine.

Can’t counteract the donuts, right?

Angelo Poli is the CEO of MetPro.

He’s also the guy who’s worked with tons of stars and CEOs on their health.

He comes here a couple times a year.

One of those visits, he always shares best practices for year-end and the time when we’re

beefing up to begin a new year to make sure that that workout routine is a challenge.

Then the other time, and about now, he comes and he answers your questions.

We took a bunch of questions in Mom’s Basement, our Facebook group,

stackybendjemons.com/basement if you’d like to join there.

We’re going to hear from Angelo in just a moment.

But before we get to Angelo, we have a couple sponsors that make sure that you don’t have to

pay for any of this goodness.

Let’s hear from them and then let’s get your diet and exercise program working so that all

that money we’re going to help you put in your pocket, you can actually use on some fun.

Angelo Poli, coming up next.

The thrill of the financial markets.

Clicking the order on another day trading win.

Introducing the perfect coffee for that perfect moment when you’ve just nailed

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Pour yourself some.

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option, I sip on my I got lucky again, brew and think I got lucky again.

I haven’t gotten lucky in weeks, but I’m still up all night trading.

Are you coming to bed?

Be there in a couple hours, honey.

That doesn’t stop me from drinking a cup or three of I got lucky again coffee.

Sure, coffee won’t make you millions, but you’ll feel like a million while you drink.

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Available now.

Well, I’m super happy he’s here to help us get in shape for beach season.

It is nearly summertime as spring is springing all over America.

Angela Poli’s back.

How are you, man?

I am doing great, Joe.

Thanks for having me back on the show.

You and I know we should be focusing on diet and exercise our entire life,

but this time of year, everybody’s looking to get in shape.

Angela, like also, they’re like, oh, the sweaters come off this time of year.

That’s why we’re reminded.

I might want to do something about this now.

Well, what’s super cool is that our stackers have asked a bunch of questions and we’re

just going to hit them quick, guys.

So Brent says, what are some diet tips or foods to focus on for a person who has elevated

blood pressure?

Obviously, and we’ll start with this.

Angelo’s not a doctor.

Make sure that you’re talking to your doctor first, but you’ve got the right guy here to

supplement that stuff in Angelo.

He says, not quite over the threshold to be diagnosed with high blood pressure,

but was told is just below that point.

I understand exercise is going to play a role.

So I’m looking mostly for dietary advice.

I’m not great in the kitchen and I genuinely hate grocery shopping.

I’m getting and get out as quick as possible person when it comes to grocery shopping.

LOL. Thanks for that, Brent.

Man, what do you think?

All right, Brent.

Well, like you said, I get to stay in my lane because when it comes to medical scenarios,

there are details that you don’t want to be taking advice from the guy on the radio.

You want to be taking advice from your doctor who’s medically trained.

It has your details that I don’t have.

With that said, let me kind of lean into the lifestyle aspect of it because there’s the

stuff that everybody’s heard for blood pressure and that is avoid junk food, manage sodium levels,

don’t overdo on salt.

Alcohol obviously is a big one as far as when it comes to blood pressure.

But Brent, you already know those because you’ve heard them a thousand times.

So let me tell you the more subtle wins that I hear from my clients who express,

“Hey, my blood pressure is getting better.

All markers of my health are improving because I’ve been consistent with clean foods and exercise.”

And I’m going to tell you that the key ingredient here is the consistent part.

It’s so hard to get…

We get on a kick.

Usually when we get our blood work back, we come back from the doctor or something like that pops

up and all of a sudden we’re Mr. Health for five days.

So my recommendation, Brent, might actually surprise you.

It’s going to be pick the low hanging fruit, so to speak, and stick with it.

Do something you can do ongoing.

And I’m going to give you a couple ideas of what that can be.

First thing is you want to have some sort of aerobic activity in your life on a consistent basis.

A lot of guys will ask me, “Well, you know, I go to the gym different times and I really hit it

hard when I’m there.”

And I tell them, “I don’t care.”

Here’s what I actually want.

That’s great if that’s you and you can be consistent with that.

But here’s what I actually want.

I want some for 15 minutes that you can reproduce almost daily.

If you can’t do that, I’ll take five minutes.

And I know what you’re thinking.

You’re thinking, “Well, five minutes, that’s nonsense.

What can I really accomplish in five minutes?”

You can accomplish installing a habit into your daily routine that you can convert into

something bigger over time.

But if you don’t start with just five minutes or start with something simple that you can reproduce

on a daily or near daily basis, it is so hard to get to that next step.

So start slow, create habit and routine, Brent.

On the food end, I would say manage the big ones, you know, the alcohol, things like that.

You really do want to, if you’re looking at blood pressure, you want to be careful about those things.

But focus on good things that you like to eat.

And I know you don’t want to go and cook something different every day.

So what is clean and healthy?

Talk to your doctor about this.

And you’re going to go to him, you’re going to say, “Here’s some foods that I like.

He’s going to know your health profile.”

And he’s going to say, “Yes, this is great.

Stay away from that.

Have more of this.

Come back with those foods.

And what I want you to do is I want you to come up with lunches and a couple snacks

where you say, ‘I like these foods.

I could see myself eating this fairly consistently.'”

And I’ll even give you one more step into that direction, Brent.

Write out yourself two or three lunches you feel like you could do consistently.

And then when you go to the grocery store, shop for those ingredients and cook in bulk.

Don’t cook one meal at a time.

You won’t be able to be consistent with that.

But cook those clean, healthy meals in bulk so you have lunches for at least three or four days in

a row.

Combine a couple healthy foods.

Think like fruits, nuts, things like that.

Going to be great for almost any scenario.

The fruits and vegetables are never the wrong answer.

Right?

So they’re going to be great for almost any scenario.

Come up with a few good snacks and then prepare in a way that you can eat those meals cleanly.

And when I say cleanly, literally, not messy.

They need to be low perishable, not a big cleanup involved.

They need to be quick.

They need to be convenient.

Bring those with you on a day-to-day basis and just have, for most days of the week,

a clean lunch and one or two healthy snacks already prepared.

That’s going to be 90% of the battle outside of the big items you already know about.

There’s obviously, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I do know what I’ve been told to do by Jesse,

my MetPro coach.

And Brent, I will tell you the cool thing about my diet, trying to follow through on the stuff

that Angelo’s talking about right now, has allowed me at the grocery store to get in and get out.

Because I’ve identified those few foods that I want.

I know where they are.

I get them the same stuff over and over and over.

I’m always looking at my diet.

It’s funny.

The Honeycrisp apple is my go-to snack food.

I love that.

Grapes are a nice side.

Blueberries sometimes a nice side.

I know the nuts that are part of my diet.

I know exactly where those are.

So from one fellow, get in and get out, or to another, this idea of bulk buying and bulk

making your foods makes the grocery store super easy.

It just, it made it so easy, Angelo, because now it is a habit.

I just go boom, boom, boom.

I’m gone.

I’ll tell you kind of a real short but funny story.

When I first was traveling and doing the speaking circuit and giving seminars

on metabolism and weight loss and all those topics.

By the way, if weight loss is a factor for you, then there’s absolutely direct methods.

And these play into that because that can, of course, help with blood pressure and all

these things as well.

I would say to the group, I had this question I would ask them.

I’d say, raise your hand and tell me about different diet approaches that you guys feel

in this group work well.

And then I would just spout whatever was common for the time, plant-based or doing vegan or doing

paleo or keto or calorie counting or whatever the the invoke at the time was.

And I would get people to raise their hands, say, you think this works?

You think that works?

They said, OK, here’s what I want you to do.

I want you to think about the meal approach that has worked best for you.

And I want to ask you an honest question.

Do you think if you go home tomorrow and try and do that, it will work better than if I just

give you one rule?

Here’s the rule.

You can eat anything you want, but you have to repair it the day before.

Everyone unanimously stops and says, well, yeah, if I prepared my meals in advance,

that would have a bigger impact on weight loss goal or health goal or fitness goal

than any other blanket strategy out there, underscoring how important the strategy and

behaviors are when we’re looking for transformation.

That’s so funny.

And I’m thinking about all the stuff that you’ve never emphasized being here on the show,

which is just the I’m prepping when I’m not hungry.

I’m prepping with my brain and not my taste buds.

So I’m prepping based on a knowledge base, not based on, oh man, smells like burritos.

That’s it.

That’s wild.

He also asks about sleep.

Then he said, how much effect does sleep have on blood pressure?

Currently work full time on third shift and a full time student in the morning.

So sleep is usually consistent, but I can have those bad sleep days from time to time.

Let’s just talk.

Let’s even get rid of the blood pressure piece.

Let’s talk about Angelo sleep in general.

Well, you already know the answer to this.

I’m not going to shock anyone.

So there is literally no biological function that is not directly and profoundly impacted by sleep.

If you’re not getting enough sleep, it’s going to have a negative impact across the board.

So sleep is to be jealously guarded.

Now I say that somewhat.

Ironically, I’m an insomniac.

That is my number one challenge when it comes to my own health.

I battled it for years.

It has forced me to focus on it, to focus on behaviors and strategies that don’t shoot myself

in the foot when it comes to sleep, since I already struggle in that department.

But I can tell you across the board when I am having a bout of insomnia and I’m not getting

enough sleep, my concentration is off.

I can see the difference in my body composition, my muscle tone, my motivation,

my energy and studies have shown and I can confirm appetite and willpower.

They all suffer when you’re not getting enough sleep.

Sleep needs to be the foundation.

And again, I’m not telling you anything you haven’t heard before.

I’m just saying it as the guy in the trenches who dieted about 20,000 people over my career

that yeah, it’s not just a stat.

It’s a real thing.

Sleep is important.

It was so funny.

I was listening to one of the podcasts out there.

I think Dr. Peter Atiyah or something.

The place I think that guy’s brilliant is in his framing because he’ll get done with a topic,

Angelo, and I’ll get done.

I’m like, wow, that was really good.

And I’m like, wait a minute.

He just said that alcohol sucks and it doesn’t help you.

You’re excited.

Everything Peter Atiyah tells me, I already do, but he’s so good at framing it, which you are.

You’re very good at framing it as well.

Absolutely.

Which is why we love having you here.

Jennifer asks, what is better, consistently maintaining a low impact exercise program or

periodically managing a high impact program that historically only lasts for short periods of time?

Jennifer, so the answer is both.

It really depends on your goal.

Now I’m going to give a blanket statement, assuming we’re talking about healthy people

who are at least semi-advanced level and there’s no other mitigating or conditions or things that

would create risk.

If there’s no risk involved, the greater the intensity, the greater the corresponding

adaptive process.

I know that’s not a popular thing to say right now, but being in the gym for years and years with

thousands of clients, you absolutely see a greater return on investment when intensity is involved.

Now here’s the caveat that here’s where you get all the low intensity, low impact.

The caveat is this, if you cross the threshold to where the intensity that you’re trying to achieve

is actually causing you to struggle to recover, miss workouts, or still become injured in some

way, then you are always better with lower intensity.

The reason that I am a fan of low intensity is because what trumps all of these factors

is consistency.

You know, the people, we’re going to do this knockout, drag out boot camp session for an

hour and a half.

Doesn’t impress me if you can’t repeat it.

Give me just a few minutes each day that you can sustain and then add one of those peaks,

one of those spikes in your routine.

So I would encourage as a general, without knowing your specific details, Jennifer,

your base routine to be moderate intensity, consistent.

And as your body tolerates, look to add a few days a week where you have a little bit of

that spike in intensity and get the best of both worlds.

Which is why you’ll see a lot of people that are really good at this, like Wednesdays

their intense day or Tuesdays their intense day.

Is that the reason why?

So they built in consistency?

That’s it.

In fact, we did a, when I was writing a white paper for our company, we were reviewing

Oh, just at nauseam study after study.

And I recall coming across basically the paperwork on all the different modalities of training

and across the board, when you had like that high intensity interval training style approach

across the board, the results outpaced nearly everything else.

But it came with a very significant caveat or asterisk.

And that is most participants, unless at an advanced level, could not sustain true high

interval training.

I’m not talking about varied, intense, stable, where you’re doing 60 seconds, a little harder,

60 seconds to the last, but a true scenario where it’s a all out, everything you can give

sprints or push whatever you’re doing, followed by a brief recovery period.

You have to be a beast to sustain that.

If someone says, Yeah, I did hit training for an hour.

They didn’t do hit training.

They did varied intensity training.

It’s not where you’ll last an hour.

No, you’ll throw up at 12 minutes if you’re true hit training, right?

So that’s the caveat and just understanding that a lot of it is degree.

So when you can add some of that high intensity work,

there are profound adaptive responses that take place in your body.

And it’s great if you can tolerate a measure of it, but it’s not going to be your foundation,

your bread and butter for the vast majority of us mere mortals.

I love the overlap there between Brent’s answer about food and Jennifer’s answer about exercise.

Consistency trumps everything.

That’s it. Absolutely.

James has a question for us.

How do you feel about the new over the counter continuous glucose monitors?

He wonders if it’s a good way to drive behavior and glean insight.

Great question.

So I’m actually really excited about where the technology is going.

I don’t know how I feel about what’s on the market yet, but I I’m confident we’re going to get there.

You know, the tech is getting better and better.

The science is getting better and better.

And so where will where will it be used?

Well, anytime you get an immediate feedback mechanic at net pro us coach you were the feedback mechanic.

We get to see here’s it.

You ate.

Here’s the result.

And that’s a feedback mechanic.

But I love the idea of being able to add to that real time.

Yeah, I probably didn’t need to eat that third dinner roll with the steak and and veggies because

now look here, I could see how my body’s responding.

So I think there will absolutely be a place for it.

I think it will drive behaviors for people who are just dabbling in it.

I I’ll be interested to see application for higher level of athletics.

I’m not sure it’s going to revolutionize that scene yet.

That will be we’ll have to wait and see.

But for the average user, I think that that’s going to be something that will be incorporated

more and more in the future.

And I’m actually very interested to see how it develops.

I’m going to ask you the hot question that we enter back when you were with us in December.

But it’s going to be on everybody’s mind.

If I don’t ask it, the Olympics.

What do you think about the Olympics?

It’s like anything.

It’s a tool.

And the problem is, is somebody OK.

I want to look my lawn.

So what’s someone going to do?

Well, I say, well, what did you do today?

I bought a lawnmower.

Why?

Because I wanted to buy a lawnmower.

No, you buy a lawnmower to mow your lawn.

So if you’re using a medication to aid you in achieving something,

but the goal is to achieve something and you’re going to do all the things in preparation for

that.

I’m going to put gas in the tank.

I’m going to put on my outdoor work outfit.

I’m going to get the sunscreen out.

I’m going to go outside and I’m going to mow the lawn.

You’re going to do all those things.

You’re going to end up with a very nice looking lawn.

If you just go and purchase the lawnmower and it’s sitting there in your garage,

shiny and new, all you’re doing is taking a medication.

It’s a tool along the way. It’s not the ends of itself.

That said, it’s absolutely having an impact for some people.

People ask me, do your clients take Ozempic or any of the semi-glutides?

And some do.

It just depends.

Now, it’s interesting.

Would I start someone there?

Would I say, hey, you should consider this?

Not typically.

That’s not typically where I start, but I have no problem if somebody finds

they’re getting some benefit out of it.

But at the end of the day, it is not going to do any of the lifting for you.

So my sport of choice, as a young man, I love powerlifting.

When you powerlift…

I couldn’t tell by those guns.

I had no idea you like powerlifting.

The way you put on the bench press shirt, it’s like magic.

Now, all of a sudden, I can lift an extra 50, 70 pounds.

And people say, well, the shirt’s lifting that for you.

I said, well, you put the shirt on the bench and see how much it lifts.

The shirt’s not lifting it.

It’s a tool that’s allowing you.

So with that illustration, if you’re going to take any medication…

Oh, by the way, this medication isn’t the first, nor will it be the last.

There have been weight loss medications out there, some that have worked well,

some that I didn’t care for in the past.

They all fall under this classification.

This is just the latest, hottest thing.

I do believe this will and will be here to stay a bit longer.

And I do believe this one may have a little more impact.

But at the end of the day, it’s what you eat and your lifestyle.

And if we don’t fix those two things, this is just going to be one more frustrating blip

on the way.

We’re going to be right back where we started.

It’s key that it’s understood where it falls in the lineup of relevancy.

But I am neither for nor against it.

What I want is people to understand what it is and what it is and what the main point is.

I love how that view aligns so much with my doctor, who’s a friend of mine.

And I asked him about this.

And he said the same thing.

He’s like, “Listen, at the end of the day, it’s about habit and behavior.

If you have the habit and behavior, this can help make that signal of, ‘Man, I’m hungry,’

go down a bit so that those habits and behaviors are even more effective.”

But he goes, “Well, what really bothers him is when he’s put people on it and there is

no habit and behavior and they lose some way.”

And you know what happens, Angelo?

The second they’re off it, they balloon.

And it’s actually even worse in some cases than it was before they were on it.

Well, it’s just like anything where you’re implementing an approach.

So I don’t want to get too much in the weeds.

But if we talk about, for example, when we take somebody on at MetPro, the very first

thing we do is we identify based on their goal, are they a metabolic client or are they

a behavioral client?

I’ll give you kind of a peek behind the curtain of what that means internally as a coaching

organization.

So to us, that means that either A, they have…

I’m just using weight loss because that’s the most common thing people will reach out

to us for.

They are not at the weight they want to be because A, their behavior, lifestyle choices,

food choices is a roadblock.

It’s preventing them.

Those need to change.

You’d be surprised though.

There are a lot of clients that come to us and when they tell us what they’re eating,

they’re eating very clean.

They’re eating very good.

There’s not a whole lot of proverbial fat to trim there.

They’re a metabolic client.

In other words, they’re at the point where the reason they’re not at their goal weight

is because their metabolic rate is running slower.

So it’s so critical to identify what category we fall into because what tends to happen

without guidance is you could take…

This is separate from semiglutides.

This is any appetite suppressant medication.

What tends to happen is people don’t just eat a little less at each meal.

They tend to simply eat less often.

That’s not the goal if we’re trying to force our metabolic rate up.

That’s where the guidance is critical and where some of these medications can be useful,

but do it with the proper guidance on the most meaningful pieces,

which is going to be the nutrition in your lifestyle.

The emphasis on metabolism, Angelou, as you know, our audience may not know,

I hurt my foot.

When I hurt my foot, just in all the data that Jesse and I are sharing about my journey,

man, the second I hurt my foot and I couldn’t do as much cardio, I thought

until talking to you and Jesse, we said, “Hey, there’s ways to stay off that foot

and still get the cardio.”

Man, I…

We’re thinking like that.

But I hit this metabolic wall to your point.

It is a combination of both.

It was the full thing.

It wasn’t just diet or exercise.

It was the whole program that was really important to work in tandem with each other.

And when you slow my metabolism down and even with MetPro,

I’ve got this diet routine that I’m used to, all of a sudden I just skidded to a stop.

Because all of a sudden the metabolism is just on a different level.

So then Jesse’s trying to get it Revven and then we discover all kinds of cardio stuff I can do

without being on my foot.

It is so important.

I’m going to take the last two questions from Ron and John.

By the way, thank you, Stackers, for all your questions.

Every time we ask Angelou these, because they’re so good.

Ron asks, he likes them on an insight on the carnivore diet.

He was six months on just eating meat, eggs, and cheese.

Enjoyed it very much.

Had great results.

He said he weight trains at least five days a week.

He drinks an electrolyte powder mix but cannot stave off cramps.

What’s your opinion?

But then I want to add to it because we’ve had questions like this in the past.

So the carnivore diet is one type of diet.

John is going to ask about another type of diet.

He says, “I like your thoughts on intermittent fasting.”

So both these guys have diets that they want to know about.

Just your thought about these different diets in general.

And then maybe more on Ron with the cramping or I don’t know.

I’m going to be a little, not brash, but I’m just going to be blunt.

There’s nothing wrong with any diet.

They all have an impact.

What my pet peeve is, is people blindly following a nutritional protocol,

having no understanding of the influence it exerts on their body.

So here’s what I mean by that.

The carnivore diet, the paleo diet, the ketogenic diet, these are all the Atkins diets.

They’re the Atkins.

It’s the same diet repackaged.

And the Atkins diet is the same diet that was a diet all the way back in the 1920s.

Yeah, it was this like fisherman guy that observed a native tribe.

I want to say it was here, Alaska or something like that where they would just eat.

Alaska was in Australia.

Don’t get hung up on the details, but he observed these people eating essentially

whale blubber as a mainstay of their diet and found that, wow, these people actually

lost a lot of weight and whale blubber has really high fat content.

And so this has been a thing for over a hundred years that just keeps getting repackaged and

repackaged and repackaged.

Here’s what I wish someone would just say.

What you’re going to do is you’re going to push your body to a greater or lesser degree

towards ketosis.

Maybe not all the way into a ketogenic state, but by removing carbohydrates,

your body is going to be forced to convert lipids and some proteins, ketones, the whole

nine yards into fuel instead because there isn’t enough essentially sugar present.

That’s good because it forces your body to burn a little more fat.

Bad because you can end up with electrolyte imbalances,

potassium levels are off, cramping can ensue, hydration issues,

because each gram of glucose that sugar in your muscle and livers is stored with three grams of

water.

When you no longer have that glucose, you no longer have that water buffer, which results

in cramping and all of these side effects.

And oh, by the way, when you eat less carbohydrates, your body gets hypersensitive to carbohydrates.

People don’t bring that stuff up, but that’s absolutely the case.

Most people don’t know pro athletes doing a professional level carb loading cycle

actually decreased their carbs for 24 to 48 hours before loading because it hypersensitizes their

system.

Oh, hit it harder.

Yeah, to carb uptake.

So there’s absolutely science behind low carb dieting, but it’s not necessarily a one size fits

all.

This works perfect for everyone at Metpro.

We use low carb dieting, but we use it as a tool.

We’re going to bust through.

We’re going to reduce carbs temporarily.

My goal, unless there is some secondary reason why we should do otherwise, is always to get

that person reintroduced to more carbohydrates, because I really am less interested in what

someone’s body weight is eating nothing but chicken breasts and protein shakes all day

long.

I want to see what I can get their body weight to eating a balanced performance oriented

meal plan that they’re going to enjoy and is going to feel good for them the rest of

their life.

So it’s not that there isn’t science with their and it’s not that I don’t use them even

with my clients.

It’s understand the biology of what’s happening when we implement a particular strategy.

Now the intermittent fasting, I’m going to stay in my same ill tempered mood for it.

Absolutely scientific, but unfortunately, people don’t tell you what it is.

I’m going to be super honest and just super real with you.

There are two categories.

I’m not talking about this for use for medical purposes.

There are some people that will fast and their medical implications digestively, blood sugar

wise, etc.

That’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about the 98.5% that say they just want to kind of cleanse themselves, but

really what they want is weight loss.

They just want to lose weight, so they’re doing intermittent fasting.

So it falls under two categories.

Who benefits from intermittent fasting?

Well, if you’re one of those guys that eats junk food for breakfast, junk food for lunch,

and junk food for dinner, and you quit eating any food for breakfast, now you’re just eating

junk food two out of three meals instead of three out of three, you’re going to definitely

see some benefit.

For a lot of the population, and I’m just speaking candidly, and I know this is not everyone’s

experience, but unfortunately, this has been my experience.

This has become a socially acceptable way for some individuals to justify ultra low

calorie dieting without saying that.

Because I can’t, oh, I’m going on a 700 calorie a day diet.

You should try this, ladies.

This is the greatest thing ever.

You can’t say that.

Everyone looks at you.

What’s wrong with you?

That’s no good for your health.

But if I just say, oh, well, I’m just doing intermittent fasting, that becomes a socially

acceptable way of drastic calorie restriction.

That’s not for the guy that’s eating junk food, lunch, dinner, and maybe you’re listening

going, that’s not how I do it.

That’s great.

But there is a demographic out there with that’s how they’re applying it.

Do they lose weight?

Yes.

Because 800 calories results in weight loss.

It also results in a host of negative consequences.

And it comes back to the same excuse and the same conversation about the ketogenic style

diets is I’m not interested in the weight you can achieve with a gimmick that allows

us to eat hyper restrictive caloric or zero carbs.

I want to see my clients get to a weight and a body composition they love while eating

like a normal person.

And they understand why they got there.

I think that’s the big thing that you’ve emphasized today, Angelo, because I get exactly why I’m

here.

I’m not following a plan.

I’m creating the thing that works for me and my biology.

I’m actually listening to my body and my body’s reaction.

I’m responding.

Yeah, that’s it.

And again, there’s absolutely science in all of these approaches, including intermittent

fasting.

It’s just for most people, it’s not the mechanic that they think is working is not the mechanic.

You said that last time I asked you about a zimp pick.

You’re like, it’s not a magic pill.

It’s working, but here’s what it’s actually doing, but it’s not the magic pill.

And if the pill goes away, you still got to have the habit.

That’s it.

Yeah.

Exactly.

If only there were a community of people that were working on this together, like professionals

in this area that could help us.

That would be so nice.

Come on down.

This is where I think you’re inviting me for the shameless plug.

We would love to visit with you.

If you go to metpro.co/sb, and I’ll give you a passionate invitation.

Come and talk to someone.

If you’ve been struggling with, I have a specific goal, come and talk to someone where it would

be different than this conversation that Joe and I are having.

Because in this conversation, what I have is just this nebulous voice in the crowd asking

a generalized question where I don’t have any context.

Come and give us context.

What we want to hear is tell us your health and fitness culture, your history, your body

composition goals, performance goals, weight goals, what you’re currently doing, and what

you’ve done in the past.

Then what we can do is we can share with you, here are thousands of others that have had

a similar story.

Here’s what we have found to be the most effective protocols for them long-term, not just quick

fix, but sustainably.

We love talking with people.

Please come on out, visit with us.

We love talking with people.

It’s what we’re passionate about.

Yeah, the reason Angelo’s here with us is because there’s no– when I did it, there

was no– and everybody that I’ve sent there, there’s never a high pressure sales pitch,

number one.

Number two is I learned so much during that first meeting, and I don’t know if it’s changed

Angelo from when, and it probably has changed some, but when I went through it, I learned

so much about how my body’s different than other people and about why some of the things

I was trying wasn’t working was because specifically it didn’t apply to my body.

And even if I hadn’t started working with Jesse, my coach, at that time, I still would

have walked away from that meeting knowing a better approach.

They told me ahead of time, here’s what we would do.

We would do this, we do this, we do this, we do this.

And then you decide whether we’re coming to my pros for you or not.

But at the very least, I felt really educated.

Thank you, Joe.

That’s our passion.

And this is really what we’ve been doing for the last almost 20 years is we know– we go

to the doctor, you see those charts on the wall, the BMI charts and height weight that

say, if you’re this size of person, you burn this many calories a day.

The entire industry, including the medical industry, knows that is rubbish.

But everyone looks at each other and goes, well, we don’t have anything better, so we’re

leaving the chart on the wall.

There’s a way to identify exactly where your metabolic rate is at, where your body is at,

and then actually have an intelligent structure to, OK, that means this approach will likely

have the most impact for you or taking this strategy or this route.

And that’s what we love doing with our clients.

Metpro.co, not .com, it’s metpro.co/sb.

And yeah, when you go, write me and let me know how it went because I love to hear success

stories.

Angelo, speaking of success stories, thanks for being successful again, man.

Our mentor as we usher in summer.

Thanks a million for having me, Joe.

Hey there, stackers.

I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug.

And there’s no way April is just about over.

Seriously?

Come on.

Where’s the year gone?

Speaking of racing, one guy who was known for fast cars and making tons of Benjamins

was born today, Ferricio Lamborghini.

I’m confident that’s how you say it.

That’s exactly how he pronounces it.

There’s so many double letters and I think it’s Lamborghini.

Well, and then there’s an H in there.

First name.

I mean, Italians just throw like CH sounds in there where they don’t belong.

Anyway, that guy would be a spry 109 years old today.

You know, if you were still alive, even before Lamborghini, another racing event happened

in 1887 on today’s day.

It was the first car race in 1887.

Hey, Joe, what was it like?

Tell me all about it.

I mean, like what it smelled like, what it sound like.

Nope.

Huh.

Miss that one?

You’re still riding your, riding your buggy down there.

Easy.

Couldn’t get the buggy there fast.

Okay, fine.

Seriously, the race was won by French engineer, and I’m going to say this right.

Georges Bhutan.

Here’s today’s question.

Who finished dead last in that race?

I’ll be back with an answer you should have seen coming as soon as I race upstairs to

see if Joe’s mom will change her will to say that I get the Harley.

Hey there, stackers.

I’m Harley Lover and guy who’s ready to dispute the will Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug.

Well, apparently just because Joe’s quote family and also quote my kid, he’s going to

get Joe’s mom’s Harley at some point.

She did mention she’d sell it, but I mean, who wants to negotiate with that shark?

Not this guy.

I’ll just be happy dishing out the world’s best trivia.

Like today’s question on today’s date back in 1887, when the first car race was won by

Georges Bhutan.

I’m practically French.

Who finished dead last in the race to Georges Bhutan?

That would be Georges Bhutan himself because there was only one car entered.

How did they get away calling that a race?

Who was he racing?

A squirrel?

And now back to two guys racing back to the microphones, Joe Ed O’Gee.

Isn’t it by definition?

I win.

I need some clarification.

You probably need two people to call it a race, don’t you?

I would think so.

Yeah.

But the internet apparently disagrees.

And he probably got a participation medal too.

And those little cut up oranges when he was done.

His parents came by and gave him a medal.

Got a big old medal.

It’s okay you finished last.

It’s all right.

Or the grandparent who’s kind of passive aggressive about everything.

Oh, you finished last, huh?

It’s okay.

It’s all right.

Let’s move on to our headline.

Hello, darlings.

And now it’s time for your favorite part of the show, our stacking Benjamin’s headlines.

Today’s headline comes to us from Investment News.

This is an industry rag for financial advisors, financial planners, and you kind of get to

see what’s going on on the other side of the table.

This is written specifically for the other side of the table.

Advisors discussed the best ways to grow assets under management during an economic downturn.

Duty sales.

Well, I did find this interesting because infomercials.

This is the time, as you know, do you remember?

Oh, gee, what in 2007, 2008, we saw half, half of the people that had any type of advisory

license went bye-bye during that crisis.

They lost their client base.

Everybody saw that they weren’t doing anything for them.

And so they, they, they went away.

It washed a bunch of people out.

And now you got a bunch of crappy advisors again, running scared that, you know what,

assets are down.

And so our job might be going.

You think that advisors got washed out because clients left.

I think assets went and they couldn’t afford to pay the bills anymore.

Assets didn’t go anywhere.

They went down.

Right.

And there was no mechanism to, you know, the advisors that didn’t have a business and that

were just relying on whatever they could sell that moment didn’t have anything to sell.

Okay.

Let’s ask you then, why do you think they went bye-bye?

That’s why I think that there’s professional firms who treat this as a profession like

you would a law business or a accounting firm or something.

And there’s a lot of pieces to that.

One of those pieces is you need to have somewhat of a recurring mechanism for generating new

business.

And if you don’t have that, then eventually the business dries up, especially when, in

fact, although I would think times like this are a good time to reach out to people because

there’s a lot of chaos and there’s a little bit less confidence.

You know, the market’s up 25%.

Everybody’s a genius.

You know, it’s just, oh, this is easy.

VTI and chill, you know, I think it’s harder if you’re a good advisor to convince people

that, you know, well, good times.

Yeah.

You need a comprehensive game plan.

Well, the harder part, sorry, Doug, the harder part is being okay with the fact that, well,

hey, the S&P was up 25% last year.

How come it was only up 15?

It’s like, well, because you have diversification, you have some international positions and

small companies and they don’t all work like the 500 biggest companies in the world.

But then the trade-off is what you’re experiencing right now.

You know, the S&P is down a whole bunch, but international is doing okay.

I would think this is analogous to a lot of different industries.

I’m thinking real estate as one of them and the mortgage industry.

I mean, when things are going gangbusters, anybody, you know, people want to jump in.

Oh, people have lots of money right now.

I’m on a, you know, but the serious businesses, to your point a second ago, OG, they know

how to weather this, but real estate agents drop like flies as soon as the market takes

a dip.

And that’s all of the people who got in because, hey, I just retired and I think I can get

into this business.

They realize it’s harder than this.

Yeah.

But isn’t real estate though, Doug, a little bit different because when you look at real

estate markets, when real estate markets go south, everybody freezes.

I mean, you don’t see a lot of transactions happening and that’s the only time when a

real estate agent gets paid.

So it’s tough to find people that want to move when they think they’re walking into

a trap.

Well, I guess I was using it as a, I drew a correlation between that and what OG said

where, you know, right now the people who are running a serious advisory business know

this is, this is a time.

You know, the revenue is down because the asset values themselves are down, but the

assets are still there.

But the people who are just kind of dabbling in being an advisor may not have those assets

under management yet to.

Yeah.

I mean, I think you’re onto something here.

I mean, thinking about real estate is a great example, you know, the ebbs and flows of real

estate professionals and how that rises and falls depending on how the economy is.

But I also think that a lot of it has to do with staying power.

I look back over my career and, you know, I started in 1999, which was the peak of everything.

Right.

I’m going to get into this business.

It’s easy to make money.

This is easy.

You know, I was one of those guys.

All right.

To your point.

No, I wasn’t.

I was 21.

But I could fog a spoon like nobody’s business.

They were like, can you get this moist?

And I was like, they’re like, you’re hired.

Call these people.

Also, call your parents.

Even the 2000, the Y2K stuff, 911, that sort of thing was an awful time.

Seven years later, great recession happened.

And so I look back now and I feel so fortunate as to have had a lot of those experiences

early because it really hardens you against temporary market declines.

And I think some of it has to do with confidence from a advisor standpoint, too.

You know, if you’re an advisor and you’ve been an advisor for 15 years, you had the

COVID thing that happened in a splash.

You had 2022 that happened over the course of a year.

You’ve never had like a really long economic malaise, right?

Like a big recession for an extended period of time where the overall tenor of all of

your consumers or all your clients are, you know, this sucks and, you know, whatever.

And so I think some of it is being able to communicate that and have the confidence that

what you’re doing is doing the right thing for clients.

I think most of us get in this business not because we want to be like Gordon Gekko, but

more because it’s like, this is a good way for me to help people that don’t know how

to do this.

And a lot of it was on the job training.

It just is.

I mean, that’s true for just about any job, right?

It’s not just this business, Doug, you were in consulting, right?

Your first consulting gig.

It’s not like you’re like, oh, I’ve got all the answers.

You sat in the corner, listened some other people for a while.

Then finally you kind of fashioned how you wanted to do you know me at all.

I didn’t sit more than 30 seconds without opening my mouth.

Yeah.

Well, that’s true.

Remember that advice that Doug gave last week with Lorraine Lee when he said a lot of people

in their career, OG, they jump in too quick.

Doug knows how you think I know that.

I also can’t do teach.

It’s a big mistake.

Big mistake.

Yeah.

So you cut your teeth on that stuff.

I think if you don’t have the confidence, it kind of comes through pretty quickly.

Right.

You know, if your surgeon comes in and goes, oh boy, do we amputate or give you a Tylenol?

You’re like, what’s happening?

What do you mean?

Oh boy.

Like, doctor, what’s his name from the Simpsons?

You know, when Homer was in surgery, I think a lot of those things are in play.

It’s not just the economic aspect of it, Joe.

And there’s a good chunk of that, right?

There’s no money to be made or if there’s no, certainly there’s no easy money to be made.

That kind of washes out a handful of people.

If there’s no system for developing new business and that has a pretty big impact.

And then I also think it has to do with the professional’s personal experience and the

confidence that he or she can have in leading people through stuff like this.

Yeah, I think it is the confidence of the captain.

I mean, we just started this project on the back of our house.

It’s going to go all summer.

So people are going to get sick of me talking about this already.

But we just gave, we just gave the first check to the builder and I got to tell you just

the confidence and competence.

This guy we’ve worked with him before is I would say 80% of why you hired this guy because

everything’s under control.

He’s seen it before.

Yeah, we’re going to take care of this.

The first thing I’m going to do, I mean, the very first thing that he said was something

I didn’t even think about.

He’s like the people that put this patio that we’re getting rid of and we’re putting this

addition on.

He said, I’m really worried about the concrete there.

This is clearly weekend warrior project.

I’m not sure this is to code, sir.

Oh, he’s, he was a hundred percent sure.

He’s like, but he totally gave you the kid gloves on it.

He’s like, look, we’re going to evaluate the structural integrity of the concrete.

You know, I’ve got some concerns.

He didn’t say that.

He’s like the concrete’s all going.

He got this.

That is correct.

Yes.

What he said instead though, was something I didn’t know about.

He’s like, we got to do a soil sample because the problem isn’t that this was a weekend

warrior contract.

The problem is what underneath is not going to hold.

Then we have a bigger problem and I want to know that before we start doing anything and

we’re just the confidence that that gave me that we’re knowing how to deal with the unknowns

that you didn’t even know were unknowns.

Absolutely.

It was something, something you hadn’t even considered a soil sample.

This says recessions are second only to receiving an inheritance as a reason why people change

advisors.

The third, by the way, is loss of a spouse.

This is the three main reasons.

This is a time OG when people doubt the captain in the ship, when you get a little bit of

stress, as you’ve said before, this isn’t nearly the stress that you could have on a

portfolio.

When you get a little stress on your portfolio, you start going, does this dude know where

he’s going?

Does this, does this woman have any clue what’s going on?

Well, this is sorry, I was just going to say, okay.

Yeah.

Well, just one last thing.

Jonathan Fiskount, a financial planner says that what people value are stability and I

don’t think it’s stability of assets like an annuity.

I think that it’s stability of relationship and of the plan.

They also value security.

Again, I don’t think it’s security in the funds that they’re in.

And third, it’s a long-term plan.

I know that even though there’s going to be storms along the way that I actually have

a plan to get through the storm and come out the other side.

Well, and that I think is the biggest difference here.

It’s when you’re evaluating your outcomes in the context of an overall 30 year lifetime

plan of savings and investing and income distribution and so on and so forth, you can quickly see

that this stuff was already planned for.

People are going, “Oh my gosh, what’s going on with my plan?”

This was already planned for.

When you see the range of returns or you see people talk about Monte Carlo assumptions and

says, “I’ve got an 87% chance of success in my Monte Carlo.”

Well, guess what?

That’s accounting for the fact that every so often this crap’s going to happen.

So if you’re working from the basis of a financial plan, you’re much more likely to have confidence

in the plan and have confidence in your decision-making or your team’s decision-making or whatever

it looks like.

Where we see people that don’t have confidence is when all of their decision-making has been

around the portfolio.

All of the decision is, “Which stock should I own and how come I don’t own all Nvidia?”

I read on Wall Street Vets that this is a new option strategy that I should be doing

and how come I’m not doing it on margin right now because I read that that’s really good.

My friend’s account went up 25%.

I only went up 24.7.

That’s BS.

What’s going on?

What did I do wrong?

Everything centered around the portfolio or around product, no different than somebody

who works in the insurance space and all their stuff is whole life insurance.

When you focus on the product, you’re not likely to get a good outcome because it’s

not in conjunction with the plan.

The portfolio serves your plan.

When you start with, “Here’s what my goal is and here’s how much I have to save and

do those sorts of things up front,” you can back into, “What does my portfolio have to

do for me to reach my goals?”

Then you build in those assets and you say, “Okay, over an 80-year time horizon, we almost

have 100 years of really solid data at this point.

Over 80 years of ups and downs and all sorts of turmoil across the globe, these are the

types of assets that largely get me to my goal.

There’s nothing to even worry about right now.”

Yeah.

I had a friend call me the other day whose daughter is looking to get an advisor and

said, “Do you know anybody?”

I had to think long and hard.

Who could I … Call me back in 20 minutes.

I’ll think of somebody, is what I said.

We’re talking through some things and he said, “The market was up X last year.

Is that where you are with your guy?”

I’m like, “Well, no, but that’s not really how it works.”

What really struck me about that is it’s no different than following the media on pick

a topic.

The headlines that jump out at you are rarely applicable to you or to everybody in exactly

the same way.

I had to walk them through like, “This was my time horizon and these were my goals for

my own retirement,” and took them through all of that stuff.

No, my portfolio reacted a little bit differently than your daughter’s might or than yours will

because I worked through a plan with my advisor.

That was tough for him to wrap his brain around.

He just assumed, “Well, you should be doing at least as well if you’re paying somebody.

You need to be doing better than the market always.”

That was a really hard thing for him to wrap his head around.

Yeah.

Understanding the fact that this is all meant to dovetail in beginning with the end of

the mind. It’s about not making mistakes. I think it’s a difficult place.

I’m glad that you went there though, Doug, because I think during this time, OG, if somebody

in our stacker land is worried right now, I think there’s three different types of people

that they can look to.

The first one is you’re going to walk into some offices or you’re going to have some

advisors that you’ll talk to that are going to sell the crap out of fear. They’re going

to sell you the fear, but the fear about advisors.

That’s all the stuff that’s on the news right now. Gold is a perfect inflation hedge. It’s

not, but okay.

Those people, our friend Roger Whitney said it, and I love this line, if they lead with

product and not with process, if it’s fear and I’ve got a product that solves that, you

need to go running.

Are you saying I shouldn’t have bought those commemorative gold coins I saw the ad for?

I think those will work out just fine.

2 AM.

They’re fantastic.

I know you’re tongue in cheek. They’re not going to do what they say they’re going to

do. It’s no different than the annuity salespeople on TV that say protect your downside and get

market like returns. The like is the word that they say under their breath.

Like, but they were marketing like returns.

Doug, is that a bad day when you wake up at like nine 30 in the morning, you hear the

doorbell ring and it’s, uh, it’s, it’s the Amazon guy with the big box that you don’t

remember ordering, but there’s a, I have a hack that a bad day. That’s just called every

day in my house. I know that’s Tuesdays. I have a hack on Amazon. I’ll share it later.

I uncovered this Amazon hack. Maybe. Oh boy. Money saving or money spending hack? Oh, money

saving. I mean, excellent. Not necessarily saving per se. Uh, but I mean, kind of, I

think the first type of person that’s cleaning up as a person selling you on this is a scary

thing. You just got to quit investing in financial markets. You need to do this stuff that has

guard rails on it. Like we’re bumper bowling for money. Uh, you need, you need that. I

think the second group of advisors are advisors. They clearly don’t have a plan. They’re not

worried about the different areas of financial planning. They’re pretending like they can

beat the market that they’re going to talk to you about, well, we’re going to take advantage

of this and we’re going to do these crazy strategies and we’re going to, you know, they’re

whiteboard. If they have one looks like an NFL playbook, when there’s stuff going 50

million different directions, I love the guy. Uh, did you ever read, Oji, the wealthy barber?

Uh, I don’t think so. In the wealthy barber, the author writes that the basis, maybe not

your entire financial plan, but the basis of your plan should fit on like a bar napkin.

You should go, here’s what I’m trying to do. I believe that it should fit on a bar napkin.

And that by the way, the advisors that you want is the one, the confidence during the

ship that we talked about the fact that they’re not going to promise you the moon and they’re

also not dug to your point. They’re not going to pretend like we’re going to beat any, any

market. They’re going to swat that away like a fly going, what does that have to do with

anything? So I think you really got to look for that option. Number three, important piece.

I think especially now it’s funny to look at what’s going on on the other side of the

table, which is why I wanted to bring that up. Something else I like to bring up is when

stackers need our help guys. This is the part of the show where we realize that somebody

said, Hey, I better call Saul C high and OG. If you have a question for us, head to stacking

benjamins.com/voicemail. And we’re super happy to help you do better with your money and

get more confident. And today we’re going to help our brand new BFF Austin get more confident.

Austin, what’s going on, man? Hey, Joe and OG and Doug, I figured I’d call in to keep

the Minnesota love going. Go Gophers. This is Austin again. So I’m really trying to learn

something from you guys. I’m going to have to hit on a rare topic to go after that. He

locks. We’re looking to get a key lock as a Justin case, but I’m wondering what you

would key in on when shopping around for one. No, this would not be a primary emergency

fund. We have roughly five to six months of expenses saved in cash. Our mortgage is about

23% of our gross income. Hopefully that’s enough information for this. Thanks in advance.

Love what you guys do. Bye. Social security numbers would help next time.

Mother’s maiden name. We need a little more info. What are we going to sell to the hackers

if you don’t leave that kind of information? Come on, Austin. Thanks for the question.

Talk about that too. Maybe I’ll talk about that too later. Oh wow. Oh gee, what’s going

on here? Hackers. I got to write this down. So don’t forget hackers and Amazon. The basics

of a He Lock, He Lock, a home equity line of credit. This is like a, almost like a credit

card or a checkbook against your house. You get an X amount of money the bank gives you

and you can use it or not use it. So a couple of things that I heard him say, which I just

find a little interesting is didn’t he say we were thinking about getting this just in

case. Yeah. Just in case what? Well, I hear one advisor a long time ago talk about the

fact that she liked what she called the ice cream approach, the ice cream cone. So the

bottom of the ice cream cone was money in your basic savings. Like I can get to it,

right? At that time CDs, OG were paying pretty well. So that was like the next scoop. And

she goes in then in case things really go fubar, she really liked having a home equity

line of credit available that she could, if push comes to shove, she’s got this, she can

go dig into it and grab that money. Unless you have a purpose for it, most people have

more credit than they need anyway. And I don’t know why you would have this open unless you’re

planning on doing something with it. You know, it’s like idle hands or devil’s workshop.

You’ve heard that phrase. Idle credit is a mom says it all the time. You know, whatever.

I don’t know. There’s some, you got to lean, you got time to clean. Yeah. So I’d just be

concerned with that. Like what’s the purpose? You know, it’s like, Oh, so I have this available

in case. It’s like, well, you’re going to find reasons to use it in case, you know,

if you’ve got, they’re like, you can get this $300,000 anytime you want, you know, for things

like home improvement projects or dead. You’re like, well, actually now that, now that we

have it, we have been meaning to put a pool in. It’s like, okay. Well, I can be convenient

OG, because if you already have the home improvement project and you know how you’re going to pay

it off, this is generally a lower cost, lower interest rate way to go than tap in the credit

card a mile. Yeah. Yeah. A thousand percent. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. I guess a couple of

things. He didn’t really ask my opinion about getting a home equity loan. He said things

about getting, you know, I’m getting one. Where, where, where am I getting it at? I

would want to make sure that the rate is tied to market rates and the adjustments are, are

similarly tied to different types of home loans. You can get a home equity loan, which

is a pile of money that they just give you. And then you pay it back over a period of

time, a home equity line of credit. Like you already talked about, Joe is basically an

open-ended line where you can draw from it. Usually there’s a period of draw and a period

of payback and the draw period is renewable generally speaking, but you just have to go

back and do the re-qualification. Usually what happens is they’ll say, okay, your house

is worth a million bucks. You owe 200,000. We will give you a $500,000 line of credit

on your, on your house. You can use that money in, there’s a minimum, usually $4,000 minimum

withdrawal or something, but you can use that money up to 500K anytime you want for the

first 10 years after the 10 years, whatever the balance is that that money is locked and

now becomes pay, you know, pay, paybackable. I don’t know. I think it’s be paybackable.

It becomes most be paybackable over, you know, a 20 year period, whatever the terms are in

there. And during the loan period, during the draw period, your payment is interest

only. So that’s also pretty attractive, especially if, you know, if you’re doing, let’s say

that you’re going to build a vacation condo, right? Or a vacation house somewhere. You’re

like, I can do this as a, as a line. And then when it’s all done, then I’m going to get

a mortgage and kind of put it all together, you know, type deals. So it can be attractive

because the payments a little bit lower. I would want to know the payment amount. I would

want to know how to calculate the payment amount. And I would want to know how frequently

they adjust the interest rate based on market adjustments.

Yeah. Clearly I want to know what that interest rate is.

Yeah. It’s going to be prime plus something based on your credit and based on the bank.

And a lot of times home equity lines of credit seem to have a lot of fungibility in them.

If you’re showing up at a bank that you’ve never done business before, you can’t expect

to get any sort of special treatment. But if it’s your bank and you have all of your

savings there and your credit card is there and you’re, you’ve been banking there a long

time and your mortgage is there. And you know what I mean? Like you have a big relation,

your business accounts are there. You have a big relationship. You have the opportunity,

I think, to play that game a little bit and say, yeah, seven and a half. Can we do seven?

You know, or whatever. And you’re more likely to have some.

It’s all relationship based there.

Yeah, I think so.

Also, you know, a credit union generally, generally going to be an option where historically

you may, if you don’t have a relationship anywhere, you may have a better chance of

getting a little bit lower rate. Two other types of fees that you may have besides that

interest rate that you compare. One is a lot of home equity line of credit to have an annual

fee. So you want to know what the annual fee is to keep it open. Just be just like a credit

card has an annual fee. Another one may be, may be an origination fee and they will probably

charge you for an appraisal because this becomes a second position on your house. So you’re

going to want to find out what the fees are to open it because those will vary from bank

to bank as well.

Yeah. Most of them, to your point on those, they will advertise low if not zero closing

costs. Yeah. Sometimes they do drive by, you know, appraisals because again, since it’s

a second loan, the bank is not going to lend you 100% of your house, right? If you have,

if your house is worth 500 K and you owe 350, your line of credit might only be 50 grand,

you know, because they’re not going to say, Oh, well let’s let you have one. You know

what I mean? They’re not going to let you.

Yeah. If you’re not asking for a specific amount of money, you mean you’re just saying,

Hey, I just want this, this excellent.

I’ll get into Zillow and say, here’s the most we can give you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe, you pointed out it becomes a second lien on your home, which made me think of a question.

Some of our listeners might be interested in is when that, so let’s say you have a HELOC,

but it’s at a pretty decent rate, whatever it mean. You know, now I remember we had one

that was stupid low. Uh, but nowadays it’s probably in the whatever 8% range or something

like that, but it’s going to be lower than your credit cards. But when you’re creating

a debt pay down strategy, because it’s a lien on your house, does that maybe change how

you prioritize your pay down? I mean, I know a lot of them are, people are thinking, I’m

going to pay down the debt that has the highest interest rate right now. But do you change

that because of it’s a second lien on your house? Where’s the credit cards? Not. Yeah.

It’s an interesting question. Oh gee, I’m still going after the credit cards first.

Cause those are going to be at such an egregiously higher interest rate. Does it change it for

you? Well, the only thing that would change it would be if, if I had a lump sum, let’s

say that I had a bonus and I’ve got two things side by side that are fairly equal in terms

of balance, maybe one’s a little higher interest, but whatever my take on that is I’m going

to go after the one that frees up the most cash flow at that moment. If it’s just monthly,

you know, if I’m going, Hey, I can put an extra a hundred bucks a month on my debt.

Where should I put it? Yeah, absolutely. Highest interest, you know, Dave Ramsey snowball method

also works. I like that. But if it’s like, Hey, I just got a bonus of 50 grand, I can

pay off my car, which is 695 a month for the next five years, or pay off my HELOC, which

is, you know, 1700 a month interest only, you know, I’m paying the HELOC off because

that frees up 1700 bucks a month of cash that can spin down another stuff. Yeah. Now I can

put 2,500 on my car and that thing’s gone in two years instead of five. If you’re of

the mindset of, look, if all the stuff hits the fan, all hell breaks loose. I want to

make sure I got a place to live. I got to pay my mortgage. I can let some of that other

stuff ride, but I don’t want anybody taking my house. But assuming it’s a second position,

you’re already screwed. I mean, the mortgage people are going to take your house already.

So if you’re getting a line of credit, because you’re like, I need it just in case. And then,

you know, you’re really just lying to yourself and the Justin case is actually happening.

And you’re using your lifestyle expenses to take the equity out of your house. And you’re

kind of burning through that. And now you’re worried about paying that there’s other major

issues going on. You need to sell the houses, which you probably need to do and do something

different. I mean, that’s a whole different extreme example. I think, Doug, thanks for

the question, Austin. If you’ve got a question for us, head to stacky, beggarments.com/voicemail.

And we’re happy to answer your question as well. Big thanks for that one, Austin. And

Gertrude is going to write you because we got a little something, something for you,

not just because guys, because he called in, we generally, we don’t advertise as much as

we used to, but we’ll just as a thank you, we send you some cool swags, some stacky,

Benjamin swag for calling in and being a part of the show. But Austin is caller number 1000

to the stacking, Benjamin show. Get out of here. He is. Oh, wait. Nope. Check that. 1002.

Sorry. Nevermind, Austin. I missed it. Oh, you were so I forgot about those two episodes.

You’re still going to try for the corner. I mean, to be fair, there probably is some

erroneous addition here somewhere. Once you get past a hundred, you’re just making it up.

The judges have confirmed this is a thousand. No, no, this is okay. There’s no, this is ish.

This is so ish. It’s not even funny. You know, what’s funny about this is that it was the company

that runs the voicemail program. It’s a really easy voicemail program. You can call in from any

device, but they have it listed as voicemail. You will see voicemail number 1000. Gotcha.

Right. And that’s how you know, and some of those have been some crazy stuff and we’ve had

people call in and other ways and yeah, so ish, but Austin ish is good enough for us because

horses and hand grenades. This is close enough. So Austin, we are giving you, you’re from Minnesota.

We’ve got a bad-ass stacking, Benjamin’s hat. We have brand new stacking, Benjamin’s mugs just made

with the new logo on them that are awesome. I’m also going to send you a copy of my book stacked

and we got a bunch of these books from, we haven’t gotten them yet, Doug.

Okay. We just talked about it last week. You think that you’re throwing them out to Austin like

they’re candy. And yet I’m sitting here with my Robin’s egg blues. Austin realize unlike Doug,

it’s going to take a week or two to get there. It’s going to, it’s going to take some time

to make it there. Bunch of swag for you, Austin. Big thanks to everybody for being a part of the

show, for helping us make the stacking, Benjamin show. If there were no stackers, we would have

no show. Speaking of stackers, Doug, I got just one quick thing for the back porch. Cause I’m

looking at the time. It is that I’m headed to Boston, but am I pronouncing that right? Doug,

is it pronounced Boston? Yeah, there we go. I am headed there. Let me get the date for everyone.

And if you want particulars as we record this, we don’t have them yet. But as you hear it,

let me get the particulars, which I do not have. I think we’re going to have it at the same place.

We had the last one, but I think we’re going to get a quieter area. Cause people are going to go,

man, it was kind of loud there and it was loud, but it was a kick ass place. It was an old bank,

but anyway, may 20th, Tuesday, May 20th, I’ll be in town. I’ve already talked to Paula Pantas. If

she would come, we talked to Doug. Doug said, no, just so you know, I asked Doug and Doug said,

pass. No, I will not go there. Hard pass, but stacking, Benjamin’s dot com slash meetup.

Let’s us know that you are on your way so we can plan the right space for the right amount of

people stack, you, Benjamin’s dot com slash meetup. And we’ll have all the details when you hear this

episode, Doug, it sounded like you were going to say something. Well, we have three new reviews,

but I know you needed to be quick. We’ve had a chock full episode. So I thought maybe, well,

we could say, you know, we totally will. We’re, uh, I can’t wait to read that. Oh,

some great stuff. Yeah. I’m reading these. Yeah. That’s good. All right. Next time. That’s something

to look forward to foreshadowing everybody foreshadowing. One thing we don’t foreshadow.

We just get right to it. What are the three big takeaways that should be on our to do list, Doug?

Well, Joe, first take some advice from our headline. If you’re worried about the market,

don’t panic. Learn from it. Now is a great time to become more scientific about your approach,

either find people to help or build an investment policy statement. Second, what a HELOC just because

remember idle hands are the work of the devil. But the big lesson, don’t worry about Joe’s mom’s

will. She said her will is strong, strong. I say that must mean there’s good stuff coming my way

in the future. Can’t wait. Thanks to Angelo Poli for joining us. Want to find out more about the

concierge nutrition and fitness coaching at Metpro offers head on over to metpro.co for details.

No, you got to finish that, Doug, with they will pump you up. No. OK. No.

I’m sure Angela’s going to be like, yeah, no, no, no, no, no.

This show is the property of SP podcast LLC copyright 2025 and is created by Joe Salcihive.

Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team

at stacking benjamins.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, Doug, and we’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.

Thank you.

I’ve told this story a bunch and I don’t think that

I’ve said it on the show or maybe I’ve said it on some show

somewhere or just to friends or maybe just to you guys

individually.

– You saw other shows?

– I don’t know.

– Is he cheating on us?

– I mean, you know, play has got to play, yo.

(laughing)

But I am a little bit of a credit card points.

– Dude.

– Of this Cianato.

– Yeah.

– Anyways, but I’m trying to clean some stuff up

a little bit and I’ve got a couple cards that I don’t need

anymore and I’m trying to tighten as it were my life.

And what I found out is so it’s–

– As we heard last week, Doug.

– Yeah.

(laughing)

That’s a good one.

– So many cards, I forgot I already had one.

– Yeah, well.

– And all these offers just sitting, one of them was for

like 125,000.

I didn’t even, I was just left at collecting dust.

– Yeah.

Well anyways, what I found out was that Capital One

doesn’t combine your points.

So if you have like a card with this, you know, this card,

or if you have this credit card or this credit card,

they all accumulate their own points.

I just assume like MX, they all would just go in one bucket

or like chase.

– You have to do it manually.

– What’s that?

– Combine the points at Capital One.

– Yeah, I wasn’t able to figure that out.

– Oh, I did between two cards.

I don’t remember how I did it, but I got it done.

– Oh, well maybe I could have done that.

But anyways, so I wanted to close these two cards,

they had small balances and or small limits

and I had already transferred limits to the other ones.

And so I wanted to go away, but I had these points

and I was like, I just, you know, I don’t have any use

for them, I’m not traveling anytime soon.

But I, you know, you can’t have points on a card,

they just go away.

So it says, oh, you can turn these into gift cards.

And I know from a redemption standpoint,

gift cards are like the stupidest redemption ever

because you get like a flat penny per point

and somebody out there is gonna be like,

you could have flown to Singapore for, you know,

two cents a point.

It’s like, I know, I got it,

but I’m not going to Singapore.

But I wanted to get rid of them.

So I go online, I do the thing and it says, you know,

which gift cards do you want?

I’ll give you the whole list of them and it’s Amazon, right?

Like we buy so much crap at Amazon.

I’m gonna pick Amazon.

So I pick Amazon. – Just go Amazon.

– And it says, they come in 50, 100, $200.

And I’m like, oh, I’ll just do the $200 one.

That’s less cards.

And then it gives me a dropdown.

It says, how many of these do you want?

And I’m like, well, I would think that it’s gonna,

I could say I want 10, but you know,

it’s gonna be relative to how many points I have.

– Sure.

– And so I just, I don’t know the conversion.

I’m not really paying to 10.

I don’t really care.

So I go all the way down, hit 10, hit submit,

and it goes, your gift cards will arrive

on seven to 10 business days.

And I’m like, wait, what just happened?

So apparently I had enough points on Capital One

to get $2,000 of Amazon gift cards.

So I don’t give them anything in the mail.

– Which could have been free flight or two.

– What?

Yeah, well, obviously it would have been that,

but I’m not, like I said,

I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.

So I had no use for it, but here’s the great news.

So it shows up in the mail.

You get this big stack of gift cards.

That’s totally secure by the way.

That’s not suspect at all.

Like not ripe for mail fraud, but they came

and handed it to my wife and she’s like,

what the heck did you get all this from?

I’m like, oh, this is from Capital One points.

She’s like, wait, how many points do we have?

I’m like, well, let’s not worry about that.

Let’s just focus on the cool thing,

which is we’re not paying for Amazon crap.

We buy whatever we want on Amazon.

And it goes to these gift cards for like the next,

you know, at least the next two days.

At least the next two or three months.

So my Amazon hack is if you buy Amazon crap all the time,

like we do, and you have points just sitting there,

points devalue themselves.

They do very quickly.

You got to remember that when everybody’s talking

about maximizing and getting two cents per and stuff,

everybody freezes a buddy of mine.

I’m at dinner with him this weekend and he shows me one

of his credit cards.

He’s got 625,000 points.

Yeah.

I’m like, when you started building that thing,

they were probably worth 2.5 X what they’re worth now.

Like the, you know what I mean?

That was first right.

And you know, you don’t see it.

What happens is the redemptions cost more.

So the hotel that used to be 30,000 points per night

is now 50, the 50,000 hotel point per night is now 75.

That’s how, you know, that’s where the inflation happens.

And you don’t see it.

It’s like a South American currency.

It kind of is.

It is.

And you get to the point, and this isn’t,

I don’t mean to say this in a sense that’s like,

Oh, look at how cool I am.

But I have a million Marriott points right now.

And last year, every hotel that I could stay in,

I stayed doing with points because I’m like,

this is stupid.

Like I don’t have a, again,

I don’t have a big trip I’m planning.

There’s just whatever.

I need to start using them.

We have a Marriott credit card,

and every time you stay, you get credit

and the double points and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I stayed 30 nights at hotels last year.

And I ended the year with still a million points.

And I paid for every hotel room last year with points.

I didn’t spend a dollar in hotels last year.

– And your point, Val, you did not go down.

– I still had a million at the end of the year,

even though I spent 30 nights in hotels for free

because of just the bonuses and the credit card spend

and like whatever, just my normal life.

So to your point, there’s no,

unless you have a purpose, right?

If you’re like, I’m getting to a million

so I can do the honeymoon trip, it’s like, all right, cool.

But you better get after it because that million dollars

thing’s gonna require 1.2 million

by the time you get there, probably.

– I’m pretty new-ish to the credit card point game.

I’ve used credit card points,

but just for ones that I was gonna use anyway,

like, you know, in Texarkana, like I’ve said,

you can fly any airline you want

as long as it’s American.

So I should probably get an American.

– You can go anywhere you want as long as it’s-

– Dallas, as long as it includes DFW.

– At 11 a.m. on a Tuesday.

– I went to a camp fi in the amazing Mark Troutman,

who’s been on our show before.

Mark was talking about Hyatt and these, you know,

Uber points people are like, you need to use Hyatt.

Now the bad news is, you know, OG,

’cause you and I talked about this.

– There’s no Hyatt.

– There’s not that many of them.

– There’s seven of them.

– But what is incredible is,

so I’ve stayed at Hyatt’s now 10 times,

just trying out this new point program.

I get on because we were headed to downtown Dallas

and I go to get a hotel room

’cause staying at Hotel OG was already booked.

– False.

– So we, it’s weird, Doug, how every time I come to Dallas,

it’s Hotel OG is booked.

– It’s incredible.

You shouldn’t have done that thing in the pool

the last time you stayed there.

– When we go to, how’d you hear about the thing in the pool?

– ‘Cause I have access to the internet.

That’s how I know it.

– I was like, there’s a camera, then posted.

– OG’s making bank on that one.

So, we, see now I’m all flustered.

– Hyatt, Dallas points.

– Yeah, so I’ve only stayed there 10 times.

I finally became a discoverest,

which is their first tier of many, right?

Marriott, I’ve been way up that chain.

But I was told that Hyatt,

you accumulate points much quicker.

So I’m like, oh, let’s just see if we have a free one.

Who cares?

Dude, I’ve got like 19,000 points.

A room at the Hyatt house, right by the Katy Trail,

just walking distance to everything

in the Harwood district, a nice part of town,

6,500 points for the free night.

Marriott, like 18,000 points.

So I’m getting three nights.

And by the way, before I found out

how easy these points are to come by,

I got the Hyatt credit card that just came and–

– I probably got one of those too somewhere.

– You get a free night of year.

You get a free night of year just for your,

which is funny, the card cost a hundred–

– I actually don’t.

– The card cost a hundred bucks,

so the night of year is covered by your annual fee.

So you’re like, okay, I stay there one night

and I use that one.

And then I get the, oh my goodness, Hyatt points.

Those are gonna be super easy to come like.

And when you get to those high end hotels,

like the Mr. and Mrs. Smith chain of hotels,

that’s their like super bougie, hi, oh my God.

– Or Hyatt.

– Yeah, some of these places are amazing.

– Yeah, so anyways, if you got points, spend them.

You know, YOLO, right?

That’s kind of the message here.

– That’s the lesson, kids.