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.
(00:20): Hello. Hi everybody. This is Harold Green of Brightree financial group, and it is time to stop doing what you hate. I hope you are having a fantastic week. I'm doing pretty good. It's been super busy. There's a lot of things going on, working on growing the firm, getting the right people in the right places. And
(00:38): It's just been a tremendous time. Getting excited for my trip to Florida here, coming up pretty soon, super excited about the you know, the opportunities on basing and just kind of soaking it all in and, and just being grateful and being thankful for every single thing. I want to give a big shout out to my current clients. If you're listening. Thank you so much. And thank you folks for all the referrals that you're sending in. I'm extremely blessed and thankful for that and welcome to all the new clients that are, that are coming on board recently. And I'm just excited. I had a great conversation with a client yesterday. He's about 81 years old and he's a relatively new client. And he said, Harold, I've been listening to your shows and I I've been listening to you for a while and I got to figure it out.
(01:23): I know who you are. I know what you're all about. And I'm excited about it. And he said, I'm coming in because I heard your, one of your shows, a title retiring in a foreign country. And he said, that's what I want to do. And I'm like, I'm like, Steve, you already retired. He said, yeah, but I just want to live in a foreign country for a while just to, just to see what it's like, you know, and we put that into his plan. And and, and it's, it's great because he'll get to, to enjoy life and do the things that he loves. And like I said, this show is all about stop doing the things that you hate. If you want to do something new, sit down and plan it out. I got a lot to get off my chest today.
(01:59): You know, I be like, I'm going to go all over the place, but I want to talk to you about today's show. The title is recession proof. All right. Downturn proof, recession proof. And there's, there's a lot we got to talk about. So are you guys ready? One, two, three. Let's get it. All right. So recession proof. When, you know, when we start to think about recession, we start to think about, you know, the economic downturn things not going well, the cost of goods and services going higher and higher. It's like the economy can't get traction. You know, it seems like a horrible time. And so I just kind of want to go through here today and talk to you guys about what you can do in order to become recession proof. We're going to talk a little about the retirement program, the rapid retire, but I'm going to jump all over the place a little bit, but the first thing I want to do, I wrote a book sometime back titled paying for college in the 21st century, the smart and efficient way to maximize financial aid by me.
(02:59): And, you know, it was, it was hard. It's one of the toughest things I did. But, you know, for years I kept telling myself, dude, you need to write a book. You know, so much stuff about this. You got to write a book. And the reason why I started doing college funding and helping people prepare for college in the first place was because quite frankly, it was one of the things that was screwing up their retirement plan. Every single time people were coming in and you know, all their eggs were in the retirement basket. They had nothing saved for college, really other than about $20,000 in a five 29 plan. And somehow I, I don't know what happened in their mind. They thought that I'm doing something, you know, maybe my kid's going to get some scholarships, you know, and they're smart and, and on and on and on well, colleges have changed how they look at accepting kids and how much financial aid they give.
(03:47): There's so many things going on in college. I don't want to say I've lost faith in the college process and getting kids educated. But boy, I tell you, man, when you look at the landscape of what's going on with colleges today and what they're charging for tuition, and then what's happening with the kids that are coming out of school today, it reminds me of what happened back in the financial crisis, where the kids were coming out of college, 60, 70, $80,000 in debt. And now they're trying to find a job and everybody's, excuse was we're in a downturn, we're in a recession. We're not hiring. We're not like you don't want to be faced with that. When you went through college for four years, and now you can't find a job because of a, of a recession or downturn. And I'm going to put this out there right now.
(04:26): I'm going to put it out there right now. If you are a client or a parent, you've heard me say this before, and I'm going to say it again. Please do not be offended by this. When kids come out of college, they got to have something to show to a future employer that makes them believe that they're going to be a tremendous asset to the company. In other words, what in the heck have you done these last four, four years with your life? Other than sitting around in a, a dorm, you know, listening to a professor pontificating about, you know, all of their likes and dislikes about whatever, what have you done? Yeah. We know you got a four-year degree from UCLA. That's great. We're just not going to hire you just because you graduate at UCLA. What can you do today? Add tremendous value to our company.
(05:19): And I tell the kids all the time during the summers, you gotta get internships. You gotta find, you gotta hustle. You gotta find internships. Whether it's in the state, you like, or you don't like the state, you know where the internship who cares treat it like the military. You got, you got one shot at getting this right? And a lot of times I hear parents making excuses as to why their kids can't get internships and why the kids don't want to do this. And I hear the kids complain and say, well, I don't like this place. You know, I don't like that place and that's fine, but you're setting yourself up for a major disaster. And it's ruined up. A lot of kids are coming out of college right now and they can't find jobs. I don't think that's true. It's not, they can't find jobs.
(05:57): They're being very picky. They're being very choosy about what they want. And sometimes, you know what? You just got to get started, got to get started somewhere. It may not be what you like. And if we're always living by what we like and doing what we like, there's going to be a reckoning day. And I think that reckoning day is now and there are going to be many more in the future. This pandemic that we're going through is just not the only thing that has that happened or will ever happen. There's going to be other things. I hate to say that, but this is, we live in the world. This happened in the world. So I wrote this book paying for college in the 21st century. If you haven't listened to any of my podcast shows on college, please go back and look through them and find out some of the things I talk about there.
(06:41): But in this book and chapter four, how to apply for financial aid, there is a caution sign there, and it says you have one shot at getting this right? I meet so many people may say, Harold, where were you? You know, like five years ago when my kid was you know, or four years ago when my kid was a freshman in high school, where were you? And I go back to the database and I probably sent them like so many workshop, attendee, flyers, like, like 20. I mean, we send out 30, 40,000 a year. That's what we were sending out before all of this stuff hit the fan. It would amaze me. People would get it in the mail and they throw it away. It is just a scam. It's amazing how many people would just blow through stuff without looking at it. You know, maybe they thought they had time, but you got one shot at getting this right?
(07:28): If you had to shoot a basketball from half court to win a million dollars, and you've never shot a basketball before, how much preparation do you think you would want to have a month? Three or 30 minutes. And then that's how people are treating this college funding thing. 30 minutes before they can graduate. It's almost as like, oh my God, okay. We got to figure out college. And I was like, oh wow. I was like, wow, what happened? You got one shot at getting this right? One of the first steps to recession proofing, your financial plan is making sure it can handle paying for college. It can handle getting your kid through four years of school because I do. I think education is important. It's just the right type of education at the right school for the right price. And if you want to know more about getting your kids through college, you gotta get on my schedule.
(08:16): Call Kayla five, two one four, four zero one. Get on the schedule and let us do a college funding assessment with you to make sure that your financial plan can handle four years of college. Not only for your first K, but your second year, third year fourth. And if you got seven, God help you. But some people do have seven kids and that's not a bad thing. Big families are awesome, but you need to have a plan to educate every single one of your kids. Please. Now thank you for letting me rant and rave about college. So let's get into recession proof. So I'm going to start with some questions and I'm going to say this for every downturn there, an upturn for every downturn, there is an upturn. I was on the phone yesterday, impromptu buddy chat session, catching up session, bullcrap session with a buddy of mine, Alan Jay Mac, and Johnny Mac.
(09:10): And we love talking about investments. We love talking about this whole process, this, you know, helping families process. It was exciting because we, we covered a lot of stuff in that, in that one hour phone call. And one of the biggest things we talked about is the fact that he missed out a little bit on the tech run-up in 2020. And I said, Jay Mac, you know, it was like a Brinks truck crashed in the road and all the golden cash or whatever was in, it spilled in the street. And you had 30 minutes to go grab as much cash as you could. And the cops were like, yeah, it's okay. We're not going to arrest you. This thing crashed in the street. You guys, you know, go get all the money you want. You're not going to go to jail. That's what investing in the market was like last year in certain stocks, not every stock, but in certain stocks to see these things up like 130%, 200%, a thousand percent.
(10:03): Now there is no past results are no indication of future results, right? There's those? No guaranteed. So go do your due diligence. Go do your assessments when you invest. Don't just take my word for it. Okay. So ask performance is no guarantee of future results, but it was crazy. And you know, we talked about the rotating of the market and where, where it went after the election and on and on and on some stocks went down, but they came roaring back and I hear a lot of people like, yeah, you know, a lot of clients, our biggest fear is what happens if the stock market crashes or what happens if you know, there's a big downturn for every downturn, there is an upturn. It's like a restart in a, in a wreck like NASCAR. Like when they have the restart, what position are you in at the restart?
(10:50): You know, you, you have to position yourself. So let's look at some of the things that happened. Y2K. Where were you during Y2K? I remember exactly where I was. I was sitting in one of my vice president's office in the corporation that I used to work for. And my nickname there was H, G H G. He said, H G I'm about to retire, but you know what? I just lost half my 401k. And he said, Shogun, which in Japanese means it can't be helped. And he said, I got to retire anyway, because I'm getting too old for this crap. And he retired. He's doing okay. As far as I know, but he retired on half of his, of a savings. That's crazy. You know, where were you during Y2K? What happened to your portfolio for wide two K right? Is you lose a lot of money.
(11:40): Were you heavily invested in tech companies that had zero profitability, but their price was through the roof with zero profits. Where were you? And then when we rebounded from Y2K, they do reposition your portfolio to take advantage of the restart. Where were you? The housing market crash 2008, 2009. Where were you? I know exactly where I was before it happened. I was in my office telling you everybody that I knew that you can't keep living on easy credit. You can't keep living on your home equity line of credit. You can't keep buying real estate up with stated income. You can't keep doing that because this thing is going to come to an end and you're going to need cash. And at the point at that point, I was really, really pushing hard on cash value, dividend paying whole life insurance, to set it up so that you have cash reserves in the time where, you know, they're going to start cutting credit lines.
(12:42): And boy, I tell you I was so off because I had my, I forgot the company it was with, but they closed my credit line, never missed a payment. They shut my credit line down because they were frayed and they were closing credit lines for lots and lots of people. So you saw a lot of houses on the market. I remember watching documentaries where, you know, banks were repoing houses and indigo in there and people were so, soft, like, you know, they took them the bathtub, they took the stove for it. They fricking took everything out of that house. Tore the walls up. I mean, it was a very, very difficult time for a lot of people. And yeah, in 2008, a lot of kids were coming out of college with business degrees and finance degrees and not find it anywhere to work because of the situation that was going on route for some but not true for others.
(13:29): There's some kids that I work with. They they're doing great because they had careers or they got degrees and careers that were recession. Okay. And if you're a young kid out there going to college and getting a degree, don't live with your head in the clouds with, with Polly dreams and stuff, it's okay to dream, but you better fricking have a plan and your plan better be recession proof. Can you live in a, in a bad market, in a bad economy? Do you have money saved, right? You better have a plan. The next thing we went through is the Trump presidency for four years, four years of, of a lot of stuff, right? A lot of things happen and it was great for certain segments of the economy, but emotionally, some people would just wear, besides themselves, couldn't know how to live couldn't function.
(14:24): Where were your portfolios position? I had people thinking that Trump was going to kill the stock market and yet, and they saw a double digit growth in their portfolios. Where were you positioned? And, and I, and I, I tell people, you know what, don't worry about that. Blow it off. I understand how you feel, but we've got to focus on this money thing. We've got to focus on your dream. We got to focus on the plan and we have to accomplish what we are trying to accomplish and get caught up in all that. And I was working on it, tail off, repositioning people, getting people in the right position, time to take advantage of the opportunities that were presented. And during these downturns, I have a big question for you. How fast did you react? Were you waiting and waiting and waiting for things to come back?
(15:13): Or did you react right away? Did your advisor react right away or did they say thumbs and say, Hey, everything is going to come back. Just wait. That is correct. But at the, at the same time, how much did you lose? How much sleep did, did you lose? How much hell did you go through watching that rollercoaster? Horrible. Right? You don't have it to be in bad positions all the time. You can move. You can rotate. There are things that you can do. So here's what I'd like to offer you today. I'd like to offer everybody listening to this show, a free rapid retire assessment. That's right. A free, rapid retire assessment. If you look in the show notes, you'll be able to click on the link, says Bri, rapid retire assessment. And I'm doing these assessments on Friday. Only I call it feeling good Friday, because here's the thing.
(16:10): I want you to go into your weekend with some things to think about. I want you going into your weekend on a high. And so what we're going to do with your rapid retire assessment, it's going to be rapid fire pointed to 30 minutes of financial. Porcher I'm sorry, not torture, but it's going to feel like you're being interrogated. I gotta be honest with you because we have to be honest with ourselves. And I'm going to be grading your assessment from one to 10, anything less than a seven. And my book is a failure and we don't like, we don't like failure. We like to assess success, but we don't like failure. And this assessment is going to be based on about four things. Number one, your ability to handle ollege. What is your plan to get your kids through school? We're going to grade that.
(17:06): Number two, if you get sick or disability in your face, can we bounce back? Are you in position to handle a sickness or a disability, or even a death? The family, number three, an economic downturn, right? We go through another big dip in the market or whatever it might be in your plan, handle that or being downsized. Everything is going great. You fall out of favor with the boss or whatever, and now you gotta go find another job at 50 55 60, even right with age discrimination. It's no joke. I don't discriminate in my firm for age at all. Everybody gets a shot. You just gotta be able to perform. I don't care how old you are. You just have to be able to perform, add value and get the job done. Believe this or not. Most people are a few paychecks away from being homeless.
(18:02): I'm going to say that again, most people in this country are a few paychecks away from being homeless. Now, I don't think that you out there, because you're listening to a financial show. It means you are already on track to building wealth. You're already on track to getting your goals accomplished, but I'm just going to be a tool that you can use to get there. I believe faster if you adhere to all the principles and all the concepts inside of that rapid retire assessment. And here's what you're going to get after that assessment, you're going to know, okay, what do you need to do? Whether you do it with me or you go find somebody else and hire somebody else to do it, you're going to know exactly the steps that you need to take to make sure you are prepared and to make sure that your financial plan is recession proof. And if you complete the assessment with
(18:55): Me, okay, I'm going to send you a free copy of my book. Thanks for college and the 21st century, the smart and efficient way to maximize financial way. All right. So thank you very much for allowing me to share with you guys today, the topic or the show recession-proof. If this show has helped you or my shows are helping you share them with your friends, share them with your family, share them with people that you love. People that you care about, people that you want to see prosper and go to the next level. It's like being on a winning team. If your whole family is winning, that's great when you get together, right? If all your friends are winning, that's great when you get together. But if you got to hang around, people that are not winning and they don't want to win, it's, it's hard being around them, right? So you want everybody in your circle to win. So share these shows with them so that it can help them as well. So until next time, everybody, one, two, three, let's get it.
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