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The podcast by NFL players for NFL players. Each week, we break down the biggest events in football and how they directly impact a player's career and money.
Join Former NFL Veterans Sam Acho (Bills, Bucs, Bears & Cardinals), Zach Miller (Seahawks & Raiders), Jeff Locke (Vikings, Colts, Lions, 49ers), and college coach, Riccardo Stewart, for a raw and unfiltered conversation about the game, the business, and how players can achieve generational wealth.
Riccardo Stewart: I wanna welcome
you guys back to another episode
of the A-W-M-N-F-L Podcast.
My name is Ricardo Stewart, and I'm
your host, and I'm joined with Sam
Acho, Zach Miller and Jeff Locke.
The three guys that are here that are
my co-hosts, they have 20 years, over
20 years of NFL experience, as well
as financial expertise and fellas.
Today I want to talk about the four
tees of investing as an NFL athlete.
Truth, touch, time, and tension.
When I say truth, this is the truth that
people need to hear, the things that they
know and maybe they don't know touch.
This is the relational aspect
because when it comes to investing,
sometimes it's about who you know.
Who do you want to handle your finances?
Do you want to do what yourself?
Do you want to Combination of,
of, of all of those things,
but it's relational as well.
And then there's gonna be time.
And sometimes in investing, we
want things to go quick and there
is something about patience and
time that I want to talk about.
And lastly, tension.
I think anything you do that's
worthwhile is gonna have tension.
And tension is not necessarily a
negative thing, it's an expected thing.
And so how do you begin to handle it?
And so let's start first with the
truth of investing of an NFL player.
Jeff, I'd love to just get your
thoughts on what is the truth that
people know and maybe they don't know.
Jeff Locke: Yeah.
Three, three main things
come to mind for me.
Um, the first is.
Quality advisors, right?
Don't sell you on being able
to pick better investments
than other advisors, right?
That's, that's a myth
in our industry, right?
Talking like public markets,
private markets, venture
capital, that kind of stuff.
There is some value in having a
specific advisor over another, but
if an advisor looks you in the face
and says, Hey, hire me because I'm
gonna pick better investments than
the next guy, run away, right?
That's not the value.
That's old school broken mentality.
That was, that was cool back in the
seventies, eighties, nineties, when
markets were shaped differently.
But like that ain't, that
ain't gonna do it anymore.
Right?
So like, don't let that sell you.
Right?
Second,
people that understand your
specific situation, right?
Or the ones that you want
to try and find, right?
You can't just go to some advisor that
helps mom and pop down the street.
You, your life setup and mom and
pop's life setup couldn't be more
different at this point in their lives.
Your lives and the way you both invest
are completely different, right?
So that's the second last truth
that I wish I knew a lot earlier
is incentives drive everything.
So you gotta figure out how is
this advisor getting paid if
you're investing on your own?
How is this platform I'm
using getting paid how is.
The people behind the scenes
getting paid on the money I'm
putting into the investment, right?
It takes a lot of work to dig deep on it,
but once you figure out incentives and
how people get paid, it reveals a lot.
For example, like if anyone comes
to you and says, I'll do something
for free, you should run, right?
Because they're extracting it somewhere.
They gotta make a living, right?
If you want quality.
You pay for it, and that
should be the mentality, right?
Also on the investing side.
Riccardo Stewart: Gosh,
that's really good.
So you got truth, and then you
got touch, which again I said is
that's is the relational aspect.
It's.
Like, who should I trust?
Because I gotta get to
know who these people are.
Should I just do it myself?
Should I be educated and have a team?
And what does that look like?
When I think the relational
aspect, I can't think of anybody
better than the ask you, Sam.
So how would you answer
the touch part of it?
Sam Acho: I would say in one of my
best closest friends, mentors told
me, he said, be quick to fire and slow
to hire, quick to fire, slow to hire.
What do I mean by that?
When I first came out of college playing
in Texas and going to the NFL, I ended up
hiring a financial advisor because one of
my teammates went with him and I thought
I needed somebody in place, and this
was a guy who, my teammate trusted him.
And so if my teammate trusted him,
I guess he should be good for me.
That's not always the best thing because
like Jeff said earlier, you have to
understand how people are incentivized.
So a few really years later, I ended
up firing this guy and this guy who
had, is going to the touch piece,
he had been putting on a front like,
oh, I'm the nicest guy in the world.
As soon as I said, Hey, I'm going in
a different direction, it flipped.
So that point, the point in me
saying that is just know that people
will try to use you and manipulate
you and play on your heartstrings.
So to make you feel like
you owe them something.
Jeff said it earlier as well,
Hey man, I'll do this for free.
A lot of people who listen who
are in college, yeah, I'll just
do your NIL, just NIL agent.
They're not just doing,
just doing that for NIL.
They're hopeful that you're gonna
go and keep them when you go to
the NFL and you don't have to.
It's not that kind of relationship yet.
So quick to fire.
Slow to hire.
Fast forward after I fired that
advisor of a friend who I did trust.
'cause oftentimes people do
make decisions based off of
research, but also who they trust.
He said, you should
meet this other person.
She's great.
And that, and this person was phenomenal.
Was phenomenal.
So that's when I took the
mentality of, Hey, now I'm
going to learn as much as I can.
But the problem and also the facts
were I was still trying to dial in
as much as I could as a football
player, contract year, et cetera.
So I was in the middle of learning
to, to try to do it myself.
Really just learning, just so I
can have a better understanding
or grasp or or idea of what this
whole financial space looks like.
And it was a great relationship.
But then also I realized, okay,
there is something more that goes
beyond just the financial advice.
Taxes were, were a huge conversation
that weren't being covered.
That was, that was probably
one of the biggest things.
And even this idea of now we're having
a conversation of a family office and
what it is and what it isn't, venture
capital, what it, what it is, what it
isn't, the private, uh, investments,
what they are, what they aren't.
Those kind of conversations
are conversations that you
could and should be, not only
having, but doing research on.
So the point that I'm making is don't
just hire somebody because you like
them or because they're, they, you quote
unquote trust them because it's easy.
People love to manipulate,
put it that way.
So they'll try to manipulate you
and play on your heartstrings.
And I'm saying this from experience
so that you will feel some kind
of guilt when you make a decision.
Make a decision to fire them.
But like my friend said,
man, be quick to fire.
You know what's wrong?
If you know something's wrong,
you don't have to hold on forever.
No, you look at the college football
coaching world and we can probably put
a pin in, we can talk about that later.
But quick to fire, slow to higher.
Riccardo Stewart: Love it.
Truth, what you need to know and
what you think you know, touch.
It's about the who and the relational.
And then time, there's a level of
patience that comes along with investing.
And Zach, can you speak more to when it
comes to the time part of investment?
Zach Miller: Patience is extremely
hard when you make a lot of money in
your twenties to be a patient investor.
It's almost like it's unthinkable
because you want you, people are gonna
come to you and say like, Hey, I'll
double your money in some unrealistic
timeframe, like a year or two.
If it sounds too good to be true.
It is.
That's why it's what happens
to athletes, not just NFL guys,
anyone who makes a lot of money.
There is always people that are saying,
Hey, I'll double, I'll triple your
investment in, you know, a year, six
months, all these unrealistic things.
So to actually make good investments,
you have to have incredible patience and
discipline and the ability to stick to
that plan through years, through decades.
And that's why the best investors,
the ones that make the most amount
of money, they have a good plan.
Then they have that patience
to, to stick with it.
You don't just rip up a game
plan in the first quarter because
there's one, one thing changed.
Um, and to Jeff's point, there
are so many people out there
that are, they're just gambling.
They're, they're, they're advisors
that say they can predict the future.
And no one can predict the future.
People laugh at fortune tellers or,
or uh, uh, psychics, and then they'll
go hire an advisor that says he knows
what the market's gonna do tomorrow.
No one knows what the market is
gonna do tomorrow, but we do know if
you are investor in good companies
for a long time, you've always done
well, you've always done well, so
you don't have to overthink it if
you stick to your game plan and you
stay invested for a really long time.
It is slow at first.
A rocket taking off uses most
of all of its fuel, right at
takeoff because it is hard to get
the power of compounding going.
So if you just let the process work
itself out while you're in your high
earnings period, the NFL players, that's
your twenties, put that money to work.
In good investments, you've now, you
then you hit my age, you now have,
or the rocket just cruising in space
because that all those, you know,
sacrifices or discipline or whatever
you want to call it, of saving money
in my twenties is now paying off
for me when I'm about to turn 40.
Riccardo Stewart: Love it.
I love it.
Truth touch time.
When you have all three of those
things, there is an expectation.
There's gonna be tension.
Things don't always go exactly the
way that you want 'em, whether it
be in any relationship, any business
deal, and definitely not in investing.
And so if you guys could give us
just some brief things of what are
those tension points that I can
expect as an NFL player and investing
towards multi-generational wealth.
Sam Acho: I will go first.
One of the tensions was me just asking
my advisor, how do you get paid?
That was a real big tension for me.
'cause I was like, man, I don't want to
seem like a guy who's, you know, uh, cheap
or overly worried about these things.
But I genuinely wanted to
know and needed to know.
And so there should be no reservations
or hesitations when you're trying to
find out exactly how somebody is paid.
And secondly, and I'll pass it after
this, is if they're using terms
and terminology that is going over
your head, go and do some research.
And that those terminology, that
terminology might be intentional.
It might be intentional, it might be
going over your head intentionally.
You know, where it's like, oh,
it's suitable and this, that, just,
just, just, just, just listen.
All I'll say is just listen.
Riccardo Stewart: Okay.
Jeff, what do you think?
Jeff Locke: My tension is really just a
reminder that markets don't always go up.
I know it's invested the
last couple years, right?
It seems like this is just how it is.
A little bit of a COVID dip
happened, but then everything's
just kind of been up into the right.
Right.
We, almost everyone on this call
really has not experienced, you know,
a really, really big one, like a
great Depression, like one of those
big ones in the past and almost.
All young clients just coming
into money have not experienced
a true market downturn.
That's when the discipline and the
behavior gets tested, right When you
open your account and see it down, right?
And it might be down for a
couple months or a year, or two
years, or three years, right?
And you're gonna rely on the plan
and stick to the plan and not do
the worst thing you can do, which
is get out of the markets when
they're down and not let 'em recover.
So there's gonna be tension on average.
It happens every 10
years of a big tension.
You're gonna go through 5, 6, 7, 8 points
of tension over your investing life.
Just in market downturns, big market
downturns that you gotta be ready for.
Riccardo Stewart: Nice, Zach.
Zach Miller: I think, I think a big
tension is just to, when you are so
successful as an athlete, as an NFL
player, to be able to say like, I'm
really good at football, but I'm
gonna let the, the experts and the
really good people at investing.
We gotta find them and there's a
lot of 'em out there that are not.
And just being on our investment
committee, the, the kind of intelligence
and people that we have at a WM,
we have the best chance to succeed
when it comes to picking investments
because of the team we have built out.
And just to be able to admit,
like, I don't know everything.
I rely on the right people's advice.
And, and just saying like, I'm not
gonna do certain things on my own.
I think a lot of NFL players
want to kind of pick the deals.
They want to pick like
something, 'cause they want that
control, they want to own it.
And sometimes you should give up some
of that control to the experts that are
going to help your money grow faster.
Riccardo Stewart: That's good when it
comes to investing as an NFL player.
You gotta have truth.
You gotta know what's right and what's
good and what's true and what's beautiful.
You gotta have touch, you gotta
have the right people pointing
you in the right direction.
You gotta have patience.
So that comes with time.
And when you have the truth, touch
and time, the expectation is tension.
It's not necessarily a bad
thing, it's just something you
expect and be able to navigate.
Listen, we would love to be able to give
you more resources on anything you've
heard or if there's questions you have
on anything we've heard, we would love
to be able to answer those questions.
Feel free to send us a
text or give us a call.
Our number is 6 0 2 9 8 9 5 0 2 2.