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Cake Club App: Mastering Your Cash Flow with Al Zdenek · Healthy Happy Wise Wealthy

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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
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website, there's just different things for different generations. So what are, what
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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
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just like disease. You're between boomers and millennials, you know, you know, and it's
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sort of— you're a mixture because you— some of you cross over to
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each category. Uh, you know, the Gen Xers were people who really didn't save
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a lot. They were into other things in their life. They were
18:46
helping people. There was things they weren't there. Now, now they're getting a little
18:50
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
18:57
with Gen Xers because they're malleable now. See,
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sometimes when you're— when Gen Xers were younger, forget it, they weren't
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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
19:27
wealth. So, but now, now they're more interested
19:30
in it. Millennials,
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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
19:48
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
19:59
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
20:06
they do it. Everyone wants to have some financial
20:10
freedom. Everyone wants to have a home or something. There's something around finance they
20:14
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
20:28
screw up, or their parents are from that. So they are
20:32
affected somewhat. They also see a few things. Some of them were young
20:36
when they lived through the Great Recession in 2008. They lived
20:41
through COVID. There's things that have really interrupted them and
20:46
their lives. Yeah, I think they're, I think they're a little more fearful, a little
20:51
more distrustful. I think they're actually a little more saving-oriented. They're a
20:55
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
21:22
Z. I mentor a few of them, and they're
21:26
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
21:38
do financial management, it was how to manage your checkbook, you know,
21:41
which is a really pretty straightforward coming in, going
21:45
out, coming in, going out. Nobody has a checkbook anymore. I don't have a
21:49
checkbook either. So, you know, like, so keeping
21:53
track of that coming in, going out, coming in, going
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out is, can be a little bit more challenging.
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Also, like when we were young— On the other hand,
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they're very automated. They're very computer and whatever and
22:08
phone automated. Like we struggle with sometimes paying things. They just
22:12
pay things. I mean, they're amazing with how they
22:16
use electronics today that we're still getting used to or keeping
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up with. Yeah, that too. I remember, you know, this is
22:24
probably a decade ago, but my son got a check and he just took a
22:28
picture of it and deposited in the bank and, you know, through an app on
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his phone. And I had not started doing that yet. So it was like, why
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is this not in there? You know, stuff like that. But, you know,
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it has evolved over time for
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sure. Yeah. So if a millennial, I know, you know, there's, there's
22:45
ways to like, so if there's just, if you're looking at your spending and there's
22:49
not enough money coming in, how
22:53
do you like, there's just, and maybe, you know, some
22:56
of it nowadays too, you know, the cost of living has
23:00
gone up significantly since, you know,
23:04
2019 through COVID, just housing has gone up. So
23:07
how do we, how do we bridge the gap for people who are really
23:11
struggling with bringing in enough money to kind of COVID some
23:15
of those things? Well, again, going back
23:19
to finding what's coming in and going out first, seeing if there's
23:22
like any waste in there. Do you have too many
23:26
subscriptions, cable channels you're not using, other things like that, right? And try to
23:29
get more lean there. And then maybe if you're saving but it's
23:33
still not enough to what you want to do, well, maybe you have to look
23:37
at the other side, which is income. So, where
23:40
do you work? Are you giving to
23:45
your 401(k)? Is your paycheck enough to cover everything? Let's say it's
23:48
not, or let's say it's not enough where you want to
23:53
save more. When was the last time you asked for a raise? And by the
23:56
way, some of these things can be difficult. You tell a person, they may not
23:59
want to do that. Or what's the future at your
24:03
job? Like, I have a millennial— I'm sorry, I have a Gen Zer right now.
24:07
He wants to be— he's 23. He's on his
24:10
own almost. His parents are subsidizing a little bit, and his main thing over
24:14
the next 3 years is to be completely free of his
24:18
parents because he doesn't want to bother them. He doesn't want to be a burden
24:21
to them and he wants to be free of them. So that's a
24:25
short-term plan. So I had him, I advised him, why don't you go talk to
24:29
your employer and say, well, for one thing, what does that mean? How much
24:32
is your, what's your spending plan for that? How much do you need to make
24:37
that happen? So he knows that now. He knows what he gets paid. He knows
24:40
there's a gap. I said, you might want to sit down with your employer and
24:43
say, look, I love being with your job, uh, you know, I love the
24:47
company, I want to— I'm gonna— my whole career is here, but what do I
24:51
look like in advancement or whatever over the next 2 or
24:54
3 years? And he said— and I said, that kind of conversation might give you
24:57
an idea whether that's going to be solid
25:01
for you. But even if it doesn't, maybe you'd like to— maybe you still want
25:04
to stay there and, and grow with them. So maybe look at some
25:08
side gigs, whether it's working part-time for one
25:12
of the transportation services— Lyft,
25:16
Uber, DoorDash— or maybe because a lot of Gen Zers have these talents
25:20
today with computers, start a side gig where
25:24
you help put up websites or you be a personal
25:28
assistant or, or help people. I mean, we all use, we all use
25:31
some of these people to a certain
25:35
extent.? And then maybe at your current job, what kind of
25:39
skills can you learn to get higher advancement? Or maybe you have to
25:44
leave your job. But the thing is you don't know until you know
25:48
what the gap is and what you have to do. So, it all
25:52
begins again back to your spending plan. But there are ways. It's
25:56
just not like— sometimes people get into what I
26:00
call seesaw thinking. Seesaw, right? If I
26:04
want that, I can't have that. If I do this, I
26:08
can't have that. Like, for example, I buy the car I want, I can't— I'm
26:11
not gonna be able to save. Um, if I, if I, if
26:15
I save too much, I can't— I, you know, I, I
26:18
can't have my lattes. I tell people, you
26:22
know, instead of thinking like that, think, why
26:26
can't you have both. Why can't you have your
26:30
lattes and save? Why can't you have your car and save? You know,
26:33
get into that mindset because, as we talked about a little bit
26:37
the last time, the mind's very powerful.
26:40
It'll tell you what you can and cannot do, even
26:45
if it's unreasonable. Our mind's 24/7. So, it tells
26:49
you, no, you can't have that. No, you can't spend that. You'll never have that
26:52
in your lifetime. We had these ungenerous conversations. Reframe
26:56
it like I reframed from budget to spending plan. Reframe
27:00
like, okay, instead of seesaw, have both. And then, then if you, if
27:04
you have a thought that way, then how do you do it? You may need
27:07
to get help from that. You may need to sit down with a financial planner.
27:10
You may need to sit down with someone who
27:14
has financial capabilities. But the thing is, once you know the basics, what
27:18
comes in and out, you can start to take action. If
27:22
you want to. Yeah, this is your plan, is your life. You
27:25
make the choices. Yeah. And, you know, I feel like you're touching on— it's just
27:29
kind of like when you're— there's so many— there's options
27:33
and there's possibilities. And so, you know, when we are really stuck
27:37
in fear and anxiety, that our whole
27:42
system tends to, you know, retract into— we're not, we're not
27:45
seeing the possibilities, we're not seeing the options, we're not seeing that
27:50
we have options. So I love how you're kind of— and
27:53
using the word reframing, you know, we can do this
27:57
and we can do that also. So touches
28:01
on a couple conversations I've had recently with like, what are you— what are your—
28:05
what's your— what are your— what's going through your head all the
28:08
time? What's your internal conversation you're
28:12
having with yourself? So if it is filled with the thought
28:15
of possibility, that's gonna— that's gonna like it's going to affect finances
28:19
and every other part of your life. So, but by the way, that's
28:23
a really great question when you're working with someone. I
28:26
don't care what profession, but I was in finance. Like, you, you say something
28:30
to a person and you see them thinking, you say, well, how's that
28:34
landing for you? What's going through your head? What are you thinking right now?
28:38
You know, because, you know, it'd be amazing. It's amazing to get the
28:42
feedback, but, but they like the fact you're asking it because you're interested in what
28:46
they're thinking. You're listening. But But, but, you
28:49
know, again, internal. Communications and external,
28:53
extremely important. Yeah, for sure. And it is a world, you know, especially we live
28:57
in now of, I think, of excess, that there's just always everything you can
29:01
purchase and buy and always the next thing.
29:05
I've thought, you know, in my family, the, the boomers are the
29:08
ones that were just, and they still are
29:13
today, they're so
29:17
frugal. So frugal. And I do think that's, that's just, that's a thought. I
29:21
think for Gen Zs who look, they look at boomers as being
29:25
like people who life was easy. It was easy to get a job, easy to
29:28
get a house, da da da. But
29:31
that's, I never, I never saw
29:35
them having excess. And that was without lattes, without a computer,
29:39
without a cell phone. Like all the things that weren't even in
29:42
the world yet. So, they drank black
29:47
coffee, you know, my family. I think that that was basically because they were raised
29:51
by the greatest generation who went through the Great Depression. Yeah.
29:55
I mean, you were always reminded of the Great
29:59
Depression. And so, your parents are always, "Debt is bad. Don't do
30:03
this. You know, watch your spending." You're reminded of
30:06
that. By the way, you did have part of
30:11
that generation rebel in the '60s, right? I don't want to hear it,
30:15
Dad and Mom. So you had that part too. But
30:19
I think it's like one generation keeps on
30:22
affecting the others. Again, Gen Zers today will look at
30:26
millennials and Gen Xers and say, I don't want to wind up
30:30
like them too. We're always harsher to the previous
30:34
generations for some reason. But, but I get what you mean
30:37
about the frugality. We're more practical, more, you know, you have to
30:41
have a reason for— they almost look at us like we're not
30:45
fun, we're not free, you know. I guarantee you, even though
30:49
I'm a boomer, I'm very free. But, uh,
30:53
but no, I, I can. Get where people think
30:56
that. Yeah, well, and it's just like, uh, you can't, like, you
31:00
can't hold generations right now side by side because our experience in
31:04
the world because of how it's changed with, um, you
31:08
know, technology and whatnot, is so
31:11
dramatically different, um, that we, we've just seen the world change very fast and that
31:15
it does affect money, uh, for sure.
31:18
Definitely. Yeah. So what are some of the common questions people ask?
31:22
So on the— I love this so much that that chat box
31:26
on the website or on the app has, you.
31:29
Cakenow, ask, ask Albert. Yeah, well, it's gonna be
31:33
on the phone later. We're doing it now, but it.
31:38
Is on the laptop. Okay, so on the website.
31:42
So what are some common questions.
31:46
That people ask? Well, so one, I'll give you some normal, then
31:50
I'll give you some wild ones.
31:54
Okay. Now the normal one is
31:58
like, look, I I'm X years old, I'm earning this
32:02
amount of money, I have a choice of paying down credit card
32:05
debt, my car loan, or my student debt. Which should
32:10
I do first? What's the primary— what's the priority I should
32:15
have? That's one. And or else, like, you
32:18
know, I'm barely saving enough. What kind of options do I have? Again,
32:22
that's a gig or or
32:26
income part. Or, look, I'm just beginning. I don't know
32:29
nothing about finance. What should I be reading? What can I be doing
32:33
to learn more? We'll have some questions like
32:37
that. One sort of off-the-wall question, it
32:42
was kind of actually scary and frightening, was this
32:46
one person said, I'm 20-something years old.
32:49
I see no way I can— get out of this, whatever.
32:53
I'm thinking of suicide. What should I do? So how
32:57
the— how the— how my— how I answered was that, for one
33:00
thing, if you're thinking of that, you call up suicide hotline, because
33:04
I can't do anything with you if you're not alive. But if you're alive,
33:08
I can help
33:12
you. Yeah. So, but, uh, you get questions like that. Uh, it's a
33:15
lot. You get a lot of, uh, tales of struggle
33:19
or being frightened or what do I do next. But,
33:23
and then you get again, when you tell what's like, going back to
33:27
the one where what's my priority? Should I be paying down
33:30
credit card debt, student debt, or saving? What should I do
33:35
first? You know, I'm always one to basically say, well, look,
33:38
let's start with emergency funds.
33:42
Like, you know, what can you do? Do you have any extra money to put
33:45
aside for the next month or two to where you can build up about a
33:48
month of expenses in case you get laid off, in case you have an emergency.
33:52
Because so you're reliant. So, because I think people, if they have
33:56
that, there's now there's a sense of security. There's more sense that they
34:00
have some choices. And then I always go into debt and say, well, if you
34:04
have student or credit card, let's talk about maybe there's a way
34:08
to restructure that so that you wind up with— so You
34:12
are paying less payments per month, but
34:15
you're saving more. And then keep in mind that again,
34:19
with our site, and that we have where we talk about compounding,
34:23
we talk about tax effects, because these things are
34:26
very important when you finally are saving money to understand
34:30
those. And we want people to save money as soon as possible.
34:34
We're sort of contrarian thinkers around that. I'm not
34:37
a big thing. I'm not a big person on you pay off your debt as
34:41
soon as possible. I think you restructure it or, or get to where
34:45
it's better debt. There's bad debt and good debt, but there's ways
34:49
to get there to basically— that's going to help you
34:52
possibly save more. Yeah, I love that. And I, I really
34:56
do like— I, I lived in the same town as a
35:00
very famous, uh, financial, um, it was
35:04
Dave Ramsey. Oh, Dave Ramsey. Yeah. Yeah, so
35:07
going through his stuff, it is— he's very much more, you're gonna do this and
35:11
you're gonna do this, and this is what you're gonna do. And
35:15
that does create this sense of. I don't think I like that.
35:19
Well, people like choices. Like, what do you want to do? These are
35:23
your choices. And I respect Dave Ramsey, but
35:27
I also think he— I don't agree with him around debt. He's a—
35:31
he— a lot of people like Suze Orman or Dave Ramsey are like
35:35
pay off your debt first and save. I don't agree with that. I think you
35:39
have to get emergency funds first, and then you have to
35:42
ask yourself, like, what major corporation is
35:46
debt-free? Is Warren Buffett debt-free? No. Is it—
35:49
what, what major billionaire is debt-free? No, no, they have debt,
35:53
and their companies have debt, because they know they use
35:57
debt to build wealth, to build value,
36:01
right? And, uh, And so, you know, you have to learn to
36:05
use debt smarter, right? So, for example, I'll give you an example because I'm
36:09
just— we're talking about— we're talking theory here. So, let's say you have
36:12
$10,000 in credit card debt. And let's say you
36:16
have to pay $500 a month on this. And, you
36:19
know, and so you can't save. You say you can't save. So, I
36:23
always tell people, well, first thing is that if you wanted to, you
36:27
can play the credit card game of going to zero
36:31
financing. Saving some money that way. But another way is to call the credit card
36:34
company and say, look, I'm having— I'm struggling, um, I, I
36:38
can't pay the 24% interest. Can we come to an agreement to
36:42
where maybe for like a year I pay zero interest, or you bring it down
36:45
to 5% or 6% or something? Or this is what I can only spend, that's
36:49
what I'm going to spend with you. How can we make that
36:53
work? So let's say— and let's say they're cooperative, maybe you have—
36:57
you can negotiate down to where it's $250 a month. Well, now you're saving $250
37:01
a month or $3,000 a year. Yeah. And if you
37:04
have a 401k at work and you can put that money in there, you get
37:07
a match from the employer, plus your taxes are lower. So you can end up
37:11
saving like $4,000 or $5,000 a year from that, that one
37:15
thing. But let's say the credit card says, oh, forget it. Well, there's ways
37:18
to get credit card companies, uh, attention. Uh,
37:22
stop paying them. Now again, that affects your credit rating
37:26
temporarily, but the thing is you'll get their attention. Then they'll negotiate, or
37:30
eventually you can even hire— there are attorneys or groups out there that basically
37:34
will negotiate for you. That, that's one way to do it.
37:38
Another way is, um, and again, this may be a harder thing for some people,
37:42
but, uh, go to a bank. If you have— if you have a
37:46
small business especially, or you have relationships with a bank Ask
37:50
for an interest-only loan. Say I want an interest-only loan for
37:53
the next 3 years. All right. And let's say the
37:57
interest rates are like 7%. So what,
38:01
that's what, $700 a year. So divided by 12, that's what,
38:05
$60 a month. So you were spending $500 a month. Now you're only
38:09
down to $60. So you're spending, you're saving
38:13
$440 a month or over $5,000 a year. And so you
38:17
can quickly get that emergency fund up. You can quickly give to your 401(k). You
38:20
can start building wealth. Now, yeah, you had that
38:24
$10,000 left to pay, but if you— if you're earning— if you're
38:28
saving $5,000 a year and then you're saving a 401(k) and
38:31
getting a match and saving taxes, maybe you're saving 6
38:35
or 7. In 3 years, you'll have
38:39
$18,000 of saving or $21,000. You had this debt of $10,000. But
38:43
now you have $21,000. Yeah, see, you're
38:46
getting to where you're safer. There's clarity.
38:50
You're, you know, it's safer if you have money. People have zero—
38:54
people who have zero debt and zero cash are very unsafe. They have
38:57
an emergency or something comes up, what can they do, right? If
39:01
people have some debt and cash, they always have options. Now
39:05
you can also do what I did. Um, well, there's
39:10
other options too. You may go to your parents, you may not like that,
39:14
and say, look, $10,000 and I'll give you
39:18
10% interest for like 3 years. So you think, my God,
39:22
10%, you know, you can get rates low. But the thing is, you
39:27
need to get cash flow.
39:30
So 10% of $10,000 is $1,000. That's about
39:34
what, $80 a month. So you're
39:38
saving $420 a month. It's the same thing. You have more than enough either
39:41
to pay them off to where you'll have
39:45
something net, or you can't— you say, can I keep on doing it? By the
39:49
way, I, I've done the same thing. I had a $20,000—
39:52
3— over 3 credit cards and loans. I ended up saving
39:56
about $1,000 a month, saved in taxes, saved,
40:00
uh, in a 401k. I was even saving because of that. I
40:03
was saving up to $15,000, $18,000 a year. In
40:07
3 years, I had over $50,000 for
40:11
the same $20,000. Well, I still have that note. I had
40:15
never paid that note off because if something's working for you and you
40:18
keep on earning, getting cash, and you're taking
40:23
advantage of compounding, you know, so, so you see how like now again, I
40:27
respect Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman, but But look, see,
40:30
you can really solve a short-term cash flow and emergency
40:34
fund problem for a person by showing them not necessarily
40:38
how to pay off their debt, how to have good debt, how to make
40:41
it work for you to have cash flow. So that, that's how
40:45
we think in. A more contrarian way.
40:49
I love that. That's so great. So when you get
40:53
the Cake Club app on your phone,
40:56
You're going to put in your, your bank account if you want to, any credit
41:00
cards, and that, and that will kind of basically help you just keep
41:04
track of everything a little bit easier. Is that kind of the main, one. Of
41:07
the main goals? There's two functions of our app right now. There's
41:11
the spending plan or the, or the budgeting app where you put in your credit,
41:15
actual credit card numbers and your bank accounts and
41:18
all your transactions daily. Will show up
41:22
and they'll automatically go to these, to the
41:26
budget categories you want. Okay. Now we have one where
41:30
we will actually put them into categories, but then you can, you can change that
41:33
to whatever you want. Okay. That's one way. So you can see at the end
41:37
of the month what came in total and what went
41:41
out. Okay. So that's one way. Uh, the other way is that again,
41:45
because we're cash-oriented, we're always trying to find cash. Is that
41:49
something we found very quickly to put on is what we
41:53
call cash rewards. So all you do is you don't even have to input your
41:57
actual credit card numbers, just tell us what credit cards you have. Like, do
42:01
you have a Citi, Citibank, Silver or Gold
42:04
or something? And then
42:08
our internal operations will know what that is. And what it'll do, if you have
42:12
3 or 4 cards is that when you go into
42:15
a store, you know, you go into your app and it'll tell you which one
42:18
to put in, in order, which one to use to get the
42:22
most points for, for either cash reward dollars for
42:26
cash rewards or points for
42:29
travel or, or miles. Yeah, that's
42:33
so cool. So it's just kind of like it helps you. It's kind of
42:37
like your brain, um, without having to spend so
42:41
much energy inputting everything into QuickBooks or whatever else you're going to
42:44
use. It's kind of right there on the. App is how I'm hearing that.
42:48
Well, no, it's right. It's to make it easier because again, when you come to
42:52
a spending plan or a budget, you know, people don't want to sit there
42:55
and input the stuff. So automate it. Automate as much as
42:59
you can because, you know, and but all you're doing
43:02
is getting clarity. You're getting where you are. You're getting your starting points where you
43:06
are so you can make better decisions. That's our, that's
43:10
our main thing right now. Then, of course, we're adding the AI and
43:14
we're adding eventually some things around taxes, investment as
43:17
we go along. By the way, one thing we're doing, because, you know, I've written
43:21
two books, Master Your Cash Flow. We are going to have a Master Your Cash
43:24
Flow, another book, Master Your Cash Flow. We haven't gotten the real title. It's going
43:27
to come out in June yet, but it's around Cake Club. Maybe it'll
43:31
be something like Master Your Cash Flow. Master your cash
43:35
flow via using Cake Club, or, or use Cake Club and have your cake
43:38
and eat it too. Or something like that.
43:42
Yeah, however you slice that cake, you can eat— slice it,
43:46
still have it,
43:50
still eat it. Analogies. So, you know, I
43:53
know you've counseled people over the years. When people— if someone comes to you
43:59
and they are kind of in a level of stress that, that borders
44:03
on maybe terror, or we're not going to make it. Like, what are some of
44:07
the things you do to just kind of help them through that
44:10
emotional state, to get through so they can
44:14
start looking at, you know, their situation a different way?
44:18
For one thing, you listen. You don't
44:22
make them wrong because they have their own point of view, right? There's no wrong
44:25
on how you feel, your perspective. You say, well, why do you feel
44:29
that way? They may say, I have all these credit cards, I can't
44:32
make my payments, whatever. You listen. And
44:37
when you listen, you get an idea of who they are, what kind of resources
44:40
they have, and how maybe to take the conversation. Give
44:45
you an example. I had a couple, they were in
44:51
their early 60s. They just lived through the 2008 recession.
44:54
They lost almost everything.
44:58
They were retired. She was 62, he was
45:02
63. They lost almost everything. They did have
45:07
a paid-for house. They were— they had— they thought they
45:11
have to work forever, just have to work. They had no
45:15
idea how they could possibly retire. So I listened,
45:18
and they were frightened. They were, you
45:22
know, basically in tears, but I saw how
45:26
to help them. So when I helped them, I said this,
45:31
I said, look, I can get you there to where maybe you can retire
45:36
in 5 years. Now, this is after doing work, right? But this is
45:40
what you might have to do. These are your
45:43
choices. One choice, very important choice, is you must
45:47
sell your house. And they had a decent amount of equity in that house. I
45:49
said, you must sell your house and now rent after
45:53
that because you have too much equity in there. And let's put
45:57
that to work. Yeah. So we started where that could be invested and
46:01
they would rent and they got a very nice townhouse for a very
46:05
nice rent. And then I said, and then I said,
46:08
especially the husband, I said, you're going to have to work for another 5 years.
46:12
And actually, I got him a job. I talked to another person. There was
46:16
a local hospital, the one I was on the board of. He got a job
46:19
there. So, I said, "He got a job with
46:23
his pay." And then, and they lived, you know, they didn't live an
46:27
extravagant life. And she worked part-time. They were able to save
46:31
enough over 5 years to actually retire when
46:34
he. Was 68 and she was 67. Oh, that's
46:38
beautiful. Now, there's another one too, a lot more affluent. These people were not as
46:42
affluent, but I sat with a couple. This shows you whether you're
46:45
wealthy or have affluence or not, you face the same issues.
46:49
They had some of the same issues.
46:52
His wife was 72. He was 80. They
46:57
had a beautiful penthouse apartment in New York City. He at one
47:00
time was the president of a major corporation
47:04
20 years before. But bad decisions, the market, whatever,
47:08
they were running out of money. And he was
47:12
very concerned because, you know, he saw a shorter lifespan for himself, but he was
47:15
very concerned about his wife. So,
47:19
and they had a few issues around their portfolio,
47:22
whatever. So I said, I can help you. Oh, by the way, they were at
47:25
a point in life where there was deferred maintenance on
47:29
the apartment. They couldn't do that. They quit all travel. They quit all entertainment. And
47:33
they used to be, used to entertain or belong to
47:37
a couple of societies. So, and now they were just in what
47:40
I call, they were just waiting to die. It's
47:44
terrible. So I said, I can help you with everything. I
47:48
can restore everything you had, your cash flow. And so
47:52
what it did again, what we did this time, they had their penthouse was
47:55
almost all paid off. We borrowed
47:59
heavily against it. Right. And because of the interest rates and all that, I think
48:02
we were able to give them tax deductions. They saved a lot of taxes. We
48:06
took the money, put into a very good portfolio, as well as the money
48:10
they had left. He had a small pension, and we were
48:14
able to restore their cash flow they had before, and,
48:18
and to where his wife would be, would be okay up
48:23
to age 100. Oh, wow. But by the way, he died at 90. By the
48:27
way, they became close friends and they were just
48:30
a lovely couple. But the thing is, they restored it to
48:34
where they could entertain, they could take
48:38
vacations, whatever. And she's still alive. He's passed away, but, and
48:42
she's still fine. She's still fine. See, it's
48:46
never too late. It's never too late to take some action. That does not mean
48:49
it has to be action that you might like. Like, you know,
48:53
you may not like to sell your house, or there's always some way to do
48:57
it. There's always some way to help people, I think, if
49:00
they want to be helped. But people have to understand that
49:04
it begins with— it's your life, you know. What you want is to
49:08
work with someone who gives you choices, not tells you what to do,
49:12
because, you know, I don't think— I don't believe in that. Give you choices, like,
49:15
if you did this, this could happen, you could have this. What do you
49:19
want to do? And so if
49:24
you have choices, I will tell you, I think no matter where you are in
49:27
life, I've dealt with people that had almost nothing in their
49:30
40s or 50s, and then they're, they're fine now. But you
49:34
may have to do things that you didn't do before, but
49:38
it's your choice. No one's going to care about your money and life more
49:44
than you will. Whoever you're using, the financial planner, investment advisor, you're
49:48
going to care more about your money than they do. Just
49:52
always understand that. So unless you're involved or somehow, you know, be
49:55
an advocate for yourself, um, you know, you're not—
49:59
you may not get as much out of, uh, your work
50:02
life and your assets or your. Wealth as much as
50:06
you can. Yeah, I love that. Well, I have a question for you now that
50:09
I know that you have this creative side too. I don't I
50:13
knew that before. Um, and you know, I am— before moving to Reno a couple
50:16
years ago, I was in Atlanta and pursuing acting as
50:20
a career, which if you're an actor, you know, you can't make all your
50:24
money on that. Or maybe any of your money on that. Maybe you
50:28
might just, you know, it might turn out to be you made $10 this year
50:32
from, you know, after your expenses. Uh, so
50:35
you rely on different things that aren't necessarily career-based, and
50:39
a lot of people do gig work or restaurant work or
50:43
something like that. So for people that are pursuing like something like that
50:47
where it is a creative career, have you worked with people like that? And then
50:50
they're doing the work, and is there specific like thoughts you
50:54
have. For that on— well, again, I, I
50:58
haven't worked with many, uh, actors, but there's
51:02
one in LA I've worked with her and her
51:05
husband, and, uh, and she came close a couple times to get on series, and
51:09
she has You know, she has part-time things, and you're right, and she
51:13
knows she couldn't survive on this. But,
51:17
uh, she, she turned to teaching, and
51:20
she was very successful. Yeah, she's very successful
51:24
being a teacher or having a school. So you
51:28
do that, um, you know, uh, you know,
51:32
coaching. There's a lot of acting people because I, I think they're
51:35
much more sensitive and they communicate better. Yeah, coaches
51:39
are natural for them. And, and, um, I'll tell you a
51:43
story about a coach, tell you how creative you can be with this. So I
51:46
had a coach, he was, he was actually coaching other actors
51:50
and other top executives, and, uh, he was— his
51:53
book was full, you know, uh, and, uh, and he was earning decent— he was
51:58
earning good money, but his life was just terrible. He was traveling
52:02
all the time. He said, now I can't live this way. And
52:05
I said, okay, uh, I've looked at your— I looked at what you have. I
52:09
said, uh, double your fee immediately. Now
52:13
he was charging $2,500 a day for this, and which was even cheap
52:17
at that time. Uh, and I said, charge $5,000. And he looked at me, he
52:20
says, I can't do that, everyone will leave me.
52:24
I said, are you getting referrals? I said, do you have any spare time? Are
52:27
you getting referrals? Yes. Then I said, I tell you what, let's do it
52:31
this way. Anyone who's new, you charge double. If
52:35
everyone else is saying, let's try that. So he found
52:38
that no one argued. So he eventually charged
52:42
double everyone else. So he doubled his fee, he
52:46
doubled his income, no more time working just
52:50
by doing that. Eventually I got him to like triple and get him up to
52:55
$10,000 a day. Yeah. So, so, so the thing is, keep in mind, a lot
52:58
of people— and I think actors, it's a sort of double-edged sword when they do
53:02
this— they're, they're, uh, they're, uh, I don't know
53:06
what it is. Uh, by the way, it's not them also, it's just psychologists
53:10
and other, other people in that sensitive field, or whether they use
53:14
their senses a lot. They, they don't have enough
53:18
confidence in charging. They're terrible. They're terrible in charging
53:21
fees and terrible negotiating. So you teach them that, and
53:25
just by simple that, like, and so you
53:28
help them that way. And sometimes, you know, keep in mind, you want people to
53:32
change immediately, but you can't change people. You have to take them
53:36
slowly through things. You have to listen, be patient,
53:39
give them alternatives. Like, if they can't double side, start
53:44
low, try things, right?
53:47
So I've learned that with especially people people, it's very
53:51
important to know who you're talking to,
53:55
if they're relationship-oriented, Type A personality, this or that, because, you
53:58
know, you want to, you want to have them, you want to get to where
54:02
you're listening in that way, but you're
54:05
speaking that way, you know, you're speaking that way, so, you know, they're listening, it's
54:09
going to land for them better. But I
54:13
find that, um, by knowing that, I, you can, you can deal with how to
54:16
do this and be more sensitive and/or not be sensitive if that's the case.
54:20
I mean, like engineers and
54:24
accountants are like, you give
54:28
them facts. Salespeople are all Mr. and Mrs.
54:32
Personality. So, you know, right? Then you
54:35
have professions, whether it's acting, whether it's a psychologist,
54:39
or maybe the soft professions where You've
54:43
got to be empathetic, well, more empathetic. You have to be empathetic
54:46
everywhere, but more empathy and get into their world and
54:50
listen to them and listen to their feelings and then say, well, this doesn't work
54:54
for you. Give them choices. I think the worst thing you can do to anyone,
54:57
I don't care any of those personalities, just say, no, this is what you
55:01
must do. I remember having another wealth advisor tell me one time, he just told
55:03
the person, you got to cut your spending
55:07
in half. I said, what did they do? He said, they, they didn't— they love—
55:10
they left me. I would too. You kidding? That's
55:14
not an answer, you know. Yeah, you have to work with people, get to know
55:18
them and see what works for them. But you have to let them know—
55:21
I always work— I always go through what I call the ground rules with people.
55:24
You have to let them know that I have responsibilities, but
55:28
you do too. And your responsibility is— this is your plan, it's not mine. You
55:32
got to show up. If you say you're going to do something, you do it.
55:35
If you allow me to say something you don't understand, you got to stop and
55:37
say, 'I don't understand.' You know, you've got to be responsible. You got to show
55:41
up in your plan. Again, nobody's going to care more about your life and
55:45
money than you do. Yeah, I love that.
55:49
Yeah, and even beyond, you know, acting, I know I lived in Nashville, so
55:53
I know the songwriters, and I did some of that in the— and then I
55:56
have a daughter who's a dancer, and it's like, so all these creative
56:01
professions where you're you know, you can teach some lessons, you can do some teaching,
56:04
or you have to just have something else that you're doing
56:07
that can be flexible. It's kind of, you know, so I feel
56:11
like that is, um, and, uh, it's tough. It's a tough field. So,
56:15
oh, I think, I think you're right. I think, you know, you're lucky if 1
56:18
or 2 or 3% can, can, uh, can they, they
56:21
can really earn. You can really have a career from it earning and not have
56:25
to work somewhere else. But. But again, there's always options.
56:29
Like, I, again, not me, I just know these three
56:33
from a mutual friend, three actors. They got together
56:37
and scraped a little money together and started their own little, like,
56:41
one of those, like, street, street vendors, you
56:44
know, like the sandwich shop or whatever, but on the street in New York City.
56:47
You ever seen them? Right? They started that.
56:51
And they actually eventually had two or three of them. And they were making more
56:54
money from that than anything else. But see, you
56:58
just find something else. Yeah, another creative
57:01
idea. I love that. I love that a lot. And I
57:05
do think probably creatives sometimes are underestimating their ability
57:09
to own a business and be a business
57:13
owner. And, you know, I was taught when I first worked for my—
57:16
one of my first bosses, He was a manager and
57:20
I was a regional manager. And we were talking about how to run
57:24
a region. He said, Al, always remember, there's always a
57:28
person, there's always a place, there's always a way to get
57:31
it done. Just start listing. If you don't think, if you can't think of anything,
57:35
just start listing a possibility. Just start listing them. Make them
57:39
up. Make them crazy. I can do this. I can do that. He said, you'll
57:42
find— or ask other people. I have this problem. What can I do?
57:47
You'll find a way. Yeah. And I do think, because I've, you
57:50
know, I've been the business owner too, that's like, man, I'm
57:54
this, I, the, this online store that I did, it's so, it was so out
57:57
there. I didn't know anyone who was trying to do it. And I did start
58:00
with someone, but then he left. And, um, I, the,
58:04
the key in my opinion is that you're not an
58:07
island to yourself, that you're actually going out and, and
58:11
finding the right help. And, and, you know, like, like this app can be that.
58:15
It can be the financial help. But you're reading the books, you're
58:19
looking for the people, you're, you're, you keep
58:23
searching for a community, uh, that actually. Does have the answers
58:27
for you, right? And, and you said all the right things. You said
58:31
like a good partner. If you don't have a good partner, get rid of the
58:33
person, you know, and go get another partner. I mean, I, I know
58:37
what having bad partners, it helped me— it hurt me a lot on
58:41
some of my companies. But there's, you know, but there's always a
58:45
way. There's— I can't— I'm a very positive person, and I think—
58:49
but you just have to be positive, like, I'm going to solve this. And then,
58:53
and then if you don't know, ask. Keep on asking people, I have
58:56
this problem, you know. You'll have someone come out and help.
58:59
Yeah, I agree. I've been
59:02
saying in the last year, the answer is
59:06
at hand. Because it seems like that, seems like there is no— there's just
59:10
been a, a lot of, um, gates that's hard to
59:14
get through. So, but it does help you, it does help your mind to go,
59:17
and I'm just like looking around, the answer is at hand, the answer is at
59:21
hand. And somehow it does turn your, um. Well, into a different
59:25
place. I have a thing, the universe will offer it somewhere
59:29
along the way, somewhere the answer will come if you're patient
59:33
and ask whenever. By the way, as a business owner, or just if you're
59:37
not a business owner, you're an executive or
59:41
you work for someone, always have around people that—
59:45
always have good people around you. A good
59:49
accountant, good insurance person, a good banker, whatever you need. If you have
59:53
business, you'll have more, more needs,
59:57
maybe a good attorney. I call— get yourself a
1:00:01
championship team of experts. By the way, not the most expensive, the ones that return
1:00:05
phone calls, the one that care about you, the one that gives good advice.
1:00:08
They're always there, they're timely, their work
1:00:13
is good. You know, bad, bad, uh,
1:00:17
poor professionals or poor team people, uh, will cost you
1:00:21
money all the time. You have a good set of people you can
1:00:24
always go to. Again, it's another resource
1:00:28
for you to answer questions or answer things that you're finding
1:00:32
problems, you're finding difficult to answer yourself.
1:00:35
Yeah, that's very good advice. So, uh, remind
1:00:39
us of the, the books that you have. So I, I think it would be
1:00:42
a great idea for people to just read your books, get the
1:00:46
app. The app is, um, $80 a year, is that right? What it
1:00:50
is, it's $10
1:00:51
a
1:00:57
month. You can get, um Uh, you know, the name escapes me right now, and
1:01:00
I apologize for this, but we have, uh, there's a—
1:01:03
you can input this, this password. If you do that, you'll
1:01:07
get 3 free months. If you go to— for your listeners, if you go to
1:01:11
the app right now, we'll give you a free month. Okay. All
1:01:15
right. So, and so you, and you can find the
1:01:18
app at, you know, um cakeclubapp.com on
1:01:22
the Apple Store, uh, or if you're not sure about that, go to the website
1:01:25
and we'll guide you there. But as far
1:01:28
as my, my books, um, and my books, by the way, are
1:01:32
written in very layman terms.
1:01:35
There's no legal things, legalese, and there's a lot of
1:01:39
good examples in them. But there's two of them: Master Your Cash Flow, The
1:01:43
Key to Grow— I'm sorry, The Key to Grow and
1:01:46
Retain Your Wealth, And then the second one is Master Your Business Cash
1:01:50
Flow: Grow the Company You Love, Live the
1:01:54
Life You Want Now. And then our new one coming out, we're going to come
1:01:57
out with one in June, and it's going to be something like Master Your
1:02:01
Cash Flow, maybe, uh, Have Your Cake and Eat
1:02:05
it Too. I love it. I love it. Well, thank
1:02:09
you so much, Al. And, uh, if people want to, you know, learn more,
1:02:12
they. Can go to
1:02:16
cakeclubapp.com. And then if they want to learn more about me personally, you
1:02:18
can go to
1:02:22
al@alzdenek.com also. Okay. Or you go to my LinkedIn, you know, you can find out
1:02:26
how to connect with me if you want to. See my post or
1:02:30
something. Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you, Al. I appreciate you so much, and, um, you
1:02:33
have such a beautiful heart for helping people and such great
1:02:37
advice and wisdom. So thank you for coming on and. Enjoy the rest of
1:02:41
your day. I appreciate it, Mary. Thank you for having me. Yeah, bye-bye.