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Hi everybody, welcome back to Healthy, Happy, Wise, Wealthy. I have with us today Al

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Zdenek with Cake Club app. I'm so excited for that.

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We also have our season 2 sponsor. I want to mention

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they also— I'm going to say Mindiii, M-I-N-D-I-I-I,

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4 I's. They are an IT company that's been in business for

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about 15 years in India. They also build apps for businesses.

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So kind of like Al did, he took his wisdom and built an app. They

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can do that for you too. Okay, that's their little intro. So,

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Al, thank you so much for coming on. Um, do you mind if

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I kind of just read a little introduction about you from your LinkedIn? You have

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such a good bio on there. No, please go ahead, and I will tell you

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it's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, thank you so much.

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So, I mean, Al, I mean, your, your LinkedIn bio says, my

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mission is to strive to be a positive, powerful, successful influence in your life

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and an advocate for you to live the life you want to You Want Now:

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Achieve Your Financial Freedom in the Timeframe You Want and for the Future.

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And you've been an entrepreneur and a leader in wealth management industry for more than

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40 years. You're a personal financial specialist, a

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certified public accountant, the author of the best-selling book Master Your Cash Flow:

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The Key to Grow and Retain Wealth, which is in Forbes Books,

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and Master Your Business Cash Flow: Grow the Company You Love, Live the Life You

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Want Now, which is also Forbes Books. And you've founded many businesses.

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So one of these is, is my Traust Sollus Wealth Management. Did I say that

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right? Traust Sollus, but it's close. Okay,

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so that was way back in 1982, uh, you did that and, um,

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you sold that to— it was sold to Mercer Advisors in

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2018. And so you recently co-founded

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Servat. Well, it's called Servat, but, uh, basically it's

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known as Cake Club. And so it's, it's the creator of the Cake Club App

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at cakeclubapp.com and on the Apple

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Store. That's awesome. So we're going to talk about that today,

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but you also founded, uh, Tyrus Pictures, which is a feature

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film production company. That's super fun. Yeah, we did that just

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recently last fall, and, uh, I'm working with an LA attorney in the

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entertainment field and a French, uh, screenwriter, and,

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uh, we're having fun with that. So thank you. And you've been in all kinds

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of publications— Forbes, Yahoo Finance, Fox Business, US World

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News and Report, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, US Today.

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And you've enjoyed, you've also lectured many organizations across the USA. You're on the

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board of directors for the Somerset Medical Center in Somerset, New Jersey,

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the board of directors of New Jersey Society of CPAs, board of trustees

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of the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston.

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And you have an, you are an elected office of

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councilman, the police commissioner of your town. That's in the past, yes. Yes,

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I was, and I was like on the council of Flemington, New Jersey, and I

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was also a police commissioner for about 8 years. Oh my gosh,

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so you have so many interests— writing, traveling, wine, cooking, reading,

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genealogy, appreciation of art, supporting charitable

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causes, an inner city scholarship fund for New York City,

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an enthusiastic mentor, and I didn't know this, you're an

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aspiring concert pianist. That's right. I

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decided to take it up about 8 years ago. It's going to be a long

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route for me. I'm hoping to get to Carnegie Hall, but I think I'm going

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to have to rent the hall. That's awesome. And,

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um, you and your wife live in Miami and Paris, both going back and

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forth. So it's been, and it sounds like in a lot of ways,

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a beautiful life. So I've been very fortunate.

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Thank you. Yeah. So Al, you have done

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wealth management planning for your career

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with people, and one of the main tenets that you

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use is not use a budget but use a spending

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plan. So why is that? Why is that

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better? Well, whenever you say budget to a person,

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they sort of cringe or they, they don't like it. I mean, who

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likes budget? Because it's restrictive. You're, you know, they feel

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restrictive. You're about to tell me what I can't spend. So,

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what we do is I say, well, let's not talk about budgeting. Let's talk about

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a spending plan. Now, all I'm doing is reframing it.

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But the thing is, when you reframe it, you're saying, okay, I want your input.

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You can make the choices for this. I'm not going to tell you what the

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budget is. You're going to make up a spending plan. And so, we get

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people that eventually, you know, they get really involved in this.

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And the thing is, when you do that also, there's a way to also

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approach it because everyone is different. You can have what I call

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a quick and dirty spending plan. Like, just look at the end of the

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month— what came in, what went out, are you positive or not, you're

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satisfied. Fine. If you're negative, you can go back and look at some

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things and maybe have to make adjustments, but it's quick and dirty.

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Because along with being told what to do and restrictive,

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people think it takes too much time and it's boring. So

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if you do it quick and dirty, 5, 10, 15 minutes at the end of

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the month. They'd like that. But a second choice

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of 3 choices is you can do something in between. Pick

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maybe like, uh, 5 or 8 spending categories, like fixed

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expenses— rent, car, whatever— uh,

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other expenses, discretionary expenses, things that I have

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choices, I have control— entertainment, travel,

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whatever. And then just have it go into those 5 or 8 buckets.

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And by the way, try to automate it. Like again, with the Cake Club

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app, if you put in your, uh, if you give us your information, which is

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very secure, uh, it'll go from your checking account or your credit cards, and

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all your spending will go right into these categories.

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So it's all already done for you. So you can look at it at the

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end of the month or during the month and see if you're on, on spending

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plan or not. And then finally, there's a third choice which very

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few people choose. You get QuickBooks, you, you

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record every expense, you have this big report with 30 lines in

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it. The only people that like that are accountants and engineers,

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and their spouses hate it. So we never do it.

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So, so yes, our approach is that. Yeah, that's,

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that seems so wise, um, because yeah, like, other— you don't want every

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day to feel like tax day, you know. So yeah, you know,

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pins in yourself. Oh my God, I have to look at this. Yeah,

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yeah, that makes so much sense. So tell me how the Cake

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Club app— and you can go to cakeclubapp.com

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for the website, and that kind of goes through everything, and then there is an

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app for your phone. How did that come about?

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Well, again, I was in the business for a long time, and I sold my

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firm in 2018, and

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I worked for them a couple years, but then I get out of the business

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and Uh, you know, my mission in the business was to

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always help people make better financial decisions, live the life they

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want along the way, and get to financial freedom in the time frame they wanted.

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Yeah. And so I sold the company and I left the company, but my mission

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didn't end. You know, I found out I still wanted people— I want to contribute

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to people that way. So I started writing articles for LinkedIn,

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uh, and posts or whatever, and got, you know, I, I mentor some

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people. But then this, uh, this young man, his name is

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Amin Boroomand. He's the CEO of Cake Club. He called me

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up one day about a little less than 2 years ago, and he wanted to

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meet in New York City. I, I lived in New York at the time, and,

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uh, we went out for lunch. He was very enthusiastic. He's

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a PhD data scientist, um, and he

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said, what struck me is that by the time I got out of school— because

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he went to, you know, undergrad, graduate, another graduate school

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for his PhD— So, he said, by the time I got done, I get out

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and he says, I don't know how to make any financial decisions. I don't know

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how to even like, do I lease or buy a car? Do I

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lease or buy a house or whatever? And he said, and I found out all

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my other colleagues were the same way. So, he said, there's a lack of

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financial education. So, he read my books, he read my

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articles and he wanted to sit down. He said, Al, I want to start an

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app. I want to create an app. That helps thousands, tens

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of thousands, millions of people, you know, make better

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financial decisions and live the life they want,

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but also have financial freedom in the timeframe they want. So, I

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was impressed with his passion. So, I said, "Well, why don't we do it together?"

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So, we started Cake Club and we made a Cake Club because we

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think that financial decisions should be as easy as a slice of

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cake and maybe have to bake your spending plan. We can use a

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lot of analogies and things that, that around

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baking. We started that and we now have a basic

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financial, we have a basic budgeting app. And part of that app is

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where if you put in your credit card information, not your personal information, just the

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card you have, there's GPS assigned to this so

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that if you go into a store around where your phone

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is, it'll tell you what card to use for the, for the

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best cash rewards or miles or whatever. So it's our way of

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finding cash now immediately for you, right? And, uh,

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we're doing that. And in the future, what we're doing right now, we're intensely

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working, is we're going to have— if you go to the website,

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uh, cakeclubapp.com, you'll notice at the bottom right-hand part

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of the screen, every, every screen, there's a sort of round little icon.

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If you click on that, another little sub, uh, sub-sheet comes

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up and it's, it's Ask Albert, and

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you can type in whatever question you want. We have some sample questions, uh,

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financial questions, and I'll answer you like I would have done it based on my

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books, my articles, and my career. So it's not, it's not just

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this chatbot out there, it's actually our

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AI-owned, uh, AI intelligence that's basically,

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that it's answering the questions as I would. And what we want to do is

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put that on the phone because we think especially with many and generations

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today, if they're out and about somewhere and they have a question, they want to

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be able to have that and not have to go to their laptop. We're doing

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that. We're going to add some things on taxes, some things on investment as we

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go along. And, uh, so, uh, I

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continue my mission. I love that. I— when I, when

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I see the Cake Club app, I think of have your cake and eat it

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too. Have your cake and eat it too. Great, great. Yes.

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Yeah, but it also, you know, it is, it really is when you don't have

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the, the, you know, we aren't, we aren't really in

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our education system really taught good

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financial management. But also then in life, you know, there can be

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big hiccups. And I know you've, you've been very honest

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and as our talks before about, you know, you had a big hiccup too.

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And, and so you've, you lived through some stuff and not

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when you don't have control of your money, that's when it feels

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so, uh, tense and, um, like, am I going to

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survive? And frightening. Yeah. And I've been

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there. You're right. I mean, I know what it's like to have your last dollars

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in the bank. I know what it's like to have mortgage payments that are coming

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up, and I had two kids. And, you know, I, I know it's like to

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almost lose your house. Uh, I was there, and, and I was

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there because Even though I was a CPA and a tax person,

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I would never knew finance. I knew those narrow parts of

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finance. And so I made a lot of cash flow management decisions, uh, that

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were poor, uh, and I almost paid the price for it. But I was

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lucky. Um, I started asking people for help. This one particular

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person, Darrell Cain out of Dallas, he by that time in

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the '80s was probably the most successful CPA financial planning

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company. Flew down to see him. I said, Darryl, I want to know everything you

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know. And now, initially when I saw him, by the way, I wanted just the

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process so I could sell it to my accounting firm. But he said,

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Al, it doesn't work that way. Do you have a

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financial plan? I said, me? Oh, I do my clients'

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tax returns first. I do mine in October. I'll do my plan later. He said,

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no, no, no, no. He said, for you to understand how people feel, you must

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do your plan. He sat down with me to do a plan, and I was

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in bad financial shape. But when he did it, I

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didn't realize how really bad it was until I saw it on paper. And

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I thought to myself, I'm going to have to work like this for the rest

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of my life, 70s, 80s. I said, my God. He said, now you know

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how people feel when they're in bad financial shape, when they're hopeless, or they don't

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know what to do. He said, now I'm going to show you how to

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handle it. So he showed me a different way. Way of looking at finance,

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what we call cash-oriented

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approach. They're basically where you looked at things to look for

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cash flow all the time and not necessarily working harder.

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So, like around debt, around so many other things, taxes.

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So, he taught me. And so, when I saw him, I was in my early

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to mid-30s. I put together a plan that I wanted to be

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financially independent or financially free by age 50.. And

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by using those principles, I got there by age 48.

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I was so thrilled what he did. He changed my life. I

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thought to myself, I had never changed a person's life with a better

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tax return or a better accounting report, but I can change a person's

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life with this. So I went back, redid my whole firm

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to where it was a wealth management company. And that, that's how we did

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this. And that's why I do the work I still do today.

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That's such a beautiful story. I love that. I feel like there's so

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many times, like even the one, uh, our podcast from

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last week was all about, um, it

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was more, it was about divorce. So of course all

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these financial, uh, bombs drop on you with that. And so if you can,

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if you can just get, you know, take your emotions down to the

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level where you're— you can really like look at things without the shame, without the

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fear, without all that stuff. It becomes a lot

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more manageable. So I, I really appreciate that, like, just,

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you know, that you're so forthcoming and going, I've lived

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life and it wasn't working, you know, that this part wasn't working, and now I

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found a way where it's going to be helpful to people. I love that. Well,

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I think you, you probably heard this, people want to know who you are before

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they want to know what you what you have to offer them or what

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you know. I found when sitting with people over the years that

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they do come in. I mean, I've sat with people who are in the verge

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of bankruptcy. I've sat with people that are very wealthy, who cash flow is

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out of hand. They don't know what to do. And they feel ashamed. They feel

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like they should be able to handle this. They're

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smart people. And there's a shame to it. And so you have to show

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them you've been there. Because you know what it

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feels like, you know. And, um, and I think that's, uh, I think

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because of that, now they can tell you everything. They can be honest about

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it and whatever, and it helps them. So, um,

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so I learned that a long time ago, and I want people to know that.

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I mean, I— it's my way of contributing to people, you know. I, I'm

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not this know-it-all expert or whatever. Like most people, or everyone

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in the world, you learn through knocks, you learn through

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failures. And you want to share your failures. That's how you

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learn. Yeah, for sure. We're all just people making it through this

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world, for sure. Right. You know, and it worked

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for you. Now, you know, it turned around and

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it's worked. So, um, so for a cash flow

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with the app, how does the app help people kind of figure

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out where their cash is at and come to

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some sense of where it's going and that kind of thing? How does that help

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people? Well, keep in mind, again, basically it's a basic—

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right now, basic budgeting or spending

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plan app. And so we give people a choice, quick

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and dirty, only a few categories, or a full

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budgeting on how to like start looking at what you're spending. You know,

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it all begins like if you want to make financial decisions, you have to look

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at, well, where am I now? It's like planning a

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trip. If you're planning a trip, you have to know where the beginning, middle, and

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end is. So, so let's say— and most people don't really know, most

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people are scared to know sometimes— but just by finding out quick

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and dirty what came in for the month, what's there, at least it's

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a start. Yeah. And then if you see that, you know, you're in the red,

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well then you go back and see, well, what did I do? If it's in

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the black, that's, that's great. So, that's a start. Once

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you know that, then you say, "Okay, now, where do I want to

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go?" So, maybe you have some short-term needs, like you want an

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emergency fund. Let's say because you don't— you're cash-strapped and you want to at least

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have a month or 2 or 3 expenses in case you lose your job, whatever.

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Well, that's the first thing you do is you concentrate on saving for that. Make

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sure you're all safe. Now, let's say you're doing that,

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but now maybe a bonus comes in, a tax refund. You get

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a raise, a new job, so there's more money. Then you say,

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okay, now what do I really want in 5 or 10 years or more,

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right? And then you can start making choices that way. Do I want a vacation

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home? This is where I want to live. But then, especially if you're a little

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older, like Gen Zers are looking at short-term things, 3 to 5,

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10 years. You know, you spend— you take 30 years for them, they think that's,

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that's forever. Um, uh, when you get to some millennials who are in

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their 40s, they see 50 coming soon and 60 doesn't look

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as far as it used to be.

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Yeah, your Gen Xs are already around there, and then

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of course your Boomers are in their, in their 70s and whatever.

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But, uh, so you have to see where people are. But once— but

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it all begins what's coming in and what's going out so that

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you have the choices, or as you put your spending

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plan or your life plan together, you know, that, you know, you start

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to have, you start to make better financial choices. Yeah. And

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you feel probably better because you have some sense

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of control. So, um, what do you find? I know there's on the

295
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website, there's just different things for different generations. So what are, what

296
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are the Gen Zs like? What are they? Or should we start with

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Gen X? Let's start with Gen X. I'm Gen X.

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What are— we're the Xs. We're just like, we don't even have a name. It's

299
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just like disease. You're between boomers and millennials, you know, you know, and it's

300
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sort of— you're a mixture because you— some of you cross over to

301
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each category. Uh, you know, the Gen Xers were people who really didn't save

302
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a lot. They were into other things in their life. They were

303
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helping people. There was things they weren't there. Now, now they're getting a little

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more serious. Now they're saying, you know, I got to get my act

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together. So, so basically, uh, so it's really neat to deal

306
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with Gen Xers because they're malleable now. See,

307
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sometimes when you're— when Gen Xers were younger, forget it, they weren't

308
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going to say— you can't tell them to do that, you know. But, but,

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but it's different for them now. So, uh, so, so you have to

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understand that's where they are, and the period they're in is that they're

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still decent amount of time to really affect their life to how they

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want to retire or be financially free. And keep in mind,

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freedom is different for everyone, you know, different levels of income and

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wealth. So, but now, now they're more interested

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in it. Millennials,

316
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uh, basically, um, they're, they're, they're basically, uh, you know, they're in

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their early 40s. And again, like I said before,

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50, they're almost— they're looking at 50s. It's a little closer than it was. And

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60 is not that far away. So, they're getting more serious. And millennials tend to

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be a little more serious, more serious from

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what I can see. When you

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get to Gen Zers, Gen Zers are really

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different. You know, it's really funny. Every

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generation has somewhat the same issues. It's how they approach it and when

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they do it. Everyone wants to have some financial

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freedom. Everyone wants to have a home or something. There's something around finance they

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all want. But it's how they want it and how they're looking at it and

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in what time frame. From my gift from

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Gen Zers,

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they've seen Millennials and Gen Zers

331
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screw up, or their parents are from that. So they are

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affected somewhat. They also see a few things. Some of them were young

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when they lived through the Great Recession in 2008. They lived

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through COVID. There's things that have really interrupted them and

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their lives. Yeah, I think they're, I think they're a little more fearful, a little

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more distrustful. I think they're actually a little more saving-oriented. They're a

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little more responsible. When I say that, they want to

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be responsible. They want to know more things. They want to know how to make

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better financial decisions. They want better education,

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but But their trust level is not very

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high. They wanna make sure whoever's telling them this knows what they're talking

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about, is not gonna be these salespeople, like, "Give me your money, I'll

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invest it." I have an awful lot of respect for Gen

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Z. I mentor a few of them, and they're

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really responsible people. Yeah, and they've

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really seen so much— I mean, we've all seen so much change come down in

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terms of, You know, when I was taught by my mother how to

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do financial management, it was how to manage your checkbook, you know,

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which is a really pretty straightforward coming in, going

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out, coming in, going out. Nobody has a checkbook anymore. I don't have a

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checkbook either. So, you know, like, so keeping

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track of that coming in, going out, coming in, going

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out is, can be a little bit more challenging.

354
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Also, like when we were young— On the other hand,

355
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they're very automated. They're very computer and whatever and

356
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phone automated. Like we struggle with sometimes paying things. They just

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pay things. I mean, they're amazing with how they

358
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use electronics today that we're still getting used to or keeping

359
00:22:20,820 --> 00:22:24,340
up with. Yeah, that too. I remember, you know, this is

360
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probably a decade ago, but my son got a check and he just took a

361
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picture of it and deposited in the bank and, you know, through an app on

362
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his phone. And I had not started doing that yet. So it was like, why

363
00:22:34,290 --> 00:22:38,090
is this not in there? You know, stuff like that. But, you know,

364
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it has evolved over time for

365
00:22:42,170 --> 00:22:45,730
sure. Yeah. So if a millennial, I know, you know, there's, there's

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ways to like, so if there's just, if you're looking at your spending and there's

367
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not enough money coming in, how

368
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do you like, there's just, and maybe, you know, some

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of it nowadays too, you know, the cost of living has

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gone up significantly since, you know,

371
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2019 through COVID, just housing has gone up. So

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how do we, how do we bridge the gap for people who are really

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struggling with bringing in enough money to kind of COVID some

374
00:23:15,280 --> 00:23:19,000
of those things? Well, again, going back

375
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to finding what's coming in and going out first, seeing if there's

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like any waste in there. Do you have too many

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subscriptions, cable channels you're not using, other things like that, right? And try to

378
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get more lean there. And then maybe if you're saving but it's

379
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still not enough to what you want to do, well, maybe you have to look

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at the other side, which is income. So, where

381
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do you work? Are you giving to

382
00:23:45,070 --> 00:23:48,650
your 401(k)? Is your paycheck enough to cover everything? Let's say it's

383
00:23:48,650 --> 00:23:51,610
not, or let's say it's not enough where you want to

384
00:23:53,130 --> 00:23:56,490
save more. When was the last time you asked for a raise? And by the

385
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way, some of these things can be difficult. You tell a person, they may not

386
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want to do that. Or what's the future at your

387
00:24:03,329 --> 00:24:07,010
job? Like, I have a millennial— I'm sorry, I have a Gen Zer right now.

388
00:24:07,010 --> 00:24:10,730
He wants to be— he's 23. He's on his

389
00:24:10,970 --> 00:24:14,410
own almost. His parents are subsidizing a little bit, and his main thing over

390
00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:18,560
the next 3 years is to be completely free of his

391
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:21,360
parents because he doesn't want to bother them. He doesn't want to be a burden

392
00:24:21,360 --> 00:24:24,880
to them and he wants to be free of them. So that's a

393
00:24:25,360 --> 00:24:29,080
short-term plan. So I had him, I advised him, why don't you go talk to

394
00:24:29,080 --> 00:24:32,920
your employer and say, well, for one thing, what does that mean? How much

395
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:36,240
is your, what's your spending plan for that? How much do you need to make

396
00:24:37,360 --> 00:24:40,360
that happen? So he knows that now. He knows what he gets paid. He knows

397
00:24:40,360 --> 00:24:43,250
there's a gap. I said, you might want to sit down with your employer and

398
00:24:43,410 --> 00:24:47,250
say, look, I love being with your job, uh, you know, I love the

399
00:24:47,250 --> 00:24:51,050
company, I want to— I'm gonna— my whole career is here, but what do I

400
00:24:51,050 --> 00:24:54,530
look like in advancement or whatever over the next 2 or

401
00:24:54,930 --> 00:24:57,730
3 years? And he said— and I said, that kind of conversation might give you

402
00:24:57,730 --> 00:25:00,050
an idea whether that's going to be solid

403
00:25:01,490 --> 00:25:04,970
for you. But even if it doesn't, maybe you'd like to— maybe you still want

404
00:25:04,970 --> 00:25:08,640
to stay there and, and grow with them. So maybe look at some

405
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:12,200
side gigs, whether it's working part-time for one

406
00:25:12,360 --> 00:25:15,800
of the transportation services— Lyft,

407
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:20,360
Uber, DoorDash— or maybe because a lot of Gen Zers have these talents

408
00:25:20,360 --> 00:25:23,880
today with computers, start a side gig where

409
00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:27,800
you help put up websites or you be a personal

410
00:25:28,120 --> 00:25:31,960
assistant or, or help people. I mean, we all use, we all use

411
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:35,330
some of these people to a certain

412
00:25:35,330 --> 00:25:39,050
extent.? And then maybe at your current job, what kind of

413
00:25:39,690 --> 00:25:43,290
skills can you learn to get higher advancement? Or maybe you have to

414
00:25:44,890 --> 00:25:48,530
leave your job. But the thing is you don't know until you know

415
00:25:48,530 --> 00:25:52,370
what the gap is and what you have to do. So, it all

416
00:25:52,370 --> 00:25:56,090
begins again back to your spending plan. But there are ways. It's

417
00:25:56,650 --> 00:25:59,850
just not like— sometimes people get into what I

418
00:26:00,620 --> 00:26:04,340
call seesaw thinking. Seesaw, right? If I

419
00:26:04,340 --> 00:26:07,980
want that, I can't have that. If I do this, I

420
00:26:08,220 --> 00:26:11,980
can't have that. Like, for example, I buy the car I want, I can't— I'm

421
00:26:11,980 --> 00:26:15,620
not gonna be able to save. Um, if I, if I, if

422
00:26:15,620 --> 00:26:18,620
I save too much, I can't— I, you know, I, I

423
00:26:18,860 --> 00:26:22,580
can't have my lattes. I tell people, you

424
00:26:22,580 --> 00:26:25,740
know, instead of thinking like that, think, why

425
00:26:26,390 --> 00:26:30,070
can't you have both. Why can't you have your

426
00:26:30,070 --> 00:26:33,390
lattes and save? Why can't you have your car and save? You know,

427
00:26:33,390 --> 00:26:36,710
get into that mindset because, as we talked about a little bit

428
00:26:37,030 --> 00:26:40,230
the last time, the mind's very powerful.

429
00:26:40,750 --> 00:26:44,070
It'll tell you what you can and cannot do, even

430
00:26:45,590 --> 00:26:49,390
if it's unreasonable. Our mind's 24/7. So, it tells

431
00:26:49,390 --> 00:26:52,830
you, no, you can't have that. No, you can't spend that. You'll never have that

432
00:26:52,830 --> 00:26:56,630
in your lifetime. We had these ungenerous conversations. Reframe

433
00:26:56,630 --> 00:27:00,390
it like I reframed from budget to spending plan. Reframe

434
00:27:00,390 --> 00:27:04,190
like, okay, instead of seesaw, have both. And then, then if you, if

435
00:27:04,190 --> 00:27:07,790
you have a thought that way, then how do you do it? You may need

436
00:27:07,790 --> 00:27:10,390
to get help from that. You may need to sit down with a financial planner.

437
00:27:10,390 --> 00:27:13,030
You may need to sit down with someone who

438
00:27:14,470 --> 00:27:18,110
has financial capabilities. But the thing is, once you know the basics, what

439
00:27:18,110 --> 00:27:21,690
comes in and out, you can start to take action. If

440
00:27:22,010 --> 00:27:25,610
you want to. Yeah, this is your plan, is your life. You

441
00:27:25,930 --> 00:27:29,410
make the choices. Yeah. And, you know, I feel like you're touching on— it's just

442
00:27:29,410 --> 00:27:33,130
kind of like when you're— there's so many— there's options

443
00:27:33,930 --> 00:27:37,770
and there's possibilities. And so, you know, when we are really stuck

444
00:27:37,770 --> 00:27:40,810
in fear and anxiety, that our whole

445
00:27:42,010 --> 00:27:45,690
system tends to, you know, retract into— we're not, we're not

446
00:27:45,770 --> 00:27:48,650
seeing the possibilities, we're not seeing the options, we're not seeing that

447
00:27:50,220 --> 00:27:53,700
we have options. So I love how you're kind of— and

448
00:27:53,700 --> 00:27:57,020
using the word reframing, you know, we can do this

449
00:27:57,540 --> 00:28:01,340
and we can do that also. So touches

450
00:28:01,500 --> 00:28:05,139
on a couple conversations I've had recently with like, what are you— what are your—

451
00:28:05,139 --> 00:28:08,620
what's your— what are your— what's going through your head all the

452
00:28:08,620 --> 00:28:11,500
time? What's your internal conversation you're

453
00:28:12,220 --> 00:28:15,900
having with yourself? So if it is filled with the thought

454
00:28:15,900 --> 00:28:19,610
of possibility, that's gonna— that's gonna like it's going to affect finances

455
00:28:19,610 --> 00:28:23,010
and every other part of your life. So, but by the way, that's

456
00:28:23,170 --> 00:28:26,810
a really great question when you're working with someone. I

457
00:28:26,810 --> 00:28:30,370
don't care what profession, but I was in finance. Like, you, you say something

458
00:28:30,530 --> 00:28:34,130
to a person and you see them thinking, you say, well, how's that

459
00:28:34,930 --> 00:28:38,770
landing for you? What's going through your head? What are you thinking right now?

460
00:28:38,770 --> 00:28:42,610
You know, because, you know, it'd be amazing. It's amazing to get the

461
00:28:42,610 --> 00:28:46,330
feedback, but, but they like the fact you're asking it because you're interested in what

462
00:28:46,330 --> 00:28:49,970
they're thinking. You're listening. But But, but, you

463
00:28:49,970 --> 00:28:53,650
know, again, internal. Communications and external,

464
00:28:53,650 --> 00:28:57,450
extremely important. Yeah, for sure. And it is a world, you know, especially we live

465
00:28:57,610 --> 00:29:01,370
in now of, I think, of excess, that there's just always everything you can

466
00:29:01,370 --> 00:29:05,090
purchase and buy and always the next thing.

467
00:29:05,090 --> 00:29:08,890
I've thought, you know, in my family, the, the boomers are the

468
00:29:08,890 --> 00:29:10,970
ones that were just, and they still are

469
00:29:13,220 --> 00:29:17,060
today, they're so

470
00:29:17,860 --> 00:29:21,580
frugal. So frugal. And I do think that's, that's just, that's a thought. I

471
00:29:21,580 --> 00:29:24,740
think for Gen Zs who look, they look at boomers as being

472
00:29:25,380 --> 00:29:28,140
like people who life was easy. It was easy to get a job, easy to

473
00:29:28,140 --> 00:29:31,540
get a house, da da da. But

474
00:29:31,700 --> 00:29:34,900
that's, I never, I never saw

475
00:29:35,460 --> 00:29:39,300
them having excess. And that was without lattes, without a computer,

476
00:29:39,300 --> 00:29:42,780
without a cell phone. Like all the things that weren't even in

477
00:29:42,940 --> 00:29:46,060
the world yet. So, they drank black

478
00:29:47,580 --> 00:29:51,100
coffee, you know, my family. I think that that was basically because they were raised

479
00:29:51,100 --> 00:29:54,900
by the greatest generation who went through the Great Depression. Yeah.

480
00:29:55,140 --> 00:29:58,580
I mean, you were always reminded of the Great

481
00:29:59,220 --> 00:30:03,060
Depression. And so, your parents are always, "Debt is bad. Don't do

482
00:30:03,060 --> 00:30:06,880
this. You know, watch your spending." You're reminded of

483
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:10,080
that. By the way, you did have part of

484
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:15,160
that generation rebel in the '60s, right? I don't want to hear it,

485
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:19,000
Dad and Mom. So you had that part too. But

486
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:22,080
I think it's like one generation keeps on

487
00:30:22,559 --> 00:30:26,120
affecting the others. Again, Gen Zers today will look at

488
00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:29,520
millennials and Gen Xers and say, I don't want to wind up

489
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:34,000
like them too. We're always harsher to the previous

490
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:37,540
generations for some reason. But, but I get what you mean

491
00:30:37,780 --> 00:30:41,620
about the frugality. We're more practical, more, you know, you have to

492
00:30:41,620 --> 00:30:45,420
have a reason for— they almost look at us like we're not

493
00:30:45,420 --> 00:30:49,260
fun, we're not free, you know. I guarantee you, even though

494
00:30:49,260 --> 00:30:52,980
I'm a boomer, I'm very free. But, uh,

495
00:30:53,060 --> 00:30:56,860
but no, I, I can. Get where people think

496
00:30:56,860 --> 00:31:00,620
that. Yeah, well, and it's just like, uh, you can't, like, you

497
00:31:00,620 --> 00:31:04,340
can't hold generations right now side by side because our experience in

498
00:31:04,340 --> 00:31:08,140
the world because of how it's changed with, um, you

499
00:31:08,140 --> 00:31:11,920
know, technology and whatnot, is so

500
00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:15,220
dramatically different, um, that we, we've just seen the world change very fast and that

501
00:31:15,220 --> 00:31:18,980
it does affect money, uh, for sure.

502
00:31:18,980 --> 00:31:22,780
Definitely. Yeah. So what are some of the common questions people ask?

503
00:31:22,780 --> 00:31:26,260
So on the— I love this so much that that chat box

504
00:31:26,260 --> 00:31:29,540
on the website or on the app has, you.

505
00:31:29,540 --> 00:31:33,020
Cakenow, ask, ask Albert. Yeah, well, it's gonna be

506
00:31:33,820 --> 00:31:36,900
on the phone later. We're doing it now, but it.

507
00:31:38,860 --> 00:31:42,260
Is on the laptop. Okay, so on the website.

508
00:31:42,580 --> 00:31:44,700
So what are some common questions.

509
00:31:46,780 --> 00:31:50,500
That people ask? Well, so one, I'll give you some normal, then

510
00:31:50,500 --> 00:31:54,340
I'll give you some wild ones.

511
00:31:54,340 --> 00:31:56,220
Okay. Now the normal one is

512
00:31:58,070 --> 00:32:00,790
like, look, I I'm X years old, I'm earning this

513
00:32:02,070 --> 00:32:05,870
amount of money, I have a choice of paying down credit card

514
00:32:05,870 --> 00:32:08,790
debt, my car loan, or my student debt. Which should

515
00:32:10,070 --> 00:32:13,430
I do first? What's the primary— what's the priority I should

516
00:32:15,190 --> 00:32:18,710
have? That's one. And or else, like, you

517
00:32:18,950 --> 00:32:22,550
know, I'm barely saving enough. What kind of options do I have? Again,

518
00:32:22,550 --> 00:32:26,170
that's a gig or or

519
00:32:26,170 --> 00:32:29,690
income part. Or, look, I'm just beginning. I don't know

520
00:32:29,930 --> 00:32:33,290
nothing about finance. What should I be reading? What can I be doing

521
00:32:33,770 --> 00:32:37,410
to learn more? We'll have some questions like

522
00:32:37,410 --> 00:32:41,050
that. One sort of off-the-wall question, it

523
00:32:42,570 --> 00:32:45,370
was kind of actually scary and frightening, was this

524
00:32:46,010 --> 00:32:49,730
one person said, I'm 20-something years old.

525
00:32:49,730 --> 00:32:53,300
I see no way I can— get out of this, whatever.

526
00:32:53,380 --> 00:32:57,020
I'm thinking of suicide. What should I do? So how

527
00:32:57,020 --> 00:33:00,820
the— how the— how my— how I answered was that, for one

528
00:33:00,820 --> 00:33:04,660
thing, if you're thinking of that, you call up suicide hotline, because

529
00:33:04,660 --> 00:33:08,300
I can't do anything with you if you're not alive. But if you're alive,

530
00:33:08,300 --> 00:33:11,700
I can help

531
00:33:12,100 --> 00:33:15,900
you. Yeah. So, but, uh, you get questions like that. Uh, it's a

532
00:33:15,900 --> 00:33:19,610
lot. You get a lot of, uh, tales of struggle

533
00:33:19,610 --> 00:33:23,290
or being frightened or what do I do next. But,

534
00:33:23,290 --> 00:33:27,010
and then you get again, when you tell what's like, going back to

535
00:33:27,010 --> 00:33:30,690
the one where what's my priority? Should I be paying down

536
00:33:30,930 --> 00:33:34,210
credit card debt, student debt, or saving? What should I do

537
00:33:35,010 --> 00:33:38,330
first? You know, I'm always one to basically say, well, look,

538
00:33:38,330 --> 00:33:42,130
let's start with emergency funds.

539
00:33:42,130 --> 00:33:45,480
Like, you know, what can you do? Do you have any extra money to put

540
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:48,760
aside for the next month or two to where you can build up about a

541
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:52,560
month of expenses in case you get laid off, in case you have an emergency.

542
00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:56,400
Because so you're reliant. So, because I think people, if they have

543
00:33:56,400 --> 00:34:00,000
that, there's now there's a sense of security. There's more sense that they

544
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:04,360
have some choices. And then I always go into debt and say, well, if you

545
00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:07,840
have student or credit card, let's talk about maybe there's a way

546
00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:12,030
to restructure that so that you wind up with— so You

547
00:34:12,030 --> 00:34:14,110
are paying less payments per month, but

548
00:34:15,710 --> 00:34:18,270
you're saving more. And then keep in mind that again,

549
00:34:19,310 --> 00:34:22,830
with our site, and that we have where we talk about compounding,

550
00:34:23,230 --> 00:34:26,870
we talk about tax effects, because these things are

551
00:34:26,870 --> 00:34:30,710
very important when you finally are saving money to understand

552
00:34:30,710 --> 00:34:34,150
those. And we want people to save money as soon as possible.

553
00:34:34,150 --> 00:34:37,710
We're sort of contrarian thinkers around that. I'm not

554
00:34:37,950 --> 00:34:40,430
a big thing. I'm not a big person on you pay off your debt as

555
00:34:41,410 --> 00:34:44,930
soon as possible. I think you restructure it or, or get to where

556
00:34:45,090 --> 00:34:48,690
it's better debt. There's bad debt and good debt, but there's ways

557
00:34:49,010 --> 00:34:51,810
to get there to basically— that's going to help you

558
00:34:52,770 --> 00:34:56,370
possibly save more. Yeah, I love that. And I, I really

559
00:34:56,770 --> 00:35:00,530
do like— I, I lived in the same town as a

560
00:35:00,530 --> 00:35:04,170
very famous, uh, financial, um, it was

561
00:35:04,170 --> 00:35:07,920
Dave Ramsey. Oh, Dave Ramsey. Yeah. Yeah, so

562
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:11,440
going through his stuff, it is— he's very much more, you're gonna do this and

563
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:15,240
you're gonna do this, and this is what you're gonna do. And

564
00:35:15,240 --> 00:35:18,840
that does create this sense of. I don't think I like that.

565
00:35:19,640 --> 00:35:23,480
Well, people like choices. Like, what do you want to do? These are

566
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:27,600
your choices. And I respect Dave Ramsey, but

567
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:31,440
I also think he— I don't agree with him around debt. He's a—

568
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:35,280
he— a lot of people like Suze Orman or Dave Ramsey are like

569
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:39,000
pay off your debt first and save. I don't agree with that. I think you

570
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:42,640
have to get emergency funds first, and then you have to

571
00:35:42,640 --> 00:35:46,240
ask yourself, like, what major corporation is

572
00:35:46,240 --> 00:35:49,720
debt-free? Is Warren Buffett debt-free? No. Is it—

573
00:35:49,720 --> 00:35:53,320
what, what major billionaire is debt-free? No, no, they have debt,

574
00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:57,040
and their companies have debt, because they know they use

575
00:35:57,040 --> 00:36:00,760
debt to build wealth, to build value,

576
00:36:01,130 --> 00:36:04,570
right? And, uh, And so, you know, you have to learn to

577
00:36:05,370 --> 00:36:09,090
use debt smarter, right? So, for example, I'll give you an example because I'm

578
00:36:09,090 --> 00:36:12,810
just— we're talking about— we're talking theory here. So, let's say you have

579
00:36:12,810 --> 00:36:16,210
$10,000 in credit card debt. And let's say you

580
00:36:16,210 --> 00:36:19,970
have to pay $500 a month on this. And, you

581
00:36:19,970 --> 00:36:23,810
know, and so you can't save. You say you can't save. So, I

582
00:36:23,810 --> 00:36:27,290
always tell people, well, first thing is that if you wanted to, you

583
00:36:27,450 --> 00:36:31,030
can play the credit card game of going to zero

584
00:36:31,030 --> 00:36:34,670
financing. Saving some money that way. But another way is to call the credit card

585
00:36:34,670 --> 00:36:38,350
company and say, look, I'm having— I'm struggling, um, I, I

586
00:36:38,350 --> 00:36:42,190
can't pay the 24% interest. Can we come to an agreement to

587
00:36:42,190 --> 00:36:45,550
where maybe for like a year I pay zero interest, or you bring it down

588
00:36:45,550 --> 00:36:49,310
to 5% or 6% or something? Or this is what I can only spend, that's

589
00:36:49,310 --> 00:36:53,150
what I'm going to spend with you. How can we make that

590
00:36:53,150 --> 00:36:56,710
work? So let's say— and let's say they're cooperative, maybe you have—

591
00:36:57,280 --> 00:37:01,000
you can negotiate down to where it's $250 a month. Well, now you're saving $250

592
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:04,800
a month or $3,000 a year. Yeah. And if you

593
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:07,640
have a 401k at work and you can put that money in there, you get

594
00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:11,280
a match from the employer, plus your taxes are lower. So you can end up

595
00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:15,040
saving like $4,000 or $5,000 a year from that, that one

596
00:37:15,040 --> 00:37:18,800
thing. But let's say the credit card says, oh, forget it. Well, there's ways

597
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:22,080
to get credit card companies, uh, attention. Uh,

598
00:37:22,810 --> 00:37:26,610
stop paying them. Now again, that affects your credit rating

599
00:37:26,610 --> 00:37:30,450
temporarily, but the thing is you'll get their attention. Then they'll negotiate, or

600
00:37:30,450 --> 00:37:34,290
eventually you can even hire— there are attorneys or groups out there that basically

601
00:37:34,290 --> 00:37:37,290
will negotiate for you. That, that's one way to do it.

602
00:37:38,650 --> 00:37:42,370
Another way is, um, and again, this may be a harder thing for some people,

603
00:37:42,370 --> 00:37:45,850
but, uh, go to a bank. If you have— if you have a

604
00:37:46,410 --> 00:37:49,920
small business especially, or you have relationships with a bank Ask

605
00:37:50,240 --> 00:37:53,960
for an interest-only loan. Say I want an interest-only loan for

606
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:57,760
the next 3 years. All right. And let's say the

607
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:01,560
interest rates are like 7%. So what,

608
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:05,080
that's what, $700 a year. So divided by 12, that's what,

609
00:38:05,960 --> 00:38:09,160
$60 a month. So you were spending $500 a month. Now you're only

610
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:13,000
down to $60. So you're spending, you're saving

611
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:17,180
$440 a month or over $5,000 a year. And so you

612
00:38:17,180 --> 00:38:20,820
can quickly get that emergency fund up. You can quickly give to your 401(k). You

613
00:38:20,900 --> 00:38:24,580
can start building wealth. Now, yeah, you had that

614
00:38:24,580 --> 00:38:28,380
$10,000 left to pay, but if you— if you're earning— if you're

615
00:38:28,380 --> 00:38:31,540
saving $5,000 a year and then you're saving a 401(k) and

616
00:38:31,860 --> 00:38:35,660
getting a match and saving taxes, maybe you're saving 6

617
00:38:35,660 --> 00:38:39,380
or 7. In 3 years, you'll have

618
00:38:39,380 --> 00:38:43,190
$18,000 of saving or $21,000. You had this debt of $10,000. But

619
00:38:43,190 --> 00:38:46,830
now you have $21,000. Yeah, see, you're

620
00:38:46,990 --> 00:38:50,510
getting to where you're safer. There's clarity.

621
00:38:50,510 --> 00:38:54,310
You're, you know, it's safer if you have money. People have zero—

622
00:38:54,310 --> 00:38:57,910
people who have zero debt and zero cash are very unsafe. They have

623
00:38:57,910 --> 00:39:01,670
an emergency or something comes up, what can they do, right? If

624
00:39:01,670 --> 00:39:05,430
people have some debt and cash, they always have options. Now

625
00:39:05,430 --> 00:39:08,990
you can also do what I did. Um, well, there's

626
00:39:10,820 --> 00:39:14,340
other options too. You may go to your parents, you may not like that,

627
00:39:14,660 --> 00:39:18,340
and say, look, $10,000 and I'll give you

628
00:39:18,340 --> 00:39:21,940
10% interest for like 3 years. So you think, my God,

629
00:39:22,580 --> 00:39:26,060
10%, you know, you can get rates low. But the thing is, you

630
00:39:27,380 --> 00:39:30,340
need to get cash flow.

631
00:39:30,660 --> 00:39:34,420
So 10% of $10,000 is $1,000. That's about

632
00:39:34,420 --> 00:39:38,190
what, $80 a month. So you're

633
00:39:38,190 --> 00:39:41,950
saving $420 a month. It's the same thing. You have more than enough either

634
00:39:41,950 --> 00:39:45,230
to pay them off to where you'll have

635
00:39:45,630 --> 00:39:49,030
something net, or you can't— you say, can I keep on doing it? By the

636
00:39:49,030 --> 00:39:52,870
way, I, I've done the same thing. I had a $20,000—

637
00:39:52,870 --> 00:39:56,550
3— over 3 credit cards and loans. I ended up saving

638
00:39:56,550 --> 00:40:00,150
about $1,000 a month, saved in taxes, saved,

639
00:40:00,150 --> 00:40:03,850
uh, in a 401k. I was even saving because of that. I

640
00:40:03,850 --> 00:40:07,570
was saving up to $15,000, $18,000 a year. In

641
00:40:07,570 --> 00:40:09,690
3 years, I had over $50,000 for

642
00:40:11,450 --> 00:40:15,050
the same $20,000. Well, I still have that note. I had

643
00:40:15,130 --> 00:40:18,810
never paid that note off because if something's working for you and you

644
00:40:18,890 --> 00:40:22,170
keep on earning, getting cash, and you're taking

645
00:40:23,290 --> 00:40:27,130
advantage of compounding, you know, so, so you see how like now again, I

646
00:40:27,130 --> 00:40:30,700
respect Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman, but But look, see,

647
00:40:30,700 --> 00:40:34,380
you can really solve a short-term cash flow and emergency

648
00:40:34,380 --> 00:40:38,140
fund problem for a person by showing them not necessarily

649
00:40:38,140 --> 00:40:41,940
how to pay off their debt, how to have good debt, how to make

650
00:40:41,940 --> 00:40:45,700
it work for you to have cash flow. So that, that's how

651
00:40:45,700 --> 00:40:48,700
we think in. A more contrarian way.

652
00:40:49,260 --> 00:40:53,100
I love that. That's so great. So when you get

653
00:40:53,100 --> 00:40:56,870
the Cake Club app on your phone,

654
00:40:56,870 --> 00:41:00,510
You're going to put in your, your bank account if you want to, any credit

655
00:41:00,510 --> 00:41:04,310
cards, and that, and that will kind of basically help you just keep

656
00:41:04,310 --> 00:41:07,350
track of everything a little bit easier. Is that kind of the main, one. Of

657
00:41:07,350 --> 00:41:10,790
the main goals? There's two functions of our app right now. There's

658
00:41:11,590 --> 00:41:15,150
the spending plan or the, or the budgeting app where you put in your credit,

659
00:41:15,150 --> 00:41:18,910
actual credit card numbers and your bank accounts and

660
00:41:18,910 --> 00:41:22,520
all your transactions daily. Will show up

661
00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:26,320
and they'll automatically go to these, to the

662
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:30,080
budget categories you want. Okay. Now we have one where

663
00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:33,641
we will actually put them into categories, but then you can, you can change that

664
00:41:33,641 --> 00:41:37,040
to whatever you want. Okay. That's one way. So you can see at the end

665
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:41,680
of the month what came in total and what went

666
00:41:41,680 --> 00:41:45,280
out. Okay. So that's one way. Uh, the other way is that again,

667
00:41:45,720 --> 00:41:49,520
because we're cash-oriented, we're always trying to find cash. Is that

668
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:52,800
something we found very quickly to put on is what we

669
00:41:53,520 --> 00:41:57,280
call cash rewards. So all you do is you don't even have to input your

670
00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:01,080
actual credit card numbers, just tell us what credit cards you have. Like, do

671
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:04,840
you have a Citi, Citibank, Silver or Gold

672
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:08,560
or something? And then

673
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:12,080
our internal operations will know what that is. And what it'll do, if you have

674
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:15,810
3 or 4 cards is that when you go into

675
00:42:15,810 --> 00:42:18,810
a store, you know, you go into your app and it'll tell you which one

676
00:42:18,970 --> 00:42:22,330
to put in, in order, which one to use to get the

677
00:42:22,490 --> 00:42:26,170
most points for, for either cash reward dollars for

678
00:42:26,330 --> 00:42:29,370
cash rewards or points for

679
00:42:29,370 --> 00:42:32,810
travel or, or miles. Yeah, that's

680
00:42:33,050 --> 00:42:36,650
so cool. So it's just kind of like it helps you. It's kind of

681
00:42:37,450 --> 00:42:41,110
like your brain, um, without having to spend so

682
00:42:41,110 --> 00:42:44,870
much energy inputting everything into QuickBooks or whatever else you're going to

683
00:42:44,870 --> 00:42:48,550
use. It's kind of right there on the. App is how I'm hearing that.

684
00:42:48,550 --> 00:42:52,030
Well, no, it's right. It's to make it easier because again, when you come to

685
00:42:52,030 --> 00:42:55,589
a spending plan or a budget, you know, people don't want to sit there

686
00:42:55,589 --> 00:42:59,310
and input the stuff. So automate it. Automate as much as

687
00:42:59,310 --> 00:43:02,590
you can because, you know, and but all you're doing

688
00:43:02,990 --> 00:43:06,390
is getting clarity. You're getting where you are. You're getting your starting points where you

689
00:43:06,390 --> 00:43:10,100
are so you can make better decisions. That's our, that's

690
00:43:10,100 --> 00:43:13,700
our main thing right now. Then, of course, we're adding the AI and

691
00:43:14,020 --> 00:43:17,380
we're adding eventually some things around taxes, investment as

692
00:43:17,860 --> 00:43:21,180
we go along. By the way, one thing we're doing, because, you know, I've written

693
00:43:21,180 --> 00:43:24,740
two books, Master Your Cash Flow. We are going to have a Master Your Cash

694
00:43:24,980 --> 00:43:27,740
Flow, another book, Master Your Cash Flow. We haven't gotten the real title. It's going

695
00:43:27,740 --> 00:43:31,340
to come out in June yet, but it's around Cake Club. Maybe it'll

696
00:43:31,340 --> 00:43:35,190
be something like Master Your Cash Flow. Master your cash

697
00:43:35,190 --> 00:43:38,910
flow via using Cake Club, or, or use Cake Club and have your cake

698
00:43:38,910 --> 00:43:42,550
and eat it too. Or something like that.

699
00:43:42,550 --> 00:43:46,110
Yeah, however you slice that cake, you can eat— slice it,

700
00:43:46,350 --> 00:43:47,150
still have it,

701
00:43:50,030 --> 00:43:53,830
still eat it. Analogies. So, you know, I

702
00:43:53,830 --> 00:43:57,470
know you've counseled people over the years. When people— if someone comes to you

703
00:43:59,480 --> 00:44:03,320
and they are kind of in a level of stress that, that borders

704
00:44:03,320 --> 00:44:07,080
on maybe terror, or we're not going to make it. Like, what are some of

705
00:44:07,080 --> 00:44:10,800
the things you do to just kind of help them through that

706
00:44:10,800 --> 00:44:13,480
emotional state, to get through so they can

707
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:18,360
start looking at, you know, their situation a different way?

708
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:21,240
For one thing, you listen. You don't

709
00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:25,680
make them wrong because they have their own point of view, right? There's no wrong

710
00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:29,350
on how you feel, your perspective. You say, well, why do you feel

711
00:44:29,350 --> 00:44:32,830
that way? They may say, I have all these credit cards, I can't

712
00:44:32,830 --> 00:44:36,590
make my payments, whatever. You listen. And

713
00:44:37,070 --> 00:44:40,550
when you listen, you get an idea of who they are, what kind of resources

714
00:44:40,550 --> 00:44:44,190
they have, and how maybe to take the conversation. Give

715
00:44:45,390 --> 00:44:48,110
you an example. I had a couple, they were in

716
00:44:51,310 --> 00:44:54,900
their early 60s. They just lived through the 2008 recession.

717
00:44:54,900 --> 00:44:57,900
They lost almost everything.

718
00:44:58,860 --> 00:45:02,140
They were retired. She was 62, he was

719
00:45:02,860 --> 00:45:05,580
63. They lost almost everything. They did have

720
00:45:07,740 --> 00:45:11,460
a paid-for house. They were— they had— they thought they

721
00:45:11,460 --> 00:45:15,260
have to work forever, just have to work. They had no

722
00:45:15,260 --> 00:45:18,780
idea how they could possibly retire. So I listened,

723
00:45:18,860 --> 00:45:22,620
and they were frightened. They were, you

724
00:45:22,620 --> 00:45:25,660
know, basically in tears, but I saw how

725
00:45:26,700 --> 00:45:29,580
to help them. So when I helped them, I said this,

726
00:45:31,660 --> 00:45:35,420
I said, look, I can get you there to where maybe you can retire

727
00:45:36,379 --> 00:45:40,060
in 5 years. Now, this is after doing work, right? But this is

728
00:45:40,060 --> 00:45:43,500
what you might have to do. These are your

729
00:45:43,980 --> 00:45:45,980
choices. One choice, very important choice, is you must

730
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:49,960
sell your house. And they had a decent amount of equity in that house. I

731
00:45:49,960 --> 00:45:53,720
said, you must sell your house and now rent after

732
00:45:53,720 --> 00:45:56,960
that because you have too much equity in there. And let's put

733
00:45:57,680 --> 00:46:01,360
that to work. Yeah. So we started where that could be invested and

734
00:46:01,360 --> 00:46:05,080
they would rent and they got a very nice townhouse for a very

735
00:46:05,080 --> 00:46:08,920
nice rent. And then I said, and then I said,

736
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:12,130
especially the husband, I said, you're going to have to work for another 5 years.

737
00:46:12,130 --> 00:46:15,850
And actually, I got him a job. I talked to another person. There was

738
00:46:16,330 --> 00:46:19,890
a local hospital, the one I was on the board of. He got a job

739
00:46:19,890 --> 00:46:23,650
there. So, I said, "He got a job with

740
00:46:23,650 --> 00:46:27,410
his pay." And then, and they lived, you know, they didn't live an

741
00:46:27,410 --> 00:46:31,130
extravagant life. And she worked part-time. They were able to save

742
00:46:31,130 --> 00:46:34,890
enough over 5 years to actually retire when

743
00:46:34,890 --> 00:46:38,550
he. Was 68 and she was 67. Oh, that's

744
00:46:38,550 --> 00:46:42,190
beautiful. Now, there's another one too, a lot more affluent. These people were not as

745
00:46:42,190 --> 00:46:45,750
affluent, but I sat with a couple. This shows you whether you're

746
00:46:45,750 --> 00:46:49,490
wealthy or have affluence or not, you face the same issues.

747
00:46:49,490 --> 00:46:52,750
They had some of the same issues.

748
00:46:52,750 --> 00:46:56,590
His wife was 72. He was 80. They

749
00:46:57,150 --> 00:47:00,870
had a beautiful penthouse apartment in New York City. He at one

750
00:47:00,870 --> 00:47:03,310
time was the president of a major corporation

751
00:47:04,750 --> 00:47:08,590
20 years before. But bad decisions, the market, whatever,

752
00:47:08,590 --> 00:47:11,950
they were running out of money. And he was

753
00:47:12,510 --> 00:47:15,430
very concerned because, you know, he saw a shorter lifespan for himself, but he was

754
00:47:15,430 --> 00:47:19,270
very concerned about his wife. So,

755
00:47:19,270 --> 00:47:22,950
and they had a few issues around their portfolio,

756
00:47:22,950 --> 00:47:25,830
whatever. So I said, I can help you. Oh, by the way, they were at

757
00:47:25,830 --> 00:47:29,590
a point in life where there was deferred maintenance on

758
00:47:29,590 --> 00:47:33,120
the apartment. They couldn't do that. They quit all travel. They quit all entertainment. And

759
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:36,240
they used to be, used to entertain or belong to

760
00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:40,880
a couple of societies. So, and now they were just in what

761
00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:44,561
I call, they were just waiting to die. It's

762
00:47:44,561 --> 00:47:48,320
terrible. So I said, I can help you with everything. I

763
00:47:48,320 --> 00:47:52,120
can restore everything you had, your cash flow. And so

764
00:47:52,120 --> 00:47:55,960
what it did again, what we did this time, they had their penthouse was

765
00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:57,840
almost all paid off. We borrowed

766
00:47:59,690 --> 00:48:02,770
heavily against it. Right. And because of the interest rates and all that, I think

767
00:48:02,770 --> 00:48:06,290
we were able to give them tax deductions. They saved a lot of taxes. We

768
00:48:06,290 --> 00:48:10,090
took the money, put into a very good portfolio, as well as the money

769
00:48:10,250 --> 00:48:14,090
they had left. He had a small pension, and we were

770
00:48:14,970 --> 00:48:18,810
able to restore their cash flow they had before, and,

771
00:48:18,810 --> 00:48:22,490
and to where his wife would be, would be okay up

772
00:48:23,620 --> 00:48:27,340
to age 100. Oh, wow. But by the way, he died at 90. By the

773
00:48:27,340 --> 00:48:29,860
way, they became close friends and they were just

774
00:48:30,820 --> 00:48:34,180
a lovely couple. But the thing is, they restored it to

775
00:48:34,180 --> 00:48:37,540
where they could entertain, they could take

776
00:48:38,660 --> 00:48:42,180
vacations, whatever. And she's still alive. He's passed away, but, and

777
00:48:42,580 --> 00:48:45,540
she's still fine. She's still fine. See, it's

778
00:48:46,340 --> 00:48:49,620
never too late. It's never too late to take some action. That does not mean

779
00:48:49,620 --> 00:48:53,320
it has to be action that you might like. Like, you know,

780
00:48:53,320 --> 00:48:57,040
you may not like to sell your house, or there's always some way to do

781
00:48:57,040 --> 00:49:00,880
it. There's always some way to help people, I think, if

782
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:03,760
they want to be helped. But people have to understand that

783
00:49:04,560 --> 00:49:08,400
it begins with— it's your life, you know. What you want is to

784
00:49:08,400 --> 00:49:12,240
work with someone who gives you choices, not tells you what to do,

785
00:49:12,320 --> 00:49:15,320
because, you know, I don't think— I don't believe in that. Give you choices, like,

786
00:49:15,320 --> 00:49:18,390
if you did this, this could happen, you could have this. What do you

787
00:49:19,830 --> 00:49:22,950
want to do? And so if

788
00:49:24,070 --> 00:49:27,270
you have choices, I will tell you, I think no matter where you are in

789
00:49:27,270 --> 00:49:30,150
life, I've dealt with people that had almost nothing in their

790
00:49:30,790 --> 00:49:34,470
40s or 50s, and then they're, they're fine now. But you

791
00:49:34,470 --> 00:49:38,310
may have to do things that you didn't do before, but

792
00:49:38,550 --> 00:49:41,910
it's your choice. No one's going to care about your money and life more

793
00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:48,120
than you will. Whoever you're using, the financial planner, investment advisor, you're

794
00:49:48,120 --> 00:49:51,760
going to care more about your money than they do. Just

795
00:49:52,240 --> 00:49:55,800
always understand that. So unless you're involved or somehow, you know, be

796
00:49:55,800 --> 00:49:59,360
an advocate for yourself, um, you know, you're not—

797
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:02,920
you may not get as much out of, uh, your work

798
00:50:02,920 --> 00:50:06,000
life and your assets or your. Wealth as much as

799
00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:09,800
you can. Yeah, I love that. Well, I have a question for you now that

800
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:12,440
I know that you have this creative side too. I don't I

801
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:16,680
knew that before. Um, and you know, I am— before moving to Reno a couple

802
00:50:16,680 --> 00:50:20,480
years ago, I was in Atlanta and pursuing acting as

803
00:50:20,480 --> 00:50:23,240
a career, which if you're an actor, you know, you can't make all your

804
00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:28,320
money on that. Or maybe any of your money on that. Maybe you

805
00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:32,080
might just, you know, it might turn out to be you made $10 this year

806
00:50:32,080 --> 00:50:35,640
from, you know, after your expenses. Uh, so

807
00:50:35,640 --> 00:50:39,360
you rely on different things that aren't necessarily career-based, and

808
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:43,050
a lot of people do gig work or restaurant work or

809
00:50:43,290 --> 00:50:47,090
something like that. So for people that are pursuing like something like that

810
00:50:47,090 --> 00:50:50,450
where it is a creative career, have you worked with people like that? And then

811
00:50:50,450 --> 00:50:54,290
they're doing the work, and is there specific like thoughts you

812
00:50:54,290 --> 00:50:58,010
have. For that on— well, again, I, I

813
00:50:58,010 --> 00:51:01,530
haven't worked with many, uh, actors, but there's

814
00:51:02,090 --> 00:51:05,877
one in LA I've worked with her and her

815
00:51:05,877 --> 00:51:09,570
husband, and, uh, and she came close a couple times to get on series, and

816
00:51:09,570 --> 00:51:13,370
she has You know, she has part-time things, and you're right, and she

817
00:51:13,370 --> 00:51:17,130
knows she couldn't survive on this. But,

818
00:51:17,130 --> 00:51:20,650
uh, she, she turned to teaching, and

819
00:51:20,650 --> 00:51:24,250
she was very successful. Yeah, she's very successful

820
00:51:24,410 --> 00:51:28,250
being a teacher or having a school. So you

821
00:51:28,250 --> 00:51:32,010
do that, um, you know, uh, you know,

822
00:51:32,010 --> 00:51:35,690
coaching. There's a lot of acting people because I, I think they're

823
00:51:35,690 --> 00:51:39,530
much more sensitive and they communicate better. Yeah, coaches

824
00:51:39,530 --> 00:51:43,250
are natural for them. And, and, um, I'll tell you a

825
00:51:43,250 --> 00:51:46,370
story about a coach, tell you how creative you can be with this. So I

826
00:51:46,610 --> 00:51:50,290
had a coach, he was, he was actually coaching other actors

827
00:51:50,290 --> 00:51:53,649
and other top executives, and, uh, he was— his

828
00:51:53,970 --> 00:51:57,810
book was full, you know, uh, and, uh, and he was earning decent— he was

829
00:51:58,450 --> 00:52:01,810
earning good money, but his life was just terrible. He was traveling

830
00:52:02,050 --> 00:52:05,050
all the time. He said, now I can't live this way. And

831
00:52:05,930 --> 00:52:09,450
I said, okay, uh, I've looked at your— I looked at what you have. I

832
00:52:09,450 --> 00:52:13,210
said, uh, double your fee immediately. Now

833
00:52:13,210 --> 00:52:16,410
he was charging $2,500 a day for this, and which was even cheap

834
00:52:17,290 --> 00:52:20,850
at that time. Uh, and I said, charge $5,000. And he looked at me, he

835
00:52:20,850 --> 00:52:24,650
says, I can't do that, everyone will leave me.

836
00:52:24,650 --> 00:52:27,650
I said, are you getting referrals? I said, do you have any spare time? Are

837
00:52:27,650 --> 00:52:31,210
you getting referrals? Yes. Then I said, I tell you what, let's do it

838
00:52:31,210 --> 00:52:35,050
this way. Anyone who's new, you charge double. If

839
00:52:35,050 --> 00:52:38,610
everyone else is saying, let's try that. So he found

840
00:52:38,610 --> 00:52:42,410
that no one argued. So he eventually charged

841
00:52:42,570 --> 00:52:45,850
double everyone else. So he doubled his fee, he

842
00:52:46,570 --> 00:52:50,250
doubled his income, no more time working just

843
00:52:50,330 --> 00:52:54,170
by doing that. Eventually I got him to like triple and get him up to

844
00:52:55,210 --> 00:52:58,940
$10,000 a day. Yeah. So, so, so the thing is, keep in mind, a lot

845
00:52:58,940 --> 00:53:02,660
of people— and I think actors, it's a sort of double-edged sword when they do

846
00:53:02,660 --> 00:53:06,180
this— they're, they're, uh, they're, uh, I don't know

847
00:53:06,900 --> 00:53:10,700
what it is. Uh, by the way, it's not them also, it's just psychologists

848
00:53:10,700 --> 00:53:14,340
and other, other people in that sensitive field, or whether they use

849
00:53:14,340 --> 00:53:17,940
their senses a lot. They, they don't have enough

850
00:53:18,020 --> 00:53:21,060
confidence in charging. They're terrible. They're terrible in charging

851
00:53:21,380 --> 00:53:25,100
fees and terrible negotiating. So you teach them that, and

852
00:53:25,100 --> 00:53:28,940
just by simple that, like, and so you

853
00:53:28,940 --> 00:53:32,380
help them that way. And sometimes, you know, keep in mind, you want people to

854
00:53:32,380 --> 00:53:35,620
change immediately, but you can't change people. You have to take them

855
00:53:36,020 --> 00:53:39,460
slowly through things. You have to listen, be patient,

856
00:53:39,620 --> 00:53:43,220
give them alternatives. Like, if they can't double side, start

857
00:53:44,020 --> 00:53:47,620
low, try things, right?

858
00:53:47,620 --> 00:53:51,470
So I've learned that with especially people people, it's very

859
00:53:51,470 --> 00:53:54,470
important to know who you're talking to,

860
00:53:55,110 --> 00:53:58,950
if they're relationship-oriented, Type A personality, this or that, because, you

861
00:53:58,950 --> 00:54:02,110
know, you want to, you want to have them, you want to get to where

862
00:54:02,110 --> 00:54:04,870
you're listening in that way, but you're

863
00:54:05,750 --> 00:54:09,430
speaking that way, you know, you're speaking that way, so, you know, they're listening, it's

864
00:54:09,430 --> 00:54:13,250
going to land for them better. But I

865
00:54:13,250 --> 00:54:16,990
find that, um, by knowing that, I, you can, you can deal with how to

866
00:54:16,990 --> 00:54:20,590
do this and be more sensitive and/or not be sensitive if that's the case.

867
00:54:20,590 --> 00:54:23,350
I mean, like engineers and

868
00:54:24,390 --> 00:54:28,190
accountants are like, you give

869
00:54:28,510 --> 00:54:32,350
them facts. Salespeople are all Mr. and Mrs.

870
00:54:32,350 --> 00:54:35,990
Personality. So, you know, right? Then you

871
00:54:35,990 --> 00:54:39,670
have professions, whether it's acting, whether it's a psychologist,

872
00:54:39,670 --> 00:54:42,420
or maybe the soft professions where You've

873
00:54:43,300 --> 00:54:46,900
got to be empathetic, well, more empathetic. You have to be empathetic

874
00:54:46,900 --> 00:54:50,660
everywhere, but more empathy and get into their world and

875
00:54:50,660 --> 00:54:54,140
listen to them and listen to their feelings and then say, well, this doesn't work

876
00:54:54,140 --> 00:54:57,340
for you. Give them choices. I think the worst thing you can do to anyone,

877
00:54:57,340 --> 00:55:01,100
I don't care any of those personalities, just say, no, this is what you

878
00:55:01,100 --> 00:55:03,820
must do. I remember having another wealth advisor tell me one time, he just told

879
00:55:03,820 --> 00:55:07,430
the person, you got to cut your spending

880
00:55:07,430 --> 00:55:10,670
in half. I said, what did they do? He said, they, they didn't— they love—

881
00:55:10,670 --> 00:55:13,230
they left me. I would too. You kidding? That's

882
00:55:14,270 --> 00:55:18,070
not an answer, you know. Yeah, you have to work with people, get to know

883
00:55:18,070 --> 00:55:21,910
them and see what works for them. But you have to let them know—

884
00:55:21,910 --> 00:55:24,790
I always work— I always go through what I call the ground rules with people.

885
00:55:24,790 --> 00:55:28,030
You have to let them know that I have responsibilities, but

886
00:55:28,670 --> 00:55:32,430
you do too. And your responsibility is— this is your plan, it's not mine. You

887
00:55:32,430 --> 00:55:35,310
got to show up. If you say you're going to do something, you do it.

888
00:55:35,310 --> 00:55:37,790
If you allow me to say something you don't understand, you got to stop and

889
00:55:37,790 --> 00:55:41,630
say, 'I don't understand.' You know, you've got to be responsible. You got to show

890
00:55:41,630 --> 00:55:45,430
up in your plan. Again, nobody's going to care more about your life and

891
00:55:45,430 --> 00:55:49,270
money than you do. Yeah, I love that.

892
00:55:49,270 --> 00:55:53,070
Yeah, and even beyond, you know, acting, I know I lived in Nashville, so

893
00:55:53,070 --> 00:55:56,710
I know the songwriters, and I did some of that in the— and then I

894
00:55:56,710 --> 00:56:00,430
have a daughter who's a dancer, and it's like, so all these creative

895
00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:04,480
professions where you're you know, you can teach some lessons, you can do some teaching,

896
00:56:04,480 --> 00:56:07,880
or you have to just have something else that you're doing

897
00:56:07,880 --> 00:56:10,920
that can be flexible. It's kind of, you know, so I feel

898
00:56:11,960 --> 00:56:15,720
like that is, um, and, uh, it's tough. It's a tough field. So,

899
00:56:15,720 --> 00:56:18,160
oh, I think, I think you're right. I think, you know, you're lucky if 1

900
00:56:18,160 --> 00:56:21,560
or 2 or 3% can, can, uh, can they, they

901
00:56:21,880 --> 00:56:25,560
can really earn. You can really have a career from it earning and not have

902
00:56:25,560 --> 00:56:29,160
to work somewhere else. But. But again, there's always options.

903
00:56:29,160 --> 00:56:32,720
Like, I, again, not me, I just know these three

904
00:56:33,360 --> 00:56:37,080
from a mutual friend, three actors. They got together

905
00:56:37,080 --> 00:56:40,800
and scraped a little money together and started their own little, like,

906
00:56:41,120 --> 00:56:44,840
one of those, like, street, street vendors, you

907
00:56:44,840 --> 00:56:47,760
know, like the sandwich shop or whatever, but on the street in New York City.

908
00:56:47,840 --> 00:56:51,680
You ever seen them? Right? They started that.

909
00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:54,420
And they actually eventually had two or three of them. And they were making more

910
00:56:54,420 --> 00:56:58,020
money from that than anything else. But see, you

911
00:56:58,420 --> 00:57:01,940
just find something else. Yeah, another creative

912
00:57:01,940 --> 00:57:05,780
idea. I love that. I love that a lot. And I

913
00:57:05,860 --> 00:57:09,700
do think probably creatives sometimes are underestimating their ability

914
00:57:09,700 --> 00:57:12,900
to own a business and be a business

915
00:57:13,620 --> 00:57:16,980
owner. And, you know, I was taught when I first worked for my—

916
00:57:16,980 --> 00:57:20,640
one of my first bosses, He was a manager and

917
00:57:20,640 --> 00:57:24,440
I was a regional manager. And we were talking about how to run

918
00:57:24,440 --> 00:57:27,960
a region. He said, Al, always remember, there's always a

919
00:57:28,040 --> 00:57:31,640
person, there's always a place, there's always a way to get

920
00:57:31,640 --> 00:57:35,440
it done. Just start listing. If you don't think, if you can't think of anything,

921
00:57:35,440 --> 00:57:38,680
just start listing a possibility. Just start listing them. Make them

922
00:57:39,360 --> 00:57:42,680
up. Make them crazy. I can do this. I can do that. He said, you'll

923
00:57:42,680 --> 00:57:46,220
find— or ask other people. I have this problem. What can I do?

924
00:57:47,340 --> 00:57:50,980
You'll find a way. Yeah. And I do think, because I've, you

925
00:57:50,980 --> 00:57:54,620
know, I've been the business owner too, that's like, man, I'm

926
00:57:54,700 --> 00:57:57,860
this, I, the, this online store that I did, it's so, it was so out

927
00:57:57,860 --> 00:58:00,820
there. I didn't know anyone who was trying to do it. And I did start

928
00:58:00,820 --> 00:58:04,140
with someone, but then he left. And, um, I, the,

929
00:58:04,140 --> 00:58:07,940
the key in my opinion is that you're not an

930
00:58:07,940 --> 00:58:11,440
island to yourself, that you're actually going out and, and

931
00:58:11,920 --> 00:58:15,760
finding the right help. And, and, you know, like, like this app can be that.

932
00:58:15,760 --> 00:58:19,200
It can be the financial help. But you're reading the books, you're

933
00:58:19,280 --> 00:58:22,720
looking for the people, you're, you're, you keep

934
00:58:23,600 --> 00:58:27,360
searching for a community, uh, that actually. Does have the answers

935
00:58:27,360 --> 00:58:30,800
for you, right? And, and you said all the right things. You said

936
00:58:31,040 --> 00:58:33,880
like a good partner. If you don't have a good partner, get rid of the

937
00:58:33,880 --> 00:58:37,420
person, you know, and go get another partner. I mean, I, I know

938
00:58:37,980 --> 00:58:41,020
what having bad partners, it helped me— it hurt me a lot on

939
00:58:41,900 --> 00:58:45,660
some of my companies. But there's, you know, but there's always a

940
00:58:45,820 --> 00:58:49,620
way. There's— I can't— I'm a very positive person, and I think—

941
00:58:49,620 --> 00:58:53,180
but you just have to be positive, like, I'm going to solve this. And then,

942
00:58:53,180 --> 00:58:56,820
and then if you don't know, ask. Keep on asking people, I have

943
00:58:56,820 --> 00:58:59,220
this problem, you know. You'll have someone come out and help.

944
00:58:59,220 --> 00:59:02,940
Yeah, I agree. I've been

945
00:59:02,940 --> 00:59:06,550
saying in the last year, the answer is

946
00:59:06,550 --> 00:59:10,270
at hand. Because it seems like that, seems like there is no— there's just

947
00:59:10,270 --> 00:59:14,110
been a, a lot of, um, gates that's hard to

948
00:59:14,110 --> 00:59:17,670
get through. So, but it does help you, it does help your mind to go,

949
00:59:17,670 --> 00:59:21,470
and I'm just like looking around, the answer is at hand, the answer is at

950
00:59:21,470 --> 00:59:25,070
hand. And somehow it does turn your, um. Well, into a different

951
00:59:25,070 --> 00:59:28,870
place. I have a thing, the universe will offer it somewhere

952
00:59:29,510 --> 00:59:33,300
along the way, somewhere the answer will come if you're patient

953
00:59:33,300 --> 00:59:37,140
and ask whenever. By the way, as a business owner, or just if you're

954
00:59:37,140 --> 00:59:39,660
not a business owner, you're an executive or

955
00:59:41,740 --> 00:59:45,380
you work for someone, always have around people that—

956
00:59:45,380 --> 00:59:49,020
always have good people around you. A good

957
00:59:49,100 --> 00:59:52,940
accountant, good insurance person, a good banker, whatever you need. If you have

958
00:59:53,100 --> 00:59:54,540
business, you'll have more, more needs,

959
00:59:57,100 --> 01:00:00,540
maybe a good attorney. I call— get yourself a

960
01:00:01,690 --> 01:00:05,370
championship team of experts. By the way, not the most expensive, the ones that return

961
01:00:05,370 --> 01:00:08,970
phone calls, the one that care about you, the one that gives good advice.

962
01:00:08,970 --> 01:00:12,810
They're always there, they're timely, their work

963
01:00:13,290 --> 01:00:16,890
is good. You know, bad, bad, uh,

964
01:00:17,050 --> 01:00:20,250
poor professionals or poor team people, uh, will cost you

965
01:00:21,290 --> 01:00:24,810
money all the time. You have a good set of people you can

966
01:00:24,970 --> 01:00:28,350
always go to. Again, it's another resource

967
01:00:28,350 --> 01:00:32,110
for you to answer questions or answer things that you're finding

968
01:00:32,110 --> 01:00:35,550
problems, you're finding difficult to answer yourself.

969
01:00:35,550 --> 01:00:39,270
Yeah, that's very good advice. So, uh, remind

970
01:00:39,270 --> 01:00:42,390
us of the, the books that you have. So I, I think it would be

971
01:00:42,390 --> 01:00:45,630
a great idea for people to just read your books, get the

972
01:00:46,430 --> 01:00:50,270
app. The app is, um, $80 a year, is that right? What it

973
01:00:50,270 --> 01:00:51,630
is, it's $10

974
01:00:51,630 --> 01:00:57,240
a

975
01:00:57,240 --> 01:01:00,400
month. You can get, um Uh, you know, the name escapes me right now, and

976
01:01:00,400 --> 01:01:03,480
I apologize for this, but we have, uh, there's a—

977
01:01:03,960 --> 01:01:07,400
you can input this, this password. If you do that, you'll

978
01:01:07,640 --> 01:01:11,480
get 3 free months. If you go to— for your listeners, if you go to

979
01:01:11,480 --> 01:01:15,280
the app right now, we'll give you a free month. Okay. All

980
01:01:15,280 --> 01:01:17,160
right. So, and so you, and you can find the

981
01:01:18,290 --> 01:01:21,810
app at, you know, um cakeclubapp.com on

982
01:01:22,610 --> 01:01:25,930
the Apple Store, uh, or if you're not sure about that, go to the website

983
01:01:25,930 --> 01:01:28,610
and we'll guide you there. But as far

984
01:01:28,610 --> 01:01:31,890
as my, my books, um, and my books, by the way, are

985
01:01:32,530 --> 01:01:35,650
written in very layman terms.

986
01:01:35,930 --> 01:01:39,250
There's no legal things, legalese, and there's a lot of

987
01:01:39,410 --> 01:01:43,050
good examples in them. But there's two of them: Master Your Cash Flow, The

988
01:01:43,050 --> 01:01:46,810
Key to Grow— I'm sorry, The Key to Grow and

989
01:01:46,810 --> 01:01:50,530
Retain Your Wealth, And then the second one is Master Your Business Cash

990
01:01:50,610 --> 01:01:53,170
Flow: Grow the Company You Love, Live the

991
01:01:54,290 --> 01:01:57,490
Life You Want Now. And then our new one coming out, we're going to come

992
01:01:57,490 --> 01:02:01,230
out with one in June, and it's going to be something like Master Your

993
01:02:01,230 --> 01:02:05,010
Cash Flow, maybe, uh, Have Your Cake and Eat

994
01:02:05,010 --> 01:02:08,770
it Too. I love it. I love it. Well, thank

995
01:02:09,010 --> 01:02:12,810
you so much, Al. And, uh, if people want to, you know, learn more,

996
01:02:12,810 --> 01:02:16,541
they. Can go to

997
01:02:16,542 --> 01:02:18,870
cakeclubapp.com. And then if they want to learn more about me personally, you

998
01:02:18,870 --> 01:02:22,670
can go to

999
01:02:22,910 --> 01:02:26,270
al@alzdenek.com also. Okay. Or you go to my LinkedIn, you know, you can find out

1000
01:02:26,270 --> 01:02:29,870
how to connect with me if you want to. See my post or

1001
01:02:30,110 --> 01:02:33,910
something. Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you, Al. I appreciate you so much, and, um, you

1002
01:02:33,910 --> 01:02:37,630
have such a beautiful heart for helping people and such great

1003
01:02:37,630 --> 01:02:41,430
advice and wisdom. So thank you for coming on and. Enjoy the rest of

1004
01:02:41,430 --> 01:02:43,430
your day. I appreciate it, Mary. Thank you for having me. Yeah, bye-bye.