Even Smart People Make These Massive Money Mistakes

Being smart doesn't guarantee financial success. We break down five critical mistakes highly intelligent people make with money, from overconfidence in stock picking (despite 90% of pros underperforming index funds) to analysis paralysis that can cost over a million dollars in delayed wealth building. Using case studies like Average Allen versus Manny the Mutant, we show how delaying investing by just 10 years turns $225,000 into either $931,000 or over $2 million, why 40% of people earning $500,000+ still live paycheck to paycheck, and how smart people waste mental energy optimizing credit card rewards while missing the decisions that actually build wealth. Whether you're a doctor, engineer, or tech executive wondering why your net worth doesn't match your income, this episode reveals why behavioral consistency matters more than high IQ when it comes to building lasting wealth. ⁠⁠⁠⁠Jump start your journey with our FREE financial resources⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Reach your goals faster with our products⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Take the relationship to the next level: become a client⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe on YouTube for early access and go beyond the podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Connect with us on social media for more content⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bring confidence to your wealth building with simplified strategies from The Money Guy. Learn how to apply financial tactics that go beyond common sense and help you reach your money goals faster. Make your assets do the heavy lifting so you can quit worrying and start living a more fulfilled life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Brian Preston?

  Being smart doesn't mean you're good with money. Some of the biggest financial mistakes we see are made by very intelligent people, like doctors, engineers, lawyers, and even tech executives.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  Brian, I am so excited because today we're going to break down five money mistakes that smart people make, and we're going to break down the reasons why even very intelligent people tend to make these same mistakes.

• 0:23Brian Preston?

  So I'm Brian, he's Bo, and we're financial advisors here to help you avoid these costly mistakes. And with that, let's dive right in.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  So Brian, it stands to reason that the more intelligent you are, the better you ought to be making, the better you ought to be at making financial decisions. But oftentimes, that's not the case. That's not what we see on a day in, day out basis.

• 0:50Brian Preston?

  Well, I think it's because intelligence, knowledge, they're only parts of the equation. A lot of this is, you know, you have to take into account all the behavioral stuff and all the traps that we as humans fall into.

• 1:02Speaker 01

  So what we want to do is put together a list of mistakes that we've seen people make, even highly intelligent, well-intentioned people, so that maybe you won't fall into some of these same mistakes. And the first one, Brian, I think this is one that often intelligent people fall into. And this is, you know, some people grow out of this as they age, but some people actually never grow out of this. And that very first mistake is overconfidence in investing. It's this idea that I have more control over the outcome of my investment decisions than I really have.

• 1:36Brian Preston?

  Yeah, it's not uncommon that if you, probably all through your life, your intelligence has gotten you ahead of the curve. So you think that applies to the wonderful world of personal finance. So you think that you're perfect with picking winning stocks. But the reality is, is that, you know, what goes up doesn't mean it's always going up. It doesn't mean just because you picked one winning company that you found the secret sauce to getting ahead. It is just one of those things where we have found out that people who, even if you do pick the perfect stock, you're going to fall into the trap of you probably Sell when it goes up 200, 300%. You're not going to be there when it's up 20,000%. You know, when you hit the next Apple or you hit the next Tesla or Nvidia.

• 2:22Brian Preston?

  You're going to take your winnings and then you're going to be really sad when it actually you got off the train too soon.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  Or maybe you're that smart person. I know, I know, I can't pick stocks. Of course not. Who could possibly do that? What I can do is I can recognize the economic cycles. I can see when the boom is coming. I can see when the bust is coming. I actually have the ability to time the market. And so I'm going to try to time my moves into equities and out of equities. So that I get all of the upside, but I miss all the downside.

• 2:51Brian Preston?

  Yeah. And by the way, we wanted to kind of draw attention to this by looking at this. Cause there's all kinds of data out there and we figured we'd compile this for you. If you're actually timing the market versus being in the market, look at what happens. If you just stayed in the market and the period we're looking at here is from 1988 all the way through 2023. And this is from fidelity.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:10Brian Preston?

  If you just stayed in the market, your investment and it's $10,000 invested be worth close to $420,000.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  That's unbelievable. 10,000 turning into over $400,000.

• 3:20Brian Preston?

  But listen to this. If you just missed, by the way, I'll also give the context. This is going to be over 12,775 days. But if you just miss five days, all of a sudden that 417,995 dollars turns into 264,000 dollars. If you miss the best 10 days, all of a sudden that 417,000 dollars turns into 191,000 dollars. If you miss the best 30 days, only a month, all of a sudden it's dropped down to 71,000 dollars. And if you miss the best 50 days, that's a little less than 32,000 dollars. Did you hear how we gutted this thing?

• 4:01Brian Preston?

  We took out 92% of the gain just by missing 50 of the days.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  And so while you may not miss all of these days, odds are if you're trying to time it, you're probably going to miss some of them because equity markets recover in a V shape. So if you're trying to do this, we believe that it's a losing proposition. Another losing proposition. Position that very intelligent people fall into is making very speculative bets. Maybe you're someone who wants to get into options trading or advanced strategies. Or maybe you're now with the new technology, looking at prediction markets or sports betting. We're here to tell you that's not the way to actually build wealth. You don't believe us, look at this. This is a statistic from the American Gaming Association that in 2024, for every $100 that was bet on the sports book,

• 4:49Speaker 01

  the average expected loss was $9, meaning right out of the gate, you put $100 at risk, you're expecting to lose $9 of that. If the house has the edge, you are not going to win.

• 5:03Brian Preston?

  I mean, think about that in terms of that 9% of your, over 9% is the expected loss fee. That's the haircut you're going to take, just according to the American Gaming Association. Guys, think of how much, we run a show where we tell you why we love index funds over managed investors. It's because if you can pay pennies for the management versus paying 1.5% or 1% for the active management fund. If we told you that we have a better system that helps you avoid taking a 9% haircut, you wouldn't get near it. But here's the overconfidence of the typical sports better, is that they think that they have a better way to make money, even though the system is counting on them to lose.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  So how do you avoid it? How do you prevent yourself from falling into this? Well, at the very onset, you ought to acknowledge your own limits and biases. There's nothing wrong with being intelligent. There's nothing wrong with being a higher IQ, but that doesn't mean that you're an oracle. It doesn't mean that you can accurately predict the future. And if you are just a retail, normal investor, you should find solace in the fact that over the last 15 years, according to Spiva, 90% of active US large cap managers underperformed the S and P 500. People who do this for a living were unable to go out and beat the market. So if you can't have confidence in the professionals, you should recognize you likely have a limit to your ability to go out there

• 6:31Speaker 01

  and outperform any stated or given benchmark.

• 6:33Brian Preston?

  I mean, full stop. Y'all, did y'all hear that? I think it's worth repeating that. Professional investors who are paid handsomely to manage money, 90% of them underperform over the long term, just buying the S and P 500. So this is why we like to draw attention to, because this is something you'll get ahead of if you just invest the boring way. This is what we are always telling people, always be buying. If you just understand index investing can be your friend, consistent behavior, doing it early and often is going to get you ahead. You do not have to make this complicated.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  All right. So Brian, mistake number one was overconfidence. I know what to do. I know what to do. I know what to do. Mistake number two is sort of the flip side of that coin. This is analysis paralysis. This is, I know all of the variables. I know all the different options, but I can't decide which direction to go. Do I go left or do I go right?

• 7:27Brian Preston?

  Well, and this one plays out several different ways. A lot of really smart people, they either go over research something, they're going to be comparing their options, they're going to be trying to time, and we've seen this timing, even very smart people, how many times, Beau, have we had people tell us, hey, when the stock market started going down in 2008 or 2022, you know, whatever the key period where people look back and go, yeah, that was a rough time to invest. We have a lot of people who say, I got out. I was the smart one. The problem is, is that even when you're smart, you have to hit it twice the second when you get back in. And we've seen a lot of analysis paralysis from people who did try to time the market, got out because they wanted to feel better about not being there to lose the money. And

• 8:10Brian Preston?

  they just can't figure out how to get back in there. So the delay can actually gut their performance in the long term.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. The fact of the matter is that delayed investing leads to missed time in the market, and missed time in the market has a huge cost. And if you don't believe us, let's set up a case study for you. Let's take two investors, Average Allen and Manny the Mutant. They're both going to start with $0 invest, and they're both going to save just enough to max out their Roth IRAs. They're both going to save $625 per month. Alan delays investing and he says, I'm going to start investing when I'm 35 years old and I'm going to do that over the course of 30 years. And we're going to assume that Alan can earn 8% annualized rate of return. Manny, on the other hand, is going to invest the exact same amount, $625 a month, maxing out a Roth. He's going to start at age 25,

• 9:00Speaker 01

  though, so 10 years earlier than Alan, and he's also going to do it for just 30 years. So Manny is only going to save and invest up until age 55. And we're going to assume that he too earns an 8% annualized rate of return. So if you think about that, Brian, it's what, $625 a month, over 12 months a year, over 30 years, that's how much money?

• 9:21Brian Preston?

  It's going to be a little over 220, it's right at $225,000, a little over $200,000.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  So Alan invests $225,000. By the time he gets to age 65, saving and investing from 35 to 65, he's turned his $225,000 into $931,000. That's still impressive, that's still awesome. But when you look at Manny, who did not delay, who did not procrastinate, investing the same amount of money over the same number of months, Manny actually ends up by age 65 with over $2 million in his portfolio.

• 10:00Brian Preston?

  You know, just simplifying this so you can, you know, really think about the visual here, because now that you see the result, we have one that has over $2 million versus one that's getting close to having their first million dollars. They have the exact same amount of money in this, $225,000 each. They even have the same period that they were on the planet. The difference is, is the 10 years. For, for average Alan, he wanted to Yolo. I know nobody says that since 2014 or whatever year Drake came out with the song, but it's still, a lot of people out there telling you in the world, don't, go ahead and enjoy your life in your twenties, go live your best life. You can always save and invest later when you get in your thirties and forties. Meanwhile, Manny the Mutant, he invested the same amount of time, but he took the last 10 years off. You know,

• 10:45Brian Preston?

  he took his foot off the accelerator essentially. So you get the choice of when you get to use the money and the power of your time. And this is why when we show up the slide of the power of starting early. Realize this is back to my Mauro moment. Mr. Mauro told me back when I was sitting in that high school classroom that every one of us, if we could save a hundred dollars a month, we'd be a millionaire. Well, he was pretty close because for a 20 year old, they only have to save $95 a month to reach millionaire status by the time they retire. For a 30 year old, they have to save $340 a month, only because they delayed. So it's four times harder than for the 20 year old. If you think about somebody who delays it until they're 40, now instead of saving $95

• 11:29Brian Preston?

  a month like the 20 year old, they have to save $1,052 a month. It is 10 times harder. So don't let somebody tell you, hey, sleep on today. We just want you to start doing something. I don't care if it's $50 a month, just give us something because it will change your life.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  If you can do it right, you can do it live. But if you do it wrong, you gotta do it long. And if you don't believe us, go out to moneyguy.com/resources. Check out a wealth multiplier tool that shows you, based on your age, where you are right now today, what can your dollars turn into? If you are young, if you have time on your side, it does not take a lot. So what do you do? How do you think through avoiding analysis paralysis? We've already beat this down. Just do something. It might be $10, $20, 1%, 2%, 3%. If you can just do a small amount, that small amount can have a huge impact.

• 12:25Brian Preston?

  It's better, let's put actually some numbers in. We have, if you just go to moneyguy.com/resources, we're trying to load you up with all kinds of free tools to get you motivated. This is one you can print out and even put it on the fridge, put it next to your mirror where you get dressed in the morning. But literally what can 1% more do for you? It will change your life. You do this early enough, it might give you 10, close to 10% more in retirement, just by giving 1%. Your entire journey gets so much easier. Get to work.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  Another thing that you can do to avoid, ask the question, okay, what do I do? How do I do? What do I, and really paralyzing yourself, is keep it simple. Recognize that for all investors, but certainly for Early investors, low cost, tax efficient index funds are a great solution. If you're someone out there trying to figure out what to buy, buy a low cost index fund. Even better, if you, if all you know is, okay, I'm 20 years old and I want to retire in 45 years. I'm 65, target retirement index funds are a great solution. You only have to answer two questions. How much can I save? And when do I think I'll need the money? And the actual investment will do the hard work for you. So you don't have to analyze anything.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  You just put your money to work and let it grow for you over the long term.

• 13:44Brian Preston?

  Yeah, the big thing, because I noticed on the slide, it just says target date funds. Remember, we are big fans of index target retirement funds because they harness all the power of index funds with the low cost tax efficiency. But it's just now they add the asset allocation and the glide path to take your aggressive portfolio to more conservative as you get older.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  All right, bro, we're talking about mistakes that highly intelligent or smart people make. And this one I think is interesting. Mistake number three is ignoring the boring basics. And I think that smart people, intelligent people, people with a higher IQ, they either, they either forget or they choose not to remember, or they get bored with the idea of, I just have to do something very, very simple for a very, very long time. And if I could do something very simple for a very long time, odds are it's going to work out well.

• 14:35Brian Preston?

  Well, I think a lot of people, because if you've got a high octane brain, you, you want to flex this thing. You want to show off that your brain processes better than others. And you find out that the secret to this is just being consistent and buying something as simple as an index fund. So I think you get bored with that. Because you're like, well, I don't, I don't want to be like everybody else. But can, can I go ahead and tell you, you don't have to hunt for the complexity. It's because the part, the magic sauce is, is that even though it's that simple, it doesn't mean it's easy. Because nobody actually does it, guys. So don't let your horsepower of your brain. Take you in a bad direction is because just setting it, forget it, and doing the easy

• 15:17Brian Preston?

  behavior, the consistency is the thing that most people skip out on.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so what do they end up doing instead? They get bored. Well, they started chasing advanced strategies. Like, okay, I'm going to day trade. I'm going to, I'm going to watch the charts and I'm going to be a technical analyst. I'm going to figure out, okay, when's the right time to buy and when's the right time to sell? Or maybe I'm so smart, I even understand how options work. I recognize, okay, I can buy a position. I can go sell covered calls, or I can go buy protective puts to keep me where I need to be. Or maybe it's not even the market stuff. You think, okay, I don't do the stock market. I'm going to go start investing in real estate. I'm going to go figure out how to lever my money, use a small amount of money, buy a big asset. I'm going to do that, but I do it prematurely before I have a sound financial foundation in place. If you're doing those things first,

• 16:06Speaker 01

  before you get a solid financial foundation, before you do the simple boring stuff, I'd argue that you're losing the plot.

• 16:15Brian Preston?

  Well, and also, here's the thing that I hate about the system. Every one of these things, whether it's day trading, options, or investing in real estate, there's somebody who's out there who's pumping and selling systems that supposedly their way is going to put you ahead. Now, the reality is, most of these people made their money from the system, selling you the system. If their system really was that good, they would actually use that arbitrage to build that Warren Buffett-type success. They actually have figured out that it's much more profitable to make you the product than it is to actually use their money and grow the system. That ought to be your first red flag. But what I don't like is that it distracts you from your most powerful resource, which is your component of time, and doing the basic behavior. And if you do these type of activities, you're

• 16:59Brian Preston?

  going to skip the most powerful thing, which is you try to bypass the sacrifice or the discipline that actually creates your fundamental success.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, we recognize. And maybe it's that highly intelligent people get bored, or maybe it's just they're looking for a shortcut. They want to find the easy button. They want to do the thing really fast and have it now in a smart Smart enough and I should do, if you fall in that trap, you are forgetting that there are generally three ingredients to wealth creation. They're all required. You have to have discipline, the idea that I'm going to live on lesson I make, I'm going to put my money to work and I'm going to do the simple, boring, mundane stuff that's a high probability of success. I'm going to combine the discipline with creating margin or money. I'm going to do that over a specific period of time, likely not a short period of time. And if I can do that, I'm going to end up in a better place. But I think smart people, intelligent people,

• 17:53Speaker 01

  try to talk themselves out of that. Well, that's, that must be for everyone else. I don't want to do that. I'm going to do it a different way. I'm going to do it the fast way. I'm going to do it the shortcut way. And what you end up doing is getting yourself in a world of trouble.

• 18:05Brian Preston?

  And that's why, look, I know we repeat it, but it's because the system, there really is a better way to do money. You gotta follow the food. I know, look, in the beginning, you're going to be like, steps one and four, my high, having my highest deductible covered or building the emergency reserves. That feels boring. It feels like this is not what I should be doing. But this is going to be what protects you from desperate decisions when bad things happen in life, because that stuff does happen. I also see people who get caught up in levered type strategies where even doing crazy thing with credit cards, doing zero balance transfers. Don't fall into those traps just because you think you're better than everybody else with money. There really is. Follow what to do with your next dollar with our financial order of operations.

• 18:50Brian Preston?

  Yes, in the beginning, it might feel slow, but if you stack these deliberate behaviors on top of each other, it's going to start growing really fast when compounding growth kicks in.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  And if you would like your very own laminated copy of the financial order of operations, go to moneyguy.com/resources, download the PDF. You're going to have to print it and laminate it yourself. It's not actually laminated when you go get it. But you can do that. You can have your very own copy and it will guide you through exactly what to do with your next dollar. And as you're doing that, as you're following the financial order of operations, as you're making the steps you're supposed to make, that will likely help prevent you from mistake number four, which we see all the time with well, with highly Intelligent, smart people is lifestyle inflation.

• 19:35Brian Preston?

  Yeah, this is one. I mean, you can, we could label this many different ways. One is moving the goalpost because it's not uncommon. You start making good money and what made you happy in the past, you, you start looking at your house and be like, hey, I could probably afford a nicer house. Or you look at the car that's in your driveway and be like, you know, if I wanted people to really see what I've kind of success I've had with my high income, I could drive a nicer car, but just because you can, doesn't mean you always should. Is because there's a lot of people, and if you want to, don't fall into this trap. According to Goldman Sachs, according to a report, 40% of those making over $500,000. You heard that right. This is what I think a lot of us would consider rich,

• 20:20Brian Preston?

  but 40% of those people in rich income, high income situations are still living paycheck to paycheck. I remember the first time I watched that movie Margin Call, and they talked about somebody who makes a million dollars and how quickly it goes away. And they described between the daycare, the Ferrari and all the exotic luxury car and the condo. Guys, you can be in control of where every dollar goes. Figure out very early what makes you happy. Don't let the consumption society we live in distract you from living your best life.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  And don't miss here. So there's nothing wrong with having a nicer car. There's nothing wrong with having a nicer home, with going on nicer vacations. But when you do that at the detriment or to sacrifice your future self, that's when you get into problems because a lot of people, as they have these higher incomes, they'll say something like, okay, well, if I make this much money, I should be able to afford anything. I should be able to afford anything. And even worse than that, I think that a lot of times, wherever we are in our socioeconomic status, we always want to compare up. We always want to say, okay, well, I know that I'm right here, but look at that person. Look at what neighborhood they live in. Look at their house. Look at their vacations. If you were constantly comparing yourself to other people,

• 21:35Speaker 01

  it's going to be very, very difficult for you to find peace and contentment where you are. It's exactly what Brian said. Figure out what. What are those things that you love? What are the things that you value? And move towards those things, not towards buying things that you don't need to impress people whose opinions do not matter.

• 21:53Brian Preston?

  And then I want to caution you to justifying your lifestyle creep. You have that big brain on your, on your shoulders. And because it's high, high powered, you're, you're smart with coming up with justifications for things. How often have we heard people say, I'm a car person?

• 22:08Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. It's not lifestyle creep. I'm, I'm a car guy.

• 22:11Brian Preston?

  Hey, but you know, I value experiences. Like, we all value experiences, but you know, or how about? This house is probably just, it's a holder of value. It's a better investment. There are all kinds of things that I see people do to justify the decision they're making. Don't fall into the mental trap of just because your brain has come up with some good excuses. Understand what the why is. What's the powerful tool of money doing for you and your future self? Don't get distracted just because this high octane thing, the voice in your head told you a little fib.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  Again, there's nothing wrong with your lifestyle increasing. Nicer house, nicer vacation, nicer car, nicer clothes, whatever that thing is, that's okay. So long as you're doing the things that you're supposed to do. And so what are some ways that you can avoid the bad type of lifestyle creep? Well, one thing is as your income increases, as your paycheck gets bigger, make sure your savings rate follows suit. Far too often we'll see someone who will say, okay, I started saving, started maxing out my Roth IRA. And I was so excited. It's $7,500. And then the income goes up and they never change their savings. They just, oh, I maxed out the thing. I never went up. Make sure that the more money you make, the more money you save, the more that you're putting away.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Because the more money you make and the higher your lifestyle becomes, the higher the burden of being able to replace that lifestyle later in life. So you want to make sure you're saving accordingly.

• 23:41Brian Preston?

  Well, and of course, because your, your big brain probably creates a lot of justification or distractions. I like a good system. And that's why we, we always talk about like the 60 40 rule of when you get a pay. Raise, how about let 60% go towards additional savings and investments and 40% goes towards lifestyle. That way it's a win-win because you're getting more and more money in your army of dollar bills, but you're also letting the healthy side of lifestyle creep kind of come in because you are increasing and taking the reward for where you are in life. You're just not letting it get distorted where you're living a fake life. Remember it's better to be rich than to just look rich.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  And then another thing that you can do is aim for a 25% savings rate. If you can save 25% of your gross income for your future self, for financial independence, you get to spend freely. You get to not have any guilt around the nicer car, nicer house, nicer vacation because you're doing that thing that you're supposed to be doing. But a lot of people never get there. I think the average savings rate right now, Brian, is somewhere around like 14.7%. And I think like almost 5% of that is made up of the employer match. The average American isn't saving 25%. And I think it's because they don't recognize just how valuable 25% can be.

• 24:57Brian Preston?

  And if you think we just made this number up, I would encourage you, look, we know that the typical American did not start saving and investing until they were past 30 years of age. And if you go to our website, moneyguy.com/resources, we actually have a great deliverable that'll tell you exactly based upon when you want to retire, what your current age is, you do the cross, cross-reference of those two numbers on this chart, and you'll see for a 30-year-old, it's right around 25%. But for you guys who are younger, say you listen to this and you're 26 years of age, please go to our website and you're going to find out, hey, you don't have to be at 25% yet. You might be able to save a number lower than that. If you're a person who's listening to this and you're 33 years of age, you're going to find out you need to save

• 25:41Brian Preston?

  a little bit more than 25%. Don't guess on this. Go to the website, moneyguy.com/resources, and see specifically what your number is so you can act accordingly.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  And then don't fall into the trap of trying to save after you've spent the whole month. Do it the other way. Save first and then spend. If you can set up automatic Contributions.

• 26:02Brian Preston?

  Yep.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Automatic Roth contributions, automatic 401k contributions, automatic taxable account contributions. You will have that dollar going where it's supposed to go before you ever even see it. And if you can do that, it limits your ability to screw it up. It removes friction from actually getting those dollars working for you. So the more you can automate your savings, the more you can automate your system, the higher your likelihood of success will be moving forward.

• 26:29Brian Preston?

  Now, if I was good with this content creation thing, I would have probably started the show saying, we saved number five to be my biggest pet peeve.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 26:38Brian Preston?

  We should have said that. I should have said that and it made better content and it kept more retention.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  Editing team, cut that.

• 26:43Brian Preston?

  But I'll share it right now is that mistake number five is optimizing the small stuff. Another way to say this is majoring in the minors.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, smart people are so inclined to spend tons of mental energy and mental calories on realistically what are likely low impact decisions. Oh, because I can figure out this thing, because I can spin my wheels, because I can write this formula, I'm going to do that and it's going to allow me to optimize. Not having the ability to zoom out and recognize, oh, wow, maybe this thing that I can figure out, isn't actually worth me trying to spend the time figuring it out.

• 27:23Brian Preston?

  I think probably the overconfidence of really smart people is they're like, I don't do anything that's wasteful. Let me give you some examples so you'll kind of see if you resemble this. All of these financial mutants are quasi foo-ish type financial mutants that are going out there and chasing these, the smallest of small credit card reward differences. I mean, is there really that big of a difference between getting two and a half percent versus 3%? Or is there a big enough difference with chasing the 0% transfers that you can get the money? I'm not a big fan of chasing these credit card rewards.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  How about savings account yields? Okay, right, right now, my savings account is paying 3.5, but if I open up this new one and I move all my money over, I get 3.55. Is that really optimizing? Are you really moving yourself into a better position or? Might that time be better spent figuring out, okay, how can I increase my savings? How can I go out and increase my skillset? How can I increase my shovel? How can I save more money? Instead of figuring out these small nibbling around the edges things that are truthfully pretty low impact.

• 28:26Brian Preston?

  Well, let's talk about how we avoid it. And then I'm going to bring this back to where you guys who are watching this and you might resemble this. But I knew these guys weren't good with money. No, hang in there with us because we're going to tell you, no, we believe in maximizing a lot of these things, but we set up the simple way to do it to get the maximum impact. But the first thing you can do to avoid this is to focus on the high impact areas of your life. We're talking about, guys, focus on how big your shovel is. What did you major in in college? What's your income coming in? What's your savings and investment rate? That's going to be really a driver of a lot of your success. And then all those big consumption decisions. Beau, it's the stuff we've already covered. The house you live in, the cars you drive, how you structured your debt.

• 29:08Brian Preston?

  The insurance is going to keep you from making desperate decisions because you got it covered. And then of course, I wouldn't be a good CPA if I didn't say, pay attention to how you're structuring your life and the taxes you're paying.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think what you really have to do to avoid this is you have to do a personal internal audit to figure out what is your time worth? Yes, you might be able to spend 35 minutes finding the perfect coupon code to get the free shipping plus the 10% off. But if what that's doing is saving you $9, was that $9 money well spent? Or could you have used that time somewhere else? If you don't have a full understanding of what your time is worth, you're likely going to make inefficient, ineffective and suboptimal decisions with how you use your time.

• 29:56Brian Preston?

  This next one kind of hurt because I fell into this trap earlier in my career and my entrepreneurial life is, beware of productive procrastination. Another way of saying this is don't get busy doing nothing. I've shared with you guys many times when I started my first company, I had the most pristine financial statements. I was so proud as a CPA that I was just going into my bookkeeping program and making sure everything was accounted for perfectly and reconciled. What I should have been doing was I should have been going out there and getting more business. I should have been thinking about, and you could do this, maybe you're not an entrepreneur, maybe it's, you think about, hey, do I have the right certifications? Have I talked to my employer about what my career path is going to be?

• 30:36Brian Preston?

  Don't let these little distractions keep you from having the big picture things that really are going to move the needle and create your success.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  What I love about these five mistakes, these five mistakes that highly intelligent, very sophisticated people make. And what's interesting is even those people make these mistakes. But when it comes to building wealth, what we've found, both in our experience as well as with the clients with whom we work, is that you don't have to be a genius. You don't have to be a brainiac, you don't have to be a prodigy, you don't have to do anything remarkably unique or special in order to build wealth. Building wealth is available to everyone if you can follow the simple rules and not fall into these traps. If you don't believe us, every year we do an annual survey of our clients. Hey, how'd you go about building your wealth? How'd you go, what was the thing that you did to become wealthy?

• 31:29Speaker 01

  Were you, uh, did you sell some business? Or do you have some like unique skill set? Like you're an artist or a musician, or maybe you just climbed up the corporate ladder? Seventy-six percent of our clients, three out of four clients said, hey, no, no, no, that's, that's not the thing that I did. Here's what I did, I saved and I invested, and I saved and I invested, and I saved and I invested. It was not about outsmarting the market, outsmarting the system, outsmarting anything. It was about following tried and true principles to build wealth the slow and steady way.

• 32:02Brian Preston?

  Yeah, I mean, it really is that consistent behavior. And sometimes, you know, you see this in spiritual studies and other things. Sometimes those who are gifted with the most have the hardest times. Because you're given so much that you get distracted, you fall into mental traps, you have all kinds of things out there. Guys, we're here to tell you, we've walked the walk. We've helped a gazillion people work through, how do you live your best life? Cause really, their tool, money is nothing more. More than a tool. And if you haven't figured out where the happiness, where fulfillment actually lies, or how you get the most out of the time we're on this planet, we'd invite you to come talk to us because that's exactly what we do. That's why we believe in the

• 32:44Brian Preston?

  abundance cycle is we literally, there has not been a better time to be on the planet because education is available to you. We are giving this stuff literally away. We created a content channel in 2006 that our whole purpose was to have hearts of educators to give it away to you to live your best life. Simple, apply this, grow, create your wealth. But when you reach the level of success that your simple life has become complex, we're going to leave the porch light on for you. We work with clients all across the country. I think it's just Vermont. That's all that one remains. So we're in all 49 states. We'd love to be in Vermont as well, but we'd love for you to go on this journey. And if your life resembles it, it's gotten complicated, reach

• 33:27Brian Preston?

  out to us, moneyguy.com slash become a client. Like I said, we'll leave the porch light on. I'm your host, Brian, joined by Mr. Bo, Money Guy Team, out.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  The Money Guy Show is hosted by Brian Preston and Bo Hanson. Brian and Bo are partners with Abound Wealth Management. Abound Wealth Management is a registered investment advisory firm regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in accordance and compliance with the securities laws and regulations. Abound Wealth Management does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through the Money Guy Show. The information provided is for informational purposes only, may not be suitable for all investors, and does not constitute financial, tax, investment, or legal advice. All investments involve a degree of risk, including the risk of loss.