Is the secret to investment success all about making your decisions as if you were a 50-year-old woman? We tackle that take on today’s roundtable discussion. We’re joined by one of the best voices who gives investing advice online, Brian Feroldi. He’s joined by the lady who knows all about making wise investing decisions, no matter your age, Paula Pant. And finally, we also feature the advice of our in-house financial planner (who happens to have the temperament of a 50-year-old woman), OG.
In the second half, brought to you by DepositAccounts.com, we continue down the list of how to win by investing like a 50-year-old woman.
And, finally, be sure to stick around for Doug’s sky-high stock-institution trivia. It will surprise you!
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Watch on YouTube:
Our Topic: Making wise investment decisions at every stage of life
You Should Invest Like a 50-Year-Old Woman (White Coat Investor)
During our conversation, you’ll hear us mention:
- Sticking to your investment plan, even in times of market correction.
- Why “this time is different” is a dangerous mindset.
- Weighing the long-term risk-reward relationship.
- The benefit of indexing.
- Investing according to your time horizon and risk tolerance.
- The fallacy of trying to time the market.
- Dollar-cost averaging.
- How to resist the temptation to tinker with your investments.
- How to trick yourself from reacting to every piece of news.
- How to avoid FOMO.
- Why you shouldn’t care about what others think.
- Stop comparing yourself to others.
- Allowing yourself to allocate a small amount of your portfolio to taking outsized risks.
- Investing in individual stocks if it works for you.
- Allocating a limited amount of time to making investment decisions.
- How to distinguish between sound advice and not-so-reputable salespeople.
- Use good judgment when deciding whose advice to follow.
- Finding the investing style that works for you.
- Learning from failure.
Our Contributors
A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.
Brian Feroldi

Another thanks to Brian Feroldi for joining our contributors this week! Learn more about Brian by visiting his website, Long-Term Mindset at Brian Feroldi – Long-Term Mindset.
Check out his hit book about investing Why Does The Stock Market Go Up?: Everything You Should Have Been Taught About Investing In School, But Weren’t.
Paula Pant

Check Out Paula’s site and amazing podcast: AffordAnything.com
Follow Paula on Twitter: @AffordAnything
OG

For more on OG and his firm’s page, click here.
Doug’s Game Show Trivia
- What is the total height of the One World Trade building, including the antenna?
DepositAccounts

Thanks to DepositAccounts.com for sponsoring Stacking Benjamins. DepositsAccounts.com is the #1 place to go when you’re looking to see if your rate is the BEST rate on savings, CDs, money markets, and even checking accounts! Check out ALL of the rates ranked from best to worst (and see the national averages) at DepositAccounts.com.
Other Mentions
- The Basics: Buying Stocks (with Brian Feroldi)
- Sign up for Brian’s weekly investing newsletter
- Millionaire Mission (Brian Preston)
Join Us on Monday!
Tune in on Monday as we kick off Rewind Week with a classic episode with the one-and-only Mel Robbins.
Miss our last show? Check it out here: Stage Your Own Money Revolution (SB1536).
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Brian: Good evening. I’m Ron Burgundy and this is what’s Happening in your world tonight. [00:00:06] Doug: Live from the basement of the YouTube headquarters. They don’t even know we’re down here. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:00:24] Doug: I am Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. And on today’s round table, you’ll learn why you should invest like a 50-year-old woman with the top guy sharing, investing advice on the internet. Brian Aldi, speaking of 50-year-old woman og. You’ll be joining the discussion. And finally, our favorite woman on the round table. [00:00:42] Doug: It’s Paula Pant, but that’s not all. Halfway through the show, I’ll share my towering trivia question. And now a guy who calls hot dogs wieners so awkward. It’s Joe Saw Sea. [00:01:02] Joe: Doug, I know you like a wiener every once in a while, don’t you? Come on. Hey everybody. Welcome. We’re mustard only. Welcome to Friday, two sausages. [00:01:09] Doug: Stop, stop. [00:01:13] Joe: We have, as you can tell, already a great show. It’s all downhill from here. Everybody. Welcome to the Stacky Benjamin Show, your three day week confidence booster. [00:01:21] Joe: And I’m super happy that, uh, usher in the weekend. We’ve got a great topic and we’ve got a great panel. So let’s meet him. Doug, uh, let’s start with, uh, the guy across the card table from me. Ready to talk about investing like a 50-year-old woman, OGs here. How are you man? [00:01:35] OG: Doug called me a 50-year-old woman. [00:01:37] Joe: I know that wasn’t very nice. Quite [00:01:39] OG: the compliment actually. [00:01:41] Joe: You feel like a natural woman. I fifties the new 40 and Shania Twain. Are you doing your Shania Twain og? Is that the deal? You’re the only one that got it. Okay. I I did get it. I’m old enough. All right. And the woman who had no idea what any of that was, ’cause she doesn’t know much about pop culture. [00:01:59] Joe: Paula Panta is here. I did recognize [00:02:01] Paula: that song. [00:02:02] Joe: That’s a classic song. You song [00:02:04] Paula: you played Absolutely. Shania My girl. What is going on? [00:02:07] Joe: Yes. And by the way, because you are live from Manhattan today on YouTube, you are in the Westwood One Studios, our network. I am. And I love how you got your branding behind you. [00:02:17] Joe: Nice job. [00:02:17] Paula: Yes. My beautiful step in repeat. So for those of you who are watching on YouTube, I’ve got the Afford Anything brand behind me. And as you can see, I am in a padded room. Uh, in fact, for those of you watching on YouTube, which is also on brand, this, this is how small the room is right now. I’m, I’m, but she moved barely for people not on video. [00:02:35] Paula: Left to right. Just barely. Yeah. I’m barely moving. And I can touch both walls and it’s padded on both sides. So I’m in a Yes. A legit sound studio. So I hope I sound legit. [00:02:46] Joe: And for people by the way, who don’t know who’ve never met Paula in person. She’s, she’s your, your wingspan is not that long. Uh, I’m five foot one. [00:02:53] Joe: So it’s, it’s, it’s not that big a wings. I have the wingspan [00:02:56] Paula: of a five foot one girl. [00:02:57] Joe: It is a small, small, small room that you’re in and a guy who is, uh, do you like how we promoted him to the guy giving the best. Investing advice on the internet. Brian Aldi’s here. How are you? Man, we had to set the bar really high, [00:03:10] Brian: my friend. [00:03:10] Brian: Uh, I aspire to invest like a 50-year-old woman after reading this article. It is gonna be fun, isn’t it? It is gonna be fun, [00:03:16] Joe: yes. And I noticed that you very casually speaking of branding, uh, there might be a book behind you that somebody that you know might have written [00:03:24] Brian: just one. There’s only one book that I like to promote by harmony. [00:03:26] Brian: Yes, yes, yes. I did. I did write a book and I do like to show it off. [00:03:29] Joe: And what’s it called? Brian And where can I get it? It is called Why does the Stock Market go Up? And it is available anywhere you can buy books and it’s a fantastic read. And we will also link to Brian, when you and I talked about that topic when you were on Stacky, Benjamins, uh, diving into the topics involved in that particular book, absolutely circled around that topic. [00:03:48] Joe: There’s no no, that sense made any sense. We gotta move into it. You know what’s important that we talk about here, Brian, at the top of the show. What’s that? Well, today’s episode is brought to you by State Farm. I mean, don’t we have to talk about that? If you own a small business like you do, Brian, whatever your business might be, you need someone who understands, and that’s where State Farm Small Business Insurance comes in. [00:04:08] Joe: State Farm agents, your small business owners do and know what it takes. They can help you personalize policies that fit your budget. Small business insurance from State Farm, like a good neighbor State Farm is there. Talk to your local agent today. State Farm is one of a few of our awesome sponsors who make sure this is free for you. [00:04:24] Joe: Every time we podcast, we’ve got a couple more here right at the top, and then we’re gonna give rolling. Brian’s here. OGs here. Paul is here. And Neighbor Doug. So let’s get the ball rolling. Hey Joe, [00:04:36] Doug: I forgot to remind you, you gotta do the State Farm read. Don’t forget. [00:04:42] Joe: So, uh, for people who dunno what we’re talking about there, every time I’m like, uh, Doug, you gotta, you gotta remind me because, uh, I always forget. [00:04:48] Doug: I think this is the only time I’ve ever reminded him. [00:04:51] Joe: And Doug always remembers right after I just did the State Farm R Nice, nice work. As Brian so eloquently said at the beginning when we introduced him, and also, uh, Doug talked about. We’re going to dive into a piece from the White Coat Investor website written by Dr. [00:05:06] Joe: Margaret Curtis, who’s a columnist there. You should invest like a 50-year-old woman. And she says, hitting my fifties has made me a better professional. When I was first outta residency, I billed most of my office visits as a level three out of five because I thought maybe the advice I was giving wasn’t that good. [00:05:24] Joe: Now I know my advice is excellent. I bill appropriately. Let’s dive into being a 50-year-old woman and how that makes you a better investor. Brian, we’re gonna start here just right at the top. Number one 50-year-old women, they are not afraid. What is she talking about? [00:05:37] Brian: Well, I really like this article because she talked about how when you are an experienced investor, uh, as the author of this article is, uh, you’ve lived through some downturns during your time. [00:05:46] Brian: Uh, this author pointed out she lived through Black Monday, 1987, the.com bust, 2001, the Great Recession. More recently, the covid dropped. So when you live through a downturn the first time, boy is it scary. But once you’ve been through it two, three or four times, that experience can really pay off because it can teach you that in the long term, the stock market will eventually bounce back. [00:06:06] Joe: Is it kind of dangerous then, Brian, that really, besides the little blip down and up in 2020, we haven’t had much. I mean, the last decade has been pretty golden for us. Does that mean, uh, maybe a little sweat for some of our younger stackers out there? [00:06:22] Brian: Uh, it could be, but, uh, if you were paying attention during the 2000 tens, it certainly didn’t feel like it was up into the right. [00:06:28] Brian: I vividly remember several periods when my portfolio fell 10, 15, 20%, or even more sometimes staying down for a period of years. So while by and large, the 2010s were a good period, there were certainly plenty of bumps along the way. Yeah. [00:06:40] Joe: Paul, it’s so hard to see. To Brian’s point with these ups and downs, there’s always a thing going on. [00:06:46] Joe: Mm-Hmm. There’s always some storyline that, oh my goodness, this is the reason why this is different. How do we guard ourself against that? Because you could have said for all these things that she’s talked about here, black Monday, 1987 mm-Hmm. You know, my father-in-law said out loud that he lost a ton of money. [00:07:02] Joe: Then the.com bubble, I remember getting fired because one of my clients earned I think 47%. And that wasn’t good enough. So I got canned, and then two years later in, in, uh, you know, 2002, the market was at half what it had been, and then the great recession, 2008. I think all of us on this call, remember, remember that, but how do we, how do we guard ourself against this? [00:07:24] Paula: It’s tempting to always think, but this time it’s different. And I think being a student of history, being a a someone who actively, even if you didn’t personally experience it, someone who actively studies investment history and is aware of the.com burst and Black Monday, and all of the calamities before that can help frame whatever is happening now into a wider context. [00:07:50] Paula: Because if you’re relatively young, you don’t have the life experience to take a long-term view. So that long-term view has to come from a study of the past. [00:07:59] Joe: Oh gee, though it’s still, you know, I hear what Paul is saying, but still every, every one of these times is different, right? I mean, it’s very easy to say, but this is different because each of these downturns, it was different. [00:08:12] OG: Well, from the stuff that created it probably. And, and during the actual event, um, obviously Covid was. The first time we experienced something like that in a hundred ish years or so, not too many people alive remembered the flu issue in the 19 hundreds. But I think some of it also goes back to the fact that in order to have market returns, you have to have fluctuation. [00:08:39] OG: You know, and the reality is, is that if everything was guaranteed, nobody would invest in, in assets that have opportunity for higher returns. Your savings account paid 10% a year. Right? Now, why would you invest in stocks that also pay 10% a year? There? There would be no market for that whatsoever. So in order to attract investors, investments, or companies need to have expected returns that are higher than than that. [00:09:08] OG: And now each individual company may not be successful with that. Right? So there could be some, you know, sectors or individual companies that, that don’t perform the way that they want to. But in aggregate the overall. SP 500 or the NASDAQ or whatever, is a collection of a bunch of really focused companies that are really trying to, trying to do their best. [00:09:28] OG: And I think when we look at history, like Paula said, we also have to remember that people who are involved in that in the day-to-day, right? If you’re, if you’re a banker and it’s 2008 and the banking world is collapsing, so to speak around you, you’re not just like burying your head in the sand going, oh, well, well that was a good run, wasn’t it, fellas? [00:09:48] OG: You know, they, they’re sitting around like actively trying to solve the problem. You know, the world’s smartest people run these big companies and sometimes they’re successful, sometimes they do what they want to, you know, they’re what they’re trying to do. And sometimes they’re not, but they’re not, not trying, you know, and then when you take it in aggregate and you look at the overall economy and say, I’ll just own one of everything in the whole economy. [00:10:09] OG: On average, the economy does well over time. It helps to recognize the history of it, but I think also to recognize that if you’re a young investor, like this is kinda how you started it out earlier, Joe, if you’re a young investor, you have all the time in the world. So you should hope for a market decline gives you an opportunity to pick up some Nvidia at 70 bucks a share instead of 135. [00:10:34] OG: What a bargain. [00:10:35] Joe: Well, and that actually, Brian, I’m gonna send this one your way. You know, we look at not just Nvidia in the sky high. Valuations, the sky, high stock price. But a lot of people in general just go, well, the stock market’s really high right now. I’m gonna wait till it goes down. Right. You hear that all the time from new investors. [00:10:52] Joe: What do you say to that? [00:10:53] Brian: Yeah, it’s very tempting, right? Because if you look back at any chart that shows what the Dow has done with the Nasdaq has done with the s and p 500 does, it’s so easy you just buy at the bottom and you sell at the top. What that misses out on is what it is like to actually live through moment by moment, uh, during that period, and the uncertainty of what’s about to happen ahead of you. [00:11:15] Brian: So it is extremely tempting for people to try and time the market, especially when you’re here. The stock market’s at all time high. Therefore, I’m gonna wait until the next crash. The problem is the stock market could be at an all time high, and it might be. In 1991 and the stock market’s gonna go up for another nine years, or it could be 2007 and the next 18 months are going to be brutal. [00:11:34] Brian: So you are trying to time the market and what you’re really trying to do is time the emotions of the collective bit of, of other investors. I don’t know what my emotions gonna be half an hour from now. How could I possibly tell the emotions of the entire gamut of investors out there? So just dollar cost average into index funds and take that and play it out of it. [00:11:53] OG: Well, and the problem, Brian, is that you can talk a big game. Not you, you, but like the The investor group. Yeah, yeah. The investor can talk a big game, but I guarantee having lived through these things. I didn’t get a lot of phone calls on March 23rd, 2020 going, Hey, I know the market’s down 34%. I, uh, got a HELOC on my house so I can get more money in right now. [00:12:14] OG: Or, I know margin’s a bad idea, but the market’s really, really, really down, so I wanna leverage the crap outta my portfolio and buy more. Or in March, on March 9th, 2009, the s and p was, yeah, roughly down about 57%. There weren’t a lot of people clamoring at the doors when we opened up that day to go, I can’t wait to get in at the s and p’s at 600. [00:12:34] OG: It always looks great in the rear view mirror. You go, oh, I would’ve done that. No, you wouldn’t have. Nobody does. And if you do, you tiptoe into it. I’ve never met somebody who has like literally done the, I’m gonna back the truck up type of execution because in that moment, in that moment of March of Covid, I’m sure like everybody else, I was thinking, Hey, we’re down 30%. [00:12:54] OG: That sucks. But I can see a path to minus 50. We’re down 30%, 17 days. I don’t know what the next 17 days are gonna look like down another 30 from here. Who knows? Like it could be. Even if I wanted to time it, even if I had the best intentions at that moment, I’ll be like, well, it’s only, it’s probably gonna go down more. [00:13:12] OG: So you’re right. Just pick a plan and just start putting money in and don’t ever think about it for the next 40 years and you’ll be a go zillionaire. [00:13:20] Doug: I tell Joe’s mom to back that dump truck up all the time. [00:13:25] Joe: No, God, no. Stop it. Paula, let’s move on so we can forget that. I wanna ask about short-term results then if you, you know, taking what Brian and what OG just said into account Mm-Hmm. [00:13:38] Joe: When you’re buying in your personal account, right? You’re putting money into the market. Do you just not, not watch it for the first year? Like, what do you do when, you know, because I remember back when I was a financial planner, I’d have, I’d have clients and we’d buy something, you know, and especially if it was their first time, you know what happens? [00:13:56] Joe: They watch that every single day, and then they would come into my office six months later and they go, we, we, we’ve lost 10% of our money. I thought this was a good thing. I’m like, well, right. Yeah, it is. But six months is not like, how do you guard against looking at your short-term results? [00:14:11] Paula: The best thing to do is to intentionally lock yourself out of your account. [00:14:14] Paula: If you can manage it, set up, put it in an automation. Exactly. Set up some type of an automation so that you’re automatically, uh, investing every month. And then forget the password. Lock yourself out of your account. Block the website from yourself, right? Create the guardrails, parental control guardrails on there so that you cannot check your own balances and let yourself back into the account once a year. [00:14:39] Joe: Brian, what Paula assumes though is that you have the right investments. I know what some people think, they’re like, well, uh, I think I might be in the wrong thing. Like, how do you guard against being in the wrong thing for your goal versus knowing, having the confidence of going, I can lock myself outta my account and I know this is the place I need to be. [00:14:59] Brian: I’ve never had the confidence to lock myself out of my account and do what Paula is suggesting. But one thing I do suggest people do delete all apps from your phone that show stock prices because that is something that is extremely easy to do. I hate that the Apple, uh, iPhones come with that automatic stock apps on there. [00:15:16] Brian: I just move that to, I don’t know if you can delete it. I just put that as far back as I can. Yeah. Being tempted to look at stock prices, especially when you’re first just getting started, is so extremely high. But investing should not be exciting. Investing should be boring. So if you find yourself getting really charged up by looking at day to day price movements or what’s happening with the stock market on every, any given day, you’re just tempting yourself to trade. [00:15:39] Brian: So if you ask me, how do you lose weight? The answer is get the candy and the ice cream out of your house. Same thing with stocks. Do you wanna do better with stocks? Get the apps that show you stock prices off your phone. [00:15:49] Joe: Number two on this list, ’cause she’s singing off your song sheet here, Brian, I’ll stick with you. [00:15:54] Joe: She says, we’re not here to impress you. I love this. 50-year-old women we’re low on estrogen, which is the quote, I care what you think about me hormone. My investment portfolio is appropriate for my family and backed by years of data. We primarily use the following funds. US large mid cap stocks uses the Fidelity Total Market Index for US small caps, uses the Fidelity Small Cap Index, international, fidelity International Index Bonds, US Bond Index, and for re the Fidelity Real Estate Index. [00:16:22] Joe: We also own a single family rental. And then she says, if you think this portfolio is boring, you’re right. But I didn’t ask for your opinion. What does she mean there, Brian? Where do people get in the weeds with this one? [00:16:32] Brian: I love this. This is someone that has mastered the art of avoiding fomo. Uh, this investor has no worries about what you are doing with your money or what your opinion are of what she’s doing with hers. [00:16:43] Brian: She has no fomo. If you’re saying, I bought shares of Nvidia, or I bought shares of Bitcoin, or I’m investing in the next new thing, uh, she has set up a plan for herself. It’s boring. She knows what it is. She’s comfortable with it and it works for her. So this is the kind of mindset that more investors should adopt. [00:16:58] Joe: But that’s so hard, Paula. I mean, let’s say hypothetically that you heard about this brand new truck company called Rivian, and you were like all excited about that truck company and you went and backed the truck up, bought a bunch of shares because people around you were buying shares. [00:17:14] Paula: I was wondering why Neighbor Doug was shaking his head the moment that you said truck. [00:17:18] Paula: I, [00:17:19] Joe: Hey, you go after mom. I’m coming back. [00:17:24] Paula: I’m sorry, I got distracted by back the truck up. What was the, what was the question? [00:17:29] Joe: You, it’s so easy though, right? I mean, Rivian hot, new company, new truck, looks like it’s gonna be a great thing. You buy the stock and well, uh, Doug, how’s that coming for you? [00:17:39] Doug: Oh, I, uh, tripled my money in the first like, week of that. [00:17:43] Doug: And then that’s where my story ends. I stopped looking after that. Like, I’m good. He lost the password. Like we said. I did, I changed that password. Right? [00:17:55] Joe: But Paula, how do you, how do you avoid that? ’cause there’s always a new company, right? There’s always a hot new thing. You and I for afford anything this morning. [00:18:01] Joe: Somebody talking about ai. Mm-Hmm. Somebody listening to that episode might go, oh, I’m gonna invest in a bunch of AI companies now. [00:18:07] Paula: So what I uh, would recommend is keep a very small portion of your portfolio, 5% or less that you dedicate towards fun stuff. That little sliver of your portfolio is where you can take some wild bets, have some fun. [00:18:23] Paula: By virtue of keeping it to only 5%, you get to scratch that itch while keeping it contained. It’s sort of like with food, you try to stick to a certain meal plan or you try to stick to a certain like, uh, method of eating for six days a week, but then you’ve got one day a week where you can indulge. It’s the same concept. [00:18:45] Joe: Oh gee, you like that? Have your fun, but sandbox it. [00:18:48] OG: I think that’s fine. I think where people make mistakes on this is replenishing the sandbox. We build portfolios for clients. I think all [00:18:56] Joe: those fun. So I just go put more in it. [00:18:57] OG: Yeah, just gonna go and do it again. So, you know, we build portfolios for clients and sometimes that happens, right? [00:19:02] OG: They say like, I want to do this thing, or I have a friend who works at this company and I wanna be involved in that. And it’s like, all right, well pick a budget. Like Paula said, 5%, 10%, whatever your number is, that you’re okay with the dollar amount going away. Let’s put it in a separate account. That one you can have the passwords for and trade your heart’s content. [00:19:21] OG: But if it goes to zero, my, I have two rules for this. If it goes to zero, you’re done. Right? Like that was the experiment that you tried, thankfully, with a low amount of your money, and prove the point. If you happen to be right, number one, you don’t get to say, I told you so, because sometimes that stuff happens. [00:19:37] OG: And secondly, if it’s a meaningful amount, right? You invest $10,000 in. An IPO and it, all of a sudden it’s worth a hundred thousand dollars or $500,000. Some crazy number. You should probably talk about what your plan is for that. Also. Now, I’ll be honest, I’ve never had anybody have that happen to them, which ought to tell you everything you need to know. [00:19:56] OG: Yeah. That again, that doesn’t mean it’s not going to because there’s lots of companies out there, but, but it’s very hard, you know, especially with like social media and stuff like that, people post things all the time of like, look at how great I did with this. You don’t see a lot of the, here’s the things I screwed up. [00:20:12] OG: You only see here are the wins. And like I had to tell my kids the other day, just ’cause it’s on the internet doesn’t mean somebody didn’t Photoshop it. Like you can totally take a statement and change all the numbers around and make it, it look like it’s a shut, a 10 x thing. What’s the internet thing? [00:20:26] Joe: Somebody would do that. [00:20:27] OG: I [00:20:28] Joe: mean, I don’t know why. I don’t know what, what, what it gets you, but I need the approval of strangers, og. That’s what I need in my life. If, if more strangers love me, I. That’d be great. Now, Brian, number three is interesting because she writes, we have other priorities. She says, I’m the first to say I live a life of abundance, family, friendship, dogs, a garden hockey rink in the backyard. [00:20:47] Joe: Plenty of hobbies have nothing to do with finance. I don’t have the time or inclination to do dumb stuff like day trade or pick individual stocks. And she then shares her allocation, which frankly we don’t like, but then I don’t like anyway. But she says, I rebalance every six months or when our total allocations outta whack by 5% or more. [00:21:04] Joe: The research on optimal rebalancing strategies agree with me if you still think I’m wrong, reread number two, which is I don’t care. But I think the bigger point she makes is around this lifestyle thing. We, uh, uh, have had several conversations with this good friend, Phil Town, rule One investing, right? He picks individual stocks. [00:21:23] Joe: Brian something she calls stupid. He does it very, very well. He is public about his track record, but he will tell you that he spends less than 15 minutes a week actually on his portfolio. You’re another guy like Phil who is known for investing and teaching people how to invest. I think people think it’s time intensive. [00:21:46] Joe: How much time do you spend on your portfolio on a weekly basis? [00:21:50] Brian: That’s hard to say because when I was first learning how to invest, it was something that I was interested in. Uh, the author of this article basically says, I’m not interested in learning how to pick stocks. I’m not interested in learning how to day trade, to which I say fantastic. [00:22:03] Brian: 99% of people are just not interested in doing the work necessary to learn how to analyze a business. That’s fine. That makes you normal. There’s no need to worry about buying individual stocks. I just so happen to be in that weird 1% of people that actually enjoys reading SEC filings, that actually enjoys listening to conference. [00:22:22] Brian: Call. So for someone that’s a good Friday night with Brian, I bet there’s nothing like it, man. A Tesla earnings conference call way better than a Marvel movie. That’s right. But uh, [00:22:29] Joe: you turn on some Barry White, take out the SEC filing and it’s a great night. Pour yourself a glass of wine. It sounds like [00:22:34] Brian: a wonderful night to me. [00:22:35] Brian: Yeah, absolutely. But I’m the type of person that enjoys doing that level of, of research. I’m the type of person that enjoys everything about the investing process. If you don’t enjoy the investing process, then you are literally spending time doing something you don’t like. In all likelihood, you’re doing so at least in the beginning to get suboptimal returns. [00:22:54] Brian: That sounds like a terrible way to invest your time. But to answer your question, nowadays, my portfolio has been built up over the last 15 or so years, and I’ve, I am a very infrequent trader. I probably log into my brokerage account five or six times per year, and I make changes once or twice. So it does not demand a huge amount of my time. [00:23:13] Brian: But the way that I’ve set my portfolio up is essentially I built a hand picked set of index funds, and I’m just gonna let, for the most part, the companies that I’ve picked, right. Five or six times a year. Is it? So on a weekly basis it takes up a minimal amount of my time. Yeah. It’d be in the 15 to 20 minutes time period. [00:23:28] Brian: Nothing. Yeah. So like Phil, I’ve been doing this long enough that I don’t spend a lot of mental energy thinking about my portfolio. So it’s not taxing. But in the beginning when I was learning how to do this and setting up my style, it was many, many hours a week. And now you’re just working the system. [00:23:42] Brian: Now I’m just working the system. You got it. [00:23:44] Joe: Yeah. Coming up in the second half of this discussion, we’re gonna talk about how she doesn’t suffer fools gladly. I can’t wait to hear about that. ’cause there’s a lot of fool, I don’t know if you guys know this, but there might be a fool or two on the internet. [00:23:55] Joe: And not second guessing yourself, which I think is an important part of this discussion. But at the halfway point of every Friday, Stacking Benjamin Show, we have a trivia competition between our three contributors, og, Paula, and my mom who never plays. She doesn’t like walking down the stairs. So Brian, you’re helping mom today, and that means good news and bad news for you, man. [00:24:16] Joe: Would you like the good news first or the bad news? Gimme the bad news. Well, OG had a three point day last week to give him nine points, and you then are tied with Paula for second with six. So I don’t know if that’s second or last. I think Paula is more comfortable calling it last ’cause that’s where she’s felt comfortable a lot in this area. [00:24:41] Joe: But because Paula has been last, that means that, uh oh, G’s gonna guess first. You’ll guess second. Brian and Paula will guess third. All right, sounds good. We need though to know what the question is. And Doug, when you were talking about wieners earlier, maybe there’s some, uh, I don’t know. Let’s see what the trivia’s all about. [00:24:57] Joe: Foreshadowing. [00:24:58] Doug: Mm. Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. July 4th is next week. And you know what that means? I’ll be making my famous spiked hotdog water again. Ugh. Last year it went so fast I didn’t even get to watch anyone enjoy it. I mean, it practically disappeared the second I put it in the refrigerator. [00:25:16] Doug: I better make two batches this year. Speaking of things that are distinctly American, on this day in 2005, architect David Childs revealed his design for what was first called the Freedom Tower, now known as One World Trade. I wonder if he built like a tiny version of it for the presentation. You know, like you see architects do in the movies. [00:25:36] Doug: I always wondered what they do with those things when they’re done with ’em. Bet they donate ’em to a local ant farm. How cool would it be if you’re an ant and that just shows up in your neighborhood for free? How awesome to live in a skyscraper. Take the penthouse right out, right off the bat. Anyway, today’s trivia question is what is the total height of the one world trade building, including the antenna? [00:25:58] Doug: I’ll be back right after I finish boiling all these hot dogs. I got a Costco 57 down 43 to go. [00:26:08] Joe: I think they might have been already boiled when you bought ’em for a buck 50 each Doug, but to each his own. Yeah. What am I gonna do with all these soda cups I got? Oh, oh, oh gee. You are First up, man. The, uh, one world trade, including the antenna. [00:26:21] Joe: How tall is that building? [00:26:23] OG: Could you pick a question that’s more Paula centered than how tall is the building out your window, Paula? [00:26:30] Paula: You know, I was going to say it’s literally like a six minute walk. And if I, I’m of course in a padded room as we established earlier, but if I were to just step outside of this room, I would be able to see it could eyeball it just kinda, [00:26:43] OG: you know, kinda do one of these things. [00:26:46] Paula: Exactly. [00:26:46] OG: You know? Uh, I have absolutely no idea. I don’t even know, like, oh, see, [00:26:52] Joe: we thought Doug that he would know this one in particular, right after [00:26:54] OG: that. Yes. [00:26:55] Doug: We designed this question around you, og We totally designed it around you. [00:27:00] OG: How, what, what do I know about the can’t tell you? World Trade Center. [00:27:03] OG: Okay. Okay. Um, let’s see here it is. Um, uh, a story is usually like what, 10 feet, give or take, like a two story buildings, 20 feet, three story building. So how many stories is that? They also have another big building in like Central Park or something. Right? Like a big residential building that’s like this giant monolith, [00:27:30] Paula: yeah. [00:27:30] Paula: Yeah, they do on Billionaire Row. [00:27:32] OG: Taller or shorter than that. I feel like there’s probably a hundred to some odd floors. The, the Sears Tower. Is that the one that’s in Chicago? I feel like there’s a hundred, a hundred, uh, floors there. It’s a, that amazing. The [00:27:48] Doug: Willits now it’s [00:27:49] OG: the Wills. Uh, [00:27:51] Doug: no it’s not, it isn’t the Willits anymore. [00:27:53] Doug: It’s always the Sears Tower. I don’t care what name they slap on the front door. [00:27:57] Joe: Yeah, just like, we’re not saying VRBO ever. Yeah. Yeah. BRBO. Yep. [00:28:04] OG: Oh, could there be some symbio, some biology in there too? I’m gonna say 2001 feet that just popped in my head. [00:28:11] Joe: 2001. [00:28:13] OG: It’s, it’s gonna be too high, I think. But that would be some sort of symbolism. [00:28:17] OG: Right. [00:28:18] Joe: Brian, what do you think about that one? [00:28:20] Brian: Uh, do I think about his guess or do I think about my guess? Well, his guess You think it’s too high? He thinks it might be too high. That would be well over a quarter mile in the air, so I’m thinking that’s a little optimistic. [00:28:31] bit: Okay. [00:28:32] Brian: And, uh, I’m gonna say 1,244 feet. [00:28:37] Joe: Do [00:28:37] Brian: you wanna [00:28:38] Joe: dissect that for 45 minutes like OG did? [00:28:42] Brian: Well, based on the Willett Tower, uh, I think that’s a, uh, I roughly a hundred stories. I don’t think I, I don’t know if it’s as tall as the original towers were, but those are, I think were 110, somewhere around there, so I’m thinking something like that. [00:28:57] Brian: But it has a big tower on the top, so I added a, you know, a hundred feet for that. Yeah. [00:29:01] Joe: So we got, uh, a symbolic 2001 from OG for, to, I guess represent nine 11 the space then. Oh, sorry. Yeah, that’s right. And then, uh, Brian has m Mom a 1,244. Paula, where are you going with this one? [00:29:16] Paula: Well, when I consider the height of the tall buildings in Kuala Lumpur and contrast that with the Shanghai Tower, and this one time in Dubuque, [00:29:25] Doug: Iowa, I went into a department store. [00:29:30] Paula: Uh, I, I think Brian’s is probably correct. So my only decision is do I take the over or the under [00:29:40] Joe: For people not enjoying the video of this, Brian is, uh, highly suggesting she go lower, [00:29:44] Paula: which then poses the question. Is he suggesting that, I guess lower because he is trying to help or is he suggesting that I guess lower because he’s trying to throw me off course. Definitely one of those two. Yeah, that dude looks shifty. [00:29:56] Paula: I would not, [00:29:57] Doug: would not think about the helpful side. [00:30:00] Paula: Alright, I, uh, I will go. Over. That was actually my initial gut was to go over. But then I’ve, as I’ve learned through playing these, my initial gut is always wrong, but I’ll take the over, over, do the opposite then. That’s right. I’ll take the over 1,245. [00:30:20] Joe: 1 2 4 5 is Paula’s answer. [00:30:22] Joe: So we’re all locked in. We’re gonna find out who the winner is, but first we’ve got a couple more great sponsors and then the rest of the show’s ad free. og, you kicked this off at 2001 feet and uh, everybody thought you were way too high, apparently. What do you think? [00:30:41] OG: Well, I also believe that the stories are 10 feet. [00:30:44] OG: I do, I think I remember the World Trade Center being somewhere in the 110 story range, maybe one 20. Based on that, that would mean either a, it’s 200 stories or 200, you know, whatever levels, or it’s a giant ass tower, like antenna on the top. So I think I’m way off. I think Brian or Paul has got this one. [00:31:04] OG: I think it’s, I think it’s Brian, you were motioning down range. [00:31:08] Joe: You were 1,244 feet and you were motioning down to Paula. Were you trying to throw her off and she saw through it or were you uh, really thinking the answer was down? [00:31:16] Brian: Believe it or not, I was actually trying to help her. My gut feel is that, uh, the tower, uh, I accounted for the tower spike being like a hundred and something feet. [00:31:25] Brian: I figure it’s roughly a hundred stories, which would be about a thousand. So 240 seems high to me for there, but you know, I went with it. So I was actually trying to help her. [00:31:34] Joe: Aw. Paul, do you feel bad now for being so damn cynical about Mr. Ferdi? [00:31:38] Paula: It’s just game theory. I have to consider all options. It’s, yeah, that’s nothing personal. [00:31:43] Joe: And again, Paul over game it, which has never happened before on these trivia contest. Right. Well, let’s see who’s got the, well, we know who has the answer. Doug’s got the answer. Who’s bringing home the win Doug. I got all the answers. [00:31:54] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m effluent. Mixologist and guy who invests in 50-year-old women. [00:32:01] Doug: Know what I’m [00:32:01] bit: saying? [00:32:02] Doug: No. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. No, someone needs to open a hot dog factory. That also makes fun. Somehow I got a hundred hot dogs, but 96 bun. Luckily, I happen to enjoy eating loose wieners the same way. Bugs Bunny eat carrots. No raw right outta my bare hands. Nope. But I’ve come to understand that most people like theirs in buns. [00:32:23] Doug: But why were you saying no so many times? No, no [00:32:25] Joe: reason. Just keep going. Okay. [00:32:27] Doug: Today’s trivia question is what is the total height of the One World Trade Building? The answer opened on November 3rd, 2014. One World Trade Center is now the tallest building in the United States, not the billionaire one. [00:32:40] Doug: Mm-Hmm. In a nod to the Declaration of Independence, the building itself stands at 1,776 feet tall. That’s the part we thought you were gonna know for sure, og. But the total height, including the antenna, is a little bit taller. OG was over by 209. Brian mom was under by 5 48 because one World Trade Center is actually 1,792. [00:33:06] Doug: Beautifully reflective feet tall, which means astoundingly. Paula is our winner. Whoa. Well done. [00:33:14] OG: Do your math again. Paula’s not our [00:33:16] Doug: winner. I know, I know, but I just kinda wanted to give her one once in a while. I mean, damn. Hanging out way down there. Sorry. I like how she was gonna let you do it too, [00:33:28] Paula: boy. I mean, I was like, okay, 1770. [00:33:31] Paula: I was like, that seems pretty close to 2001. But yeah, [00:33:36] OG: I was stupid og so I was right on the symbology part. Is that right? I just, uh, the wrong, [00:33:43] Joe: and the way we tried to mess with OG was we thought you were gonna go first and say 1776 and that’s why we added the antenna. [00:33:49] OG: Yep. [00:33:49] Joe: And ah, you went 2001 instead. So nice job though, everybody. [00:33:54] Joe: Good work. I [00:33:55] OG: knew it. I knew it. I was just kidding. I just psyched everybody out. Oh, he’s [00:33:58] Doug: becoming like the Yankees. He’s like the evil empire that you hate to see win. And he’s up by four. Brian, [00:34:04] Joe: how could you let that happen? [00:34:05] Brian: Unbelievable. Apparently I was pretty close on the stories. 104 stories. But the stories in this building are apparently like 17 feet tall, apparently way off on that. [00:34:13] Brian: Yeah. [00:34:13] Joe: Crown molding on every single one. I don’t know. [00:34:16] Brian: Yeah. [00:34:17] Joe: Uh, back to our piece in the second half of today, show second half is brought to you by deposit accounts.com when you go to deposit accounts by LendingTree. You’ll find that brick and mortar bank that you’ve been, uh, doing all your banking at, not best in class. [00:34:30] Joe: When you take a look@depositaccounts.com, you’ll find that well, and we just did this piece just a couple weeks ago about how important it is here. While interest rates are still higher than they were to get your emergency fund running, national average on a savings account right now, 0.52. 4.97. If you’re in the top 1%, huge difference between being in the top 1% of savings accounts and the national average. [00:34:54] Joe: Go to deposit accounts.com where you can compare Ditch Witch and save. Alright, let’s dive into the second half of the show on investing like a 50-year-old woman. We got a couple more pieces here. Number four here, Paula, we do not suffer fools gladly. Mm. She says a male colleague once promised to share with me his quote, curriculum for teaching women to breastfeed. [00:35:16] Joe: Oh God, what could go wrong there? Best episode ever. Despite the fact I’ve spent more of my life breastfeeding than he spent in medical school. Not financial, obviously, but I added him to the gallery of people who tried to give me unsolicited, unwarranted and incorrect advice. Obviously we get that. Paula, when it comes to financial advice, right? [00:35:38] Joe: I mean, there’s fools all over the internet. Why are we looking at TikTok for our financial advice? [00:35:44] Paula: You know, one of the, uh, best pieces of advice that I heard once. Someone said, don’t take advice from anyone who doesn’t have the results that you want. And that’s domain specific. So there might be somebody who has results that you want in the world of finance, and you would take financial advice from them, but you wouldn’t necessarily take health advice from them. [00:36:05] Paula: And vice versa with regard to not suffering fools. And with regard to the cacophony of terrible advice that’s out there, and not just on the internet, but around the water cooler at the bar, like in casual conversation, there are a lot of uninformed people who speak with overconfidence, unjustified, unearned confidence. [00:36:29] Paula: And the way to be able to cut through that is to just ask yourself a very basic question. Do they have the results that I want? Number one. Number two, if so, have they sustained those results for a prolonged period of time? Those two questions can help identify who is actually worth listening to and who’s not. [00:36:49] Paula: And she has a, a sentence here at the very end of, uh, what she wrote, uh, very end of point number four, about not suffering fools that I thought was brilliant, where she says, I no longer mistake overconfidence for competence. Mm. And neither [00:37:04] Joe: should you. Yeah, yeah. Brian, you know, you’re a guy online. I see you online giving financial advice all the time. [00:37:12] Joe: How do you distinguish from people that are the people you might wanna follow? Like maybe a Brian Aldi and, uh, some of the other crazy advice you get there, like, uh, take your 401k, rip it all out, and start flipping houses with that money, which is one I saw a few weeks ago. Is that what I should start doing? [00:37:29] Joe: I haven’t tried that strategy yet. Is that, is that, is that a good [00:37:31] Brian: idea? Maybe not Only [00:37:33] OG: after you buy the course first, Brian. Right, right. [00:37:35] Brian: Exactly. Well, in that case, here’s my credit card. Uh, yeah, I, I totally agree. Everything with Paul just said, you’ll have to figure out does the person you’re listening to actually have the result that you are after? [00:37:47] Brian: And for me, when it comes to financial advice, I don’t listen to anybody give it financial advice until they have proven to me that they have. Taking their advice through the bear market in whatever period that they are talking about. And is everybody looks like a genius in a bull market. Everybody looks like a crypto genius. [00:38:02] Brian: When Bitcoin was going straight up, how did those people act during the bear, the recent bear market, when it fell peak to trough, like 70%. Or conversely, if you’re in my space, if you’re a individual stock investor, did you survive 2022 and 2023 when so many stocks that were just straight up in 2020 and 2021, everyone was bragging about their results online. [00:38:22] Brian: Do those, are those people still around now that we’ve seen the opposite side of that and so much money has flown out or that interest rates have normalized? So to me, you have to prove that you had longevity in the industry and survived at least one bear market before. I’ll take anything you have to say seriously. [00:38:36] Joe: But do you have some clues for us to look at the difference between what this piece said and Paul was talking about, between overconfidence and bravado, you see online and competence. Like what are some clues for us? If I’m online and I am, you know, I’m on Twitter X or I’m on Instagram or wherever, like how can I start to Sherlock Holmes between who’s who? [00:38:56] Brian: Yeah. To me, the best people that, uh, are the best communicators talk in simple language and they explain things as simply as possible. You should be able to watch some of their content, read some of their content, and understand everything that they’re talking about, even if you’re not an expert on that field. [00:39:10] Brian: But if they bring in terms that you’ve ever heard of or they try and talk about really complex strategies that you should follow, that to me is a, is a red flag. [00:39:17] Joe: Red flag number one. Oh gee, I know you don’t spend a ton of time online specifically for that reason, but you’re certainly, you’ve been in the financial planning game a long time, right? [00:39:26] Joe: You hear people, Hey, uh, I’m gonna use this person. ’cause they don’t charge any fees. That’s, that’s the one that I love. I don’t charge They don’t charge any fees. No, they’re doing it because they, because they just like people. [00:39:37] OG: Yeah. You remember the old days of like, uh, the closing techniques. Remember those? [00:39:43] OG: Oh, God. At, uh, the sales managers at, uh, at our former place would, would teach. My favorite one for that was, so you go through the whole thing. So like, okay, you’re gonna, you’re gonna build a financial plan and you’re gonna manage the investments, and you’re gonna help me pick out all this stuff, dah. And they go, yeah, yeah. [00:39:56] OG: They’re gonna do, they’re all gonna do, and it doesn’t cost any, they’re all gonna do all of that for less than the cost of this marker. And you’d put it like right down in the center of the table. Uh, well, uh, you know, I like what Brian said about thinking about advice and how long that’s been going on. I, I, for me, I think about congruency for whatever reason, like I can. [00:40:21] OG: Is, is, is it a BS meter? I, I’m not sure exactly what it is here, but for some reason I’ve been blessed with the congruency meter, I guess. And I can listen to somebody or, you know, listen to a podcast, whether it’s about money or it’s about something else. And then, you know, two years later hear another podcast by that same person. [00:40:39] OG: And it’s a completely different strategy or different story altogether. That doesn’t mean that you can’t change your mind or learn new things and have a different approach. I, I’m thinking about this person that was on YouTube done, did a bunch of YouTube shorts and I despised the one person YouTube thing where they like, pretend they’re. [00:40:56] OG: Two different people. Like, oh, can I get a table for a restaurant? Oh, of course. You love that. Oh my. I totally [00:41:01] Paula: love it. That’s like one of my favorite styles of video. Yeah. First [00:41:04] Joe: Robin Hood, and now the worst videos online. Yeah. [00:41:06] OG: Well, anyways, this one guy used to do differences between millionaires and billionaires or whatever, you know, is entertaining. [00:41:13] OG: But for some reason he’s pivoted a thousand percent into schlepping annuities. Like, like, it just like literally went, you, you were talking about 4 0 1 Ks and I was thinking, oh, are you gonna talk about this guy who just says, you know, you should never do a 401k, you just put all your money in annuities. [00:41:26] OG: ’cause index annuities never go down. They never worked at all. Like, so to me, I just found like this incongruency there that, yeah, I can never, I can’t watch his stuff anymore because it’s just, it’s like whatever’s hot today, you know what I mean? Like if you’re a real estate investor, Paul is a real estate investor. [00:41:42] OG: Paul, you know so much about real estate. You haven’t changed your tune on that. You know what I mean? Mm-Hmm. Like, that’s your, that’s your expertise and that’s what you, you’re not like, well, real estate was great during, you know, the 20 teens, but now it sucks. And let me tell you about Ethereum and how great it is. [00:41:57] OG: You know, it’s like, you know, it’s like all of a sudden you, the, the whole thing is a different brain. You know what I mean? Like, that would be really offput for somebody that’s followed your stuff for a long time. Now, if I wanted to learn about whole life insurance, I probably don’t do it with Paula Pan. [00:42:11] OG: Like, that’s okay. That’s not your thing. Right. There’s probably somebody who does that. Mm-Hmm. But, um, one of the greatest compliments I think that I got from the show some years ago was I was having a conversation with somebody after the show. He had asked a question, you know, I answered it and he just started laughing and I said, what? [00:42:27] OG: I don’t, I wasn’t particularly funny. What was funny about that? He says, I literally called into the show three years ago, asked the exact same question, and I could almost play your answer and it would be the same tone and tempo of your answer today, as it was when you answered it on the show three years ago. [00:42:43] OG: I said, my gosh, I didn’t even know you did that. And to me it seemed like if you just always tell the truth or you always come from a position of like, here’s what I believe in, then you never have to try to remember what the hell you said last time, you know, because it’s always kind of the same stuff. [00:42:58] OG: Was that [00:42:58] Doug: guy trying to get another free T-shirt? Is that why he asked the question again? I serious. [00:43:01] OG: Seem like it, right? I think congruency is the biggest thing here when it comes to. Online counsel of any kind. [00:43:07] Joe: I love the phrase that, you know, if the stuff leads with process, it may be worth listening to if it begins with product, like there’s a product that they really like and it starts there. [00:43:17] Joe: I think that’s also a big red flag. [00:43:19] OG: Yeah. It tells you a lot about what’s on their top of mind, right? Yeah. [00:43:23] Joe: You, you know what’s funny, Paula, is that a lot of the time this comes down to a judgment call, and number five on this list of hers is we trust our own judgment. She says, I hear a lot of younger women talk about pressures they feel to make career money moves that involve giving up their autonomy. [00:43:37] Joe: Spouse that won’t share oversight of their finances, or who wants to make a wackadoodle investment or an employer wants to work more hours or outside the scope of their practice. My answer to them is always the same. In my 51 years, I’ve never not once been glad I substituted someone else’s judgment for my own Mm-Hmm. [00:43:52] Joe: Do you ever, do you ever feel like your judgment is flawed or should your judgment be the final arbiter like it is number five here for her? [00:43:59] Paula: Well, I think that. Good judgment involves listening to a wide variety of perspectives and then synthesizing in your own mind, synthesizing all of those perspectives together, deciding which elements to keep and which elements to discard, and then exercising your own judgment. [00:44:18] Paula: But in order to do that, you need confidence in your own judgment. And what she, I think is talking about in this final point is that so much of the time, young women do not have confidence. You know, they receive social messaging that really chips away at their confidence, and it takes decades, literally decades, to be able to unlearn that and to be able to trust themselves. [00:44:42] Paula: You know, as she highlights, one of the advantages of growing older, especially as a woman, is you do grow more confident in your own skin because you realize that the people who were speaking to you authoritatively, or the people who are speaking to you confidently, which. You once mistook for competence was actually just other people speaking authoritatively or confidently that wasn’t an indicator that they were actually more competent and oftentimes they were not. [00:45:10] Paula: And you see example after example of that over and over and you see example after example of times that you’ve been burned by virtue of giving up your own autonomy. And slowly after enough of those lessons, you’re, you do start to trust yourself more, [00:45:24] Joe: sadly. Well, I think that you’re right on with young women. [00:45:27] Joe: Uh, young men have issues too. You look at more young women go to college now than men. Women tend to have higher grade point averages than men do. And you see the lack of confidence in young men too is difficult. Brian, in your journey there was definitely, probably, I mean, I don’t know how confident you were outta high school. [00:45:44] Joe: I wasn’t certainly very confident. How did you gain the confidence to know that, you know what, uh, my judgment’s probably right on this. [00:45:53] Brian: Are you guys familiar with the Dunning Kruger effect, I assume? Mm-Hmm. Which is when you first start out with something, you learn a couple of the basics and your, your confidence in your skills just skyrockets, and then eventually the market smacks you in the face and then your confidence in yourself. [00:46:06] Brian: Absolutely. Plunges to level. Yeah. Crap. I did, no, and then, and then, and then slowly it builds back up. I think what she’s alluding to here is that she has gone through the Dunning Kruger effect, just like I did when I was a new investor. And I think that what she has done is she has proven to herself that her decisions and her investing style works. [00:46:25] Brian: It works for her. An important thing to know about investing is nobody has your interest in heart more than you do. You are responsible for your own money and you care about your wealth more than anybody else in the world, including a financial advisor that you’re paying. So she has clearly proven to herself over a period of decades that she knows what she’s doing. [00:46:45] Brian: I think that has enabled her to have self-confidence that her judgment is correct, but to me, I did not have that same level of confidence at the start. That’s just something I’ve proven to myself over time. [00:46:54] Joe: Well, and that brings up a question then, and maybe I may answer my own question. It seems to me, based on what you’re talking about, you then open yourself up to more experiences more quickly so that you just get through the inevitable failures to build the confidence, I would think. [00:47:07] Brian: Absolutely. Yep. I failed a ton in the beginning and I, I still don’t have everything, uh, uh, figured out. I’ve, I’ve made investments in the last five years that have lost me a bunch of money, but my overall portfolio continues to move in the direction that I want to. So like anything, um, just experience gives you confidence that what you’re doing actually works. [00:47:25] Joe: That’s the last time you’re on the show, man, we had you here ’cause we thought you knew everything. There you go. Who was gonna carry this thing? Brian? Come on [00:47:31] Brian: you guys. How about all that? I didn’t buy shares in Rivian. [00:47:34] Joe: Oh, throw right [00:47:36] OG: across the round table burn. Worst guest we’ve ever had. It’s not the buying that got ’em, it’s the not selling. [00:47:42] OG: That’s what really got it. The buying was actually well timed. The uh, the not selling part was really, well buy and hold poorly. Plant. [00:47:49] Joe: You gotta be right twice when you play that game. You gotta be right on the buy and on the sell. og, which brings up, uh, one more thing here about confidence, which is Brian talked about failing. [00:47:59] Joe: Right? And so many times, I mean, I even find this with board games, people are like, I don’t wanna play a board game ’cause I don’t wanna fail. I don’t wanna look stupid. I don’t wanna, I’m like, anybody can learn a board game. Like you can learn how to play this, this silly game and not Costa Rica. And by the way, who cares? [00:48:13] Joe: What’s, what’s Costa Rica? [00:48:15] Doug: What’s the game that you tried to, to, you sent me to a college class to learn that one time and I. There were sounds like [00:48:22] OG: all of them so far. [00:48:23] Doug: Yeah. Oh God. What was the one we were, it was Clinks house, Puerto Rico Port. Same Costa Rica, Puerto Rico [00:48:32] Joe: the same place. Yeah. Yeah. It’s hot. [00:48:35] Joe: Uh, people live in Puerto Rico. Send your hate mail to Doug. It’s hot@benjamin.com. Jungle. It’s all the same. It’s Caribbean. Nice beaches. Yes, yes. Maybe some coffee, but, but og, you know, how do you get through these inevitable failures? If we’re talking to our younger, not even younger, just beginning stackers sec, we got people in our family, you know, that are in their fifties, maybe starting, how do you work through this Failures? [00:48:58] Joe: Okay. [00:48:59] OG: Well, I think that one of my favorite things from Strategic Coach is when Dan talks about there’s only two outcomes that can happen. You can either win or you can learn, and frankly you can learn from winning also. But if you go into any activity, whatever it happens to be, whether you’re trying to build your business, whether you’re pivoting and you’re trying to make a change in something, or. [00:49:21] OG: You know, something like investing where you’re just trying to figure it out the first time or trying to improve it. If you go into it with the idea that I’m either gonna be successful doing this, or I’m gonna learn something about being successful, one of the two, and then really use that information. [00:49:38] OG: If we look back over history, like where we kind of started this at at the beginning today, you can go online and you can say, what would’ve happened if I would’ve put a hundred dollars every single week into the s and p 500 from the day the market crashed in 2007 till today. Right. You’d have a a gillion dollars. [00:49:56] OG: I, that’s what I’m rounding. I get that. But it would be a lot. And then you can say, well, what happens if I exactly timed it? You can figure that out too. I got literally the high and literally the low every year, and I exactly time my money. It’s not that much different. In fact, sometimes it’s worse. Even if you got the exact right times. [00:50:13] OG: But I can tell you, and there’s a lot of research on this too, if you miss the best five days every year your average goes from being 10% a year to six and it’s just five days. So learn from other people’s, you know, a hundred years of market data when it comes to investing and, and follow the academic science of investing, which is proven to be buy stuff that’s inexpensive, hold it for a really long time. [00:50:40] OG: If you feel like adding a little bit of flavor to your portfolio, you can add things in small companies or companies that have been around a long time. And if you follow that stuff, you’re likely to have a successful outcome if you give yourself enough time, if you’re looking at it every single day. You know, this morning I was feeling pretty confident about our investment. [00:51:00] OG: Portfolio. And then I just look now and I’m like, what the heck? It’s down 2% today. What the heck, what happened? Like I was feeling really good at lunch. Like, I was like, things are great. You know? He [00:51:09] Joe: kept the app open on his phone. Brian, what a mistake. Mistake kept the app open on his phone. [00:51:12] OG: I did. I refreshed it. [00:51:14] OG: That’s the problem. It wasn’t that it was open, was that writers weren’t talking [00:51:17] Joe: about not doing it. OGs out doing it. [00:51:20] OG: You know, [00:51:20] Joe: you wonder why mom hides a cookie jar Doug right there. Today was [00:51:23] OG: my [00:51:23] Joe: day to check, [00:51:24] OG: you know, maybe it was the summer solstice as we record it. So, hey, [00:51:28] Joe: by the way, one last question that I, that I, and I don’t know if anybody else caught this too. [00:51:32] Joe: You, you went through that closing technique where you’re like, and I will do that for the price of this pen. I don’t understand that, uh, that close. [00:51:40] OG: No, I’m saying they would, they would do it for less than the price of this spend. So they’re gonna do all this stuff, right? Oh, yes. For nothing. The, the, the guy that, the guy that’s doing it for free, right? [00:51:49] OG: He’s gonna do this, he’s gonna do this, he’s gonna do this. You do this. Yes. [00:51:51] Joe: And meanwhile, their nose is growing and growing and growing. Like Pinocchio. Yeah. Yeah. ’cause they’re making tons of money. You just don’t see it. It’s [00:51:57] OG: CE circa 1998. [00:51:59] Joe: So bad. I remember the old Ben Franklin clothes. They tried to teach me. [00:52:02] Joe: Remember that one? Oh [00:52:03] OG: yeah. Oh yeah. Yes. [00:52:05] Joe: Brian, what are all the reasons you should? Brent Ben Franklin would think about all the reasons this Ben Franklin used to make a list of all [00:52:09] OG: the good things and all the good things and [00:52:11] Joe: all the bad things. And so let’s do that right now, shall we? Let’s list out all the reasons why we should and all the reasons why we shouldn’t. [00:52:17] Joe: Hmm. And I’ll start off and I’ll put one on the negative. You put without the negative. Then what do you like? And you make sure there’s like 50 of those and three of these, you’re like, well, [00:52:25] OG: well man, frankly would do it. Yes. You know? Ugh. [00:52:28] Joe: I just wanna throw up, press hard three copies. I’m pretty [00:52:30] Doug: sure that’s the clothes you used on me, Joe, [00:52:33] Joe: to buy [00:52:33] Doug: Rivian. [00:52:34] Joe: And you did. I know. You just never sold it. Yeah, I think that’s gonna do it for today. This is a fantastic piece. If you’d like to read the entire piece or send it to a friend along with telling them that they should listen to this wonderful panel that we had today, we’ll have it in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. [00:52:51] Joe: Let’s find out what’s going on, where all of you are. This Pre Independence Day weekend. Oh gee, you getting the fireworks ready? [00:53:00] OG: I don’t do that. I have other people do that. For me, I kinda like all my digits right where they are. So I supervise from the, from the shore and I go more launch, more, [00:53:10] Doug: roll ’em around a [00:53:11] OG: little, [00:53:12] Doug: right? [00:53:12] OG: Yeah. [00:53:13] Doug: You know what? I can’t wait to take over. I don’t know if this will start happening in little towns where you typically are OG and for 4th of July when you’re up at the lake up north. But drone shows. Are freaking amazing. Yeah. These, I’m not kidding. You’re waiting for the joke. I can’t wait for fireworks are boring. [00:53:28] Doug: We’ve seen ’em all. There’s the whole Fort Sumter thing and you know, bombs bursting and then all that stuff. We don’t, it’s, we’re past that. We’re done. I want the drone shows with the 3D Dragons flying around and rocket ships taken off. Did you just say, who cares about patriotism? Give me dragons and, well, it’s time to just rockets upgrade our patriotism. [00:53:48] Doug: You know, how many cool, like patriotic type simps. I’ll use OGs word from earlier. Symbiology. Oh, how much you can, it’s not even a word. How much you can do with, with about 300 drones in the air. Things are awesome. Paula, [00:54:07] Joe: what’s going, I dunno where to go from there. I dunno, [00:54:09] Paula: either. So, tell us [00:54:10] Joe: what’s happening, uh, at Afford Anything right now? [00:54:13] Paula: On the Afford Anything podcast, we have a number of great guests, including Brian K Class. He talks about chaos theory as it applies to your finances, uh, really chaos theory as it applies to life. That’s on Spotify Apple Podcast. It’s on the audio version of the Afford Anything Podcast. Meanwhile, over on the YouTube version. [00:54:34] Paula: Oh, YouTuber. Yeah, exactly. So you know the the Money Guy Show? Yes. We aired an interview with the Money guy that is a YouTube exclusive. So we’ve got kind of a, you know, depending on if you listen via audio or watch via video, we’ve got special stuff just for you. Ooh. Oh, [00:54:54] Joe: so you gotta listen to both? Yeah, yeah. [00:54:57] Joe: Or, or watch one, listen to the other, or [00:54:58] Paula: listen to both to get [00:55:00] Joe: treated with both the Money guy Brian Preston. Never heard of him. No. Wait, who is he? Yeah. What a great guy. Actually, what’s funny, Brian, is that that’s where I met you. Was it a Breakfast with [00:55:11] Brian: Brian [00:55:11] Joe: Preston? [00:55:12] Brian: Mm-Hmm. He’s a great dude. I’ve been listening to his podcast for over a decade, uh, now. [00:55:17] Brian: Such a nice guy. Just great guy. And he just launched a new book, millionaire Mission. Yeah, just, uh, I’ve, I’ve read it. It’s quite good. Great. Great dude. Yeah. [00:55:23] Joe: Fantastic stuff. Brian, thank you so much for joining us again. Every time we get to do this. It’s great. And you and Paula and I were at Craft and Commerce recently. [00:55:31] Joe: Yeah. So, uh, should we talk about that? Should we talk about, you may have an awesome newsletter that our fans might like. [00:55:38] Brian: Sure. My newsletter is called Long-Term Mindset, which is, uh, the name of my, uh, financial Education company, comes out every Wednesday. It’s just like five short pieces about, um, that encourage you to invest with a, a long-term mindset, hence the name of the company. [00:55:52] Brian: So yeah, you can sign right up for that on my website, long-term mindset.co, [00:55:55] Joe: long-term mindset.co. We’ll link to in the show notes as well. And, uh, it is a fantastic read by the way. Your company, does your company have three owners? It [00:56:04] Brian: does. Yeah. Three of us. Yep. And we have very strict hiring criteria for becoming an owner. [00:56:08] Brian: Yeah. Your first name must be Brian. The first name has to be Brian, and you must be a stock market investor. [00:56:13] Joe: I was with your partner, Brian, and you, and we were standing with a foamy beverage in Boise. And uh, the other Brian comes up and uses this last name. And you guys explain to me that you have to call each other by last names because you can’t say Brian. [00:56:28] Brian: That’s right. You get onto this three of us and you just say, Brian, and we’re like, yes. And you have to be more specific than that, so. Absolutely. Yeah. By the way, how beautiful was Boise? What a great town. Oh wow. Yeah. It’s just amazing. So [00:56:39] Joe: gorgeous. I can’t believe I’ve never been there before. Doug, you been there? [00:56:42] Joe: Feels just like California now. [00:56:46] Paula: Oh, Boise is, it’s beautiful. It’s clean. It is beautiful. Everyone is so friendly. Like food’s great. Incredibly friendly. [00:56:52] Brian: Everyone’s good looking. It’s really annoying actually when I think about it. Yeah, it’s, the [00:56:55] Doug: bar is way too high. You weren’t there the day I was there then. [00:56:59] Doug: People weren’t nice when you were there. Doug. No, I made it uglier when I showed up. Oh, there, gotcha. I was, I was the one non-G. Good looking person. [00:57:07] Joe: Yeah, people were nice, friendly. It was, it was an amazing place. You’ve never been to Boise. Time to go. Um, and they’re happy with tons of people to Doug’s point coming in from California. [00:57:16] Joe: Oh, they love it. And, and moving in very, very quickly. All right, I think that’s gonna do it for today. Thanks to everybody for hanging out with us. Next week is our greatest hits week. So guess what? You got us five days next week with some special guests. Like, uh, Mel Robbins is going to, we’re gonna replay Mel’s amazing appearance on Stacking Benjamins, Rachel Robertson, who was in charge of the science unit in Antarctica. [00:57:39] Joe: And imagine having to lead a bunch of people where if they get a fight in a fight, there’s nowhere. To go, like you have to see them over and over and over and over and over. She’s gonna talk about leadership in that type of environment and, uh, well, we got three others that remain a surprise. So we’ll see you back here with new episodes in two weeks. [00:57:56] Joe: But Doug, tell us what should be on our takeaway list today. [00:58:00] Doug: Well, Joe, what’s stacked up on our to-do list for today. First, take some advice from Brian Aldi. Don’t worry about the storms ahead in the market. They’ll help you learn that you are resilient enough to come out stronger on the other side. [00:58:13] Doug: Second, don’t forget what Paula has said. Just like a 50-year-old woman, have the confidence to have some fun with your investing, but you need to do it in a sandbox. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I’m about to go find out on my favorite website. So what’s the biggest to do? I gotta get a five gallon drum so I can keep up with the demand for my spiked hotdog water. [00:58:36] Doug: I got a feeling you’ll be seeing Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug’s famous spiked hotdog water and seven elevens all over the country. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug’s famous spiked hotdog water tm. [00:58:51] Doug: Thanks to Brian Aldi for joining us. You’ll find all of his work at long-term mindset.co. We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. Thanks to Paula Pan for hanging out with us today. You’ll find her fabulous podcast, afford anything wherever you listen to finer. And finally, thanks to OG for joining us today. [00:59:12] Doug: Looking for good financial planning. Help head to Stacking Benjamins dot com slash OG for his calendar. This show is the property of SB podcasts LLC, copyright 2024, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy High. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. [00:59:40] Doug: Come say hello. Oh yeah, and before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show. [01:00:08] OG: What was that? It’s called the Medium Sketch. The Medium Sketch. Yeah. It wasn’t rare and it certainly wasn’t well done.
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