Latest / Winning With Winans! / Erik Davison e 29, AI, Stock Market Warnings & the Future of Business

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Erik Davison e 29, AI, Stock Market Warnings & the Future of Business · Winning With Winans!

• speaker-0: Well I guess is another time for an episode of Winning with Winens. Let's go. Well, hello and welcome to Winning with Wine is Las Vegas' newest and coolest financial show. I'm your host, Ken Winens. And for the next hour, we're gonna be covering all kinds of things that are going on in the world of investing. But before we get started, let me tell you why you want to watch this podcast. Well, number one, I've been doing a financial commentator work for Forbes and radio for the last 25 years. Needless to say, I've seen pretty much everything imaginable. And then the most important part is I do walk the talk. I am a professional money manager. I run a highly successful investment management firm based in Las Vegas. And we are five-star ranked by Morningstar. So as they say it in poker, read it or weep. But anyway, the other part that's important about this show is that we are trying to be different. I'm trying to give you by just sifting through all the noise and all the dot to dot to dot that you hear on social media or just regular media itself. I want to connect those dots and give you the whole picture that at the end of the day it's about trying to make money and just to go in the right direction with things. So, anyway, that's the plan with winning with wine-ins. So over the next hour, we're going to cover a lot of things. But before we do that, and we're going to have a special guest in the mid-part of this show, I want to go over the news. Let's just talk about it. Folks, it's it's full election cycle. I have been for the last two weeks. It had been inundated with, you know, various government officials contacting me on various things that I'm working on. Many of you know I'm very, very involved with the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce and UNLV, mainly on financial service industry issues. But there's crosswinds all over the place. I know we're all looking at the same ads. I mean, it's it's hard to believe that that these people actually behind the scenes, they they actually talk to each other, they're very civil to each other. So you have to laugh it off a bit. But obviously the big issue that is affecting everybody, whether it's in Nevada or in certainly in other states, it's actually much worse. It's affordability. It's the inflation topic. Here's the Wall Street Journal from yesterday. Inflation, inflation, inflation, front page. So yes, I know I still like newspapers. I don't know what it is. I like the paper. I can scan things quicker, just the way it is with me. Plus I get tired of looking at the screen. But with that being said, yes, it's a problem. But let me tell you real quick while I have concerns about government statistics. This goes back before COVID. This actually goes back to the dot-com era. Government statistics, and and let me tell you why I know this. I have stock indices and real estate indices that I've compiled. They're used by major services like Bloomberg and Morningstar. And so I have to get government data. I can tell you with almost without exception, when a preliminary number comes out. It's almost always revised the next one, two, three, sometimes three months back. So I don't ever react to a number that comes out in any one day. And then you take on top of it during the political cycle, all these numbers are being amplified in a big way. So I would just tell you, cool your jets whenever a number comes out. Don't try to read too much into it. But one thing that is of interest to me is this issue about diesel fuel. And lo and behold, And by the way, this is very contentious. the the pr the Trump administration bought diesel fuel from Russia. We're trying to inject it here. I'm not going to get into the war issues or the geopolitical issues of that. We do need diesel here. We're trying to manufacture our own as fast as we possibly can. Unfortunately, we're behind the curve because many people don't want to admit it. This goes back to the previous administration on the Green New Deal. Diesel is very evil to them. They don't want it. Well, guess what? Every train, truck, ship, a lot of trucks themselves, they all run on this stuff. You need it. It's a necessary evil. So that's part of something that we're gonna be dealing with and hearing a lot about. Okay, going on from there. Let's talk about just some other things that are going on that we I'm dealing with right now. Earnings season. These are the third quarter earnings for most of the U.S. corporations that publicly trade. On the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ exchanges. Okay, here's the good news. The numbers that have come out so far now, look at knock on wood, it's still early. We've had another two weeks of this, but the numbers have actually been pretty darn good. I've in my own portfolios, there have been very few misses. We've largely been able to get through things pretty well. I'm what I'm mostly shocked at is that even with the volatility in the stock market, what am I talking the most about? Bonds. I mean, here's an here's the Economist magazine. Will bonds blow up? I mean, you know, these headlines are driving me crazy. for and it makes me really wonder about this hundred-plus year old publication putting out a headline like that without a little more clarity. Look, bonds are volatile, and for that matter, it's been a volatile year for real estate, stocks, bonds, commodities. It's been a volatile year overall. It's the nature of the beast, folks. But let me tell you the good news here. Number one, a huge number of companies have actually posted big, big numbers of both revenue growth and earnings growth. That's important, by the way. If you don't have the earnings growth with the revenue growth, that's not necessarily a healthy thing. And then the other big thing that I've been very happy about to hear, we're having record levels of research and development money that companies are pouring into their products, their services. I'm thrilled to see that. It goes to show that America is still an innovative nation and how we work well together. That is a huge, huge deal. Okay, other things. I'm gonna bring it up again and again and again, and hopefully that this will eventually resonate with people. What is the stock market? What do you use to gauge it? Well, I'll tell you what, I am grown very disenchanted with the conventional benchmarks. Whether it is the S P five hundred or the even the Dow Industrial Average, because there has been a revolving dwarf companies that have come in and out of these indices. It's becoming it as far as I'm concerned, it's looking more like a beauty contest than it is an actual snapshot of what's going on in the entire stock market. Remember, the stock market isn't just the best companies. It is the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I again, I it's my opinion. I don't use these indices at all anymore. Quite frankly, I had to develop my own because I just didn't trust the data that I'm getting from them. So I would just encourage all of you, I I would call it a performance mirage. When you have companies that are constantly playing around and tinkering with their mix in an index and you don't necessarily know what they're doing, a good example of this is that if you look at just the NASDAQ and the SP 500, it's been basically all up all through the year. That's not what happened in August and September. if you look at your own portfolios, Chances are they were probably taking a bit of a hit during those times. Why? The stock market did. Not everybody on planet Earth has just AI stocks in their portfolio. I saw a lot of old-time tech stocks that end up getting hit during that time. So again, you're gonna need to be careful not to trust main lane headlines and base popular indices on what's really going in the market. But here's the good news: it October, November, December, January are typically good times. You should get your list together, look for those things you want to buy, and step in and buy them as their earnings come out. I rarely am are what I would say at all in cash in November, December, and January. Even in 2008, as volatile and ugly as it was, the market actually ended up on a good note for the tail end of that year. It was volatile. There's a lot of scary headlines going on. But even in bad years, I find that these markets typically have what we call a Santa Claus rally. And I'll also give you a little other little piece of good news. Have any of you gone out shopping yet for the holidays? Well, you're not alone. Other people are as well. Stores around Las Vegas are packed. I'm talking to there was a it was an event that I went to last night, and they were the talking to economists. They were talking about there's actually an expectation, in spite of high interest rates and price increases, people are gonna go do holiday shopping. People wanna celebrate. I think there's another reason for it. People who have invested dollars or homeowners are looking at saying, hey, my assets have actually gone up in value. They're doing very, very well. So I think again, you want to be very, very careful of about buying into the bad news. Hey, the other really important thing, and I'm bringing up, I think it's so important. Financial companies have been posting their numbers. The companies that we have our money with, I'm talking about the Schwabs, the JP Morgan's, the Bank America's. You know, I happen to bank with Nevada State Bank. They're all doing very well. They really are. And I'm I'm just thrilled to see that, you know, if our financial institutions are doing well, they're going to be more inclined to try to do things going forward. So I again, I think there's a lot of good news out there that is not quite making the headlines, in spite of all the bad headlines that we keep reading about. Okay, we're about ready to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors and come back with our guests. But anyway, we'll be right back. This is Winning with Winance with Ken Wynins. Talk to you in a minute. And welcome to Winning with Winens Las Vegas, newest and coolest financial show. I'm your host, Ken Winens. And you know what? As you all know, I just came back from the Las Vegas Chamber, DC Flying. And one of the great things is you make a lot of new friends and associates. And here's one of my new friends. This is Eric Davidson of DBV Solutions. Eric, how are you, my friend? speaker-1: I'm doing fantastic. speaker-0: So hey, let's talk before we jump into what you do, because what you do is so amazing. Let's talk about the fly-in. So this was your first fly-in, right? speaker-1: Right. It was. And it was absolutely phenomenal for us. You know, the opportunities to meet with people on a daily basis, to get the briefings we did, to learn new things, right? To meet other people, network. You know, normally you go to a networking event and you meet some interesting folks. And then, you know, you send an email and say, Hey, it was great to meet you. And then two months later you have lunch, right? Here you run into the same people over and over over the course of the entire week. And you're building really nice bonds and strong bonds. I thought it was phenomenal from that perspective. speaker-0: Well and i we we all go to a lot of conventions. I mean I know you you do, I do in our industries, but I had the same experience. It's usually booths and you go and someone's selling you something and and that's all fine. Hey, we all have to make a living, but but here, you know, this is very serious. We're taken as we're we're business and civic leaders and we're getting a I like what you said, it's a briefing of what's going on. So what was your take on the news as you as you went through all the the various committees speaker-1: The biggest takeaway from me was, and I have a book coming out, and we talk about AI and we talk about enterprise intelligence. A lot of the briefings were really focused and centered around AI and guardrails, right? What what I took away was we need to have some guardrails at that federal level, because we do business in all 50 states. We do business globally, right? So if I'm out of line in any regulations because we have no action on the federal level, I have to comply with all the state regulations and they're all different. different. speaker-0: no. speaker-1: So if I if I deal with a client who is in California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and New York, there's five different, you know, rules that I have to follow all of a sudden. That's ridiculous. speaker-0: Right. So Nevada, how is Nevada on the on things like this? Are they are they more open to it or do you speaker-1: A bit more open and they're trying to figure out and navigate slowly where do we need to be, right? And every state is trying to do that. speaker-0: You know, it's pretty funny. I cause I do enjoy AI. I'll go on it and I'll I'll go on meta A and I'll ask it some questions. Yeah. And I literally asked it, I said, What state would you where where would AI or rather be? California or Nevada? They go, Nevada. Said you have power. We need power. speaker-1: That's very true. The thing with AI is you have to know how to manage it correctly, right? AI is not going to elimin eliminate me, right? It's not going to eliminate you. But it is going to help so much in the future that people don't realize, right? There is the pendulum always swean, right? They're the ones who say we're going to be dead from robots in a couple of weeks, right? And then on the other side you have speaker-0: Do you really have that? People that think we're we're we're like going into Do you think we're and what we're like we're all dead in ten years or something? speaker-1: On the other end of the spectrum, wow. let's open it up for everything, right? And my thing is it's somewhere in the middle. But if you remember when QuickBooks first came out, you know, everybody said accountants are gonna be dead, there is no more accountants, right? Now you have a cottage industry for individuals and professionals to help manage your QuickBooks because it gets so complex, right? And accountants are really doing more strategy work for their clients, so it really has improved. speaker-0: Completely agree. speaker-1: And helped be more strategic, in your client facing activities from an accounting perspective. speaker-0: Eric, I'll tell you something that in my personal opinion, on just things I've read, I think the biggest change that AI is gonna bring is government. When you think of all these bureaucracies, these just constant routine things. I mean, you name it, Social Security. Let's just pick on social security. I I have to believe if if you're looking for a career in government bureaucracy, you might want to rethink your choices. I think that there's gonna be few and far between on that, especially when you look at the cost savings. Cause when we talk about how do we as a nation grow out of forty trillion dollars of debt, well, as business, what do you have to do? You have to cut expenses. speaker-1: Absolutely. speaker-0: So here's a clean cut way that we could do it. And and it not certainly people can find maybe other areas to go into. I I really think I mean the more I look at it. A anything that's back office in my industry, anything back office, compliance, any of that. I think that's gonna very much be curtailed because we're in a world of fee compression. But okay, so what else at the at at the chamber? I mean there were clearly a lot of parties. We we did go to a lot of parties. speaker-1: I I got absolutely no sleep during that week. Yes I do. speaker-0: Did you go to the cigar bar? You went to Shelley's. Okay. How did we miss each other? speaker-1: Yeah, I know. How did that happen? And then you know, all the others that that we went to. It was just a phenomenal experience. And I I love I've belonged to many chambers in the past, right? And it's normally always the attorney working with the accountant and the bakery trying to sell each other something, right? This chamber truly is positioned to stimulate growth for Nevada and stimulate additional business. And how do we help other businesses within our community to Yeah. speaker-0: You know what, you hit the nail on the head. We're growing, thriving place. Yes. It's a different take than if you were a member of a chamber in in some state that's having terrible problems. Right. What they would be talking about. Yep. you know, nobody in our state talks about state level taxes unless you don't want to be reelected on any side. You will not be reelected. I period, if you try that, you know, ask our former governor what happened when he tried it. It didn't it didn't go well. Right. So but all right, but I'm glad you went. I'm glad a firm of your caliber was involved in what you heard. I felt the same way. Nothing but generally look, we have our challenges. They're mainly growth oriented. the it's talent pool oriented, meaning we have to bring more capable people in order to do the economic diversification that we're all talking about. So but before we jump into your company, I want to talk about your background because I love this. Where did you grow up? speaker-1: I grew up as I always tell people in West Texas, half the people say, okay. And the other people say, No, you didn't. I grew up in as you can tell from my accent in Germany. I lived there for twenty years. My dad's American, my mom is German. both. I'm a dual citizen. Okay. And you know, I was born into an entrepreneurial family, vertically integrated personal alliance insurance agencies. We had car insurance, car sales, car repair, and car rental. We had herds of agencies. And by the time I graduated from high school, I wanted nothing to do with the business because I worked in it since I was a year tall, right? so I wanted to come and seeing close close to two air bases in Germany, seeing the jets fly all the time, I want that's what I wanted to do. So I came to Boulder, University of Colorado Boulder, was in RTC, and then went to flight school and then speaker-0: Fantastic. speaker-1: flew KC-135s and C 141s for eight years. and then decided, you know what, I want to get Back in the business world, got my MBA, and my first job was with Anderson Consulting, now Accenture. You know, we changed the name to Accenture. did that for about seven or eight years, and then figured, you know what? I come from an entrepreneurial family. I want to do this on my own. And so rest is history, 22 years later, DBV Solutions is still here, growing strong. speaker-0: And I'll bet you had people say, Are you crazy? Why are you doing that? You have such a good job. Why would you want to give it all up? That happened to me. My own father thought I was crazy. Wait, really? You're gonna leave Merrill Lynch? So speaker-1: Well even making the transition from the military, you know, having a military job is a great job. You get a pension after, you know, twenty years. You're in your maybe in your forties and get a pension, you can have a second career. and some friends said you're crazy. speaker-0: I think you you know it's funny in some ways we do parallel each other 'cause I I did the same thing. I said, you know, the military I I if we're in a war and the country needed me, of course, I'll go. This is not for me. I I decided I did my I I you know, did what I was expected to do, served my time and I said, That's it. I'm done. Yeah. And same way with corporate America. I say I I'm I appreciated the time I had there. I learned a great deal. Absolutely. But I, like you, come from an entrepreneurial family. You know what's funny? I didn't want anything to do with my father's business either. I said, Forget it. Same thing. working there since I was a little kid. I said, don't forget it. I'm I'm gonna go off and do other things. So how did you end up in Vegas? speaker-1: so you know, our our kids grew up in Chicago, right? Okay. And then my youngest moved back. He went to University of Colorado as well, as did my oldest. And then he got a job with CIBC Bank in Chicago in Denver as well. Okay so they stayed in Denver. and we just stayed in Chicago, but a lot of friends of ours had places in Florida. And I don't care for humidity and bugs and all of that. When we lived in Charleston, South Carolina. speaker-0: Well, how about Chicago? They're brutal. speaker-1: It is, it is. But you know, nothing like the winters. I remember coming back from visiting the in-laws in Colorado, where half the house is snowed in, right? Then try to shovel out of there. So four years ago, you know, we made the decision let's come here slowly and gradually. and my requirements were a pool spa and palm trees. And when I lived in Germany, we came on vacation a lot into into the southwest. We were went to Arizona. We went to Nevada, we went to Southern California and we loved it. The climate was wonderful. loved the people. And so my wife said, well, if you want pool spa, palm trees, she grew up in Colorado. She said, throw in some mountains and you got me. Hey, that's Vegas. So we've been speaker-0: 12,000 foot peaks. I mean I people can't believe it when I tell them that. Hey Eric, we need to take a really quick break to hear from our sponsors. And then we'll be right back to hear more about this man's fantastic business. This is Ken Winins with Winning with Wanins. And welcome back to Winnie with One. It's Las Vegas newest and coolest financial show, business show, friendship show. And we're, yep, exactly. And my new friend Eric Davidson of DBV Solutions. And you know what? We just discovered we're like kindred spirits. We've we've seen been everywhere and everything. So let's talk about your business. So you start this business up. Look, what is your business? Let's start with that first. speaker-1: Absolutely. So it's a management consulting firm. If you know what the big six are doing, we do the same thing except we do it faster, better, and cheaper. And I always joke and say we don't park the school bus outside. But I was driven by having experienced folks helping businesses succeed, right? And that could be on the four pillars. And I call the four pillars strategy, process, technology, and org design, right? And you know, you can work on all four of them or you can have technology implementation, whatever it might be, but we thrive on helping businesses succeed. speaker-0: So th the business wise, what is there a specific area of industry you're in or do you just take it across the board? Yeah. speaker-1: That's a great question. And you know, from my experiences when when I was in big six, you know, we were agnostic to any verticals, but it was strongly aligned with financial services. Beautiful. So that's where we're at. Capital markets, Fidelity Investments was a was a client in the past many years ago. But if you look at capital markets, banking, insurance, both both broker and insurance companies, carriers, and then healthcare. So all of those are really in our sweet spot. But we do go outside of that vertical as well. Well. speaker-0: How much of your business is in Nevada versus other places? speaker-1: it's a small piece right now that's in Nevada because you know, it's it depends on if one of the larger you know clients has any type of residency in Nevada. Wow. speaker-0: You know my feeling on this. I think you're gonna make a killing over the next decade. All these firms coming out of California that are financial services. Yep. I'd love to work with you on that actually. I think I mean I I there's a piece I that well actually the the Review Journal did a piece on this as well. Yeah. I think there's like thirty three hundred mutual fund companies and ETF companies, not to mention invest you know, boutique investment managers, wealth managers. I mean, I was literally telling both of our treasurer candidates, if if you can you imagine what would happen to Las Vegas if you picked up 200 of those companies? You you you now no longer have a diversity problem. So no, seriously, we need to talk people like you and I said that's what I love. We see the entrepreneurial opportunities because this whole community is entrepreneurial. It speaker-1: You know. speaker-0: shouldn't be here. I always tell people it's a miracle of economics the place exists. speaker-1: And and the the other thing that people don't see when they when they see s southern Nevada or when they're here Nevada, they think of two things. They think of Las Vegas and Reno, right? And they think of gambling. It is so much more than that. Yeah. You know, and I do have to say the people here are incredible. I have never encountered friendlier people than here. Quite frankly. speaker-0: Completely. speaker-1: they always say the Midwest has wonderful people. Yes, there are. They're very friendly. But Nevada hasn't beaten. speaker-0: Eric, I don't know if you'd agree with me on this, because you're a vet as I am. when I because I I have I'm a fifth generation Westerner when family came to, you know, 1800s, my family came out to California. And as we were going through COVID, and I have always had a satellite office here for many, many years, but I, you know, was looking at the deterioration, and I'm mainly talking about the social deterioration in California. And it was just kind of just negative, toxic, you know, looking for reasons to not get along. And you come out here and you say, wow, there's a lot of veterans here. A lot of people go to church here. nobody's really from here. Everybody's very friendly and gets along. Yep. You know, I just I I people think I'm crazy when I say that, but no, you don't you don't have a lot of I mean racially, you know, economic wise, you know, blue collar, white collar. It's really a nice balance to everything. speaker-1: And I would say I would add to that, you know, I've lived in California for five years as well, right? When I was in the military, I lived in Northern California. And there is such a disparate gap between northern northern, yeah, northern and southern California. yeah, right. And and here it's just, you know, people just making a living and getting along. speaker-0: Well, did you notice at the fly-in, at the DC fly in that that there was not it it in the past it only been just Vegas or southern Nevada. Now it's everybody because I'm also involved in the mining association. Okay. Everybody was there. Yes. I I was so blown away, and now we're talking as a state. Yes. I think everybody's agreeing. We need speaker-1: We have record numbers of participation. I think it was for the first time three hundred and forty some people. speaker-0: was and they have to cap it there. I already told them guys it's gonna become a convention. If you get up to four and five hundred people, there's no way you can hand in my opinion, you'd it'd be hard to to to manage that and all that. All right. So business wise, how many offices do you have? Where are they speaker-1: We don't g we don't look by office. I with COVID, I got rid of all the office. speaker-0: Really? So you really are a state of the art. speaker-1: Yeah, because I mean you don't need offices. You know, we had a presence in New York and Chicago and San Francisco, right? And I can tell you on one hand in ten years how many times I was in an office. We beat a client side. Right. And I've also done deals on the golf course. speaker-0: Well it well it's old school. You know, for me, same way. I had big offices. I mean I had a massive office in Northern California. We've gone to Regis's. Yeah. We don't need big things. We just exactly we just need a place where people can go to work and then like you, it's really getting out. I like your style. You get you're face to face with people. Yes. It you know, I think I probably you're like me, we're of a different generation. I've told people I'm zoomed out. I I'm really zoomed. I I speaker-1: Lose the nuances, right? people don't really pay a hundred percent attention to everything that is going to get done on a Zoom call by people off camera. They're multitasking. you don't see the nuanced reaction, you say something, and it's really important how you choose your words sometimes, depending on what you do, right? And just small reactions like That you won't see over Zoom. I you will see in a room, right? Or body language. yeah. You don't see over Zoom. And it's important. I'm not saying, you know, all Zoom can be replaced. I think it's a great tool. It has allowed us to do more work. And I have people in right now we have people in close to 30 states, right? We're nationwide. but it enables us to be a lot more efficient, more effective. But for key meetings. You have to have those conducted in person. I always said, you know, when when I taught relationship selling, I always said business is a relationship. And I I still believe this, you know, twenty some years later. speaker-0: You know what? We we are so much alike. I tell myself all the time, what business are we in? we manage money. No, no, no. We're in the trust business. Yes. People are giving us their companies are giving us their 401ks. People are giving us their life savings. It's trust. Yes. I have another theory. Yeah, you you're an expert in your field. Tell me if you would agree with this. I find that if you'd still do face-to-face meetings, I mean really do it, your client base is stickier. And when it comes time to renegotiating fees, the the the fees are less important because you've done such a good job on servicing them. I I find it doesn't it you you're you're deliberately not commoditizing your service business if you are getting out and doing your thing. speaker-1: Yeah, what I strive to do is when we get a new client, for example, I want to make that shift to a trusted advisor. Because as a trusted advisor, they come and ask you questions about anything and everything. And before they make a decision, they always come back and say, Hey Eric, what do you think? Right? And that is so powerful. Yeah. speaker-0: Well, it's more fun. You're a very social person as I am. I like seeing people. I do too. I don't want to hide from anybody. Are you kidding? I'm I'm done with COVID. I I which again is another great thing about when we talk about our our home of Vegas. This is old school. People here care about relationships. They and it is a small enough town that if you end up getting a bad reputation in any way, people everybody knows pretty fast. Yeah, they and you're you're you're persona non grata, so to speak. speaker-1: Yeah. No, and you make a great point about, you know, Vegas is big. You have clientele from all over the world. It's the entertainment capital, truly, in the world, right? And you know, you walk on the strip, you know, dodging traffic and people speaker-0: You're a big guy too. I'm sure you're really speaker-1: My my wife uses me as an icebreaker. But you hear all kinds of languages, which is so fascinating. Right. But speaker-0: It's an international capital. It really is. speaker-1: to your point. It is such a small town still. You know, it's a s it the core group, it's a small town. Yeah. And I love that. speaker-0: no, and they're I I think i in case of business, they want to deal with people who live in the community. I mean, that's one reason I I strategically relocated my company here is that yes, I we were very competitive in California, but here there's not a lot of competition in my in my area. Yeah. So it was much easier to come here and establish relationships with people and say, look, I'm good at what I do. Give me a shot. You know, just let me try it. speaker-1: And I love the cowboy hat, by the speaker-0: You what? I think well you're gonna wear yours next time, young man. I will. All right, all right. And your boots and your buckle. No, we are the West. It's like I don't know if you saw my introduction. I put my Stetson on there. Mary Beth thought it was hilarious. I said, no, we have to remember we are the West. Yes. We're not Massachusetts. We're not DC. We're distinctly unique people. Yes. So business is going well, you're growing, and and everything's really moving on track. speaker-1: Absolutely. We we were fortunate enough to have really grown our company significantly over the last three years and we're on the trajectory to continue that growth. And speaker-0: that's fantastic. speaker-1: again to me it's it's not only serving clients and making sure that we have best service for our clients and making them effective and efficient, but also providing a great employment for our employees, right? I want our people to really embody that culture that I have built. over the last 22 years with dbv. And you know it's funny we we say DBV stands for driving business value. speaker-0: there you go. I love it. Like your competitors. They always like to play with it. Alright, so if somebody wants to get a hold of you, how where where do they find you? speaker-1: you can come on our website. My contact information is on there, dbv solutions.com. Okay. speaker-0: Fantastic. speaker-1: Or LinkedIn, look me up, Eric with a K and Davidson. speaker-0: All right, now, so everybody, we're gonna take a quick break. Then if you do you have time for a little bonus section for the podcast? All right, everybody. So you know how to get a hold of Eric. Please give him a call. This man, he's been here a long time. He certainly knows about it. Any of you firms in California who are thinking about moving here, you got two people in finance you can talk to about it. All right. So anyway, we'll be right back with winning with wine-ins. And welcome back, everybody, to the Winning with Wine and bonus cast, which we only invite our most favorite guests to stay on, who are also funny people. Like my friend Eric, my new friend Eric Davison. We are friends now. Whether you like it or not, you're stuck with me. And you are gonna wear a cowboy hat. I we already talked about it. Yes. No, it does. People remember it. You know, it's funny. But we just before we came back on, we were just talking about how unique. it is to get things done in our state because the political divide is so narrow. d elaborate on it. speaker-1: Absolutely. So, you know, I've I've lived in Chicago for a long time. Of course a windy city, but it's not because of the weather, it's because of the politics, right? and you know, you go into certain parts of the country, if it's east or if it's west, California, for example, there is such a divide between the political spectrum, and don't care where you sit on on the political side, you know, when you have problems that you're resolving, you should work as a consultant, you should work on solutions. Exactly. Not this is what I think, and this is what I think, and I'm not gonna budge, right? In Nevada, I see a lot more collaboration. And I mentioned to you earlier, I went to an event and I couldn't tell whether they're Republicans or Democrats, which is a good thing, right? you want to solve problems and you want to have people work together and collaborate. Bring those times back, you know. speaker-0: Well, I you know, I I know that as I've talked to our elected officials, I specifically will ask them, Look, I I'm not gonna judge you. I just need to know where you fall on this. Is it Nevada first? Not your party. Yeah. And and if you happen to tell me, no, I'm sorry, look, I'm I have to support my party, that's fine. I just but no, I find that you know, there's they're adamant about no, Nevada first, we are not gonna take our orders from somebody in the Midwest or in the or you know, or in or in the the far west, we're not doing it. Which is that's That's all want to hear. I would also add too, I think as we learned in the last five or six election years, hey, there's no permanent seat here. You will get you will be voted out. We certainly saw it at the governor level. I think I know in our district where Susie Lee's our congresswoman, she, you know, this is a place of a half a million votes, and she won by 10,000. I mean, they all know. you know, think of Senator Rosen. When she ran, she barely won. Right. So it is really purple. It really is. It's it's purple. Yeah. And a lot of independent voters. But I'll add to something else you said too, Eric. And and I heard this. Have you ever been to the legislative session in Carson City? Do you ever I have not. No. You gotta go. I'm gonna tell you, I went last year as or two years ago as a non-compensated lobbyist, which any of us can be. Okay. speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: But what it does for you, you get you can literally walk into anybody's office at the Capitol. Including the governors, if you're a lobbyist. And what I found that was very interesting was that they listen to what you have to say. especially if you're a veteran. They very much I mean, you and I know veterans in this city and state are we're we're treated with a tremendous amount of respect. Yeah. We really are. but the other thing I found too was they did not ask me what my party affiliation was when I walked into their office. They were they said, what can I do for you? Yeah, which I I great, that's all. Just treat me as a Nevadan. It's I'm here to help our state. our lieutenant governor was on a previous podcast. Savros is a very plain spoken guy from Michigan, Midwest guy. And he said, you know, Ken, one of the great things about Nevada being a part-time legislature, we don't have full-time bureaucrats making up new regulations in Carson City. He said, We're really part-time. So we don't have time to make all this like California. They've got people constantly coming up with new rules. He said, We don't have that here. It's practical and it's time. speaker-1: Which also opens up more opportunities for private public partnerships, right? Which I think that's therein lies a great solution. You know, the government doesn't have all the all the answers. Private business sometimes doesn't have all the answers, but by working together in private public partnerships, sometimes there could be great solutions in that. speaker-0: Yeah, I don't know if you found this to be the case, but I I mean literally you heard it from the staffers, you heard it from even people at at different levels of of of the bureaucracy. They want input. They want you to contact them. They really do want to hear from you. I never felt that way in California. I I was kind of got the sense of look, send us your money. and and behave. You know, we'll we'll we'll decide what's best for us. but the that I just think again, I can't say enough about structurally, that this state is just is primed to have just magnificent growth. what's your take on I mean you here you you have family here, your your friends here, your business here. What do you see this place looking like in ten years, if you had to guess? speaker-1: That's a that's a great question. And you know, I I don't have a crystal ball, but I also see what levers we're putting in place right now, whether it's from the chamber and the direction it's it's going, from city, state and federal government, where where we're moving, from a water management perspective, that was really interesting, I thought, what we learned during the fly in. I can see you know, this being really a destination for a lot more workers, a lot more businesses are locating here. but you also can see some challenges with that coming, right? So we have to be careful that we balance that growth so that we're not growing out of, you know, leaps and bounds and we don't have the water to manage, we don't have the infrastructure, we don't have the medical coverages, right? Hospital section covered because those are issues. But when you're doing it right, how do you get more medical professionals? here, right? Yep. Exactly. How can we beef up those capabilities so that people who, you know, are retiring here will have the right hospital care and medical care that that is needed. at the same time, how do you get more infrastructure, right? You can't just build more more roads because that is more traffic and more accidents and more you know injury law lawyers that are advertising on TV. speaker-0: And billboards. And billboards. People ask me, well you want me to move here? And you guys are suing everybody. speaker-1: So idealistically with my you know with my ideal view is we we're growing more, we're putting, you know, the the challenges we had here in the state behind us and resolving those challenges. but with that comes with that growth comes some additional opportunities, but also some downsides that we have to manage through. They're manageable. speaker-0: They're manageable. They're very manageable. speaker-1: I feel I feel pretty strongly that we have the right people here that can look out for that and and manage to that. speaker-0: Well and I think too, you know, I I what I heard quite a bit, there were there was the con and and I and let me back up real quick with and preface this. I went back to Dallas earlier this year. I was invited by Schwab because I'm one of their, you know, big clients and all that stuff. But I went back to see what's going on with Y'all, the Y'all Street. And it I I'm in my I'm I'm sure you too, never in my wildest dreams that I ever would think that Goldman Sachs Very much New York, Goldman Sachs, would relocate to Dallas. I don't think you saw that coming. I speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: didn't see that coming. I who would have ever guessed Charles Schwab, California, born and bred, Stanford educated Charles Schwab, move his company to Dallas. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: You know, Ken Fisher, Dallas. you know, the NASDAQ. The NASDAQ. I mean, it it's crazy, Eric, but at the same time, what I kept hearing. was that the people who because I have family from Texas and I hear it from them too, is that, you know, it's that look, we're not going to change culturally. Yeah, you're welcome to come, you're welcome to benefit from our structures, but we really are not interested in your views. You know, you're coming to us, we're not coming to you. Yeah. And but what I did find that was interesting when I try to dial it down, I said, well just let's walk through these folks. Or and they said, this is what we've discussed. And literally the the HR people at Schwab told me this. If they are coming here by they want to come here, no problem fitting in. They love it. They're they're happy here. You see them in cowboy hats. They're eating barbecue. They're loving the culture. They're going to church. It's people who have had a forced relocation where they didn't want to go. Yeah. That's where you have your problems. And they're not happy. They're they they really do want to go back to wherever they're from, but they wanted to keep their careers. speaker-1: But I I think Ken there is a there's a great parallel to large transformational projects that companies undertake, right? What you're explaining is really a huge change management effort, right? A huge move. And speaker-0: Well coordinated. speaker-1: you know, large transformational efforts in Fortune 500 companies and even you know Fortune 1000 companies, 70 se 70% of them fail because of adequate change management. And what I mean by that it's not like a friend of mine says, you know, the ducks and the bunnies, the fluffy stuff. But it's speaker-0: But it's I have to remember that the the fluffy stuff. Yeah, the down. Yes. speaker-1: But it's truly identifying what is changing for individuals and making sure we're educating them on why we're making the change and how it's better for them, right? Yeah. And you can put them into different groups. So let's say you have financial advisors, you have assistants, right? And you have regional people, right? And then you have support staff, analytic analytics and so forth, right? It's all different for every single person, right? But you need to understand what those changes are. for them articulated in their vernacular. You know, you cannot speak like a consultant, but you have to talk like them. And make sure you put it into their words and their understanding. And that makes it a lot easier. And the same thing with large moves like that. I mean we looked at from a COVID perspective, you know, how many companies have given up their big flagship locations and went to working at home, right? Only to find out Hey, we need to bring people back into the office so that we can actually have some, you know, mentoring and you know, people can actually learn a little bit more. You don't do this over Zoom all the time. So change management is an important part that's always overlooked and that pertains to your example definitely. speaker-0: Well, I think too that you and I are gonna be living it with what's going on here. I I have told people and I I if you don't mind a couple of questions that I keep hearing from people in financial services. when I 'cause I do think state lines matter. They're different cultures. You know, as I tell people, look, that's a great thing. I think our founding fathers knew this. we don't expect you to all get along. No. A Virginian and somebody from Boston, you guys are are not gonna see the world the same way. But there's rules on how we can be the United States. Absolutely. And I think it's the same here, that Nevada is very much growing into its own and realizing that we're not just that little territory that Abe Lincoln threw together in the Civil War. No, we're a dominant powerful state and we're becoming even more so. But something I've heard from quite a few financial service people, especially there's a good friend of mine who runs a she's a runs a a wealth management shop, mainly with nonprofits. And she was telling me that she has to overcome the Vegas stigma when she goes back east to present why they should work with her. Are you finding that the case when you tell them you're based in Las Vegas, that they treat you a little differently than a firm out of Chicago or New York? speaker-1: No, they don't. And you know, we are positioned a little bit differently that we have truly a national presence. I mean, we have clients across the US. Yeah. at one point yeah. And and at one point we had significant number of global clients as well. And it's all how you position it. You know, you can you can bridge over the point that you're headquartered in Las Vegas, but you can say we're a national company, right? I tend I happen to live in Las Vegas. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: It's it's all how you frame it with with people, but I've heard that from from others as well. So it's not something that we should you know you know just jetton jettison, but I think it's a it's a valid point. It was the same thing with somebody from Chicago doing work in New York. yeah. Right. Or vice versa. Right. If you if you think about you know, New York folks doing doing work with somebody from San Francisco or LA, there's a stigma around that. Yeah. But you can overcome that. You know, we're we're looking at capabilities that we're providing to you. You know, you have you know, a problem to resolve or something to complement what we're doing with you. So let's talk about what we're doing, not where Mm-hmm. speaker-0: Well, and I mean, I'm I'm sure you've had the same thing as I did when I started my company. I mean, why aren't you in New York? I mean, I remember yeah I distinctly remember before the two thousand eight debacle, I was at a a fundraiser. I was on a I was on the board of the Museum of American Finance, which was Wall Street's visitor center. And at the time I always jokingly said I was the token Californian. You know, everybody there was New York, you know, you know the type. And I went to their their gala and I was literally the only guy at the table who did not work at Goldman Sachs, and most of them were partners. And they were just kind of like, Why would you go on your own? But after 2008 hit, guess who was left standing? speaker-1: Yeah, exactly. Humor. Yep. speaker-0: They half those guys lost their jobs immediately. speaker-1: Well it's the s it's similarly, I mean you you were in the military, I was in the military, and finding that first job after the military for me it was it was interesting because people looked at you like, thank you for your service, but you know, what do you do? You go step through the hallways and bark orders, right? I think No, the military is so professional, so many different things that you do. It's discipline. So many great skills that you're building, but you have to translate them over. And now it's a little it's a lot different, right? The military is looked upon a lot more favorable than when when I made the transition and and granted it was a lot worse you know after the Vietnam War in the seventies and eighties. But still you know you have to overcome those stigmas slowly and gradually. Remember when when there was a dress code that you had to wear a suit and a tie and Casual Friday was you know what the jacket didn't have to match the pants but you still wear a tie. speaker-0: If if you were you and jeans were taboo. You could never wear jeans. Even in California. No, San Francisco in those days. No, it's funny that we're talking about this because there have been these transitions, especially the views of the veterans. I'll throw this out your way too. That's kind of interesting. So in you know, in financial services, FENRA has largely made it almost impossible if you want to hire somebody and they don't have the licenses. You have a lot of things to explain that you're letting this person have access to client records and they're not licensed. They're making it where you we don't want anybody breathing in your office who's not licensed. Well, this is where it gets funny. Who's perfectly capable to pass a government exam? A veteran. We had to do it our whole careers. You know how many times you have quals and you have to go and take a government exam. It's pass or fail. That's it. There's no grade, there's no curve. You have to know this stuff. Yes. And so these people out of UNLV, because we have a very large veterans outreach program there, they're doing a great job. They can pass those real estate exams, those series 65 and three exams. These folks know how to take those exams. Yeah. And they want the opportunity. speaker-1: Absolutely. It's an oblig, right? I mean that's how you grew up in in voluntary. speaker-0: All right, no wait. I I know I'm gonna get in trouble if I don't have I gotta have to look at our list of questions here. Well let's talk what else would you like to talk about today? What are some things that you think are important that we need to talk about? speaker-1: one thing if I can make a plug for my book that's coming out that's being that's being released we're looking at having a release party here in Las Vegas in November. We're still working on all the details. and of course you're invited. speaker-0: Now, how long do you take for you to work on it? speaker-1: it took a little bit over a year. speaker-0: Yeah. It's it's a tough hey, I've done it. It's tough. You gotta build a little bubble and give yourself time to do it and there's times you're in the mood to do it and t speaker-1: Well, and you also you want it to be about something that's meaningful. I mean, to me it is really encapsulating my thirty years of professional experience. and you know, you can go past that if you add the military in that as well. And go forty years of experience. And speaker-0: It's a lot of speaker-1: it's a lot of experience, but it's it's something that I'm passionate about. And you know, it's it's on enterprise intelligence. So we talk a lot about artificial intelligence and how you know AI is being interjected in all kinds of walks of in life, you know, in our professional careers. but what's always overlooked is what I call the enterprise intelligence. So you're let's say you're a COO of a large company and you're leaving to go to another company and maybe become the CEO, right, at that company. Now you have Have such a drain in not only that talent is now gone, but also all that knowledge that was residing with you that's gone as well. speaker-0: That's true. And you can't get it back. speaker-1: And you can't get it back. So what we're advocating is, you know, at all at all stages of a company, at all levels, ensuring that you have that build out, that enterprise intelligence from all levels. So that if somebody leaves, you're not left hanging the bag and trying things over and over that may not have worked in the past, right? speaker-0: Well, your our generation is unique because I'm hearing and I'm sure you're hearing it from your friends as well. They keep getting called back. They they're I have a very good friend of mine who works in the entertainment field and they they says, please don't retire. We'll pay you more money. We need you. Yeah. You know, they the it's hard to replicate us. I mean, we can talk about obsolescence and skill sets and things like that, but I'm finding that there's that X factor that companies realize that are the baby boomers very much fulfill even to this day. Yeah. You and I I think that will be interesting to see how that plays out. speaker-1: Well, and and the the other thing too, real quickly, a Gardner group did a study, I think it was about a year ago, leading CEOs, I think they had fifteen different CEOs, asking them, What are some of the things that keep you awake at night when you think about AI, right? And think about as you're going through your professional career, the the the resounding answer was, you know what, AI keeps those middle managers from making huge mistakes, right? Because you learn from mistakes. You know, it's you know it's not something that you can brush under the table or under the carpet, right? It's it's a case study on something, right? If you if you make mistakes, you learn from those, but you navigate into the right path eventually. And that's if you have a middle management team that's coming up now and not making mistakes because AI is helping with everything. Yeah. Right. They cannot, I mean if you if you make a decision and it was the wrong decision, don't look in the breathing mirror and you know doubt yourself going forward. Hey, move Forward, right? You learn from it. Don't do that, make that mistake, that same mistake again and learn from it. You become a better manager, a better leader, and hopefully at some point a great CEO, right? But that's their biggest fear, was that AI is keeping that middle management layer from making mistakes and learning on the job so that they're best, better seasoned individuals and leaders. speaker-0: You know, I just learned you know, I love and I learn from people who really do know er in the know. You and I forever, we heard it all through our our education about the Peter principle. Yes. You know, that you know, somebody gets promoted just to the point where they're inefficient. This removes it. Yeah. This eliminates the Peter principle. You now will have people who will not just suddenly become incompetent and and and in in a place they shouldn't be. I I would say I'll just add this. In my entire career, I have often heard, you know, the computers are gonna replace you guys. We won't need money managers. you know, inde we're just gonna index everything anymore. We don't need people like you anymore or you analysts. No, that I've heard this my entire career. It never quite plays out that way. The eighty seven crash, that was the first time we we did this little experiment with machine on machine, machine making decisions with machine trading didn't work out too well. And then we've tried these other times. Now we're obviously better at it, but I think I will also add that with AI, I think you have to look from a financial perspective. AI and crypto together, we are gonna transform a lot of parts of the economy that people just don't even think about right now. I think it's gonna happen. But it was there a one thing in your career that really just transformed you? Was it one event, one instance that really framed your thinking? speaker-1: you know, it it goes back to a personal experience. And you know, I Normally I'm fairly reserved and I don't open up about personal experiences, but I was a freshman in college and I told you I left all the family business behind to come pursue my you know, career in in the military. Initially it what started out that way. but my mother didn't take too well to that. So after the first year in college, she completely cut me off. wow and I was on my own. and I had to rethink, you know, how how am I gonna do this, right? And there were a couple of individuals who come to mind and I dedicate have a dedication in my book to them as well. one was obviously the professor of aerospace studies who really forged my desire to go to Colorado. my grandmother came with me to that trip because there was no internet, right? It was you apply either via mail or in person. And if you apply via mail, you don't you never know whether it's gonna get there or not. So I want to make sure that I applied to Colorado, ASU, and University of Arizona in in Tucson. And that professor of aerospace studies. saw that my grandmother was sitting in the hallway as he was interviewing me for RTC. And he said, Who's that lady out there? I was like, that's my grandmother, but she doesn't speak any English. He's like, that's okay. I don't speak any German, so bring her in. So I I made the decision to go to Colorado and that was best decision I made, right? I I met my wife there. you know, I was successful at CEO Boulder and all the other things. So that's number one. and then more importantly, with this one professor, Professor Pois, who is a history professor, and he found out that I had some issues, right? And you know, I got immediately disenrolled from school, right? and and he said, No worries, it's okay. You know, let's take it one step at a time. You're on out of state tuition right now, let's apply for in-state tuition, right? You were cut off. We have a Colorado driver's license, we're a resident now here. let's do that. And don't worry about anything, paying anything until November, right? You just go to school, go to class, do your homework and all of that. And speaker-0: Well wow. speaker-1: I and I had two jobs, and you know, the end result was yes, I I got in-state tuition, I worked really hard, and I was able to pay for it. But you know, that's where You test it early on. And that's a hard test, right? You look and say, why did I come here? Why did I do this? Well, I wanted to do this, right? It's what I deep down in my heart, what I wanted to do, move to the US, fly in the Air Force, and I did that, right? And everything I've accomplished, you know, goes back to those two decisions and looking inwardly and saying, Is this the right thing to do? Yes, it is, right? And I'm a better person for that. speaker-0: And you can you have that confidence, you can see it. Just in the way and you it's it is leadership by example. When you're the owner of a business and the CEO, they turn to you. You know, when all the chips are down, as my father used to always tell me, he says, You're the you're the last to get paid. Exactly. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: Everybody else gets paid but you first. Exactly right. Yeah, you and that I'll tell you, when I first started my business, that was weird the first time I had to pay myself and I didn't have a a paycheck with my company's logo up in the corner. I'm writing myself a check. That was a little surreal. Absolutely. And you had the same experience. Yeah. What else? Is there anything else you want to do? Anything else? I mean, your business, I think I would just tell everybody, please check out his business. They're tops at what they do. if you're thinking about moving to Nevada, you should talk to Eric. I mean, he's a consultant. He's one of the top in his field. He certainly knows this state well. And I mean, I just think it's fantastic what you're doing. Thank you. So, anyway any any plans to retire? speaker-1: not yet, no. speaker-0: You're like me. Never. Hey, Warren Buffett made it to ninety six. Are you kidding? Exactly. Hey, we're gonna beat you, Mr. Buffett. Sorry, we're gonna try to beat you out there. speaker-1: Well, you know, I'm getting at that age, too, when you when you turn sixty, right, you can only play that much much golf, so speaker-0: Well, you know, real quick, I I find because you know, I think in our lines of work, you pointed out so beautifully, it is about people, it's human nature. And these are the things I always see when someone sells a business. They're gonna go spend money on some crazy thing, whether it's a Ferrari or a plane or whatever, they're gonna go travel the world. They're gonna play a lot of golf. They're gonna realize very quickly that they're spending a little too much time at home with their spouse and they need to go do something else. And I always caution them when they, you know, when they monetize that just plan ahead. Yeah. What are you gonna do with your time? Absolutely. Because you and I've also seen people that go the other way. They just they're not the same. speaker-1: Well and I've seen people deteriorate really quickly or drink too much, right? Or, you know, fight with their spouses or you know, do whatever people sometimes do. But you you're absolutely correct. You have to, you know, if you if you plan to sell your business, make sure you have something to keep yourself busy. You know, join a board, you know, volunteer, do all kinds of things. Set up a foundation. speaker-0: Set up a foundation. speaker-1: write a book, yeah. Write another book. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. I've I've done five. I'll tell you, I'm done writing. It's it's a lot of work. It is. But even though AI has made it much easier. I mean I've told people, look, I did not have a lot of these tools. I had to actually go back and physically do the research. Yeah. But you but at the same time, don't let AI write your book. No. speaker-1: No, you have to and and that's we use AI in my company a lot for presentations to to get it just r looking nice, you know. But all the facts, everything, I want everybody in my company to put their fingerprints on it. Thank you. You know, it's not AI, it is us doing it, but think of them as your assistant, right? speaker-0: I completely agree. Or proofreader. Yeah. I mean, I've always been turbulted with semicolons, so I'm glad I have something now that will always capture my my break-up thoughts. Eric, I can't thank you enough for coming on the show. Everybody play so if they want to get a hold of you one more time, where where do they go? speaker-1: Go check us out dbv solutions.com. Okay. Driving business val v value. or check me out in LinkedIn, Eric E-R-I-K, Davison D-A-V-I-S-O-N. Love to connect with you on LinkedIn. speaker-0: Well, we'll make sure we get some there. And everybody, he's gonna come back. We're definitely gonna have another when we'll have a topic. We're talking about having a panel in the future. You're on it. Yes. This speaker-1: And I'll be wearing a cobber hat. speaker-0: is required next time. All right, everybody. That's we're gonna wrap up the bonus section on the podcast and we'll see you next week. Take care. And welcome back to Winning with Wine is. I hope you enjoyed our guest segment. You know what? I I have to say I'm very proud of our team. We do find some of the most amazing guests To come on our show, and they're all from different backgrounds. You know what? You need to hear from the politicians. You need to hear from the business people. I I what I loved about our last guest, here's somebody who was raised in another country who came to Las Vegas, and Las Vegas is their home. That's what's amazing about our town. But listen, what I thought I would do in this segment is to talk about some of the things that I'm hearing. during this time of year, I end up going to a lot of events and economic events and business events all through our Great Valley. So let me start with Yesterday, I was actually at the Las Vegas Rotary luncheon. I was a guest speaker. And let me tell you what I heard from the business people there. It was a true sense of optimism, to be perfectly blank or frank. it was my business is doing well. Even from people in real estate, people in insurance, people who you know run restaurants, they were all generally saying, look, it's not perfect. We're never saying it's perfect, but it was darn good. Then last night, the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance had their awards banquet. We had economists who were speaking to our group from all over the country. And let me tell you what it was saying is that we read a lot about the migration out of California. And I've talked a lot about it on this show. But the thing that blew me away the most is when he looked at the internal statistics of what's going on in our Great Valley. Number one. We have diversified. we're finding that I I mean I was shocked to see that they were talking about the number of patent applications for new invention in the nation. I think the statistic was like two percent. It's 17% in Las Vegas. That means companies and institutions in Las Vegas are filing for patents at a rate that is way beyond the country. So we're doing great there. There was a lot of talk about water. You know, we all hear about it all the time. Guess what? We're actually improving our technologies on water usage. We already are at 90 six percent basically of recycling. We're doing more. We're going further. We're better at it than any state in the Western United States. You know, we're not watering freeways like they still do in California. We're doing other things. Sorry, I had to do my one little California dig while I'm there. Other amazing things. Business formation, setting up new businesses. We're we're twice the rate of the rest of the United States. I mean, and they were talking about minority-owned businesses, women-owned businesses, older people setting up people my age setting up new businesses. We have a culture of entrepreneurship in Las Vegas. I think it goes way back. I mean, people here come here, they're looking for a new start to things. They have the opportunity here. Other things that we're they were talking about, just the general sense that our elected officials. Really do get I and by the way, I'm it's important to say because we have a an a very important midterm election coming up. What I kept hearing about is that we operate differently than pretty much any other state in a lot of different ways. Number one, we we as you all know, we have part time politicians. I mean, our elected officials, whether they're s assembly members or state senators, they're part-time. they make a whopping I th I what sixty two hundred dollars a year to do what they do. It's kind of like jury duty. But these folks only have two-year terms, especially in the assembly. So that there's a constant turnaround of people in our elected officials. But the point is, it's about here between Democrats and Republicans and independents. They talk to each other. They actually have to work together. They like each other. So the point is we get things done here. And the other thing I kept hearing about is just the welcome ad is out. I mean, it's continuing to be out. If people want to come here, they want to be part of our great community, they're welcome to come here. So again, I can't say enough. All these negative headlines, all this horrible stuff, all these contentious political commercials. I'm just telling you that I was in a room full of people from our valley from all different types of businesses and backgrounds, and we all heard the same thing. We do a lot of things right here in our state and in our community. So that was all really, really good to hear. Okay, I want to jump ahead here a little bit. An investment topic that I think we're gonna have to talk about. I've done some previous issues on it, but it's it's almost becoming critical, what I'm hearing. It's a this thing about bonds. Okay. There, and I'm gonna I'm gonna go over this again. Remember that bonds by their nature, you own them for the income. They're loans. You're lending money to a company, a a piece of real estate, a government, a state government, state agency, federal government. Foreign government, you're lending money. They're not all the same. They're cousins. I mean, they're not all the same. So corporate bonds, especially if you have shorter term bonds that are coming due in three to five years, your your portfolio is probably up on the year. But when you read the headlines, they're mainly talking about treasuries and municipal bonds. And believe me, there is gonna be some tough news, especially for states that don't operate as well as Nevada does. I think we're gonna hear a lot of very bad news from the coastal states of Washington. Oregon and California. I I think there's there's a lot of soul surgery to have to go in those states. But here's my point. Those headlines seem to spill over like that article I s I showed you. I have to show this again. This really ticks me off. A magazine is just you look at that, it just scares the heck out of you. Again, what bonds are they talking about? But here's my point. There's a lot of people I've talked to who they are now thinking about selling their bonds and I I don't know what they're gonna do. Sit in cash. Just keep this in mind. If you do decide to go into money market accounts, okay, let's say you're getting two and a half, three percent interest. You're gonna probably pay tax on some of the federal income tax on that. And after you add the inflation in, you've made no money. Zero. Doesn't make any sense. If you want to park money temporarily, fine, use them. But I do not think it's a sound investment strategy. And look, I'm the first to admit there's a lot of people out there that should go take a look at CDs. They do not have the stomach for the month-to-month volatility that happens. But if you have constructed a portfolio where it was well thought through, many of my clients have an allocation or a mix of stocks and bonds. And yes, there has been some volatility in bond prices as interest rates have gone up. But if you buy and hold them, you're going to get the money back that you originally thought you were going to get, and you're going to get interest paid on those bonds. Periodically, like clockwork. It's a legal obligation. Folks, I'm just trying to tell you, don't do a knee-jerk, crazy asset allocation change because of some idiotic headline in a magazine. Take time, go talk to your people. Heck, talk to me. I'll be happy to talk to you about it. But the bottom line is don't make mid-course corrections in the middle of a volatile year. Get to the end of the year, meet with your people in January, then decide if you need to change things up. But if you start making knee-jerk corrections now, I will make this promise you. I think you're going to look back and regret you did it. We are nowhere near going off a cliff. Hey, I'm not saying there's a lot of debt out there. I'm not saying that the US government, and I'm not saying that certainly a lot of our surrounding states haven't indebted themselves out to oblivion. That's a different topic. But we're not going to go off a cliff tomorrow, is what I'm trying to say. Don't panic. Use common sense. Be smart about it like anything else you do in life. It's very important. Okay, other quick thing. after the election, I and and by the way, I I think this is just important. I don't think the election's gonna have one bit of bearing on what happens with the overall markets. I think it's already baked into the cake, personally. state and federal level, it's already pretty well baked in. Markets are not going to move one way or the other. But what I am hearing about, and this is pretty funny, people wanting to go back into crypto and they're they're wanna sell gold. Again, you know what? Be careful. Crypto's already crypto, talk about a bucking Bronco. This reminds me of like bull writing that we're gonna see in December here. It's not for everybody. Don't chase rallies. Don't chase after things. And I would say this: if you bought gold early in the year, and I'm you know, whether it's coins or an ETF or whatever, look, you probably have taken a loss. What you wanna do is talk to your tax advisors and maybe consider selling it, booking the loss. Against your gains that you probably have in your stocks. And you can come back and buy gold about 30 days later, or silver, or platinum, any of those things. But don't just hop from precious metals into crypto because your friend's doing it. That is not a smart move, folks. Again, that is knee-jerk reaction that I talked about earlier. It's just, I would just tell you all this: cool your jets, take a deep breath, go enjoy the holidays. Don't look at your portfolio every day like you're gambling. That's not a good use of it here. And then come back later in January and see where you're at. Anyway, listen, we're just about out of time. I just want to say again, thank you for watching our show. And if you are interested in being a guest or possibly even a sponsor of our show, we'd love to hear from you. We're gaining in popularity. I know a lot of folks are now watching us. But contact us at winningwithwinins.com. We'll be happy to help you out there. If you're interested in any of my articles, Go to Forbes.com, enter my name, Ken Wynans. You'll look up all the articles. I try to write one every month and a half or so. I think you'll find them interesting. I have written five books. They are financial history. I don't think we change when it comes to money. I'm a historian who manages money. Go read them. I think they're and also they make a good holiday gift. And last but not least, please stay tuned right after after this segment and listen to our infomercial about Winin's investments. We are the only topped rank money manager based in Las Vegas. And for that matter, I just found out in an evaluation on Morningstar AI. We're actually, as we're now going to call it, the best in the West. Thank you, Morningstar AI, for that great analysis. Anyway, folks, this is Ken Wynens. Good luck this next week with your money. Talk to you next week. Hey everybody, this is Ken Winins, the host of the Winning with Winens podcast. And I want to take a moment of your time to talk about how do you pick an investment advisor? Well, first off, we're not all the same. In fact, Winens Investments is the only Morningstar top-ranked manager based in Las Vegas. And last time I checked, we're number one in performance in all of Nevada. So if you're looking for something unique, something different, go with a firm that's been around since 1992, 100% independent and veteran-owned. Win with Winens. Look forward to hearing from you. Boy, that time went fast. I hope you had as much fun as I did during this segment of Winning with Wineins. Make sure and tune in next week for another round of guest and interesting topics. And if you missed this, make sure and check us out on Spotify, YouTube, or go to our website, winningwithwin's dot com, where there's a lot more information for you to follow. So good luck this next week. Look forward to seeing you then. Take care.