Do you hate the thought of working past 55 or 60? Do you hate not being able to live the life you deserve today? Do you hate not knowing what your financial future looks like? It's time to stop doing what you hate, here's your host, Mr. Harold Green.
(00:19): Hello. Hi everybody. This is Harold Green of bright tree financial and it is time to stop doing what you hate. How's everybody's week going? So far? Mine's going pretty good. It seems like we're in the third week of February and this month is just flying by or this year's flying by. I'm just kind of surprised at how fast the week has gone by and so we might want to take time out of our, our, our busy life and just take a minute to take a deep breath and to be thankful for the new year that we're in. Do you have anything to celebrate? Take some time out and celebrate that. And I know that's one of the things I have to get better at, but today's show is titled stop pretending to be an investment guru. I'm gonna talk to you guys today about something that's near and dear to my heart and something that really just gets my blood boiling every time I hear of a situation or stopped pretending to be an investment guru is not about pretending to know about finances or anything like that, but it's more of what you are sharing with other people that you're not too sure about yourself.
(01:41): So stop being an investment guru. We're going to be talking about investments today and so we're also going to be talking a little bit about the rapid retire program. It's a program that puts you in position to retire seven to 10 years sooner than you normally would, but the results of the program are going to vary and since we're talking about investments, I'm sorry, investments. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. All investments, including real estate, are speculative in nature and involve substantial risk of loss. We encourage our investors to invest carefully. We also encourage investors to get personal advice from their own professional investment advisor and to make independent investigations before acting on information that we publish. You guys ready? All right. One, two, three. Let's get this. All right. So one of the things that really that really burns me up is when I hear people giving financial advice and they should not be doing it.
(02:40): And one of the places I see people giving advice the most is at work. I just read a study and in had talked about the average employee wasting about eight hours a week on things that have nothing to do with their job, checking the internet, checking sports sites like ESPN, checking news sites. We're in an election year. Some people are hot and bothered about this kind of stuff. So they're always checking the latest and greatest. Who's up in the polls, who don't, who's down in the polls and on and on and on. And it's costing employers billions of dollars every single year. And again, one of the things people do talk about at work is they talk about their finances. And I read an article, this lady named Liz Ryan, you can check it out at orbs. It's a www [inaudible] dot com slash slash site slash Liz L. I. Z. Ryan. R. Y. A. N. that was really interesting because Liz comes out and she says, there are 10 things that you should never ever tell your coworkers, and I'm gonna run down the list real quick until I get to the one that I want to talk about.
(03:51): I'm number one. If you hate your job, keep that to yourself and, and that's a big one. You gotta she says, look for a new job on this side, but don't tell your coworkers how unhappy you are. It can help them to know if you're unhappy at work, I'm going to tell you straight up, stop doing what you hate. This is, this is true. People are spending a lot of time going to psychologists and therapists and things like that just to deal with their job if you need to, if you need to do that, great. I'm not putting you down for that. A number two, she says, if you're not a fan of your manager or any other manager in your company, don't talk about it with your teammates. You know this is this stuff is common sense, but sometimes in the workplace it can get very, very petty.
(04:34): A number three if you're hunting a job, hunting after hours, keep it to yourself. You can't tell your coworkers when you accepted the position until they, until they say nothing. Again, keep this stuff to yourself. I know this is all stuff that's common sense, but to be honest with you guys these days, common sense is not all that common any more. And then number four, don't tell your coworkers your personal financial situation. Even if they talk about their own budgets and expenses. She says, if you are doing well, people can get jealous. Haters, if you are struggling, they will talk about that. Haters. When people are bored and unhappy, haters, they gossip. Don't give them anything to talk about. And I'll tell you guys straight up, when I was working for a major company here in Hawaii and my department, some people in other departments, they, they did not like my boss and they made that well known.
(05:30): They didn't like my boss, but I like my boss can't say their gender because you know, people might know who they are, but you know, I like my boss. My boss was a tough person, but they were, they were also fair. And if you did your job, you, you got rewarded. And so when you look at people slacking off and not doing what they're supposed to do, of course your boss is going to get pissed off at you and you're going to have some problems in the workplace. And so for me, when I was working for someone, I had this thing in my mind that I'm going to pretend like my boss is kind of like a higher, higher power and I'm working to satisfy that higher, higher power or not necessarily my boss. I always worked as if somebody was watching over my back and they saw everything that I did.
(06:18): And at the time when I was working, cell phones were prevalent in the workplace. But at the same time, you know, I'm from a generation 46 years old that you know, we, we just got to work and we do what we're supposed to do and then we'd go home. And that, that has always been my mentality. But one of the things that like I said really bothers me is when people talk about their personal financial situation at work or when they're with their coworkers and they're constantly comparing themselves with their coworkers, which is not the right thing to do. Everybody's in a different place in life. Okay. Your finances are different, your relationship is different. Helping school in your life is different. And so of course your situation and when the guard, when it, when it comes to money, it's going to be extremely different.
(07:07): I want to talk about a couple of different situations that I came across. And this individual has given me permission to share a little bit about their story. But I'm not, I'm not gonna say their names and so on and so forth. And so, and this has happened on several occasions. So this can apply to, you know, anybody who might have counseled in these types of situations. And so I have a lot of clients and as a fiduciary, my job again is to make sure that I'm doing what's in their absolute best interest, putting them and what their needs are above the needs of myself, my company, and my employees. And that's kind of our, our model here. So the client calls up and they say, Harold I got the side investment that I want to do. And I've done it before.
(07:53): I made quite a bit of money on it. And so I want to get back in and I want to do it again. And I think now's a good time to do it. And so I said, I'm not sure about that. Let's run the numbers and take a look and see what this looks like. So I ran the numbers, the numbers looked okay, but I was a little skeptical about the buy-in and the timeframe to get money out. So my thing is when it comes to investments, you have to pick your entry point and you have to pick your exit point. And you say that again. When it comes to investing, you have to pick your entry point and you have to pick your exit point and it has to be tied into your long term financial plan. And if you can't answer or figure those two things out, you shouldn't be touching that stuff in the first place.
(08:36): Keep your money on the side and go talk to a professional. Okay. So I got all the information on the company and I said, you know, this doesn't sound right to me. This sounds a bit fishy. Let out, you know. And they said, well, you know, you can talk to the people that are trying to get me involved in this. And and I said, well, we'll talk to them and see what they say. So talk to the people on the phone and, and I can just kind of tell right away that they were up to, they were up to no good. And my recommendation to the client was, this is not something that you should get involved in. And here's my red flags. I have several of them. And these red lights do not below through these red lights. I'm going to say you guys straight up, if you are working with a professional advisor and they have, they have the state, you know, we have the sentence side when it comes to our clients that we really care about our clients, we have this sense, this third sense or whatever, it's 6 cents or whatever you want to call it, that something is not right and you shouldn't do that.
(09:35): Okay? So if your advisor says, Hey, Johnny, Jimmy, Jerry, Joe, Jane, Jill, this is not something you should do, run. You guys need to take that advice, sleep on it. Okay, come back, kick it around again. The advisor says, run still. You might want to listen to that. That's what you are paying that person for, especially if they are a fiduciary, because their goal is to look out for your absolute best interest. Now this client has some major things coming up on the horizon that we needed those funds for some major things coming up on the horizon. And I said, you got to make sure we can get that money back out when we need it. And they said, yep, we can get the money whenever you need it. Done it down and on the next thing you know I'm getting a phone call and this stuff has been locked down.
(10:23): Sccs is involved. It was a scam of Epic proportions. People lost hundreds of millions of dollars and who knows when they are going to get that money back. And I said, you know, they called me up and they told me what was going on and I said, you know, I'm sorry to hear about that, but I want to thank you for calling me and sharing with me what you're going through. You know, I love you, I love your family and I'm going to do the best I can to help you get out of this situation and to get you back on track and to where you're supposed to be. Now, here's one of the interesting things. When you get advice from people, if they don't give you some kind of disclosure or some kind of warranty, some kind of guarantee or have some kind of insurance to protect you from their malpractice or whatnot, you might need to run.
(11:18): So that's where I get into talking about talking to your coworkers for financial advice. Cause I'm going to tell you guys straight up, they don't know any more than you do other than the fact that they'd done some research on the internet, they listened to some podcast shows and they're probably just regurgitating to you something they've heard somebody else say, which is a major nano and a major problem for me. And that's why I think Liz says, don't tell your coworkers about your personal finances. And so I've had clients come in and you know, they tell me, Hey, my coworker said this and Hey my coworker said that and I'm sitting here like, yo, we got a long term financial plan. What does your coworker know about a long term financial plan where they won't even go sit down and talk to an advisor because they're so skeptical.
(12:06): They're so cynical. They have no idea really what they are doing and they are probably making a mess of their own finances. And how dare they tell you, you shouldn't hire someone. You shouldn't be working support working with someone because you're paying fees and so on and so forth. I'm going to tell you guys straight up. Yes, you're going to pay fees to your financial advisor. Yes, they do take a cut of the, they do assets under management and they, they get, they get paid a fee for what they do. And if you have a problem paying somebody a fee for their services, maybe you should, you should go to work for free for a week or two and see how that feels. And I just think that's an asinine thing. I get that all the time where I talk to clients and say, Hey, we do take people by referrals.
(12:46): And first thing that comes up is, what do you guys charge? What do you guys charge? Nobody works for free. Every person should get paid what they're worth. Okay. If your investment advisor is not getting the job done for you and you're mad about the fees, you got to go find somebody else. You don't throw the whole field out just because one or two bad apples. All right? So another situation that recently came up, I had a client that was struggling at work and again, stop doing what you hate and they came in and I, I brought them in under the college funding side. We also help people figure out how to get their kids to and through college in a safe manner without going broke or spending down their entire life savings. And we make sure that their kids graduate college in four years and get a job.
(13:34): There's a lot of talk today about whether or not college is worth it. Yes, college is worth it. It depends on the degree field or the degree that you are going to college for some degrees are worth it. Some degrees are worth less. And so you're going to have to think about whether or not a college or that particular career field is, is right for you are saying is my trademark, this career plus major is college. You should not be sending a kid off to college without understanding what the career is because it is an investment of Epic or portion. Okay. And if you're not willing to make it or willing to stick with that commitment, that's not something that you should do. So back to the client. So they came on board, they paid the fee and I think our fee for the college funding services at that time was about $4,000 or whatnot.
(14:24): But they saw the value in that because I said something to them that was extremely important. They hired me because I could guarantee them that they could retire from their job within a year and still be able to cover college and retirement and everything else. They need it for the rest of their life based on the amount of assets that they had, the, the amount of pension income that they were going to get, and social security benefits. And all that stuff when it kicked in and so on and so forth. So the client came, they came on board, paid me the fee, we started working with their investments, they rolled everything over to me and I began managing their investment, managing their investment. And I think we're up like 20 something percent since last year and the fall or so. And so, they're doing extremely well.
(15:12): And the mistake that they made was telling their coworkers about what was gonna happen. Can you imagine how it makes your coworkers feel when they find out that you're going to be free and they're going to be stuck there in that job that they hate for another five, 10, 15 years because their situation is not as it should be. And sometimes you refer them over, people still don't listen, but when they find out that you're free, it can cause some major issues. And that's one of the things I tell my clients is, you know what? You can talk to your coworkers about me, but do not talk to them about whether you bought insurance, what kind of investments you have, what kind of long term financial plan you have. Do not get into any of that because truth be told a lot of times when they come in and see me for the reviews, no, no, no.
(16:14): Sooner than five minutes after they leave, they forgot half the stuff I said because they come in and I explained to them the plan again, we go through things, we update their goals and their numbers and I show them how I choose the investments. I showed them how I monitor everything. I show them when I make changes in their portfolios and you know what they say, Harold, I am so glad you know what you're doing because we don't have to worry about this stuff. And I said, no, you don't have to worry, but I need you to understand what we have going on. And so they're excited about this stuff and they go and share it with their coworkers. I'm in rapid retire. What is rapid retire? I'm going to retire sooner than you guys. No, you're not. You can't do that. That guy's probably lying to you or whatever.
(16:54): And I say, when people tell you that, just look at them and wave and say bye. Because basically you're going to be able to get out of that job a lot sooner than they are. And you know what? If you have between 500,000 and $1 million in your 401k, some people are telling you that is not enough. Who knows whether or not it's enough. They don't know your lifestyle. They don't know how much you spend, right. You may not be paying for expensive private school like they are. You may not have a luxury car like they do. You may have a very different lifestyle than they do. So with $1 million, there's a lot of stuff that you can do. Okay. I've seen situations where people should have quit their job. Okay. And got out when the market was great. They got their pension and everything was already, but you know what?
(17:39): They got a little greedy. I just want to pay the house off. I just need two more years. And they kept that 401k on blast, which means super aggressive and then the market turns and it wipes out 2030 40% of what's in your portfolio. And now guess what? You got to keep working doing something that you hate just because, all right, or your coworkers are still there. I have some clients who say, well, you know what, when, when so-and-so retires, we're all going to go out at the same time. I understand that. That's a very noble thing. And you know, one client said, you know, my coworkers and us, you know, we're all good friends and whatnot and if they leave and I'm stuck there by myself, I don't think I can do this job anymore. Okay. This is, these are some things that are very, very important and this is more for the older generation and not the younger generation because the younger guys, you know, and their thirties yeah, great.
(18:33): You know, we're buddies, we hang out, but shoot, when the money's better over there, I'm gone. Right. And I don't blame you. Okay. Career advancements and so on and so forth. But with the older generation, there's no such thing. Some of them probably started the companies at the same time and you know, they do things together, they do things with their families, their kids know each other. Sometimes the kids go to the same school and and so sometimes it's just a little bit harder, right? And so people want to go out at the same time. But I'm going to caution you. You definitely want to sit down and talk to a professional and make sure that your finances in your long term financial plan is in your absolute best interest versus trying to go at the same time with your coworkers. All right? So for all of those people out there that are listening to what I call the so called water cooler counselor, you might want to check that, okay?
(19:25): It's good to talk to your coworkers sometimes about certain things, but when it comes to your money, keep that to yourself. If you're working with someone and feel free to end you, enjoy your advisor and you love what they're doing for you, feel free just to refer to that advisor, but don't get into the weeds. Don't look at one of the hood and start taking off the spark plugs and things like that. Refer that person over and let them have a conversation with an advisor. And if they don't like them, they're free to Google. Look for someone else. All right, so I want to thank you folks for tuning in and I want to tell you to stop doing what you hate. I want to also tell you to check out my rapid retire programs. You can go to the website for retirenowretirewell that's retired, the word retire retired now.
(20:13): Retire wow.com and that's one word. Go in there and download that game changer form the, I'm sorry, download the brochure, read up on it, put your information into the game changer form. Submit that and I'm going to be in contact with you guys to see if there's something that I can help you with to see if I can help you retire sooner than your coworkers and so on this over to see if I can put you in a position that you love versus a position that you hate. Until next time, guys, one, two, three. Let's get it.
This is ThePodcastFactory.com
