Todd Havens: Why Most People Don't Have a Money Problem, They Have a Thinking Problem SB1895

Todd Havens spent decades dreaming of a net worth of zero, just breaking even felt like an impossible finish line. Then, in 2021, at the height of COVID, a doctor delivered news that would reframe everything: incurable blood cancer, tumors too numerous to count. What follows is one of the most honest, wide-ranging conversations this show has had about money, mortality, and the difference between being rich and actually being wealthy. Todd is now in remission, a self-made millionaire, and the author of a book built entirely around one idea: the biggest obstacle to financial security usually isn't a spreadsheet problem. It's what's happening between your ears. What You'll Walk Away With Why disability insurance and life insurance, the coverage nobody wants to pay for, turned out to matter more than almost anything else when the worst actually happenedThe "money dam" framework for deciding, moment by moment, what's actually worth spending onWhy believing you "deserve" financial security might be the single most important money belief there isA game that separates helpful money beliefs from dangerous ones, and why "I'll save more when I make more" quietly sabotages people for yearsWhy net worth, not salary, is the number that actually matters, and how that shift changed Todd's entire trajectoryA genuinely difficult story about saying no to a parent's request for money, and why it was ultimately an act of loveWhy gratitude, generosity, and integrity are money topics, whether people realize it or not Why This Matters Now It's tempting to think financial struggle is purely a math problem: spend less, save more, invest wisely. But plenty of financially literate people still feel stuck, and the reason is rarely a lack of information. It's an old story about not deserving security, about money meaning lack, about identity getting tangled up with a bank balance. Untangling that story doesn't require a windfall or a perfect plan. It requires deciding, the way Todd did at forty, that today is the day the narrative changes, and then building simple systems that don't depend on willpower to keep working. From the Basement A headline on the four things you should never order in front of your boss turns into a genuinely useful (and very funny) etiquette lesson, complete with a real story about a twenty-year-old nephew calmly ordering the most expensive steak on the menu without blinking. A listener question on Robinhood also gets a thorough, unflinching answer on why the platform's marketing has repeatedly crossed lines other brokerages haven't. Resources Mentioned Think Wealthy by Todd Havens https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FKQZ3XYZ — Todd's book on the mindset behind financial freedomThe Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins https://jlcollinsnh.com/ — companion read referenced as the "systems" counterpart to Todd's "mindset" focusThe Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel https://www.morganhousel.com/ — referenced book on the behavioral side of money See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• 1:00Speaker 02

  I guess you shouldn't have called.

• 1:02Speaker 03

  I did call earlier when using the phone.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  Earlier, when was that?

• 1:07Speaker 03

  Or later, when then I left a message.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  A message? What number did you call?

• 1:13Speaker 03

  Two, four, niner, five, six, seven, eight.

• 1:18Speaker 02

  I can't hear you. You're trailing off. And did I catch a niner in there? Were you calling from a walkie talkie?

• 1:23Speaker 03

  No, it was cordless.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. You know what? Don't. Not here, not now.

• 1:33Speaker 04

  Live from Joe's Bob's basement, it's The Stacking Benjamin Show.

• 1:48Speaker 04

  I'm Joe's Bob's neighbor Doug, and today we're asking the big question. What is this whole financial security thing all about? Today's mentor had over $60,000 in student loan debt alone, and a big goal of having a net worth of zero when he found out that he had incurable cancer. What does that diagnosis do to your outlook on life? Todd Havens joins us to share his healthy tips for a clean balance sheet and the right mindset to build your stack faster. Plus, in our headline segment, what a quick way to make your career disappear? The guys will share a big one. And speaking of sharing, I'll also get in on the action

• 2:31Speaker 04

  and share some of my mind-bending trivia. It's one you'll be sharing across your workplace, assuming you listened to our headline and didn't get fired. And now, two guys who are fired up about you and your money, it's Joe and O-J-J-J-Jee.

• 2:53Speaker 05

  Hey there, stackers, and happy Wednesday to you. Oh, man. I love our Wednesday shows. If you're new here, we've got some of the best and brightest minds. You just heard Mel Robbins here a couple of weeks ago. Today, you're going to hear Todd Havens coming down to the basement. No, G, if you have a loved one who is struggling with being motivated to get your saving right, to get out of debt, to get your financial plan in place, you want to find a way to have this on in the car when they're listening. Just, just find a way to get them in to hear Todd, because Todd's going to bring it today. How are you, man?

• 3:33Speaker 06

  Oh, I am fantastic. I'm in California right now. I don't know if you can tell. Can you hear the beach?

• 3:39Speaker 05

  Oh, there it is. Oh, that's wild.

• 3:42Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 3:43Speaker 05

  Coming to us remotely from the beach.

• 3:45Speaker 06

  From the beach.

• 3:46Speaker 05

  I love the miracle of recording early and all of the places where we're going to be at that time. It's super exciting. The thing that I love, though, is being able to go to the beach and not worry about it. I remember the early days, O.G., when I had no money. Well, let's put it very bluntly. My honeymoon was all on credit cards. It was 100%.

• 4:07Speaker 06

  So was mine.

• 4:09Speaker 05

  Building credit card debt. I was going the wrong way. I felt horrible afterwards. I spent a bunch of money I didn't have because I thought that we deserved it. Remember when Buffy Purcell was on the show and she said the three most horrible words a broke person could say is, "I deserve it"?

• 4:23Speaker 06

  Yeah, kidding.

• 4:25Speaker 05

  I thought I deserved it. Well, Todd Havens is a guy who's going to help you with that. He has an incredible backstory. I'm not going to preview Todd a ton. I'm going to let Todd tell his story, which is a powerful reminder of what we're really doing here. We're not trying to accumulate more money. We're just trying to live our best life. And Todd is definitely a representation of that. So, coming up next, Todd Havens, who's upstairs talking to mom, he's going to be coming down the stairs. While he's getting set up at the card table here in mom's basement, we're going to have a couple sponsors who help us continue to bring this to you for the premium price of free. We're going to hear from them,

• 5:05Speaker 05

  and then Todd Havens joins us to talk motivation and your money. Well, you may know that chaos is the name of the game here in mom's basement, what with guests coming in and out, Cooper the cat getting in the way, Doug being, well, being Doug. The holidays make it even worse because it's all about food and big meals. And the problem is, prepping for those takes forever. But what about those between meals, right? The meals between those huge, huge bookends. Well, that's where Factor comes in. Factor is made with high-quality ingredients that you recognize and trust. With over 175 banned ingredients, you always know you're eating something that's good for you, even when

• 5:49Speaker 05

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• 6:31Speaker 05

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• 7:16Speaker 05

  Our guest today says, "Most people don't have a money problem. They have a thinking problem." That's frustrating news, because the problem was just money. We'd all know what to do, right? Just spend less, save more. That's the difference. Duh. It's simple.

• 7:30Speaker 06

  So simple.

• 7:30Speaker 05

  But it isn't. Todd Havens went from being the guy who felt like the poorest person in every room he entered to becoming a first-generation millionaire, bestselling author, and somebody who spent years studying why some people build wealth, why others stay stuck. But as Todd and I were getting to know each other before today's conversation, I learned there was another chapter in his story that completely changed how he thinks about money, success, and what it means to live a wealthy life. So today, stackers, we're going to talk about mindset. We're going to talk about money, purpose, how to build a life that's richer than your bank account. Todd, welcome to mom's basement, man.

• 8:05Speaker 06

  I'm so happy to be here. It smells great.

• 8:08Speaker 05

  That's, that is.

• 8:09Speaker 06

  I don't know if you hear that. That's incense candles. I'm not sure what's going on, but it's a feast for the senses.

• 8:15Speaker 05

  I think you've done so many interviews over the years. How many times have you gotten to lead with, "It smells great"?

• 8:21Speaker 06

  This is the first. This is the first.

• 8:23Speaker 05

  Well, before we talk about money, I do want to talk about life, because as you and I were getting to know each other, you shared part of your health journey. Can you tell our stackers what happened?

• 8:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's 2021, March 15, the Ides of March. I went into the hospital. I'd had back pain for months and months. The doctors thought it was osteoporosis. I was like, 51? And osteoporosis? Is this, is this normal, guys? That was what they said. So they treated it as osteoporosis. Several months beforehand, I had sneezed and a rib had cracked, and I felt it crack.

• 8:58Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 9:00Speaker 06

  But I started laughing, Joe, because I'd already woken up one morning with a cracked rib and like, things were just not doing well, like in the frame, in the skeleton. March 15, it's the height of COVID. You can't get in an ambulance unless you have COVID. We finally, like, wheel me into the hospital. My partner can't be there because it's COVID, so, right, it's just you.

• 9:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 9:23Speaker 06

  I'm pumped up with morphine. The pain had been increasing, and instead of me getting better, as it's supposed to do when your bones heal. They do an MRI, and the physician's assistant comes in, and she starts crying. I'm the only one there. I popped up on painkillers. And she says, "There are tumors throughout your chest and your back. There are too many for the radiologist to even count." The floor drops out, right? And I go, "I'm in a movie? These are words that people don't say to each other? It's, that takes a writer to write it? You know, they want to get a reaction now, the actor?"

• 9:57Speaker 05

  Hollywood because you work in Hollywood, but you're not used to being the star like

• 10:00Speaker 06

  No, not the star.

• 10:02Speaker 05

  You don't want to be a star of this movie.

• 10:03Speaker 06

  No. So she says that and I comfort her. That was my instinct like, oh, that's okay. Thank you. And she says, the doctor will be in soon. She leaves. That was the beginning of the journey of learning that I had multiple myeloma, which is an incurable blood cancer, but it's actually in the bone marrow. Basically, you know, cancer is anywhere cells divide too fast. So it's antibodies and they crowd out the bones and the bones start crunching down, but we had an answer. We had an answer. Oncologist eventually comes in another hospital and she says, if you're going to get a cancer, this is the best one to get. All right.

• 10:43Speaker 05

  Good news.

• 10:44Speaker 06

  Right. Because there's so much research, it's a rare cancer, but there's so much research done on it that the dollars in R and D are outsized. So she was right. It should be a chronic condition. It is a chronic condition. I had a stem cell transplant. I've been in remission for five years. It will come back. That's what everyone always says, but there's still like 12 medicines FDA approved and whatnot that I can go through. So I've got the best team. So when you get that kind of news delivered, that can affect you in many ways. It affects you physically, obviously, emotionally, spiritually, but financially, it, it didn't matter. It didn't affect us because

• 11:26Speaker 06

  we had the systems in place, right? So that was the last thing for us to worry about is my treatment, which is ongoing, is about $120,000 a month. So well over a million a year. I've been in the hospital a couple of times. We just got an EOB, an explicit explanation of benefits from my health insurance provider that had said, blah, blah, blah, what we pay, what we agreed to, what you pay. And it says 2 million point two, something, something, something. And like, that's not actually what I owe because it has to go through the hospital and the hospital writes off whatever. But I'm like, why do they send these things out? If you didn't understand the system, you might really make some bad life choices.

• 12:11Speaker 05

  I was just thinking that they're supposed to cure you, not give you a heart attack.

• 12:16Speaker 06

  Yeah. They just won't be off their, they won't be off their books as soon as possible. So.

• 12:20Speaker 05

  There is though, I mean, I love the fact that you don't have to deal with the superficial stuff. And when I started to get my financial house in order, that was the great thing. When I needed to deal with health and nowhere near the healthcare that is Todd, I just can't imagine, but I didn't have to, you know, I can go do things or if I've got a failing member that's a problem, I can just go do it because I don't have to worry about the little things. But, but I want to talk about something deeper there, which is you're forced to confront your own mortality. And I'm wondering, what did that do to your definition of wealth?

• 12:55Speaker 06

  Listen, I'm not getting a life insurance ever again. But when I first met my partner and before we had our daughter, we met with a financial planner and he was here's what you gotta do. Everybody knows about life insurance. So we got life insurance, million dollars, right? That's just kind of what you do. But he also said private disability insurance is like, you're much more likely to be injured in your working years than you are to die. You need to get, and I used to grumble every year at that $1,200 payment. But it's, it didn't save my life. It kind of, it helped our financial life, right? I paid in maybe 12,000, maybe the policy was worth several hundred thousand in payouts. That's not a bad investment. We're talking investments.

• 13:40Speaker 06

  So I wasn't worried financially because we had all of those things already in place. Now it's a five year contract, the five year contract runs out eventually, you could figure that out. But there was nothing to worry about. My partner had a job. He's got life insurance. Like on the financial level, there was just, it's like, it didn't even really enter our minds. Now you've got your copays and you've got those things and the system is, as we all know, as I always say, if someone can figure out healthcare in America, you should be the first trillionaire. Now we've got a trillionaire who has not done that exact thing, but wouldn't that be great if somebody did? It really, it wasn't part of the conversation, Joe, our finances. We, we talk about money all the time, but not,

• 14:25Speaker 06

  not about the medical stuff, if that makes any sense.

• 14:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:28Speaker 06

  Right. We bought a house in California, which is the most insane thing anyone has ever done. So now our conversations are about cash flow and cash flow is king, Robert Kiyosaki, everybody else, right? All the sharks on Shark Tank.

• 14:41Speaker 05

  But did your diagnosis change the way you thought about money at all?

• 14:45Speaker 06

  No, it really, I don't, I might, I might come back to that later, but I don't think so.

• 14:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:51Speaker 06

  It was really, I wanted to do things and I felt like there was a point where I was about to have back surgery because there was a tumor that was pushing on my spinal cord so much. That's where all the pain came from. And when the surgeon went in, he couldn't even find my spinal cord because it was so compressed. It was so flat. So that tells you kind of what the pain is and why medication didn't work. But I thought there was a point like, maybe this is the end. And I thought of my daughter. And I was like, I can't leave my daughter. My, my partner would be fine. Like, of course I'd be grieving. But I was like, I can't, my daughter was seven. I was like, that really messes people up. So it was primarily a spiritual journey, I would say.

• 15:34Speaker 05

  I would think that it did then Todd, based on what you're saying. I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth.

• 15:39Speaker 06

  No, do it. Let's go.

• 15:40Speaker 05

  But it sounds to me, even though you said no, you're talking about, and you mentioned this earlier, time. And I think what money geeks tend to do, you know, we have people that need Todd Havens to show them the basics, which is a lot of what we're going to do today and talking about today. And thank goodness you had life insurance. Thank goodness you had disability coverage, which back when I was a financial planner, I was with you. Nobody wanted to buy it. And it's the, it's, it's this huge risk. It's this huge risk. So the fact that you did was fantastic. But it seems to me that the, the money game changed to time. Like the fact that you had the money to spend the time. And I feel like we, some of our money geeks in the audience, we spend so much time optimizing our money.

• 16:25Speaker 05

  We forget about living. You know what I mean? Kind of the, the flip side.

• 16:29Speaker 06

  Well, I used to dream of a zero net worth for decades, decades, because I had student loan debt and credit card debt. And my highest financial aspiration was zero, was just to break even.

• 16:40Speaker 05

  Just to get out of the hole.

• 16:42Speaker 06

  Just to get out of the hole. Like that's where I was. So to go from that to set for retirement and that just keeps, you know, compounding and compounding is unfathomable that I could even do that. What I had to do was really dive into the idea that, that money is safety first, money is security second, and ultimately freedom. Right? And who doesn't want to feel safe and who doesn't want to feel secure for the long term of their lives? And of course, we're all hoping for financial freedom. And that freedom can be in each of those levels, depending on what your lifestyle is and, and whatnot. But I had already made that switch. And so I knew that money was freedom, not to buy things,

• 17:28Speaker 06

  but just to be able to breathe through

• 17:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:30Speaker 06

  life's chaos. Whatever was thrown our way, we had already done that. Both me and my partner had, had crossed over into, all right, we're, we're safe. We're secure. Freedom depends on your, we're still working on that.

• 17:46Speaker 05

  I want to dive into that more in a little bit too, because I love your concept of the money dam. And I think our stackers will as well. But one reason I was excited to share your message is that we hear a version of the same frustration all the time, Todd. People read books, they listen to podcasts, they follow smart financial creators. They know what they're supposed to do. And yet they still feel stuck. It's not an investing problem. It's not a budgeting problem, something that's between our ears. Why do smart people still struggle financially? Like I'm smart enough, damn it. I'm good looking. How come I'm not getting ahead?

• 18:22Speaker 06

  I can talk about myself and what I had to realize is that I felt I didn't deserve it. I felt I didn't deserve to be wealthy, whatever that could, could mean, right? Because there was such a separation, growing up middle class in, in the Midwest, in the seventies and eighties. There was such a difference between us and them and them was rich and wealth and everybody you knew needed more money. We didn't know anybody who was well off or whatnot. I needed to make the switch that I deserved it and not that I deserved it, like I needed it, like I had to get excited about money. It was always, there were such rain clouds. Whenever I would think about money, I'd get a check and I'd just be like, oh, I've already spent that.

• 19:06Speaker 06

  I had to switch to know money is, is incredible than not to buy things, but just to feel safe and secure in a world that you never know what's going to happen. It was that switch in, in my mind too, because I read the books and, and was like, oh, you know, I would build a savings account and then the car would break down. And so I'd have to drain it. But. Every step of the way, it's almost like a daily motivation that you do like I did that. I, you know, I got paid first and I paid myself first. And that's what I love the image of the money dam so much is that the money comes into your lake of net worth first and you decide where it goes. Now, you might not have much of a dam holding back your lake of net worth, but you

• 19:49Speaker 06

  get to decide, you decide whether to pay the electric bill, you decide whether to, to pay for your life insurance and all those things like it is ultimately your choice. And when you take that, when you own that, that it's your decision, life changed, it changed for me when I did that. Does that make sense?

• 20:06Speaker 05

  No, it completely does. I was thinking about this earlier today while I was driving back to mom's basement and I stopped somewhere for a coffee and I actually had the thought, Todd, because we were speaking today. I'm like, is it worth this dollar going through the money dam?

• 20:26Speaker 05

  Which before I knew the Todd Havens concept of a money dam was not in my vernacular, but it's great. If I'm sitting at, you know, and I'm deciding whether to eat at home or go to a restaurant, I start thinking about what do I value? Is it, should it stay behind the dam and build up and make this lake for later? Or should it go through the money dam? I think we start looking at what we value.

• 20:49Speaker 06

  Yeah. Well, that's the thing. Look at any credit card statement or however you work in the world of finance and look at everything on the credit card statement and, and say, oh, I must really value that. I must really value that. I value this thing over safety and security and freedom. Right? And then you say, oh, but I don't really, great, cut that out. You know, I hate budgeting. I don't know if that's kosher to say or not, but I just, I can't do budgeting. It lasts for two weeks. And then I'm like, oh, now I know where my money is. I know what it's doing, but I don't have that granular, um, my, my partner does that right now. But I used to, you know, I used to have Mint. Do you remember Mint as an app?

• 21:30Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 21:30Speaker 06

  And I refreshed and like every day it'd like go up and I'd like, oh my gosh, it felt like Vegas or something like that. So I, I track it, but not to that granular level.

• 21:42Speaker 05

  Did you need to track it granularly at first and then got to the point where it wasn't as important, just more the money damn concept was, or did you never really follow a quote budget?

• 21:53Speaker 06

  I never really followed a budget. I, I would do it and be like, okay, the first thing you have to pay is your rent or your mortgage. That's the very top item. And then if you have a car loan, like there were just certain middle-class

• 22:05Speaker 05

  Big rocks.

• 22:05Speaker 06

  Midwestern values that were instilled in me, like you always pay your bills. I would line them up that way. And they're always biggest to smallest. But it's really what you said with the money dam, like you, you get to that level where you're like, do I want to do this? Or could that money go somewhere else? Like to pay off a student loan or to pay down credit card that got out of control, something like that. So it comes down to that moment by moment choice. And I, listen, when I had no money, I knew if I left my apartment in Studio City, California, I was going to have to spend money. So a lot of times I'd be like, I'm not going out tonight. Uh, I, I know that's $60 for somebody's birthday

• 22:46Speaker 06

  party that I don't even know, you know, like, yeah, felt like at a cellular level, like you're like, okay, this, is this worth it? Is it worth it? Is it going to get me to my goals?

• 22:56Speaker 05

  I think that's great. Like begin, what's this even covered quote, right? Beginning with the end in mind. That's the whole money dam, beginning with the end in mind.

• 23:02Speaker 06

  And the end in mind wasn't a dollar amount. It was the feeling of, of freedom. You know, the turnaround was really, I was 40 years old. I was about to turn 40. My partner said, oh my God, 40, that's such a big year. Let's, let's call all your friends and what do you want to do? I felt fearful. I was like, I don't want to be seen because I was embarrassed. Like my, my net worth was defining my self-worth. And so we're on a, a cheap carnival cruise and 250 each, like great value, right? And then we won the first night of bingo, several hundred dollars. Yay. And then drank it away. Um, but, and, and that was such a reaction

• 23:45Speaker 06

  that he was like, I was, Joe, I was literally afraid someone would come into my birthday party and be like, Hey, Todd, happy birthday. How much student loan do you still have? Student loans do you have still at 40? I'd be like, oh, 25,000. They'd look at me disgusted and leave or something. It was so irrational, but it took me almost like standing outside of myself at this like gut reaction I'd had to say like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Well, I'm 40 years old and I've, have I just ignored money for all this time? Like, what is happening? So I, I really started diving into my own psychology and, and what I'd been raised with and that money meant to lack, like there was never enough of it. Money isn't grown trees and all of that. That was the wake up call for me that things

• 24:30Speaker 06

  have to change. And I, and now on the other side of it, I, I just have this excitement from money. And, and I kind of, I want to say like, why don't people want to feel safe? And even in members of my own family still that are, are struggling of like, I see the decisions they're making and I want to say, you have the power to

• 24:51Speaker 05

  You can change it.

• 24:52Speaker 06

  You can change it. Why don't you want to feel this way? It's not about buying things. I have to keep saying that because it's so easy to equate wealth with materialism. And that's not it. That's not it.

• 25:05Speaker 05

  One of your big ahas that you explain, and I think a lot of our stackers and for our new stackers, they may still feel this way, Todd, which is you equated wealth with your salary. And you're like, no, no, no, wealthy people don't equate it with a bigger salary. Really people, people, it's got to go beyond salary.

• 25:26Speaker 06

  It's got to go beyond salary. It's net worth. It's, I don't know why that wasn't, right? Like that should be the marker that is taught in personal finance classes in high school and whatever they're doing. It's like, it's not salary. But I was of the generation where I was the first to go to a four-year college. My mom and my sister eventually did, but I was the first one to go through. My mom was an educator and she knew, you know, get a good education and get a good job because that's where the high salaries are. But the salary doesn't really matter unless you can hang on to it. Wealth is not what you earn, it's what you keep. It's what you keep in your lake of net worth, right? So that was a big one, too. I think somebody said, oh, so and so's net worth is XYZ. I'd be like, net worth? What does that even mean?

• 26:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:12Speaker 06

  And then as you get to the other side, you go, oh, salary is one of the worst ways to earn money because of the taxation and because of that it just so much goes out of it that out of your paycheck. And that's what helped me. Again, 40, I have nothing in retirement. I still have student loan debt to now I'm 56 and we have million plus in retirement that's going to keep growing. So we're only talking about 15 years here of a complete turnaround. Now the market goes up and up and up and up. And that's really where, you know, this isn't a crypto play we did. This is really just investing in basic S and P 500 and, and things like that. So you don't even need, at least in

• 26:55Speaker 06

  my case, 40 years or 50 year time horizon to start to see the growth and to, and to start changing your life and feeling that, you know, in your bones.

• 27:06Speaker 05

  I think it's a message a lot of people need to hear because so many people feel like they're behind, you know, and they, when they hear somebody that hates budgeting, does, doesn't want to look at the budget, doesn't want to think about the budget, but is able to turn the ship around and have this aha, and really take the same self judgment a lot of us have that you know, as well as anybody, Todd, can be horrible. This self loathing, this self, you know, I'm 40 years old, what the hell? But to make that work for you and to turn it into something, an engine versus just beating on yourself all day, really is a powerful thing. I want to play a quick game based on some of the stuff that I learned in your book.

• 27:46Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 27:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, this is going to be a tough game. Steve, we need some background music here for a second. We're going to call this helpful or dangerous. So, uh, I'm going to say a phrase that Todd Havens might've said before me, and you will tell me if this is a helpful belief or a dangerous belief. You ready?

• 28:05Speaker 06

  That's, that's what I say.

• 28:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:07Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 28:08Speaker 05

  You will say helpful or dangerous. Yes.

• 28:10Speaker 06

  We're the only two here. I don't know why I asked that.

• 28:13Speaker 05

  No, it's the other guy, Todd. Here we go. I'll save more when I make more.

• 28:20Speaker 06

  Dangerous.

• 28:21Speaker 05

  I deserve this.

• 28:24Speaker 06

  What are the options? Dangerous or?

• 28:26Speaker 05

  Or helpful.

• 28:27Speaker 06

  Helpful, helpful.

• 28:29Speaker 05

  I'm just not good with money.

• 28:32Speaker 06

  Dangerous.

• 28:34Speaker 05

  I need to learn more before I invest.

• 28:38Speaker 06

  Dangerous. This is a hard game, Joe.

• 28:41Speaker 05

  Money changes people.

• 28:43Speaker 06

  Money changes people. I think that's dangerous. That's, that's a nuanced one. That's a nuanced one.

• 28:51Speaker 05

  Well, yeah, because you talk about, I want to get into that later, stackers. But Todd, I really want to get into this because you don't say those exact words. Well, the exact words that money shouldn't change you. And if it does, it should change you for the better, which I love. And I think a lot of our stackers need to hear from you. But it is interesting that all but one of those was this limiting, dangerous belief. Like, which of those that I made you say, do you think causes the most damage?

• 29:20Speaker 06

  The one about deserving it. Cause I think that's really, that's the core of everything I write about and everything I went through myself is that you need to believe. And a lot of times nobody else is going to give that to you, that inside belief, interior belief that you can do it. That even putting aside 250, not getting that dollar coffee. I don't know where you get a dollar coffee.

• 29:40Speaker 05

  You're saying the opposite of what I asked, which is this is the one that helps the most. I deserve it helps the most.

• 29:47Speaker 06

  Helps the most. Yeah. Because it's so foundational. Yeah. The idea that money changes you is, I say money just makes you more of who you already are. So it's always your choice to be a good person or bad person in the world, whether you have negative $50,000 like I did, or whatever Oprah has now, 2 billion, who knows, right? It's always your choice. So money just makes you more of who you already are.

• 30:10Speaker 05

  One thing I know about our stackers is that they don't just want inspiration. They want something they could do. So let's say that somebody finishes this episode, they park their car, walk into the house and they decide like you did when you turned 40, that today's the day. Today's the day. What's the first thing they should do?

• 30:29Speaker 06

  I would say the first thing you need to do is put systems in place so that you don't have to wake up every day, wondering if your savings account is increasing and whether you're contributing to your retirement accounts. Put the systems in place so that you don't have to be forced into what has been a dangerous financial ground for you to walk on, right? Like, oh, that dollar coffee, am I going to do it or not? Like it's, comes out of your paycheck, certain percentage, whatever, whatever system you need to set up. But the one thing that wealthy people do is they have separate accounts for different reasons, right?

• 31:08Speaker 06

  I used to have one checking account for everything. So everything went into it and that was, that's just what you spent. Okay. I can pay more, more of my loans down or whatever it might be, but you're paying yourself first. So you have a savings account, you open up an investment account. Again, if your company has a, we say this all the time, right? If your company has a 401k match, that is free money, you should get into that. So I would say the first thing is there are systems that you can set up that people have gone before you. Many people have gone before you and done, and to tap into those.

• 31:45Speaker 05

  So it sounds like number one is set up these separate buckets, we'll call them. But then number two is automate money into them. Is that what you're saying?

• 31:55Speaker 06

  Right.

• 31:56Speaker 05

  It's funny because the very next question I was going to ask you was what's a wealth building habit that's boring, but effective? That's one right there. It is boring, but effective. But what's another one?

• 32:07Speaker 06

  You want something more boring is do nothing. Do nothing. Once you've got the systems in place, do nothing. The market is down 5% because of the war in Iran. Great. Do nothing. You know, you don't need to be my partner. He's another room. I'm like whispering. It's like, oh, the market's down 5% and I'm like, great. Let's, let's put some more money into it, right? It's very Warren Buffett of seeing it kind of the flip of what you would normally think. But like, we are not about to retire. We have a 15 year time horizon plus. So the market's going to go up and it's going to go down. And if, and I did use to track it, well, you know, when my money was in it, I'd play the stocks and that's gambling.

• 32:52Speaker 06

  I wasn't as good as I thought I would be with individual stocks. So it's really set the systems in place and do nothing. Is there anything more boring than doing nothing? You could say live your life. You say help others.

• 33:06Speaker 05

  But really that's great because you're spending time not thinking about it. You're thinking about the things that are important, like being with the people you love when you have inoperable cancer.

• 33:16Speaker 06

  When you have, yep.

• 33:18Speaker 05

  Yeah. So we talked about a few of your think wealthy framework, a few of the first ones. Think net worth, not salary is how you talk about the first one. Second, think long-term. We really just talked about just now, think long-term. Think about what you value, the financial dam, and whether it gets through the value or not. Your fourth and fifth are think of what's possible and think big. What do those mean?

• 33:45Speaker 06

  Think of what's possible. Every day that we wake up, I get to say my favorite line. Every day that we wake up, it is our choice, how we live that day, what we do, whether we're meeting new people or starting a business or whatever that might be, starting a side business. We are so driven by our past, right? Well, I'm bad with money, that whatever thoughts we have that, that circulate in our head over and over again, that do damage to us financially. Because every day is a new day to be the person that you want to become. And I think about, you know, listen, I watched Oprah's show back in the day and have always followed her because she's rags to riches.

• 34:27Speaker 06

  And she's like, you know, there's a bigger dream than you can even dream for yourself when you're doing what you really want to do. And I'm not going to say that follow your passion because your passion also has to, is to bring money into your leg of net worth. But it's that you don't even know, prime example, turning 40 and saying, oh, I can't, I don't want to be seen by my friends. You don't even know what's possible. Tony Robbins says, we overestimate what we can do in one year, but underestimate what we can do in 10 years. And I mean, exact systems in place, things like that. But the thing I want to say, which I love, love, love, love is the wake doesn't drive the boat.

• 35:11Speaker 06

  You saw that in that the wake doesn't drive the boat. So many of us, myself included, we look over the back of the boat, like looking at our past and trying to understand it. And, but the boat is just going forward anyway. It's not the wake that drives the boat. The wake is what your past leaves. So I always say like, turn around and grab the steering wheel of your boat and put it in the heading that you want to go. And that is available every single day, every single moment. After you clear out the negative money thoughts that you've had. Does that make sense? So that's bigger than, you know, think bigger than you can even dream of in a way, right? Once you're on the right track, doors will open and that will turn out to what it's supposed to be.

• 35:52Speaker 05

  It just helps you create such an exciting life instead of dwelling on the past, just the infinite future. The future things that you can do every, every minute you wake up.

• 36:02Speaker 06

  It's not even financial advice ultimately, right?

• 36:05Speaker 05

  No. Well, and that's what I think is so powerful is that this is not about money. As you've said three or four or five times today, it's not about having more stuff. It isn't about having more stuff. It's about possibilities. I want to get into the idea of money changing you because one thing that I really, really think our stackers need to hear from you is some of these themes that you have about gratitude, generosity, joy and integrity. Like most people don't think of those as money topics, but as you said earlier, they really are. Why are they?

• 36:47Speaker 06

  Some of the wealthiest people that I've met and a few that have crossed my path here in Los Angeles. Some of the wealthiest, many of the wealthiest that I have met are grateful for where they are. They're grateful for, you know, I've gone out on sailboats with millionaires, possibly billionaires. And they're grateful for everyone around them, helping them. They do things themselves. They're not just being catered to constantly. There's just a sense that they're not doing it alone, that it takes everybody to cross the finish line or keep, keep running the marathon, however you want to look at it. A lot of that comes back to upbringing. Again, Midwest 70s and 80s.

• 37:29Speaker 06

  You were just a good person because at the end of the day, you can't take it with you. And I just wrote a post on Substack. It's the eulogy test. You know, what do you want people to say at your funeral? Does anybody ever stand up and say, wow, her Roth 401k was just through the roof?

• 37:51Speaker 06

  Does anybody say that? So how do you strike the balance between being a good person, being a good parent, being a good friend? Would you, there's one thing in the book about you're the CEO of your own life. We kick and scream when we're teenagers, like, no, I don't want to be like, and then you get your freedom and you're like, oh, is this what I really wanted? But you're the CEO of you. So would you hire you as an employee? Would you want to be, do you want to, you know, are you the kind of friend that people want to hang out with? Like, there's a lot of that self-reflection in there.

• 38:28Speaker 06

  But I've drifted. My boat has drifted, Joe. Where are we in the conversation?

• 38:34Speaker 05

  Well, no, I think that this idea of it isn't about the money. And as you have more money, you get to experience more gratitude. You can choose to experience more gratitude. You can choose to experience more joy. You can live more according to your values. And as you've said before, it magnifies who you are. And if you're not that person, you can be incredibly rich, but not really wealthy.

• 38:54Speaker 06

  Right. There's a story that I don't often share. It's, it's very interesting. So at one point, my mom, my mom was an accountant and a teacher, and she was good with money. But my dad wasn't. So they set up their retirement right. They, they took money and they invested in rental properties, but they were just not good landlords. So people wouldn't pay their rent, you know, month after month, a month. The places would fall into disrepair. But at one point, I think she knew that I was making good money as a digital creative agency. And she called and she asked for $2,500. And that broke my heart. And she's, because she said, she's like, don't tell your father.

• 39:37Speaker 06

  He wouldn't let me ask you for it. And I said, no, I had to say no to my own mother because of how she had raised me. Like, she knew to teach a man to fish, not to just give him fish.

• 39:51Speaker 06

  I had the money, not gobs of it, but I had $2,500 that I'd have given her. And it was like, well, is this a loan? Like, what are we talking about? And so that was, that was a hard moment.

• 40:04Speaker 05

  It's a really hard moment.

• 40:05Speaker 06

  Because I didn't want her to suffer. But the reason she was asking for it was the wrong reason, because there was no communication or not sufficient communication between the two of them.

• 40:16Speaker 05

  Was she angry at you? Did she resent you?

• 40:17Speaker 06

  She was, but we didn't really have a lot of anger in her house. Certainly, certainly not me and my mom. So she expressed that, but she understood. She ultimately understood that that was not the way to go about repairing their finances or whatnot. And ultimately, they're both passed now. But I took over. My sister was back there and helped them through the end years. But I took over their finances and I made sure, and they had debt and they were completely out of debt. I kept them in their house throughout the end. They had the, the end of life experience that they wanted. That was worth a lot more than $2,500. You know what I mean? Like, negotiating with debtors and whatever there was.

• 41:02Speaker 06

  That was ultimately my final gift. And she had dementia for the last 10 years of her life. But she was grateful for it when she knew what was happening, if that makes sense.

• 41:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:13Speaker 06

  That was, that was probably the hardest financial decision I've ever had to make. But knowing, it took me a while to learn that the reason I said that was because of things that she had taught me.

• 41:23Speaker 05

  Wow. What a, what a tough place to be. But the fact that you could then help them with their money in their final years, I think is also.

• 41:32Speaker 06

  Cause that's what I was good at, right? That was my.

• 41:34Speaker 05

  Helping them fish. Yeah.

• 41:35Speaker 06

  Yeah. You know, I kind of viewed that as a piece of integrity. In an odd, kind of flipped about way, like, I had to have integrity that I knew that it wouldn't solve the problem. You know, there's always, it may sound harsh to others, but they had the resources. They had the assets just untapped, if that makes sense.

• 42:00Speaker 05

  It was the same as yours when you were 39?

• 42:02Speaker 06

  Yeah. And I was still building, like, I was just in the beginning stages of building everything. But that was a classic case of Midwestern thinking of like, somebody else needs it more than me. So I know a lot of people that they, they're blocking themselves from a wealthier future because that will mean that they are, at least in their own minds, on a different level than everyone else they know. Oh, no. They say, don't put on airs or something like that. Like, if you, you become too big for your britches. If you have more than other people do. And yet that's what everybody wants. It's really confusing.

• 42:40Speaker 05

  It is confusing. We've had charitable giving experts on. And they talk about, hey, giving $2,500 to a charity is a nice gift. But if you have skills, you certainly have skills from what you do in your everyday world in Hollywood. Being able to use those skills to help a charity is far more valuable than 2,500. And it's almost the same with your parents. Being able to help them learn to manage their own money, far more valuable than giving them the money.

• 43:09Speaker 06

  Right. And I did, I made a PowerPoint presentation of their rental properties and their main property. And, and it fell on deaf ears. Like I did, I put everything into it. And I think my mom was like, yes, yes. But my dad was just not, couldn't see it or understand it. He didn't have, his main issue was the long-term thinking, right? Like, what I do today, what does that look like 10 years from now, 20 years from now? And I think it's because his own mother passed in her 50s. And so he thought, as a lot of my friends do, when their parents pass young.

• 43:40Speaker 05

  Life is short.

• 43:41Speaker 06

  Life is short. Why, why sacrifice this pleasure right now? But again, in the Tony Robbins way, it really compounds before you even, you look up one day and you're like, whoa.

• 43:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, you could, you could more quickly have both than, than you would ever expect. That was the surprise for me when I started getting out of debt, was how quickly AI felt empowered immediately. Even before anything changed, I felt empowered. But how quickly my situation changed, just when my mindset around it changed.

• 44:10Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 44:11Speaker 05

  You know, I've, I've learned a lot, and I hope our stackers have learned a lot about how to think wealthy today. But there was something I was thinking the whole time, and I don't think you specifically address this in any, anything that I've read of yours, which is, you've got money rules that make sense, right? The boring stuff. Think long-term. Don't look at it. Set up automation. Set up separate accounts for these things. But what is a money rule that you see people follow? That makes Todd roll his eyes and go, oh, what are you doing? This is, this is crazy.

• 44:50Speaker 06

  You know, you never know what's going on in other people's houses or in their financial lives.

• 44:56Speaker 05

  Right.

• 44:57Speaker 06

  I think it's probably that would be thinking long-term. But how surprised I am at family members who have really good jobs and whatnot. And then you find out, oh, if they lost a job, the house might have to go or something like that. And you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, you make more than I ever have in a year.

• 45:17Speaker 05

  You had a statistic around like 70, this is 70% of people, right?

• 45:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, that, that fluctuates. But it's a lot. How many people are dependent on social security to get through the end of their lives? My parents were completely, almost completely dependent on it. That's not how it should be if you want to feel safe and secure. You said it yourself, like how powerful you felt, right? What changed for you that you, something switched in your mind? I don't know if you said, I can do it, or you just needed a baby step to see, right? But something, something flipped. And that's really all it takes is for people to just make that flip. So the thing I'm most surprised by is, I guess, again, cancer out of the blue.

• 46:05Speaker 06

  No long-term thinking. And again, others can help with this. Millions of people have gone before you. 80% of millionaires are self-made. They didn't just inherit it. So wealth is very learnable. It really boils down to like, the excitement of, of making that change. And it, it rests within, you can't, you can't make somebody do it. You can't beg them to do it. You've got to make that flip yourself.

• 46:35Speaker 05

  Yeah. Thinking about yourself now as a billionaire is, is one thing you write about. And just waking up and even if you got a negative net worth, just thinking, no, I'm a billionaire. And thinking like a billionaire, I think is a great place to start. And I also think just the positivity and your message, Todd, of it's never too late to begin this journey. Wasn't too late for your parents. Not too late for you at 40. Certainly not too late for our stackers.

• 47:01Speaker 06

  The whole point of the inner billionaire is not that you necessarily have a billion dollars at the end, but that you really get to the foundation that you, you know, you create your own life and that you deserve to have whatever you can collect behind your lake of net worth or whatever cash flow systems you, you set up, you know, if we're talking about the FIRE movement, things like that. One of the biggest ones is that you can handle any situation. Wealthy people know that they can handle any situation. I don't think it's because they know they have the money to fall back on if times get rough. It's just, everything can be resolved, right? Some people I think are just so fearful, like, oh, if I do this, what will so-and-so think or whatever it is?

• 47:42Speaker 06

  But the idea that you can handle, I, I knew that I could handle my mom saying, being pissed at me or something for, even if it took a couple of months, I knew that, that I could weather that because, because that was the right thing to do.

• 47:56Speaker 05

  It's a hard day, but in the end, it's a good, it's a good day.

• 48:00Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 48:01Speaker 05

  Believe it or not, Todd actually wrote a book about this topic.

• 48:04Speaker 06

  Oh, my gosh. I did?

• 48:08Speaker 05

  It's called Think Wealthy. It's in its second edition, The Financial Mindset for Financial Freedom That Won't Put You to Sleep, and endorsed, by the way, by a couple of friends of the Stacking Benjamins Show. Paul Sullivan, New York Times columnist, who's been with us. Paul's such a great guy, by the way.

• 48:27Speaker 06

  Isn't he great? Company of dads he started. I don't know if you talked about that or not.

• 48:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, we did. And it was, Paul is such a great guy. And some dude named J.L. Collins, not sure who that is.

• 48:38Speaker 06

  Doesn't ring a bell.

• 48:39Speaker 05

  If you're new to this show, that is pure sarcasm. J.L. Collins wrote a bestselling book called The Simple Path to Wealth, that I think goes really hand in hand with Think Wealthy. Todd, where is it available?

• 48:52Speaker 06

  Available Amazon in four formats. Working on availability for like libraries and whatnot. That's just a simple thing I need to do. Need to put on my to-do list. Amazon.

• 49:04Speaker 05

  If it's like mine, it's like thing 47. You were going to say something. I cut you off accidentally.

• 49:09Speaker 06

  Was it about J.L. Collins?

• 49:11Speaker 05

  About J.L.

• 49:12Speaker 06

  Oh, I used to say, like, mine is mindset. Like, I really think it's about the psychology behind it. And then J.L. is systems.

• 49:20Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 49:21Speaker 06

  Really talking about the systems and not worrying about not checking your accounts every day. So I kind of go one, two, and then I add the psychology of money.

• 49:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:30Speaker 06

  Because that is just a book that's changed. It's a phenomenal book. Morgan Housel's Psychology of Money.

• 49:36Speaker 05

  I finally got to meet him last fall for the first time.

• 49:39Speaker 06

  Oh, did you?

• 49:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, just a super nice guy.

• 49:42Speaker 06

  What a, talking about flipping the script and just approaching it from left field. Those are my favorites.

• 49:48Speaker 05

  Todd, thanks for hanging out in the basement and for mentoring our stackers. I super appreciate you. And congratulations, and so happy that you're in remission. Here's to you, man. Thank you so much.

• 50:00Speaker 06

  Yay. Thank you so much.

• 50:03Speaker 07

  I'm Liz, the Chief Mom Officer. And when I'm not busy being the breadwinner of my family of five, I'm stacking Benjamins.

• 50:14Speaker 04

  Hey there, stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. And Todd and I are a total team here with the one-two punch on this show, right? Heck, Joe and I should probably be your next guest on the podcast. Before you answer, check out how I can keep Todd's ball rolling with some behavioral economic trivia. There are lots of biases in investing and personal finance, but one is a biggie, and it's called the endowment effect. Let's say I own a stock, and the endowment effect is rearing its ugly head. What does that mean? Speaking of ownership, I'll be back right after I replace the cookie jar upstairs with one I own. That way, when Joe's mom makes the next batch, I'll own them all.

• 51:07Speaker 05

  Well, you may know that chaos is the name of the game here in Mom's Basement, what with guests coming in and out, Cooper the cat getting in the way, Doug being, well, being Doug. The holidays make it even worse, because it's all about food and big meals. And the problem is, prepping for those takes forever. But what about those between meals, right? The meals between those huge, huge, huge bookends. Well, that's where Factor comes in. Factor is made with high-quality ingredients that you recognize and trust with over 175 banned ingredients. You always know you're eating something that's good for you, even when you don't have time. It's ready in two minutes. Whether it's lunch

• 51:47Speaker 05

  between meetings, or dinner after holiday shopping, Factor requires zero prep, cleanup, or effort from you or mom, so you can focus on everything else in your day. Factor even has heart-smart options like the Green Goddess Bara Monday with tomato, rice, peas, kale, and green beans, or the enchilada-style chicken and sweet potatoes. Those are so good. They're crafted with lean proteins, fiber-packed fruit and veggies, and healthy fats. Try those out. Your heart and your taste buds will thank you. For Cheryl and I, Factor has been a great way for us to stay busy and focus on family life and beating mom at

• 52:31Speaker 05

  card games. I use Factor, and you should too. So let's eat real, stackers. Head to factormeals.com/sb50off. Use code SB50OFF. And you know what? You're going to get 50% off and one free breakfast item per box for one year while supplies last until December 31st, 2026. That is code SB50OFF at factormeals.com. SB50OFF at factormeals.com. See website for more details. There is a financial conversation that's coming to millions of American families, and there's a pretty good chance nobody wants to be the person who starts it. Inheritance.

• 53:12Speaker 05

  And here's why that matters. An estimated $124 trillion to heirs in charity is expected to be transferred by Americans over the next 20 years. It's an extraordinary amount of money, but Kiplinger's research found that 51% of adults and their parents, get this, never talk about money. And there's a pretty big disconnect. 47% of parents expect to leave a meaningful inheritance, while only 24% of adult children expect to actually receive one. Nearly 30% of parents don't even have a will in place. Maybe it's time we talked. Kiplinger calls it the trillion-dollar talk, a conversation about inheritance, estate

• 53:54Speaker 05

  planning, wills, and the questions families should be asking before those decisions become urgent. Because knowing what your family wants and having a plan for it can be one of the most important financial conversations you will ever have. Ready to start yours? Visit kiplinger.com to learn more about the trillion-dollar talk and what this historic wealth transfer could mean for your family.

• 54:19Speaker 05

  It's incredible, at a small company like Stacking Benjamins, how one, one hire makes all the difference in the world. If you're a small business, the right hire can be make or break. Hoping the right people see your job posting isn't the best growth strategy. When the pressure's on, you need the right hire. This is a job for sponsored jobs. Indeed Sponsored Jobs is a boost whenever you need to find quality talent. When workplace chaos hits and you need the right hire, this is a job for sponsored jobs. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post even seen at other sites. Get matched with and hire quality candidates who can drive the results you need. Reach candidates

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• 56:22Speaker 04

  Hey there, stackers. I'm cookie schemer and guy who just got a lesson in behavioral eating, Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. Joe's mom caught me replacing the cookie jar with my own, you know, so I could claim them all. Glorious eats inside. Right when she came around the corner, I told her I was trying to demonstrate the endowment effect, and she told me about a new behavioral term called, get your hands out of the jar, or you're going to lose one of them, pal. Never heard of that effect before, but I don't like it. So I conceded and stepped away slowly. But I hope you didn't concede the answer to today's trivia question, because it wasn't that hard. If I own a stock and I'm suffering from the

• 57:02Speaker 04

  endowment effect, what's going on? The answer? The endowment effect is a bias where, if I own an item, I value it more. Therefore, I'm less likely to give up a stock because I already own it, or any item for that matter. This is where hoarding begins. How about that? Well, I love my stock, so I guess that makes me well-endowed, huh? No? Is that a different thing? I'll figure out how I stepped in it this time, a little bit later. But for now, let's send you back to Joe and OG.

• 57:36Speaker 05

  That may be something slightly different. OG?

• 57:38Speaker 06

  Yeah, slightly is the understatement of the century.

• 57:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, let's.

• 57:43Speaker 06

  Get it, Doug? Very slight.

• 57:46Speaker 05

  Understatement, Doug. Let's do a headline. Hello, darlings. And now it's time for your Part of the show, our stacking Benjamin's headlines. Our headline today comes to us from Business Insider. This is written by Alicia Hall. You remember the early days, OG, of your career and the boss would invite a bunch of you maybe out to lunch? Or you go to some corporate dinner? Well, I saw a lot of times people step in a few things. And this is a great reminder of even though you're not at work, when you're at the company dinner, the company lunch, you really still OG are kind of

• 58:25Speaker 07

  You're at work. Yeah. You're on stage.

• 58:28Speaker 05

  Everybody is judging you. So I want to walk through four things you should never order in front of your boss or coworkers.

• 58:34Speaker 07

  Order. Okay.

• 58:35Speaker 05

  Yes, these are things you shouldn't order. Number one is the big one. Don't order the overly expensive meal. You're sitting across from your boss and you decide to go for the most expensive thing on the menu. That's probably

• 58:49Speaker 07

  The thing that says market price, the special.

• 58:52Speaker 05

  Which is always going to be low. Is it? Does a market mean low?

• 58:55Speaker 07

  What is the market price presently? It's the price we pay for it. Okay, I'll do that.

• 59:00Speaker 05

  And it's showing the surf and turf. You know, your boss is judging everything that you do. And if you're out at lunch or dinner

• 59:05Speaker 07

  Are you asking me my opinion about these? Like yes or no?

• 59:08Speaker 05

  Yeah. What do you think about that?

• 59:10Speaker 07

  Oh, um, yeah, I don't think that you should go for the caviar, but you know, if you're, you gotta order commensurate with where you are. If you're at Five Guys and you want the double burger instead of the single, get after it, man. If you're at a steakhouse, you should order a steak if you're into that. I think people make the, you know, air on the other side more too often, right? I'll just have the salad. It's like, dude, you're at Del Frisco's. Get a frigging ribeye.

• 59:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, but I'm still going to go for, you know, they got the different levels of ribeye. I'm still going to go for the lower ribeye just to show my boss that I'm cost conscious. I'm not going to overdo it.

• 59:46Speaker 07

  Also, just don't order first.

• 59:48Speaker 05

  That's a great one. Pass. You're still looking at the menu. Wait and see what everybody else does.

• 59:53Speaker 07

  I'm still trying to decide.

• 59:55Speaker 05

  That's a great idea. I don't think that one's in here, but that's phenomenal. Never.

• 1:00:01Speaker 07

  And then if they're like, oh yeah, we're going to do the seafood tower. Uh, let's go in and get the wagyu appetizer for everybody. Uh, I'm going to do the 20 ounce, uh, porterhouse medium. And then you're like, yeah, we're getting after it today, buddy.

• 1:00:13Speaker 05

  Then you're good to slide in with the filet.

• 1:00:14Speaker 07

  That's right. Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:00:15Speaker 05

  You're fine with the filet then. Yeah. Watch out because that's trouble. Here's one I saw rear its ugly head over and over again, OG. The night's getting fun. You're out for drinks afterwards. Excessive alcohol consumption at a work event.

• 1:00:31Speaker 07

  I've never seen you have excessive alcohol consumption, Joe. What are you talking about?

• 1:00:35Speaker 05

  Never me, but not, not at a work event. I think I held my own at work event. Well, but by held my own, I don't mean I had excessive alcohol.

• 1:00:43Speaker 07

  Well, that's what you think. Um, yeah, don't get hammered in front of your boss. That's a bad idea.

• 1:00:49Speaker 05

  Here's how bad this is. I heard a story several years ago about Lester Holt.

• 1:00:55Speaker 07

  Yeah, the NBC guy.

• 1:00:56Speaker 05

  Lester Holt was at the NBC company party and was crocked, was absolutely loaded. And got up and saying karaoke and just completely embarrassed himself because it became clear at the company event, he was over served. And I heard another story that that was the reason why it took him so long to get that last step to anchor was because people could not forget the one night.

• 1:01:25Speaker 07

  Do you believe in love after love? And you're like, oh boy.

• 1:01:30Speaker 05

  I don't know Lester Holt. I don't know anybody that was at that party. That could be urban legend, but I think it still fits. We've all seen this person.

• 1:01:36Speaker 07

  Sure.

• 1:01:36Speaker 05

  That got passed over for something later because they made a really dumb mistake.

• 1:01:41Speaker 07

  Don't be that guy.

• 1:01:42Speaker 05

  Don't, don't. It is a work event. Watch out for excessive alcohol. Number three, don't order too much food.

• 1:01:50Speaker 07

  It's the same thing as number one.

• 1:01:52Speaker 05

  No, it's not. One is expensive food. Another one is I'll have a salad and an appetizer and the bread and I'll have the next thing. And you've got this power meal around you. Everybody else has one single dish. And you've got like five dishes around you. Not only does it increase the bill, it also looks awkward like you can't control your eating.

• 1:02:17Speaker 07

  Yeah, I disagree. When I go out to eat, I get one of everything. I want to try. I don't want to make the decision. But again, there's another trick here, especially if you're a younger stacker and maybe you're not the host and maybe you're the guest of this. Is you can float the idea, right? When they come around and they say, hey, so we're going to give everybody some water. Do you want the sparkling water? So it's right then you go, do you guys want to split an app? If you're like a little extra hungry and you're like, I'm going to, you know, I don't want the cheese sticks all to myself because that'll look weird. Do you guys want to split the, you know, and like if the vibe is no, not really.

• 1:02:55Speaker 05

  Then you're good.

• 1:02:56Speaker 07

  Shut that down. You're going to go main course, get out, uh, and get out early. So you can go get like some other food somewhere else clearly. But if they're like, yeah, you know, then have something at the ready. Good go to is you ask the server. Hey, you know, there's eight people here. What do you think? Like two? What are your favorite two appetizers?

• 1:03:13Speaker 05

  I think it's easier to do that when you're the boss though.

• 1:03:15Speaker 07

  Sure.

• 1:03:15Speaker 05

  If you're the low woman or man on the totem pole and you're asking the server, what's a good appetizer for all of us? And I'm the boss. I'm like, what are you doing? What are you doing?

• 1:03:24Speaker 07

  I love, I love like having somebody take charge like that. So I think, I think you can get away with it. I'm completely out of this world, so I don't have any idea, but it would not bother me in the least bit if somebody like owned that decision matrix.

• 1:03:37Speaker 05

  I had this happen when I took my nephews to dinner. You had this with steak brother. I leaned forward with my three nephews. If I told you this story, we were at Lonesome Dove in Fort Worth. One of the top eats in the Dallas, Fort Worth area. We're there and I leaned forward to my nephews and I said, hey, if nothing on the menu lights you up, go ahead and get the wagyu.

• 1:04:02Speaker 05

  But

• 1:04:02Speaker 07

  How come I've never been invited to a dinner where you say that?

• 1:04:06Speaker 05

  But

• 1:04:06Speaker 07

  Nothing lights you up. Get the wagyu.

• 1:04:10Speaker 05

  But then I told the story about how my son had ordered the wagyu and I didn't even see it on the menu. And then he ordered it and I'm like, who the hell had a hundred and $30 steak? Like who the hell did that? So I was telling them that. I'm like, listen, I have enough money to afford it, but look at all these great options.

• 1:04:27Speaker 05

  What I was trying to do was take it off the menu.

• 1:04:29Speaker 07

  Right, Uncle Joe, but, uh, the A5 wagyu does look pretty good. So nothing lights me up like a Japanese wagyu does though.

• 1:04:38Speaker 05

  I was taking it off the menu for these kids that are

• 1:04:40Speaker 07

  You said you could order it.

• 1:04:42Speaker 05

  I did say it, but I was taking off. I was saying, listen, if nothing else on the menu, but otherwise, here's the story. Nick ordered it. We all kind of freaked out. But I should have set the stage for him earlier. So if you don't want me to freak out, look at the entire menu.

• 1:04:57Speaker 07

  I am 100% the next time I'm going to dinner having wagyu.

• 1:05:00Speaker 05

  My nephew, my nephew, my first two nephews were great. They ordered responsibly. My third one looks right at the server and goes, I'll take the wagyu.

• 1:05:08Speaker 07

  Damn right.

• 1:05:09Speaker 05

  And my other nephew leans over, gives me a hug and goes, it's going to be okay, Uncle Joe. Cause he's, he saw that. I was having a heart attack.

• 1:05:17Speaker 07

  $40 an ounce, minimum.

• 1:05:20Speaker 05

  For, for a 20 year old who has no idea, just zero idea.

• 1:05:24Speaker 07

  Sorry, your palate is still on ponderosa.

• 1:05:27Speaker 05

  I know. I could have taken him to Logan's and he would have been happy with the sirloin. And by the way, that's no judgment because I was at Logan's a couple of weeks ago and I had the sirloin.

• 1:05:36Speaker 07

  Logan's sirloin is just fine.

• 1:05:38Speaker 05

  It is just fine.

• 1:05:39Speaker 07

  Not quite Japanese wagyu.

• 1:05:41Speaker 05

  He does not know the difference.

• 1:05:42Speaker 07

  But your nephew would not know the difference.

• 1:05:44Speaker 05

  He had no idea. Oh, that was horrible. Last one on here, and then we'll wrap this up. Don't order, and I really like this one, OG, and it's one that I didn't think enough about, but I a hundred percent agree. Meals that are difficult to eat, like Italian foods where there's a chance it might get on your suit. Every time something could get on my, my clothing, when I'm at a work event, it would get on my clothing. So have something because you're going to be talking. You're really there to talk. You're there to network. You're there to get along with other people. You're not there to, to spiral the noodle around your fork 50 times.

• 1:06:16Speaker 07

  Barilla pasta sauce all over the table.

• 1:06:21Speaker 07

  You know, like slurping up pasta.

• 1:06:24Speaker 05

  Just horrible. Yeah. Meals that are difficult to eat are no

• 1:06:26Speaker 07

  If you're at an Italian place, you gotta get a heavy cream sauce. That's not going to splatter everywhere for sure.

• 1:06:33Speaker 05

  Yeah. And then cut it in little pieces ahead of time. So it's just going to be easy to talk and eat a little bit and, uh, maybe not the way you'd eat it regularly, but just make it as easy to eat as possible.

• 1:06:43Speaker 07

  God, I can't wait to go out to dinner with you next time. I'm ordering the most expensive wagyu topped spaghetti pasta with an appetizer and a salad and the soup and two desserts and the most expensive bottle of wine.

• 1:06:57Speaker 05

  Right, right. No G's going to be like, hey, we'll split the drinks. I'm only having two though. And you've got the first one and the last one.

• 1:07:05Speaker 07

  No way. I'll be like just getting blasted in front of my boss.

• 1:07:13Speaker 07

  Does it count if we both get destroyed at the Rangers game?

• 1:07:17Speaker 05

  I think

• 1:07:17Speaker 07

  Co-destruction. It's like mutual assured destruction. It's like how we both have nukes pointed at each other. It's like if we both have 11 beers by the fourth inning.

• 1:07:26Speaker 05

  I won't talk about you if you don't talk about me.

• 1:07:28Speaker 07

  Exactly.

• 1:07:29Speaker 05

  Yes. Yes.

• 1:07:31Speaker 07

  As long as we Ubered home, that's the only thing that matters.

• 1:07:33Speaker 05

  That's exactly what I was going to say was, don't worry stackers. There was an Uber involved. Everybody was okay.

• 1:07:38Speaker 07

  Yes. Not the next morning. We weren't okay, but in the present moment.

• 1:07:41Speaker 05

  We giggled and hugged it out.

• 1:07:42Speaker 07

  We were having a blast. Yes.

• 1:07:44Speaker 05

  I love you, man.

• 1:07:46Speaker 07

  Joe was the little spoon.

• 1:07:50Speaker 05

  It was a great night. Memorable.

• 1:07:52Speaker 07

  I don't know. It was a big or little. I don't even remember.

• 1:07:54Speaker 05

  But easy. Uh, goes back to the endowment effect.

• 1:07:57Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 1:07:58Speaker 05

  All right. That's going to do it for today. I will link to this piece in Business Insider. If you know somebody who's new to the workplace and goes out with clients or goes out with their boss, I think this is a, it's a great piece. I read this and said, oh man, we should, we should cover this for some of our stackers just getting into the workforce. All right. That brings us to the back porch and OG, I've got a couple of things that our stackers are doing. Number one is, you know, you and I do this for one reason. And that is to spread the word of financial security. It is so exciting when somebody takes the things that we talk about and they implement something new. They change their trajectory.

• 1:08:40Speaker 05

  And what I love is that for many of you, you also influence other people around you. And they ask, what are you doing? What are you doing different? What did you like? What's going on? Well, imagine my surprise a few days ago when I'm on Tik Tok and I see this from a stacker who runs a podcast of her own. Her Tik Tok brand is Decision Day. She helps young professionals do what we just talked about. Get ahead in the workforce. Listen to what she had to say.

• 1:09:09Speaker 05

  Watched an amazing episode on the stacking Benjamin's podcast featuring Alex Formozzi and I took a ton of notes. So I'm going to rapid fire some of my takeaways to you as Cliff Notes. Do more than you probably are.

• 1:09:21Speaker 07

  Long term sounds good in theory until it takes a long time. Success comes from doing the thing, not the result of the thing. Money doesn't solve problems, but you can arrive at them in a limo. I thought that one was funny. Increase your ability to trade time for money. If you ask your boss to define your career path, they will define it based on whatever they want you to do for them. Sometimes the best strategic move is not on your to do list. I'll leave you with this one. Learn as much as you can about all of the skills required to make money. And to go with that, there's money in it. Someone just hasn't figured it out yet.

• 1:09:58Speaker 05

  It was an incredible thing that I just saw. Cool. Thank you so much for that Alex Hermosy two episode series about making more money. And if you know somebody who's at the beginning of their career, we'll also link to that in our show notes. Those were a couple of epic episodes.

• 1:10:12Speaker 07

  Yeah, 1000% they were.

• 1:10:14Speaker 05

  I'm so glad when you see her, when you watch this video and you see all the notes she took. It was so fulfilling and makes you even love what we do even more. Hey, we also got a note from Dennis. Dennis said, I've heard you guys talk a bit about Robinhood and how we recommend people stay away. Just found out my son is in the Navy. Just some, he knew his son was in the Navy.

• 1:10:37Speaker 07

  I just found out like, wow, surprised.

• 1:10:40Speaker 05

  I read that rock. Guess where I am? Good news, Dad. I'm calling you from the Pacific.

• 1:10:47Speaker 07

  I know. I know. You've been wondering where I've been.

• 1:10:49Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:10:49Speaker 07

  Turns out I'm in the Navy.

• 1:10:52Speaker 05

  Let me reread that sentence for everybody because I think it's going to be better. The way Dennis wrote it, just found out my son, the Navy's been using it. There we go. But I'm not really sure about why he should stay away. I was thinking he might be invested in the Vanguard ETF, the total stock market index, VTI. Great choice, by the way, Dennis, for somebody his age. Just trying to see if there's a few items I should be aware of that I can talk to him about. Dennis, thank you for the note. It's great that your son is serving his country. I hope he is safe right now with all the stuff going on around the world. But OG, there's a number of things here. The first of which is kind of technical because on the surface of it, Robinhood looks like a great app. It has easy functionality.

• 1:11:36Speaker 05

  They have a lot of programs to get you over into their ecosystem. Here are the problems with Robinhood. The name Robinhood makes you think they're benevolent. Robinhood has done so many things that are beyond not even malevolent, but just sometimes either they didn't know or they were criminal. And I'm not sure which one it is, so I'm kind of hoping that they're, well, I don't know which one I hope for. But if they don't know, I don't want to use that brokerage platform. And if they're criminals, I don't want to use that brokerage platform. But the biggest one of all is they have by far the highest spreads of all of the major brokerage platforms in the industry.

• 1:12:19Speaker 05

  So the spread and a lot of people, OG, don't even know that there is this spread, that there's this invisible fee that people pay. Everybody's looking for the fees. The spread is an invisible fee. There is a difference between the price that you pay when you buy a position and the price the person sells it at. And that is a lot of where Robinhood or Schwab or Fidelity or Vanguard, or whoever you're using, makes their money is on this spread between the two. Everybody in the middle, even the people at the stock exchange are in on the spread. Like there's so many of the middle people that are taking a piece of your money. But Robinhood's is far, far bigger than anybody else's spread.

• 1:13:01Speaker 07

  Yeah, which is true. Yep.

• 1:13:03Speaker 05

  Number two is that Robinhood over and over and over has been caught by the Securities and Exchange Commission have been caught by other watchdog agencies of doing things that they weren't supposed to do. And I'll give you an example. They presented SIPC insurance as if your account somehow had this insurance against loss on it at one point, which was incredibly ridiculous because that's not what SIPC insurance is. SIPC insurance protects you if your broker runs away with your money up to the amount that they insure. But they presented it in a completely different manner than the way it was intended.

• 1:13:49Speaker 05

  They've also done the thing, the same thing with their sweep account, presented a way that was not correct and advertised it that way. They got caught by having confetti fall after you traded positions, which made people, especially young people that like to use Robinhood, made people increase the volume of trading that they did. They made it really exciting to place trades. They were one of the first people, OG, to allow you to trade crypto in your brokerage account. Now, most companies are following suit there, but Robinhood early on was, yeah, let's do crypto there. Now they've added capabilities similar to Kelsey to the Robinhood app where you can bet on football games. You can bet on the weather.

• 1:14:34Speaker 05

  You can bet on all kinds of stuff. Robinhood has shown over and over that they are not looking out for your best interest. If you can get around all the problems that they had and you just don't want to go to one of the responsible people, and listen, I'm not saying that Schwab's your friend or Fidelity is your friend or Vanguard's your friend. I'm not saying that at all, but these companies toe the line far, far more than I've seen Robinhood toe the line over the years.

• 1:15:03Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean, for people who are doing the right thing, if it's just, hey, I'm putting in a hundred dollars a month into my brokerage account and, you know, I'm buying a index fund and that's fine. It can kind of matter that spread like you're talking about. It's such an insignificant amount in the big scheme. I wouldn't worry too much about it. The problem isn't that. It's the fact that it has the gamification of all of the other things and just simply putting it in your face enough times could motivate you to try to do it. And, um, and it only takes one time, you know, one option trade to blow up your $1,000 brokerage account to zero. You know what I mean?

• 1:15:46Speaker 07

  So to your point, I don't think that I, when you said this, I'm, I was going to jump in, but then you kind of added the parenthetical on the back end. I don't know that Schwab actually gives a crap about our wellbeing, nor does Vanguard frankly, or Fidelity, or Bank of New York, or Chase, or anybody. All of them are beholden to shareholders and driving shareholder value, right? It's like, how much can I wring out of you before you don't come back and I gotta go find a new one of you? And that's kind of, you know, that to me isn't the greatest argument. It's the putting this, the nonsense in your face enough that it might tempt you just enough

• 1:16:31Speaker 07

  to do it that one time and that one time blows up your whole day. And now you've spent an entire year saving money at a hundred dollars a month and, and you know, all for what? That's not to say Schwab's not going to send you an email and say, hey, by the way, did you know you can margin this? Did you know we have option trades? You know, or fidelity doesn't say, by the way, you could get our credit card. Fun fact, Trump accounts are Robinhood accounts.

• 1:16:55Speaker 07

  So if you're going to do a Trump account, which I think is a good idea, if you have the money.

• 1:16:59Speaker 05

  You're going to dance with the devil a little bit.

• 1:17:02Speaker 07

  But I'm with you. It's more of a philosophical, you know, I don't want to give my business to a company that's so blatantly anti my business. You know what I mean?

• 1:17:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:17:13Speaker 07

  When there's other things, it's, I, I'm, I'm willing to accept the fact that, you know, I'm a customer, no matter what they say. You know, we, we, we look out for our, okay, sure, buddy. You look out for your shareholders. Let's just call what it is. But I'm willing to look the other way when it's not so much in my face. You know what I mean? But when it's like, oh yeah, we, it's like the day that Betterment decided, we know better than our customers, we're going to stop you from trading today.

• 1:17:41Speaker 07

  Which honestly, probably was the right thing for a lot of their customers. That's just not in their mandate. You know what I mean? That's just not their role.

• 1:17:49Speaker 05

  Step too far.

• 1:17:50Speaker 07

  It's just, you know, well, we're protecting our customers. It's like, no, you made it so I couldn't get my money out. Or when they, you know, and to, to, you know, pile on Betterment, maybe this changed. But for a long time, you couldn't do a rollover unless you, if you had a sizable account, unless you had a medallion signature guarantee mailed, wet signature mailed to New York. Like that's not doing what's best for people. That's literally making it impossible for people to do, to not do business with you who want to change their mind. That, you know, I'm not, I just don't want to, I just don't want to give my money in my, my business. My, I just want to give my business to a company that wants to behave that way.

• 1:18:31Speaker 07

  Because if I can see all the stuff, the ways that they're screwing me, you know, and it's right in my face, I'm wondering how many, how many of the things that I don't see are not in my face that are behind the scenes. You know what I mean?

• 1:18:42Speaker 05

  That's what scares me is so much of the pickpocketing from me has been very obvious. It's been very obvious. How many things are they doing that I don't?

• 1:18:51Speaker 07

  Look at all this, look at all this, look at all this. And you're like, what's the other hand doing? So, you know, so it's just more of a, you know, again, I'm under no illusion that Schwab has my best interest at heart. I'm like, um, but they haven't, you know, largely run afoul of straight up advertising fraud, you know?

• 1:19:11Speaker 05

  Just, just unbelievable.

• 1:19:12Speaker 07

  And you know, to your point, you know, that some corporate lawyer at Robinhood, some compliance consultant was like, dude, you can't say that. They're like, yeah, what are they going to do? They're probably going to find you. Like, so what? Look at all the press we get when people find us. Like, I don't care. We get, you know, 30,000 more clients because they think their money is insured. What like that's good for us.

• 1:19:32Speaker 05

  Nobody's going to see the fine. They're just

• 1:19:34Speaker 07

  You're gonna get in trouble. It's like, yeah, we got all sorts of money. We don't care. You know, I mean, like that that blatant disregard for, you know,

• 1:19:40Speaker 05

  Just feels very, very slimy.

• 1:19:42Speaker 07

  Slimy. Yes. There you go.

• 1:19:44Speaker 05

  Yeah. Dennis, thank you so much for the question. Great question. If you've got a question, feel free to send those to me. Joe at stackingbenjamins.com. Better yet, be part of a upcoming episode and stackingbenjamins.com.

• 1:19:54Speaker 07

  We still giving away t-shirts?

• 1:19:56Speaker 05

  We do when you call in.

• 1:19:57Speaker 07

  Yeah. Geez, we haven't talked about that forever. If you don't have a stacking Benjamins t-shirt, you get some swag if you leave a voicemail, man. Like, why wouldn't you want to do that?

• 1:20:05Speaker 05

  And that is stackingbenjamins.com slash yelled downstairs.

• 1:20:08Speaker 07

  It seemed a lot easier when it was stackingbenjamins.com slash voicemail.

• 1:20:11Speaker 05

  You can do that, too. I just thought yelled downstairs is funnier.

• 1:20:14Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 1:20:14Speaker 05

  You can do either one.

• 1:20:15Speaker 07

  The pretty link is slash voicemail.

• 1:20:18Speaker 05

  That's right. All right. That's gonna do it. Speaking of pretty, we're gonna put a pretty bow on the end of this show. How about that?

• 1:20:23Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 1:20:23Speaker 05

  Thanks to all of you for hanging out with us. If you know somebody that really needs to begin doing the right thing with their money, they just need to turn the ship around, have them listen to Todd Havens today. If you know somebody who is brand new to the working world, going out to a corporate lunch for the first time, maybe corporate dinner, or that company party, you might want to have them listen to today's headline. And of course, if you know somebody using Robinhood, I think there's a lot of cautionary tales when it comes to using that particular platform. All right, Doug, though, is gonna put the bow on this officially. Doug, what should we have learned on today's show?

• 1:20:57Speaker 04

  Well, Joe, first, take some advice from Todd Havens. You can build financial security by starting today. Don't look back. Keep your eye on the prize and get moving. You know what you need to do first. Heck, pause the show and do it now. I dare you. Second, out at a business lunch, don't order something expensive or complicated. The first will get awkward with the boss when they're paying, and the second will be awkward for you when lunch is all over your new suit. But the big lesson?

• 1:21:31Speaker 04

  Maybe don't ask.

• 1:21:35Speaker 04

  Thanks to Todd Havens for joining us today. Check out his book, Think Wealthy, wherever books are sold. We'll also include links in our show notes at stackingbenjamins.com. This show is the property of SB Podcast LLC, copyright 2026, and is created by Joe Saul Sehy. You'll find out about our awesome team at stackingbenjamins.com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. And oh, yeah, before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor.

• 1:22:20Speaker 04

  I'm Joe's mom's neighbor Doug, and we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.

• 1:22:31Speaker 05

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• 1:25:16Speaker 07

  All right. I found this on the interwebs, and I just thought it was really, really quite funny. For those of us who have parents that are dealing with this, I know Doug has talked about this, Joe, maybe a little bit for you. I'm certainly dealing with it with my mom. It's a video of a Gen X son talking to his baby boomer dad, I think,

• 1:25:38Speaker 05

  Oh, boy.

• 1:25:38Speaker 07

  about some technology things.

• 1:25:42Speaker 05

  All right, we're gonna start with a true or false question. Okay? If someone calls you claiming to be the bank, asking you for your social security number, you should give it to them. True or false? Well, hold on. Does the bank? It's false, Dad. It's false. Well, I just think that there are certain situations. False. Always false. Okay? Over one. Now, we're gonna do a multiple choice question for question two. Okay? Let's say you get a call from a random number, and they're saying that it's me, your son, and that I am in a tremendous amount of trouble, could be an accident or in jail, and that I need you to wire me some money right now. Do you A. Wire me the money? B. Hang up the phone? C. Ask me a personal question to ensure that it's actually me on the line?

• 1:26:24Speaker 05

  Or D. Do literally anything other than send them money? Whoa, whoa, whoa. When did you get in that accident? Was it in my car? There was no accident. It's a hypothetical, and, okay, if you go over three, I'm gonna take your phone away, just like you used to do to me when I was a teenager. Okay? For the third question, I'm gonna try to make it easy. We're gonna fill in this blank. Fill in the blank. You get a call from the IRS telling you that you are behind on taxes and that they need your bank account information right now. In this situation, you are being blanked, audited, scanned. That's it. Give me your phone. Go to your room.

• 1:27:02Speaker 05

  That is the way it goes.

• 1:27:04Speaker 07

  That is the conversation.