Latest / Clydesdale Media Podcast / Benjamin Beck - Beck Bode | Financial Planner and Investor who Uses CrossFit to Stay Fit

Transcript

Benjamin Beck - Beck Bode | Financial Planner and Investor who Uses CrossFit to Stay Fit · Clydesdale Media Podcast

0:09
I was born to kill it.
0:14
I was meant to win.
0:15
I am down and willing so I
0:17
will find a way.
0:18
It took a minute and I
0:19
didn't have to ride away.
0:21
When it get hot in the kitchen,
0:22
you decide to stay.
0:23
That's how a winner's made.
0:34
What's going on, everybody?
0:35
Welcome to the Clydesdale Media Podcast.
0:38
My name is Scott Schweitzer.
0:39
I'm the Clydesdale.
0:40
He is Ben Beck,
0:42
and he is the Managing
0:43
Partner and Chief
0:44
Information Officer at Beck Bode.
0:47
Ben, how are you doing?
0:49
I'm doing well.
0:49
How are you, Scott?
0:51
I'm good.
0:51
I'm good.
0:52
This is a little bit
0:54
different than what we normally do.
0:55
We usually have CrossFit athletes on here,
0:57
coaches, people in the space.
0:59
And you're in the space,
1:01
but in a very different way.
1:04
Yeah,
1:04
but I'm happy to talk about CrossFit
1:07
all day long.
1:08
Yeah.
1:09
That's for sure.
1:11
Not different probably from
1:13
most people involved in CrossFit,
1:14
willing to talk about CrossFit all day.
1:17
Right.
1:18
It's funny.
1:18
I was reading your profile,
1:19
and you talked about when
1:21
you are passionate about something,
1:23
you like to talk about it
1:24
as much as you possibly can.
1:26
And that goes for CrossFit
1:28
and for the investment
1:31
world that you live in.
1:33
finance everything you know
1:35
it's a joke around my house
1:36
like you know I'm actually
1:38
happy my wife's not on with
1:39
me because she has a long
1:40
list of things that I just
1:41
get relentless about it's
1:42
like when remember when
1:45
like when greek yogurt like
1:46
first you know started to
1:48
become popular it's like oh
1:49
wow it's a lot more high
1:50
protein you know that's one
1:52
thing I would just tell
1:53
everybody about right it's
1:56
like oh my god have you
1:56
tried greek yogurt it's
1:57
amazing yeah it's part of my personality
2:02
Yeah, I'm kind of the same way that,
2:04
you know,
2:04
my friends used to say I could sell,
2:06
you know,
2:06
an ice cube to an Eskimo because
2:09
if I like something,
2:09
I talked about it until
2:11
they at least tried it.
2:13
Yeah, got to be passionate about stuff,
2:15
right?
2:15
I mean,
2:16
stuff that that that the stuff that
2:18
gets you out of bed in the
2:19
morning and you're excited.
2:20
It's like,
2:21
why would you keep that a secret?
2:24
So we're going to get into
2:25
finance and investments and
2:27
all of that kind of thing.
2:28
But we're going to first do
2:29
a little bit of an origin
2:30
story from you because
2:32
you're a high-level athlete.
2:34
And we're going to get into that.
2:36
But I want to start with
2:36
your wife and kids because
2:39
something you seem very
2:40
passionate about if you go
2:42
to your Instagram is your wife and kids.
2:44
So how did you and your wife meet?
2:50
Oh, yeah.
2:51
So we both went to school at
2:55
Northeastern University in Boston.
2:58
We didn't know each other
2:59
until literally three or
3:03
four weeks before graduation.
3:06
So, you know, as you say in life,
3:08
timing is everything.
3:11
So I played baseball.
3:13
at Northeastern, um,
3:16
like any collegiate athlete,
3:17
you spend some amount of time in the, uh,
3:21
athletic training room, right.
3:22
For various injuries or what have you, or,
3:26
and she was a athletic training major.
3:28
So she would do clinicals in
3:31
there with the athletes, uh, you know,
3:33
of course,
3:34
learning her craft and everything.
3:35
I was always, you know, when,
3:36
when I saw her for the
3:38
first time was like, Oh my gosh,
3:40
I was just,
3:41
absolutely blown away and uh
3:44
but really didn't have any
3:46
words with her um until I
3:50
don't know three or four
3:51
weeks before graduation and
3:56
a friend of a friend said
3:57
hey you should really talk
3:59
to danielle and so we ended
4:01
up I ended up starting a
4:02
conversation with her we
4:04
went to they had this like
4:05
senior night at fenway park
4:08
one of the red sox games and
4:10
we went out and just I
4:13
don't know everything just
4:14
clicked with us and it's
4:16
one of those things where I
4:18
know it's cliche but it's
4:19
like when you meet somebody
4:20
and you're like when you
4:21
know you know I'm not
4:23
saying that the first
4:25
moment I met her I knew we
4:26
were gonna get married and
4:27
have children but I had
4:29
that feeling like oh my
4:30
gosh this is just totally
4:33
unexpected and and uh we
4:35
were engaged within
4:37
within a year and married the next year.
4:41
Nice.
4:42
That's pretty fast.
4:43
Pretty fast.
4:44
Way, way faster than me.
4:46
Yeah.
4:46
So it took me like almost
4:48
five years to get engaged.
4:49
And then, uh,
4:50
then we got married about a year after,
4:51
but yeah, it took, took a while.
4:54
Yeah.
4:55
I'm a, I'm a slow learner.
4:56
Yeah.
4:58
Um, so you also have four kids.
5:01
Hmm.
5:02
That's no small talk.
5:05
It's hard to keep the roof
5:06
on here sometimes, but it's something.
5:09
I grew up in Portland, Maine.
5:13
I just have an older brother.
5:15
My wife has two younger brothers.
5:18
It was just always a conversation of ours.
5:21
We both wanted a bigger family.
5:25
And so I think in her mind,
5:28
based on her experience,
5:29
she wanted three kids.
5:31
And in my mind, I was like,
5:32
I would have 10 kids at the time.
5:35
And, and though, you know,
5:37
one of the things and you know, they are,
5:39
you're absolutely right.
5:40
I mean, my, my,
5:40
my family is my passion for sure.
5:43
And changed my life, you know,
5:47
in so many ways.
5:49
I will say, though, my perspective changed,
5:52
though, because once had the third,
5:55
and then Nolan, our fourth,
5:57
he's five years old now.
5:59
There is legitimacy to the
6:03
amount of time that you can
6:06
spend individually with each child.
6:09
And that's something that going in,
6:11
I'm like, oh, you know, you know,
6:12
I'd have a lot of kids and
6:14
life would be great.
6:15
It'd be busy.
6:15
It'd be hectic, but it'd be awesome.
6:18
And I've got friends of mine.
6:19
I've got a good friend of
6:19
mine that has seven kids
6:21
and it's fantastic.
6:22
We've spent some time with them before.
6:24
um with us it was like we
6:26
came to that realization
6:27
like all right four is
6:28
great and four we're
6:29
getting at that point where
6:31
we're in a really good spot
6:32
and and able to you know
6:35
spend of course we spend
6:36
all of our time together
6:37
but we also you know make
6:39
an effort to spend time
6:40
individually with with each
6:41
of our kids and and give
6:43
them that in terms of our
6:45
full attention because you
6:46
know you get pulled away by
6:47
a lot of stuff right family-wise
6:49
And when you're with a group,
6:51
some kids don't get as much
6:53
attention than others.
6:55
But I came to that realization that, okay,
6:57
yeah, you know what?
6:58
I think four is good for us
7:00
because we start having
7:01
more than you lose a bit of that.
7:05
I felt that way.
7:06
So we do everything.
7:07
We travel a lot.
7:09
When I go away...
7:11
on one of the nice parts
7:12
about my business and my
7:14
career is that it is a lifestyle business,
7:17
right?
7:17
I mean, you alluded to,
7:18
I'm involved in CrossFit,
7:20
but in the financial world,
7:22
I'm also involved in CrossFit.
7:24
So the types of things that I travel to
7:27
um you know I often bring
7:29
the family um you know we
7:31
own uh uh we have a
7:33
location out in michigan
7:34
and more recently when the
7:35
kids go to school this
7:36
summer I went out there in
7:38
business but we turned it
7:39
into like a little mini
7:40
vacation so we could spend
7:41
time together even though I
7:42
was I was working half the
7:43
time so it makes it really
7:45
nice to be able to um I
7:47
suppose integrate your
7:49
family life and your
7:49
business life but not a lot
7:51
of folks get to do that
7:52
which is which I don't take lightly
7:55
So, you know,
7:56
stalking around your
7:57
Instagram a little bit,
7:58
I noticed that there's an
8:01
affinity for Dave Matthews.
8:04
Indeed.
8:06
And did you take your kids
8:08
to a concert recently?
8:11
I did.
8:12
I did.
8:14
We were so right before school started.
8:17
So it was end of August last summer.
8:21
We took the kids out to San Diego.
8:25
And then the plan was to do San Diego,
8:28
go to the zoo.
8:31
Not that we're Padres fans,
8:33
but one of my favorite
8:35
players right now and my
8:36
son's all time favorite
8:37
player is a guy named Xander Bogarts.
8:40
And he used to be with the
8:42
Red Sox for a number of years.
8:43
Now he's with the Padres.
8:44
And so we said, all right,
8:44
we're going to go to the
8:45
Padres game and watch him.
8:47
He's also a Aruban,
8:48
one of the few Aruban players.
8:50
And we frequent,
8:51
if you've been on my Instagram,
8:53
you've undoubtedly seen a
8:54
lot of pictures from Aruba as well,
8:55
Scott.
8:56
So he's also one of the few
8:58
Aruban players in the major leagues.
9:01
So yeah, we went out to San Diego.
9:03
The plan was to drive up to
9:05
and then spend a day or two
9:06
at Disneyland.
9:07
and then you know while
9:09
we're in san diego I just
9:10
happened to see that dave
9:12
matthews was playing in
9:13
orange county and so I got
9:15
on google maps I'm like all
9:16
right we're staying in
9:17
anaheim at the resort and
9:19
like it looked like oh it's
9:20
a 30-minute drive to um the
9:23
venue so I'm like I want to
9:24
pick up six tickets we're
9:25
gonna go see dave so that's
9:26
what we did it was
9:27
fantastic how many times
9:29
have you seen him oh um
9:35
Boxing,
9:35
in comparison to some of my friends,
9:37
it's not that much,
9:38
but I've probably seen, I don't know,
9:42
20 shows, 25 shows, right in that range?
9:45
When you have to just estimate,
9:46
you know it's been a lot.
9:48
Right, right.
9:51
And it's my, and it's our,
9:52
I don't know how old you are.
9:54
I'm 45.
9:54
I mean,
9:55
Dave Matthews was right smack dab in like,
10:00
I think, you know,
10:00
he came out really mainstream in like 91,
10:04
92.
10:04
I graduated high school in 97.
10:06
So it was like junior high, high school.
10:08
And then college wise,
10:10
anytime he would come play at the, um,
10:14
the TD bank guard in Boston
10:16
or at a local venue,
10:18
we would go and still, you know,
10:21
every year I at least go to one show.
10:24
But yeah, he's, he's writing that,
10:25
you know,
10:26
the 40 and 50 year olds that's
10:28
prime Dave Matthews demographic, I think.
10:31
Yeah.
10:31
I'm a big fan.
10:33
I'm a little bit older than
10:33
you maybe by about 10 years.
10:36
So my band like that is you too.
10:40
So I go see that when I can.
10:44
But yeah, I love Dave Matthews.
10:46
My one big regret,
10:47
and I used to go to a ton of concerts,
10:49
is I've not seen Dave.
10:50
I actually had tickets to see him.
10:53
And it was a vacation that
10:56
went totally awry.
10:57
We had to change locations.
11:00
And I would have to have
11:01
driven all the way back to
11:02
the initial location to see him.
11:04
And I just scrapped it.
11:08
And I should have just done it.
11:11
Yeah, well, I mean,
11:13
they're still touring like
11:14
crazy and hopefully not
11:16
letting up anytime soon.
11:18
It's incredible.
11:19
Yeah, I've, you know,
11:21
there's the Dave Matthews
11:22
Band shows that obviously
11:24
folks know about.
11:25
And then there's him.
11:26
He doesn't do very many of them,
11:28
but it's him and his lead guitarist,
11:31
Tim Reynolds.
11:32
Yep.
11:33
and they do some dave and
11:34
tim shows yeah some
11:36
acoustic shows that I
11:37
actually I wouldn't say I
11:38
necessarily prefer those
11:40
but those are such great
11:42
intimate um experiences to
11:45
the extent that I've been
11:46
to four of those and one of
11:47
them I almost went by myself
11:50
So they released it like
11:52
three or four weeks before.
11:54
And I said, all right, I'm going to,
11:55
you know, Danielle, my wife, like,
11:56
we'll go.
11:57
And, you know, she's kind of fed up with,
11:59
you know,
11:59
she's seen so many Dave Matthews shows.
12:00
She's like, all right,
12:01
it's time to like diversify your,
12:05
you know, the folks that you go with.
12:06
I don't necessarily need to
12:07
go to all of them now.
12:08
So I couldn't find anybody to go with me.
12:10
It was in Rochester, New York.
12:12
And I'm like, screw it.
12:14
I'm like, I looked on JetBlue.
12:15
JetBlue had a direct flight
12:16
from Boston to Rochester.
12:18
So I said,
12:18
I couldn't find anybody in the moment.
12:19
So I just booked the trip.
12:20
And then luckily at the 11th hour,
12:22
my brother,
12:24
who was in Atlanta at the time,
12:27
he flew up and went to the show with me.
12:28
We had a great time.
12:30
But I love those shows.
12:32
They're just incredible.
12:34
Yeah,
12:35
I had a ticket for a Dave and Tim show.
12:38
And that's what I regret
12:40
because those aren't as easy to come by.
12:44
Yeah, for sure.
12:45
Yeah, for sure.
12:47
So let's finish up the music with this.
12:50
I also noticed you like to play guitar.
12:53
Yeah.
12:54
Is that a decompression
12:57
mechanism or just something
12:58
you've always done or?
13:03
I think that's a fair assessment of it,
13:07
decompression.
13:07
It's a release.
13:10
It's something that I started.
13:13
So my uncle is classically trained.
13:17
He's an unbelievable studio level.
13:19
He's older now,
13:20
but he's a studio level guitarist,
13:24
not a studio level
13:25
guitarist for those that
13:26
don't know a lot about music.
13:29
They are such incredible musicians.
13:32
They're not necessarily the
13:34
musicians that go on the
13:35
road with various bands.
13:36
They're the ones that lay
13:37
down the tracks in the
13:38
studio that are just incredibly talented.
13:40
He's that level.
13:42
And so I used to see him
13:43
when I was younger play,
13:44
and I was just enthralled with it.
13:46
So I picked up the guitar
13:47
young but never really –
13:50
committed to it.
13:51
And then really it was,
13:53
it was Dave Matthews really where his,
13:55
his style just hit me as being so unique.
14:01
Uh,
14:01
when I was younger that I started
14:03
picking it up and, you know,
14:04
it's around the time the internet was,
14:05
you know, coming more mainstream.
14:07
So you could go online and
14:08
you could actually see the
14:10
printed out guitar tabs.
14:11
So, and, and,
14:12
Then, you know, years later,
14:13
YouTube came along, right?
14:15
And so you could watch other
14:17
folks playing.
14:18
And so that kind of spurred
14:22
my involvement with the guitar.
14:25
And, you know,
14:26
you flash forward to now or
14:27
just having kids.
14:28
It is a huge, huge...
14:31
escape, release.
14:34
It's very common when I put
14:36
my five-year-old in the bathtub.
14:40
I give him a bath and I've
14:41
got 15 or 20 minutes while
14:43
he's in the bathtub to sit
14:44
in the bathroom and play
14:46
the guitar while he's in the bath.
14:48
It's very common when I used to
14:51
put the kids down to sleep
14:52
at night just to sit in their bed and,
14:54
and, and strum the guitar.
14:56
And, and I think they liked that too.
14:59
And so, yeah, that's,
15:00
that's what it is for me.
15:02
I just love to play and, and,
15:03
and music is for sure a release.
15:07
So growing up, you,
15:09
you played a lot of baseball.
15:11
Yes.
15:12
What was that?
15:12
Your,
15:13
was that your only sport or just your
15:14
main sport?
15:17
Um, no, it wasn't, it wasn't my only sport,
15:20
um,
15:20
played football and basketball all the
15:23
way up through my dad, um,
15:24
is big into sports and he
15:26
was a college basketball player.
15:28
And, um, yeah, me and my brother, um, yeah,
15:33
a standard, a typical upbringing and,
15:36
you know, um, neighborhood USA, right.
15:38
You know, you're, you're,
15:39
you're out in the street in
15:40
the summertime doing
15:41
something playing touch football or,
15:43
or wiffle ball.
15:44
And that, that was my upbringing.
15:46
Um,
15:47
We didn't grow up really
15:51
with a lot of money at all.
15:52
My folks are both school
15:53
teachers and I think they
15:55
struggled along the way.
15:57
I know they struggled along the way,
15:59
but I didn't feel it.
16:00
My brother didn't feel it.
16:01
When you think of wealth,
16:04
the industry that I'm in,
16:05
I think of wealth a little
16:07
bit differently than most people.
16:09
And when I think about my upbringing,
16:11
I even though the money wasn't there,
16:13
I had an incredibly wealthy
16:18
upbringing because I had a
16:20
really supportive and caring family,
16:22
a mom and dad that was together,
16:23
an older brother, coaches,
16:26
great teachers along the way.
16:27
I never really wanted for
16:30
much and then sports was
16:33
always there for me too.
16:35
So it was always, you know,
16:37
throwing the football.
16:38
I do that with my son almost
16:40
every day of the week.
16:41
My 11-year-old son,
16:42
we're always tossing the
16:44
baseball or the football around.
16:46
So, yeah,
16:47
so baseball certainly was big growing up,
16:49
football and basketball.
16:51
It just so happened that I, ironically,
16:56
baseball was probably my weakest sport,
16:59
yet I went the farthest in it.
17:03
You can't really figure that out,
17:04
but that's just how it happened.
17:08
So it's funny you say that.
17:10
I was a four-sport athlete myself.
17:13
And baseball was my love.
17:15
Like, well,
17:16
baseball and football were pretty close.
17:18
And that neither one of
17:19
those are the things I went further in.
17:22
Um, but I mean,
17:23
I practice baseball every single day.
17:25
Was there a moment where you said,
17:28
this is the one that I'm
17:29
going to like ride, ride the horse and,
17:32
and put all your, your effort into.
17:34
Yeah.
17:37
Yeah.
17:38
And, and, um,
17:41
It was really after high school.
17:44
So my story in playing
17:47
college baseball was I
17:48
actually went to
17:49
Northeastern University to
17:50
play football predominantly.
17:53
And I was going to walk onto
17:54
the baseball team.
17:55
And it was actually,
17:56
I hadn't selected a school,
17:58
or probably better said a
18:00
school hadn't selected me yet, you know,
18:03
well into my senior year of high school.
18:05
And so a buddy of mine from high school,
18:09
we jumped in my dad's Ford
18:10
Ranger and took a trip down
18:11
to Boston from Portland,
18:12
Maine to visit BU and a few
18:15
other local schools down there,
18:16
Northeastern included.
18:18
and so um we stopped off to
18:21
see um football coaches and
18:23
talk to them and everything
18:24
and and if you're familiar
18:26
with with boston but you
18:27
know when you're coming
18:28
from the north you
18:29
typically will go over the
18:30
tobin bridge or the mystic
18:31
river bridge huge
18:33
contraption and you're
18:34
overlooking the city and it
18:36
was probably march or so or april
18:40
It was before the season started,
18:42
but you look over and you
18:43
can see like the Sitco sign,
18:44
the legendary Sitco sign at Fenway Park.
18:47
And you looked over and I
18:48
looked over and said, oh,
18:49
the lights are on at Fenway Park.
18:50
I wonder why that is.
18:51
And then I thought to myself,
18:53
being a lifelong Red Sox
18:54
fan and just enthralled
18:56
with Fenway Park and all of that, I said,
18:58
geez,
18:58
what schools are like really close
19:00
by to Fenway?
19:04
and so happened to be you
19:05
was close by but you didn't
19:06
have a baseball team or at
19:08
that point a football team
19:09
I don't think um they had
19:12
they dropped those programs
19:13
and so I said well what's
19:14
the next one northeastern
19:15
so went to talk to um the
19:18
football coach had a great
19:20
interview had a great talk
19:21
with them and then just
19:22
stopped by the baseball
19:23
coach's office when I was
19:24
there and as I was talking
19:25
to the baseball coach I was looking
19:28
in his office on the wall,
19:30
and it was the schedule for next year.
19:31
And smack dab in the middle
19:33
of the schedule was this
19:36
thing called the Beanpot.
19:39
And he was describing to me that, well,
19:41
the Beanpot is legendary for hockey.
19:44
The top hockey teams in that area,
19:45
I think it's UMass, BC, Harvard,
19:48
and Northeastern play.
19:50
But there's also a Beanpot
19:51
tournament for baseball,
19:53
and that's played at Fenway Park.
19:55
And so right in that moment,
19:57
I can remember standing
19:58
there and being like,
19:59
anything else he said, I didn't hear.
20:02
All I heard was,
20:04
if I go to Northeastern and
20:05
I make the baseball team,
20:06
I get the opportunity to
20:07
play on the field at Fenway
20:09
Park twice a year.
20:11
So from that point forward,
20:12
I basically said, look, can I walk on?
20:14
And he said, yeah, it's open walk-ons.
20:17
And so I went to school the
20:18
other next year and in the
20:20
fall walked on and made the team.
20:22
And that was that.
20:25
It was really around that
20:26
time where I really, you know,
20:29
it was that switch for me.
20:31
I mean, the summer in my senior year,
20:33
I was of high school after graduating.
20:37
My typical days was I was
20:38
working on the back of a
20:39
garbage truck of all things.
20:41
And, you know,
20:42
we'd work from like seven in
20:43
the morning until like two.
20:44
And then at two o'clock,
20:46
I'd drive up to Westerly Winds,
20:48
which was this outdoor mini
20:50
golf batting cage place up
20:52
in Westbrook or Wyndham, Maine,
20:54
and just pump tokens into
20:56
the batting cage.
20:57
And I would hit and hit and
20:59
hit until it was too dark to hit.
21:02
And that was just that, you know,
21:03
it's one of those things I think back on,
21:06
like when you asked about
21:07
turning points or the light switch,
21:09
you know, going on, it was like,
21:11
you kind of fall in love with a craft,
21:14
right?
21:14
You fall in like,
21:15
you're trying to perfect this craft,
21:17
but like anything else,
21:18
like it's not work.
21:20
It's like this drive to just
21:22
incrementally get better and better.
21:26
And that was it for me.
21:27
And I started to develop as
21:29
a hitter and was able to
21:33
just carry that throughout
21:34
college and then play a few
21:35
years of professional baseball as well,
21:37
which was a great experience.
21:40
What position?
21:43
I'm a lefty,
21:44
so I played first base and a
21:47
lot of outfield as well.
21:49
Couldn't really break a pane
21:50
of glass with my fastball.
21:51
So the pitching man was off
21:54
limits after my youth.
21:58
What team did you end up
21:59
with professionally?
22:02
I played mostly in the
22:03
independent leagues or
22:04
entirely in the independent leagues.
22:06
So there are a few teams I played for.
22:09
The Brockton Rocks was a
22:11
local team that came on.
22:15
They're not any longer.
22:16
I think they're a college summer team now.
22:18
And then a few other teams,
22:20
the Atlantic City Surf in Atlantic City,
22:22
New Jersey.
22:23
And then there's another
22:24
team in the league called
22:26
the Northeast Aces that
22:27
were based out of Elmira,
22:29
New York that I played for too.
22:32
Yeah, I absolutely love baseball,
22:35
and that's so cool you got to do that.
22:37
I was a pitcher in high school.
22:40
I got a look from the St.
22:41
Louis Cardinals,
22:42
then got a tear in my rotator cuff,
22:44
and that ended all that.
22:49
But it was fun while it lasted, right?
22:53
Yeah, yeah.
22:54
And did you grow up in Ohio,
22:57
or where did you grow up?
22:59
I actually grew up a
23:00
Pittsburgh Pirates fan.
23:02
Oh, okay.
23:03
Yeah?
23:04
Yeah.
23:06
Just north of Pittsburgh.
23:09
So you're a little bit older than me.
23:10
So was that like the Andy Van Slyke era?
23:14
Like the early Barry Bonds era?
23:16
Or was that a little bit further?
23:18
So that would have been my
23:19
high school years.
23:20
Bobby Bonilla was my guy.
23:22
Oh, Bobby Bo.
23:23
Yeah.
23:23
Yeah.
23:25
But yeah, that outfield of Bonds,
23:27
Van Slyke,
23:27
and Bonilla was pretty stacked back then.
23:31
i remember that I remember
23:32
those teams yeah yeah
23:33
incredible yeah we we I we
23:36
would go down there in high
23:37
school my buddies and I
23:38
would drive down go to
23:39
games all the time we loved
23:40
it I love that yeah it's
23:42
just uh my my most cherished
23:47
Some of my most cherished
23:48
childhood memories are my
23:51
parents getting my brother
23:52
and I in the car,
23:54
driving down to Boston once
23:57
a year in the summer,
23:57
parking in the north end,
23:59
which is the Italian section.
24:01
The big dig, the whole highway system,
24:03
it's kind of like disrupted
24:04
all that and actually improved that.
24:06
But there used to be just
24:07
the big green bridge
24:08
expressway that we used to
24:10
weave through the city.
24:10
And so we would park underneath
24:13
via that highway.
24:14
And on one side near the
24:16
water is the north end.
24:18
So we'd eat in the north end,
24:19
the Italian section.
24:20
And then we'd walk.
24:21
We'd walk across the city
24:23
all the way to Fenway Park
24:24
and go to a game.
24:25
And my memories, just as a youngster,
24:29
of you know there's a part
24:31
right before you get to the
24:32
stadium where you're
24:33
walking um down
24:35
commonwealth ave you take a
24:37
left and it goes up and
24:38
over the turnpike and once
24:40
you're up and over the
24:40
other side you basically
24:42
run into lansdowne street
24:43
which is the green monster
24:45
and back then it was like
24:47
the netting above the green
24:48
monster and it's like I
24:50
mean for me and probably
24:52
you have a similar story of
24:53
growing up but but for me
24:54
that was my call my
24:55
graceland or my you know that that was
24:58
it was a religious experience, right?
25:01
Every time that we would go, uh,
25:02
cause it just Fenway was
25:04
such is to this day,
25:06
such a mythical place.
25:09
And I remember that like it was yesterday.
25:11
It was just such a, such a great memory.
25:14
I wish we had, I mean,
25:15
my dad took me all the time
25:17
and those were the Willie Stargell years,
25:18
the Dave Parker,
25:20
like way back in the day.
25:22
And, uh,
25:23
it was the cookie cutter
25:24
stadium we didn't have
25:26
runway right we had three
25:28
of our stadium piece a
25:29
block of concrete that was
25:30
round yeah you know just it
25:33
so and it was just a hole
25:35
when you went in it nothing
25:37
aesthetic about it at all
25:39
now pittsburgh has one of
25:41
the nicest baseballs
25:42
beautiful right right yeah
25:45
my daughter loves going
25:48
And my daughter,
25:49
today is her 23rd birthday.
25:51
She just moved to Pittsburgh a year ago.
25:55
And so, and she,
25:57
she's not very far from the stadium.
25:59
So the hope is that we get
26:00
to do that some more.
26:02
We did a lot when she was a little girl,
26:04
but go to some games now
26:06
that she lives there.
26:08
Oh, that's so fun.
26:11
It's awesome.
26:12
You'll get to do that.
26:13
You get to do that.
26:13
We were just actually this past weekend,
26:16
we took the kids back up to
26:18
Portland where the AA
26:19
affiliate for the Red Sox is,
26:20
the Portland Seadogs.
26:22
And that was just a lot of fun.
26:23
That was just a lot of fun
26:25
to watch the up-and-comers play.
26:28
But I hear you when you talk about...
26:30
like the old school
26:31
ballparks I mean what you
26:33
described pittsburgh I mean
26:34
that was outside of a small
26:36
handful of parks that that
26:38
was the description of a
26:39
lot of parks I remember the
26:40
astrodome and and toronto
26:43
and philadelphia I mean
26:44
they weren't ballparks with
26:46
a lot of personality right
26:47
no and I think it was I
26:49
don't know if you agree but
26:51
I think it was like when
26:53
camden yards was built
26:55
that kind of ushered in the
26:57
new era of ballparks, right?
26:59
And now, how old is Camden Yards now?
27:01
Probably like 20, I don't know, 20,
27:03
25 years old or 30.
27:07
But I remember,
27:08
and I've been to Camden
27:09
Yards a handful of times,
27:10
and I still believe that
27:13
it's one of the nicest ballparks ever.
27:16
It's just,
27:16
I don't know if you've been there before,
27:17
but it's just a wonderful
27:19
place to watch a game.
27:22
I mean,
27:22
it's the only ballpark I've been to
27:24
I can get lobster on my hot dog.
27:26
There you go.
27:29
Yeah, absolutely.
27:30
Right in the ocean.
27:32
Yeah.
27:33
So, what's cool about the baseball?
27:35
Let's get into some CrossFit
27:36
and some finance.
27:37
Yeah.
27:38
So, you retire from professional baseball.
27:41
You find CrossFit.
27:43
How does that happen?
27:47
Um, yeah, it was, it was actually, um,
27:49
that was that there was a
27:52
period there between
27:54
retiring from baseball.
27:57
Um,
27:57
and then I had the opportunity to enter
28:00
the financial world,
28:01
something I was always enthralled with,
28:03
but really knew nothing about.
28:05
And there was that period of, let's see,
28:07
that was probably like, um, yeah, um,
28:11
you know,
28:13
five or six years in that
28:14
period before I found CrossFit,
28:17
where even though I was
28:19
sort of working out,
28:21
I really lost touch with fitness,
28:24
if that makes any sense at all.
28:27
But yeah, I really,
28:29
I was at toward the end of
28:31
my baseball career.
28:32
I don't think I either knew
28:33
it or had acknowledged it, but it,
28:38
there's something pop up in the screen.
28:42
Um, and, um, my wife,
28:47
actually one of her clients,
28:48
she was a physical therapist at the time.
28:49
He said, he, he mentioned to her, he says,
28:52
Oh, I understand your, your husband's a,
28:54
uh, a ball player.
28:55
And, uh, he was, uh, uh, uh, high up at,
28:59
at, uh, a large wall street firm.
29:00
He said, well, look, you know,
29:01
if he's ever interested in talking,
29:03
if he's, you know, thinking about,
29:05
you know, the, you know,
29:06
the next part of his career, we hire, uh,
29:10
um folks that more often
29:13
than not tend to come from
29:14
athletic backgrounds to
29:16
become financial advisors
29:18
because a big part of being
29:19
a financial advisor at
29:22
least at that time at the
29:23
bigger wall street firms it
29:25
was a very entrepreneurial
29:26
culture so it wasn't so
29:28
much about you know you
29:30
know so much about managing
29:31
money is that do you have
29:32
the mentality to um start a business
29:38
within the walls of a major institution.
29:42
And so when she shared that with me,
29:45
you know, it was, you know,
29:46
my mind went right back to
29:49
maybe what other folks that
29:51
are intrigued with finance
29:52
would be at that time.
29:53
It's like, okay,
29:53
I remember the movies like
29:54
The Boiler Room and Wall
29:55
Street and all these things.
29:56
And, you know,
29:58
all illegality aside with those movies,
30:00
you know,
30:01
that culture of like working as
30:03
a team and cold calling and
30:06
all these things that I end
30:07
up doing and doing a lot of
30:09
to really try to grow and
30:11
build a business was very intriguing.
30:12
And then you, you know, on top of that,
30:16
you're learning about the
30:17
financial markets.
30:18
And lucky for me,
30:21
I crossed paths with a
30:24
veteran advisor out of
30:26
Philadelphia a few years
30:27
into my business where he
30:31
taught me more than anything else,
30:34
the right path to take when
30:37
it comes to finance.
30:39
And right then that changed my life.
30:43
And it's a process,
30:46
it's a philosophy that I've
30:48
carried forward from that
30:50
point and then built my own
30:53
independent company based
30:56
upon those principles and
30:57
something that I share with everybody.
31:01
That was my intro into finance.
31:05
And then a few years after that,
31:08
I got a call from a college
31:09
friend of mine, Josh Plosker.
31:11
And, you know, him and my business partner,
31:17
he said, hey,
31:18
I just opened this gym in Boston.
31:19
You guys got to come down and work out.
31:20
And it was at the time it
31:22
was Reebok CrossFit Back Bay.
31:25
think he put us through dt
31:27
or something crazy like
31:29
that the first time it went
31:30
down there but like a lot
31:31
of folks I'm sure that
31:33
would res you know this
31:34
story resonates with I went
31:36
once and we were hooked
31:37
just like that and that set
31:40
set us off on set me off on
31:43
my crossfit journey that
31:44
was probably 2011 2012
31:46
right in that time frame so
31:49
I pulled up a picture I'll
31:50
pull it up here again I saw
31:51
the I saw um where
31:55
You're climbing a rope.
31:56
It looks like that rig is outside,
31:58
maybe in your backyard.
32:00
It is, yeah.
32:02
Yeah, it is.
32:03
So you take this CrossFit thing serious?
32:08
You know, I take the CrossFit,
32:11
I take the fitness aspect
32:13
really seriously.
32:14
I mean, I'm sure like a lot of listeners,
32:17
obviously –
32:19
know you're into crossfit
32:20
you're into finding ways to
32:23
just get a little bit
32:24
better every day and so
32:27
when I bought the house
32:29
that I'm in today about
32:30
nine years ago nine years
32:32
ago ten years ago um we
32:34
were redoing the backyard
32:36
and and um you know there
32:38
was a spot in the backyard
32:41
behind the shed that hey is
32:43
There's a retaining wall next to it.
32:45
And it's like, oh,
32:46
this could be a good spot
32:48
for a workout area.
32:49
And then going under Rogue.com,
32:52
you can go down that rabbit hole.
32:53
And then all of a sudden, hey,
32:54
this rig would fit over there.
32:57
And not much convincing needed to my wife.
33:02
So she was like, all right,
33:04
let's put something in there.
33:04
And I spend at least some part of my day,
33:09
almost every day, there.
33:14
This picture has a little
33:15
bit of special me.
33:16
Number one,
33:16
my kids like to spend time in the rig.
33:18
We have static hang contests
33:20
and everything.
33:20
But six months ago,
33:22
I got fed up with me being 6'4",
33:27
and pound for pound, inch for inch,
33:31
being the worst rope
33:32
climber you could ever imagine.
33:35
For some reason,
33:35
I just couldn't figure it out.
33:37
I could climb a rope,
33:38
but you get me in the
33:39
middle of a workout,
33:40
and a little fatigued.
33:42
And it's like taking me four
33:44
poles at one point.
33:45
I'm like, this is ridiculous,
33:46
embarrassing.
33:47
So, you know,
33:49
I started committing to
33:52
getting out there every
33:53
single day and saying, you know,
33:55
I'm going to go outside.
33:56
I want to do five.
33:58
And I'm not going to stress
33:59
about so much about technique.
34:02
I'm not stressed about if I
34:03
do every single one correct.
34:04
I'm just going to force
34:05
myself every day to go out
34:06
there and do five.
34:07
And if anybody's ever read,
34:09
I got the idea.
34:10
from a book by James Clear
34:13
called Atomic Habits,
34:14
which if you haven't read that,
34:17
it's a phenomenal, phenomenal book.
34:20
And he talks that book about
34:21
the two minute drill.
34:22
And his point is,
34:24
I won't articulate it as
34:26
clearly as he does,
34:27
but you can do basically
34:28
anything for two minutes.
34:29
You pick the thing you hate the worst.
34:32
You can still do it for two minutes.
34:34
And you know what?
34:34
If you commit two minutes
34:35
and you quit after that, fine.
34:37
And so that was my mentality
34:38
with rope climbs is that in
34:40
some other things CrossFit related,
34:41
it's like, all right,
34:43
I'm going to commit to
34:44
doing a small amount every day.
34:45
And his point is you commit to two minutes,
34:47
you'll end up doing more.
34:48
You know, the analogy that I love,
34:51
I heard just the other day,
34:52
which I thought was a great one,
34:54
is that the heaviest weight
34:56
at the gym is the front door.
35:00
I love that analogy.
35:02
And so it's to me, it's the same as that.
35:04
It's like if you could just start,
35:06
commit to something small,
35:08
it can really snowball.
35:09
And so this this picture is
35:11
just a random morning, I guess,
35:13
a few weeks ago where I was
35:17
out there in the morning
35:17
and knocking out those five
35:19
plus rope climbs.
35:22
So I find it interesting
35:24
that like life and CrossFit
35:25
can parallel so much, right?
35:28
And you mentioned the guy
35:31
that you met that gave you
35:33
the guiding principles in
35:34
which you run your business today.
35:37
And before that,
35:38
and something I read that
35:40
was out there about you,
35:41
you were kind of just going
35:43
through the motions of
35:44
finance before that.
35:45
Mm-hmm.
35:46
And I watch a podcast called
35:48
The Pivot with Ryan Clark
35:50
and Fred Taylor.
35:51
And they always talk about
35:53
that moment in life where
35:55
you hit that moment where
35:56
you have to pivot and it
35:58
changes everything.
36:01
And it sounds to me like you
36:03
meeting this person who
36:04
explained to you what
36:06
finance can be was the
36:08
pivot moment of your life.
36:14
Incredibly so.
36:16
I cannot overstate.
36:20
I can't do it justice saying
36:23
that that chance meeting
36:25
with him changed the
36:30
trajectory of my life in so many ways.
36:35
And you started talking
36:38
about the parallels, I think,
36:39
to CrossFit too.
36:40
And
36:43
Even though I didn't even
36:45
know about CrossFit at the
36:46
time that I met him,
36:47
I've come to understand how
36:51
there are incredible amount
36:53
of parallels between
36:56
finance done properly,
36:59
personal finance done properly,
37:02
and the principles of CrossFit.
37:05
Reading those older Greg
37:08
Glassman principles from back in the day,
37:11
and you read them today and
37:13
you're like all that all
37:15
that still applies and it's
37:18
the same with finance um
37:21
you know um you know one
37:23
you know when I talk to
37:24
folks um you know for folks
37:26
that I know that are in
37:27
crossfit that are clients
37:28
of mine or become clients
37:29
of mine you know I always
37:31
have to apologize I'm like
37:32
I know we're both in
37:33
crossfit you're going to
37:34
hear a lot of analogies you
37:35
know that you've heard from
37:36
crossfit but things like
37:38
the unknown and the unknowable
37:40
right,
37:41
embracing the unknown and the unknowable.
37:43
Now, I initially heard CrossFit,
37:46
but that is smack dab
37:51
correct when it comes to
37:52
finance and personal finance as well.
37:54
When you're investing your
37:55
hard-earned money,
37:58
you're going out there into the unknown.
38:01
You're going out there into the future.
38:03
And nothing determines the
38:05
outcome other than what
38:06
happens in the future, which is
38:09
at this point in time,
38:10
unknown and unknowable.
38:12
So there's a lot of things that we embrace,
38:15
me and as a company in finance,
38:17
that are very attributable
38:21
to a lot of the things in
38:23
CrossFit and committing to fitness.
38:25
And that's one of the big
38:27
things that my mentor,
38:29
his name is David Malik,
38:30
he taught me right off the bat, is like,
38:32
you've got to release and get rid of
38:36
all these things you hear
38:37
about actually on a daily
38:38
basis from the financial industry,
38:40
about the focus on
38:42
performance and historical
38:44
information and what's
38:47
happening on CNBC or what
38:51
you're reading about in the newspaper,
38:53
all these things that
38:55
really have no impact on
38:58
your ability or your client's ability
39:01
to improve their financial
39:03
lives over time it's just
39:05
noise and that amongst
39:08
others but that big
39:09
realization actually lifted
39:12
an incredible amount of
39:13
stress off of me because
39:14
that was about two years into my career
39:17
And I was, I mean,
39:19
doing well as a subjective term.
39:21
I was doing well because I'd
39:23
cold call Scott and somehow
39:26
convince Scott to have a
39:29
cup of coffee with me and
39:30
where we could talk about
39:32
finance and what he's doing and so on.
39:35
But I mean, two years into my career,
39:36
not knowing much about
39:38
stocks and bonds and all those things,
39:40
who knows what that
39:41
conversation went like.
39:43
And it wasn't so much that
39:45
that was stressful for me.
39:47
But, you know,
39:48
you do things a little while
39:49
and you're like,
39:50
I want to create or I want
39:52
to be valuable to somebody.
39:55
And I'm working hard.
39:57
I'm cold calling every day,
39:59
sometimes four or five
40:00
hundred people a day and a
40:02
meeting with them.
40:03
But I can't quite bridge the
40:07
business aspect of it with
40:09
am I creating a significant
40:11
value for this person, their families,
40:13
financial lives?
40:15
And that got to the point
40:16
for me where I was about
40:19
two years into my career and doing well,
40:21
getting clients to come aboard,
40:23
but internally feeling like,
40:25
what the hell am I doing
40:26
other than bringing them
40:27
back to the firm that I was
40:31
working with and we're
40:32
investing in them in
40:33
something that I really had
40:35
very little idea how
40:37
beneficial it was for them or not.
40:40
And that chance meeting with
40:42
David Malik and his
40:43
principles and what I
40:45
learned about how to
40:45
properly invest money and
40:47
how to guide people through
40:50
the obstacles of their financial lives,
40:53
that was just life-changing for me.
40:55
And that was a point where
40:56
the trajectory of my career
41:00
really really took off and
41:03
um and I'm incredibly
41:05
thankful for that
41:06
experience and he's a good
41:07
friend of mine now to this
41:09
day so we met through
41:13
mutual friends that are in
41:15
the crossfit space um and I
41:18
know that you have clients
41:19
in the crossfit space
41:22
Salaries for, I say salaries,
41:25
income for a CrossFit
41:27
athlete is not a static number, right?
41:31
Depending on what
41:32
competition they win or
41:33
what sponsor they have this
41:34
month or whatever, it's going to change.
41:39
How hard is it to look at
41:42
finances on the long term
41:44
when that's totally unknown
41:46
and unknowable?
41:47
You don't even know what the
41:48
income is going to be.
41:49
Yeah.
41:52
Yeah.
41:55
On one hand, in the moment,
41:58
it can be like any athlete.
42:00
Let's see if we're talking about athletes.
42:02
Any athlete, I guess said differently,
42:05
you don't know when or if
42:07
that next paycheck is going to come,
42:09
right?
42:09
Whether it's a sponsor or
42:10
whether you win an event or
42:12
whether you're a major
42:13
league baseball player and
42:14
this just happens to be the
42:17
last season you play.
42:21
There's a few things that
42:23
are unique about CrossFit
42:24
athletes I've found,
42:25
which I think why we work
42:27
so well together with
42:31
CrossFit athletes and folks
42:33
that are connected to CrossFit.
42:35
But one of the things that
42:38
is unique about them is the
42:39
fact that they are, by their nature,
42:43
tremendously disciplined athletes.
42:45
not folks that necessarily
42:48
go out there and are living
42:49
lifestyles at all above their means,
42:53
whatever those means are at
42:54
this particular point.
42:57
And by and large,
42:59
I have not and we've
43:00
managed money and do
43:02
provide advice for a number
43:04
of athletes and people connected.
43:05
I've never come across an
43:10
athlete in the CrossFit
43:12
space at least that wasn't
43:13
tremendously coachable when
43:15
it came to finance.
43:17
uh which is which is really
43:19
unique um you know in in my
43:21
experience at least
43:22
considering all the
43:23
different people we
43:24
actually work with as a
43:24
company from you know
43:26
entrepreneurs corporate
43:27
executives business owners
43:29
uh families um and it is
43:34
pretty incredible so with
43:35
someone that um you know
43:37
let's call their income is
43:39
lumpy I suppose you know
43:40
you don't you know there's
43:41
not a lot of predictability to it
43:44
Really,
43:44
the idea is trying to carve out
43:47
with them from a planning perspective.
43:49
Okay, we're making money now.
43:54
Where do we want to get to
43:55
in terms of taking
43:57
advantage as best we can these years,
44:00
however many years we have
44:02
of accumulating capital,
44:04
so that by the time you're, in some cases,
44:07
just 40 or 45 years old,
44:10
the combination of the
44:11
money that you're able to save
44:14
And the accumulation,
44:16
the compounding that's
44:17
created by investing it in
44:19
the right spots works out
44:21
to be a figure at that point in time, 40,
44:27
45, 50 years old,
44:28
where you have accumulated
44:30
enough money to provide
44:31
yourself enough income,
44:34
at least a certain amount
44:35
of income for the rest of your life.
44:37
And so it really begins with, all right,
44:41
well,
44:41
what does it cost to run your household,
44:44
right?
44:44
And for the average athlete,
44:47
at least in the CrossFit space,
44:48
they don't live
44:50
high profile,
44:51
they're so committed to training,
44:53
they're so committed to a regiment, right,
44:57
as you know, you know,
44:59
they're not out there
44:59
spending money left and right, you know,
45:01
and they're really disciplined with it.
45:03
So it's been great.
45:05
And it is,
45:08
it's not necessarily challenging
45:10
in the sense of, you know,
45:13
um um whether or not the
45:15
income's coming in it's
45:16
just a matter of crafting a
45:18
plan and having a
45:20
reasonable and workable
45:21
plan say all right we're
45:21
going to save this much
45:22
money every month that
45:24
comes in and this is how
45:25
we're going to invest that
45:26
money and if we can do
45:27
those parts reasonably well
45:30
um we should get to this
45:31
figure in x amount of years
45:34
and just I suppose just like a
45:37
training plan that they
45:39
follow um that's something
45:41
that they really gravitate
45:43
like people like them and
45:44
people like them and myself
45:45
gravitate towards hey I
45:46
want to see the roadmap I
45:48
want to see I'm really it
45:50
should yeah not so much
45:51
what's this high the
45:52
highest returning
45:53
investment or so on because
45:54
again what may return great
45:57
one year could be at the
45:58
bottom of the list the next
45:59
year so you can't go off of
46:00
that um what you can go off
46:02
of and what is tangible is
46:05
assuming a reasonable rate
46:06
of return over time,
46:08
what do we have to do
46:09
together to really save
46:11
that money and accumulate?
46:12
And athletes by and large,
46:14
at least the CrossFit space,
46:16
are poster children for the
46:21
right ways to do things
46:22
with their finances.
46:27
it's funny you say that
46:28
because there were all
46:28
these shows on for a long
46:30
time about NBA players or
46:31
NFL players who got the big
46:33
rookie deal and then had
46:35
nothing five years later because,
46:37
you know, they bought all the stuff.
46:41
And that,
46:44
And I don't want to dive too
46:45
far in the rabbit hole,
46:46
but the CrossFitters do
46:47
follow their training plan.
46:49
And it's not a sport that is
46:53
the NBA or NFL yet, right?
46:56
And nowhere near that.
46:58
And so most of them had to
47:00
work a job until they got
47:01
to a certain level anyway and did both.
47:05
So they're used to like
47:07
budgeting and all that
47:08
stuff to get through.
47:11
So I find that really fascinating.
47:13
As an employer and a person
47:17
working yourself who does CrossFit,
47:20
do you see that CrossFit
47:23
instilling those same
47:24
values into you as an
47:27
employer looking at who you
47:29
want to hire or in yourself
47:32
and the rate of return of
47:33
your own work ethic and
47:36
what you put into it?
47:40
Sure.
47:40
I think absolutely.
47:43
When you think about that, well,
47:45
when you ask that,
47:46
the first thing that comes to mind,
47:48
the phrase big picture, right?
47:50
So the mentality and the
47:54
teachings of CrossFit, right,
47:56
amongst many,
47:57
many other things are such that, you know,
47:59
and very similar to finance,
48:01
the phrase or the sentence
48:02
that I use in finance when
48:04
it comes to investing is
48:05
rarely does a company go
48:06
from obscurity to prominence overnight.
48:09
It requires discipline, execution,
48:15
patience.
48:17
And then I look at, okay,
48:20
who are the types of people
48:23
that align with those types of values?
48:29
And when it comes to,
48:29
you asked about being a business owner,
48:31
an entrepreneur and hiring people,
48:33
it's that we look for folks that...
48:38
share those same core values
48:41
that see the big picture
48:43
that aren't looking to come
48:45
in whether it's a client or
48:47
an employee that are coming
48:49
in for well you know you
48:51
know I heard we're gonna get you know
48:54
18% return, so that's why I'm here.
48:55
No,
48:56
you're here and we're here together to
48:59
look at the big picture and
49:01
to make sure we execute so
49:03
that your life financially
49:05
20 years from now is in the
49:07
most optimal financial
49:09
position that we possibly can be.
49:11
What happens over the next year,
49:13
whether it's in the markets, the economy,
49:15
or who gets elected or who
49:17
doesn't get elected,
49:18
all these distractions that
49:20
the media focuses on,
49:22
really have no bearing and
49:23
really no impact even
49:25
though it's talked a lot
49:26
about in the on the
49:27
financial um news programs
49:30
when it comes to um
49:33
optimizing somebody's
49:34
financial life or in my
49:35
case being a business owner
49:37
And employees,
49:39
it's really about the big picture and,
49:41
yes,
49:41
doing the right things for the right
49:43
reasons and such.
49:46
But finding people that
49:47
align with those same core
49:48
values is so incredibly important.
49:50
And I'm lucky, I'm blessed to, over time,
49:56
built a team of people that
49:58
embody those values.
50:03
I'm going to ask a weird question here.
50:05
You've been in this business a long time.
50:10
You serve not just athletes.
50:12
You serve everyday Americans
50:15
and make sure that their
50:17
finances are set for many years.
50:20
You have a big team.
50:22
Do you have specialists that
50:24
work with certain people or
50:27
do you have well-rounded
50:30
employees that can work with anybody?
50:35
The latter.
50:37
And, you know,
50:38
your question makes me think
50:39
of perhaps maybe intentionally so,
50:43
like what's thought of of
50:44
the financial industry, right?
50:46
What does the average person think of,
50:49
they don't know me,
50:50
But they hear Ben Beck, financial advisor.
50:53
I wonder what they think
50:55
that Ben does every day.
50:57
Do I sit in front of a computer?
50:59
Am I trading in and out of stocks all day?
51:00
Am I in the know about
51:04
something coming down the
51:05
pipe that is privy to
51:08
information that not a lot
51:09
of other people have?
51:11
And for myself and for the
51:14
financial advisors out there,
51:18
that couldn't be farther from the truth.
51:24
What we're doing every day and what,
51:25
in particular,
51:26
our company every day is
51:27
really looking to optimize
51:30
our clients' financial situations.
51:34
I lost track of your question, though.
51:35
Can you repeat the question one more time?
51:38
Well,
51:39
it was more about... I was trying to
51:40
make the analogy with CrossFit.
51:43
The all-around athlete is
51:45
usually going to do better
51:46
than someone who
51:47
specializes in one thing or another.
51:48
Right.
51:49
And then... So how do you work that?
51:51
Because when you watch movies like...
51:54
And that's the reference
51:56
point I know is that the
51:58
financial person that runs
52:00
the company has all the big fish.
52:02
And then people below him,
52:04
maybe they specialize in the athletes.
52:07
And then this group
52:07
specializes in Joe Average,
52:12
like me and my wife, right?
52:14
It sounds like it's not how
52:16
you run your company.
52:19
Well, if you look at where our,
52:21
it's a great question.
52:22
So thank you for repeating it too.
52:23
When you look at the cross
52:25
section of who we have as
52:28
employees who are financial
52:29
advisors or regardless of their position,
52:33
they're just well-rounded people.
52:35
great um human beings first
52:39
and foremost that that care
52:41
about other human beings um
52:43
the financial side is
52:45
taught and and it's it's
52:48
not something that's
52:49
insurmountable and we run
52:52
when we actually when when
52:53
it comes to the investing
52:54
part of the equation for our firm um
52:58
we run our strategies that
53:00
we run for everyone.
53:02
We don't have something
53:04
tremendously different
53:05
going on for Scott that we do for Bob,
53:08
that we do for Jill or anybody like that.
53:12
So the principles are, as they should be,
53:17
the same for everyone in
53:18
terms of what are the
53:20
principles of the economy of investing.
53:24
The principles of successful
53:26
investing aren't different
53:27
for me than they are for
53:28
you or anybody else for that matter.
53:30
Now,
53:31
everybody's financial situation and
53:32
circumstances are a little bit different,
53:35
but the role of the
53:36
financial advisor is not
53:39
investment specialists.
53:41
It's human being.
53:43
And ultimately,
53:44
how our clients are going
53:49
to perform or how they're
53:52
going to do over the next
53:54
20 or 30 years has a lot
53:57
less to do with the
53:58
particular investment strategy.
54:00
And it has a lot more to do
54:02
with ultimately their
54:05
behavior and how they
54:06
operate over good times and
54:08
bad times and whether
54:10
they're able to execute.
54:12
that's the role of us as the
54:13
front end to be human
54:14
beings to understand hey
54:17
saving money now but hey
54:18
there's going to be things
54:19
that are going to happen in
54:20
life that um whether
54:22
they're personally related
54:24
or their market or economy
54:26
related where they going to
54:27
be prone to make a decision
54:30
that may not probably not
54:32
be in their best interests
54:33
from a financial
54:33
perspective our role as
54:36
financial advisors is not
54:39
to stand up here and say
54:41
you shouldn't do that is to
54:43
empathize with folks and to
54:45
use our experience to
54:46
understand and to
54:48
continually guide them on
54:49
that path of life obviously
54:53
is not a straight line for everybody up.
54:55
We go through our ups and downs.
54:58
That's the role of my team, at least,
55:02
is human beings first to
55:03
really understand what a
55:07
client and their family is
55:08
really trying to achieve
55:10
and know that there are
55:13
going to be multiple
55:14
occasions along that 20 or
55:16
30 year plus period where
55:18
they're going to have an
55:20
opportunity to veer off course.
55:23
and it's us continually
55:24
communicating and building
55:25
the relationship and trust
55:27
over time so that when we
55:29
do say hey look like let's
55:31
let's reconnect let's
55:33
reassess what we put
55:34
together as a plan and and
55:36
make sure we continue to
55:37
move forward you know on
55:39
the path that we set that
55:40
doesn't take an investment
55:42
specialist that takes an
55:44
employee an advisor that really um
55:48
knows how to connect with
55:49
other human beings and
55:51
that's ultimately how we
55:52
built our firm not with
55:53
investment specialists but
55:55
with with folks that
55:57
certainly understand
55:58
finance and understand
55:59
planning and understand the
56:01
principles of successful investing but um
56:06
much,
56:06
much more important than that is
56:08
understanding how human
56:10
beings react under stress
56:11
and to know that that's
56:13
going to happen and to make
56:14
sure that we do our duty
56:17
and guide them back to the right path.
56:22
So we're coming up on the hour.
56:23
I want in the last question for you,
56:26
and then we'll tell people
56:27
how they can get in touch
56:28
with you is if you had to
56:31
give people one advice,
56:33
one piece of advice about
56:34
financial planning, what would you,
56:37
what would that one piece of advice be?
56:41
Just one.
56:42
Just what?
56:44
And maybe the answer is
56:45
there isn't one piece.
56:47
Yeah.
56:48
Yeah.
56:49
Um,
56:55
Do your best to remove
56:57
emotion from the equation.
56:59
And the best thing that you
57:00
can do to help yourself do
57:03
that or with the assistance
57:04
of a financial advisor like
57:06
us or somebody else is
57:08
write out the plan with someone's help.
57:12
Write out not returns or
57:15
necessarily the amount of
57:17
money that you feel is
57:21
going to achieve what you need to achieve,
57:24
but understand first and
57:26
foremost what you're
57:28
actually trying to achieve.
57:30
So like compared to a
57:31
CrossFit training plan, it's like, okay,
57:34
I wanna be a CrossFit Games athlete.
57:36
I wanna go to the CrossFit Games.
57:38
okay well what are the
57:39
things what what's the plan
57:41
that you have to put in
57:42
place that that will help
57:45
you actually do that and
57:47
then to understand what are
57:48
the things that are gonna
57:50
cause me potentially to
57:51
veer off course um injuries
57:54
you know plateaus and what
57:57
happens to the plateau
57:58
jesus the training program
57:59
that I'm on is wait wait
58:01
I'm starting to second
58:02
guess this maybe I should
58:03
switch to something else
58:04
you know the same things
58:05
happen in finance so
58:07
establishing a plan first
58:10
and foremost a relevant
58:12
plan to achieve your goal
58:13
and sticking to it um is
58:16
the best piece of at least
58:17
broad advice that I can
58:19
give um you know to an
58:21
audience that you know is
58:22
in tune with crossfit and
58:24
in tune with training plans
58:25
that's the most important
58:26
from my perspective
58:29
I know I said that was the last question,
58:31
but we actually have one for the chat.
58:33
Jody Lynn, my husband says,
58:35
put all your money in NVIDIA.
58:38
I'm starting to hear that.
58:39
I told him he can't put all
58:40
his eggs in one basket.
58:43
Any comments on that?
58:45
What a great story that NVIDIA has been.
58:47
And my response to that is
58:51
it's kind of ironic that
58:55
NVIDIA has certainly been
58:56
in the news and certainly
58:57
had meteoric growth
59:00
There are a lot of companies
59:03
that not every day are
59:06
experiencing the exact same
59:08
type of growth that Nvidia has,
59:11
but there are plenty of
59:12
companies out there that
59:16
experience significant
59:18
growth that can and do have
59:23
a significant impact or can
59:25
have a significant impact
59:26
on your financial life as an investor.
59:30
But the rub here or the
59:33
trick here as well to
59:35
Jody's question is that, well,
59:38
how do you do that without
59:41
putting yourself at undue
59:44
risk for your future finances?
59:46
And certainly, even though it's age old,
59:50
saying uh don't put your all
59:52
your eggs in one basket
59:53
it's absolutely um true um
59:56
and that's the that's one
59:57
thing that that you want to
59:59
be really really careful of
1:00:00
and a lot of people fall
1:00:01
victim of is they fall for
1:00:04
fads or or they react to
1:00:07
negative news in the wrong
1:00:09
way um you know
1:00:12
hate to sound like cliche
1:00:13
but yes it is it is
1:00:15
appropriate and necessary
1:00:16
for most investors to be
1:00:19
well diversified not all
1:00:21
your eggs in one basket but
1:00:22
there's also a risk of
1:00:23
being over diversified
1:00:25
which is what we talk to a
1:00:26
lot of clients about you
1:00:27
know when you look inside
1:00:28
your 401k and you're
1:00:29
picking seven different
1:00:31
mutual funds or you're in a
1:00:32
model portfolio that can
1:00:34
work to your disadvantage
1:00:35
too over long periods of
1:00:36
time but um yeah nvidia has
1:00:40
been an exciting
1:00:42
exciting run and yeah it it
1:00:45
is a great company and and
1:00:47
um I'm not here to give
1:00:48
recommendations on on the
1:00:49
show and everything like
1:00:50
that but um if it's part of
1:00:53
the portfolio for most
1:00:55
investors it should be one
1:00:56
piece of a diversified
1:00:59
diversified portfolio not
1:01:01
all the eggs in one basket
1:01:02
yeah I know you're not
1:01:04
giving him but jody says
1:01:05
that's what I told him too risky I think
1:01:09
Yeah.
1:01:09
And don't listen to me.
1:01:10
I mean, you know,
1:01:11
you listen to Warren
1:01:12
Buffett and anybody else out there that,
1:01:14
you know,
1:01:15
has some things to say about
1:01:16
what individual investors should do.
1:01:18
And it's the same.
1:01:23
So as we finish up here,
1:01:24
if people are interested in
1:01:25
working with you and Beck
1:01:27
Bode to help them with their finances,
1:01:30
what's the best way to
1:01:31
reach out to you guys?
1:01:34
Um, there's, there's a,
1:01:36
there's a couple of ways.
1:01:36
I think the best way first
1:01:38
is to go to our website.
1:01:40
So it's, um, pretty easy.
1:01:42
Beck Bodie.com, um, is our website.
1:01:47
Um, and then, you know,
1:01:49
once you get in the website, there's,
1:01:50
there's, uh,
1:01:51
there's a couple of ways to
1:01:52
get directly in touch.
1:01:53
First and foremost,
1:01:54
you're going to get a pop-up.
1:01:56
uh when you get on the
1:01:57
website of a book that was
1:01:59
actually written by my
1:02:00
mentor so the the gentleman
1:02:02
that I um mentioned before
1:02:04
david malik he wrote a
1:02:06
novel called dancing with
1:02:07
the analysts and while it
1:02:09
is a novel so it's a
1:02:10
fictional story uh how he
1:02:13
talks about the philosophy
1:02:15
and the principles behind
1:02:16
investing and and how you
1:02:18
should approach your financial lives
1:02:21
is exactly what was taught
1:02:24
to me in the foundation of
1:02:26
how we run our firm.
1:02:27
So number one,
1:02:29
I would say check out that book.
1:02:32
Number two,
1:02:33
pretty easy just to go to Ben
1:02:35
or email ben at
1:02:36
beckbode.com for anybody
1:02:40
else that's looking to learn more.
1:02:43
So the website address is in
1:02:45
the description of this podcast.
1:02:48
So you can click on that and
1:02:49
get right there.
1:02:50
And I'll put in your email
1:02:51
address there too as well.
1:02:53
Awesome.
1:02:54
And then I guess just to finish up,
1:02:56
now the questions are rolling in.
1:02:58
Jeffrey Birchfield asks,
1:03:00
is Vanguard a good set of funds?
1:03:04
Oh, Vanguard.
1:03:05
Sure.
1:03:05
Yeah.
1:03:06
Again,
1:03:07
I'll always preface things by saying
1:03:09
it's not necessarily about
1:03:11
the investment.
1:03:13
So much it is about what are
1:03:15
you shooting for?
1:03:17
And then so what are you shooting for?
1:03:19
When you're talking about a
1:03:20
dollar of your money or
1:03:22
dollars of your money,
1:03:23
your capital that you worked hard,
1:03:25
what exactly is that money for?
1:03:27
Building a plan first to say,
1:03:29
what do I need to do to get there?
1:03:31
And then the next question comes,
1:03:35
how do I fund that plan?
1:03:37
And that's where that
1:03:37
question is answered.
1:03:38
Is it, all right, do I go to Vanguard?
1:03:39
Do I go to Fidelity?
1:03:40
Do I go to a firm like mine?
1:03:43
What do you do then?
1:03:45
But by and large, Vanguard is,
1:03:48
like other big firms out there,
1:03:49
they definitely have plenty
1:03:51
of resources in order to
1:03:55
achieve whatever it is that
1:03:59
a particular investor would
1:04:00
want to achieve.
1:04:02
So to wrap that up for my
1:04:04
head is there's a lot of funds out there,
1:04:08
but if you don't have the
1:04:09
right training plan,
1:04:10
just like in CrossFit,
1:04:12
you're not going to get to
1:04:13
that end result you want
1:04:15
without the plan first.
1:04:16
Yeah.
1:04:17
You may not.
1:04:19
You may not, right?
1:04:19
Because without the plan…
1:04:22
one thing I can guarantee
1:04:24
right you know it's funny
1:04:25
you use the word guarantee
1:04:26
when it comes to financial
1:04:27
world one thing that I
1:04:29
guarantee is um what we
1:04:32
think today we're going to
1:04:33
think differently tomorrow
1:04:35
right the the economy the
1:04:36
world is in a constant
1:04:38
state of change so whether
1:04:39
it's nvidia whether it's
1:04:41
vanguard whether it's
1:04:43
whoever it is there are
1:04:44
going to be things that happen
1:04:47
in the future that could
1:04:51
cause us to pivot our
1:04:54
previous way of thinking, right?
1:04:56
And so without a plan, a sound,
1:05:01
I'm not talking about a a
1:05:03
book this thick but a sound
1:05:05
written set of principles
1:05:07
that are going to guide how
1:05:09
you're going to operate as
1:05:11
an investor um into the
1:05:13
future without something
1:05:15
like that and you comparing
1:05:17
it to the like but as you
1:05:18
said scott the uh the cro
1:05:19
without the crossfit
1:05:20
training plan you just show
1:05:21
up at the gym every day
1:05:22
yeah I want to I want to
1:05:23
make the crossfit games I'm
1:05:24
just doing random stuff
1:05:25
every day oh I hurt my arm or
1:05:27
oh,
1:05:27
I don't seem to be increasing my squat PR,
1:05:32
so I'm going to do something different.
1:05:34
You know,
1:05:34
you're kind of out there just
1:05:36
kind of swimming in the
1:05:38
middle of the ocean with no
1:05:39
real direction.
1:05:40
The plan itself is the magic.
1:05:42
That's where it is.
1:05:43
As boring as that sounds,
1:05:45
establishing the plan first,
1:05:47
and then you put yourself in front of,
1:05:50
as a funding mechanism,
1:05:51
the NVIDIAs and the other
1:05:52
types of companies that in the future,
1:05:54
there are companies that
1:05:55
are going to change the way
1:05:58
the world works and
1:05:59
ultimately do unbelievable
1:06:02
things in the markets that
1:06:03
we've never even heard of before.
1:06:04
that are going to pop up a
1:06:05
year from now or five years
1:06:07
from now or 10 years from now,
1:06:08
the Amazons of yesterday,
1:06:10
or they're going to become
1:06:11
the Amazons and the NVIDIAs of today.
1:06:14
And so understanding that
1:06:16
and understanding, hey,
1:06:16
how do I put myself in front of that
1:06:19
efficiently as possible I
1:06:20
kind of have to know where
1:06:21
I'm going first so
1:06:23
establishing the plan and
1:06:24
then and then funding it
1:06:26
with the relevant types of
1:06:27
investments that can
1:06:29
reasonably get me there
1:06:30
that's that's that's the
1:06:32
that's the boring magic
1:06:33
that that we do just like
1:06:35
earlier earlier in the show
1:06:38
you mentioned you wanted to
1:06:39
be better at rope climbs so
1:06:41
every day you did five rope
1:06:42
climbs out in your backyard
1:06:44
That was a plan to make you
1:06:46
a better rope climber.
1:06:48
Finance works the same way.
1:06:50
Same way.
1:06:51
Same way.
1:06:52
It's boring, but it works.
1:06:54
Yeah.
1:06:55
Well, Ben,
1:06:55
thank you so much for being here.
1:06:57
Thank you to everybody in
1:06:57
the chat for your questions.
1:07:00
It's been an enlightening
1:07:01
conversation for me,
1:07:02
and I hope it is for you as well.
1:07:04
With that,
1:07:06
we'll see you all next time on
1:07:07
the Clydesdale Media Podcast.
1:07:09
Bye, guys.
1:07:11
Thanks, Scott.