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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: Hey, 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 my friends
and my coworkers, Jeff Locke,
Sam Acho, and Zach Miller.
Fellas today.
The topic I wanna talk about is I
want to fly at a, at a ceiling or
a floor at 10,000 feet in the air.
But as Zach Miller let me know that,
uh, cruising altitude is actually
35,000 feet and primarily looking at
the idea of building multi-generational
wealth through investing.
And, and I wanna make sure we're
talking about investing because.
There's investing is not the only way
you build multi-generational wealth.
There's so many other things that we've
talked about, but today I wanna go what
is a general understanding of investing?
And particularly I want to
use this picture of the three
different buckets of investing.
And so lemme start with this.
I, I'll start with an
illustration and it's.
I have a son, my oldest son's a
quarterback, and I watch film with him.
We go over everything and so forth.
And, and what I always ask him is, what's
your progression when you drop back in
this particular, what is your projection?
What your, your, your progression?
Like?
What are you looking at?
And there's a reason for that.
'cause most quarterbacks don't
just drop back and just throw it
to whoever they think is open.
Usually a coordinator says,
okay, I want you to start here,
and then here, and then here.
I think similar when
it comes to investing.
When you have a plan, there's all sorts
of receivers running routes, but what's,
you know, what's your progression?
There's all sorts of investments, but
what are actually the progression?
And so I wanna talk about
those three different buckets.
And, and first I'm gonna
start with you, Jeff.
Um, there is this first bucket,
and I like to call this the
quick out or the check down.
This is getting that first and
10 and I want to get five to
six yards to stay on schedule.
What does that look like for NFL players?
Jeff Locke: Yeah, so like the check down.
Not a lot of people wanna do it, right.
They wanna go downfield first.
They wanna do other more exciting
things, but I know that nose ball
knows it's a very important play.
It's the thing you gotta do first.
Another analogy I like to use is like
it's, it's like trying to throw down field
with only four offensive linemen, right?
You kind of need that
fifth offensive lineman to.
Kind of have a chance of doing
anything else on offense.
So bucket one is two things.
First thing is protection emergency funds.
You know, my break in case of
emergency money, I gotta get to right.
Second thing in bucket one is stuff
that's coming up in the near future.
Stuff I gotta pay for, right?
Tax payments, I got kids' school,
I want to buy a house next year.
So I got the down payment money set aside.
So.
Ricardo actually uses
this all the time, right?
It's like when you're on a plane, since
Zach loves the plane analogy, we, we know
that now you have to put your own mask
on first before you help others, right?
Or you're useless, right?
You're both, you're both gonna pass
out if you don't put your own mask
on first, that's bucket one, right?
And you gotta do the fundamentals.
Get bucket one filled up before
moving on to the other exciting
buckets we're gonna talk about next.
Riccardo Stewart: So I get bucket
one, and those are probably
more safe investments, Sam.
I love the perspective you have
and all of you guys as former
NFL athletes and it's easy for us
now because we're in this world.
We're, we're all a part
of a family office.
But if you can go back and go, when you
were beginning to invest, when you were
being a part of this process as an NFL
player, a current and active NFL player,
were these things communicated to you, and
if so, how were they communicated to you?
Sam Acho: So yes and no.
So initially when I first signed with
an advisor, let's just start about
when I really started investing.
Put it that way.
I signed with the firm and, and the
person who was helping run that firm
was a very trusted person, was awesome.
So I've great relationship with this
person, but some of these things,
maybe they were communicated, but
I just wasn't paying attention.
And so I think that's the biggest lesson I
would tell guys is just to pay attention.
Jeff, you talked about the emergency fund.
As an athlete, you're thinking,
I don't need an emergency fund.
Like, I'm good.
I'm, I'm getting paid, I'm getting
my checks, all these things.
But the fact of the matter is,
it's more than just a budget.
Everyone tells you, oh yeah,
budget, budget, budget.
But no.
Think about the needs that you have
maybe for the next six to 12 months.
Maybe you're married, maybe you're not.
But having that emergency fund
builds a great reservoir for you.
Not only now when you're playing, but
also when you're done playing to say,
okay, I have this much set aside.
So if something were to happen.
God forbid something were to happen.
I know that I have this set aside,
so it wasn't communicated in these
terms, but some of those, some of
that conversation was being had.
Riccardo Stewart: Perfect first bucket.
Now we're progressing
towards that second bucket.
Okay.
It's second in three.
We only need three yards.
We got a little extra.
We could take a little bit more risk.
And so getting into that second
bucket, Zach, what does that look
like and what are maybe some options
when it gets to the second bucket?
Once the first bucket is filled?
Zach Miller: Yeah, that second
bucket is the public markets.
And so what are the public markets?
It's sim simply just
ownership in great companies.
Um, you need that first bucket full.
But now you can actually take some shots
down the field and your money can grow.
So that's like, it's a
little more aggressive.
It's a little more risky.
Remember, risk and return,
they're always related.
So you can't have your money grow fast
without taking a little bit more risk.
And that's, that's why you
have that first bucket.
The first bucket is protecting you.
That second bucket is to go out there
and have your money grow even faster.
And so ownership in good companies
has always done well, not, you
know, not just the last 20 years.
The last hundred years.
And so for your money to be able to grow.
Faster than, than just having all that
money in, in the protective reserve.
I mean, it just makes sense,
especially, you know, that's
where the bulk of my money is.
And so those returns have
been really, really good.
Especially, um, you know, last 10, 20,
30 years returns have been really good
and that's what helps support, you
know, the rest of your financial plan.
Riccardo Stewart: That's good.
If we got ourselves in the position
were it's second in one and now
we can really take some shots and
we're gonna talk about the private
markets, a little foreshadowing.
But Jeff, before we do.
If you can explain for us in, in a general
very, very, I don't know, understandable
way, what's the difference between
the public and the private markets?
Jeff Locke: I'm gonna use a kind
of funny analogy, but it's like,
it's like going to a club, right?
Which you can all laugh at that.
I'm, I'm
Riccardo Stewart: Okay.
Yeah.
Jeff Locke: but I'm, but
I'm gonna use it, right?
So public markets, anyone can
stand in line outside of the club.
As long as you're like dressed
decent, they're not gonna
boot you before you get in.
You can wait as long as
you want to get in, right?
You can go into the public market, right?
Private market is.
The VIP section, you gotta go
through somebody to get into, right?
That's the private markets.
You gotta know somebody and
they gotta know who you are
and want you in that section.
They want their section
to look good, right?
So the biggest difference is access.
Anyone can invest in the public market.
I can go log on to an account on,
make an account in 20 minutes online,
and I can buy Apple Stock or Tesla
or Amazon and put in my account.
That's public or protective reserve.
I can go and buy a loan from the
government and have it in my account
and fill up bucket one, right?
Bucket three that we're
getting to the private markets.
You gotta know somebody, and even
if you know somebody, you can get
into the kind of cool VIP lounges,
but you're not getting into the
VIP of the VIP lounges, right?
Even if you know somebody and private
markets, that's where you want to be.
Those are the companies that you.
Gotta know one, someone to get into.
Think of like chat, GPT.
Everyone's who's in it right now, right?
Open AI is their company.
That's one of the biggest private
companies in the world right now.
Right?
Or on their way to being one of the
biggest, that's the VIP lounge you
wanna get into, but you gotta know the
right people to get into that lounge.
Riccardo Stewart: Honestly, guys,
I, I can't overstate this enough.
The thought of Jeff being in the
club actually just made my day right.
And that was a great analogy.
That was a great analogy.
Speaking of being in the club, I wanna,
I wanna, I wanna, I wanna land the plane
with you, Zach, so we already set you up.
It's second in one.
You get a chance to take a shot now.
We've talked a little bit about the
private markets, but I want you to
specifically nerd out because I know not
only do you sit as a certified financial
planner, but in our firm you also sit
on the investment team, and I know you
love talking about the private markets.
So explain that third bucket being
the private markets, and why is it
important for NFL players when they
reach that level of income to be
able to invest in the private market?
Zach Miller: Yeah, so once you've
established that protective reserve,
you've got a good chunk of, you
know, millions in public investments.
Now you become qualified for those
private investments and the SEC
Securities and Exchange Commission.
Not, not that, not that
football conference.
It actually doesn't let you invest
in private investments until you have
a certain net worth or even another,
uh, I mean, another advanced one is
qualified purchaser, so there's certain
investments you can't even invest in.
Unless you have enough money
in your investment account.
And so once you do qualify for those,
I mean, when I signed my second deal,
my, my second contract in Seattle,
I wish I would've put a bunch of
money to work in private investments,
specifically venture capital.
'cause it has statistically, if
you just look at the data, you
look at the past, you know who has
been the best players on the field
when it comes to private investment
venture capital, it's it's average.
Especially if you can get
access and as an NFL player.
You should be getting access to the
best investments in private markets.
Those returns have been over 20%
annualized, so your money's doubling
about every four years When you have
access to those kind of managers and
those kind of investments, just like Jeff
mentioned with open ai, those are the type
of investments you want to get in when
they're, when they're called seed stage.
Seeds, they're just
about to start growing.
That's when you want to start just
really putting, you wanna be able to put
money into those when you're so young,
the trade off being that you will lock
your money up for 10 to 12 years, and
so that's why those other two buckets
have to be right before you can actually
even put money into privates because
that 10 to 12 year lockup of your money.
That means you don't get, you can't
get access to it and so you have to
have the right plan and then all of a
sudden, not just venture capital but
private real estate, you know, there's
other private investments leveraged,
buyout those other good funds out
there and good ways to get that access
to those things that return even.
You know, even better have your
money grow even faster than
those, those other two buckets.
Riccardo Stewart: So lemme
wrap this all together.
Start off with saying, I start by
watching film with my son who's a
quarterback, and we go, as we look at the
route combination, we go, what is your
progression when it comes to NFL players?
And you're thinking about building
multi-generational wealth and
primarily through investments.
We gotta go, what's the what's?
What's the progression?
Number one is that first
bucket, first in 10.
You want to be in things that are safe
to protect you in case of an emergency.
Once that bucket's filled up, now
you can get into the public market.
It's second and four.
You can do some things and take a
little bit more risk if you find
yourself in the position financially
where it's second and one and now you
can take some shots down the field.
Now you can get into the private market.
If we've talked about something you're
going, I'm interested in understanding
that plan in depth and in more detail.
'cause it has to be
more complex than that.
It is.
We would love to be able to answer your
questions or provide more resources
for you, so please reach out to us.
Our number is 6 0 2.
9 8 9 5 0 2 2.